Category Archives: Talmud

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Israeli Prime Minister Bennett Inks First Letter of Emirates Torah Scroll - On visit to the UAE, Bennett begins the first Torah to be written in the...

Rabbi Mendy Deitsch

By Rabbi Mendy Deitsch

When we were young, my mother invited her OB-GYN to join us for a Friday night Shabbos meal. He was a fine doctor and a proud Jew a survivor of the Holocaust. He was thrilled to help bring children into this world.

During the meal he asked us kids if we knew about the Holocaust. We did. He then asked my brother and I the names of the concentration camps, and we were only able to name two or three.

He was not happy.

He asked how my parents could bring up their children I was 9 at the time without a thorough knowledge of what had happened just a short 50 years earlier? My father simply smiled and shared how beautiful it was that we were learning in the yeshiva, studying Talmud and Jewish law, and sitting here celebrating Shabbos, openly, freely, joyously.The doctor was not impressed, to say the least.

I have replayed this particular Shabbos meal in my mind many times over the years. I began to wonder why I dont know more about this most horrific atrocity that befell my people, my family, just a few years earlier.

As I got older I understood that I actually know very much about the torture, hunger, suffering, killings and murder at the hands of the Nazis, may their name be obliterated. In fact, many of my neighbors, shopkeepers and the people I sat next to in synagogue had numbers on their arms and spoke to us about what they went through and the families they had lost.

Yet, the focus of our education was not on what the world likes to show or teach about Jews, mainly dead Jews and the persecuted, but rather on the living, breathing, vibrancy of Judaism.

My parents worked hard to instill in us children the joy of Judaism the heroism, the bravery, the eternity and the growth of the Jewish people which is why we were sitting at a Shabbos table with 30 guests.

My father brought us to the Lubavitcher Rebbe to hear his talks and to be in his presence. The rebbe is upbeat, motivating and uplifting.

The rebbe, who survived the war, was alive. The rebbe had joy and, at times, the central shul where the rebbe prayed was electrifying. It was filled with forward motion, with a vision toward a stronger, rebuilt Jewish nation.

There were the lessons of the past, yet, the focus was on the future.

Our eyes were trained not to look backward but to share the vision for the future and the potential of the Jewish people.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate this way of thinking much more. Not because what happened in the past is not important to learn from, but it is precisely because of the past and what we went through as a people that the need to reach out, uplift and be present for each brother and sister is essential to a thriving Jewish people.

It is not enough to be a proud Jew. That leaves the next generation, unfortunately, marrying outside the religion and essentially ending the Jewish line of his/her family.We need to live an inspired life, a happy life, to teach and inspire those of the religion to be an active Jew, a mitzvah-fulfilling and proud Jewish person. This will keep us alive and thriving for a more meaningful life as individuals and as a people.

It is time we embrace the happiness of Judaism, the positive lessons and the amazing opportunity that G-d gives us to connect to Him, to have a relationship with Him. How fortunate we are to be living in this generation where, through our actions, we will be able to see and feel the fulfillment and promise that Moshiach is here.

Rabbi Mendy Deitsch is the director of Chabad of the East Valley in Chandler, Arizona.

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The Joy of Judaism - Jewish Exponent

Sylvain Cypels new book is a violent indictment of the Jewish homeland, its growing embrace of apartheid and its closeness to some of the worst autocratic and similarly ethnocentric regimes around the world, including Hungary, Brazil and the Philippines.

The author is a prominent French newspaper editor and foreign correspondent who lived in Israel for 12 years, trained there to be a youth movement leader and even served in a paratroop brigade after being drafted.

Cypel writes with the passion of the convert: someone who believes he has been betrayed by the faith in which he was raised. His father was also a journalist, the editor of Frances Yiddish-language daily, Unzer Wort, and the main leader of labor Zionism in France for a quarter of a century. Cypel was very close to his father, but Zionism ultimately became the unbridgeable hiatus between them.

It had been his whole life and it was mine no longer, he writes.

Cypel argues that the country originally seen as an embattled David menaced by a constellation of Goliaths has evolved since the six-day war, into something no idealist could stomach: a racist, bullying little superpower.

His accusations carry particular power because of the nationality of his sources: nearly all are Israeli journalists, intellectuals and activists. But there is a paradox which Cypel mostly glides over: the provenance of all this criticism is also potent evidence of the continuing vitality of Israeli democracy. It would be impossible to write a book like this, relying almost entirely on the testimony of resident citizens and especially journalists, about Saudi Arabia, Egypt or even Jordan.

Thats one reason why Israels supporters still describe it as the only democracy in the Middle East a description Cypel rejects.

Although the accusation of apartheid has gained much more currency in the last couple of years, it was almost 20 years ago when Cypel first heard the case for it. It came in an interview he conducted with Michael Ben-Yair, who was Israels attorney general in Yitzhak Rabins second government. Ben-Yair believed the essential tenet of Zionism had been violated.

The object of Zionist thinking was never the domination of another people, he said.

We are committing crimes that fly in the face of international law and public morality. The moment a power establishes two different legal systems, one democratic and liberal, and the other repressive and cruel, thats where apartheid starts Where an army defends the property of the one and destroys that of the other there is no other term to define the situation except apartheid.

Cypel begins his prosecution by quoting an assortment of headlines from a six-month period in 2018 and 2019:

Israeli border policewoman arrested on suspicion of shooting Palestinian for fun

Israel said a Palestinian was killed in clashes. A video shows he was shot in the back

The disabled Palestinian slowly walked away. Then Israeli troops shot him in the back of the head

After shooting a Palestinian teen, Israeli troops dragged him around and chased an ambulance away

The headlines are bolstered by horrific statistics. Yesh Din, a human rights organization, studied 1,163 complaints to police from Palestinians who said they were victims of violence by settlers. During the 12 years that were examined, the share of complaints referred for prosecution was 1.9%; 91% of the investigations were closed without charges being brought. Out of 1,163 complaints, three went to trial.

