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Transcript of Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
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8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
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201685NORTH JERSEY
FOR YOM HOSHOAH, JCC HAILS ALBANIA page 6
A REFUGEE RESPONSE IN PASSOVER’S LIGHT page 8
MEET TRUMP’S ISRAEL ADVISER page 14
CLASSIC’S ‘NATHAN THE WISE’ page 55
APRIL 22, 2016VOL. LXXXV NO. 33 $1.00
J e w i s h S t a n d a r d
1 0 8 6 T e a n e c k R o a d
T e a n e c k , N J 0 7 6 6 6
C H A N G E S E R V I C E R E Q U E S T E D
THEJEWISHSTANDARD.COM
Tracing a Passover stapfrom Tennessee througTarrytown and Teanec
Maxwell’s goldenHaggadah
page 28
Our ChildrenAbout
Our ChildrenAbout
Supplement to The Jewish Standard•May2016
PartyTime
Specialty CampsDifferent Strokes
forDifferent Folks
Into the Water LearningHow toSwim
Useful Information forthe NextGeneration ofJewish Families
I N T H I S I S S U
E
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8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
2/682 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
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Page 3
JEWISH STANDARD FEBRUARY 12, 2
CONTENTSPUBLISHER’S STATEMENT: (USPS 275-700 ISN 002
published weekly on Fridays with an additional edit
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Candlelighting: Friday, April 22, 7:26 p.m.
Shabbat ends: Saturday, April 23, 8:28 p.m.
● As you read this, the Pesach shop-ping season is over. You may alreadyhave held a seder or two.
So we’re sorry if you heart breakswhen you see these pictures ofPassover convenience foods youmight not have had the chance tobuy this year.
Forget the all-in-one-container
seder plate fixings (egg, shank bone,maror, etc. ) which surprised ourcorrespondent so much that she wastoo overcome to snap a clear picture.
What about this single-servingpiece of romaine lettuce for maror?Certified bug-free. And implicitlyguaranteed to be a “kezayis” —literally, the olive size required bythe Talmud, but understood to beseveral square inches of lettuce.(We are, though, a bit concerned
that the mashgiach isn’t said to havemeasured it himself.)
We admire the initiative of sellingpre-prepared salt water. Andcertainly the pre-peeled hardboiledeggs save time.
And the kosher for Passover toiletpaper? All we can say is: It’s abouttime. LARRY YUDELSON
● Somehow, between Passover preption and tax preparations, we never around to writing about an exciting Haggadah series out of Israel.
The Asufa Haggadah was publishefirst in 2013. Each year, its editorcommissions different artists to illusa two-page spread of the traditiona
These pictures are from the 2016edition, illustrating the opening passon the removal of chametz, and are Lilach Ramati. (Not only is this probthe first Haggadah to show computin the illustrations; it is also probablyfirst to include its artists’ websites.)
This year, the publishers put out aversion in English and Hebrew, featu
some of the best pictures from theHebrew-only editions. With next yeaseders barely a year away, you can oit from the creative people at Print-OCraft productions at this charming waddress: https://shabb.es/. LARRY YU
Seder time and the shopping is easy
A Haggadah
to remember
The fine art of chametz-free living ● The Torah commands us that cha-metz — leaven — should not be seenamong us on Passover.
So kudos to the industrious soulswho have labored to remove all tracesof leaven and even wheat from classicworks of art.
They call themselves the “Glutenfree museum” on their Tumblr sitethey have performed a service forof us who want Passover-friendly Their full collection can be found aglutenimage.tumblr.com.
LARRY YU
NOSHES ...............................................................4
ROCKLAND ...................................................... 18
OPINION ...........................................................24
COVER STORY ................................................28
PASSOVER GREETINGS ...............................41
D’VAR TORAH ................................................54
ARTS & CULTURE ..........................................55
CALENDAR ......................................................56
CROSSWORD PUZZLE ................................58
GALLERY ..........................................................59
OBITUARIES ....................................................60
CLASSIFIEDS ..................................................62
REAL ESTATE ..................................................64
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Noshes
4 JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard
wife, was seated. She
said: “Yes, Bernie and I
both like to ride horses.
We do so on vacation.” I
think Bernie, the Brook-
lyn cowboy, should
show another side of
himself. Just imagine
Sanders entering those
jam packed rallies on
horseback — maybe a
palomino or mustang
for those upcoming
Western state primaries.
AMY SCHUMER,
34, is the produc-
er of a Comedy
Central special, “Amy
Schumer Presents
Rachel Feinstein: Only
Whores Wear Purple.”
(It will air first on
Saturday, April 23, at 11
p.m.) Feinstein, 30ish,
has long been a stand-
up comedian and was a
finalist in the seventh
season of “Last Comic
Standing.” She also
appeared in several skits
on “Inside Amy Schum-
er.” In 2012, she played a
festival of Jewish
culture in Manitoba,
Canada, and was
interviewed by the CBC,
who asked her if there is
a Jewish style of humor.
She replied: “My dad is
Jewish but my mom
converted, and her side
of the family is more
WASPy. I think I get my
sense of humor from my
Dad and his side. They
all have a darker, more
flippant sarcastic way of
talking.”
BARBRA STREI-SAND, 71, appar-ently will fulfill her
longtime desire to play
the meaty role of Mama
Rose in a big-screen
remake of “Gypsy.”
Universal bowed out last
year, but it looks like the
film production is b
on track. BARRY LESON, 74, has beentapped as the direc
and Streisand is a
producer, and she is
helping to develop
script. It will be grea
see Streisand belt o
“Everything’s Comi
Roses.”
You might ha
heard that
STEVEN SPIBERG, 71, will directKidnapping of Edga
Mortara.” The Morta
story is a shocking o
and still reflects ter
on the Catholic chu
Nobody but Spielbe
could make a big b
film about the true
of the kidnapping o
six-year-old Italian
Jewish child by pap
authorities in 1857 o
grounds that a Cath
housemaid had sec
baptized him as an
infant. I do question
Spielberg’s decision
cast Mark Rylance a
Pope who ultimate
responsible for stea
the child. Rylance s
a public statement
calling for a “cultura
boycott” of Israel. T
signers said they “w
accept any professi
invitations from Isra
Well, apparently yo
star in a film about
anti-Semitism and
boycott Israel, too.
on this subject in a
column.
Joey Sagal
WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN’:
Nixon and Elviswill meet again
Hanala Sagal Mark Halperin
Amy Schumer Barbra Streisand Barry Levinson
In 1970, Elvis
Presley met with
President Nixon at
the White House. Nixon
consented to the hastily
scheduled meeting in
the hope that Presley’s
celebrity would help him
with young people.
Presley’s motivation
seems mostly to get
Nixon to make him a
Narcotics and Danger-
ous Drugs Bureauhonorary officer so he
could get a bureau
badge and add it to his
big collection of law
enforcement badges.
