Category Archives: Talmud

In the second installment of a new series exploring new and upcoming books, the team at Jewish Insider previews some of the top and relevant new titles coming out in October:

Three Sisters, by Heather Morris (Oct. 5): Heather Morriss third book in the bestselling Tattooist of Auschwitz series, Three Sisters is a work of historical fiction loosely based on the story of survival of Cibi, Magda and Livia, three Jewish sisters from Slovakia who are imprisoned in Auschwitz and later move to Israel in the post-war years.

Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald, by Carole Angier (Oct. 5): Carole Angier pens the first biography of the late German author, who died in a car accident in 2001. Speak, Silence looks at how Sebald, whose father spent the younger Sebalds early years in a prisoner of war camp, channeled his own questions and feelings about the Holocaust into his writing.

Judah Benjamin: Counselor to the Confederacy, by James Traub (Oct. 5): Judah Benjamin rose to prominence as a Louisiana legislator and one of the few Jewish politicians before serving as secretary of state for the Confederacy after the South seceded from the United States. James Traub takes on the gargantuan task of producing a biography of an elusive man who left very little written trace of his true beliefs and thoughts.

Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood by Mark Oppenheimer (Oct. 5): In the year following the deadly shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in October 2018, Tablet senior editor Mark Oppenheimer made more than 30 trips to Pittsburgh, where his ancestors had settled over a century earlier, to chronicle the resilience of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where much of the citys Jewish population lives.

Come and Hear: What I Saw in My Seven-and-a-Half-Year Journey through the Talmud, by Adam Kirsch (Oct. 8): For nearly eight years, poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch wrote about his experience with Daf Yomi, the daily reading of a page of Talmud. The secular Kirsch writes about his journey through the text through observations that range from the mundane to serious, taking readers along for a ride few non-religious Jews ever experience.

The Lost Caf Schindler: One Family, Two Wars, and the Search for Truth, by Meriel Schindler (Oct. 12): Following her fathers death in 2017, attorney Meriel Schindler began to research her family history dating back more than a century to Innsbruck, Austria,to learn how generations survived and thrived and eventually had their dreams destroyed by the Holocaust. Schindler explores her complicated relationship with her late father, who fled the Nazis as a teenager, and the timeline of ownership of her familys famed restaurant, Caf Schindler.

Its Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, by Seth Wickersham (Oct. 12): Seth Wickersham, a senior writer at ESPN, takes a detailed look at the New England Patriots franchise, including emails, game plans and text messages, to better understand the teams top names: owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, who left the team in 2020.

Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical, by Shaul Magid (Oct. 12): Rabbi and academic Shaul Magid explores the life and impact of one of the most controversial figures in modern-day Zionism, looking not just at the American-born Kahanes influences but also his legacy following his assassination in 1990.

In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 19181921 and the Onset of the Holocaust, by Jeffrey Veidlinger (Oct. 26): Historian Jeffrey Veidlinger shines a light on the three-year period, from 1918-1921, when more than 100,000 Jews were killed in pogroms across modern-day Ukraine. Veidlinger uses historical texts as well as testimonies from survivors to compile this compendium on Eastern Europoean antisemitism that lays the informational groundwork for what would decades later result in the Holocaust.

Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement, by Julian Zelizer (Oct. 26): Much is known about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschels social justice efforts alongside Civil Rights activists in the second half of the 20th century. Julian Zelizer looks at Heschels early years growing up in Poland and eventual opportunity to come to the U.S. just as the Holocaust was beginning.

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10 new books to read in October - Jewish Insider

The human story in the Bible begins in a garden with Adam and Eve and the mysterious tree of knowledge of good and evil. What is the tree of knowledge of good and evil? A look at five puzzles arising from the story may help yield an answer.

God prohibits eating from the tree of knowledge, and only later banishes the humans lest they eat as well from the tree of life. Why not prohibit the tree of life first?

God tells Adam if he eats of the fruit he will die. He and Eve eat but do not die. Why not?

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Why is Adam and Eves first reaction to eating from the tree of knowledge to become ashamed of their nakedness and to clothe themselves?

Why after leaving Eden is the couples first act to conceive a child?

In what sense are human beings expelled from paradise?

The Denial of Death, by the social psychologist Ernest Becker, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974. According to Becker, it was not sex, as Freud had postulated, but death that underlies our human experience, specifically the fear and denial of our own mortality. Our obsession with sex hides a deeper obsession with death since, like eating and bathroom functions, sex reminds us we are bodies that decay and die. Like animals we eat, eliminate, and procreate.

For Becker, everything from table manners to disgust with our own waste to the endless dance surrounding sexuality is an attempt to deal with the reality of corporeality.