Amira Hass, a West Bank correspondent for Haaretz, wrote that by systematically shooting young unarmed Gazans Israel is conducting a mass psychological experiment in Gaza. But the guinea pigs are actually the Israelis. How far will their society go in its acquiescence? The experiment is about compliance and cruelty.

Hass compared the process to the notorious Stanley Milgram experiments conducted at Yale in the early 1960s, when subjects were asked to press a button that sent increasingly powerful electric shocks to a person each time he or she gave the wrong answer to a question.

All of these anecdotes explain Cypels relentless pessimism about Israel, which he calls a society blindly turning inward as it drifts toward disaster.

Israel seems to have no sense of what within it could avert that disaster, or who would do it, he writes. Does Jewish society have what it takes to resist the current that is carrying it? The answer has to be no.

Cypels book is also replete with the voices of virtuous Israelis who remain determined to put their country on a different course. But while the ultras who dream of expelling every Arab arent yet dominant in Israeli society, he writes, they are its most determined segment.

In a long section about the Jewish diaspora, Cypel points out that Israels lurch to the right has produced a growing gap with the liberal traditions of American Jews in the Reform movement. No one has written more powerfully on this subject than Daniel Boyarin, a scholar of the Talmud at Berkeley who has described the piercing pain of watching the Jewish tradition disintegrating before my eyes.

It has been said by many Christians that Christianity died at Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobidor, Boyarin wrote. I fear God forbid that my Judaism may be dying at Nablus, Dheisheh, Betein or El Khalil.

Cypel says those words were considered blasphemous when they were written, in 2006.

But more and more American Jews agree with them today.

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The State of Israel vs The Jews review: fierce indictment of a rightward lurch - The Guardian

by Alexa Peters

There is no area more diverse in its holiday traditions and celebrations than South Seattle and with a quick look at the most recent demographic data for the area, its no wonder.

South King County is one of the most diverse parts of the United States, with the Rainier Valley 98118 ZIP code home to speakers of approximately 60 different languages. Plus, as opposed to other parts of Seattle that come in at 60% or more, the 2020 census shows that Seattles District 2, which includes South Seattle, is majority Asian. South Seattle is also 21.4% Black or African American, 9.3% Hispanic or Latino, 0.6% Alaskan Native and American Indian, 0.8% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 0.2% some other race, and 6.1% multiracial.

Here are the stories behind a few of the rich traditions and diverse celebrations South End residents observe during this time of year.

With some Jewish families having lived in South Seattle for as many as seven generations, the Jewish community is one of Seattles oldest immigrant groups. In Rainier Valley alone, there is a diverse array of Jewish communities, including two Sephardic synagogues from the former Ottoman empire that each celebrates Hanukkah.

Emily Alhadeff, a member of the Modern Orthodox Jewish community who lives in Rainier Valley, says there are four different synagogues within a 1-mile radius of her house, each with its own practice of Judaism. In general, though, everyone celebrates Hanukkah together.

Theres a little variation on how people celebrate, but Hanukkah is pretty universal, said Alhadeff.

Hanukkah is based on stories in the apocryphal books of the Maccabees and the Talmud about a small group of Jewish rebels, known as the Maccabees, and their defeat of the Greek Syrians, who had invaded and desecrated the Second Temple of Jerusalem. When the Jewish rebels reclaimed the temple, they rededicated it by keeping a menorah lit at all times. There was one hang-up: They only had enough olive oil to burn for one day.

Miraculously, the menorah remained lit for eight days. Modern Jews continue to celebrate this miracle with Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, by lighting a menorah, or nine-pronged candelabra, one candle at a time for eight days.

At its core, Alhadeff says, Hanukkah is about lighting up the darkness and celebrating oil. In Alhadeffs Rhodes tradition, theres a set of specific fried foods they aim to eat, including a Sephardic-specific food called bumuelos fried dough with honey. Another common oil-fried Hanukkah staple is potato latkes.

For many Jewish Americans, some Christmas-like aspects have also been added to Hanukkah celebrations as Jewish people have further assimilated into American culture. Hence, some families, like the Alhadeffs, give gifts to their kids during Hanukkah. Coincidentally, because the date of Hanukkah depends on the Jewish calendar, which is based on a combination of the solar and lunar calendar and varies year to year, the Festival of Lights sometimes even lands on Christmas.

This year, Hanukkah began on Nov. 28 and ended Dec. 6.

Based on a 2016 City of Seattle report, at least 1.7% of the citys population is East African immigrants. Many come from the largest country on Africas horn, Ethiopia, a predominantly Ethiopian Orthodox Christian and Muslim country, with many rich cultural and religious traditions in the wintertime.

Muslims have no celebrations in winter, but Ethiopian Orthodox Christians will celebrate their Christmas, also called Ganna or Leddet. This celebration happens annually on Jan. 7, the Ethiopian Orthodox Churchs calculation of Jesus birth.

Milen Gebreselassie, who co-owns Kaffa Coffee and Wine Bar on Rainier Avenue with her husband, celebrates Ethiopian Christmas every year with her family. Though some immigrant families like hers have integrated Western Christmas trees and the tradition of gift-giving into their celebration, she describes Ethiopian Christmas as more about prayer and fasting as a means for mental clarity.

