Preview Newsletter
BH Media Monitoring 15/8/16
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American Jewish leaders grapple with anti-Israel Black Lives Matter
Aug 11, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By David Brinn
Admitting they were taken by surprise by the Black Lives Matter platform – which called Israel an “apartheid state” and accused the United States of complicity in Israel’s “genocide” against the Palestinians – American Jewish leaders expressed optimism this week in the resiliency of Jewish-black relations in the US. -
The Jewish Activist Behind the Black Lives Matter Platform Calling Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians 'Genocide’
Aug 10, 2016 | Haaretz
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
The new platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement that calls Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “genocide” and “apartheid” has shocked and upset many of the movement’s Jewish allies. Most of the platform’s readers are likely unaware that its Israel/Palestine section was written by an activist who was born and raised as a Jew, although Rachel Gilmer says she no longer identifies as Jewish. -
'The Jewish community in Ethiopia is in mortal danger'
Aug 10, 2016 | Ynet
By Omri Efraim
Due to the worsening security situation in Ethiopia, the approximately 9,000 Falash Mura in transit camps there are waiting for the Israeli government to implement its decision to bring them to Israel; activists in Israel warn of impending disaster for those waiting to rejoin their families in Israel. -
Jewish donor slams UK Labour leader Corbyn and his 'Nazi stormtroopers'
Aug 14, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
Michael Foster a Jewish donor to the Labour Party, likened party head Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership team to “Nazi stormtroopers” in an op-ed published on Sunday. -
Israel-diaspora enterprise to spend $66m. on college campuses globally
Aug 12, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Tamara Zieve
An Enterprise three years in the making to pour millions of dollars into strengthening Diaspora Jewry officially started its first project Thursday with a series of grants to three international college-campus organizations. -
In China, Rejuvenating a Classical Music Heritage Linked to a Jewish Community
Aug 9, 2016 | The New York Times
By Amy Qin
...The arts — and especially classical music — flourished here throughout the early 20th century. Nicknamed the St. Petersburg of the East, Harbin was home to a thriving Jewish community that helped build a rich cultural scene, including China’s first symphony orchestra, made up of mostly Russian musicians. -
Israel has young friends in Netherlands
Aug 14, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Sharon Ahroni
Paul Van der Bas a Young Dutch man, traveled from Amsterdam to Israel a couple of weeks ago for the sixth time in recent years. But this trip was special. This time he arrived in the Holy Land as a leader of a mission titled “CIJO Fact-Finding Mission,” involving 23 young people, with co-leader Jonathan de Geus. -
Kedushah through Immersive Experiential Education
Aug 11, 2016 | Forward
By Brad Greenstein
The posts on The New Spirituality blog are responses to Rabbi Sid Schwarz’s lead essay in his book, Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights). -
Eight US election races the Jewish community is watching in 2016
Aug 10, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Michael Wilner
Here are eight races the active Jewish-American community will be closely watching come November. -
Evangelical aid was once taboo in Israel. Now it's on the rise. Why?
Aug 15, 2016 | Haaretz
By Jusy Maltz
The winner of one of the top annual awards for service to the Jewish community, Sherly America-Gosal was not an obvious pick. Forget the fact that she isn’t Jewish. America-Gosal, president of the United Israel Appeal’s women’s division and a devout Evangelical Christian, hails from Indonesia, an overwhelmingly Muslim country with no diplomatic ties to Israel. -
Boris Toledano, President of Casablanca’s Jewish Community Dies at 97
Aug 10, 2016 | Morocco World News
The president of the Jewish community of Casablanca died on Wednesday August 10 in Casablanca at the age of 97. -
L.A.’s Iranian Jewish pack DGA for launching of Nazarian memoirs
Aug 15, 2016 | Jewish Journal
By Karmel Melamed
Nearly 600 Iranian Jewish community members and leaders packed the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) theater in Hollywood on August 7th for the official release of the Farsi language memoirs of local Iranian Jewish business and philanthropist Parviz Nazarian. -
No Joke: Many Religious Zionists Strive to Rebuild Jerusalem's Temple
Aug 15, 2016 | Haaretz
By Tzvia Greenfield
Every year, the Tisha B’Av fast day brings the issue of the destruction of the Temple to the top of our sorrows. Good people try to focus the day and the mythic inquiry associated with it, on social discourse that breeds solidarity. -
Incoming French envoy has strong connection to Israel
Aug 15, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Rina Bassist
France's new ambassador to Israel, Helene Le Gal, will be no stranger when she begins her assignment here next month. As a young diplomat on her second post, she spent three years at the embassy in Tel Aviv in the 1990s. -
New Moishe House creates pluralistic Jewish community for Beersheba millennials
Aug 9, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Tamara Zieve
The inception of the recently-inaugurated Beersheba Moishe House is similar to the founding of the first-ever Moishe House in Oakland, California. It was born out of the efforts of a small group of passionate, dedicated youths opening their home to create a sense of community and strengthen Jewish identity. -
Avigdor Lieberman Is Sorry-Not-Sorry for Comparing Iran Deal to Hitler Deal
Aug 9, 2016 | Forward
By J.J. Goldberg
The long-simmering tension between Israel’s generals and their politician bosses flared up in early August into a near-crisis in U.S.-Israel relations. It’s an almost comically complicated caper, so pay close attention. You can’t make this stuff up.
Diaspora News
Israel News
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American Jewish leaders grapple with anti-Israel Black Lives Matter
Aug 11, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By David Brinn
Leaders stated that their organizations would continue to engage black communities despite the BLM platform, and expressed confidence that Jewish-black relations would weather the current storm.
Admitting they were taken by surprise by the Black Lives Matter platform – which called Israel an “apartheid state” and accused the United States of complicity in Israel’s “genocide” against the Palestinians – American Jewish leaders expressed optimism this week in the resiliency of Jewish-black relations in the US.
“We won’t allow a singular organizational statement to deter us from engaging in this important social justice issue: the relationship between young African American males and police safety and security,” Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
“We understand that black lives matter – not the organization, but the principle – is an important conversation that has to be pushed forward, and nothing will change that,” he said. “However, we cannot and will not allow anyone – using other issues as a cover – to introduce or reintroduce false and misleading information on our campuses or mobilize efforts to delegitimize Israel.”
Fingerhut made his statements before addressing a group of some 30 young professional campus activists working for IACT (Inspired, Active, Committed, Transformed), a joint initiative of Hillel and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston that engages Jewish students on more than 30 campuses nationwide to go on Birthright programs and become more involved in Jewish and Israel-related issues.
Some of the activists, who will be manning Birthright recruitment booths on campuses in September, expressed concerned about how to respond to potential criticism by students raised by the platform.
“Obviously, we will have to monitor what particular organizational leaders are saying, and what the impact is on the conversation about Israel on campus,” said Fingerhut.
CJP President Barry Shrage, who spoke to the IACT staff a day earlier, criticized a group of Jewish activists from an organization called IfNotNow, who picketed the Boston offices of the Jewish Community Relations Council demanding that it retract its recent statement criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement’s platform.
“Those people did not read the entire verse from Pirkei Avot – ‘If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?’ It’s a Jewish instinct to create a balance, because you need that balance.
It’s not only African-American children that you have to worry about, it’s our children too,” he said.
Shrage defended a CJP statement released last week, similar to JCRC’s, which stated that the Black Lives Matters platform “goes far beyond BDS in its biased, false and dangerous narrative regarding the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict... we cannot march side by side with organizations that oppose the very existence of the Jewish state, who blame Israel – and only Israel – for 70 years of conflict, who distort the truth and who deny the Jewish people’s past, thereby endangering our children’s lives and our children’s future.”
According to Shrage, “you have to speak strongly against the lies and distortions. We have a primary responsibility – if I am not for myself, who will be for me? “At the same time, we have to continue to find a way to show we are invested in the world. The American Jewish community is deeply committed – it votes 70 percent Democratic because it cares about the world, and it will probably vote 90 percent Democratic in November because we care about the world.”
Both Shrage and Fingerhut adamantly stated that their organizations would continue to engage black communities despite the Black Lives Matters platform, and expressed confidence that Jewish-black relations would weather the current storm.http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/American-Jewish-leaders-grapple-with-anti-Israel-Black-Lives-Matter-463815
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Aug 10, 2016 | Haaretz
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
The new platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement that calls Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “genocide” and “apartheid” has shocked and upset many of the movement’s Jewish allies. Most of the platform’s readers are likely unaware that its Israel/Palestine section was written by an activist who was born and raised as a Jew, although Rachel Gilmer says she no longer identifies as Jewish.
The Movement for Black Lives is a coalition of over 60 organizations affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. The “Invest-Divest” chapter of the platform, which is also available as a separate electronic document, urges the United States to redirect military aid to Israel and Egypt into domestic needs such as education and health care. It includes a link to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and another to a website devoted to black-Palestinian solidarity, in a reflection of the growing alliance between the communities.
The strong language has left many of the Black Lives Matter movement’s Jewish allies — who are lighting up social media with posts — feeling, in their own words, hurt, alienated and betrayed. And it is dividing the Jewish community in ways that tensions over Israel/Palestine increasingly do, with mainstream Jewish groups calling out the platform for its harsh denunciation of Israel, and a couple of grassroots organizations including If Not Now, defending it.
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which has been at the forefront of working with Black Lives Matter groups in protesting racial injustices, declined to comment for this article.
Using the terms genocide and apartheid in regard to Israel is “offensive and odious,” wrote Rabbi Jonah Pesner, executive director of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, in a statement.
'Libel against Israel'
“In asserting that U.S. support for Israel makes it ‘complicit in the genocide committed against the Palestinian people,’ and labeling Israel as ‘an apartheid state,’ the MBL libels Israel, while diluting the moral seriousness of those terms,” AJC, formerly known as the American Jewish Committee, said in its statement.
After saying they were “deeply dismayed” by “the co-opting and manipulation of a movement addressing concerns about racial disparities in criminal justice in the United States in order to advance a biased and false narrative about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,” the heads of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston announced that the organization was breaking with the platform “and those Black Lives Matter organizations that embrace it.” At the same time, they said, “we recommit ourselves unequivocally to the pursuit of justice for all Americans, and to working together with our friends and neighbors in the African-American community.”
Gilmer told Haaretz, “I don’t think it’s a loss” to the Black Lives Matter movement. “It’s just made it clear that they weren’t real allies.”
So what impact is this policy platform making, aside from prompting upset?
Yavilah McCoy, a black Jewish activist who has been deeply involved in both the Black Lives Matter movement and Jewish groups, said the platform highlighted the disconnect between Black Lives Matter activists and Jewish activists, a relationship that was “plagued by an avoidance of contact,” she said.
“When people are making statements in the absence of deep relationship it doesn’t take it forward,” she told Haaretz in an interview. “It is relationships that caused people within the Black Lives Matter movement to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. When we as a Jewish community are in relationships that go back 20, 30 years we can rely on those relationships to be heard in a moment like this and have our issues addressed,” McCoy said.
T’ruah’s executive director, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, said, “The long term organizational alliances aren’t going to go away, but there is this growing sense that in order to be part of this movement as a whole you have to reject Israel.” T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights has worked with black and other faith groups on issues relating to mass incarceration of blacks, for instance, and other issues of concern to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Israel’s “military occupation does not rise to the level of genocide,” T’ruah wrote in its statement.