The meeting of the
uber-stiff Nixon and the
uber-loose Presley long
has been fodder for
comics, and in 1997, a
pretty good indie film
about the meeting was
released (“Elvis Meets
Nixon”). Another
re-telling of the story,
“Elvis & Nixon,” is
opening on Friday, April
22, starring Kevin
Spacey as Nixon and
Michael Shannon as
Elvis. Good film festival
buzz led Amazon to buy
“Elvis & Nixon” and it’ll
stream the film after its
theater run. The screen-
play is by JOEY SAGAL,
59, and HANALA
SAGAL, 55ish, who also
have small parts in the
flick. Joey is the son of
the late director BORIS
SAGAL (“Masada”) and
the brother of actress
KATEY SAGAL, 62.
Hanala, who was briefly
married to Joey, is the
daughter of Holocaust
survivors. She had a
tough childhood, fled to
Los Angeles from
Montreal, and re-invent-
ed herself as popular
fitness expert on Los
Angeles TV. Her recent
autobiography is serious
despite the shocking
title: “My Parents Went
Through the Holocaust
and All I Got Was ThisLousy T-Shirt.”
Political reporter
MARK HALPERIN,
51, is all over the
place this election year.
The son of well known
foreign policy expert
MORTON HALPERIN,
77, he is a frequent
analyst on NBC news; a
regular contributor to
“Morning Joe” on
MSNBC; a contributor to
“Time” magazine; one of
the three principals of
the Showtime series
about this election
cycle, called “Circus”;
and the co-host of “With
All Due Respect,” a
Bloomberg network
weekday series with
John Heilemann. I was
amused by a recent
segment on “Due
Respect,” which prom-
ised to tell us something
about a presidential
candidate we did not
know. Halperin said that
he heard that Sanders
liked horseback riding.
The camera then cut to
a hotel lobby where
Jane Sanders, Bernie’s
California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at
“One of the Yiddish cookbooks I came acroactually stated that human beings were nomeant to eat raw vegetables.”
— Michael Wex talking to Tablet writer Leah Koenig about his new book, “Rhapso
in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Can’t Stop Eating It.”
ComingSoon
benzelbusch.com
TheAll-New2017
C-ClassCoupe
- _ _ _ I .
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8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
5/68JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2
GENERATIONS
IN EVERY GLASS
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World value and New World technology. These
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6JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
The light of AlbaniaHow thousands of Jews found refuge in Europe’s only Muslim country
LARRY YUDELSON
When it comes to Euro-
pean countries where
Jews endured World War
II, Albania is irst in the
alphabet — but seldom irst to mind.
Yet the story of how Europe’s only Mus-
lim country held the Holocaust at bay even
while being occupied by Nazis is one that
Johanna Gerechter Neumann wants you to
remember.
“I often say that little Albania saved the
morality of the world,” she says.
Ms. Neumann was born in Hamburg in1931. Now she lives in Silver Spring, Mary-
land. But from 1939 through 1945, she
lived in Albania.
The story of how Ms. Neumann, her par-
ents, and all the other more than 2,000
Jews who made their way to Albania lived
out the war unmolested stands in sharp
contrast to how Jews fared elsewhere in
German-controlled territory.
On Wednesday night the Kaplen JCC on
the Palisades in Tenafly will show a ilm
about Albanians who rescued Jews. “Besa:
The Promise” follows photographer Nor-
man H. Gershman as he travels to Albania
to photograph rescuers, and it includes
Ms. Neumann’s story. The screening will be part o f the JCC’s Yom Hashoah com-
memoration. An exhibit of Mr. Gershman’s
photographs will be on display at the JCC
through May.
Before the Nazis rose to power in Ger-
many, only a few hundred Jews lived in
Albania. The country’s one synagogue had
been destroyed in the First World War and
not rebuilt. Nestled between Greece and
Yugoslavia, Albania was one of the more
backward countries in Europe.
Johanna Neumann wishes she could ask
her parents, Siegbert and Alise Gerechter,
how they discovered that Albania could
be a path for their escape from Germany.
Not that they were quick to seek escape.
At irst, Hitler seemed like an aberration tothem. Her father, she says, was a German
patriot. He had fought on the front lines
in the Great War, in which his younger
brothe r had been kille d. He was even
awarded a special medal by Hitler, along
with all the veterans of the front lines, in
1935. Her mother was from a proud Ham-
burg Jewish family that traced its arrival in
that city to 1763.
Even as two aunts and an uncle emi-
grated to New York, Johanna’s parents
stayed put. But then there was Kristall-
nacht pogrom, and “even my father had
to admit there was no place for Jews in
Germany,” she said.
The family — Ms. Neumann was an only
child — applied to emigrate to America —
but her father was from a part of Prussia
that had became part of Poland, and the
Polish immigration quota was full.
So her parents opened an atlas and set
their sights on Albania.Albania was ruled by King Zog — origi-
nally Ahmet Muhtar Zogolli, who had been
selected as prime minister in 1925 and then
assumed the monarchy in 1928. King Zog
was Muslim, as was four-ifths of the coun-
try’s population of a million or so. In the
early 1930s, the king had tried to encour-
age Jews to immigrate en masse to his
country, which he wanted to modernize.
That didn’t work out, but he instructed his
embassies in Germany and Austria to issue
visas to any Jews who asked for them, no
questions asked.
“My mother went to Berlin and got the
visas and off we went, at the very end of
February 1939,” she said. “Not knowing
where we were going, not knowing what
to expect, not knowing anything about the
country or anybody.”On March 1, they arrived in the Albanian
port of Durrës.
“Much to our delight and surprise there
were German-speaking people at the pier,”
she said, Jews who had preceded them.
They planned to stay a few months, until
they could secure visas to America. In fact,
they did not leave Albania until after the
war, when they irst went to a displaced
persons camp across the Adriatic in Italy
before inally making it to America in 1946.
“For a young girl it is an adventure,” Ms.
Neumann said of her time in Albania. She
played hopscotch with Albanian girls. She
made friends. She learned the language. “I
often think now, how did my parents feel?
It must have been very dificult for them toleave everything and go to a place with no
knowledge of what to anticipate. Not the
language, not the country, not anything.”
Five weeks after the Neumanns arrived
in Albania, the Italians invaded and King
Zog fled. Yet though Mussolini was allied
with Hitler, “The Italian occupation did
not bother us one little bit,” she said.
“The Italians were very gracious. They
knew we were Jews. We had friends
among the soldiers.”
The refugees were supported by the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Com-
mittee until the war stopped the flow of
Young Johanna washing dishes
outdoors in Shkoset, Albania.
Johanna Neumann
money. “My parents opened up a
laundry, washing clothes for Italian
drivers. It was very dificult, very d
ing. In Hamburg, my father was a m
facturer of leather gloves. Here hscrubbing dirty underwear.”
In the years that followed, the
lived in 17 different places. They h
leave Durrës in 1940, when Italy lau
an invasion of Greece from Albania;
eigners had to leave the militarily s
cant port city.
