Most Americans know of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved more than 1,200 lives during the Holocaust, by hiring Jews to work in his factories and fought Nazi efforts to remove them. But not so many people know about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who disobeyed his government’s orders and issued visas that allowed 6,000 Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied territories via Japan. His courage and bravery are now praised by thousands of Jews and non-Jews worldwide, and he has been recognized as one of the Righteous among the Nations at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. The Sugihara Story is a particularly powerful.

I recently visited Gifu Prefecture and the town of Yaotsu, where the residents built the Memorial Hall and the Hill of Humanity Park to honor Chiune Sugihara.. In the Gifu Prefecture, they have preserved an original document, a passport bearing a Curaçao visa together with a Sugihara visa. which was donated by a survivor named Sylvia Smoller and a replica is exhibited in this Hall. Nearby in Jindounooka Park, the name which means “Hill of Humanity,” a bust of Chiune Sugihara is displayed.

The definition of a “hero” — someone who is admired or idealized for his courage and achievements and sacrifices his career, future, family, and possibly one’s life — is synonymous with Chiune Sugihara. For Sugihara, it would be wrong to willfully ignore the plight of the refugees in the interest of protecting himself or his family even at a cost of his own safety that was confronted by his sense of a moral obligation. To refuse the refugees signed visas would, in effect, be the same as offering them signed death certificates. He decided between saving his loved ones and saving hundreds of strangers, Chiune Sugihara chose the latter and his actions saved thousands of Jewish refugees…

Sugihara’s fascinating and incredible life story all started in March 1939 – as Europe stood on the brink of World War II – Sugihara was appointed to open a Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania and he had barely settled down into his new post when the German army invaded Poland, with a wave of 15,000 Jewish refugees streamed into Lithuania, bringing terrifying stories of German atrocities. Caught between the Nazis and the Soviets, they were desperately seeking ways to emigrate; the Soviets only allowed peoples to pass through Russia if they had a transit visa, issued by Japan, so obtaining a Japanese visa became a matter of life and death.

When Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, all foreign diplomats were asked to leave Kaunas and the Jewish delegation came with a desperate request: as it had become impossible to obtain immigration visas to anywhere in the world, the only possibility was to go to Curacao – a Dutch colony – that required no entry visas. Japanese transit visas were necessary in order to obtain permission to cross to the Soviet Union, to reach the port of Vladivostock, from which the Jews could sail from. Facing all these women, children, and elderly with pleading eyes made Sugihara feel helpless. He wanted to help, but had no authority to issue visas without permission from the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and wired his government three times requesting to issue these visas, and all three times he was denied.

Confronted by the plight of the refugees that camped outside his house in hope of assistance, Sugihara defied his government’s orders and endangered himself and his family by hand-writing and issuing hundreds of visas to these Jewish refugees. He was guided by the strength of his morality, and issued these transit visas for 29 days, as he sat for endless hours composing them. Hour after hour, day after day, he wrote and signed 300 visas a day all written entirely by hand and by the time he had to leave Kaunas, thousands of Jews received these visas. But even as Sugihara’s train was about to leave the city, he kept writing visas from his open window. When the train began moving, he gave the visa stamp to a refugee to continue the job. “We will never forget you.” Those were the last words he heard from the refugees. As Sugihara yelled out, “Please forgive me. I cannot write anymore. I wish you the best.”

The resident at the port Tsuruga, warmly welcomed the sudden appearance of the large number of Jewish refugees, a wide variety of actions in support were carried out, such as providing food to these refugees and opening public baths just for them. Without such cooperation of the people in Tsuruga, thousands of Jewish refugees could not possibly have been sent safely to their final destination, the last stop on their journey to freedom.

It should be also pointed out that the credit for saving these refugees should also be shared with those who have aided him, that is two other men of conscience: Jan Zwartendijk, acting Dutch consul in Lithuania, and L.P.J. de Decker, Dutch ambassador to Latvia, both of whom took risks at least as great as Sugihara had, as their country had been occupied by Germany since May 1940. Zwartendijk and de Decker acceded to granting of entry visas to Curacao, the Dutch colony in the Caribbean, without taking the necessary steps to get them authorized at the other end. It was a similar scenario on a smaller scale as for Chiune Siguhara.

Being a humble and a modest man, Sugihara never mentioned his wartime deeds to anyone, and the world knew little of him until almost 30 years later, in 1968, when Joshua Nishri, the Economic Attache to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo located him in Tokyo with one of his survivors. The reunion was most significant for Sugihara, since – for all these years – he had not known whether the visas he signed had actually aided any refugees in fleeing Lithuania. His acknowledgement that so many people made it to safety brought tears of joy to Sugihara’s eyes and was overwhelmed with satisfaction and happiness and with no regrets. Even if only one life had been saved, he felt that all of his hardships would have been worth it. As it is quoted in the Talmud “whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”

Despite of all the publicity given to him in Israel and other nations, he remained virtually unknown in his home country. It was only when a large international Jewish delegation attended his funeral , that his own people discovered his great altruistic deeds. In 1985, Sugihara was the only Japanese person to be awarded the “Righteous Among the Nations”, a title by Yad Vashem on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, an honorary title given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. A monument was erected on a hill in Jerusalem, a cedar grove was planted in Sugihara’s name at Yad Vashem, and a park in Jerusalem was named in his honor. A street in Netanya, Israel was named after Sugihara in June 2016, in a ceremony attended by one of Sugihara’s sons, Nobuki. With Sugihara`s visas, as many as 6,000 refugees were able to flee, making their way to Japan, China, and numerous other countries in safety and known as “Sugihara Survivors”. Now he is considered a hero in Japan, and the refugees he saved have more than 40,000 descendants.

When visiting the Gifu Prefecture, Mr. Hiroshi Matsumoto, President of JTB ( Japan Travel Bureau) noted the creation of a route called “ Tourism of Humanity “ that includes the following places : The Chiune Sugihara Memorial Hall dedicated to the virtues of morality and peace and visitors will learn about his life which is dedicated to his memory. Inside the hall there are not only documents and materials about his life and work, but also an exhibit of the Holocaust. English and Hebrew translations of the exhibits are provided for foreign visitors. We can also find a replica of Sugihara’s Lithuanian diplomat office, where he issued the ‘Visas for Life’. The Chiune Sugihara Memoriale Hall and the Hill of Humanity Park was built to honor his achievements and preserve his memory for future generations.

The Port of Humanity Museum in Tsuruga features panels and videos that present the history of Tsuruga Port. The Museum displays articles, photos, of some 6,000 Jewish refugees who fled from Nazi Germany in 1940 carrying “visas for survival” issued by Chiune Sugihara. There are also many heartwarming stories about interactions they had with local residents.

As the governor of Gifu prefecture, Mr. Hajime Furuta explained, “in the last few years, the region has seen an increase of foreign tourists, especially those interested in learning about Chiune Sugihara. Many tourists also visit and stay at various world heritage towns such as Takayama and Shirakawa-go.”

According to Mr. Ken Takashima, Town Promotion Office, Yaotsu Town there are ” over 15,000 Israeli and Jewish tourists from all over the world visiting the Gifu area and in particular “the Sugihara memorial places”. It was also noted by Mr. Hiroshi Matsumodo, President of JTB – (Japan Travel Bureau) that “last year the Gifu Prefecture and JTB formed an agreement in working together not only to honor Sugihara but to share his legacy to the rest of the world and to expand our effort to increase tourism in the Gifu prefecture for the Chiune Siguhara route “ Tourism of Humanity”. A part of this effort, they have opened an information centers in New York City and Los Angeles.

To conclude, Sugihara wrote in his 1983 memoir ” To be perfectly honest, I am convinced to this day that I took that path of action faithfully, putting my job on the line, without fear or trepidation in my heart.” And perhaps the following words were the most eloquent on his contribution to humanity: “I took it upon myself to save (the refugees). If I was to be punished for this, there was nothing I could do about it. It was my personal conviction to do it as a human being. Now, Gifu officials are confident and pursuing the registration of UNESCO Memory of the World for the materials and documents related the vast number of visas he had issued. Certainly, his actions should not just be left as records, but preserved as memory and to perpetuate his legacy. Hopefully the story of this Japan’s admirable diplomat will reach the corners of the world. (New York Jewish Travel Guide & New York Jewish Guide)

For more information, visit:

To plan a trip to Japan, contact the GIFU PREFECTURAL GOVERNMENT or log on to: https://www.kankou-gifu.jp/

By: Meyer Harroch

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The 75th Golden Globes held its annual celebrity schmoozefest on January 7, 2018 with the show starting at 8:00 PM.  This normally lighthearted show ushers in the beginning of the unbearable Hollywood Awards season where pretty looking people pontificate to the public.  This night has taken a turn for the worst the past two years with Meryl Streep delivering an ugly tirade against Donald Trump last year.

Streep who referred to predator Weinstein as “God” at the 2012 Golden Globes continues to feign ignorance as to his sordid past as she indignantly calls on Ivanka and Melania Trump to publicly denounce harassment.  This year’s nominees and presenters chose to scapegoat the monstrous men of Hollywood.  Emceed by Seth Myers who opened his monologue by addressing “the elephant not in the room”, namely Harvey Weinstein, the self congratulatory crowd included nearly every celebrity donning black to show solidarity with the “Me Too” anti-sexual harassment movement.  Another theme of the night was “Time’s Up” where we were lectured to by Barbara Streisand, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, and Nicole Kidman on the importance of standing up against harassment.

Ashley Judd, one of the first who spoke publicly on the record against Harvey Weinstein, sat in the front row with a dumbfounded smile accompanied by fellow Weinstein victim Selma Hayek.  I mistakenly assumed the actresses would appear in somber toned-down ensembles reflecting the seriousness of the movement; however, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant Hollywood stars chose downright slutty attire defeating the solemnity of the occasion.  Catherine Zeta-Jones looked like a stripper in her low cut sheer gown and was especially inappropriate when standing near 101-year-old legend Kirk Douglas who received a well deserved standing ovation.  Born, Issur Danielovitch, Kirk grew up in a town called Amsterdam, NY; the son of Yiddish-speaking Russian immigrants.  Kirk who embraced his Judaism after being injured in a helicopter crash in 1991 remains a committed Jew. The absence of son Michael for his father’s big night was a question undoubtedly on the audience’s mind. Catherine grabbed the microphone during the speech honoring Kirk and barely let poor Kirk, the victim of a debilitating stroke, utter a word.

Zeta-Jones was in good company with her provocative attire with celebrities Sharon Stone, Emilia Clarke, Kate Hudson, Margot Robbie, Eva Longoria and Natalie Portman choosing to keep up the tradition of showing their “Golden Globes” on this annual occasion. Wearing clothing more suitable for a burlesque show seems to defeat the purpose of lobbying against the objectification of women.  In their defense Stone, and Hudson seemed to have invested in some new implants and were “milking” the occasion.

Nonetheless, the hypocrisy of self righteous Hollywood is one of the reasons Donald Trump is currently our President; thankfully, there was little overt Trump bashing this evening.   Permeating the evening was a disturbing insincerity as we listened to the complaints of women who take home $20 million paychecks-why were they so angry.  What justification did these privileged ladies have for the major chip on their shoulder.  I find it difficult to feel sorry for women who complain of wage disparity when their paychecks are obscene; relative to the rest of the population.  Why were Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman tearful-was there something missing in their near perfect lives.  The men in the audience seemed almost embarrassed to attend with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg clutching their wives as if to say hey, “we are the good guys.”

Anybody with even a hint of controversy was shunned from the occasion with usual attendees Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and George Clooney, noticeably absent.  Oprah Winfrey, who received the Cecil B. DeMille award gave the most sanctimonious speech of the evening reminiscent of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” oration.  Her preachy speech had her declaring, “I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon… because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight.”  Does Oprah really believe that Hollywood is somehow magically going to cure the ills of civilization when it is the industry that perpetuates the stereotype that a size 2 figure and a wrinkle free face are the hallmarks of true beauty?