Gilmer is chief of strategy for Dream Defenders, a Florida youth-focused organization.
She told Haaretz in an interview that she recently visited Palestine, referring to both Israel proper and the West Bank.
'Patriarchy, imperialism and colonialism'
“Going this past May was so transformative. Seeing all the parallels between black and Palestinian struggles. ... Gentrification [in the United States] parallels home demolition [in Israel and the West Bank]. Going to the apartheid wall and seeing how it broke up communities ... it’s the same systems of patriarchy, imperialism and colonialism that we’re up against,” Gilmer said, referring to the separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank. “I started thinking more about how important it is for us to stand in solidarity with Palestinian people. ... We are never going to get free in the U.S. if the rest of the world is in chains.”
Gilmer’s father is African-American, her mother is Jewish and she herself was raised as a Jew. But Gilmer told Haaretz that she no longer identifies as Jewish because “I was somewhat scarred by my experience” growing up as a biracial Jew. “I got called Aunt Jemima. I had a lot of internalized racism. When I became politicized around my race, I became very angry,” she said.
Her May visit to Israel was not her first, but she declined to say when or in what context she had come.
Jews were allied nearly from the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, which began as a hashtag after George Zimmerman was acquitted of shooting to death Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2013, but developed into a wider protest movement the following year after the deaths at the hands of police officer of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York.
Rabbis and other community leaders protested in Ferguson and were prominent in demonstrations that shut down parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn in December 2014. Over 25 rabbis and other Jews were arrested in those protests.
An extraordinary number of American Jews have taken to Facebook and other social media to criticize the Israel policy of the Movement for Black Lives platform.
“I cannot financially contribute or be actively involved with a movement that attacks the land that I love, and the only refuge for Jewish people in the world, based on lies and anti-Semitism,” wrote Jody Fox, a 68-year-old massage therapist in Wesley Hills, New York, on Facebook.
“It has alienated their Jewish allies,” he told Haaretz in an interview.
Still committed to social justice
T’ruah’s Jacobs and others were careful to reiterate their continuing commitment to working toward justice for black American with other organizations.
“Being in coalition usually means not being in total agreement with everyone else in the coalition,” said Jacobs. “Sometimes the Catholic Church weighs in on solitary confinement and the death penalty,” issues T’ruah addresses, “but we’ll never work together on issues of reproductive justice.”
Haaretz asked Gilmer if she or her co-author consulted with any Jewish allies before issuing that section of the platform, “Using the word genocide wasn’t a haphazard piece of work,” Gilmer said. “It was a yearlong process of bringing together 60 organizations about our vision for the world as black people. We’ve been in community with Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now and individual Jewish people who are against the occupation.”
The grassroots organization If Not Now, which was born out of protesting Israel’s military response to rockets being shot from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, issued a statement demanding that the Boston JCRC retract its own.
Said Jeremy Burton, executive director of the Boston JCRC, “We continue to work on the issues on which we are aligned, but not in alliance with organizations that embrace the ‘genocide’ aspect of the platform. I decline to comment on demands from INN because of their demonstrated track record of refusing to engage in conversations with us in the past.”
Isaac Luria is the vice president of Auburn Seminary’s digital-action platform, Auburn Action. “We have a choice — to step away and turtle up in our own sector (which is what much of the right in our community wants to do) or to figure out how to engage productively, intentionally, and purposefully in offering the gift of Jewish participation to these social movements, which are, [by the way], shaping our society at its very foundations,” Luria wrote on Facebook.
Said T’ruah’s Jacobs, the situation arising from the Black Lives Matter platform “is very painful to me. It’s painful that Israel has become the most evil state in the world to some people, that’s how so many people see Israel. It’s painful that Israel is engaged in a military occupation that is destructive for Palestinians and Israelis. It’s painful when people I agree with on most issues aren’t able to understand the Jewish trauma through the Holocaust and terrorist attacks. It’s painful that people aren’t able to hold two truths.”
What’s more, Jacobs said, Jews have to continue working on issues of racial justice in part “because the more we are in partnership with people the more we can actually break through and have our voices heard.”
http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/.premium-1.735865
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'The Jewish community in Ethiopia is in mortal danger'
Aug 10, 2016 | Ynet
By Omri Efraim
Due to the worsening security situation in Ethiopia, the approximately 9,000 Falash Mura in transit camps there are waiting for the Israeli government to implement its decision to bring them to Israel; activists in Israel warn of impending disaster for those waiting to rejoin their families in Israel.
Israeli activists campaigning to bring the Falash Mura (Ethiopians who claim Jewish lineage) from Ethiopia to Israel have been receiving recently reports about the severe distress facing those who remain in transit camps in Gondar following escalating conflicts in the region.
Falash Mura have spoken of their fear for their well-being and the serious difficulty in acquiring food and even in leaving their homes. According to various reports, some of them were injured in clashes, and ten Israeli volunteers have been evacuated from the camp because of the danger.
In recent days, Ethiopian security forces have shot dead some 100 persons. The forces have been attempting to suppress anti-government demonstrations in the Oromiya and Amhara regions. The riots in Ethiopia have caused the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem over the weekend to publish a travel warning for these areas.
Because of the security situation, there is great fear amongst Ethiopian emigrants living in Israel that their family who remain in the Gondar region—and whose immigration Israel refuses to permit.
The chairman of "The Fight to Bring the Jews of Ethiopia," Yitzhak Mola, sent on Tuesday a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu in which he wrote, "We once again demand that you hasten the government's decision without further delays and bring the Jews of Gondar and Addis Ababa urgently, before disaster strikes."
In the letter, titled "The Jewish community in Ethiopia is in mortal danger," Mola wrote that the campaign that he heads receives "inquiries from families in Israel worried about the danger to the lives of members of their families, members of the Jewish communities in Ethiopia, due to the worsening security situation in the country."
One of those sending inquiries is Surfal Almo, 22, a discharged soldier from the Paratroopers whose four half-siblings remain in a camp in Gondar. They've been refused immigration to Israel for the past decade. "We're very afraid and worried," said Almo. "About half a year ago, one of my sibling died there from disease, and we don't want to lose another sibling because of the chaos in the country. They live in fear, afraid to leave the house. They have problems buying food. They're under a kind of siege. There have been exchanges of gunfire and confrontations not far from where they live."
Almo, who immigrated to Israel in 2006, claims, "The state needs to do everything to bring them here." He is furious about the treatment that he claims that members of the community receive: "There was a terrorist attack in Paris, and the authorities gave a press conference and called on the Jews to come. Now, there's a situation of immediate and real moral peril in Ethiopia, and none of the politicians care."
Almo and Mola are both critical of the government's delay in deciding to bring some 9,000 of the Falash Mura waiting in camps in Gondar and Addis Ababa to Israel. Most of those waiting have relatives who have already immigrated to Israel. The project to bring the Jews of Ethiopia was apparently frozen by the prime minister half a year ago. After political pressure from Likud MKs David Amsalem and Avraham Neguise, in April it was agreed that the decision to bring the remaining Jews would be carried out.
However, since the coalition's expansion, the debate on this topic to organize the operation has been repeatedly deferred. How it should be carried out is a source of disagreement between activists and MKs on the one hand and representatives of the Prime Minister's Office on the other. The final number of Falash Mura to be brought is also a bone of contention. Thus, the program has yet to be implemented, despite the fact that nine months have passedsince it was authorized, beyond the original planned timeline.
The Fight to Bring the Jews of Ethiopia is planning to hold a protest requiring the immediate implementation of the government's decision in light of the security situation.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4840076,00.html
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Jewish donor slams UK Labour leader Corbyn and his 'Nazi stormtroopers'
Aug 14, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
Michael Foster, a Jewish donor to the British Labour Party, has likened Jeremy Corbyn's close team to Nazi MK in an op-ed published Sunday.
Michael Foster a Jewish donor to the Labour Party, likened party head Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership team to “Nazi stormtroopers” in an op-ed published on Sunday.
Foster donated £400,000 to the party in the last election.In an op-ed published by the Mail on Sunday titled, “Why I despise Jeremy Corbyn and his Nazi stormtroopers,” Foster berated the leadership of the British Labour Party.
Foster described the inner circle around Corbyn as his “Sturmabteilung” – the name of the Nazi’s SA “Brown shirt” stormtroopers.
The remarks came after Britain’s Court of Appeal strengthened the sole leadership challenger, Owen Smith, by ruling that 130,000 new members to the party could not vote in the race that ends on September 21. These members are thought to back Corbyn.
“This [earlier court] decision [to allow the new members to vote] advantaged Corbyn and his Sturm Abteilung (stormtroopers), but on Friday afternoon the Appeal Court handed down a big decision for British democracy,” Foster wrote.
He also wrote, “If you are like me, a Jewish donor to Labour, you are smeared as a Blairite conspirator, plotting to falsely use the accusation of anti-Semitism to damage the Left.... Corbyn and his leadership team have no respect for others and worse, no respect for the rule of law.
“They clearly have no moral compass, and in Corbyn they have a leader who wants to abolish the House of Lords yet is happy to confer and defend the granting of a peerage on Shami Chakrabarti, whose detailed report into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was anything but independent....
“Oppose them as a Jewish donor and the riposte from Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s mouthpiece, is that you are part of a Blairite, Right-wing ‘conspiracy’ (the ancient racist rhetoric is that Jews don’t act alone, the malevolent Jew always conspires) to destabilize the democratically and legitimately elected leader,” Foster wrote in the Mail on Sunday.
Foster’s remarks are the latest in a series of allegations connected to anti-Semitic incidentswithin the Labour Party.
During the past few months the Labour Party has been fractured with Corbyn’s leadership with as many as 230 MPs considering to break away.
Earlier in the summer, more than 170 Labour MPs voted for a no-confidence motion regarding Corbyn.
During the past few months there have been several high-profile suspensions from the Labour Party due to anti-Semitic scandals.http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Jewish-donor-slams-UK-Labour-leader-Corbyn-and-his-Nazi-stormtroopers-464064
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Israel-diaspora enterprise to spend $66m. on college campuses globally
Aug 12, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Tamara Zieve
The initiative, three years in the making, hopes to unite Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.
An Enterprise three years in the making to pour millions of dollars into strengthening Diaspora Jewry officially started its first project Thursday with a series of grants to three international college-campus organizations.
Mosaic United, formerly known as the Israel-Diaspora Initiative, also unveiled its new name, website and logo“The Jewish people really are a mosaic and there are so many different pieces that are separated,” Mosaic United CEO Amy Holtz told The Jerusalem Post, explaining the choice of name. “We're hoping to bring the beautiful mosaic of the Jewish people from Israel and the Diaspora together.”
The Israel-Diaspora Initiative was founded in January as the reincarnation of what was originally known as the “Government of Israel World Jewry Initiative,” which got its start with a government decision in June 2014 that set aside nearly NIS 200 million for Diaspora programming.
The initiative hit some bumps along the way, including a rift between the Diaspora Affairs Ministry – tasked as the government arm to lead the initiative – and the Jewish Agency, which eventually pulled out of the collaboration.
The ministry ultimately decided to found a non-profit corporation to serve as the umbrella organization to establish and fund programs for all Diaspora Jews, approximately eight million people around the world, with a two-fold purpose – strengthening Jewish identity and bolstering engagement between the State of Israel and Jews around the world.