In April 1941, Germany invaded
slavia and about 2,000 Jews — by f
largest influx — fled Yugoslavia for Al
“The Albanian government op
their borders and allowed as many J
could to escape over the border,” M
mann said. “The German general
grade knew who escaped. He dem
the Albanian government return
people within 48 hours.”The Albanian interior minister to
two days to distribute the Jewish re
among Albanian families. “He wen
and said to the Germans, we look
Jews but we didn’t ind any.”
Those Jews the Albanians cou
immediately place in homes in the
tryside were put into a hospita
labeled as quarantined with typhoid
“Not one was deported,” she said.
In 1943, Germany invaded Alban
asked for a list of Jews.
They were told: “We don’t know
Jews. We just know Albanians.
“Just the fact they had the courage
that is incomprehensible. Everyone we were Jews. Not one single one of
ever denounced or deported.
“It would have been simple to say
Germans, ‘see that woman, she’s Jew
Instead, “they had the courage, the
the guts, to deny the Germans. They
have been shot on spot.”
But that’s where the Albanian
encapsulated in the word “besa” ca
The word means “promise,” and
Albanian, Ms. Neumann said, “a pr
is a promise, no matter what.” Fu
and related, there is an implied pr
of hospitality. “A stranger in my
has to be guarded, protected, at all c
she said. “It goes so far as to say
something happens to a stranger, way to my house or away from my h
I am responsible and it’s a shame o
whole village.”
Once the Germans came, Ms
mann’s father hid with farmers
countryside. Johanna and her m
lived with an Albanian family in the c
What: Holocaust commemoration
screening of “Besa: The Promise”
When: Wednesday, May 4, 7-9 p.m
Where: Kaplen JCC on the Palisad
Tenafly
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2
Please Join Us!
14th Annual
Myrna & Alan Cohen Spring Concert
SUNDAY MAY 1, 2016 2:30 P.M.
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city, Tirana. The father, Njazi Pilku, was an
Albanian Muslim who had studied engi-
neering in Germany; the mother, Liza, was
the German woman he married.
“From the beginning we were accepted
as friends,” Ms. Neumann said. “She was
very pro-Hitler, no question about it. She
had a big portrait of him in the living room.We were protected by her. German soldiers
came to visit her, and she would introduce
us as family visiting from Germany.
“Her courage should not be underesti-
mated. If anybody had told a soldier that’s
not true, that we were Jews, she would
have been shot on the spot and her chil-
dren would be shot on the spot.”
In all the 17 locations, the Neumann
always stayed with Muslims. They were
invited to join their hosts at the mosque
for Ramadan. “We were wined and dined
during the holiday of Ramadan,” Ms. Neu-
mann remembers.
In 1941, they were living in a policeman’s
home, and their host asked Ms. Neumann’s
father if he could join them for their Pass-over seders. He said yes. “To this day I
can’t say how my father could explain to
him what was going on,” she said.
Three and a half years later, the parti-
sans came down from the mountains and
won half of Tirana back from the Germans.
The Neumanns were headed out into the
countryside, away from the ighting, when
shooting started.
“My father said to my mother, in Ger-
man, we should quickly lie down. A par-
tisan girl heard the German and arrested
them on the spot as spies. She took us to
the nearest ield oficer — who w
Albanian policeman who had joine
seder,” she said.
After the war, in September 1945
were taken to a D.P. camp in Italy.
they discovered the horror of the
caust as they lived with survivors o
chwitz and Bergen-Belsen. “As puzzit may sound, we did not know what
on” elsewhere during the war,” she
Ms. Neumann has worked wit
Vashem to honor the Albanians wh
tected her family.
And she believes the story of how
lims protected Jews has a contemp
relevance.
“We’re making a terrible mistake
day and age when we say that becau
Muslim is a terrorist, all Muslims a
rorists,” she said. “The way preju
here in America now, that’s fright
I try desperately to point out that p
should not be prejudiced.
“Human beings are human being
were created by one God. Among body there are good and bad elem
People need to be made aware of th
that there were good and courageou
lim people, even at the risk of not onl
own lives, but of their whole families
Edip Pilku with a picture of his father, Njazi, who protected the Neumanns during
the war. NORMAN H. GERSHMAN
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Local
8JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
A Chag Kasher V’Sameach Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy Holiday.
May this Passover deliver freedom from want, from hunger,
from illness and from loneliness to our entire community
201-837-9090 - www.jfsbergen.org
‘We were strangers once’Teaneck rabbi considers plight of Syrian refugees in a Jewish context
LOIS GOLDRICH
As we sit around the Passover table, enjoying
the blessings of freedom and prosperity, we
read the story of our people’s redemption
from slavery. Year after year, we teach our
children about the hardships our people endured, hop-
ing this will stimulate their gratitude and appreciation for
the good fortune we enjoy today.
But if Passover provides the perfect teaching moment
for these lessons, it also offers fertile ground for sen-
sitizing all seder participants to the plight of others —
especially those still suffering persecution, hunger, and
homelessness.
Calls to action on behalf of others are not new to our
community. Those of us who remember the atrocities
in Cambodia in 1980 also will remember Elie Wiesel’s
words. Asked why he had visited that nation — where Pol
Pot’s Khmer Rouge was killing millions of innocent c ivil-ians — Wiesel replied, “While I am not a representative
of any group, [I felt that] as a Jew, I had to be there and
see irsthand what is happening, and whether I could
be of any help.”
Indeed, said Rabbi Joel Pitkowsky, religious leader of the
Conservative Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck, the
issue of outreach raises a very important question: “What
does ‘never again’ mean when it’s not us being attacked?”
Each year, such worthy organizations as MAZON and
the American Jewish World Service take
that sentiment to heart, sending out read-
ings and other resources that suggest ways
that Jews can help people in need, whether
through advocacy or by direct action.
Last Shabbat, a working committee at
Beth Sholom met to discuss the plight ofSyrian refugees, a group whose wander-
ings, statelessness, and physical suffer-
ing resonate all too well with the Jewish
people.
“A group in the synagogue approached
me a few months ago wanting to have
some sort of synagogue response to the
Syrian refugee crisis,” Rabbi Pitkowsky said. “We’ve been
meeting on a regular basis, formulating ideas and thinking
of adult education possibilities.
“Early on, we recognized that connecting the crisis to
Passover was a natural it and a wonderful vehicle for edu-
cating the synagogue and community about these ideas,”
he said. “The seder asks us to use our imagination in a
powerful way. We’re commanded to understand ourselves
and to see ourselves as if we personally went out of Eypt.
It’s a central piece of the Magid section.
“It’s a beautiful idea, like on Friday night,
when we stand up and turn around at
the end of ‘L’cha Dodi’ to see the Sabbath
queen. We take ourselves out of our own
bodies. What we are pushing for is the idea
that the central themes of the haggadahshould not remain only in our imagination.
“If we are thinking about what it is to be
free, understanding ourselves in this story
and not just retelling it, then how do we per-
sonalize these themes today? How do we
make them powerful enough to understand?