An industry that continually promotes promiscuity and loose sexual mores is hardly one that should be applauded for elevating women.  Oprah’s lengthy speech was more appropriate for a Joel Osteen revival meeting than a perfunctory Hollywood Awards show.  The enraptured audience appeared foolishly stupified by Oprah’s hyperbolic words; I was waiting for them to shout out “you go girl.”

With so much attention focused on victims of sexual assault I almost forgot it was an awards show.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my excitement when “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, an Amazon show, won two Globes including Best TV Comedy.  This ode to Jewish-American culture has proven to be a breakout hit and will hopefully spawn the creation of more Jewish related programming.  Another welcome surprise was the appearance of superstar Jewess Barbara Streisand whose dour demeanor was paradigmatic of the gloomy show.  Yet there were some highlights including those in Keith Urban’s hair who hands down wins for best Farrah Fawcett hairdo and golden spray tan of the evening.  And why not, it’s about time men get a fair chance to shine in the beauty arena. Isn’t Hollywood all about equality?

The post 75th Golden Globe Awards Stuns with Self Righteous Indictment of Hollywood Power Players appeared first on Jewish Voice.

I am glad so many women are speaking out—and I hope that this leads to some enduring changes; I would be delighted if this moment becomes a movement which leads to legislation that is both funded and enforced. Good faith and hard-won victories such as The Violence Against Women Act and the William Wilberforce Act Against Human Trafficking were passed, under-funded and therefore, could not fulfill their missions.

I am glad that women-workers-as-prey are each publicly confirming the details of their working lives—but I worry about our blurring all distinctions. An unwanted and forcible kiss is not legally the same as being forcibly touched, sexually assaulted. or kidnapped, beaten, and gang-raped.

The New York State Penal Law distinguishes between Sexual misconduct, Forcible touching, Sexual abuse, Aggravated Sexual Abuse, Rape, Criminal Sexual Act, Facilitated Sex Offense with a Controlled Substance, and Predatory Sexual Assault. Each violation is described differently and is subject to different penalties. We must remain aware of these distinctions.

However, I am concerned about something that is not even part of this Penal Law. Can we reduce to a single penalty the reality of an ongoing sexually hostile and coercive work environment, one filled with leers, sexualized comments, demeaning pats, humiliating exposures to pornography, street corner-like wolf calls and low whistles, repeated discussions of how women “look,” non-stop invitations to go out drinking, to a strip club—or to a hotel ? What do we call having to endure a brothel-like atmosphere at work?

I also worry when a mere accusation is equivalent to a conviction. Most entertainers and Talking Heads are employees at will and, as such, are not entitled to due process. They can be hired and fired and will. Those employees with union protection are entitled to inside hearings which may take years and in which the woman who has made the allegation will be fired, or eventually paid off with a pittance. This, too, is worrisome.

I am glad that Hollywood celebrities have crafted a very good ad and launched a fund for lawsuits about on-the-job sexual harassment and abuse. Yet, however noble this statement may be, I wonder whether such “virtue signaling” will be able to change the working conditions of farm and factory workers? More important, how will we be able to monitor and intervene in the daily work lives of female agricultural workers, waitresses, secretaries, housekeepers, bar tenders, miners, students, soldiers and prostituted women?

Yes, I am concerned with prostituted women who are paid to be treated with contempt: groped, grabbed, cursed, slapped, beaten, and sexually assaulted. I now wonder whether their working lives will become harder, harsher, if powerful men lose their sexual perks in the office and have to pay to treat women badly.

Still, I am glad the #MeToo Moment is happening. One hopes that women will be less afraid of exposing work-related sexual harassment and rape. But will they? Will lawyers agree to represent these women? Will juries find the perpetrators guilty when they really are?

Will men in positions of power decide not to hire women in order to avoid such trouble?

After fifty years of Second Wave feminism, are most young women still unable to hold their own against sexual harassment (not rape) on the job? If so, why? Are young heterosexual women still confused about their rights? Do they still believe that powerful men will protect them, that male sexual interest is a compliment, that their youthful sexual allure is a form of power that they may exercise without harmful consequences?

Finally, and perhaps most important: Will women who have traditionally covered up the sexual abuse of other women on the job—change their behavior?

We shall see.

By: Phyllis Chesler

Phyllis Chesler is the author of 17 books including the landmark feminist classic Women and Madness (1972), Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, (2002) and An American Bride in Kabul (2013). Her forthcoming work is titled A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating A Movement With Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women.

The post My Questions About the #MeToo Moment appeared first on Jewish Voice.

This is a story about Sol Setton. He is a 24-year-old community member who was and in some cases, still is, a contributing committee member of the The Sephardic Food Fund, Leaders in Training, SBH Young Adults, The Stella Liniado Foundation, and The Center. He is also a young man who struggled with his weight for many years until he changed his lifestyle.

Sol had to be at class early, but the room was pitch black- his dorm mates in his Jerusalem apartment were still asleep. He reached for his pile of clothes. Pulled up. Pulled over. Zipped. Buttoned and walked out.

Upon his return, his roommate Dan stood at the door asking why Sol was wearing his pants. Sol was baffled. With a 40” waist there wasn’t a chance he’d be wearing Dan’s size 32” trousers. But he was wrong. He was indeed standing there in his roommate’s pants! He couldn’t believe he’d gone down a full size in such a short period of time. And that’s when he decided to make a change.

Sol went to Israel after graduating high school. Wanting shed the image of being “the big kid,” he stopped eating. His mom Audrey would call from New York and tell him to eat, but there he was on his own, able to do what he wanted, and what he wanted was to be thinner. Thus, he began starving to achieve his goal.

This was not a new story. His weight had fluctuated all his life. For example, before his bar mitzvah he was 50 pounds too heavy. He lost the weight in time for the big day only to gain the full amount back when the celebrations were done.

As a youth, Sol would eat a full pizza pie in one sitting and never just one dessert. His mom had to stop buying the small snack bags for the family, because he’d eat 15 consecutively. Audrey constantly begged her son to curb his diet, but her efforts were futile.

In one of many pictures Sol keeps on his phone to remind him of his “fat years,” flesh spills over swimming trunks while his handsome facial features are buried in cheeks that resemble plush pillows. It is this image he decided to leave behind that day in Israel as he stood wearing clothing that was not his own. He wanted to neither binge nor starve. Instead, he desired a healthier lifestyle that included an exercise regimen. On a date he set in his calendar, he headed down three flights to what he describes as “the dungeon gym” in his Jerusalem apartment building and began lifting rusty weights.

Six years later, Sol, now 24, wakes at 5:00am and gets to the Center gym at 5:45 where he stretches, lifts, grunts, and hollers during his hour and fifteen-minute workout. There he sees fellow ironman Joe Benun. They begin with a yell and a nod that acknowledges each other’s desire to be left alone–in the zone. During Sol’s sessions, he listens to motivational speakers like Eric Thomas and Tony Robbins. He says, “I do it to stay motivated. They talk about the ‘why’ in life.”

Another person who motivates and inspires Sol is David Jolovitz, the director of health and wellness at the Center. “After my year in Israel I went to the Center and David took me under his wing. He worked with me for an hour every day for eight months. Then, he encouraged me to train others – working four hours a night. At this point, I know everyone in the gym. They call me Papi and ask me questions. Along with my answers, I say, ‘These are the words of David Jolovitz.’ He taught me everything I know.”

David says, “Sol works his body hard. He swims, plays basketball and football, does yoga, and runs. Once very overweight, Sol has leveraged a healthy lifestyle to accomplish incredible feats, including the NYC Marathon, his first, this past fall.”

Sol does Spartans, Tough Mudders, triathalons, and NYC marathons. He says, “I drive to Boston, Virginia, Pittsburg, and have friends that do it with me–all Center guys. I’m about to do my tenth Tough Mudders race and am going to receive a headband. I’m getting crowned.”

Another interesting characteristic about Sol is what he eats and when he eats it. Every day, after he wipes the last morning sweat from his brow and heads home at 7:30am, he is greeted by his mom preparing his breakfast: six chicken burgers or a few steaks plus broccoli and eggs. “There’s always four eggs with my chicken or steaks for breakfast, no matter what.” He declares. “And it’s all my mom. She’s unbelievable. She gets the credit. She gets up at 6:30am and does all of this for me.” Along with tons of vegetables, variations of this menu are repeated for lunch and dinner. “I always get comments, ‘You eat steak for breakfast?’ I call it Breakfast for Champions and share my meals on Snapchat.”

“I love to guide people.” Says Sol. “I just recently began to train my brother, who’s known in the gym as Mini Papi. He’s 16. I like to encourage him and others to get fit. I tell them to just start. It’s about creating a new lifestyle. Yeah, I say like Nike, ‘just do it.’”

Renée Beyda is a freelance writer, artist, mother and community member living in Brooklyn, NY.

By Renée Beyda

The post Backyard Stories: Sol Setton Serves as Community Inspiration appeared first on Jewish Voice.

2017 was an interesting year to say the least, with many highlights and surprises.

A New York businessman and real estate tycoon with no political experience became the president of the United States would probably be the biggest shocker. Then the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, while New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio joined 350 other U.S. mayors in adopting the agreement for their own cities. In the Big Apple, strides were made towards increasing affordable housing, new parks and long-in-the-making megaprojects debuted.

Now as 2018 begins, there are several things that are supposed to happen in the city in the next 12-months that we can look forward to. Here are 10 big things to look forward to, if you are a New Yorker:

1. Minimum wage will go up to $15 per hour in New York State by the end of the year. This is all thanks to the legislation Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed through in 2016. According to Curbed, “That puts New York in league with cities like Seattle and Los Angeles, which have passed similar legislation in recent years. The plan isn’t without its issues; the $15 figure is only for companies with more than 11 employees, and it won’t go into effect in the rest of New York state for some time, if at all. But for New York City—where a 2015 study found that most housing was completely out of reach for someone making the then-minimum wage of $8.75—it’s a welcome, and necessary, change.”

2. New Yorkers will have more access to paid family leave. Another Governor Cuomo pushed initiative will make it easier for someone in the state to take paid leave after a major life event occurs, like severe illness or the birth of a child. Cuomo signed legislation that will ensure New Yorkers will maintain their job, benefits and even get paid while on leave.

3. Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is officially car-free. Last summer, a pilot program gave pedestrians back Prospect Park, and the program was so popular that as of this month it was made permanently off-limits to cars.
4. This year New York City will see an large increase in parkland. Curbed reports, “In Brooklyn alone, several high-profile parks will debut: Domino Park, designed by James Corner Field Operations, will bring six acres of parkland and a waterfront esplanade to the Williamsburg megaproject. At Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3—notable for its huge lawn and bevy of kid-friendly activities—is also on track to open this year, as is a smaller esplanade at the base of Greenpoint’s rising 40-story skyscraper.”

5. The success of the NYC Ferry were expand its routes to the Bronx. The most recent and by far most beautiful way to commute in the city will soon be accessible to even more New Yorkers. New routes will open in 2018 that will have service points on the Lower East Side and in the Soundview area of the Bronx.