Holtz is the former president of Jerusalem U, a film-based Jewish educational NGO. Joining her in bringing Mosaic’s vision to fruition is Gary Torgow, an influential and active Detroit businessman who serves as chairman of the steering committee. Other members of the steering committee are David Shapira from Pittsburgh and Karen Davidson, who is also from Detroit.
The government is putting in one-third of the money and the other two-thirds will come from philanthropists, foundations and Jewish organizations.
At the outset of the plan, the Israeli government expressed its desire to change the existing paradigm whereby Israel, in the words of Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett, “views the world as a source of aliya and a big fat wallet.”
Now, Bennett has said in the past, the government is also contributing funds to benefit Jews in the Diaspora.
For this first project, the government contributed $22m., which has been shared between Chabad on Campus International, Hillel International and Olami, each of which received more than $7m. in grants to support their ongoing efforts to engage Jewish students.
The three organizations will match the contribution two-to-one, resulting in an overall inflow of $66m. into Jewish life on campus over the next two years.
The three Jewish groups are traditionally campus rivals, and getting them to participate in this project is, in itself, viewed by Mosaic as a success.
“The three organizations all do complementary work and it’s a tremendous salute to the leaders of these organizations that they are willing to collaborate and share best practices,” remarked Holtz.
“They each reach unique target audiences and they are tremendous leaders that they can get together and look at the field rather than working in silos.”
Torgow said Mosaic will help the campus organizations invest in a number of areas.
“We’ll try to help them expand, with additional senior educators, a fellowship program to train young Jewish professionals and encourage more individuals to go into that field on campuses and beyond, to increase programming, encourage more immersive experiences on college campuses for Jewish students,” he said.
Eric D. Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International, said the organization was proud to partner with Mosaic United.
“It will provide new resources and opportunities for Hillel to further our vision of engaging every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel by strengthening our talent initiatives and expanding educational programs that help us engage more students.”
Mosaic initially will focus on a number of key pillars, including engagement on college campuses, summer camps, teen travel to Israel, outreach to young adults and service learning. The premise is to provide continuous Jewish frameworks for those between the ages of 12-35.
“The long-term vision is to build Jewish identity for the next generation – to make Judaism important and relevant to them and to strengthen Diaspora ties with Israel,” Holtz explained.
The state also has flagged assimilation and intermarriage as issues that can be tackled via Mosaic, believing that with more continuous programming available to Jewish teenagers through to young adults around the world, these phenomenons can be reduced.
“People need to understand why Jews are privileged to be Jewish. We’re an amazing people, we do tremendous things for the world, we have a great set of ethics, we rebirthed a modern and moral state. We’re not perfect, but we try and we’re committed to growth,” said Holtz.http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Mosaic-United-seeks-to-unify-Jewish-people-463958
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In China, Rejuvenating a Classical Music Heritage Linked to a Jewish Community
Aug 9, 2016 | The New York Times
By Amy Qin
In winter, tourists flock to Harbin, in northeastern China, for its world-renowned ice sculpture festival. But with summer in full bloom, this city is working overtime on behalf of a less publicized part of its heritage: classical music.
The arts — and especially classical music — flourished here throughout the early 20th century. Nicknamed the St. Petersburg of the East, Harbin was home to a thriving Jewish community that helped build a rich cultural scene, including China’s first symphony orchestra, made up of mostly Russian musicians.
“Harbin is a modern city that has a deep tradition of music,” Liu Shifa, the city’s deputy mayor, said recently in an interview. “We want to rejuvenate this tradition so we can bring it to the next level.”
On Saturday, the annual Harbin Summer Music Festival began its 33rd edition, which will continue until Aug. 20. This summer the city has also hosted the third Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition and two concerts conducted by Zubin Mehta, featuring the Harbin Symphony Orchestra and 15 members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The festival lineup includes the a cappella group Ball in the House from Boston, the Kodaly Quartet from Hungary and the Yinhe Siqin Mongolia Original Music Band.
With President Xi Jinping having called for a “cultural renaissance,” Harbin, like a number of other second- and third-tier cities around China, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years into cultural infrastructure projects.
n the past two years alone it has unveiled a gleaming concert hall, an 850,000-square-foot opera house and a $116 million conservatory built in a neo-Classical style. Giant sculptures of Chinese classical instruments and statues of famous Western composers dot the 121-acre Harbin Music Park, which opened in 2012.
Crucially, reviving Harbin’s musical tradition has also meant strengthening its ties to the city’s Jewish past. That is one facet of a larger effort to promote tourism and strengthen economic bonds with countries like Israel.
City officials have a “vision of building a cultural bridge with Israel,” said Mr. Mehta, the longtime music director of the Israel Philharmonic. “So I came as a catalyst between the two sides.”Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGESteinway’s Grand Ambitions for Its Pianos in China JULY 9, 2016China’s Smaller Cities Struggle to Cultivate an Interest in Classical Music APRIL 20, 2016SINOSPHERE BLOGAncient Chinese Community Celebrates Its Jewish Roots, and Passover APRIL 6, 2015
In the packed audience during one of the conductor’s concerts was Mr. Liu, the deputy mayor, along with a delegation of local government officials.
“Interest in the Harbin Jewish community has gone up tremendously,” said Dan Ben-Canaan, director of the Sino-Israel Research and Study Center at Heilongjiang University in Harbin. “Fifteen years ago, there was zero interest and zero acknowledgment of the community.”
The government now maintains a once neglected Jewish cemetery where Joseph Olmert, a grandfather of the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, is buried. The city has also invested millions of dollars in restoring Jewish-built structures, including the Old Synagogue, which provided a cool respite from one sticky evening this summer when a local string quartet performed Brahms, Scott Joplin and the Chinese folk song “Jasmine Flower.”
Soon after its establishment in 1898, Harbin grew into a thriving administrative hub for the China Eastern Railway, built to connect Moscow to Vladivostok.
During the 1920s, the city was home to as many as 20,000 Jews. Some were refugees who wanted to escape czarist pogroms in Russia and, later, the Bolshevik Revolution and World War I. But unlike the Jews in Shanghai and other China cities with large Jewish communities, many in Harbin were also merchants and entrepreneurs who had come from Russia and Europe seeking economic opportunities.
“In a sense, the Harbin Jews were more wealthy and aristocratic than the other Jews in China,” Mr. Ben-Canaan said. “They built a much richer and stronger foundation for culture.”
The city soon became a gateway for Western classical music in China. In addition to the country’s first symphony orchestra — founded in 1908 — Harbin had as many as 30 music schools where a number of prominent international musicians trained, including the German violinist Helmut Stern. There were jazz orchestras, ballet performances, drama groups, theater companies and even a Yiddish theater.
“The Jewish community made huge contributions to the establishment of Harbin’s musical tradition,” said Miao Di, director of the Harbin Museum of Music. “So many of China’s top classical musicians in the early 20th century trained in Harbin or studied under teachers trained in Harbin.”
By the mid-1950s, after World War II and the victory of the Chinese Communist Party, only a few hundred Jews remained.
Yet even after the departure of most of the city’s foreigners, Harbin continued to devote resources to classical music. It established the summer music festival in 1958.
In 2010, the United Nations recognized Harbin as a Music City. Today it is still common to see local musicians and bands serenading crowds on the popular Zhongyang Pedestrian Street in the summer.
“There’s a different attitude toward the high arts in Harbin,” said Jindong Cai, a Stanford professor and frequent guest conductor with Chinese orchestras. “Every city in China is trying to find its niche, and it’s clear that Harbin discovered theirs early.”
Still, there is a long road ahead before Harbin can be considered a world-class musical city.
Major issues need to be addressed, such as how to create consistent quality programming for the new concert hall and grand theater, and how to recruit world-class faculty and students for a new conservatory that is competing with other, more established ones.
It does not help that the pool of talented musicians in China is shrinking as more and more musicians choose to study and play abroad.
“Look at the American orchestras; they are full of excellent Chinese musicians,” Mr. Mehta said. “My advice is to call these musicians to at least come back and teach.”
At least one Chinese musician, Suli Xue, has heeded that call. Several years ago, Mr. Xue, a violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, decided to take advantage of the growing interest in classical music in Harbin, his hometown.
The government quickly agreed to his proposal to host the Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition. Beginning last month, Harbin hosted the competition for the second consecutive year, with the government providing the venues and paying for some of the competition’s costs.
“In China, when you get the government’s support, it’s very strong,” said Mr. Xue, who is the artistic director of the competition.
Such international exchanges “help improve the musical taste of the entire city of Harbin,” said Mr. Liu, the deputy mayor, during intermission at Mr. Mehta’s concert.
Perhaps more important, he said, they help move China toward its longer-term cultural vision.
“If one day we can attend a performance by a Chinese master leading a performance of a work by a famous Chinese composer,” he said, “that would be the dream.”
After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s, however, the city’s Jewish population began to decline as Jews fled.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/arts/music/in-china-rejuvenating-a-classical-music-heritage-linked-to-a-jewish-community.html
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Israel has young friends in Netherlands
Aug 14, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Sharon Ahroni
Whether the motive to support Israel is religious, political or just an emotional affinity, it is clear that Israel has many young, promising, passionate and dedicated friends in the Netherlands.
Paul Van der Bas a Young Dutch man, traveled from Amsterdam to Israel a couple of weeks ago for the sixth time in recent years. But this trip was special. This time he arrived in the Holy Land as a leader of a mission titled “CIJO Fact-Finding Mission,” involving 23 young people, with co-leader Jonathan de Geus.
Van der Bas is a past participant of the 2012 fact-finding mission.The pleasant and articulate 23-year-old Van der Bas is currently completing his Master’s degree in crisis and security management at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
He is also the chairman of an association of 120 Dutch students who support Israel called CIJO. It is the youth organization of the Center for Information and Documentation of Israel, the main pro-Israel group in the Netherlands.
Like many other members of CIJO, Van der Bas is not Jewish.
Yet he feels that despite growing up Christian, he is strongly connected to the Jewish faith. Stating he was always very interested in politics, he vividly remembers how he was strongly influenced by the events of 9/11 and the second intifada.
“Growing up I did not know any Jews,” he says, recalling that while attending a Christian school, he learned a lot about the Bible, and specifically about the Israelites. “I guess, as a kid, that did make me curious as to what was going on in the news about Israel,” he said. He also explains his connection to Israel and Judaism as “an emotional kind of intuitive response to what’s going on” that is “hard to explain.”
Operation Cast Lead (2008- 9) was a turning point for him, the point at which he started paying more attention to events in Israel. He points to the fact that of the 120 members of CIJO, the ratio between Jews and non-Jews is half and half. “Non-Jews have various reasons to sign up – some are part of other political youth organizations and join because of an interest in Middle East politics. Some sign up after joining a trip to Israel.”
Other than organizing events for the members of the group such as lectures, debates and meetings, CIJO reaches out to people who are not necessarily involved with Israel, inviting them to debates or lectures at high schools and universities.
“We are also regularly invited to share our opinions in lectures or debates... I was even invited by the Muslim student association where I debated the chair of Students for Justice in Palestine,” he added.
Van der Bas made it clear that CIJO has made a conscious choice not to receive funding from any government, Dutch or Israeli. “We’re an independent organization,” he said. “If you want to be a real independent organization, you should not receive any government funding.”