What then is the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Instead of just being about morality as some argue, it could denote the tree of the knowledge of death. If we lived forever, things would be neither good nor bad. A broken friendship could be restored next century, or you could lose weight in your seven-hundreds. Why was the tree not prohibited earlier? Adam and Eve did not think to eat of it: death was unknown to them.

When they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they did die. Not in a literal sense but in a psychological sense as we all do the first time we become aware that things fade and break and die. Now they knew they were mortal. (According to many commentators they were at first immortal, but in this reading they were always mortal but did not know it.)

Why clothes? For the first time they are aware of themselves as bodies and so feel shame. The paradise they lose is the paradise of permanence. What is the first thing they do upon leaving the garden? They conceive a child, leaving descendants, which is one way mortal creatures reach beyond this life.

The story of Adam and Eve is etiological it explains the origins of things. It touches upon the fundamental human dilemma and suggests responses:

Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife (Genesis 2:24). This is what Adam and Eve do to God: they leave God and cling to each other. One answer to death is love, as the Song of Songs says, Love is as strong as death (8:6). A second answer to death is procreation, having a child to carry on.

God breathes the breath of life into him (2:7). The source of life comes from beyond ourselves. This verse is used by the Talmudic sages to prove the concept of the souls life after death. For if life comes from beyond, it is not extinguished when the body fails.

Is the Garden of Eden story a parable of the fall, of original sin? Not quite. Jewish prayers insist each morning, God the soul You have given me is pure. Rather, the story of Adam and Eve explains the gift of life, the dilemma of death, the human need to reach beyond the grave, and the religious promise of eternity.

The writer is Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of David the Divided Heart.On Twitter: @rabbiwolpe

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Is the Garden of Eden story a parable of the 'original sin'? - The Jerusalem Post

Right-wing radio host Dennis Prager went on a bizarre rant against doctors and teachers on Wednesdays edition of The Dennis Prager Show in which he contended that educators are committed to crapping on America.

But first, Prager who appeared and sounded sedated accused medical practitioners of being murderers destined for eternal damnation:

Many doctors have killed patients because of their ignorance, obstinance, and arrogance. It is not odd that the Talmud the second holiest work in Judaism stated 2,000 years ago that the best doctors go to Hell. Doctors, even when they could do nothing 2,000 years ago, were known for their arrogance. There are some wonderful doctors in America. Some, just for the record. Never said this in my life, my eyes have been opened in the darkness of the last two years. And they have been dark. Why havent all Americans eyes been opened? Like to teachers, and teachers unions, and colleges.

Next, Prager asseverated that kids becoming infected with COVID-19 is a good thing for themselves and their communities:

Every student going back to college has to have a vaccine? Despite the fact that their age group is virtually untouched by this untouched, I mean no fatalities. In fact, the more young people that get COVID the better it is for them and society, they have natural immunity. But your college doesnt accept natural immunity.

Antibodies from infection wane over time, which is why vaccinations are critical to stopping the coronavirus from spreading and mutating.

Prager then stumbled over his words as he asserted that teachers are harmful to American culture:

And what about the teachers who are not going back until all the students [unintelligible] they just werent going to go back. Theyre only going back to crapping on America most elementary school teachers thats what theyre committed to. Crapping on America while robbing your child of innocence and teaching them via Zoom. And yet people will still send their kids to these schools. Thats the state of things at this time, so Im asking you to fight and be happier.

Watch below via Media Matters for America:

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Dennis Prager Attacks Doctors and Teachers in Slurred-Speech Tirade - HillReporter.com

Rabbi Marc Baker, the newish head of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, seemed to be everywhere this summer.

At a vigil in Bostons Brighton neighborhood, denouncing the stabbing of a Chabad rabbi. At a media event for the New England Holocaust Memorial, with the governor of Massachusetts and mayor of Boston. At a downtown rally in support of Israel. And, back on Passover, a YouTube video from his home thanking health-care workers.

Three years ago, when Baker was named to the most important Jewish job in Boston, he was relatively unknown, except for among a small circle of families whose kids attended the nearly $50,000-a-year day school he ran. Now, as president and chief executive officer of CJP, Bostons Federation, he is running the states largest nonprofit organization outside of universities and hospitals, a powerful 126-year-old institution that makes hundreds of grants to local charities and programs.

Baker, 43, had never worked in the federation system, or in philanthropy, before arriving at CJP, where he was paid more than $600,000 in 2019, according to federal tax records.

And he was stepping into the shoes of the venerable Barry Shrage, a Boston icon and nationally known leader who headed CJP for three decades, doubling its annual budget and raising more than $1 billion overall.

In short order, Baker shook things up, restructuring departments, eliminating some high-level jobs and moving new people into leadership. He said he was positioning CJP for the 21st century, and promised it would care for the most vulnerable, including Jews with disabilities and in financial need, and welcome everyone with loving compassion.