6. Whether this one is good or bad, it would definitely be important: Congestion pricing may finally become a reality. Curbed reports, “Many have tried—and failed—to get congestion pricing to stick in New York City, but 2018 might just be its year now that Governor Cuomo has finally embraced the idea. The specifics of Cuomo’s plan are still TBD, but he could take inspiration from one put forth by Move NY, which would implement tolls on the East River bridges, levy surcharges for vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street, and make ride-hailing services pay an additional fee for traveling in those areas. Congestion pricing still has its critics, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, who called it ‘inconceivable’ earlier this year. But proponents claim that these surcharges could generate as much as $1 billion per year, which could then go right back into the city’s crumbling transit system—and there’s no arguing how necessary that is.”
7. The TWA Flight Center will finally reopen with restoration to its former glory. Eero Saarinen’s midcentury masterpiece will have been shut off from the public for over 15 years, by the time the TWA Hotel opens at the end of 2018. According to Curbed, “The hotel’s 505 new rooms will be contained in two low-slung buildings situated behind Saarinen’s headhouse, but the swooping concrete structure itself will be open to all—and with restaurants, bars, and even a museum for Jet Age fanatics, there’ll be plenty of reasons to visit beyond gawking at one of New York’s most spectacular modernist buildings.”
8. The first parts of Hudson Yards will open to the public. After years of hype, New Yorkers will finally have a peek inside this highly anticipated megaproject. By the end of 2018, some of the most popular components will open, including a Spanish food hall from Jose Andres, dozens of other buzzy restaurants, and its high-end shopping center.
9. The city will continue to increase the miles of protected bike lanes on busy thoroughfares. In 2017, an incredible 25 miles of bike lanes were added throughout the city , and 2018 will continue to see more. According to Curbed, “Ahead of the L train shutdown, the DOT will add a new two-way lane on Delancey Street, protected by Jersey barriers, that connects to the already heavily-trafficked Williamsburg Bridge. In Brooklyn, a similar protected path will be implemented on Fourth Avenue between Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, in advance of an extension all the way up to 8th Street. And that’s just the beginning.”
10. With all the woes New Yorkers have experienced lately with the city’s subway system, this year commuters will actually know when their trains will arrive. The MTA has installed countdown clocks in most subway stations, and the final ones will be added this year to the 7-line and the Franklin Avenue shuttle. 

By: George Katzenstein

The post 10 Things to Look Forward to in New York During 2018 appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Including the surprising origins of the Maxwell House Haggadah

Coffee has its origins over a thousand years ago in Africa. Through the centuries, Jews have played key roles in shaping this beverage and the way we drink it. Here are eight little-known facts about Jews and coffee.

Ethiopian Origins

For centuries, coffee leaves and berries were chewed in Ethiopia, in addition to brewing coffee from the roasted beans. According to Ethiopian lore, the stimulant power of coffee was discovered by people who observed wild goats eating the leaves of coffee trees and then prancing about with renewed energy after ingesting caffeine.

The Jewish population of Ethiopia traditionally embraced the national drink, and the “buna” Ethiopian coffee ceremony that arose there: with great ceremony, the woman of the household would light incense, brew strong coffee, then pass out the fragrant cups to family and friends to sit enjoy coffee, accompanied by peanuts or cooked barley. In recent years, as Ethiopian Jews have relocated to Israel, Ethiopian-style coffee has found new fans in the Jewish state.

Thousand Year Old Drink

The first people to roast and brew coffee beans into a drink were probably Sufi Muslims in Yemen, just across the Gulf of Aden from Ethiopia. There, in about the year 1000 CE, it became a popular drink, and quickly gained a following among Yemenite Jews as well as Muslims.

Historian Elliott Horowitz has documented that devout Jews appreciated the caffeine in the new drink’s stimulating quality, allowing scholars to stay up at night in order to study Torah. Early drinkers faced a range of questions, whether the new drink should be considered a food or a medicine, and what blessing should be made over the bean-infused drink. (It was determined that coffee is considered a drink, not a medicine, and the shehakol blessing is made over coffee.)

From Yemen, the craze for coffee spread north into the Ottoman Empire after the Ottomans occupied Yemen in 1536. Coffee houses first started in Constantinople; by the mid-1500s, the city boasted many such establishments, drawing men (only men; women drank coffee at home) from far and wide. Coffee houses soon spread to other Middle Eastern cities including Cairo, Damascus and Mecca. Jews, Christians, and Muslim men all imbibed, though there were differences in their coffee styles. According to food historian Gil Marks, Middle Eastern Jews typically added sugar to their coffees, while Arabs preferred their coffee sans sweeteners.

In 1553, the Cairo-based Rabbi David ibn Abi Zimra answered a number of coffee-related inquiries from Cairo’s Jews and encouraged them to drink coffee in their homes, instead of patronizing cafes. Jewish cookery writer Claudia Roden, who grew up in Cairo, remembers when she was growing up coffee “was served at every possible occasion”. A popular Judeo-Spanish exclamation used to be “caves de alegria!”, literally “coffee of joy!”

Smuggling Coffee Beans

Coffee became a highly prized treasure for the Ottomans. They would ship coffee from Yemen to Suez, then transport it by camel to Alexandria. From there, French and Venetian traders supplied the Middle East and Europe; many of these traders, particularly those from Venice, were Jewish. So profitable was coffee as a commodity that the Ottomans forbade anyone from exporting coffee trees or viable seeds. The only coffee seeds they allowed out of Yemen had to be partially cooked, preventing them from being grown elsewhere.

In the 1600s, smugglers managed to take un-cooked coffee seeds out of Yemen, growing them in India. In 1616, an intrepid Dutch explorer managed to smuggle a whole coffee tree out of Aden and transport it to Holland. Soon, coffee was being grown in a number of Dutch colonies, including Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, Timor and Bali. For years, the Netherlands controlled the international coffee market. Jewish merchants, who were already familiar with the coffee trade, began to sell coffee directly to the public in coffee houses: a new invention by Jews in Europe.

Jewish Coffee Houses

As coffee drinking reached Europe, it was Jewish merchants who often brought the beverage to new cities. The first coffee house in Europe was opened in 1632 in Livorno, Italy, by a Jewish merchant. England’s first coffee house was the Angel Inn in Oxford, opened in 1650 by an immigrant from Lebanon who was known as “Jacob the Jew”. Four years later, a Jew named Cirques Jobson opened a second Oxford coffee house, the Queen’s Lane Coffee House, the oldest still-running coffee house anywhere in the world. Jews, along with Armenian, Turkish and Greek traders, set up coffee houses in France, Holland, and elsewhere in Europe.

Jews faced some anti-Semitic laws to limit their reach in the coffee world. The Italian city of Verona forbade Jews from serving coffee to women. In Germany, according to the Israeli historian Robert Liberles, some authorities tried to ban the coffee trade outright, though eventually Germany became home to a robust cafe culture, much of it created by Jews.

The All-American Drink

The early American colonists drank tea like their English counterparts, until the Boston Tea Party in 1773 made hot beverages a political issue. Coffee became embraced as the patriotic American drink, and coffee houses flourished in American cities, becoming meeting places where people from all walks of life could discuss politics and other ideas.

Jewish coffee merchants helped fuel the demand for coffee throughout the following century and beyond. “Jews found that trading and peddling were commercial areas open to them” in the new United States, observes Donald Schoenholt, President of the New York based Gillies Coffee Company, the oldest coffee company in the US. “So they plied their trade in seaport cities dealing in coffee as a commodity.” Today, some of America’s most recognizable coffee and cafe brands, including Chock Full O Nuts and Starbucks, were founded by Jews.

Cafe Culture

In the 1800s, coffee houses became wildly popular in central European cities such as Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw and Budapest. Many of the patrons were Jews, and the continent’s Jewish intelligentsia became identified with European “cafe culture”. The Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig, described cafes in his native Vienna as “a sort of democratic club, open to everyone for the price of a cheap cup of coffee, where every guest can sit for hours with this little offering, to talk, to write, play cards, receive post, and above all consume an unlimited number of newspapers and journals”.

In Berlin, Yiddish-speaking Jews from Poland settled in a run-down district in the northeast of the city, and often met in the Romanisches Cafe, which the regulars nicknamed the “Rachmones (Pity) Cafe” for its hard-up furnishings and clientele. In the book “Yiddish in Weimar Berlin”, editors Genndy Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov provide a list of regulars that read like a who’s-who of Yiddish literature, and the jokes they told in the storied cafe. The great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer reportedly joked that if the storied Yiddish writer Sholem Asch ever “wrote in a grammatically correct Yiddish, his artistic breath would evaporate”; the writer Hersh Dovid Nomberg claimed that the tobacco-laden air of the cafe was ideal for his tuberculosis, because “not a single” germ could possibly survive in it.

Cookery writer Claudia Roden notes that it “was Jewish émigrés who transported the model of the Viennese coffeehouse all over the world, with the bentwood chairs and marble tables, rococo moldings, great mirrors and chandeliers, old prints and posters, as well as the black-and-white waitress’s uniform and the doughnuts and pastries.” While she was researching coffee houses in Israel, Ms. Roden met the owner of one chain of coffee shops who said he couldn’t use modern decor in his coffee houses, so ingrained was the idea of ornate European decor in association with coffee in the Jewish psyche.

Maxwell House, Certified Kosher

As coffee became popular among American Jews, some consumers were under the mistaken impression that the drink was derived from a bean, not a berry, of the coffee tree. (If coffee trees produced beans, any drink derived from them would be kitniot and off-limits on Passover; fortunately , this is not the case, and coffee is derived from berries, which are kosher for Passover.)

In 1923, Maxwell House coffee hired the head of one of New York’s first Jewish advertising agencies, Joseph Jacobs, to help spread the word that coffee was acceptable on Passover. Mr. Jacobs consulted with an Orthodox rabbi, then helped his client create what is now most enduring advertising campaign in history: Maxwell House began printing and distributing Passover Haggadahs, free with a purchase of kosher-for-Passover Maxwell House coffee. Today, over 80 years since the first Maxwell House Haggadah, the company has given away over 50 million Haggadahs.

Coffee, Israel-Style

Today, one of the most coffee-obsessed countries is Israel. According to one survey, the average Israeli drinks over 100 liters of coffee per year, roughly double the average consumption in America. Coffee in Israel tends to be a home-grown affair, with the Jewish state boasting its own unique, rich coffee culture. Although the international coffee giant Starbucks tried to expand in the country, Israelis didn’t abandon their own local cafes, and in 2003 Starbucks closed its six Israeli branches.

One popular type of coffee in Israel is strong Turkish coffee. Sometimes called “botz”, or mud, for its robust, hearty character, Turkish coffee is served black, in small cups, often heavily sweetened with sugar. Another distinctive Israeli coffee is “cafe hafuch”, or upside down coffee: this refers to the fact that in this cappuccino-like drink, hot espresso is poured into steamed milk (not the other way round, as in cappuccino). Another popular Israeli coffee drink is iced coffee; in Israel, this often means a sweet coffee-infused cup of crushed ice. “Cafe kar”, literally cold coffee in Hebrew, is a refreshing mixture of coffee, ice and milk.

By: Yvette Alt Miller
(Aish.com)

The post Jews and Coffee: 8 Little-Known Facts appeared first on Jewish Voice.

The upcoming royal wedding of the world’s most eligible bachelor, Prince Harry, and American actress Meghan Markle has the world royally exited. The couple has received well wishes from exited royal watchers as well as other celebrities and heads of state from around the world–but not everyone receives a personalized note in response, except of course, for Edna Levi, who lives just outside Leeds, England and is a members of the Leeds Jewish community.

The British born Levi, who is in her eighties, sent a congratulatory note expressing her “Mazel Tov” to the newly engaged couple, wanting to feel part of the excitement regarding the royal and highly publicized nuptials. What Ms. Levi did not expect when she checked her mail one day was a letter delivered straight from Buckingham Palace. Surely thousands of well wishers had sent similar notes to the couple, and yet Harry and Megan responded personally to the woman’s letter, leaving her both shocked and elated.

Ms. Levi’s note in part read:

“I’m British born but a member of the Jewish faith and we say Mazel Tov on a happy occasion. This is why I am saying it to you and wishing you well and good health.”