We’re as free as we can be here in Bergen
County, and powerful enough to bring social justice into a
seder to cry out for a world that is not what it should be.
“The Passover story is such a powerful story for the
western world because it’s the irst story where the weak
overwhelm the mighty. Before Passover, we didn’t know
that was possible.”
Rabbi Pitkowsky said that four issues in particular
have animated his thinking this year. First, he will use
the opportunity of Passover to reflect on the situation
of Syrian refugees.
Second, as a national board member of MAZO
will pay particular attent ion to the words of “h
ma’anya,” which invite all who are hungry to com
eat. “Have we done everything we can as a comm
to help those who are hungry?” he mused. “I woul
to be able to say yes.”Third, making note of the work of Rabbi Debra
stein, religious leader of Congregation B’nai Isr
Emerson, and the organization Free the Slaves, h
think about the issue of human slavery.
And fourth, referencing the reading “Vehi She’a
declaring that in every generation enemies rise
destroy us, he will pray especially for the safety and
rity of the state of Israel.
Rabbi Pitkowsky acknowledged that the issue of
refugees is complex, but suggested that “Jews have
ticular sensitivity to what it means to run away from
who threaten our families and homes. American Je
privileged to live in the most Jewishly friendly en
ment the Jews have ever lived in.
“We know what it is to be turned away at the b
and we know what it is to be welcomed.”
Rabbi Joel Pitkowsky
A Syrian refugee is treated at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, in northern Israel. ZIV MEDICAL
SEE REFUGEES PA
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2
Wishing you and your family
a joyful holiday filled with health,
peace and reflection.
A celebration of freedom.
Happy Passover
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Wednesday
May 4, 2016
6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
The Graf Center fo
Integrative Medici
Englewood Hospita
and Medical Center
350 Engle Street
Englewood, NJ 076
Registration is required. RS
by calling 866-980-EHMC visiting englewoodhealth.o
Free Skin Cancer Screeni
Why they marchEnglewood man,March of the Livingco-founder, talks
about the program
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
Next month, David Machlis
of Englewood once again
will join March of the
Living.
The march is an annual educational
program that brings people — most
of them teenagers — from all over the
world to Poland and Israel. There,
they study the history of the Holocaust
and examine the roots of prejudice,
intolerance, and hate.
Dr. Machlis, who has been a profes-
sor of economics at Adelphi Universityin Garden City, N.Y., for 49 years, has
been the vice chairman of the Interna-
tional March of the Living since before
the irst march in 1988. (He describes
that march as having been “rather
small — only about 1,500 people.”)
Since then, some 220,000 partici-
pants from 52 countries have marched
along the three-kilometer path that
connects the notorious Nazi death
camps Auschwitz and Birkenau on
Holocaust Remembrance Day — Yom
Hashoah, in Hebrew — in silent tribute
to the victims.
The next week in Israel is high-
lighted by a march in Jerusalem onIsrael’s Memorial Day and a huge gath-
ering on Israeli Independence Day the
following day.
“The founders designed the pro-
gram with the goal of honoring the
memory of those who perished in the
Shoah, expanding Holocaust educa-
tion, and developing a cadre of alumni
all over the world who would serve as
agents against Holocaust denial on col-
lege campuses,” Dr. Machlis said.
“We never anticipated the tremen-
dous impact it would have on Jewish
identity, bonding with Israel, and com-
mitment to Jewish heritage.”
That impact has been studied
through personal interviews with par-ticipants that City University of New
York sociologist William Helmreich
conducted in 2010 and 2015. In the
second study, 66 percent of those who
did March of the Living in 2005 said
the experience made them more toler-
ant, 94 percent said they have visited
Israel again, and 15 percent said the
march even had an impact on their
career choice.
Overall, half of the respondents
said they would consider moving to
Israel. About 90 percent said March
of the Living strengthened their
Jewish identity and made them more
likely to marry a Jewish spouse, givetheir children a Jewish education,
bec ome invo lved in con fronti ng
anti-Semitism, and support Jewish
organizations.
“What’s most remarkable about
the march is how deeply it impacts
participants over a period of many
years,” Dr. Helmreich commented
when he released the survey results.
“It greatly impacts not only on Jew-
ish identity but also on compassion
toward other people.”
Considering that the 2013 ADL
Global 100 study revealed that 35
percent of people across the world
never heard of the Holocaust and 32
percent believe it is a myth or highlyexaggerated, March of the Living
seems to show a dramatic effect.
“I believe we’re successful for a
few reasons,” Dr. Machlis said.
“First of all, psychologists say 16-
to 18-year-olds are very impression-
able and more prone to modifying
their attitudes and behavior. Another
unique feature is bringing together
Jewish populations from very diverse
backgrounds, from Orthodox to unaf-
iliated. This creates an appreciation of
the other and a bond for the common
goal of Jewish and Israeli survival.”
He said that combining Auschwitz
and Jerusalem, Holocaust Remem-
brance Day and Israeli Independence
Day in one trip also helps to “producethose magical results.”
And then there’s the sheer power
of numbers. “Anyone can visit the
camps, but with a group of thousands
of people it’s a game-changer,” Dr.
Machlis said.
Local Jewish federations and Zionist
organizations across the world take on
the responsibility of recruiting, inter-
viewing, and educating March of the
Living participants prior to the trip.
“We start recruiting in the summer, so
the fall and winter is the study period,”
Dr. Machlis said.
Although he is not a Holocaust
educator, he has created some ofthe most successful components
of March of the Living. Dr. Shm-
uel Rosenman, March of the Living
world chai rman, appro ache d Dr.
Machlis after hearing about his pro-
gramming achievements at Adelphi,
where he was associate dean of aca-
demic affairs from 1978 to 1982.
In 2012, for example, Dr. Machlis
was allowed to start bringing World
War II concentration camp liberators
on the march. “The liberators provide
incontrovertible, everlasting testi-
mony to the truth,” he said. “When an
army veteran says, ‘I opened the gate
of Buchenwald,’ it has a huge impact.”
Survivors always have participatedas well, but every year there are fewer
survivors and liberators alive to share
their testimony.
“Our students pledge to be the
voice of the past in the present to
preserve the future, for the Jewish
people and nation and for the better-
ment of all humankind,” Dr. Machlis
said. “We must learn from the past so
there will be a more tolerant and just
society in the future.”
About 10 years ago, he opened
March of the Living to non-Jewish high
David Machlis of Englewood has
been on almost every March of
the Living. DAVID AZRAN
Teenagers walk on the tracks between Auschwitz and Birkenau.
YOSSI ZELIGER
SEE MARCH PAGE 21
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10JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
‘We will go up’Na’ale program brings local high school students to Israel for free education
ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
“Freedom” carries a host of meanings,
especially for Jews at a time of year
that celebrates the festival of freedom,
Passover.
For parents, a free high school educa-
tion for their children in Israel means
the freedom from burdensome tuition
or the freedom to choose a Jewish educa-
tion that otherwise would not be within
reach.