But there has been turbulence along the route, and fundraising for CJPs annual campaign is down from the Shrage era, according to the organizations audited financial statements. These statements show campaign pledge revenue was $56,426,000 in fiscal year 2020, down from an average of $61,494,500 in the last full four years of Shrages tenure.

Asked about this, a CJP spokesperson said revenue grew to $61.6 million in fiscal year 2021, though that figure has not yet been audited.

Baker is hailed by many local Jewish leaders notably peers, donors, and grantees as a charismatic, strong and able leader with self-confidence, creativity and energy.

In a partisan world, Marc is a voice of moral clarity thats needed, said Joanna Jacobson, who was on the search committee that hired him and is president of Bostons One8 Foundation.

At the same time, current and former employees say he has created a toxic work environment; and two filed discrimination lawsuits earlier this year that were quickly settled.

A third employee, Rabbi Andy Kastner, retained a lawyer in August, the Forward has learned, to pursue an employment-related claim after CJP allegedly reneged on a promise to allow him to temporarily work remotely from his West Coast home before relocating to Boston. Kastner was due to move to Massachusetts this fall and had already sold his home when he got the news he was fired.

A CJP spokesperson confirmed that his last day was Sept. 17 and, asked about the possible legal action, said: There was no dispute. He did not respond to further questions.

Several former employees interviewed over the last few months described Bakers management style as aggressive, vindictive and unscrupulous, saying he purged employees who challenged him. Similar complaints have been voiced by people who felt they were unfairly terminated by Baker at the day school he ran for 11 years, Gann Academy in Waltham.

It is about a toxic pattern of behavior with a lot of cruelty and harassment that has been overlooked by the lay leaders, said a former CJP employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Ive worked in many Jewish nonprofit workplaces and have never seen such a cruel and vengeful man put in charge.

The assessments are hard to reconcile, and may reflect the size and complexity of CJP, and the inevitable challenges of making change in any large workplace especially at a moment when workplace norms are in flux.

Marc Baker went in and made changes. And when you make changes, people are unhappy, said Jay Sanderson, chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and a mentor of Bakers. As for the lawsuits, Sanderson said: We are in a world now where that is where you go.

It is also a world where many Jewish organizations are rethinking what leadership looks like and how to handle interpersonal relations, catalyzed in part by the #MeToo movement.

There has definitely been a rise in awareness and response to the realities of toxic-abuse workplace culture in Jewish organizations, said Nicole Nevarez, executive director of Taamod, a national organization addressing inequity and harm in Jewish workplaces. If we want our Jewish organizations to be places of innovation and belonging and connecting, and therefore sustain the Jewish people, they need to be places of safety and equity and accountability.

Courtesy of Twitter (@/CJPBoston)

Rabbi Baker interacting with families at Parents at the Center, a community center for struggling families in Haifa, Israel, Bostons sister city.

Even so, speaking out can be risky in Bostons circumscribed world of Jewish philanthropy, where CJP has vast reach and influence. Several of Bakers critics agreed to discuss Baker only on the condition they not be named for fear of losing their jobs or of jeopardizing their spouses jobs. Some talked through tears.

I really dont want to expose weakness in the Jewish community, said one former employee. We believe in our community. But we have to live out our Jewish values. And we want to be part of the solution.

When Shrage stepped down in 2018, CJP the oldest federated Jewish philanthropy in the country - was the epicenter of Bostons Jewish community, a fundraising machine that punched far above its weight in a city with the nations sixth-largest Jewish population. It has an endowment of $242 million and an annual budget of nearly $65 million. According to federal tax records, in 2019 CJP also oversaw $1.4 billion in donor-advised fund assets, a type of investment account for supporting charitable organizations. A CJP spokesperson said its donor-advised fund has grown by $300 million in 2021.

Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots whose late wife, Myra, had chaired CJPs board had donated $10 million to renovate the organizations High Street headquarters, which was dedicated in 2018. CJP awarded countless grants to a host of causes and was a major player in civic life. Long before other Jewish funders, Shrage helped break ideological ground, supporting groups long left out of the Jewish mainstream, including gays, lesbians and interfaith couples.

Image by CJP Website

Robert Kraft, his sons Jonathan and Dan and daughter-in-law Wendy, alongside former CJP head Barry Shrage at the opening of the Kraft Family Building, the headquarters of the CJP, in April 2018.

Bakers background is very different from his predecessors. Shrage, trained as a social worker, described himself in a video as a schlepper from the Bronx whose first accomplishment at CJP, he said in self-deprecation, was to take the fundraising campaign from $25 million to $19 million.

Baker is a native of Lynnfield, Mass., a prosperous North Shore suburb, and attended Phillips Academy Andover, a prestigious prep school, then Yale, where he was the first Jewish captain of the squash team. He spent four years in Israel, where he was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi, and was just 31 in 2007 when he became head of school at Gann, Greater Bostons Independent Jewish high school, which was founded in 1997.