The prince and his American fiancée were so touched by the note they wrote back how “thoughtful” and “greatly appreciated” Ms. Levi’s words were.

“I’ve never written to the royal family before but I like Prince Harry because of the way he looks after charities, he’s a nice, normal young man,” said Ms. Levi, who was beyond shocked that she received such a heartfelt and personal reply.

Markle, 36, and Prince Harry, 33, are to marry May 18th at Windsor Castle in what is to be a televised occasion. The couple had received so much publicity during their courtship that Kensington Palace issued a letter warning the press to leave Ms. Meghan alone and also called out certain publications for their stories on the couple featuring sexist and racial undertones. Ms. Markle, who left her TV show Suits prior to the engagement, was previously married to Trevor Engelson, a Jewish film producer.

By Julie L. Sagoskin

The post Jewish Woman in UK Gets Special Note from Prince Harry & Meghan Markle appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Michael Douglas, the Oscar winning actor and producer, and famed son of Kirk Douglas, announced before it became common knowledge, that pending allegations that he masturbated in front on an aspiring actress and then had her blackballed from Hollywood, were false.

Douglas, who received his Bachelor Degree in Drama at the University of California and won a series of Emmy nominations for his role in the ABC drama the Streets of San Francisco, has had an incredible career in film which began when he produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Jack Nicholson. Douglas has starred in numerous films in both serious and comical nature with the height of his acting career taking place during the 1980s in such films as Romancing the Stone (1984) and Wall Street (1988).

Douglas related to Deadline Hollywood that he had been informed that the Hollywood Reporter was set to publish as story detailing supposed misdeeds that had taken place during the heyday of his acting career during the 1980s. The unidentified woman had worked for the actor’s production company in New York City, the Douglas related.

The allegations come at a time during of increased sensitivity in both the dramatic arts, the political world and in the news business around sexual harassment claims by high powered players such as Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and other prominent figures.

Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones both support the #MeToo movement which centers around women who have been sexually assaulted. At the recent Golden Globes awards, actresses wore black in solidarity with those who had fallen prey to sexual misconduct by people like Weinstein and even well-respected actors like Dustin Hoffman, et. al.

“I don’t know where to begin,” the 73-year-old actor said in disbelief. “This is a complete lie, fabrication, not truth to it whatsoever,” Douglas told Deadline.

“I felf the need to get ahead of this,” Douglas related, as it “pertains to me but I’m also getting a sense of how it reflects in our culture, and what is going on today.”

While Douglas admitted that he often used profanities during his professional relationships, he had never directed any foul language in her presence adding that the woman worked in development and because “we didn’t have a good development record . . . I just moved on. I never blackballed her.”

Zeta-Jones defended her husband saying the they were “seeing changes that have taken many years t even be talked about. Jones and Douglas have been married for 17 years and their son, back in 2014, had his Bar Mitzvah in Israel.

By: Andrew Schiff

The post Michael Douglas Denies Charges of Sexual Misconduct in Hollywood Reporter Story appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Days after Gal Gadot wore a dress by Lebanese designer Elie Saab at the National Board of Review Awards Gala in New York, controversy over her choice seems not to die down.

In yet another chapter of the Israeli actress’ tormented relationship with the Lebanese public, Elie Saab’s Instagram followers attacked the designer for posting a picture of the Israeli actress wearing his dress.

In the post, Saab bragged about the Israeli star’s choice of clothes and called her “flawless”. But shortly afterwards, he was forced to remove the post after Lebanese Instagram users called him a “traitor”.

Gal Gadot had already sparked debate in Lebanon when her movie “Wonder Woman” was distributed last year. Hours before the first screenings in Beirut the movie was censored by the Interior Ministry, following a campaign against what was called “an Israeli soldier’s film”.

Three years before, during the Israeli Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Gal Gadot had posted a picture of her and her daughter praying for the Israeli youth involved in the offensive. Like most Israelis, the actress had served in the army, specializing in combat training.

“I am sending my love and prayers to my fellow Israeli citizens,” she wrote. “Especially to all the boys and girls who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas, who are hiding like cowards behind women and children…We shall overcome!!! Shabbat Shalom! #weareright #freegazafromhamas #stopterror #coexistance #loveidf”

The Israeli star has not publically addressed the Lebanese boycott of her movie since it hit screens. Surprisingly, a sequel she also starred in, Justice League, was cleared for screening in the country.

According to a report on Ynet News, this was not the first time Gadot has faced backlash from Americans of Arab descent, not merely for being an Israeli but also for having served in the IDF.

“I love and respect Elie Saab, but is he really pleased when an Israeli actress wears his dress?” tweeted Lebanese journalist Heba Bitar.

“I don’t have a problem with her wearing @ElieSaabWorld but I do have a problem with posting her picture from Elie Saab’s account and bragging about an ex-Israeli soldier wearing his dress!” tweeted one critic. “Don’t ruin one the few things that make us proud Lebanese people!”

Israel and Lebanon are officially at war with each other, even though the last open confrontation between the Israeli Defense Forces and the arch-enemy militia Hezbollah happened in summer 2006. Since 2011, with the beginning of the civil war in Syria, Lebanon’s Shiia militia Hezbollah has been involved in operations to support President Bashar Assad against rebel forces in Syria.

Edited by: JV Staff
(i24 News & Ynet)

The post Gal Gadot Sparks Controversy; Wears Dress by Lebanese Designer appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Recent research on the impact of smartphones on children and how we can realistically protect them

On January 6, two of Apple’s biggest investors published an open letter calling on Apple and other high tech firms to do much more to protect the health of their youngest users. Citing studies showing that smartphones can have grave impacts on kids’ physical and mental well-being, the investors – California State Teachers’ Retirement System and JANA Partners LLC – have opened a major debate, asking tech companies to develop more controls on their products for their youngest users.

What is so bad about kids and smartphones? With more researchers look into the impact of smartphones and other technology on children, here are some recent results, as well as suggestions for what we can do when it comes to protecting kids from smartphone abuse.

Stunting Babies’ Brain Development

The harm that smartphones and other screens do to kids is particularly acute in babies whose brains are still developing. Psychologists call the first three years of a child’s life “the critical period” in brain development because the way that brains grow during these years becomes the permanent base upon which all future learning relies. Receiving information and cues from the real world around them helps babies form neural pathways that make their brains strong and healthy. Stimuli from screens, including tablets and smartphones, get in the way of brains’ normal development, overwhelming their still-developing minds with stimuli.

The damage from too much screen time can be permanent. “The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary – all those abilities are harmed,” warns Dr. Aric Sigman, an associate fellow the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine.

The ability to interact with other people, to empathize and read people’s feelings all have their foundations in babyhood. Spending time interacting with screens instead of human beings can permanently alter our children’s brain structures, making tasks like forming friendships and understanding the world around them much harder.

Harming Teens’ Brain

While older kids don’t experience the same sort of intense brain development as babies, kids’ and adolescents’ brains continue to develop and can be harmed by too much smartphone use.

The problem is that teenagers’ brains are very adaptable. The experience of using a smartphone, switching rapidly between many activities such as texting and using social media, is associated with lower levels of brain matter in teens’ anterior cingulate cortex, the region in our brains that is responsible for emotional processing and decision-making. Less brain matter in this area is associated with higher rates of depression and addiction.

Another part of our brains, the prefrontal cortex, is necessary for interpreting emotions and for focusing on tasks, and is also harmed by smartphone use. This part of our brains doesn’t fully develop until people’s mid-20s, and excessive smartphone use can get in the way of that. “During our teenage years,” explains Paul Atchley, a psychology professor at the University of Kansas, ”it’s important to train that prefrontal cortex not to be easily distracted. What we’re seeing in our work is that young people are constantly distracted, and also less sensitive to the emotions of others.”

Harder to Make Friends:

Given the changes smartphones make to developing brain’s ability to empathize with others, it’s no surprise that smartphone use is associated with difficulty in making friends.

For many teens, smartphones can become a crutch in difficult social situations. “When you’re with people you don’t know well or there’s nothing to talk about, phones are out more because it’s awkward,” one Connecticut high school senior explained to researchers.

Yet this “new normal” where smartphones are such a part of social interaction is dangerous, warns Brian Primack, Director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health at the University of Pittsburgh. “There’s strong research linking isolation to depression, and time spent socializing with improved mood and well-being,” Dr. Primack explains. “If smartphones are getting between an adolescent and her ability to engage in and enjoy face-to-face interaction – and some studies suggest that’s happening – that’s a big deal.”

Smartphones and Depression in Kid

Indeed, heavy smartphone use is associated with higher rates of stress and depression in kids. One study conducted by the Center on Media and Child Health at the University of Alberta found that over the past three to five years, as smartphone use has skyrocketed, 90% of teachers report that the number of students with emotional challenges is increased; 86% of teachers report that the number of students with social challenges has gone up as well.

Many teachers blame smartphone use for these jumps. Kids used to go outside during lunch break and engage in physical activity and socialization. “Today, many of them sit all lunch hour and play on their personal devices,” one junior high teacher said.

Between 2010 and 2016, the number of adolescents who experienced major depression grew by 60%, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Suicides have also increased significantly among kids ages 10 to 19 during that time. “These increases are huge – possibly unprecedented,” explains Prof. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. She has found that since 2010, teens who spend more time using smartphones and other technology are more likely to report having mental health problems than teens who spend less time with their devices.

Prof. Twenge surveyed over half a million adolescents across the United States; her findings paint a troubling portrait of a generation both addicted to and harmed by smartphone use. Kids who spend three hours a day or more on smartphones or other devices are over a third more likely to suffer at least one suicide-related symptom such as feeling hopeless or thinking about suicide than kids who limit their smartphone and other device use to two hours a day or less. Among kids who used devices for five or more hours each day, nearly half reported experiencing at least one suicide related outcome.

Even moderate smartphone and other high tech use can harm our kids’ mental health, Prof. Twenge has found. Kids who use social media every day are 13% more likely to have high levels of depressive symptoms than those who don’t. In her research, teens who ditched their smartphones some of the time and who spent the most time interacting face to face seemed to be the healthiest emotionally.

Breaking the Smartphone Addiction

Despite the drawbacks of excessive smartphone use, limiting tech time can be difficult. In fact, many psychologists now view smartphone use as an addiction.

This is partly due to the nature of teenagers’ developing brains. The anterior cingulate cortex, mentioned above in its connection to helping teens develop the characteristic of human empathy, is also a factor in decision-making and addiction. “We know for a fact teens have very underdeveloped impulse control and empathy and judgment compared to adults,” explains Dr. Frances Jensen, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of The Teenage Brain. As kids brains continue to develop, adolescents and teens are more prone to addiction.

Researchers have also found that the speedy interactions teens enjoy on their smartphones floods their brains with neurochemicals like dopamine, which induces a feeling of euphoria. It also can contribute to addiction, as kids learn to rely on the gratification they feel when they use their phones. Once an addiction develops, teens (and others) can experience feelings of anger, depression, fatigue and distraction when they’re not using their phones.

One rehab center near Seattle now offers therapy for smartphone and technology addiction, and has treated children as young as 13. Hilarie Cash, the Center’s founder, has explained that smartphones and other mobile devices can be so stimulating and all-consuming that they “override all those natural instincts that children actually have for movement and exploration and social interaction.”

Strategies for Change

Limiting smartphone and other tech use isn’t easy. In fact, in one recent study, teenagers were given a choice: would they rather break a bone in their bodies, or break their phones? It might not come as a surprise to teens and their parents that fully 46% of teenagers said they’d prefer to break a bone than their smartphone.

Yet change is possible. Here are three suggestions for starting to change: both for teens and their families.