The name of the annual “CIJO Fact Finding Mission” is meant to show exactly what the organization tries to accomplish.
“The goal of the trip is to show a fair and balanced view of Israel, and also a complete view which is difficult to do in seven days,” he said. “I do believe the overall program shows a very nuanced, balanced and as whole and complete picture as possible.”
The 23 young Dutch participants, ranging in age from 18 to 30, come from various political, social and religious backgrounds.
What they all share is a desire to learn more about Israel, Middle East geopolitics, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Israeli society. They all hope to be better informed before forming an opinion.
The itinerary was packed, including visits to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Golan Heights, Sderot, Netiv Ha’asara, Ramallah and Rawabi, as well as lectures by Israeli and Palestinian officials. On one day, the group met with a settler from Shiloh shortly after meeting Palestinian officials from Fatah and Hamas.
“Personally, I do think the facts are in favor of Israel” admits Van der Bas. He said that support for Israel would actually increase by exposing the students to the “facts,” although he stated that he always tries to be as balanced as possible.
He spoke passionately about the misconceptions surrounding Israel: “I think there are many misconceptions – some people think that the entire country is a war zone. And people think that the Palestinian territories are a big war zone, which perhaps to a limited extent it is, but on the other hand I think seeing the situation there is the only way to have an informed opinion of what is going on.”
Van der Bas discussed the impact of seeing the situation first hand.
“We went to Jelazoun, which is a refugee camp, and it is shocking to see, but we also went to Rawabi, which is a sparkling, new, a great city, a Palestinian-built city, which is not something people know about or imagine when they hear about Israel and the Palestinian territories.”
The success of CIJO’s mission seems undisputed. All 23 tour participants reported that their perspective on Israel had changed following the visit.
Most participants also said they now realize the proximity of the dangers Israel faces at its borders, and have gained a newfound understanding of the security challenges as well as the diversity of Israelis.
Whether the motive to support Israel is religious, political or just an emotional affinity, it is clear that Israel has many young, promising, passionate and dedicated friends in the Netherlands.http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Israel-has-young-friends-in-Netherlands-464107
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Kedushah through Immersive Experiential Education
Aug 11, 2016 | Forward
By Brad Greenstein
The posts on The New Spirituality blog are responses to Rabbi Sid Schwarz’s lead essay in his book, Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights). In that essay, which was posted on this site on May 5, 2016, Schwarz argues that any organization that hopes to speak to the next generation of American Jews needs to advance one or more of four key value propositions. They are: Chochma, engaging with the wisdom and practice of our inherited Jewish heritage; Kedusha, helping people live lives of sacred purpose; Tzedek, inspiring people to work for a more just and peaceful world; and Kehillah, creating intentional, covenantal communities that bind people to one another and to a shared mission.
The centerpiece of Moishe House’s Jewish education is our Immersive Learning Retreats that not only train residents with ritual skills, but also create transformative experiences. Moishe House Retreats focus on the following educational modalities and participant takeaways, of which the first and third are centered on intentional transcendent experiences.
Even after hosting more than 60 Learning and Leadership Development Retreats (since the first Retreats in 2011), demand remains high for these convenings, with many Retreats still being held at capacity/with a waitlist. The Moishe House Retreat program creates experiences that put participants’ learning into practice and train residents and hosts with specific ritual and programmatic skill sets that they can take back to their home communities. Indeed Moishe House Retreats dive into robust Jewish learning and examine Mishnah, Gemara, Midrash, Codes, Hasidut, Kabbalah, Jewish History, and Modern Jewish Philosophy in a way that is exciting, relatable, and inviting to both the novice and advanced participant. (I believe this also falls under the category of “chochma” integrating the classic wisdom of Judaism with the world of millenials today.)
However the core focus of Moishe House’s Retreat philosophy is focused on training participants in Jewish holiday and Shabbat programs. We are also continuing to explore and build on the successes of training in less conventional areas that resonate with Jewish young adults, such as Jewish outdoor adventure, Jewish food justice, and Jewish Mindfulness. We have found that our Mindfulness retreats, focused on training participants to create programs that focus on the intersection of Judaism and Mindfulness/Meditation fill up right away and often have waiting lists. Our retreats that focus on the cutting edge expressions of Jewish practice today (Jewish Food Justice, Cooking and Gardening, Outdoor Adventure, Mindfulness) remain our most sought after Jewish learning retreats.
Communities that Never before existed – Kehillah
Millennials today are markedly different from previous generations: they are more mobile, transient in their careers and are waiting longer to marry and start families; they often do not associate with institutions; and they are seeking new methods for involvement in the community. Numerous studies have found that traditional methods for engaging young adults no longer work and are falling flat with this generation. Moishe House provides a relevant and relatable way for Jewish 20-somethings to connect with Judaism, Jewish culture, community and values in ways that make sense to them. The center of Moishe House’s model is a rented home where three to five Jewish 20-somethings (residents) live together as housemates and regularly lead programming for their peers. Built around a peer-to-peer and home-based model, Moishe House’s success is dependent on Jewish young adults’ desire to change the status quo and take on roles of leadership and active participation in a community that they can relate to. Since 2008, Moishe House has reached more than 450,000 in total attendance through more than 28,000 programs led by and for Jewish 20-somethings around the world
Outside (or deepening) the 4 propositions – Jewish Mindfulness and the Peer to Peer DIY model.
Many consider Jewish Mindfulness to be on the periphery of Jewish life yet our most sought after trainings for young adults continue to be our Jewish Mindfulness retreats. I often have requests from Moishe House residents to support them in planning a more spiritually relevant Jewish learning program, a Jewish meditation, or a prayer experience that incorporates Jewish mindfulness/meditation. Many consider this to be New Age, or too much of a stretch for Judaism, but the more I thought about it I realized that what is really new age, what’s really far off in left field and outside of the box for Judaism…is cultural Judaism only, only pageantry, or group identification, not being spiritually engaged or not interested or too busy.
We have never in our people’s history really had a generation with a majority of the Jewish community lacking an active Jewish spiritual practice…that’s radical, that is outside the boundaries. Meditating on the connection of our breadth with God is actually pretty traditional, meditating on the Shema and what it really means, this is as traditional as it gets, this is old. And yet it’s also very new because we forgot what was actually really old, we’ve been distracted by coming to America, by surviving, by building and building, and thankfully we have the luxury to connect today in this old and new way. Perhaps Jewish Mindfulness will be the next Tikkun Olam. In the Talmud Tikkun Olam is mentioned more in passing, it refers colloquially to small acts like throwing away a piece of trash, mipnei tikkun olam, as if to say lightly you know to fix the world. The Reform movement brilliantly unearthed and brought to life this classic idea that every little small act works towards fixing the world and it caught like wildfire, because we all believed in fixing the world already and we now had a way to express this yearning in a Jewish language. I see the same phenomenon happening with mindfulness.
The specific success of Moishe House can be attributed to its “bottom up” model that encourages participants to own their own expression of Judaism instead of receiving a transmission of data. This method continues to build communities of young adults around the world who are experimenting and exploring together how to express their Judaism in today’s world. The peer to peer model began to revolutionize Judaism through the Havurah movement but lost traction. When I speak about Moishe House’s model of building community, I can’t tell you how many people, beyond the age of Moishe House, exclaim, “I want something like that for me!” Its not only young adults who don’t want to be told “what to do” but instead want to experience, create, own, and learn from each other…its everyone. The DIY and peer-to-peer learning is an essential foundation for moving the Jewish community forward.
http://forward.com/the-new-spirituality/347394/tk-tk/
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Eight US election races the Jewish community is watching in 2016
Aug 10, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Michael Wilner
It remains to be seen how Israel and the consequences of the nuclear deal reached with Iran last year will play out in a number of local and state elections later this fall.
Middle East policy is only one of several core issues in this sensational, character-driven presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. But on the local level in a handful of states and districts, Israel and the consequences of the nuclear deal reached with Iran last year remain top of voters’ minds. Here are eight races the active Jewish-American community will be closely watching come November.
8. Replacing Barbara Boxer - US Senate, California
The departure of Barbara Boxer, California’s Jewish junior senator since 1993, will go noticed in Washington once she retires at the end of this term. Boxer, who chose not to run for reelection, was author of the 2014 US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act (which expanded security cooperation, increased funding for research programs and elevated Israel’s status as a US ally to “major strategic partner”); fought for years against fierce headwinds to pass a US-Israel visa waiver program; and repeatedly supported increases in foreign aid to the state.She has also been a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government, a reliable ally of the Obama administration, and an early advocate for the nuclear deal reached with Iran last year.
Neither candidate running to replace her is Jewish. But in an interview with a local outlet published in June, Kamala Harris – Boxer’s most likely successor – described herself as a robust supporter of Israel’s security. She characterized the nuclear deal as “by no means a perfect compromise,” and said that her support for the agreement is conditioned on “a deep commitment to the safety of Israel.”
Harris does not support actions imposed from without, intended to cajole Israel and the Palestinians to negotiations toward a two-state solution, and agrees with Netanyahu that Palestinian leadership should recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
7. Lois Frankel and Ted Deutch swap seats - US House Florida’s 21st and 22nd Congressional Districts
Redistricting has forced Ted Deutch and Lois Frankel, two of 18 Jewish members of the House, effectively to swap seats in Congress. Representing some of the most heavily populated Jewish communities in the country – Broward County, northern Palm Beach, Wellington to Pompano Beach – they both opposed the Iran deal, and have repeatedly supported increased foreign and defense aid to Israel.
Both appear safe in their seats.
6. Marco Rubio reelection campaign - US Senate, Florida
The Republican presidential candidate who spectacularly lost his home state of Florida to Trump last spring limped home with nothing to run for: He had announced publicly, months earlier, that he would not seek reelection.
But that changed after his presidential primary loss, and incumbent Marco Rubio is back in the fight.
Rubio casts himself as a staunch ally of Israel, and has enjoyed support from AIPAC leadership in the past. He criticized Trump as “anti-Israel” after the newly minted GOP presidential nominee called for US “neutrality” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has often attacked the White House for its handling of the US-Israel relationship, which he promised to repair should he have succeeded in his bid.
He now runs in an open field of primary candidates: Florida’s August 30 primary features, between Democrats and Republicans, 10 candidates to choose from.
Making noise on the other side is Alan Grayson, a House member who supported the Iran deal and was the first Jewish congressman to endorse Bernie Sanders’s bid for president earlier this year.
Should Grayson win the Democratic primary-- he faces a fierce battle with another House member, Patrick Murphy-- he would offer a stark contrast to Rubio in the general.
5. John McCain vs Ann Kirkpatrick - US Senate, Arizona
The fact that John McCain, the Republican nominee for president in 2008 and an acclaimed war hero, is so fiercely fighting for reelection makes this a race to watch for all constituencies.
But the Jewish-American establishment will be monitoring closely to see whether one of the most vocal proponents of an ironclad US-Israel alliance falls to his political opponent, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who supported the Iran deal last year with gusto.
“As an American and a supporter of Israel, I have backed tough sanctions against Iran, but now is the time to launch a new chapter of vigorous enforcement,” Kirkpatrick said when endorsing the agreement.
She characterized the deal at the time as an “historic and critical diplomatic course against danger and chaos.”