Its a religious festival, mostly celebrated by the Christians. So, people fast for about 43 days before the Christmas celebration, which means you eat as a strict vegan, said Gebreselassie. [Its about] depriving your body from the things that you really like so that you become more aware, conscious. It keeps you awake.

Those who celebrate are to use this mental state to wish good to those who are struggling. This Christmas, as war rips once again through Ethiopias Tigray Region, Gebreselassie says the ongoing unrest there is the focus of her communitys prayers.

In our country, you probably heard we are going through some tough times right now, a lot of conflict, and so everybody is praying that better days will come, she said.

On Jan. 7, the 43 days of prayer and fasting end in a feast on Ethiopian Christmas Day. Traditionally, each family spends the day making an elaborate doro wat stew with chicken or lamb which must only be made with fresh meat slaughtered that day to break their fast. Some families also brew their own wine or beer for the occasion and then walk around their neighborhood sharing their spoils with their neighbors.

Every family cooks. We go to all the neighbors houses to eat everywhere, and people are going to come [to your house] as well, she said.

With that in mind, Gebreselassie plans to make traditional Ethiopian honey bread called dabo for patrons at Kaffa Coffee and Wine Bar, in celebration of Ganna this year.

Well probably make traditional coffee and give it away to our regular customers and share some homemade bread, she said.

For South Seattle College student Lexi Bonaparte and many other African Americans on the South End, Kwanzaa is an essential part of the wintertime festivities.

My family celebrates Kwanzaa in addition to Christmas, said Bonaparte. My mom was really big on values and being grateful when I was growing up. I would still get gifts on Christmas, but Kwanzaa is [about showing gratitude for] those gifts and making gifts or buying them for others who are less fortunate.

Kwanzaa, a weeklong celebration that starts on Dec. 26, is about honoring African heritage and culture. The holiday, which is named for the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means first fruits, is a winter harvest festival and a hybrid of many African agricultural traditions.

Introduced by Dr. Maulana Karenga a professor and the chairman of Black Studies at California State University in 1966, it combines aspects of many different African harvest celebrations with the intention of creating a holiday that would connect and unify all African American people.

It became more popular in the 60s during the Civil Rights Movement to celebrate our African culture and reconnect to our roots prior to slavery, said Bonaparte, who lives in Renton. Its about community and strength.

Kwanzaa has seven core symbols: Mazao, or crops, which represent the fruits of collective planning and work; Mkeka, or place mats, which symbolize the foundation people stand on to build their lives; Muhindi, or ears of corn, which symbolize fertility and future hopes; Mishumaa Saba, or seven candles, which symbolize the sun; Kinara, or a candleholder, which represents ancestry; Kikombe Cha Umoja, or the Unity Cup, which represents unity and remembrance, and Zawadi or gifts, which symbolize growth and self-determination.

Typically, Kwanzaa celebrations involve reflecting on these seven core Kwanzaa symbols, as well as the seven complementary core principles, through the lighting of one colored candle on the kinara per day.

You light the black candle first, representing Umoja, which is unity; the second, Kujichagulia, which is self-determination; third, Ujima, collective work; fourth, Ujamaa, cooperative economics; fifth, Nia, representing purpose; sixth, Kuumba, which is creativity; seventh Imani, which represents faith, said Bonparte.

As each candle is lit, Bonparte says she and her family reflect on the principle at hand, on the year past, and their intentions in the new year. On Dec. 31, Kwanzaa observers also celebrate New Years Eve with a huge feast, which varies from family to family.

In Bonapartes family, which is from the American South, they make a huge pot of seafood gumbo and eat cornbread and black-eyed peas, the latter of which symbolizes wealth and prosperity in the coming year. Bonapartes family also decorates their dining room table with ears of multicolored corn and drinks from the unity cup.

Small gifts are also exchanged, but for Bonaparte, the highlights of the holiday are definitely the food and the time for self-reflection.

I love spending time reflecting on everything I am grateful for, from the roof over my head to my health, she said. And uniting with my family to thank our ancestors for their sacrifices.

Meanwhile, members of the Latino community on the South End celebrate Las Posadas, a festival that originated in colonial Mexico and is celebrated throughout the diaspora.

Buriens Highline Heritage Museum will put on its own La Posada event this year. According to Nancy Salguero McKay, executive director of the museum, the traditional festival occurs every night from Dec. 16 until Christmas Eve and is all about asking for shelter in honor of the story of Mary and Joseph seeking refuge for the birth of Jesus.

La Posada means asking for shelter, Salguero McKay said. [It starts with a] procession of singing, basically almost like Christmas carols, and then asking for shelter as part of the procession. You come to someones home and are carrying candles and you ask for shelter. Its a back-and-forth [singing] interaction between the people inside and the people outside.

Once welcomed inside, the entire costumed procession enters the house for a big party including traditional foods, like savory and sweet tamales, warm refreshments, like cinnamon-spiced Mexican coffee called caf de olla, as well as piatas and candy.

Traditionally, these processions and parties happen in a new home every night from Dec. 16 until Christmas Eve. For that reason, Las Posadas is a highly coordinated celebration where entire blocks get together and assign each family one night to receive the rest of the neighborhood procession.

Highline Heritage Museums La Posada celebration took place on the night of Dec. 12 and embodied all the energy and festivity of this tradition by putting inclusion and education at the forefront. Workshops and presentations led in Spanish and English taught about the significance of the festivities and what the celebration looks like in Mexico.

The educational component helps teach young people in the community about their heritage and propels the tradition forward.