A dozen years later, Baker was the surprise pick of an 11-member search committee that included a woman who had been vice president of the Gann board of trustees, and a man whose wife was a Gann board member at the time. Both at the time were parents of Gann students or alumni.

I was struck by how wise and thoughtful he was, said Jacobson, who was also on the committee. He could articulate very personally what the Jewish community needed in the future and asked incredibly incisive questions. And he was equally willing to listen.

Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis professor of Jewish history who has worked closely with CJP, said Baker has navigated the jobs challenges well during a time of political polarization in a diversifying Jewish community.

I think this is one of those moments when it will be very important to try to bring people together, said Sarna. There is nobody better than Marc. Hes Orthodox, but he is liberal. He went to a private swanky prep school so he knows how to talk to preppies. He can talk the Orthodox talk and learn a page of Talmud with them, and at the same time he can interact with secular Jews.

Eric Fingerhut, president and chief executive officer of The Jewish Federations of North America, praised Baker for having such self-confidence, such creativity, such energy.

Baker started at CJP with an eight-month, 36-stop listening tour of Jewish communities and organizations. He told the Forward in May that he wanted to see the community through new eyes, and that he got feedback from more than 1,700 participants in the tour events about Jewish life in Greater Boston.

Within two days of when much of Massachusetts went on lockdown - March 13 - CJP launched an emergency COVID relief fund. It raised nearly $11 million for local individuals, schools and synagogues as well as Jewish communities in Ukraine, Argentina, and Israel.

Marc is an amazing listener and responsive to the changing times, said Amy Schectman, chief executive officer of 2Life Communities, which provides affordable housing for older adults. When COVID hit, CJP just called and said, What do you need? and then came back with a slug of money and support.

I remember actually crying on the phone, she added. Id felt so alone at that point with the challenges of COVID.

Courtesy of Twitter (@/CJPBoston)

Rabbi Baker holding a baby at the CJP-funded Parents at the Center, a community center for struggling families in Haifa, Israel, Bostons sister city.

Baker launched a new program for Jewish art and artists, awarding $100,000 to support 11 initiatives including public art installations, documentary film, poetry and dance, and establishing a new director of arts and culture, making Bostons one of the only federations to have one.

Laura Mandel, executive director of the Jewish Arts Collaborative, said it was the first time the organized Jewish community has reached out to artists, and called Baker a wonderful, smart, savvy guy.

CJP has also started a new mental health initiative committing $1.6 million annually for three years that includes free online treatment for stress and depression, in partnership with McLean Hospital and Jewish Family & Childrens Service.

And Baker is encouraging investment in new digital capabilities, which became a lifeline during the pandemic, enabling synagogues to hold virtual services.

Baker is a natural orator who is both learned and affable, interspersing his thoughts about CJP and Judaism with bits of soaring rhetoric. In the May interview, he described his leadership style as data-driven and strategic but said the work is ultimately about people, trying to create meaningful lives and Jewish lives.

Inside the Kraft Family Building, Bakers first few years have also been marked by questions about how money is being spent, low morale, rapid turnover, accusations of a toxic workplace and lawsuits.

In June 2020, CJP announced it was laying off 25 employees, part of a wave of similar pandemic-related layoffs at federations nationally. Some questioned the financial justification, given that the organization had in April been approved to receive $2.8 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

A CJP spokesperson said the executive team, including Baker, took voluntary pay cuts of 3% to 12% in May 2020. An insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the salaries of the executive team were restored by fall and two members even got raises angering other employees.

That money was meant to sustain people at their jobs, one former employee said of the SBA funds. It was disgusting.

Asked twice by email about whether and when the executive salaries were restored, the CJP spokesperson said, this has no connection to the loan, adding that the SBA money enabled CJP to defer the staff reductions for eight weeks, consistent with the intent of the program.

Others who worked at CJP described an office atmosphere that turned sour after leadership changed. There was an intense fear of being pushed out, said one ex-staffer, who complained that Bakers cronies replaced some longtime managers.

Marc played favorites, said another, again speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. People felt if you werent on the right team, you werent safe.

Baker was the head of school at Gann Academy in Waltham, MA for 11 years before becoming the head of CJP of Greater Boston.

Employees said they felt pressure to respond to emails at all hours, including weekends. Baker would request a report or something at 4 oclock on Fridays, one former staff member said. He is known to attack before Shabbat.

One person said that eight current and former colleagues had shared stories with him about being bullied or harassed by managers, including Sarah Abramson, whom Baker promoted to senior vice president in February, 2019. These employees said they felt targeted either because they were associated with Shrage and deemed no longer useful, or because they had been vocal and pushed back against changes Baker was making. Two said they were having suicidal thoughts because of how they were being treated.