The loss of McCain in the Senate would spell the loss of one of the most prominent conservative foreign policy voices on Capitol Hill – a voice that has repeatedly harmonized with the Netanyahu government, on issues ranging from Middle East peace to policy in Syria, Iran and the scourge of radical jihadism. Kirkpatrick’s victory would be a milestone for those opposed to that paradigm of foreign policy thinking and would likely be part of a larger wave of Democratic victories sweeping the party back into Senate control.
4. Bob Dold vs Brad Schneider - US House, Illinois’s 10th Congressional District
This one is a rematch: Brad Schneider, a Jewish figure, is fighting to retake his seat back from Bob Dold in a district that is roughly 12 percent Jewish in population.
Schneider has the support of the National Jewish Democratic Council, despite the fact that – in a contested Democratic primary fight – he announced opposition to the nuclear deal, which NJDC supported. Schneider calls on his website for Congress to “repair” the US-Israel relationship, and considers himself both a member of AIPAC and a supporter of J Street. “Both organizations have the same goals,” he told a campaign town hall.
Dold, for his part, believes “the national security of the United States is directly tied to the strength and security of Israel,” according to his website. The race is considered too close to call.
3. Lee Zeldin vs Anna Throne-Holst - US House, New York’s 1st Congressional District
Zeldin is the only Jewish Republican in Congress and, consequently, the only Jewish member who has endorsed Trump for president.
He faces one of the most expensive battles for a House seat nationwide – estimated to cost $15 million by November – in his fight to stave off Anna Throne-Holst, a challenger who had previously worked as supervisor for the town of Southampton and in the UN Department of Peacekeeping.
Zeldin faced criticism from his colleagues last week for suggesting President Barack Obama is dually loyal to the United States and to an unspecified, unproven, yet certainly foreign and likely vaguely Muslim heritage, after reporters began questioning why a $400m.
US-Iran Hague settlement apparently coincided with Tehran’s release of American political prisoners.
“When deals like this are cut,” Zeldin said in a formal press release, “one has to truly wonder whether the president has no idea what he is doing, or if he knows exactly what he is doing and is playing for some other team.”
While the incumbent was a fierce opponent of the Iran deal – and of virtually all policies of the Obama administration – his challenger endorses the nuclear agreement, and supports a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Throne-Holst is benefiting from fund-raising by the political action committee of two-state lobby J Street, known as JStreetPAC, based on her support for a “twostate solution and a diplomacy- first approach” as well as her support for the Iran deal and continued Israel aid.
2. Mark Kirk vs Tammy Duckworth - US Senate, Illinois
This Senate race is a battle between the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and J Street.
Kirk, a darling of the AIPAC crowd, will face a popular challenger in Duckworth, who waxed off J Street’s successes in lobbying for the Iran deal at its Democratic National Convention reception last month.
Kirk is one of the highest- profile sitting senators facing a tough reelection battle and has been a loud critic of the nuclear deal in Congress.
The issue has thus become a flashpoint of the campaign.
After signing a controversial congressional letter to Iran’s leaders, likening the JCPOA to British appeasement of Nazi Germany and claiming that Obama sold out Israel for Iran, Kirk drew flak from Duckworth, who called his actions “entirely inappropriate” and praised the deal as a victory for the cause of nuclear non-proliferation.
“Sometimes the best solution is not more weapons,” Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, said at the J Street event last month, speaking of America’s role in brokering a two-state solution.
“Sometimes the best solution is actually entering negotiations and find a way to work together in peace.”
While Kirk promotes his connections to AIPAC on his website, Duckworth enjoyed a J Street fund-raiser in April.
This campaign may be the most direct competition between the two lobbies held nationwide.
1. Debbie Wasserman Schultz vs Tim Canova - Democratic Primary US House, Florida’s 23rd Congressional District
Wasserman Schultz represents one of the most Jewish- populated districts in the country and, up until last month, served as one of the most senior Jewish members in Congress as chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Her seat is safely blue, but it is her Democratic primary opponent who is posing a significant challenge: Tim Canova, an early and aggressive opponent of the nuclear deal reached with Iran last year.
Wasserman Schultz has already enjoyed heavy-hitter, in-person reinforcement from Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee who won Florida’s 23rd district in her primary battle against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by a margin of nearly three to one. The race may be close nevertheless, as Canova is well financed and has campaigned aggressively to upend her with Sanders’s help.
Canova now supports “full implementation” of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But he has allied himself with Democratic opponents of the nuclear deal – which Wasserman Schultz reluctantly endorsed – and has been bolstered by an ad campaign in her district targeting her for that support. One TV ad charges voters to encourage her to “stop siding with Iran,” and a pamphlet, distributed this week, accuses her of “waffling” on her beliefs in service of her party bosses.
Canova’s decision to highlight opposition to the Iran deal reflects discontent within the Democratic Party – certainly among Florida’s Democratic Jewish voters – over how the nuclear deal was ultimately packaged. If any race is a measure of Iran deal popularity within the Jewish community, this one is it.
Their primary takes place on August 30.http://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/Eight-races-the-Jewish-community-is-watching-in-2016-463780
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Evangelical aid was once taboo in Israel. Now it's on the rise. Why?
Aug 15, 2016 | Haaretz
By Jusy Maltz
Once regarded with suspicion in the Jewish state, Christian donations are helping to fill the gaps left by dwindling Jewish contributions. What's changed?
The winner of one of the top annual awards for service to the Jewish community, Sherly America-Gosal was not an obvious pick. Forget the fact that she isn’t Jewish. America-Gosal, president of the United Israel Appeal’s women’s division and a devout Evangelical Christian, hails from Indonesia, an overwhelmingly Muslim country with no diplomatic ties to Israel.
Yet, she is the first Christian individual to receive the prestigious Yakir Award presented each year by United Israel Appeal (also known as Keren Hayesod), the official Israeli fundraising organization whose domain includes the entire world outside of the United States. Explaining its choice, the awards committee noted that America-Gosal had “pioneered the Keren Hayesod cause in Asia and tirelessly advances it, mainly among Christian business and community leaders.” It also praised her for initiating fundraising events “in which hundreds of influential leaders from Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Papua New Guinea participate.”
Christian Evangelical support for Israel has, indeed, spread far beyond the traditional confines of Bible Belt America. Wherever the trans-denominational Protestant movement is on the rise these days – and that includes large swaths of South America and Asia – so, too, is a desire to engage with the Holy Land. This sentiment, to the great satisfaction of those involved in fundraising for Israel, is increasingly getting translated into dollars-and-cents support.
(Almost all Christian charity donated to Israel comes from Evangelical groups. That does not mean, though, that all Evangelical groups are Zionist-oriented. As a case in point, World Vision, the Evangelical relief organization accused last week by Israeli authorities of having been infiltrated by Hamas, is active in Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem.)
According to the latest Pew report, there are an estimated 285 million Evangelicals worldwide, and they account for 13 percent of the total Christian population. Although its main stronghold is the United States, Evangelical Christianity has gained a huge following in recent decades in the developing world.
“Pro-Israel support has gone mainstream,” observes David Parsons, the longstanding media and public relations director at the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. “A lot of churches these days are realizing that they have to have some outlet for interest in Israel – whether it’s trips or charitable work.”
ICEJ, which engages in educational, interfaith and charity work in Israel, set up its headquarters in Jerusalem in 1980. Today, it has satellite offices in 85 countries around the world, among them, eight new branches in Muslim-majority countries and one in the Communist stronghold of Cuba. Best known for hosting a Feast of Tabernacles event that brings thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem each fall, ICEJ also funds various humanitarian aid projects in Israel, with specific focus on the elderly and immigrants.
When Parson talks about Christian support for Israel going mainstream, he doesn’t only mean the donor base, which has expanded way beyond its traditional stronghold in the United States. Israelis, too, he notes, have begun to free themselves of many of the longstanding taboos associated with taking Christian money. As a case in point, Parson cites ICEJ’s relatively new fundraising partnership with Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust memorial and museum. “To me, it’s an indication of a growing openness on the part of Israelis,” he says.
Christian Friends of Israel is another Evangelical organization based in Jerusalem with satellite offices around the world. Among its other charity projects, CFI donates care packages to needy immigrants and protective gear to Israeli soldiers. “More and more of our support is coming from Latin America, especially Brazil, these days,” says Sharon Sanders, an Evangelical Christian who founded the organization with her husband in 1985 and is based in Jerusalem. “Another world that recently opened to us is Asia, particularly Taiwan, China, Singapore and Japan.”
Not to mention even more far-flung corners of the world. Sanders says she was recently invited to deliver a talk on the organization’s work in, of all places, Mongolia.
Founded in 1976, Bridges for Peace was the first Evangelical ministry to set up base in Israel. As it notes on its website: “We are giving Christians the opportunity to actively express their biblical responsibility before God to be faithful to Israel and the Jewish community.”
Greater acceptance
When Evangelical Christians first began supporting charity causes in Israel, about 35 years ago, their money was not always welcome. Most ultra-Orthodox Jews, to this day, refuse to accept charity from Christians, suspicious that the real motive behind the generosity is to lure them away from Judaism.
For many years, they were not the only Israelis to regard these donations with suspicion. And often for good reason: Among the dozen or so messianic ministries scattered around Israel, many do not hide the fact that their ultimate goal is to get the Jews to embrace Jesus Christ as their savior. But most of the other ministries – and that includes those engaged in charity giving, like ICEJ and CFI – do not declare this to be their mission and, in fact, categorically deny it. As time has passed, Israelis have learned to trust them.
As Tuly Weisz, the publisher of Israel365, a daily newsletter distributed to 250,000 Christian Zionists around the world, notes: “Israelis have seen over the years that there are no strings attached and that nobody is trying to convert them, so they feel better about it.”
Still, a large chunk of this Christian Zionist philanthropy is directed at promoting immigration – and many Evangelicals believe the return of the Jews to Israel is a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus Christ. They are not likely to mention that, though, in the presence of Israelis, as those who work closely with them attest. Rather, they talk about a desire to make amends for the past.
“When we first learned about what the Jews went through,” says Sanders of Christian Friends of Israel, referring to the Holocaust, “we were shocked. It wasn’t something we were taught in our Sunday school classes. We love Israel unconditionally and are sorry for what happened.”
When CFI first set up its base in Israel, she says, Israelis regarded the organization with mistrust. “People would us ask why we were here, and why we want the Jews to be here in Israel if we didn’t want them in Europe,” relays Sanders. “We don’t hear that anymore.”
Dr. Faydra Shapiro, an Israeli expert on Evangelical Christian Zionists, says that supporting Israel is perceived among this community as different than any other cause. “Israel is understood to be foundational to the gospel,” says Shapiro, director of the Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations at Jezreel Valley College. “In this way of thinking, Jesus, the Bible, the Apostles, the prophets – they came from the nation of Israel. So while supporting good causes around the world is an important expression of Christian love, supporting the nation of Israel is paying a kind of debt.”
Many, like Shapiro, cite Genesis 12:3 (“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you") as the inspiration for Christian giving to Israel. “They read this verse to infer that by blessing Israel –and that easily gets understood as the State of Israel – they will themselves be blessed by God,” she says. “And let’s face it – who doesn’t want to be blessed?”
But other more recent developments may also play a role. As Jonathan Feldstein, a professional fundraiser whose expertise is the Evangelical community, notes: “There has been a sense in recent years that Christians, like Jews, are facing a common enemy in Islamic fundamentalism.”