1. Set aside a time every day to go phone free. That’s the advice of New York University Professor Adam Alter who wrote “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.” When the thought of giving up a phone seems too scary, try limiting phone use to certain hours each day: Prof. Alter recommends blocking out a time, such as 5-8pm each day, to go phone-free. This proposition might seem less daunting than a wider phone moratorium.
2. Lead by example. It’s hard to tell your kids to limit their smartphone use if you are glued to your devices. Try setting aside time for the entire family come together, phone-free. That’s the advice of child psychologist Yalda Uhls: specify a set amount of time for your family to interact with no devices in sight. This can help foster the face-to-face interaction and emotional empathy that is lacking from smartphone-based communication.
3. Consider Shabbat as an antidote to too much smartphone use. In my own family, we also struggle with too much technology time. Shabbat is the one day a week when we don’t have to worry about smartphones and other devices. For 25 hours each week we’re completely phone free. The results are amazing: a whole day without distractions, when we’re able to focus on each other and ourselves. While it can seem daunting to go a whole 25 hours without a smartphone, doing so is a welcome weekly respite from the tyranny of technology for us all.

By: Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
(Aish.com)

The post Smartphones and Kids: Harmful Effects and What to Do About It appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Dr. Eshbal Ratson and Prof. Jonathan Ben-Dov of the Department of Bible Studies at the University of Haifa have managed to decipher and restore one of the last two Qumran Scrolls that remain unpublished, out of some 900 scrolls uncovered at the site. The researchers spent over a year painstakingly reassembling more than 60 tiny sections written in a secret code. The reward for their hard work is fresh insight into the unique 364-day calendar used by the members of the Judean Desert sect, including the discovery for the first time of the name given by the sect to the special days marking the transitions between the four seasons.

Most of the Qumran Scrolls, discovered in the 1940s and 1950s, have long since been restored and published. The tiny remaining fragments, some smaller than one square centimeter, that remain undeciphered include some 60 sections written in code on parchment. An earlier researcher who examined the sections claimed that they came from several different scrolls. However, in an article published in the Journal of Biblical Literature based on a study funded by the Israel Science Foundation, Dr. Ratson and Prof. Ben-Dov show that the fragments actually constitute a single scroll. The researchers are now turning their attention to the last remaining scroll that has yet to be deciphered.

Members of the Qumran sect, who referred to themselves as the Yahad (“Together”) community, were a fanatical group that lived a hermetic life in the desert and faced persecution by the dominant establishment of the time. They wrote numerous scrolls, including a small number which were written in code. An important peculiarity for the present discovery is the fact that the sect followed a 364-day calendar. According to the researchers, this calendar was involved in one of the fiercest debates between different groups during the late Second Temple period.

“The lunar calendar, which Judaism follows to this day, requires a large number of human decisions. People must look at the stars and moon and report on their observations, and someone must be empowered to decide on the new month and the application of leap years. By contrast, the 364-day calendar was perfect. Because this number can be divided into four and seven, special occasions always fall on the same day. This avoids the need to decide, for example, what happens when a particular occasion falls on the Sabbath, as often happens in the lunar calendar. The Qumran calendar is unchanging, and it appears to have embodied the beliefs of the members of this community regarding perfection and holiness,” the researchers explain.

As noted, the present scroll details the most important dates in the sect’s calendar. The scroll describes two special occasions not mentioned in the Bible, but which are already known from the Temple Scroll of Qumran: the festivals of New Wine and New Oil. These dates constituted an extension of the festival of Shavuot as we know it today, which celebrates the New Wheat.

According to this calendar, the festival of New Wheat falls 50 days after the first Sabbath following Passover; the festival of New Wine comes 50 days later; and after a further interval of 50 days, the festival of New Oil is celebrated.

Nevertheless, the scroll also provides some surprises. The researchers were aware from the previous scrolls that the members of the sect celebrated the transition between the seasons, adding a special day for each of the four changes of season. Until now, however, the name of these special days has remained unknown. The present scroll reveals that these days were referred to by the word Tekufah. In today’s Hebrew, “Tekufah” translates into the word “period”. “This term is familiar from the later Rabbinical literature and from mosaics dating to the Talmudic period, and we could have assumed that it would also be used with this meaning in the scrolls, but this is the first time it has been revealed,” Dr. Ratson and Prof. Ben-Dov explain.

The present scroll also provides additional information about the customs of the authors of the scrolls. It emerges that the person who wrote the scroll – probably one of the leaders of the sect familiar with the secret code – forgot to mention several special days marked by the community. Accordingly, another scribe was forced to correct the errors, adding the missing dates in the margins between the columns of text. “The scroll is written in code, but its actual content is simple and well-known, and there was no reason to conceal it. This practice is also found in many places outside the Land of Israel, where leaders write in secret code even when discussing universally-known matters, as a reflection of their status. The custom was intended to show that the author was familiar with the code, while others were not. However, this present scroll shows that the author made a number of mistakes,” the researchers not.

“This scroll includes numerous words and expressions that we find later in the Mishna. This shows once again that many of the subjects discussed by the Scribes several centuries later had origins that predated the Second Temple period,” they conclude.

By: TPS Staff

The post University of Haifa Researchers Decipher One of the Last Two Remaining Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Consider this if you would as an open letter to the readers of The Jewish Voice. The time is long due to give your news publication the credit that it merits and the recognition as being among the leading voices of pro-Israel advocacy – and in a way that brings your readers the best in responsible journalism.

Mark Twain was certainly right when he opined, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” His sardonic quip might have had the ring of truth when it was made a century and a half ago, but it is today virtually gospel.

Twain’s witticism echoed the comment made many years before by Thomas Jefferson who suggested that “it is better to be uninformed than misinformed.” Things are much worse today, when we might be forgiven by suggesting that it is better to be the recipient of misinformation than disinformation. How lamentable.

We live in an Orwellian world. A world where the New York Times continues to laughably promote a slogan that it offers “all the news that’s fit to print.” A world where CNN and MSNBC can rightly be accused of mastering the art form once the province of Pravda – where even misinformation took a back seat to disinformation. Amateurs at delivering the news, they are masters at spinning it.

Which brings me to The Jewish Voice, and a long overdue shout out for the publication that you put out every week. I have been closely following the news about Israel for half as long as Israel has been a modern state, and for much of that time, I have witnessed a marked disintegration of support in the media for the only democracy in the Middle East. There is, however, something more insidious and absolutely more troubling, namely the lack of support that Israel has gotten even in the Jewish press. The shift of political currents against Israel is not to be underrated, and the voices against Israel are louder than ever before.

While the support for Israel seems to be waning, the number of publications that stand unafraid to defend the Jewish State seem to be shrinking as well. The Jewish Voice and the outstanding collection of writers and columnists have contributed to making this the best publication available today. The frequent editorial positions taken to defend Israel have also made this the go-to paper of choice.

This much needs to be said as well – the quality of your weekly paper has improved exponentially during the past few years, both in content, the detail and scope of reporting, and even the visual presentation. Finally, The Jewish Voice has become a paper that one looks forward to reading, every week. Based on the consistent editorial position that you present, you deserve the thanks from the pro-Israel community. When judged against the tide of criticism that is directed against Israel, and when compared to the other reading options available, your publication stands tall, and almost without competition. At a time when fewer people are reading newspapers, your stock rightly soars. Kudos.

By: Evan Bloom

The post An Open Letter to the Publisher/Editor/Readership appeared first on Jewish Voice.

The S.S. Killing Squads could not deal with individually murdering so many people. So the Nazis began shipping the Jews off to more “efficient” death camps.

The Jews were lulled into false security. They were told they were going to work camps with better conditions.

A key element of the Final Solution was the railways, which made the mass transports possible.

The transports typically used cattle cars. At times, the floor had a layer of quick lime which burned the feet of the human cargo.

An average transport lasted about four days. There was no water. No food. No toilet. No ventilation. Some boxcars had 150 people stuffed into them. It did not matter if it was summer or winter, boiling hot or freezing cold.

Sometimes the Germans did not have enough cars to make it worthwhile to ship the Jews. So the victims were stuck in a switching yard – “standing room only” – for days on end.

The longest transport, from the Greek island of Corfu, lasted 18 days. When the train got to the camps and the doors were opened, everyone was already dead.

Eyewitness Testimony: Cattle Car Deportations

The Jews are deported to Auschwitz daily, on schedule. They leave from the ghetto embarkation depots, on schedule. Conductors signal, “All aboard.” Brakemen wave lanterns. German and Hungarian guards shoot a few reluctant travelers, club and bayonet a last group of mothers into the compartments. The engineer opens his throttle. And the train is off for Auschwitz, on schedule.

Eighty Jews ride in every compartment. Eichmann [said] the Germans could do better where there were more children. Then they could jam 120 into each train room. But 80 is no reflection on German efficiency.

The 80 Jews must stand all the way to Auschwitz with their hands raised in the air, so as to make room for the maximum of passengers.

There are two buckets in each compartment. One contains water. The other is for use as a toilet, to be shoved by foot, if possible, from user to user.

I wonder here, why the water and toilet buckets? One water bucket, one toilet bucket for 80 despairing men, women and children plastered against each other as in a packing case, and riding to death. Why? One water bucket, one toilet bucket are not enough to relieve the misery of these barely living ones. Jammed together, how can they use any buckets? They must urinate and defecate in their clothes. They must continue to burn with thirst until they arrive at the gas ovens. But the buckets are there.

I look at these two buckets as some curious souvenirs. Of what? I answer hesitantly; of the fact that humanity is hard to stamp out completely. It persists. It sneaks a token of itself into each foul-smelling, Jew-jammed compartment. The two buckets are like the spoor of some wounded thing – a German memory of humanity not quite dead.

from: “Perfidy,” by Ben Hecht, Julian Messner, Inc., New York, 1961 

By: Aish.com Staff
(Aish.com)

The post Cattle Cars Stuffed with Human Cargo Became Rolling Death Wagons appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Lesson 1: The Importance of Holocaust Remembrance – The Responsibility of Memory

The first lesson is the importance of Zachor, of the duty of remembrance itself. For as we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah — defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for genocide — we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews is not a matter of abstract statistics.

For unto each person there is a name — unto each person, there is an identity. Each person is a universe. As our sages tell us: “whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.” Just as whoever has killed a single person, it is as if they have killed an entire universe. And so the abiding imperative — that we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.

Lesson 2: The Danger of State-Sanctioned Incitement to Hatred and Genocide — The Responsibility to Prevent

• The enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the industry of death and the technology of terror, but because of the state-sanctioned ideology of hate. This teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this is where it all began. As the Canadian courts affirmed in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hate legislation, “the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers — it began with words”. These, as the Courts put it, are the chilling facts of history. These are the catastrophic effects of racism.
• As the UN marks the commemoration of the Holocaust, we are witnessing yet again, a state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide, whose epicentre is Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Let there be no mistake about it. Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide prohibited under the Genocide Convention. Yet not one state party to the Genocide Convention has undertaken its mandated legal obligation to hold Ahmadinejad’s Iran to account.

Lesson 3: The Danger of Silence, The Consequences of Indifference — The Responsibility to Protect

• The genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the state-sanctioned culture of hate and industry of death, but because of crimes of indifference, because of conspiracies of silence.
• We have already witnessed an appalling indifference and inaction in our own day which took us down the road to the unspeakable — the genocide in Rwanda — unspeakable because this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew, but we did not act, just as we knew and did not act to stop the genocide by attrition in Darfur.
• Indifference and inaction always mean coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim. Indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself.

Lesson 4: Combating Mass Atrocity and the Culture of Impunity — The Responsibility to Bring War Criminals to Justice

• If the 20th Century — symbolized by the Holocaust — was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice; and so, just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, there must be no base or sanctuary for these enemies of humankind. Yet those indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity – such as President Al-Bashir of Sudan – continue to be welcomed in international fora.