And then we have piatas, we have the food, we have the chocolate, said Salguero McKay. Its just a way for little ones to be able to grow up with the tradition, but it also serves as an opportunity to share this tradition with everyone and make everyone [feel] welcome.

This year was the Highline Heritage Museums second time holding a La Posada event. The museum, which has a mission of collecting, telling, and preserving the stories of the people living in Buriens Highline area, had its first La Posada event in 2019, shortly after it first opened.

In King County, Filipino Americans make up 3.1% of the total population, according to census data, and Filipino Americans are one of the largest Asian American ethnicities in the South End, particularly in Beacon Hill and Rainier Valley.

The Philippines has been an American colony for well over 30 years and is overwhelmingly Catholic, so many Filipinos celebrate many of the Christmas traditions typical of a Western Christmas. That said, there are some subtle variations that help to express the uniqueness of Filipino culture.

Maricres Valdez Castro, a Filipino American who grew up in Seattle and Tacoma and is this years reigning Miss Washington U.S. International, prepares for Christmas throughout the month of December with Simbang Gabi, a nine-day series of devotional masses.

In Tacoma, we have St. Leo Parish, which is the only Catholic church in Washington State that offers monthly bilingual Filipino mass consistently throughout the year, says Valdez Castro. Simbang Gabi is about preparing our families, preparing our hearts and our community for the birth of Christ.

Simbang Gabi commences this year on Dec. 12, says Valdez Castro, a passionate advocate in the Asian American community and a community outreach advocate and social media specialist at Asia Pacific Cultural Center.

At this time, Valdez Castros community comes together to sing in one of the countrys dominant languages, Tagalog, and to make parols, hand-crafted star lanterns displayed during Christmastime as symbols of hope and light.

[Parols] can also symbolize the North Star that led the three Magi to Christ so they could find him in the desert and be able to witness that miracle, said Valdez Castro. And you know, its kind of a nice juxtaposition to what were going through right now, to focus on cultivating that culture of hope despite the darkness.

Amidst the nine days of prayer, Filipinos are also preparing for a Christmas celebration on Dec. 25. In fact, Valdez Castro says the preparations for Christmas start as early as September in the Philippines.

As soon as the ber [months ending in the suffix -ber, e.g., November] months hit, Christmas lights are out. In the Philippines, its [wild] right now. People are celebrating a lot and its with this backdrop of being grateful for the family that we have, she said.

Honoring family, particularly your elders, is a major theme of Filipino Christmas traditions. Many show this respect through frequent visits with their elders and through a specific hand gesture.

Traditionally, we bow our head and politely grab our elders right hand and touch our forehead to [the back of their hand] in this bowing manner, said Valdez Castro. We say mano po and in that moment, were asking for their blessing and were thanking them for their presence, and its a sign of humility and deep respect and reverence for our elders.

They also eat a lot with their elders and the rest of the family things like puto bumbong, a sticky purple rice pastry. Some also carol and sing some of their traditional Christmas songs, like Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit, which describes Jesus birth and happy intentions for the new year.

There will be one more unique addition to Valdez Castros Christmas celebrations this year, due to her community work and her recent pageant win: Shell dance as the Arabian lead and granny in the Evergreen City Ballets production of The Nutcracker this December in Renton.

This is only a taste of the variety of festivities going on throughout December, January, and February in the South End, as people from all over the world usher in the new year. Plus, in the true spirit of diversity, many in-person and virtual holiday community celebrations and religious ceremonies in South Seattle will strive to include people from all different religions and ethnicities.

Kaffa Coffee and Wine Bar will be sharing the treats and message of Ethiopian Christmas in January at its restaurant. The Northwest African American Museum will hold a virtual Kwanzaa celebration on Dec. 30, and this local Simbang Gabi mass is celebrated in-person and online, in the spirit of sharing and friendship.

Alexa Peters is a freelance journalist and copywriter living in the Seattle area. Her work has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Washington Post, Leafly, Downbeat Magazine, Healthline, and more. Her Twitter is @itsallwritebyme and her Instagram is @alexapeterswrites.

Featured Image: Illustration by Vladimir Verano for the South Seattle Emerald.

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Holidays Bring a Diversity of Celebration on the South End - southseattleemerald.com

Jews in America today are beset both from the right and the left. Nevertheless, a one size fits all strategy is not appropriate. The forms of antisemitism from the two poles are of different origins and are oriented toward different goals.

The threat emanating from the extreme right is directed against Jews and entails harassment, physical attacks and even murder, as, for example, in the deadly 2019 attacks in Pittsburgh and Poway. The attack from the extreme Left is aimed not at people but rather ideologies and belief systems. Zionism is the target, and in some quarters in the US, Judaism is also in the lefts crosshairs.

Thats why the Jewish community must develop differential strategies to meet these threats.

The danger from the extreme left is that of totalitarian utopianism. Student activists have called for the suppression of non-progressive views on subjects as disparate as Black Lives Matter and European culture, calling them unfree speech. Cancel culture, has prevented speakers, including prominent scientists, who do not meet the criteria of political correctness, or possess insufficiently progressive views, from addressing students on campus even regarding their areas of scientific expertise.

This is an ongoing feature of modern culture and politics. We have met it before in the French and Chinese revolutions. Today, this totalistic utopian streak has reasserted itself in relation to the quest for the equality of racial and sexual identities. Hence, every business, educational and social organization has its diversity offices and officers. Critical Race Theory and anti-Racism are being adopted for use in community education courses and schools.

The parallel with communism immediately starts to suggest itself. In communist societies too, every school, plant and organization has its party committee and its political officers, with six-year-olds schooled in the thought of Xi Jinping.