Shapiro concurs. “No question that a kind of co-belligerence against radical Islam helps people see value in a Jewish/Israeli/Christian alliance, because both groups feel threatened and even targeted.”
Yet another possible factor is simple logistics. In the past, much of the fundraising efforts on Israel’s behalf were undertaken through expensive television advertisements and infomercials. Technology has changed all that, as Weisz points out. “Thanks to the internet and social media, it’s become much cheaper to raise money, so more people are doing it,” he notes.
Christian Friends organizations
Tapping into this new groundswell of Evangelical support for Israel are not only Christian Zionist ministries but also Israeli-based organizations and institutions, many of which are for the first time actively soliciting donations from non-Jews. Take, for example, Magen David Adom, the Israeli emergency medical service organization, which two months ago hired a Christian pastor to run its fundraising operation in the United States. Others have taken to setting up “Christian Friends of . . .” fundraising arms, among them the Leket national food bank, the Israel Disabled Veterans organization, Rambam hospital in Haifa, and Shalva, an organization that assists children with special needs.
True, major fundraising organizations like the Jewish Agency and United Israel Appeal, have been the beneficiaries of Christian charity for years. It just wasn’t talked about much because of the taboos associated with accepting such contributions. Today, not only are organizations like these increasingly up front about their funding sources, but they are also actively soliciting from Christian donors.
“Christian money is definitely not a substitute for Jewish donations, but we most certainly intend to continue nurturing these ties,” says Daniela Mor, who oversees such efforts at the Jewish Agency.
As a fundraising professional with longstanding ties to the Christian Evangelical community, Dvora Ganani finds herself much sought-after these days. Yet, she warns against overblown expectations. “In dollar terms, we’re still not talking about any big increases in the total amount of Christian donations to Israel, because unlike Jewish donors, Christians give in very small amounts,” says Ganani, who previously served as director-general of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews – by far the biggest organization involved in fundraising for Israel among Evangelicals. “What we are seeing, though, is an increase in the total number of donors.”
Yechiel Eckstein, the high-profile Orthodox rabbi who founded IFCJ, likes to say that hard-working Christians who “give up their latte at Starbucks for a cheaper one at McDonalds” make his donations possible. His average donation, he says, is $76.
Another difference between the Jewish and Christian charity world, when it comes to causes in Israel, is in the buttons that need to be pressed. “When you pitch to Christians, you have to be able to communicate the narrative in a way that resonates with them,” explains Tuly Weisz, the newsletter publisher who is also an Orthodox rabbi. “For example, if you’re trying to raise money for the Israel Defense Forces, you can’t present it as a story of Israel’s melting pot. You need to talk about these soldiers as the protectors of Israel, following in the footsteps of King David’s army.”
Still no contest for Jewish charity
No organization or institute keeps official tabs on Evangelical charity-giving in Israel, but according to various estimates, the total annual sum ranges in the vicinity of $175-$200 million, with IFCJ responsible for the lion’s share. Last year, IFCJ raised $140 million, most of it earmarked for organizations and projects in Israel, while about a dozen other Israel-oriented Evangelical ministries – some based in Israel, and others outside the country – brought in a few million dollars each, as did the American and Christian fundraising arms of various Israeli non-profits. Considering that an estimated $3 billion in Jewish charity was transferred to Israel last year from overseas, the Christian charities still lag far behind.
Yet, as independent charity consultant Misha Galperin notes, the trends are shifting. “Unlike Jewish philanthropy, Christian philanthropy to Israel continues to grow even during difficult economic times,” he says. “Besides that, there are many more Christians in this world, so there’s a much larger pool to draw from.”
In the past, almost all the Christian Evangelical charity in Israel originated in the United States. Donors in the United States still account for the lion’s share, but they have been joined by many others over the past 10-15 years, particularly from Asia and South America.
Galperin, formerly the chief international fundraiser for the Jewish Agency, points out that 70 percent of the funds raised by the Jewish federations annually used to be sent to Israel – most of it straight to the coffers of the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee. “Last year, the federations raised $900 million, and less than $150 million of that sum went to Israel,” he notes. “That’s a huge drop, and it has to do with the fact that today you have many other organizations competing for these funds, whether it’s the local JCCs, Tikkun Olam-themed organizations (focusing on social action), Jewish day schools and Jewish camps.”
In its latest annual assessment, the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank, warned of a related development warranting “close attention.”
Noting that many federations were reporting that their giving had been “flat” for several years, the report said: “A generational transition of philanthropists in the United States is leading to a new approach to donations to Jewish causes, as the younger philanthropists tend more to support secular, rather than Jewish and Israeli causes.”
Hagai Katz, an expert on philanthropy from Ben-Gurion University, notes two parallel trends that could increase the share of Evangelical money in the total amount of charity pouring into Israel. One is an overall drop in Jewish-sourced charity, both because of the fall-out from the Bernard Madoff investment scandal, from which many Jewish institutions have yet to recover, and changing priorities among Jewish philanthropists. “There is a decline in willingness among American Jews, particularly the younger generation, to give to causes in Israel,” he notes. “They would much rather put their money in Tikkun Olam projects in places like Africa and South America, especially considering that there is a lot of discontent among them with Israeli government policy.”
On the other hand, he notes that growing religious extremism in certain segments of the Evangelical community has prompted greater engagement with Israel. “For these people, donating charity to Israel is seen as a way to expedite the second coming of Christ.”
Supplanting or filling in the void?
Weisz, the newsletter publisher, says Christian philanthropy is still not a “game-changing phenomenon” in Israel. “You don’t see any big buildings in the country named after Christians,” he notes by way of example.
Yet, at the same time, he says, Evangelical donors are beginning to pick up the slack resulting from recent trends in Jewish philanthropy. “As the Jewish donor base is shrinking and aging, there is growing recognition that Christian donors can fill in the gap,” he says. Like many of his Israeli colleagues with close ties to the Evangelical community, Weisz is an Orthodox immigrant from the United States.
Could they ultimately supplant Jewish charity givers? Weisz doesn’t think so, though he believes Evangelical funds could eventually “help relieve the Jewish community of some of its charity burden.”
Or as Eckstein puts it: “I would never want to say that Christian money is replacing Jewish money, but we are definitely filling in the gaps.”
Christian Friends of Israeli Communities is an organization that raises about $1 million a year for charity work in Jewish West Bank settlements. Sondra Baras, the Israeli co-director of the organization, says she would be extremely troubled if Christians were to ultimately take over for the Jews. “Not because I don’t love Christian philanthropy,” she explains, “but because I want Jews to keep feeling connected to Israel. I believe that for Jews, charity to Israel is a kind of tax they need to pay, and a Jew who doesn’t give to Israel is not a good Jew. I don’t feel the same way about Christians.”
The International Christian Embassy’s latest big project in Israel is a home for destitute Holocaust survivors in Haifa. In addition to the 70 occupants of the facility, it also feeds 130 people a day. “We have no intention of supplanting Jewish money,” says Parsons, “but rather, we step up in cases like this when we find people falling between the cracks.”
Outdoing the federations
IFCJ, the largest private philanthropy active in Israel, today raises more money than any single Jewish federation in North America outside of New York. Bomb shelters donated by the organization can be found at remote locations around the country. Planes bearing its logo have been flying in growing numbers of immigrants, especially from Ukraine and France, in recent years. On army bases around the country, IFCJ provides soldiers and their families with complimentary drinks and snacks at induction ceremonies. Food baskets for the poor are handed out at its distribution centers before every Jewish holiday. Eckstein, who founded the organization 35 years ago, still speaks Hebrew with a strong American accent, and his distinctive voice, featured on widely broadcast advertisements for his organization, is recognizable to most Israeli radio listeners.
When it comes to fundraising among Evangelical Christians, few can shine his shoes. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, he tends to draw lots of fire. His detractors like to point out the generous compensation package he pays himself and his daughter, who serves as his deputy. Some have taken issue with his fundraising tactics, in particular his insistence on portraying Israel as an impoverished nation desperately seeking handouts. Others don’t take well to his “my way or the highway” approach to collaboration. Two years ago, for example, he withdrew millions of dollars in annual funding to the Jewish Agency because he didn’t think it was doing a good enough job promoting immigration to Israel. He then went on to set up his own independent aliyah operation. The Jewish Agency, for its part, said that the partnership fell apart because it wasn’t willing to accept a long list of demands from Eckstein, which they believed were aimed at generating greater hype and publicity for his organization. About a year ago, when the government began dragging its feet over a proposition he presented to set up a joint national food safety net, Eckstein again lost patience and has since made a solo go of it.
IFCJ currently funds about 400 projects in Israel, many of them through municipalities or the Joint Distribution Committee. Increasingly, though, its strategy has been to stop financing projects of others and instead launch its own initiatives. Last year, Eckstein says, his organization raised $10 million more than the previous year “and we have never in our history had a down year.”
Since its inception, IFCJ has raised donations from close to 1.5 million Evangelical donors around the world. Although its main donor base is in the United States, IFCJ is active today in more than a dozen countries, recently launching major thrusts into Brazil and Korea.
In the early years, Eckstein recounts, some of his beneficiaries were reluctant to acknowledge his Christian donors publicly. That included Nefesh b’Nefesh, the organization that handles aliyah from the United States, Canada and Great Britain on behalf of the Israeli government. When he learned that Nefesh b’Nefesh had removed the IFCJ logo from its flights to Israel, under pressure from Orthodox passengers, Eckstein responded by withdrawing his support.
It’s not that Nefesh b’Nefesh is averse to taking Christian money, though. Almost every year, it receives donations from John Hagee, the mega-pastor who founded Christians United for Israel – often referred to as the Christian equivalent of AIPAC. The John Hagee Ministries allocate a total of $2-3 million a year to Israeli charities, with Nefesh b’Nefesh usually the largest single recipient of this funding.
Shavei Israel is another aliyah-oriented organization that has benefited from Christian funding over the years. An organization which “reaches out to ‘lost’ and ‘hidden’ Jews around the world,” as it notes on its website, Shavei Israel received almost all its funding, amounting to several million dollars a year, from Christian organizations until about two years ago.
Charity preferences
Most Christian charities active in Israel tend to focus on three main areas: promoting aliyah, helping the poor and sick, and strengthening national security. Projects that promote Jewish identity are not of interest to them. Nor, for the most part, are causes that whiff of left-wing politics, be it ending the occupation or promoting LGBT rights. On this count at least, Christian Evangelicals share a lot in common with Israel’s Jewish religious right. Drawing their inspiration from the Bible, Evangelicals are typically diehard supporters of the Jewish settlement movement and often prioritize projects that strengthen the so-called “Greater Land of Israel.” Christian Friends of Israeli communities, for example, invests exclusively in projects based in West Bank settlements.
“I live in a Jewish settlement, but I have to say that many of these Evangelical donors are even far more to the right than I am,” observes Feldstein, who serves today as vice president for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which assists families who have lost loved ones in terror attacks. At least 25 percent of the foundation’s funding, he says, comes from Christian sources.
That could help explain the success of an organization like Christian Friends of Israeli Communities. Baras, a former Clevelander who set up the Israel office, is a resident of Karnei Shomron and longtime settler activist.