Lesson 5: The Trahison des Clercs — The Responsibility to Talk Truth to Power

The Holocaust was made possible, not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide”, as Robert Lifton put it, but because of the trahison des clercs — the complicity of the elites — physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects, educators, and the like. Indeed, one only has to read Gerhard Muller’s book on “Hitler’s Justice” to appreciate the complicity and criminality of judges and lawyers; or to read Robert-Jan van Pelt’s book on the architecture of Auschwitz, to be appalled by the minute involvement of engineers and architects in the design of death camps, and so on. Holocaust crimes, then, were also the crimes of the Nuremberg elites. As Elie Wiesel put it, “Cold-blooded murder and culture did not exclude each other. If the Holocaust proved anything, it is that a person can both love poems and kill children”.

Lesson 6: Holocaust Remembrance — The Responsibility to Educate

• In acting upon the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, states should commit themselves to implementing the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, which concluded: “We share a commitment to encourage the study of the Holocaust in all its dimensions… a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honor those who stood against it… a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust… a commitment to plant the seeds of a better future amidst the soil of a bitter past… a commitment… to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”

Lesson 7: The Vulnerability of the Powerless — The Protection of the Vulnerable as the Test of a Just Society

The genocide of European Jewry occurred not only because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but also because of the powerlessness of the vulnerable. It is not surprising that the triage of Nazi racial hygiene — the Sterilization Laws, the Nuremberg Race Laws, the Euthanasia Program — targeted those “whose lives were not worth living”; and it is not unrevealing, as Professor Henry Friedlander points out in his work on “The Origins of Genocide”, that the first group targeted for killing were the Jewish disabled — the whole anchored in the science of death, the medicalization of ethnic cleansing, the sanitizing even of the vocabulary of destruction.

And so it is our responsibility as citoyens du monde to give voice to the voiceless, as we seek to empower the powerless — be they the disabled, the poor, the refugee, the elderly, the women victims of violence, the vulnerable child — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

We remember – and we trust – that never again will we be silent or indifferent in the face of evil. May this International Day of Holocaust Remembrance be not only an act of remembrance, but a remembrance to act.

By: Irwin Cotler
(Aish.com)

Irwin Cotler is a member of Parliament and the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. He is Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and has written extensively on the Holocaust, genocide and international humanitarian law.

The post Seven Lessons of the Holocaust appeared first on Jewish Voice.

With the #metoo movement in full effect and alleged victims of sexual misconduct coming out of the woodwork, the old allegations that acclaimed and prolific filmmaker Woody Allen molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992 when she was a child are resurfacing again, The N.Y Times reported.

Farrow recently made her first public appearance on CBS this morning on the issue.

“Why shouldn’t I want to bring him down? Why shouldn’t I be angry? Why shouldn’t I be hurt? Why shouldn’t I feel some sort of outrage that after all these years being ignored and disbelieved and tossed aside?”, Farrow told reporter Gayle King .

Several actors and actress have publically regretted working with Allen, as a result of the Farrow allegations resurfacing.

Timothee Chalaranet, said he does “not want to profit from any work on the film. He starred in the upcoming “Rainy Day in New York”, the L.A Times reported.

French Actress, Marion Cotillard, who starred in the Academy Award winner “Midnight in Paris” said: I would question more if he were to ask me to work with him again. Maybe I would dig more. I’m very ignorant about the story with him, I just see it hurts”

Rachel Brosnahan, star of Woody Allen’s Amazon mini-series “Crisis in Six Scenes” stated “While I can’t take it back, it’s important to me, moving forward, to make decisions that better reflect the things that I value and my worldview”, the L.A Times reported.

Colin Firth who starred in the 2014 film, “Magic in The Moonlight”, stated that he “would never work with him again”. Greta Gerwig, Rebecca Hall and David Kromholtz, all stated similar sentiments of regret in dealing with Woody Allen.

Some stars still do support the director and had good experiences with him. Blake Lively, who starred in 2016’s “Café Society”, described Woody as “empowering to women”. Diane Keaton, who starred in “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan still considers Woody a “friend” and “believes him”, as far as his claims of innocence.

Allen, shortly after Farrow’s TV interview released a statement saying: “Even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time’s up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn’t make it any more true today than it was in the past”.

Writers at the N.Y Times pointed out that Woody’s sister Letty Aronson believes that Kate Winslet shot at an Oscar for the film “Wonder Wheel” was ruined because of Dylan Farrow, bringing the old accusations into the spotlight once more.

By Howard Hecht

The post Is Woody Allen Finished in Hollywood? appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Steve Wynn has resigned from his position as Republican National Committee Finance Chair, following revelations of decades of alleged sexual misconduct against female employees at Wynn Resorts, Politico reported.

Politico reported last Saturday Wynn’s statement following the breaking news of the allegations: “Effective today I am resigning…The unbelievable success we have achieved must continue. The work we are doing to make America a better place is too important to be impaired by this distraction”.

The Wall Street Journal originally reported on Friday that a number of women said they were harassed or assaulted by the casino mogul and finance chair of the Republican National Committee.

One case led to a $7.5 million settlement with a manicurist. The detailed report relies on interviews with dozens of people whom corroborate a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct with female employees.

The victim alleged that Wynn forced her to have sex with him, shortly opening up his flagship casino Wynn, Las Vegas in 2005, the WSJ reported.

After giving Mr. Wynn a manicure he pressured her to take her clothes off and told her to lie on the massage table he kept in his office suite. The manicurist gave this account to several other employees who all remembered the same story.

The incident was referenced, in broad terms, in a lawsuit in which Mr. Wynn’s ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, who is seeking to lift restrictions on the sale of her stock in Wynn Resorts Ltd.

The Wall Street Journal also interviewed many other people who worked with Wynn at the casinos and they all told similar stories of Wynn pressuring women employees to have sex with him.

Mr. Wynn responded to the WSJ’s report with a written statement: “The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous… We find ourselves in a world where people can make allegations, regardless of the truth, and a person is left with the choice of weathering insulting publicity or engaging in multi-year lawsuits. It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation.”

Wynn also stated that ‘the instigation of these accusations is the continued work of my ex-wife Elaine, with whom I am involved in a terrible and nasty lawsuit in which she is seeking a revised divorce settlement.”

As a result of the WSJ story, Wynn Resorts has lost over $3.5 Billion in value and many are concerned about how directly the allegations could impact operations.

Many Republicans have distanced themselves as a result of the fallout and have decided to give donations made by Wynn and his organizations to charity. House Speaker Paul Ryan , Sen. Rob Portman, , and Sen. Jeff Flake, are among the Republicans donating Wynn money to charity.

By Miles Stern

The post Steve Wynn Resigns as RNC Finance Chair Following Bombshell Sexual Misconduct Story in WSJ appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Ask anybody in the Big Apple about the king of men’s clothing retailers and most likely the name “Barney’s New York” will come up during the course of conversation. And for New Yorkers, both men and women alike, the iconic and cutting edge fashion house has always been an integral part of the distinguished clothing scene in this town for close to a century.

Now, however, Barney’s future in its flagship Manhattan location at 660 Madison Avenue, (surrounded by the finest names in haute couture) is in question. Back in December, it was reported that the retail giant was at loggerheads with its landlord over a possible rent increase. As such, Barney’s fate will be determined by an arbitrator, whose services have been solicited in attempts to resolving the monetary issues between the two sides.

Barney’s current lease is set to expire in 2019 and the property’s owner, Ashkenazy Acquisition is asking for an increase in rent. For months now, the two sides have been immersed in intense negotiations as they grapple to see resolution of precisely what constitutes fair market rent at the property. At present, Barneys pays $20 million per year to rent the nine-story building at Madison Avenue and East 61st Street.

Ashkenazy Acquisition is a New York City-based firm that invests in retail and office real estate and asserts that it has a portfolio of over 100 buildings. At its helm is Ben Ashkenazy, the chief executive, chairman, and founder of the company. In addition to having 660 Madison in its portfolio it also has other retail condominiums in shopping districts throughout Manhattan. Ben’s father, Izzy Ashkenazy, is a businessman also involved in real estate.

Ashkenazy Acquisition also owns 656 Sixth Avenue, an erstwhile church that housed the Limelight nightclub in Manhattan. The firm is known for investing in iconic real estate, including Boston’s Faneuil Hall, New York City’s Plaza Hotel, the Marriott East Side, Barney’s New York, Bay Harbor Mall in Lawrence, the Toms River Center in New Jersey and Washington, DC’s Union Station.

The issue that arises is who will be the big loser in this deal if this imbroglio cannot be worked out? Veteran Manhattan realtors have speculated that if Barney’s should decide to decamp from their flagship location in Manhattan, then it could translate in to a major blow for the Ashkenazy company.

Here’s why: For the last few years reports have emerged indicating that retail rents in Manhattan have seen a significant decrease in price as many retailers have opted to relocate elsewhere and landlords have taken a hit. As the Manhattan market continues to adapt to current retail challenges, it was reported that in the third quarter of 2017, rents declined in 12 of the 16 main retail corridors tracked by CBRE, with the overall average asking rent falling 13.4% year-over-year. In tandem, the number of direct available ground floor spaces declined for the second consecutive quarter, dropping 2.5%, from 202 to 197 spaces. Despite the decline, availability remains high relative to 12 months ago.

There is no doubt that the Ashkenazy Acquisition Company still has a mortgage to pay on 660 Madison Avenue. In June of 2001, it was reported that Ben Ashkenazy paid $135 million to buy the Barneys New York store on Madison Avenue. It was also reported that his company purchased the freestanding Chicago and Beverly Hills stores for an additional $55 million from the Japan-based Isetan Corp. At the time, the New York Post reported that Ashkenazy obtained $135 million in financing from CDC Mortgage Corp. while the rest was provided in equity from “family and friends.”

In August of 2014, it was reported that Ashkenazy Acquisitions was in contract to buy the original Barney’s building at the corner of Seventh Avenue at West 17th Street. Ashkenazy paid the Rubin Museum of Art $60 million for the 45,000-square-foot space. The museum, which bought the building at 115 Seventh Ave., along with the adjoining 138-154 W. 17th St., for $20 million from Barney’s founders, decided that selling the property was in its best interest, according to a NYP report in 2014.

For Ashkenazy, it may be quite difficult to find a tenant for the tony location at the price he is asking if Barney’s New York should bolt. If one considers the current state of the retail and commercial rent market in midtown Manhattan as well as the upper East Side and upper West Side, finding a stable tenant might be next to impossible. He may find himself with problems coming up with his mortgage.

For Barney’s New York, it has been reported that the Madison Avenue store accounts for a third of the chain’s revenue, so being forced to move will certainly come as a heavy blow, despite their formidable online presence.

The Jewish Voice placed several phone calls to Barney’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan for comment on the matter but they have yet to return the calls.

By: Robert Miraglia

The post Ben Ashkenazy vs. Barney’s New York – The Stakes Are High & Getting Higher appeared first on Jewish Voice.

An Interview with Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland

The New York Jewish Travel Guide sat down with Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland

to ask a few questions about Jewish Life and Heritage in Poland.

NYJTG: Thank You Rabbi for your time. My first question is how you became Chief Rabbi of Poland?