In such an environment Zionism doesnt stand a chance. Centrists and moderates are willing to weigh Israels security needs against Palestinian rights and have some appreciation for how difficult negotiations between the two sides are, especially after Oslos failure. For progressives and their utopian perfectionism, Israel and Zionism in their essence embody colonialist and racist evil and are complicit with racism and oppression in America and around the world. They should be suppressed.

The suppression of Judaism may not be far behind. Not only is it an atavistic tribal religion, it practices barbaric cruelty against babies and animals and it is associated with white Jewish privilege.

Right-wing murderous antisemitism has a different origin. It seems to be linked to extreme social disorganization which leads to political fantasy, especially of a conspiratorial and paranoid sort. Social disorganization characterizes the white, uneducated, working class today. Globalization and the off-shoring of jobs on the one hand, and robotics and computerized automation on the other, have made it well-nigh impossible for non-college-educated men to find jobs in which they can support a family and enjoy a moderate middle-class lifestyle. Thus, family and community life have disappeared, with most births today occurring out of wedlock.

The loss of employment and family life has led to a loss of self-respect and to despair. The most extreme result of all this has been a drastic rise in self-administered death either through alcoholism, opioid drug overdose or suicide. This phenomenon has risen to such an extent that it has affected the average lifespan in America. Life expectancy among middle-aged white working-class males is now in decline, a shocking occurrence in a developed country.

With such social disorganization comes a loosening of the grip on realistic, effective political action Social disorganization does not allow one to formulate clear political objectives or match them with effective means. Rather, it encourages fantasy. As surveys show, support for political fantasies rises considerably among white conservative populations who lack higher education and have low incomes that is, the groups who are most exposed to social disorganization. One prevalent fantasy is immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.

Immigrant replacement beliefs are dangerously close to antisemitic conspiracy theories. The white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville in 2017 chanted the Jews will not replace us and in the Tree of Life shooting all these themes came together. The white supremacist shooter attacked Jews because Jews (HIAS) helped immigrants invade the country. These incidents illustrate the linkage between violent antisemitic attacks and beliefs about the threat that Jews pose and are often conceived of as defensive steps against this threat.

The Jewish community should address both these threats with differential policies. To mitigate the threat from the right, it should support policies that ameliorate social disorganization by improving working conditions and strengthening unions, family, and religious life. Concretely, supplemental income and child support should be designed so as not to penalize working families and the state should provide adequate child-care so that parents can continue to work and support their children.

The Jewish community can address the lefts totalitarian utopianism by mobilizing the Jewish tradition, which has great resources of anti-utopian humility and irony. Anyone who has studied Talmud and Halacha seriously knows that they assume human beings do not have access to absolute truth and that all questions have many sides to them. Enveloping all of this is a sense of irony the Jewish sense of humor that so many American Jews see as important for their Jewish identity. This is based upon an acute awareness of the gulf between the real and the ideal. Such an awareness can and should be applied to todays intolerant absolutism.

Dr. Shlomo Fischer is a sociologist and a senior staff member of the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) in Jerusalem. He taught in the Department of Education at Hebrew University. He is also a founder of Yesodot- Center for Torah and Democracy which works to advance education for democracy in the State-Religious school sector in Israel. His research interests include religious groups, class and politics in Israel and the sociology of the Jewish People in the Diaspora.

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Needed: A two-pronged strategy for antisemitism from the right and left - The Times of Israel

I'm sure you've heard this pitch before. I know I have. Hundreds of times. "We are building a one stop shop." Before I get into why that's a bad pitch, let me try to explain what it means when entrepreneurs say it.

They are in essence differentiating themselves from the competition by offering more features than them. They are claiming to be the Swiss Army knife of startups.

"Our completion does X but we do X, Y, and Z so therefore we are better."

Here is why that is a bad pitch that no investor will buy.

As an entrepreneur, you need to focus.

One of the many reasons so many startups fail is because they lack focus. Instead of building the best product, they are focused on keeping it under the radar so that their competitor shouldn't find out what they're building. They are focused on filing patents instead of finding market fit. To build a successful venture, you need to be one hundred percent focused on one thing and one thing only; execution.

Stuffing your app with a hundred features means you are not focused on your core value proposition. Without focus, you will fail.

People don't want a Swiss Army knife.

Ask any user and they'll tell you they they'd choose a product that does one thing perfectly and solves a real pain pointover a product that has many features but none of them work as needed. A one stop shop might look good on paper, but in real life, nine out of ten times, the product just won't fill the needs of the user.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

That is one of my favorite quotes of all time. It was da Vinci who said it and it was later adopted by Steve Jobs.

Give me a product that is seamless and works flawlessly. That is the ultimate sophistication. Give me a product that's confusing and overwhelming because it has endless bells and whistles, and you lost me even before I started using the product because the onboarding was too complicated for me.

It's just not how people operate

Think about it. When you need groceries, an electronic device, and notebooks for your kid's school, do you go into one store expecting to get everything there, or do you go to relevant stores one by one to find the thing you're looking for?

Now it's true that such stores exist, stores that sell everything, but that's the exception to the rule. It's just the natural way we act. We look for specific stores that sell that item.

This reminds of the story when Steve Jobs wanted to build Apple Stores and he went to the board and raised his idea. He was shotdown immediately and the board told him that they can sell their mac computers in any electronics store right alongside HP, Dell, Samsung, and all the other computer manufacturers.

Jobs obviously wasn't buying it so he went behind their backs and built a concept store. He then brought the board there to see his vision and they were convinced. His claim was that he wants the people who are selling the Mac to live and breathe Mac and not just think of it as yet another computer.