For teenagers on their way to becom-
ing independent adults, freedom is about
learning to handle everyday life without
direct parental supervision.
Na’ale El i te Academy in Israel
addresses all these deinitions.
Funded by the state of Israel and the Jewish Agenc y, Na’ale — which means
“we will go up” — offers a free three-year
high school experience to diaspora Jew-
ish teens. On-campus room and board,
health insurance, extracurricular activi-
ties, ield trips, pocket money, and even
the initial flight to Israel all are covered.
Na’ale was started in 1992 for kids from
Europe, South America, and South
Africa; the program began accepting
North American applicants in 2003.
This year, more than 1,600 Elite Acad-
emy participants from across the world
are studying in 25 different Israeli high
schools. Among them are two Bergen
County girls, Shawn Kissil of Fair Lawnand Danielle Haziza of Upper Saddle
River. Both chose to attend Mosenson
Youth Village, a coed multicultural day
and boarding school in Hod Hasharon.
Shawn said she picked Mosenson for
several reasons, among them its proxim-
ity to Tel Aviv and its large group of about
200 English-speaking boarders. “There
are lots of interesting electives at Mosen-
son, and it’s a cool environment,” Shawn
said. “This year we’re focused on learn-
ing the language and the culture.”
In the combined ninth and 10th grade,
the foreigners attend ulpan (Hebrew lan-
guage) sessions for 18 to 20 hours per
week in addi tion to their regular high
school classes, and by 11th grade they aremore or less fully integrated with their
Israeli peers. They meet other Elite Acad-
emy participants during events and trips
around the country.
“I like the feeling of independence,
learning the responsibility of living on
my own, and being able to be with my
Israeli relatives more often,” said Shawn,
15, whose roommates come from Florida
and Arkansas.
However, she added, “Living alone is
hard to get used to. When I go to visit
family in Tel Aviv and Haifa, sometimes
it’s dificult to travel alone. You have to
be conident and aware. What you need
most is optimism. The beginning is hard,
and you have to be able to see throughthe dificult parts.”
Chosen through an application and
selection process, the students are sup-
ported by a network of professionals
including dorm counselors, social work-
ers, language specialists, psychologists,
and teachers at each Elite Academy
location.
The program is offered at high schools
that run the gamut from secular to reli-
gious, some with intensive tracks in areas
such as science and art, and some cater-
ing speciically to students who speak a
particular language.
Though most Elite Academy students
arrive in their second year of high school,
Shawn opted to enter directly after grad-uating from Thomas Jefferson Middle
School.
“I always felt connected to Israel,” she
said. “I was born here and lived here
until I was 4, and we speak Hebrew at
home. I visited my relatives here a lot. So
I decided I wanted to try a new experi-
ence. My parents realized it was some-
thing for my happiness, and they’re okay
with it.” She went home for Sukkot vaca-
tion, and her parents and three siblings
came to visit her recently.
Elite Academy students take the inter-
nationally recognized Israeli high school
matriculation exam, the Bagrut. They
receive assistance if they wish to join the
army or make aliyah after high school,though neither is required. In fact, in
another twist on the freedom theme, stu-
dents do not even have to commit to stay
the entire three years.
“For now I want to stay, but I don’t
know about the future,” Shawn said.
Danielle Haziza, 16, is wavering
between going into the Israeli military
or going back home for college after she
graduates from Mosenson in a couple
of years. Like Shawn, her parents are
Israeli, and she came to visit Israel every
summer since she was a little girl.
“I saw my cousins and friends living
the Israeli lifestyle and they told me how
great it was,” Danielle said. “It was fun to
be with all Jewish people and I thought it would be really cool to live here. My par-
ents want to c ome back eventually, but
I didn’t want to wait any longer. At the
beginning they were against my going,
because they would miss me. I told them
that since my dad’s parents live here
everything would be okay.”
Danielle started Mosenson in August
2015. “Some people come with zero
Hebrew. I speak it well, but the classes
helped me write and read it at a higher
level,” she said. “This year, I take one
class with the Israeli students and during
recess and lunch and other breaks we
are always with them. Next year,
grade, we’re going to be in most o
classes, and I’m excited to be a p
that community.”
Her best friends are from Colo
and Italy, but everyone in the Mos
Elite Academy program speaks Eng
Danielle noted that Israelis are
independent at a young age than ar
American children, and she feels sh
matured this year by being around “Before I came here I never took
transportation,” she said. “And sh
a bathroom at the beginning was
weird for me, but you learn to co
mise and have your own time and r
others’ time.”
Danielle attended the Reuben
man Hebrew Day School in Roc
County through sixth grade. Alth
Mosenson is not a religious high s
the curriculum includes Bible
Hebrew, two subjects she obvi
wasn’t learn ing at Northern High
Regional High School. Israeli high s
students choose a major, and Da
opted for psycholoy.
“The most dificult thing is beingfrom my parents and family, not
able to come home every day,” sh
“But your friends and counselo
you through it, and give you a se
family.”
As for her friends from Northern
lands, “they were surprised that
going to Israel, but now they see m
tures online and say they wish they
do this too. A lot of people are obl
to what Israel really is — they thi
ride to school on camels — and I
I’ve made them a little more aware
reality here.”
Danielle Haziza, 16, of Upper Saddle River takes a break with classmates from
Mosenson Youth Village.
Shawn Kissil, 15, of Fair Lawn enjo
visiting her Israeli relatives while
attending Mosenson.
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8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
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essence
In 1880, Zeev Teperberg (2nd generation) joined his father Avraham, together they developed the winery in Jerusalem and overcame rough times. 30 years pass and the winery is transformed from a small family winery into amajor successful enterprise.
This high quality wine series is distinguished by its unique growing environment and terroir, which fully reflects soil and climate conditions. The meticulous w in em ak in g process of these varieties strongly emphasizes the characteristics
of each and every vineyard where
the grapes were originally grown.
All wines in this series matured in
French oak barrels for 18 months
and have great aging potential to
improve for many years to come.
5TH GENERATION OF WINE MAKERS
CABERNET SAUVIGNON
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12JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
Teaneck rabbi’s blog posts provoke controversySteven Pruzansky’s comments on ‘rape culture,’ college life, marital abuse evoke response
JOANNE PALMER
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of
Congregation Bnai Yeshurun
in Teaneck is no stranger to
controversy.
A lawyer and the rabbi of the biggest,
oldest, and arguably the most prominent
Orthodox synagogue in town, Rabbi Pru-
zansky has strong views, which he often
lays out strongly and at some length in his
blog, rabbipruzansky.com.