As she recounts, CFIC got its start in 1995, after the Israeli government decided to concede sovereignty over sections of the West Bank as part as the Oslo Accords. “’What have you done?’” Baras recalls her Christian friends crying out in protest.
Samaritan’s Purse, which declares on its website that “our ministry is all about Jesus – first, last, and always” is engaged in relief work around the world. Relatively recently, it made a first major donation to an Israeli organization, purchasing two ambulances for Magen David Adom.
Eagles’ Wing, another U.S.-based Evangelical organization has been conducting trips to Israel, including a new Birthright-style tour for young adults, for more than 20 years. Recently, it also began raising money for charity projects. As Wendy Miller, vice president of the organization, explained in an email: “There seems to be an increasing interest among a large contingent of Evangelical Christians to support Israel in many ways, including financially. Many Christians desire to do something tangible to show their belief in the importance of Israel. We expect this to continue to increase as awareness of the facts of Israel’s situation are spread internationally through ministries and organizations focused on these efforts."
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.736790
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Boris Toledano, President of Casablanca’s Jewish Community Dies at 97
Aug 10, 2016 | Morocco World News
The president of the Jewish community of Casablanca died on Wednesday August 10 in Casablanca at the age of 97.
The news of his death was announced by Vanessa Paloma, a member of the Casablanca Jewish community.
“The sad news of the death this morning of a great leader of our exemplary Jewish Community of Casablanca: Mr. President Boris Toledano left me heartbroken. He was a great man, an example of joy, courage, and rectitude,” she said on her Facebook page.
Aged 97, he died a natural death according to his friends and relatives.
His disappearance sparked strong emotions within the Jewish community in Casablanca and across Morocco with many on social media regretting his death.
“Mr. Boris Toledano was a man who from his young age lived up to his principles – he fought against Franco’s fascism as a young student caught in Spain coming from Larache – it was this heroic deed that prohibited him from returning to his hometown when he came back to Morocco after his studies,” Vanessa Paloma told Morocco World News.
“Toledano settled in then French- Protectorate Morocco and early on became involved in the Jewish Community of Casablanca, where his impeccable principles were proved through many decades of service. He was an open and joyful man with a deep sense of duty and honor. A true example,” she added.
His funeral will be held this Thursday at 4.30 pm in the cemetery of Ben M’Sik.
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2016/08/193704/boris-toledano-president-of-casablancas-jewish-community-dies-at-97/
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L.A.’s Iranian Jewish pack DGA for launching of Nazarian memoirs
Aug 15, 2016 | Jewish Journal
By Karmel Melamed
Nearly 600 Iranian Jewish community members and leaders packed the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) theater in Hollywood on August 7th for the official release of the Farsi language memoirs of local Iranian Jewish business and philanthropist Parviz Nazarian. The evening’s colorful event featured a brief documentary of Nazarian’s life starting from his humble beginnings in the poverty-stricken Jewish ghetto of Tehran in the late 1920s, to his emigration to Israel in 1947 where he fought alongside other Jewish immigrants in Israel’s war of independence in 1948 and was injured. The film also highlighted Nazarian’s successful business career in Iran and in the U.S. in the manufacturing sector as well as being one of the founders of the telecommunications giant “Qualcomm” in the late 1980s. Nazarian’s story is no doubt remarkable because it chronicles the life of a man who had nothing and pulled himself up by his boot straps to achieve greatest.
Speakers on hand for the event shared brief highlights from Nazarian’s memoirs entitled “My Walk Toward The Horizon”, including local Iranian Jewish community activist Frank Nikbakht who praised him for his hard work ethic in life and his generous spirit of giving back to worthy Israel causes. “Parviz Nazarian's memoirs are not just the story of a successful billionaire who as a boy had started selling matches to be able to afford a bus ticket once a week to visit his mother and little brother across the town, but the tale of a person possessing an indomitable pioneer spirit who overcame many obstacles”. Other speakers on hand for the event included Iranian radio personality Sharzad Ardalan and Iranian Jewish historian Dr. Ari Babaknia.
The evening also incorporated a whole host of traditional Persian instrumental music performances and live Middle Eastern dance. Here is one of those dance performances:
https://youtu.be/SVEDLa-CH8A
Nazarian, now in his late 80’s, was joined by his younger brother andbusiness partner Younes Nazarian as well as surrounded by his close friends and family members. His eldest daughter, Dora Nazarian Kadisha, spoke about Nazarian’s important role as an Iranian Jewish community leader over the many decades. “What stands out for me is what was most important to him throughout his life – love, forgiveness and generosity,” she said.
Nazarian’s philanthropic endeavors are plenty and include support for L.A. area Jewish and non-Jewish organizations. He is one of the founders of the L.A.-based “Magbit Foundation”, a non-profit that was established in 1990 to provide interest-free loans to key Israeli students. Likewise, in 2003, he founded the Citizens Empowerment Center in Israel (CECI), a non-profit organization which promotes election reform in Israel. In 2008, I interviewed Nazarian about the CECI and his passion for Israel which can be heard here.
Nikbakht, who helped edit the Farsi memoirs and also translated the English version of Nazarian's book, said he expects the English version of the book to be published in the coming year.
The following are just some snapshots of the event I captured..
http://www.jewishjournal.com/iranianamericanjews/item/l.a.s_iranian_jewish_pack_dga_for_launching_of_nazarian_memoirs
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No Joke: Many Religious Zionists Strive to Rebuild Jerusalem's Temple
Aug 15, 2016 | Haaretz
By Tzvia Greenfield
Every year, the Tisha B’Av fast day brings the issue of the destruction of the Temple to the top of our sorrows. Good people try to focus the day and the mythic inquiry associated with it, on social discourse that breeds solidarity. This, in contrast to the senseless hatred and the moral and spiritual disintegration which, according to tradition, accompanied the destruction of Jewish society in the Land of Israel in the first century CE and which continues to accompany us today.
Yet in recent years it seems that the mourning public, mostly within the religious Zionist part of society, has lost interest in the social and emotional lessons connected to the destruction, and is turning its longings towards much more material matters: Gold and silver, trumpets, white garments and slaughtering knives. In short, seemingly sane people who are preparing for the rebuilding of the Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
They are not joking. In a serious paper such as Makor Rishon, which serves a large and important population, a regular page has appeared for years that deals with matters of the Temple and its reestablishment. The page’s editor is well connected and from a very influential family.
This interest in matters of the Temple was once considered to be just obligatory lip service in the religious community, which does not or is not capable of looking at its traditions in an abstract and critical fashion. But realistic Jews always knew how to differentiate between literary dimensions in their beliefs and concrete needs. And now, in recent years, since the incredible feeling of spiritual elevation from the settlement enterprise has become a bit diluted by the sense of routine, the enthusiasts of the Jewish national rebirth have found a new focus: Building the Temple. And this absurd matter has become completely normative among most of Habayit Hayehudi’s voters.
What is strange and worrying about this phenomenon is not just the fact that these people, who see themselves as carrying the banner of the renewal of Judaism in our times, think in totally idolatrous terms. After all, the Temple they are longing for embodies all that is linked in our consciousness to shocking and vicious brutality, such as golden altars, bellowing calves being slaughtered “in the name of God,” and rivers of blood filling the halls. The fact that they dare to believe that this is Judaism and these are God’s commandments is no less worrying. After turning Zionism into a movement of heartless thieves with no conscience for the past 40 years, they now want to impose dangerous nonsense on the spirit of Judaism of our times, of the type that led to the destruction of our people 2,000 years ago.
True, the detailed instructions to build the Temple appear in the Bible. But once again, as in other matters, here too the Torah is trying to prevent acting upon the strong atavistic urge for abominable practices by imposing uncompromising regulations, conditions and limitations. We have a clear example of this strategy in the laws of kashrut. At the beginning the Torah forbade eating meat entirely. Only after it turned out that the people were unable to keep this prohibition, did the Torah allow them to eat meat; but it heaped on them an abundance of obstacles, with the predatory meat-eating beasts themselves being marked in the most symbolic and clearest manner as not kosher.
The ancient urge to build the Temple was, it seems, uncontrollable. But the prayer of King Solomon at the inauguration of the Temple teaches us how much the Bible has reservations about the idea. Beyond the corruption and murder it represents, the Temple and its cherubs are designed to be a folly that is virtually impossible to realize.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai had a good reason for abandoning a burning Temple and city, and turning instead to build Yavneh and its scholars. The fact that today powerful forces in the religious Zionist community are pushing to renew the delusions of the Temple testifies to the rot that has spread in this community since it dedicated itself to gaining control over another people and stealing its land.
http://www.haaretz.com/.premium-1.736891
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Incoming French envoy has strong connection to Israel
Aug 15, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Rina Bassist
Memories of time here during previous posting remain strong, says ambassador-designate Le Gal.
France's new ambassador to Israel, Helene Le Gal, will be no stranger when she begins her assignment here next month. As a young diplomat on her second post, she spent three years at the embassy in Tel Aviv in the 1990s.
Some 20 years later, Le Gal has been appointed to replace ambassador Patrick Maisonnave, who has held the position since 2013.Le Gal is no ordinary diplomat. She was born in a modest middle-class suburb of Paris to a family originally from Brittany. Her father abandoned his family’s agricultural tradition to become an engineer instead of a farmer.
Le Gal chose a career in the diplomatic service while still a teenager. No one in her family had ever pursued such a career. While in middle school, Le Gal’s parents sent her to visit some family in the US, an experience that made her decide to study political science and aim for a diplomatic career.
Le Gal is among France’s most wellknown diplomats. Her first post was in Burkina Faso. She later held a cabinet position as minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development and was the first woman to serve as French consul-general to Quebec, a highly sensitive position in that French-speaking province.
She is also the first woman to serve as adviser on Africa to President François Hollande, a job more commonly known as “Madame Afrique.’’ She has worked in Madrid and Brussels and is widely considered an expert on security affairs.
Colleagues of Le Gal say she is highly regarded by Hollande. The long-time Socialist Party activist is considered by many to be a brilliant diplomat.
Le Gal has taken interest in the Middle East and Israel ever since her time here.
Since then she has made efforts to have contact with Israeli diplomats and expatriates in all her travels.
She was among the crowd at Malchei Yisrael Square the night prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and has remained deeply affected by the memory. She has spoken of feeling shock at the hope for peace being cut short and has said that the memory of overwhelming pain shown by Israelis has never left her.
The day after the murder, she was at the Ben-Gurion Airport to meet then-president Jacques Chirac upon his arrival for the funeral.
“She arrived to the airport with the ambassador, of course,’’ a friend of Le Gal’s told The Jerusalem Post. “The ambassador went out to the tarmac to greet Chirac, only he mistook the plane.
There were so many dignitaries arriving at the same time. And so, it was junior diplomat Le Gal who welcomed the president upon his arrival at the terminal.’’ But there are lots of pleasant memories too. Le Gal said she adores Israeli openness and warmth. She also loves Israeli cuisine and walking along the beaches of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon.
Israelis know their family history and where they came from, she said.
She called these traits both typical and unique to Israelis, making Israel a most fascinating place for any lover of history.
Knowing the country, its people, its culture and its politics so intimately, should greatly assist in helping adapt to her first year as ambassador, she said.
No time will be wasted on just starting to learn the people or understanding that French and Israelis are much alike in their passion for politics.
Le Gal welcomes the challenge of introducing French industries and hi-tech to Israel, strengthening academic cooperation and immersing herself in the French peace initiative.