Well, I don't think anyone needs me to tell them how successful Apple stores are.

You tried to capture it all and you captured nothing.

The Talmud has a saying:when you try to grab everything, you end up grabbing nothing. This is true about so many areas of life. It's true about education. You teach a child too much and they'll grasp nothing. It's true for communication. You try to use all the buzz words in the world in an attempt to sound smart. The person you're talking to will grasp nothing. And it is true for product. You try to get it all in there and users will quickly find a replacement product that does one thing well.

Rarely is the "One stop shop" a valid pitch and I would recommend entrepreneurs stop using it. It makes the exact opposite impression of what they were trying to convey.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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A Phrase that is Simply False and Entrepreneurs Need to Stop Using - Inc.

Ever since Iran started seeking nuclear weapons, Israel obviously made itself the most prominent player in opposing this aspiration. According to foreign reports, it did so in various ways, including by attacking nuclear scientists and sabotaging nuclear facilities. Nevertheless, it focused most of its efforts on a diplomatic campaign mobilizing the world against the Iran.

After three decades of nonstop activity, its clear that both these efforts were partially successful very partially. Effectively, according to (almost) all the experts, Iran today is a nuclear threshold state.

LISTEN: Whats missing from Netflixs cowardly collection of Palestinian Stories

But wonder of wonders, this situation hasnt spurred the countries now participating in the nuclear talks with Iran to take forceful, decisive steps that would leave it no choice but to capitulate and they do have the power to take such steps. Instead, and quite unsurprisingly, whats happening now in Vienna broadcasts indolence.

Even if Iran agrees (which it wont) to comply with the weak American and European demands, doing so will only slightly delay the pace of its nuclear development; it wont stop it from completing the process. In other words, Irans ability to make use, when it chooses, of the abilities that nuclear weapons impart to those who possess them will remain unchanged.

Anyone not burying their head in the sand must therefore assume that if Iran is a threshold state, then we are a country on the threshold of a casus belli. It is not in my hands to decide how to translate the conclusions of this into the language of action. I do know, though, that the people of Israel, who are only starting their physical and spiritual recovery following the worst period in their history, must take whatever action derives from the oath we swore less than eight decades ago never again.

In theory, and certainly from the standpoint of its capabilities, the people of Israel could thwart the Iranian threat, or any other existential threat, in a creative manner. But in practice, based on successive governments behavior in recent decades, doubts creep in. Nevertheless, I want to believe (even though I dont really believe) that todays leaders are more trustworthy and above all, smarter than their predecessors, the ones who, because they were unfit to cope with this historic challenge, brought this evil down upon us.

From the outset, do the requisite steps deriving from never again have to entail military action? Not necessarily. When Iran began its nuclear project, Israel had the military and diplomatic ability to successfully adopt a policy of going to the brink, just like the United States did in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. But vocal public arguments, and especially the irresponsible leaks from high-level officers in the army and intelligence services (coupled with an American policy, especially under former President Barack Obama, that bordered on appeasement), resulted in our losing the ability to conduct a policy of going to the brink.

Israel thereby lost its ability to overcome the Iranian threat without war, apparently irreversibly. As was true in many historical precedents, those who wanted to prevent war increased the enemys motivation to stick to its goals and hasten its preparations.

Because going to the brink is no longer credible, Israels latest threats, even if they are substantiated this time, will fall on deaf ears. The Iranians think, and rightly so, that if our loud threats against Hamas and Hezbollah proved to be empty then such threats will prove all the more empty when aimed at Iran.

As the Talmud says in Tractate Sanhedrin, this is the punishment of the liar, that even if he speaks the truth, others do not listen to him.

See more here:

When it come to Iran Israel is on the threshold of casus belli - Haaretz

This Thursday, Qatar received Algeria in the semi-final of the Arab Cup. And with a reshuffled team, but nevertheless favorite to the final victory, Algeria had to do a lot to win, against a Qatari selection well in place at the back, which was able to create dangerous opportunities during its offensive phases.

However, at the end of the second half, it is the Fennecs who were rewarded for their good start. But after the opening of the score at the 58th minute, the green start to defend too much, with the objective to protect the score. A strategy that could have paid off, with ifs.

If the referee had not announced 9 minutes of additional time, if the determination of the opponents had not allowed them to score a furious goal, with the head, at the 96th minute.

The Polish referee of the match was the target of strong criticism after the match. Credits: BFM

At this point in the match, nothing is certain. On the side of Bordeaux, hope is reborn. In the Algerian camp, a whole project was called into question. It is necessary to start again to the attack, to go to conquer this victory which will take them until the final, to face the Tunisian neighbor.

And the minutes, already long, unbearable, continue to tick away, inexorably. After 9 minutes of additional time, the game continues. After 15 minutes, the game continues. And the twittosphere is on fire, calling for the head of the Polish referee, Mr. Szymon Marciniak.

The Algerian coach Madjid Bougherra will also push against the refereeing, declaring unbelievable the 9 minutes of additional time announced.

However, in the 17th minute of additional time, the man in black, as if to be forgiven by a whole people, whistled a foul on Brahimi in the penalty area. Transformed in two times by Belaili at the 108th minute of the match, this penalty catapulted the Algerians in final, at the end of an intense match with a completely crazy outcome.

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Arab Cup: Algeria in the final after a crazy end of game! - KAWA - Kawa News

Most people who study Talmud go with the Babylonian one, and pay scant attention to its older, more difficult cousin the Jerusalem Talmud.

Sefaria, the non-profit library, released a new, online English translation of it this week in hopes that more people will delve into the challenging compendium of Jewish law.