Over the years, Rabbi Pruzansky has
angered many people — and made many
friends — with harshly worded attacks on
Yitzhak Rabin, soon before he was mur-
dered; on President Obama’s re-election,
which he blamed on stupid greedy people
wanting “free stuff”; on the Jewish Week, which he compared to the Nazi propa-
ganda rag Der Sturmer (although later he
said the comparison of course was pur-
posely ludicrous), and on Israeli Arabs, for
whom he advocated severe mass punish-
ment, possibly including deportation. Ear-
lier this year, dismissing Hillary Clinton as
a “liar, a crook, an active participant in the
largest pay-for-play scheme in the history
of mankind…,” he also called her “an awful
speaker, shrill when she tries to be passion-
ate…” Instead, he endorsed Donald Trump.
In that endorsement, on March 17, he
touched on a theme that has resurfaced
in the last few weeks — the theme of vic-
timhood, which he sees as an occasionallyimproperly assumed mantle. “People have
had enough of the moral posturing of the
faux victim, which has resulted in nothing
less than in the increase of the numbers of
faux victims and even the possible causes
of victimhood,” he wrote in that March
post. “People are tired of having to whis-
per the truth because murderers, evildo-
ers, or sinners will have their feelings hurt
by it, even unintentionally.”
As a result of the uproar in 2014, cen-
tered on the Der Sturmer and Arab con-
troversies, which resulted in a short-term
need for police protection, Rabbi Pruzan-
sky agreed to have an editor look at his
posts before he put them up.
According to Steven Margulies ofTeaneck, who is the president of Bnai
Yeshurun, “independent editors have
been reviewing the posts before release.”
All this sets the stage for two recent
posts.
On March 31, in a very long post called
“A Novel Idea,” Rabbi Pruzansky wrote
about what he sees as the debased climate
on intellectually barren, sexually danger-
ous college campuses.
“Relations between the sexes has, alleg-
edly, become so strained that the liberal
media speaks incessantly about a ‘rape
culture’ on campuses, wherein brutish
men have their way with women in num-
bers approaching an epidemic,” he wrote.
“Or so it is claimed.”
Next, he wrote that because women and
men see sex and need love differently, they
disagree on basic deinitions. They often
see the same thing through entirely differ-
ent lenses, and report and understand it
differently. “That is to say,” he wrote, “the
couple was dating, grew close (sometimes
after a two-hour date, I suppose; people
bond much more quick ly these days),
retired to someone’s quarters and quickly
consummated their…friendship. Soonafter the ‘friendship’ ended, the woman,
feeling used, as she was by the lecherous
man, iles a complaint for sexual assault.”
The best argument against the fallacy
that a rape culture exists, he wrote, is
self-evident. “If indeed there was a ‘rape
culture’ on American campuses, no intel-
ligent woman would want to attend col-
lege,” he wrote. “The fact that more
women attend college today than men
itself belies the accusation.”
His solution is straightforward and
based in Jewish law.
“Here’s a novel idea, one that has been
tried before with great success but has
fallen into desuetude, apparently, on col-lege campuses,” he wrote. “It will solve
all these problems, the ‘rape culture,’ the
‘he said/she said,’ the feelings of rejec-
tion by the party who had an emotional
connection with another person who just
sought a physical connection. It’s called…
abstinence, self-discipline, or chastity. It
involves waiting until marriage to engage
in intimate acts, and then in a relationship
in which the couple genuinely loves each
other. It is preceded by a joyous ceremony
known as a wedding, which too involves
contractual obligations that are grounded
in mutual respect. Problem solved…”
That post lay fallow for about two weeks,
and then people started noticing it. A del-
uge of angry responses followed. RabbiPruzansky was accused of victim-blaming,
of not taking rape seriously, and of not
understanding that marital rape exists.
He responded to his critics with another
post, on April 13, called “Culture Wars —
Update.” There, he repeated his argu-
ments, perhaps in even more strongly
worded language, accusing his opponents
of seeing the world in black and white —
black, men, bad; white, women, good.
“No one ever ‘deserves’ to be raped, as
some hideously perverted my words,” he
wrote. “But do not walk into a ield clearly
labeled ‘Danger: Mines!’”
His conclusion was clear. “Heeding our
moral laws can only beneit men, women,
marriages, families and society itself. That was and is my point. The fruitless debate
over statistics aside, I would hope that
even the professional feminists can sub-
scribe to that.”
The reaction to these blog posts was
loud, although, strikingly, much of it was
only semi-public; posted to social media,
on Facebook, in widely circulated emails.
Stories about the posts have made it into
the local press, and into British papers too;
the Independent and the Daily Mail both
reported on it online.
One organization responded; Jofa,
the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance,
demanded that Rabbi Pruzansky wit
as a speaker from a June 26 “yom a day of learning, devoted in this c
teaching and inspiring children. Mor
30 local Orthodox institutions al
have signed on, and Bnai Yeshuru
host it. Rabbi Pruzansky in fact w
speak; now the battle is over whe
conference is to be housed.
The pressure to respond to the
ing situation, particularly given th
iyun, and the fact that it’s a huge
locus for emotion, has posed a pr
for many area Orthodox institution
their rabbis, who are reluctant to cr
a colleague.
The Rabbinical Council of Am
which represents a large number o
trist and modern Orthodox rabbiof which Rabbi Pruzansky has b
vice president, has been pressed to
position.
It did; irst in a Friday, April 15, JTA
Service story, in which it said, “
Rabbi Pruzansky raises some imp
points regarding sexual behavior o
lege campuses, the RCA rejects th
and much of the substance of his r
comments regarding rape.”
In a longer statement, posted o
group’s Facebook page, Rabbinical
cil of America — RCA, on Saturday
the organization elaborated, car
distancing itself from the way in
Rabbi Pruzansky voiced his opinionexpressing its dismay over what it ca
“overkill that has become the respo
his blog entry.”
Rabbi Shalom Baum, who head
gregation Keter Torah in Teaneck,
president of the RCA. He declined an
view, ceding to Rabbi Shmuel Goldin
of Congregation Ahavath Torah in
wood, who is a past RCA president.
“I think people need to realize th
the RCA to have taken a public po
concerning a member rabbi’s pe
blog means that there is a great di
fort with, as the RCA said, both th
and some of the substance of wh
says, and that taking a public post
such a circumstance comes only the RCA has reached a certain p
Rabbi Goldin said, choosing his w
with great deliberation.
“What people need to realize,
needs to be recognized, is that the
a member organization of over 1,00
bis, and it cannot and should not m
the individual communications o
of its members,” he continued. “It
when a situation rises to this level
public eye that the RCA will be mo
comment. Of major concern here we
sensitivities involved, and the pain o
who have been hurt by others.”
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Heeding our moral laws can onlybenefit men, women, marriages,
families and society itself. That wasand is my point. The fruitless
debate over statistics aside, I would hope that even the professionalfeminists can subscribe to that.
RABBI STEVEN PRUZANSKY
Y O U T U
B E S C R E E N
C A P T U R E
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14JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
Meet Trump’s Israel adviserLawyer Jason Dov Greenblatt of Teaneck tells his unexpected story
JOANNE PALMER
It’s not often that a career as a real-estate lawyer
leads to a role as an Israel adviser to a front-running
candidate for president.