Rabbi Schudrich: It really all started when I was 18 years old, to give you some background, it’s the first time… I’m American born, my parents are American born and I’ve never been to Israel. When I was 18 years old I wanted to go to Israel and a friend of mine was going on a Jewish teen trip, they went to Eastern Europe, Soviet Union and to Israel and I said; wow!!!, let me do that, so we went to Eastern Europe, Soviet Union in 1973 and onto Israel and I became fascinated by all the aspects of the trip including what was really left in non-Soviet Eastern Europe and so I decided to come back and check it out. So, I was back here in this part of Europe in ‘76, ‘77, twice in ‘79 and by the fall of ’79, I started meeting young Poles who had discovered their Jewish roots and realized there was something more happening here than he was talking about. So, when I finished my last position in 1989 right, I served for six years, ‘83 to ‘89 in Tokyo, I was the Rabbi of Tokyo and came back to New York and saw that the whole world was changing in Eastern Europe and I said; well, maybe I should do something here now and by March of ’90, I was working here.

NYJTG : There is a lot of talk about the Revival of Jewish life in Poland, is this a useful term to describe the situation in Poland? Also what is being revived?

Rabbi Schudrich: Okay, I call it more re-emergence of the Jewish community, revival is also an accurate word. Basically what is happening is that, before World War II, there were three and a half million Jews in Poland, the heart and soul of the Ashkenazi world, five years later by the end of 1944, 90% of those Jews had been killed by Germans and accomplices. That statement is so horrific that most people don’t think how many Jews survived, 10% survived and of the 10 % that survived, means 10% about 350,000 and where are their today?

A vast majority of the survivors leave Poland in the 25 years after World War II. If you want to feel safe saying the statement; I am a Jew, it makes good sense to leave post-holocaust Soviet occupied communist, Poland, so most of the Jews leave but not all the Jews leave, some stay and the ones who stay, many of them agree with those who left; stay Jewish, leave communist Poland, stay in communist Poland, stop being Jewish, to this extent that often you didn’t even tell your children or your grandchildren. So, the deep dark secret of who you really are goes for 50 years, from ‘39 to ‘89, 1989, co-communism collapses and at that point, the not-so-young survivors are confronted with the question; is it safe enough today for me to tell my children, my grandchildren, my friends, neighbors, colleagues that I’m really Jewish. Since 1989, thousands and perhaps some even tens of thousands of Poles have discovered their Jewish roots. That’s the story of the Jewish community of Poland today. So when we say re-emergence, revival, people have to understand it is people now connecting to the Jewish people and to Judaism that simply didn’t know they had Jewish roots before.

NYJTG: How many Jews are in Poland now? I have seen statistics as low as 7,000 and as high as 40,000 what accounts for the discrepancy?

Rabbi Schudrich: Okay the number of Jews in Poland today, I can say without a doubt nobody knows, 7,000 is just simply an untrue number. It’s like counting all the Jews of San Francisco who belong to an Orthodox synagogue and that’s going to make up the number of Jews in San Francisco.

NYJTG: Such as counting for example the membership of JCC or…

Rabbi Schudrich: No, no, no 7,000 Jews in Poland mean you’re counting a very small part of all the Jews in Poland.

Let me share with you one statistic; there were 3 and 1/2 million Jews before the war, 10% survived, 350,000 Jews after the war. Those numbers are more or less we know, we don’t know really how many left but even if we say 90% left, that still leaves 35,000 who had children and grandchildren. To say there are 7,000 Jews in Poland today, that means that over- I have to figure it out-but probably about 98% of all the Jews left and then almost nobody had children, so that’s just clearly not true plus the fact that I know more than 7,000. Why people say that, I don’t know, you know, it’s hurtful to us, it’s misinformed, okay. There are some tens of thousands of Poles who today know that they have Jewish roots and feel a positive connection, will their children still be Jewish? I don’t know but that’s why I am here, I want to give it a chance. If we do nothing, then most likely nothing will happen, if we do something, we have a chance.

NYJTG: So, how are we defining who is a Polish Jew?

Rabbi Schudrich : Okay, there are two different definitions that are used here; one is as the hocus rule, the law of return, which is one Jewish grandparents and that’s the general membership and for being counted in the minyan of course then we go according to halacha that the Jewish mother or go through a local conversion.

NYJTG: How difficult is it to live in Poland, especially for the younger Jews? Is it difficult for both the regular and the secular Jews?

Rabbi Schudrich: Difficult in what sense?

NYJTG: Jewish life, the cultural aspect of it.

Rabbi Schudrich: It depends who the person is, it depends where they live. In Warsaw on Shabbat morning, there are five different places where you can pray, now some place I wouldn’t pray there but there are other people who wouldn’t come to my synagogue, that’s normal Jewish life. In Warsaw, we now have five or six kosher restaurants, yes they’re mostly for tourists but the locals can use it. We’ve now published a new kosher list with thousands of items, kosher items you can buy in Warsaw, we have tefilot twice a day, morning and evening. We have Shiurim , we have classes several times a week, we have a Kolel, we have a daycare center, we have a pre-school through middle school, we have a Cheder. So in Warsaw, you can live a quite full Jewish life, it doesn’t compare to New York, London or Jerusalem. There are many other places to live, you know, it’s considering where we were 20, 25, 15 years ago, you know, there signs of Jewish life, serious signs of Jewish life.

NYJTG: In reference to the Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival that’s ongoing now, does the festival have a direct impact as a bridge between the Jews and the Poles in connecting them with their Jewish culture and in rediscovering their Jewish roots and heritage?

Rabbi Schudrich: There is no doubt. When a Pole discovers he has Jewish roots or she has Jewish roots and she can come to the festival and she can hear Jewish music or actually something like Jewish music and feel the atmosphere that is positive about Jewish culture and come to a Shabbat dinner, this is certainly and its unintended but now we do know that it’s an entry way for quite a few people who discover their Jewish roots, no doubt about it. With all kinds of things, seminars, lectures to get connected with

NYJTG: Yesterday I visited the Kolce Cemetery, in called Cemetery Victims of Nazi Terror, in Kloce, a village in southern-western Poland, Głuszyca Municipality,(mainly those who died during the Construction of the Riese) located in a remote area right outside Wroclaw. It is a small cemetery and there was a mass grave of forced Jewish laborers among other graves. Can you tell us more about this cemetery?

Rabbi Schudrich : Yeah. Let me tell you something and as you said, these were prisoners and if I remember correctly, it was actually a Jewish cemetery before the war and they buried whoever they could bring back there during the war to bury them in the Jewish cemetery. What’s important is that we have, there are many more unidentified mass graves in Poland that we ever thought existed, meaning that there are places either Jews taken from the labor camp, that sometimes we know about but there are also many cases and I never realized this till a few years ago, you know. 23 Jews hiding in the forest, the Germans found them, they killed them and they’re still there, no marker, no mazeva whatsoever, no nothing. In the last five years, we have now commemorated for the mazevoth, put up maps and bought, secured 52 such massacre areas. We have at least another 200 to do, at least and we’re going one by one by one, unlike the work being done in the Ukraine, for us it’s not enough just to know where they are but then we’re obligated to protect it, to protect it, to put up a mazeva to cover it.

NYJTG: It our duty…

Rabbi Schudrich : Yes, it’s called kvod hamet, honoring the dead and especially here these are Holocaust victims, you know, we should understand that these are Holocaust victims and we need to do what we can, that every one of them that we can, should have a mazeva. Now obviously the case of the mass grave of 23 people to one Mazeva, because we’re not going to make 23 mazeva

NYJTG: I heard that about 2,000 Jews were buried in this mass grave, who came from Greece and other countries …

Rabbi Schudrich : Right. Well, if people sent theirs from all over Europe, because Auschwitz had 40 sub camps, at least 40 sub camps, as you come to the outlet and then he sent 150 kilometers away.

NYJTG: It’s in the Galicia region and it’s a very remote area, there’s was no sign of direction for this cemetery…

Rabbi Schudrich: No, no, I’ve been there. Yeah, I was involved with the work there.

NYJTG: Rabbi David Weiser from New York came here and donated a fence at the cemetery in their memory…

Rabbi Shudrich : Yeah, I know, of course I worked with him, I mean my office worked with him. There were many, many discussion. But we’ve done over 50 more, not just there, all in almost in the eastern side of Poland.3 million Jews were murdered there, most in that camp, some in the ghettos but also some, you know, just in the labor camps, in the forest. The thing that people can’t understand because it’s too horrible, if we say only 5% of Polish Jews we’re not murdered in the death camps, we’re not murdered in the ghettos, were murdered in the forest where they were hiding, that’s a 150,000 people, the numbers are so overwhelming people cannot begin to really understand what it means. Well, on the promise is that we’re doing the best we can but we are very much lacking in funds for this, this is something really where we need the help from world jewry, this is our world jewry obligation. What we can do and what we already are doing is we identify the place, verifying the place using the Geo radar, using archival and using witnesses, serious research to make sure we’re not making up stories. The rest of the job, we need to have help from around the world, for the mazeva, for the securing of the grave.

NYJTG: Visiting the cemetery in Warsaw . I noticed that it looked like a small forest and needed some care…

Rabbi Schudrich: 15 years ago it was a big forest, 15 years ago we could barely walk in. What’s important is to have perspective, nobody basically took care of the cemetery for 50 years, which means they kept growing, growing and growing and it’s really in the last 12, 13 years that we’ve been able to start to push back against all the growth.

NYJTG: What are some of the challenges that you’re still facing here in Poland?

Rabbi Schudrich: I would say that 25 years ago, all the challenges have to do with being post-holocaust, post-communist, today we still have post-holocaust and post-communist challenges but more and more we have normal Jewish challenges; how to find a nice Jewish girl for a nice Jewish boy, how to find a nice Jewish boy for a nice Jewish girl, not unlike Morocco, Sweden or even the Upper West Side, that for me is one of the most important things. How to make our Jewish education better, it’s the problem all over the world because we’re never satisfied, we want to keep making it better. How do you get more people to go on birthright? We sent close to 700 people, young Polish Jews on birthright but we want to send even more.

NYJTG: Talking about the Jewish conversion now, it’s a long and serious process for those who just discovering the Jewish roots or just want to convert,-Is there a Jewish court in Poland?

Rabbi Schudrich : We use a bet dim from other countries, either from London or from Israel.

NYJTG: And what is the process for the conversion, the need to pursue such jewish education?

Rabbi Schudrich: No, is anywhere else in the world, they have to learn and then have to practice and then they tested and they’re converted. Sometimes they’re sent to Israel, sometimes the bet dim comes here, sometimes they go to London, it depends on the situation..

NYJTG: And how much does this community support this…

Rabbi Schudrich: This community is very open to converts.

NYJTG: Last question, what is your favorite dish in Poland, what dishes you like the best?

Rabbi Schudrich: I am a vegetarian. So the Polish food is famous for its meat. What I like is a good Tofu salad but that is not Polish.

NYJTG: Thank you Rabbi for your time and all the information you shared with us. I really appreciated it as will our readers.

By: Meyer Harroch

The post Jewish Life in Europe: 75 Years After the Holocaust appeared first on Jewish Voice.

An interview with Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z Street

After a “long, lonely and expensive seven year struggle,” one that she alone, on behalf of Z STREET bore, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z STREET has just won a significant legal victory which grants her organization tax-exempt status and definitively exposes Obama’s IRS as obsessively anti-Israel.

There was a repeated effort during the Obama administration to bar organizations that support Judea and Samaria from being eligible for tax-exempt status.

Ironically, Marcus founded Z STREET in 2009 in order to “educate Americans about the Middle East and Israel’s defense against terror.”

The Z Street application was at first delayed, then frozen, because the IRS claimed as a defense, that Israel was viewed as a “terrorist entity,” and a country “with terrorism.”

Many of us suspected that Obama’s administration had politicized Homeland Security, the DOJ, the FBI, and the American relationship to the United Nations in ways that favored Islamism, Islamic terrorism, Palestine, Iran, and that demonized Zionism and Israel’s attempts at self-defense.

Z STREET”s successful lawsuit exposes how the Obama administration, through its power to grant or withhold tax-exempt status to groups, politicized and corrupted a policy of even-handedness, transparency, and accountability at the IRS.