Its free. And its passages link to those in Babylonian Talmud and other texts to give readers context. Sefaria also provides a vocalized version of the text, to familiarize readers with the particular Aramaic dialect of Jerusalem Talmud, which is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or the Yerushalmi.

I really believe that we are changing the way that the Yerushalmi will be learned, Lev Israel, Sefarias chief data officer, said in a statement. People who come to learn Talmud in the coming years and the coming generations will not look to the Yerushalmi as an inaccessible or obscure book, but as something that is near at hand and that they can understand.

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The Jerusalem Talmud, compiled in Northern Israel between the 3rd and 5th centuries, includes long, narrative portions not found in the Babylonian Talmud, which features more complex debates, Rabbi Jill Jacobs has written.

Sefarias new edition highlights both subtle and significant differences between both Talmuds, and will allow learners to enjoy parallel versions of stories, that shed light on each other, according to Sara Wolkenfeld, Sefarias chief learning officer.

The new online version relies on a translation completed in 2015 by Heinrich Guggenheimer, a German-born Swiss-American mathematician, who died in March after spending 20 years on the text. Guggenhiemers publisher, De Gruyter, agreed to partner with Sefaria on its new project.

The new translation is enjoying some strong reviews.

Happy news, Jewish text nerds: @SefariaProject now has the Yerushalmi/Jerusalem Talmud online in English, which is great because it makes a key text more available to more people and also oh, some lines of just achingly great beauty, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, scholar in residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, tweeted.

But not everyone loves it.

Laliv Clenman, a senior lecturer in rabbinic literature at Leo Baeck College in London, said while she appreciates how Sefaria is trying to make the Jerusalem Talmud available to a wider audience, she also challenges the idea of translating it in the first place.

I would venture to say that none of the translations of Yerushalmi is always or even regularly helpful, Clenman said. Its destined to remain obscure and the antithesis of the easily digestible.

I value embracing its inherently and contextually challenging nature, she continued. It is in this difficulty that valuable learning experience resides.

For those who want to study the text, she recommends Menachem Katzs Yerushalmi Qiddushin. Its in Hebrew. So accessibility there remains a problem, she said.

Lev Taylor, a trainee rabbi who has studied under Clenman, tweeted that the poetic language of the Jerusalem Talmud gets lost in the new translation. He noted that the sun taking itself to a trough is reduced to sundown, and the close of an eye to moment.

He added: It is so wonderful that this is accessible now to so many.

Rabbi Velvel Belinsky at the ARIEL Jewish Center and Synagogue, a Chabad congregation outside Baltimore, agreed that making the Jerusalem Talmud more accessible is a good thing because the Messiah is coming.

The Babylonian Talmud is most studied in our Jewish education systems, but this is because we, from a lower perspective, are more capable of grasping it, he said. When the Mashiach comes, we will be using the Jerusalem Talmud because we are going to be at a higher level. We will need to read it, so now is actually the right time.

In 1289, Rabbi Jehiel ben Jekuthiel Anav hand-copied the oldest and only surviving complete manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud, which was then printed for the first time in Venice in 1524 by Daniel Bomberg, a Christian printer of Jewish books.

Intimidated by the Jerusalem Talmud? Theres now a more accessible translation

Read the original:

Intimidated by the Jerusalem Talmud? Theres now a more accessible translation - Forward

In his essay Majesty and Humility, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik recounts how Occasionally, when I am at the airport, I happen to observe the loading of a double coffin containing the body of a Jew who has lived, worked, raised children, prospered or failed, in the United States. It is being shipped for burial in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Rav Soloveitchik finds this to be fascinating, because many of those being transported had marginal Jewish identities. He ponders why a modern, secular Jew wants to rest in eternal peace in proximity to the site where the patriarchs found their rest.

The Jewish desire to be buried in Israel is indeed a puzzle, one that goes back centuries. The Talmud Yerushalmi records a fascinating exchange between two 2nd-century rabbis, Rabbi Eleazer and Rabbi Barqiria, while they were observing caskets of diaspora Jews being carried into Israel for burial. Rabbi Barqiria criticized the practice, noting that these Jews had treated Israel with contempt in their lifetimes by failing to move there, and now they were making it worse by sending their impure, dead bodies into Israel for burial. Rabbi Eleazar defended the practice and asserted that burial in Israel was so important, it had sufficient merit to atone for ones sins. (The Midrash on our Torah reading mentions a similar debate.) Rabbi Barqirias criticism notwithstanding, this puzzling practice clearly was popular already in the 2nd century despite the challenging logistics of long-distance burial in the ancient world.

But what motivates a Jew in the corners of exile to send his body for burial in Israel? Rav Soloveitchik explains that all humans have an instinctive desire to return to their roots at the very end of life; and for a Jew, his roots are in Israel. Rav Soloveitchik explains that the meaning of death in the Biblical tradition is to return to the origin, the source. He calls this desire origin-consciousness. This longing is universal; as life comes to an end, even the adventurer yearns for home. Rav Soloveitchik quotes Robert Louis Stevensons poem Requiem, as follows:

This be the verse you grave for me:Here he lies where he longed to beHome is the sailor, home from sea,And the hunter home from the hill.

Even explorers want to return home to their final resting place.

This longing is universal; as life comes to an end, even the adventurer yearns for home.

Parshat Vayechi offers two vignettes relating to burial in Israel. Both Yaakov and Yoseph have had adventures that took them far away from home and separated them from their families. Yet both want to return home for burial; after a lifetime of wandering, they want to return to their roots. So Yaakov asks Yoseph to make sure he will be buried in the family grave in the Mearat Hamachpelah. At the end of the Torah reading, Yoseph does the same; he makes his family promise to take his bones with them when they leave Egypt.