In fact, it’s quite possible that it never happened
to anyone until it happened to Jason Dov Greenblatt of
Teaneck. But on April 14, Donald Trump told reporters
that Mr. Greenblatt, who is 49, would be his lead adviser
on Israel.
Mr. Greenblatt’s day job is to be the Trump Organiza-
tion’s chief legal oficer, in charge of his legal staff — six
on the transactional side and three in litigation — and per-
sonally involved in all his legal matters that do not involve
litigation.
And now, he is joining another lawyer, David M. Fried-
man of the New York law irm Kasowitz Benson Torres, as
Mr. Trump’s sources of context and wisdom about Israel
and the Middle East.“Donald and I have spent time talking about Israel over
the years,” Mr. Greenblatt said. “He takes input from me,
and from others as well, including his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner,” who is Jewish. “He wants to be able to rely on
people, to hear their views, and he thought that I would be
a good person to listen to and get ideas from.
“But at the end of the day, he makes his own decisions.
We try to give him ideas, and things to think about, and
then he puts it all in his own head and makes his own
decisions.”
According to the JTA Wire Service’s Uriel Heilman, who
was at the meeting with Mr. Trump, “when Trump identi-
ied Greenblatt last week as his top presidential adviser on
Israel, it appeared to me a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
“‘I knew that he was relying on me for certain aspects of
Israel, but I didn’t know I was his top adviser,” Mr. Green- blatt said. “I felt fortunate he said it.”
Mr. Greenblatt’s main sources of information are daily
email alerts, AIPAC materials, and a weekly Jewish radio
program featuring Malcolm Hoenlein, the CEO of the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Orga-
nizations, Mr. Heilman reported.
No, this is not the conventional background for a presi-
dential adviser, Mr. Greenblatt told the Jewish Standard,
but “I’m not sure that there really is any prototype for this
role any more. Who has had an experience in this role in
the recent past who has managed to successfully achievesomething?
“I’m not sure there has been. The world has changed.
Look at the Arab Spring. Everything has changed since
then.
“There are people who know more than I do, for sure,
but does that mean they will be successful at changing
anything?”
Mr. Trump will be successful, he said. “Donald is
ter negotiator, and people will want to sit at a tabl
him and make transactions. That’s what he brings
table. We would be there for support and ideas, b
Donald who has the knowledge, the experience, the
bilities to sit across the table from the Palestinians.“The goal would be to get the Palestinians and the
lis to the table — of course the Israelis have tried
times. But someone like Donald could get the Palest
back to the table.
“And yes, I hope that I would be at the table too
we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” Mr. Gree
said.
Mr. Greenblatt’s positions on Israel are similar to
of his boss. Like Mr. Trump, Greenblatt supports
state solution, as long as it is reached by the parties
selves and not imposed by an outside body like the U
Nations. He does not believe Jewish settlements
West Bank are a core part of the problem.
To get the Palestinians to the negotiating tabl
Greenblatt suggests threatening to withhold som
funding from the Palestinian Authority.
U.S. negotiators “need to lay down the law and ethat the [Palestinians are] not going to get the benei
get from the United States unless they come to the
he said. “I think they need to say: ‘Over the course
next period of time, we will continue to provide fu
but in order to do that you need to do X, Y, and Z, s
crete goals, and if you don’t we need to start taper
the funding,’ and see what happens.”
Mr. Greenblatt, like Mr. Trump, believes Israeli-
tinian negotiations can be handled, like Mr. Trump
estate negotiations, by making money a main incen
“If you take out the emotional part of it and the h
cal part of it, it is a business transaction,” he said. “L
going to be negotiated, water rights are going to be
ated, security issues are going to be negotiated. So yo
Jason Greenblatt of Teaneck, newly named as Donald Trump’s Israel adviser, is also his top lawyer.URIEL H
All the Greenblatts — from left, Jason, Noah, Julia, Avery, Naomi, Sophia, Vera, and Anna — on a beach in
Israel last summer. URIEL HEILMAN
JTA Wire Service’s Uriel Heilman contributed to this report.
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8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
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JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 20
to say to them, ‘Listen, we want to discuss these two
issues in this quarter, and then you’ll get your check,
and these two issues in this quarter, and then you’ll get
your check. At the end of the day you want to resolve
all the issues. I think it isn’t a good idea to do partial
negotiations and then hope for the best.”
Turning to Syria, Mr. Greenblatt said that the United
States should create safe havens for civilians fleeingthe war, possibly by “borrowing land” from nearby
Turkey and Jordan. He also thinks that the United
States should marshal a worldwide coalition to deal
with ISIS.
Asked how the Iran nuclear deal should be handled,
Mr. Greenblatt said that it’s too late simply to tear it up
— but he’s not sure how to proceed. “I’m not an expert
on it to answer that question adequately,” he said.
Jason Greenblatt’s own story began in Queens ,
where he went to an Orthodox elementary day school
and then to MTA, Yeshiva University’s high school
for boys. He spent his year in Israel after high school,
studying at Yeshivat Har Etztion. Back home, he went
to Yeshiva University for his undergraduate degree,
and then to law school at NYU.
A real estate lawyer from the start of his career, Mr.
Greenblatt spent a few years as an associate at Fried,Frank, a well-known New York law irm. Then, in the
mid 1990s, “I started a cappuccino company, which
was great for a while, until Starbucks made its inroads
in a huge way,” he said. “An Italian company devel-
oped the precursor to the pod machines that are all
over ofices now, and I put machines all over Penn Sta-
tion and the New York City airports.” Then Starbucks
happens, and “I sold the machines and went back to
practicing law.” Actually, he said, he never stopped
practicing law completely — “Fried Frank was very
good to me, and they let me work there full time to
inance the cappuccino company.”
But he wanted to get married, so he moved to
another law irm, where he could work full time,
and then his phone rang. It was a headhunter for the
Trump Organization. “I went for an interview, and it was great. I hit it off with the general counsel, and then
I had an interview with Mr. Trump.
“I thought it was a fantastic interview. I went back to
the general counsel’s ofice, and it was great, and then
he realized that I was shomer Shabbes, and something
changed. He said that he had to check something, and
wasn’t able to extend an offer to me. I can’t say that
he deinitely would have done it then, but the writing
was on the wall.
“It was a Friday afternoon, and I went home and
said ‘I can’t believe that this is 1996, and I won’t get a
job because I’m shomer Shabbes, but it is what it is.
“And then he sent me a fax and extended the offer,
and it’s all been great.” He began to work for the
Trump Organization in January 1997.
Mr. Greenblatt is intensely loyal to Mr. Trump. When
he was asked how Mr. Trump’s style, which can seem both rude and crude to onlookers, would work at the
negotiating table when the subject is peace between
Israelis and Palestinians rather than a real estate deal,
he protested. “He is not rude and he is not crude,”
Mr. Greenblatt said. “He is not the things he has been
accused of by the media. The media will take a sound
bite, and the sound bite itself becomes a story. It is a
snowball effect.