She looks forward to 2018, designated as the “France-Israel year” – part of a series of government-sponsored festivals designed to increase understanding between nations – as a marvelous occasion to develop artistic and cultural ties between the two countries.http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Incoming-French-envoy-has-strong-connection-to-Israel-464111
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New Moishe House creates pluralistic Jewish community for Beersheba millennials
Aug 9, 2016 | The Jerusalem Post
By Tamara Zieve
The inception of the recently-inaugurated Beersheba Moishe House is similar to the founding of the first-ever Moishe House in Oakland, California. It was born out of the efforts of a small group of passionate, dedicated youths opening their home to create a sense of community and strengthen Jewish identity.
Just as the very first Moishe House began with four Jewish 20-somethings hosting Shabbat dinners, the Beersheba House began with four bright-eyed young Israelis – and their dog – trying to build bridges between different parts of the city’s population.
House resident Itay Itamar first stumbled across the Moishe House concept in Melbourne, Australia, in the summer of 2024.
“There was a post-Passover baking session that a local told me about,” he recounts.
Back in Israel, he accidentally found himself at the Jerusalem Moishe House, located in the city’s Nahlaot neighborhood.
“It was a Hanukka party. They had a hanukkia made out of Red Bull cans. Loads of people stopped by and I thought, We need this in Beersheba” he tells The Jerusalem Post as he sits around the living-room table of the Beersheba Moishe House he had envisioned.
He is joined by two community members, Yotam Rechnitz and Adi Treves. The former is busy in the kitchen, preparing platters of vegetables and fruit in honor of our meeting. He doesn’t live in the house, but the other two point out that this is characteristic of the sense of communal effort they have built there.
“Everyone chips in any way they can,” Treves explains.
It took a while for the Beersheba house to formally become part of the Moishe House organization, but in the meantime, Itamar and three fellow activists laid its foundations.
In October 2015, the quartet – three of whom are students at the city’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev – rented a house and started hosting Friday night dinners, parties and lectures several times a month.
“We were people who did this type of stuff anyway, so we decided to live together and do it,” says Itamar.
They named the place after the guide dog they were fostering – Zoe’s House. Moishe House representatives came to visit, consulted with them and asked them to meet with potential donors.
Zoe’s House quickly gained traction, and the residents’ dream of transforming their humble house into a place where everyone felt at home began to take shape.
“I would walk in the street and hear people talking about it,” Itamar says.
In June, Zoe’s House officially became a Moishe House in collaboration with the American Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU), with support from the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation. The connection between Moishe House and AABGU was made through a mutual board member, Jaynie Schultz, of Dallas, Texas.
“I feel so privileged to be involved with two outstanding organizations,” says Schultz, who has been a supporter of Moishe House from the very beginning. “The opportunity presented by this joint initiative will make the outcome exponential.”
Alejandro Okret, Moishe House’s chief global officer, adds: “We want to continue saying ‘yes’ to helping meet the demand for peer-led, home-based programming for young adults and their Jewish communities in the state of Israel.”
The Moishe House model sees residents opening their home five to six times a month for communal activities, in return receiving a partial rent stipend and a programming budget, along with training and staff support.
“My hope is that our Moishe House will be a home for everybody that comes to visit us in our community, whether you are from Israel or abroad,” says resident Tal Megera.
“I want our home to be a welcoming place that can show young people cool and new sides of Judaism.”
Israeli Moishe Houses serve a different function than those in the Diaspora, where finding a Jewish community to connect with might be difficult. Nonetheless, the Beersheba residents and community members feel that their Moishe House fills a vacuum.
“Because of technology, our generation looks for community, to sit with people at the end of the day...
a community that’s open to everyone, girls, guys, religious, secular, locals, internationals.” says Treves.
Itamar agrees.
“In general, people are alone,” he says. “They work alone in front of a computer, so then you look for a framework to just sit around the table with people.”
Beersheba is known for its large student community, but Itamar says there is a desire to socialize beyond the university setting.
“If students want do things inside the university, they can,” he adds,”but this house connects both students and non-students. My vision is that the walls between students and non-students will fall.”
The young adults also note that in addition to a social platform, the house provides the community with content, be it lectures on spirituality, Jewish learning, songwriting workshops, yoga or talks by politicians and city leaders. Each resident brings his or her own interests to the Moishe House, making for a diverse range of activities.
“It’s a Jewish community, and when we have non-Jews come for Friday night dinner, it shows them the warm, open, embracing side of Judaism,” says Rechnitz. “Moishe House deals with Judaism in a pluralistic way and, I think, is special and rare.”
The Beersheba Moishe House crowd has ranged from Breslov Hassidim to atheists.
“The idea of Moishe House is to make a connection to Judaism, and to make it fun,” Treves adds earnestly.
“We create fun activities around the Jewish calendar. Moishe House allows you to do something positive and challenging in your life.”
They also note that it’s a non-profit endeavor, so those who are strapped for cash don’t need to think twice before attending.
Moishe House activities are not restricted to the 20s and 30s crowd.
Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, for instance, it hosted roundtable discussions with Holocaust survivors.
Residents and community members also step outside the house and volunteer for others. To celebrate one of the residents’ birthdays, they painted a women’s shelter. They look for ways to volunteer, and take on the Jewish value of tikkun olam (repairing the world).
“There are a lot of young people here who want to take responsibility and help change the city,” emphasizes Rechnitz..http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/New-Moishe-House-creates-pluralistic-Jewish-community-for-Beersheba-millennials-463653
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Avigdor Lieberman Is Sorry-Not-Sorry for Comparing Iran Deal to Hitler Deal
Aug 9, 2016 | Forward
By J.J. Goldberg
The long-simmering tension between Israel’s generals and their politician bosses flared up in early August into a near-crisis in U.S.-Israel relations. It’s an almost comically complicated caper, so pay close attention. You can’t make this stuff up.
It began as an attack on President Obama by Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, over last year’s Iran nuclear deal. Lieberman compared the Iran deal to the Munich Agreement with Hitler, which infuriated Obama and upended sensitive aid negotiations. It quickly became clear, however, that the defense minister’s real target was his top subordinate, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, who praised the Iran deal last January, kicking off a long-running feud. Obama was just collateral damage. The resulting crisis was what you might call an unintended consequence.
Obama had told an August 4 press conference that “the Israeli military and intelligence community” agrees with U.S. intelligence assessments about the success of the Iran deal in deterring Iranian nuclear weapons development.
Israel’s defense ministry responded the next day with a statement — reportedly drafted at Lieberman’s personal initiative — that “the Israeli defense establishment” views the Iran deal as worthless and a setback to “the unwavering battle that has to be waged against terror states like Iran.”
The statement went on to compare the Iran deal to the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Britain and France allowed Hitler to take over western Czechoslovakia, setting the stage for World War II.
The inflammatory comparison prompted a flurry of angry exchanges between Washington and Jerusalem. Israeli politicians periodically compare U.S. actions to Munich, and it always causes a crisis. American politicians apparently hate being called Nazi appeasers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after reportedly speaking with U.S. ambassador Dan Shapiro, issued his own statement just hours after Lieberman’s. It said that while Israel’s view of the Iran deal hasn’t changed, “the prime minister staunchly believes that Israel has no ally more important than the U.S.” Three days later Lieberman’s ministry issued an abject retraction, saying the Munich analogy wasn’t intended as a historical reference and expressing regret at any misunderstanding. Lieberman prides himself on never apologizing or backing down, so the retraction indicates the level of U.S. displeasure at his Nazi chatter.
Worst of all, Netanyahu had a team in Washington at the time, trying to wrap up a new 10-year agreement on U.S. military aid. Thanks to the defense minister’s outburst, the talks collapsed. Now Netanyahu has to get them going again.
In fact, Obama wasn’t wrong about Israeli intelligence and the Iran deal. Despite the fierce opposition of Israel’s political leadership to the Iran deal, its military and intelligence professionals — the group Obama referred to — are far more favorable. Eisenkot himself, in his first major address as chief of staff last January, called the Iran deal a “strategic turning point” that contains “threats, but also opportunities.” The chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevy, spoke similarly in a speech in June.
But Lieberman’s beef with Eisenkot and the army command has deeper roots. Lieberman has long been critical of the army command, viewing it as too soft on the Palestinians. In 2014, while serving as Netanyahu’s foreign minister, Lieberman opposed the cease-fire that ended the Gaza war, urging instead that the army take over Gaza and eliminate Hamas.
This past March, while in the parliamentary opposition, Lieberman joined and led protests against the army command for arresting a soldier who had killed an immobilized Palestinian terrorist with a bullet to the head.
In May, while negotiating his return to the government, Lieberman demanded legislation imposing the death penalty on terrorists. He claims it would deter future terrorism. The army says it would simply inspire new terrorists.
Lieberman was sworn in as defense minister on May 30.
On July 26, Eisenkot struck back. Addressing the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee, he testified that the “greatest threat” facing Israel’s army is not Hezbollah or Hamas, but the erosion of Israeli public faith in the military.
That public trust is being undermined, he said, by public figures and organizations that defend the Hebron shooter and attack the army for arresting him. “Some say the IDF has gone limp, but that is simply a lie,” Eisenkot said. “We want the army to operate according to orders, rules of engagement, the spirit of the IDF and the values of the IDF. If somebody wants the ethos of a street gang, please speak up.”
He declined to name names — he told lawmakers looking for names to “check on Google” — but it was clear to all concerned that he was thinking foremost of Lieberman, his new boss.
His testimony was reportedly coordinated in advance with the committee chair, Likud lawmaker and former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, who submitted a resolution afterward supporting Eisenkot’s leadership. The committee issued a public statement afterward describing the session, an unusual move for the normally secretive body.
Lieberman wasn’t Eisenkot’s only target. He’s faced repeated criticism from the right, particularly the religious nationalist community. Last February, questioned by a high school senior over his tightening of the rules for opening fire, the general said he didn’t want Israeli soldiers “emptying their ammunition clips on a 13-year-old girl armed with scissors.” He added that the army can’t be governed by “slogans” such as the talmudic maxim “if someone comes to kill you, kill him first.” That touched off a weeks-long uproar from the religious world. At the height, in mid-March, Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef declared it a “mitzvah,” a religious duty, to kill terrorists. The shooting of the disabled terrorist by the soldier in Hebron came 11 days later. Since then the army has been under continuous attack from the right for its decision to charge and try the soldier.
A week after his Knesset appearance, Eisenkot flew to Washington for a round of meetings with his American counterparts, overseeing the conclusion of the sensitive aid negotiations and reviewing Israel’s purchase of F-35 aircraft. Coincidentally or not, Eisenkot was at the Pentagon for a special ceremony on the very day that Obama dropped by for his August 4 press conference. Eisenkot was there for a “surprise”conferring of the U.S. Legion of Merit medal by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Joseph Dunford for “exceptionally meritorious service.” Eisenkot got back to Israel the next day, Friday, just in time to hear his boss, Lieberman, ruin his week’s work.
Lieberman’s apology came the following Monday, August 8. It wasn’t really an apology, though. He blamed the media for describing his Hitler analogy as a Hitler analogy.
http://forward.com/opinion/347134/avigdor-lieberman-is-sorry-not-sorry-for-comparing-iran-deal-to-hitler-deal/
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