In addition to the 25 people laid off in 2020, at least 13 people in senior leadership positions have departed CJP since Baker took over. Some top-level executives were encouraged to retire or take other positions in the Jewish community. Others left of their own accord, or were given notice they would be replaced or their jobs eliminated.

None of the six former vice presidents or the departed chief operating officer responded to queries from the Forward as to why they left.

The CJP spokesperson said turnover has been steady and comparable to the years before Baker started, and provided numbers showing the percentage of the staff that departed, voluntarily and not, since 2017. But he said his records did not specify levels of seniority.

One of the people who sued CJP in January is Zachary Kogan, an Orthodox Jew who worked at the organization from 2016 to early 2021 managing partnerships with other groups. The complaint, filed in Massachusetts Superior Court, accused CJP and its vice president of partnerships and services, Kimberlee Schumacher, of demoting Kogan and retaliating against him after he requested paternity leave before the birth of his second child. The case was settled in March.

The second lawsuit was filed by Matthew Lebovic, who worked at CJP for 13 years and named Baker; Abramson, the senior vice president for strategy and impact; and Rachael Weisz, chief people officer.

Lebovic oversaw several initiatives, including campus programs and trips for young adults to Israel and to Holocaust sites in Europe. He said that he was demoted after disclosing a mental-health condition, despite years of excellent performance reviews, and was ultimately terminated after complaining about Baker to human resources. The stated reason for his firing was him sharing his password, which Lebovic said in an interview was a common practice at CJP. Lebovic said in an interview with the Forward prior to his case being settled.

Image by Screenshot/Twitter

A CJP delegation visits the Joint Distribution Committee in a July 2021 trip.

That case was also settled in May. The court document references an apologetic email Abramson sent her staff on Sept. 29, 2020, with the subject line Yom Kippur reflections. (The email was included in a separate complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.)

One of the things that I had hoped would be a hallmark of my leadership of this team was a sense of comradery [sic], a sense of shared ownership and just some plain old fun and team building, the email reads. COVID has made that immeasurably harder, but I feel I have entirely dropped the ball in ways that are really weighing on me.

In court records and an interview, Lebovic said that his CJP experience shifted after a meeting Abramson led in the fall of 2020 to discuss Bakers mental health initiative, in which Lebovic referenced his own experience. He added that he later met with Weisz, the chief people officer, telling her about a disturbing phone call hed had with Abramson, that other colleagues had experienced unprofessional and cruel treatment from some managers, and that Baker was aware of it.

I was fired because I blew the whistle on Marc, who was harboring abusive managers, he said. He was not a bystander.

Asked about the Kogan case in January, the CJP emailed a statement calling the claims absolutely baseless and without merit and said the organization is committed to upholding all laws governing religious discrimination, religious accommodation and parental leave and would not tolerate any violation of these important principles.

The suggestion that we would discriminate against an Orthodox member of our community is preposterous, the statement went on. Our managers, who are widely respected community leaders with impeccable integrity, have our full support. We are confident, after thoroughly investigating these claims, that our managers acted properly, followed the laws and consistently applied our CJP policies.

On the Lebovic case, CJPs board chair, Shira Goodman who had previously served as vice president of Gann Academy called the allegations a meritless attempt to defame our organization by the former employee, who was terminated for violating clear policies in our handbook. She added: CJP is committed to upholding all laws prohibiting discrimination or retaliation.

Asked about the lawsuits in May, Baker told the Forward they were resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. The amount of the settlement is confidential.

Complaints about Bakers leadership predate his tenure at CJP. The Forward spoke with four former employees of Gann Academy, two of whom called the atmosphere at the school toxic and three of whom said they observed or experienced a culture of favoritism and retaliation. They recalled women being called emotional and told to tone down their intensity and people being reprimanded by Baker for disagreeing with him.

Baker declined in the May interview to discuss the lawsuits or the complaints from his days at Gann. I would say Im really proud of the culture weve created at CJP, he said.

For me, relationships are everything, and change is hard and leadership is hard, he said. You have to make hard decisions and I try my best to make every decision with integrity and with transparency and with compassion.

A Boston Jewish leader earns high praise amid lawsuits and allegations of a toxic culture

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A Boston Jewish leader earns high praise amid lawsuits and allegations of a 'toxic culture' - Forward

The Constitution of The Republic of Iraq, formulated in 2005 and approved in a referendum by more than three-quarters of the people, stated that Iraq shall observe the principles of good neighborliness... seek to settle disputes by peaceful means, establish relations on the basis of mutual interests and reciprocity, and respect its international obligations.

Those of us with long roots in the region, especially the Jews who have lived in what was variously called Babylon, Mesopotamia and Iraq for 2,500 years, have long sought a Middle East that is more tolerant, open and its various parts at peace with each other.