These two requests reflect very different concerns. Yaakov wants to be buried in his kever avot, his family plot; Yoseph wants to be buried in Eretz Yisrael, in the Land of Israel. Both of these concerns are religious values, and this is reflected in halakhah as well. Generally, disinterment of a body is forbidden; one should not disturb a grave for any reason. However, there are two exceptions to the rule: if the body will be reburied in a family plot, or if it will be sent to Israel for reburial.

Yaakov reminds us of the importance of the family plot. Sefer Chasidim, the 12th-century German work, takes the mystical view that the cemetery is a portal between the worlds of the living and the dead; and the dead very much desire for their graves to be visited by family members. But even rationalists can recognize that the family plot is sacred ground, a spot that symbolically expresses connections of love that never die. In the moments when I consider where I would want to be buried, it is family considerations that loom large. Should I be buried with my parents and grandparents, or in a cemetery closer to where my children will live? It is instinctive to want to be laid to rest near family.

In the moments when I consider where I would want to be buried, it is family considerations that loom large. Should I be buried with my parents and grandparents, or in a cemetery closer to where my children will live?

Rav Soloveitchiks essay offers a profound insight into the powerful allure of a family plot; and this is what motivates Yaakov. However, I dont think his explanation fully explains the desire for burial in Israel; this age-old custom is far more than a return to origins, as we can see from the burial of Yoseph.

Yosephs burial is not about his family; he is buried alone, apart from his parents and siblings. Instead, his reburial tells the story of national redemption. Yosephs descent to Egypt begins a difficult chapter of exile; and when the Jews are redeemed, Yosephs bones return with them. Because of the national significance of Yosephs reburial, Moshe personally carries Yosephs bones. Yoseph is buried in Shechem, the very place where he is sold into slavery, and the saga of the Egyptian exile begins. Yosephs reburial is about redemption and the future, not about the past.

On August 17, 1949, the story of Yosephs bones returned to the headlines. Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, was brought to burial in Israel. Herzl had written in his will, I wish to be buried in a metal coffin, in the cemetery plot next to my father, and I will lie there until the people of Israel transfer my body to the Land of Israel. After his death in 1904, little was done. There were discussions in the Zionist movement about moving Herzls bones in 1925, and again in 1935; by then, the antisemitism that was raging in Austria rendered this project impossible.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, its leaders immediately took on the project of bringing Herzl to Israel; and this was seen as a modern version of the burial of Yosephs bones. Doron Bar, of The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, notes that within the dry language of the Knesset legislation establishing a national burial ground for Herzl, the Biblical phrase chelkat sadeh, a parcel of land is useda reference to the words used at the end of the book of Joshua about the reburial of Yoseph. When David Ben Gurion spoke in the Knesset, he said: Only two people in Jewish history have had the privilege of having their remains brought to Israel by their liberated nation. Yoseph from Egypt and Herzl from Vienna. Herzls reburial was a modern day return of Yosephs bones.

The entire process played out in grand drama. In Vienna, the community gathered to offer one last farewell in a synagogue packed with Holocaust survivors, tears streaming down their faces. A special El Al plane, which bore the name Herzl on its nose, arrived to take the body to Israel. In a short speech before the plane took off, David Remez, the minister of transportation, said, Past and future combine to raise up the leaders bones. His spirit will continue to be with us and guide the Jewish people from the eternal hills of Jerusalem.

The plane flew to Israel and entered the skies over Haifa, where it was met by four planes from the Israeli Air Force, which then accompanied Herzls plane. After landing, the body was taken to the Knesset in Tel Aviv, where a special session was held to honor Herzl. Following that, a procession took Herzls body to Jerusalem, on the same path that Herzl himself took in his 1898 visit. In Jerusalem. Herzl was buried in the newly created cemetery of Har Herzl, which would become the final resting place of Israels great heroes, soldiers, and leaders.

Herzls burial represented the opening of a new chapter in Jewish history. As Ben Gurion eloquently stated in his speech, Herzls coffin is entering the mountains of Jerusalem not in a procession of mourning, but rather in a journey of triumph. Upon entering Jerusalem, the coffin passed under an arch built for the occasion bearing the biblical verse, I will lift you from your graves My people and bring you to the land of Israel (Ezek. 37:12). Herzls return to Israel meant that the Jewish people had finally come home.

This is why I take a different view than Rav Soloveitchik of burial in Israel. While the desire to return to ones origins is universal, the desire to be buried in Israel is much more than that. For centuries, Jews sent their bodies to Israel in order to make a statement that they believed in redemption, believed in the Jewish future, and believed that Israel would once again be the home and homeland of their descendants. Like Yoseph and Herzl, these simple Jews wanted to be a part of a future Jewish state. They were longing to be buried in Israel and their longing for redemption were one and the same.

As I write these words, my thoughts turn to my dear friends Leah and Simcha Goldin. They have been waging a lonely campaign to bring home the remains of their son Hadar Goldin along with Oron Shaul. Both were soldiers killed in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge. Since then, their bodies have been held hostage by Hamas. The Goldins continue to push forward, in the United Nation, in the U.S. Capitol, and in the Knesset. All too often, their concerns are dismissed as unimportant in the realm of diplomacy. But returning a body to the family grave is not an insignificant matter for any human being; and returning Jewish heroes to their homeland should be a priority for every Jew. Hadar and Oron must be given a dignified burial; it is time for them to come home.

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To Be Buried in One's Homeland: Yoseph, Herzl, and Hadar - Jewish Journal