Like the Western media, professoriate, international organizations, and very much like an Islamic world view, the American IRS viewed Israel, especially Israelis who lived “across the Green Line—the nonborder that delineates pre-1967 Israel from the territories it acquired in the Six Day War” as related to “terrorism” or as “terrorists.”

According to Marcus, “Our own investigation disclosed that between 2009 and 2016, while Z STREET’s application was stalled, the IRS needed no special scrutiny to grant numerous applications for tax-exempt status that explicitly proclaimed donations would be spent in Gaza—a territory formally under the jurisdiction of Hamas, which the U.S. State Department designates as a terror organization.”

According to Marcus, in a personal interview, the following is merely a sampling of not-for-profits, which she obtained via Guidestar; the IRS had okayed these “charities” during the period that Z STREET’s application remained pending.

• American Charities for Palestine
• Institute for Palestine Studies USA Inc
• Teach for Palestine
• Palestine Foundation Inc.
• The Israel Palestine Project
• Opportunity Palestine
• Palestine Advocacy Project
• Physicians for Palestine Inc.
• Coloradans for Justice in Palestine
• Embrace the Children of Palestine Inc.
• Just Peace for Israel Palestine
• Justice for Palestine-Israel Inc.
• Opportunity Palestine
• Palestine in America inc. NFP
• Joining Hands for Justine [sic] in Palestine Israel Inc.
• Land of Canaan Foundation Inc.
• Peace of Palos Hills
• PAL Craftaid
• United Muslim Relief UMR
• Karamausa Inc.
• AJP Educational Foundation Inc.
• Friends of Al-Rowwad USA Inc.
• Holy Land Missions
• Project Unified Assistance
• Gaza’s Hope
• Project Unified Assistance
• Palestinian American Medical Association

Now we have further documentation of Obama’s official anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism and its reign at the IRS between 2010 and 2017.

The mainstream or left stream and liberal media barely covered this lawsuit. The Wall Street Journal and FOX did.

One 2010 article in Politico found the right kind of Jew, former IRS Commissioner, Sheldon Cohen who said, “he was skeptical of Z Street’s motives in its high-profile lawsuit, rather than pursuing its concerns in tax court. ‘They were hardly into the process when they screamed rape – nobody lifted the dress yet,’ he said, noting that 501(c)3 groups can’t advocate for political positions.

Seven years is a long time to be unable to raise funding for educational purposes; it is also a long time in which to launch and maintain a self-defensive lawsuit, one which was immediately punished by the IRS which then froze the Z STREET application. Seven years is a long time to experience the absence of Jewish-American organizational support; the turned backs of Jewish philanthropists is another kind of sorrow and challenge.

Marcus is a hero. After I called Lori to congratulate her, she agreed to an interview. Here it is.

Q: Who, if anyone, helped you during your seven year battle?

A: We never could have afforded the seven-plus years of litigation, but luckily my husband and I are lawyers and did the vast bulk of the work. Two law firms graciously helped out as local counsel in Washington, D.C. There were a few in the non-mainstream media who paid attention to our case, and that was extremely helpful. Some smaller pro-Israel organizations such as EMET and AFSI, were very supportive. Most helpful of all, the Wall Street Journal wrote editorial after editorial as it followed our case, and Fox News also covered it at various points.

Q: Who, besides the IRS, opposed, ostracized, or threatened you?

A: Nobody threatened us, but some organizations–including some Jewish ones and even pro-Israel ones which we expected to be supportive–were either silent or distinctly unhelpful. For some reason no one in Congress, not even ostensibly pro-Israel folks on either side of the aisle, were helpful. We were just too small to matter to them, I think.

Q: What have you lost in this battle?

A: A great deal of emotional energy, personally. For the thousands of ardently pro-Israel individuals around the world who rallied ’round when we launched, a strong voice of ardent but accurate Zionism was lost.

Q: How do you feel now that you’ve won this battle for transparency, truth, and justice? Do you believe that this will set a precedent for other conservative or pro-Israel organizations who have been fighting for not-for-profit status?

A: I believe that had we not fought this battle many more pro-Israel organizations would have been hindered by the IRS. There was a repeated effort during the Obama administration to bar organizations that support Judea and Samaria from being eligible for tax-exempt status. There was a reason the IRS fought so hard for so long and with so many resources to keep us quiet. I have heard from other pro-Israel organizations in recent years that they believed their applications were treated swiftly and fairly because we made things difficult for the IRS and because we refused to fold. I am sure that had we not fought back through our lawsuit, the effort in the State Department and the IRS would have become a full-fledged policy.

Q: Have you heard from anyone in the new administration? If so, who and what did they say if anything?

A: I believe our case was finally settled, and the Department of Justice lawyers agreed to the admissions it did, because of the fairly recent entry of new lawyers at the administrative level with oversight for the IRS. I very much doubt ours and the Tea Party cases would have settled had this new administration not been in office.

Q: What are you planning or at least hoping to do now?

A: I’m hoping Z STREET will again be a voice for ardent and accurate Zionism. There is so much to do, and comparatively so few voices unabashedly raised in support of Israel. I hope people will come to our new website, ZSTREET.ORG–we had to shut down the one we had because of lack of funding–and share their views and amplify ours.

Q: What else might you want to say?

A: The legal process is an unwieldy, awkward tool for correcting injustice, but sometimes, if you stick to it long enough, it actually works!

By: Dr. Phyllis Chesler

The post How One Courageous Proactive Journalist Took on the IRS Over Anti-Semitism/Zionism–and Won appeared first on Jewish Voice.

Founded 56 years ago, the Century 21 chain of department stores has become an iconic fixture in retail hubs scattered throughout the Northeast corridor. Best renowned as the “go to” store for designer labels at bargain basement prices, Century 21 has crafted a stellar reputation as the industry leader in high quality merchandise at affordable prices.

Owned by the Brooklyn based Gindis (who are not brothers) the original concept for the growing company was to become a family business endeavor and to this day it is still owned and operated as such. At the inception in late 1950s Al Gindi suggested the partnership to Sonny Gindi, who co-owned a children’s wear business named Lolly Togs. Another partner was friend and relative Ralph Gindi, who passed away at a young age. In 1961, the partners founded the first Century 21 store. Ralph’s children Irwin, Ellie and Jeff were bought out of the company over a decade ago. Sonny had two sons, Isaac and Eddie. Eddie Gindi, who entered the business in 1977 in the stock room, is now the Executive Vice President & Co-Owner of Century 21 Department Store. Al’s sons are I.G. (Isaac) and Raymond. Raymond has now reached the level of company CEO.

So, precisely how did the folks behind the Century 21 Department Store achieve such extraordinary success?

1.Have a quality product.

Century 21 Department Store has excelled in the off-price sector, presenting high-end and contemporary designer merchandise in beautifully designed stores that create a luxury one-stop shopping experience. The legendary New York based retailer features women’s, men’s, shoes, accessories, children’s, cosmetics and home departments.

The company always strives to stay up to date with the latest tech available to stores. “One of the things our founders taught us is that you can’t be frugal in your expenses when it comes to security and technology. As far as technology is concerned, we invest a very large amount in our IT and e-commerce departments,” said Eddie.

2. Offer peace of mind but don’t break your back to do it.

Century 21 offers a 14 day price match policy for merchandise still in stock. The store and website offer 45 day return policy. Being flexible, however, doesn’t mean the store has to lose money. Return shipping is deducted from a refund, otherwise free returns can be made in store.

3. Keep customers happy.

Century 21 became a fun store to go to by the virtue of several factors. First, the company uses a very basic principle: customer loves to feel like they got a deal. Even for customers who buy something they don’t need, or pay more than they hoped, it feels like winning if the price was discounted 25 to 75 percent off.

Customer service also refers to attentiveness. As of 2014, the downtown store alone had 1000 employees, with over 5,000 employees in all. That total will now be substantially higher, as only 9 stores were opened at that time. Customers cite being on a first name basis with the employees, despite the store’s massive footprint and heavy foot traffic. The store’s policy of excellent service trickles down from the top managers to the employees. There are abundant reviews from Century 21 shoppers raving about how helpful the employees are. One patron took to Yelp to comment, “District manager Domenic was very helpful! I accidentally locked my phone in a free phone charge station that was in the store and he helped me unlock it by calling the store which took 15 minutes”. In this era of social media and online reviews a company’s reputation is so fragile. Customer service is a worthwhile investment.

4. Think big.

The chain’s flagship store is located on 86th Street in the legendary Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. The flagship store in downtown Manhattan’s Dey Street near the World Trade Center was opened in the same year. It started as a three story 6,000 square foot store, and it now encompasses seven floors complete with granite and mahogany moldings, spanning 220,000 square feet. Throughout the decade that ensued, the chain has expanded, adding new locations in: Manhattan’s Lincoln Square near the Upper West Side; Rego Park, Queens; Westbury, Long Island; Green Acres in Valley Stream; 85,000 square feet in Saw Grass Mills Mall in Florida; 100,000 square feet at 801 Market Street in Philadelphia; Paramus, NJ; Elizabeth, NJ; Morristown, NJ; City Point in Brooklyn.

In October, the retail chain opened its 13th store in Westchester County. The new store is in Yonkers Cross County mall, boasting 70,000 SF which included a $10 million renovation to the former site of National Wholesale Liquidators. “The DNA of our family-owned business is delivering value to our consumers by making the unattainable, attainable through our long-standing relationships with luxury brands. We are excited to be a part of the renovation at The Mall at Cross County and deliver designer brands at amazing prices to the Yonkers community,” announced CEO Raymond Gindi.

As of 2011, the chain also launched an online store with a full E-Commerce platform, followed by a Century 21 credit card.

5. Don’t give up.

After the 9-11 terror attack, the downtown flagship store was closed for five months. Though there was no structural damage, merchandise and fixtures were damaged. The area suffered a great decline with 100,000 jobs lost in the vicinity. Still, the company spent about $10 million refurbishing the store, and took a substantial risk by reopening in the then shattered neighborhood. They didnt know if they would ever get the same foot traffic back.

6. Stay humble.

In 2002, when the Century 21 store across from the World Trade Center reopened, there was a line with thousands of devoted shoppers there to show support. Politicians including then Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Eliot L. Spitzer, the former state attorney general, hailed the stores reopening as the rebirth of Lower Manhattan. The NY Times wrote an article about it, in which Raymond Gindi was quoted saying, ”We were surprised,” at all the attention. ”My dad was like, ‘What’s the big deal? We’re a little store.’ ”

7. Be generous.

Aside from the usual charity drives that most department stores conduct for PR purposes, the Gindi family has made significant contributions to a long list of organizations. The family made substantial donations to the Sephardic Bikur Holim, Hatzalah, Barkai Yeshiva in Brooklyn, and the Yeshiva of Flatbush High School has an Al and Sonny Gindi Campus on 1609 Avenue J. The family has aligned with the Center for Designed Philanthropy to create a counseling program for at-risk youth in several Orthodox Jewish high schools. The family also supports the Shehber Institute Rabbinical College in Israel, which conducts outreach similar to that of Chabad. Further, the family dedicated a building to Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, and have been long time supporters of Migdal Ohr.

According to Eli Beer, the President of United Hatzalah of Israel (a major lifesaving, paramedic and ambulance service), “the Gindis have donated lots of lifesaving equipment to United Hatzalah over the years including two Century 21 ambulances. We are so grateful for their support. We also hosted an event in their home a few years ago.”

A source familiar with the family said that far from being haughty about the donations, their father criticized the contribution, saying donating the building was not enough and should have included a stipend for maintenance costs.

By Ilana Siyance

The post The Meteoric Rise of the Century 21 Dept Store – An Iconic Northeast Retail Hub appeared first on Jewish Voice.