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Last years Abraham Accords were the first and important steps in a region where new alliances are being sought and embraced. Former enemies are moving forward in a warm embrace, enmity is replaced with fraternity, and all are benefiting from the newfound Jewish-Arab multilateralism in the region.

Even those nations that are not yet at the point of official recognition of the Jewish state, like Saudi Arabia and Oman, are putting aside past differences and working together behind the scenes and even on occasion openly.

The region is moving beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict in an unprecedented manner.

It also has a long and varied history where its peoples frequently had good relations, arguably unprecedented in the region.

In the Iraq where I was raised, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sunnis or Shiites worked, learned, sang and danced together. We lived side by side in peace and harmony.

Iraqs Jews played a prominent role in culture, the arts, government and economics. They were an inseparable part of the country and their role in forming the foundation of Jewish peoplehood and religion through the Babylonian Talmud, or those like Sir Sassoon Eskell, one of the founders of modern Iraq, assisting in the formation of a modern Iraqi identity, our duality flourished for the betterment of all.

Unfortunately, this all ended in the 20th century with pogroms, mass hangings and expulsion, but the Iraqi Jews still hold fond memories from our past. Above all, we remember the people, many of whom sought and maintained good relations with their Jewish neighbors and colleagues.

It is no coincidence that one of the organizers of the normalization conference, Sahar Karim al-Tai, a senior official in Iraqs Ministry of Culture, said that she was raised in a family with the principle of freedom of expression and freedom of consciences, and though she lost her father as a child, she remembers him talking about his close friend, a successful Jewish businessman named Sassoon, who was forced to flee Iraq.

It was these people-to-people connections that Iraqis and Jews remember and can form the backbone of a new rapprochement between our peoples.

The beauty of the Abraham Accords is that it is not merely an official but cold peace played out at the upper echelons of government. The normalization agreements have been felt by the people who have embraced them, whether it is the massive influx or Israeli tourists to Dubai and the billions of dollars of trade between businesses, or the Moroccan-Israeli universities agreement and the insertion of Jewish history into the Moroccan educational system, peace is being built at all levels.

The State of Israel, with its hundreds of thousands of Jews of Iraqi descent, have long sought good relations with its neighbor.

In 2018, Israels Foreign Ministry launched a Facebook page, specifically dedicated to engaging and creating a dialogue with the Iraqi public. The page, called Israel in Iraqi-Arabic, serves as a digital bridge between the two peoples. The page focuses on content of interest to Iraqi audiences, such as stories about the large Jewish-Iraqi community that previously lived in Iraq and today lives in Israel, as well as similarities between the Israeli and Iraqi cultures.

This was a small, outstretched hand, and now gratifyingly, it has been reciprocated.

We are under no illusions that normalization is around the corner, and reports of the arrest of the organizers of this important conference are gravely worrying.

However, it is clear that there is a growing interest in Iraq in putting the past aside and having peaceful and normal relations with the Jewish state to its west.

This is something we can and should support.

There are two opposite forces currently in the Middle East. One is led by the forces of reconciliation and stability, led by pragmatic Arab countries and Israel that is imagining a new peaceful region, and the other seeks more bloodshed and conflict, led by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As has happened throughout many chapters of history, Iraq is at the crossroads of two competing movements, with both trying to influence its future direction.

Let us hope, for the sake of the region and all of its people that Iraq chooses wisely and joins the circle of peace, because the wider that circle becomes, the less room there will be for those who seek endless conflict.

The writer, a businessman and philanthropist, is member on the Board of the World Organization of Jews from Iraq and honorary president of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq.

Read the rest here:

Israel should make peace with Iraq through the Abraham Accords - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

The holiday of Shemini Atzeres suffers from an identity crisis. On the one hand, its very name the Eighth Day of Assembly leads to the impression that it is the closing day of Sukkot, the holiday that immediately precedes it. At the same time, the Talmud clearly understands it to be a separate holiday, with significant features that distinguish it from Sukkot. Among the halakhic features that the Talmud uses to prove its independence is the recitation of the blessing of Shehechiyanu Baruch she-he-cheyanu ve-kiyamanu ve-higiyanu la-zeman ha-zeh the benediction recited at the beginning of each festival thanking God who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season. The Shehechiyanu said at the beginning nights of Sukkot is not sufficient to cover the joy that we have in encountering a new and independent milestone of Shemini Atzeres.

It is striking to note how often this special blessing is recited over this season of the year: both evenings of Rosh Hashanah during kiddush, preceding the shofar on both days of Rosh Hashanah, during Kol Nidrei on Yom Kippur, during kiddush on the opening evenings of Sukkot, before waving the lulav and etrog for the first time and again in the kiddush of Shemini Atzeres and Simchat Torah. (In fact, during the time of the Talmud, an additional Shehechiyanu was recited when the sukkah was constructed! Sukkah 46a.) In many ways, this simple expression of gratitude to God for survival is the anthem of our High Holiday season.

There is a powerful story that illustrates the profound significance of this blessing:

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One year, the first Bobover Rebbe, R Shloime Halberstam (18471905), acquired a precious possession: a set of the famed Slavita edition of the Talmud. Particularly prized by Chassidic rebbes due to the beauty of the printing and the piety of the printers, the Bobover Rebbe was overjoyed with his good fortune. So when the second night of Rosh Hashanah arrived that year, the Bobover Rebbe asked that the Slavita Talmud be placed on the yom tov table together with the customary platter of new fruit, in order that his shehecheyanu his heartfelt declaration of joy in being allowed to live another year should include his excitement over his new Talmud.

Decades later, in 1946 his grandson who bore his holy name, R Shloime Halberstam (19072000), found himself in New York on Rosh Hashanah under very different circumstances. He had lost his wife, most of his children and many of his followers during the dark years of the Holocaust. Bobov was gone, and as a refugee in America, his beard just growing back after the war, was trying to imagine the near impossible work of rebuilding. When he sat down to celebrate the second evening of Rosh Hashanah, on the table he, too, placed a new set of Talmud, just as his namesake had done.

And when I imagine the ragtag group of refugees who shared that first Rosh Hashanah in the New World, I think about what the Shehecheyanu must have meant to them:

Notwithstanding the horror and the carnage, they were still alive.Notwithstanding the utter obliteration of the rich heritage of European Jewry, the Talmud still lived.Notwithstanding the unfamiliar and spiritually rootless soil they found themselves on, the grandson could still find the same joy in Judaism as the zeyde had years before.

Baruch she-he-cheyanu ve-kiyamanu ve-higiyanu la-zeman ha-zeh!

This has been a challenging year for the whole world, and as we culminate for a festival season that in some ways would be unrecognizable to our pre-pandemic selves, it is not difficult to give in to a sense of sadness and despair.

This Tishrei, we need to seize on to the Shehechiyanu of the Bobover Rebbe, to find the joy and gratitude to Hashem for what we do have, that we are still here and appreciating the unique gifts that each festival of this blessed season.

And I leave you with this question: What can we bring to the table this year to enhance our Shehechiyanu? More than a lychee or a kumquat, we need to dig deep in ourselves to find and share that for which we are so grateful to Hashem, notwithstanding the anxiety of this past year.

Baruch she-he-cheyanu ve-kiyamanu ve-higiyanu la-zeman ha-zeh!PJC

Rabbi Daniel Yolkut is the spiritual leader of Congregation Poale Zedeck. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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The sweet joy of life | The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle - thejewishchronicle.net

As we speak, Jews across the world are preparing to celebrate Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Shemini Atzeret, or the 8th Day of Assembly, is the closing festival after the 7 days of Sukkot mentioned in Leviticus 23. Simchat Torah, the Joy of Torah, is a joyous occasion marking the fact that the Jewish people have finished reading the Torah for this year and start reading it anew for the year to come, demonstrating that the Torah is a cycle that is part of the daily life of the Jewish people.

In Israel, Shemini Atzeret is attached to Simchat Torah as one holiday. However, in the Diaspora, its celebrated as a separate holiday. Nevertheless, even though Israelis celebrate Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah as one holiday, the Talmud stresses that Shemini Atzeret is a holiday in its own right. According to Leviticus 23:36: For the seven days of Sukkot, you shall bring a fire offering to G-d; on the eighth day, it shall be a holy convocation for you.

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Celebrating the Joy of Torah in Israel - Israel Today

Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

This week will be the most consequentialon Capitol Hill in a generation. An intra-Democrat rivalryhas meant that Joe Bidens entire economic agenda is in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Congress must pass also a new funding bill by Thursday night to avoid a government shutdown. And looming just over the horizon,the U.S. government may be forced to default on its debtsin a few weeks unless lawmakers can agree to raise the so-called debt ceiling.

The tough part is Democrat leaders uniting a fractured caucus with almost no margin of error. They are trying to reach an agreement to pass two bills: A bipartisan infrastructure agreement and Bidens signature Build Back Better Act. If passed, the bill would represent one of the most consequential legislative accomplishments since LBJs Great Society. If it fails, it would represent a humiliating defeat for Biden and a potentially insurmountable setback for his administration.

Heres the latest:

In a 50-50 Senate, any one Democrat can thwartJoe Bidens agenda, and no one has more leash than Joe Manchin, who has managed to win re-election in West Virginia, where Donald Trump won by 40 points last year.

So what Manchin says thus determines what can pass in the Senate and his every utterance is analyzedwith Talmudic intensity. and hes gone back and forth about what he desires. Early this month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he indicated support for a strategic pause on the reconciliation bill and insisted that he would not support legislation with total budget of $3.5 trillion.

This morning, CNNs Manu Raju caught up with Manchin senatorwho offered yet another ambiguousstatement about the prospects for a reconciliationbill moving forward.

Whatever decision Manchin reaches will have a huge impact on this weeks course of events: Vulnerable Democrats in the House want any reconciliation bill to be blessed by Manchin in advance so that it can pass the Senate.

In the meantime,as Manchin deliberates, he is likely to remain as one of the most consequentialhouseboat residents since Noahs Ark.

Monday: The House Democratic caucus has a 5:30 p.m. meeting to discuss the treacherous path moving forward. Plots will be outlined, feelings will be explored and maybe even something consequential might happen.

At the same time, the Senate will hold a vote to keep the government open as well to prevent it from defaulting on its debts. It is expected to fail due to Republican opposition.

Tuesday-Wednesday:Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together mass hysteria.

Thursday: The federal government will shut down at midnight unless Congress passes a continuing resolution to keep the government funded. It is also the day Pelosi has promised to hold a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill as part of a deal she reached with a group of moderates in August.

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Congress Takes On the Week From Hell: Updates - New York Magazine

Chemi Peres, Chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, addressed a rally of 300 Sunni community leaders and activists in Erbil, in Iraqs Kurdistan, calling for normalization with Israel.

The rally, the first such event of its kind, was organized by the New York-based Center for Peace Communications (CPC) this was the first such event of its kind.

Addressing the plenary virtually, Peres used the platform to call to advance the vision of his father, the late Israeli President and statesman Shimon Peres, of normalization and peace across the region. Calling the event historic and inspirational, Chemi Peres sait it was an opportunity to solidify the historical ties between Iraq, or ancient Babylon, and the Jewish people, whose culture was influenced significantly by the ancient Jewish community which once thrived there.

He also noted the recent normalization trends as a model which he hopes can positively impact Israeli-Palestinian relations and the prospects for peace.

Holding such a meeting alongside this initiative serves as an inspiration for many Israelis. As you surely know, many Israelis have deep historical and familial ties to Iraq, my own family included. There exists today, and there will continue to be, a deep connection between those residing in the Holy Land and those living in Iraq, the land of the two rivers, where the historic Jewish text, the Babylonian Talmud was written. This is a text which continues to play an enlightening role in the lives of our people to this day, Peres said.

During the event, Wisam al-Hardan, a Sunni tribe leader from the Anbar province in Iraq, declared: We demand full diplomatic relations with the State of Israel and a new policy of normalization based on peole-to-peope relations with the citzens of that country.

He criticized the law against delaing with Israelis and Zionists, saying it violates the fundamental rights human rights of Iraqis. The so-called ant-normalization law in Iraq are morally repugnant and have been repeateldly exposed by the international community as an assualt on human rights and freedom of expression and association, said al-Hardan.

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Call for normalization between Israel and Iraq at historic conference in Erbil - European Jewish Press

A former teacher from Britains elite Eton College is embroiled in controversy after he conducted a softball interview with a writer who claimed the Jews were always behind pornography among other racist statements.

Online UK news site inews reported that E. Michael Jones made the comments during a YouTube interview hosted by Will Knowland, who taught at Eton before being dismissed after a controversy regarding a lecture widely derided as sexist.

Jones made a series of rambling and vaguely antisemitic comments to Knowland, asserting, among other things, critical race theory is Jews; philosopher Stanley Fish suffered from Jewish animus; talmudic Jewish scholarship led to the demise of literary criticism; the group that took over cinema were the Jews in Hollywood who were using this as a form of control; Americans are upset because the Jews are corrupting the morals; the Jews were always behind pornography; and that opposition to pornography and the sexual revolution was crushed by the Jews, the ADL, who had the counterattack calling anything they didnt like hate speech.

Knowland expressed no objection to Jones antisemitic statements.

September 27, 2021 4:26 pm

The ADL has criticized Jones in the past, saying that he promotes the view that Jews are dedicated to propagating and perpetrating attacks on the Catholic Church and moral standards, social stability, and political order throughout the world.

Knowland said in a statement, Clearly many Jews are aghast at pornography, but suppressing discussion is not healthy. Accordingly, Jewish involvement in pornography has been discussed in the Jewish Quarterly.

People should be free to make up their own minds about Dr. E. Michael Jones statements, he said, and if Jones is mistaken in his views, giving them a platform is the best way to expose those mistakes.

Knowland was fired from his teaching position at Eton when he posted a lecture to YouTube that said patriarchy is, rather than being merely socially constructed, partly based in biology and biologically speaking, the idea that men exert power over women is nonsense.

Women, he added, exploit their power of sexual choice to get males to compete to do things for them.

Knowland condemned his dismissal as an attack on his freedom of speech.

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Ex-Teacher From UK's Elite Eton College Embroiled in Controversy After Interview With Antisemite Who Claimed Jews Are 'Behind Pornography' -...