“Of course you don’t get to be as successful as Don-
ald without being tough, but he is a uniier.”
But wait. The debates were not sound bites, and Mr.
Trump’s comments were not distorted by the media;
instead they were reported by cameras. “But those
SEE GREENBLATT PAGE 23
It’s not manna from heaven, but this Passover,provide something just as crucial
to the survival of the Israeli people.
In a country where knifings and other terrorist attacks are an all-too-frequent occurrence, your giftto Magen David Adom ensures Israel’s national paramedic organization has the medical supplies
and blood it needs to save lives. So this year, while you recount the story of the Jews’ redemptionfrom slavery, your gift will help modern-day Israelis survive the threats they face today.
Make a gift today at www.afmda.org/donate. Or call 866.632.2763 to learn aboutsponsoring a laboratory or other facility at Israel’s soon-to-be constructed MarcusNational Blood Services Center. Pesach kasher v’sameach.
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Local
16JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
Temple Sinai names honoreesTemple Sinai of Bergen County will hold
its annual gala on Saturday, May 7, at 7
p.m., at Montammy Country Club in
Alpine.
This year’s honorees are the Marks/
Weiss, Friedberg/Goldstein, and Simonfamilies.
Kenneth and Christel Marks have been
members of Temple Sinai since the mid
1970s. They celebrated the bat mitzvah
of their daughter, Louise, and the bar
and bat mitzvah ceremonies of three
of their four grandchildren there. Ken
and Christel’s daughter, Arlene, lives in
Manhattan. Louise Marks married Peter
Weiss at Temple Sinai and they have four
children. Ms. Weiss was on the sister-
hood board for many years and now is
on the religious school committee. Peter
Weiss is on the Temple Sinai’s board.
The couple is involved in Jewish philan-
thropic causes including UJA Federation,
the Weizmann Institute, and B’nai B’rith.Eugene and Marlyn Friedberg of
Alpine joined Temple Sinai in the mid
1960s. Their children, Ahron, Jared,
and Alanna, all celebrated becoming
bar or bat mitzvah and were conirmed
at Temple Sinai. Marlyn, who launched
Friedberg Properties in 1994, is involved
in many Jewish organizations, includ-
ing ORT, the National Council of Jewish
Women, and the Technion. She received
a Lion of Judah award from the Jew-
ish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
Alanna Friedberg married Rob Gold-
stein and also lives in Alpine. The couple
and their three children have been Sinai
members for 15 years. Rob Goldsteinparticipated in Temple Sinai’s Hineini
program and is on the temple board.
Dr. Cliff and the late Leslie Simon
joined Temple Sinai in the mid 1970s.
Their son Scott became a bar mitzvah
at Temple Sinai, while their son Rob
became a bar mitzvah in Israel. The
Temple Sinai community was a source
of great support for the Simon family,
especially during Leslie’s illness. Cliff
Simon established the Leslie Simon Sim-
cha Fund in her memory to support the
Temple’s Chanukah Day party. Drs. Rob
and Liz Simon and their three children
live in Tenafly and have been members
of Sinai since 2005. Liz Simon, a Sinai
board member, was co-president of theEarly Childhood Center Parent Associa-
tion and was on the sisterhood board as
vice president. Rob Simon participated
in the Hineini program. They are look-
ing forward to their daughter’s upcom-
ing bat mitzvah at Temple Sinai in a few
months.
For information on the dinner or plac-
ing an ad in the journals, go to www.tem-
plesinaibc.org or call (201) 5683035.
Frisch students donate hair to Israeli charit
Six Frisch students and two daughters
of Frisch faculty members donated their
hair to Hair4Wigs — Zichron Menachem on
Sunday, April 10. Zichron Menachem is an
Israeli organization that collects hair that
it uses to make custom wigs for children
suffering from cancer.
The girls got their hair cut toget
Lillian Lee Salon in Teaneck. Ms. Le
tured, center front, donated the s
services for the cause. She also ru
Wonders, a charitable organizatio
cuts and styles wigs for women an
with cancer.
NCJW honoredat Project Sarah breakfast eventThe Bergen County section of the
National Council of Jewish Women was
among the honorees at Project Sarah’s
10th annual breakfast earlier this month.
Project Sarah (Stop Abusive Relation-
ships at Home) is a program that works
to overcome cultural, legal, and religious
barriers confronting victims of domestic
violence and sexual abuse.
Marcia Levy, NCJWBCS presidium
member, accepted the volunteer recog-nition award on behalf of the group.
Jay Leno helps raise fundsfor Israeli EMS organizationLast week, Jay Leno performed at a spe-
cial concert fundraiser at Lincoln Cen-ter for United Hatzalah, Israel’s larg-
est volunteer EMS service. Mr. Leno
also offered to donate a fully equipped
ambucycle that the EMS organization
can use to save lives in Israel.
The former Tonight Show host called
Eli Beer, United Hatzalah’s founder and
president, to the stage for the announce-
ment. Once the ambucycle, which costs
$36,000, is outitted and adorned with
Jay Leno’s name, it will join the fleet of
more than 400 ambucylces used by the
volunteer EMS service.
Mr. Leno also challenged the audience
to join him in supporting lifesaving in
Israel by donating to the organizationthen and there. He offered anyone who
donated $1,000 a free tour of his garage,
which houses his large c ar and motor-
cycle collection. An additional $50,000
was raised on the spot.
The concert at the Jazz at Lincoln Cen-
ter venue featured performances by
musical entertainer Lipa Schmeltzer and
the rock band 8th Day. It also featured
the Neshama Orchestra and was hosted
by Jewish Radio personality Nachum
Segal. Concert sponsors included Jay
and Jeanie Schottenstein, Bob and Amy
Book, and Mendy and Barbara Silber.
Marcia Levy
Temple Emeth celebratingrabbi’s bar mitzvah yearRabbi Steven Sirbu will be
honored at Temple Emeth’s
spring gala on Saturday, May
7. The evening, marking Rabbi
Sirbu’s 13 years as the spiritualleader of Bergen County’s
oldest Reform synagogue,
includes dinner, dancing, and
tributes. A journal will be pub-
lished to mark his bar mitzvah
year.
A native of California, Rabbi
Sirbu was ordained in 1998,
after studying at HUDJIR’s Jerusalem, Los
Angeles, and New York campuses. He was
assistant rabbi and then associate rabbi at
North Shore Synagogue in Syosset, N.Y. He
and his wife, Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu, live in
Teaneck with their daughter, Talia.
When he arrived at Temple Emeth
in 2003, Rabbi Sirbu
implementing his visi
social action and comm
outreach. He establis
Muslim-Jewish educaprogram, participate
mission of Jewish and A
American leaders to Bir
ham, Alabama, and ma
in America’s Journey fo
tice, which was organiz
the NAACP and co-spon
by the Central Confere
American Rabbis. He has been pre
of the Teaneck Clery Council, the N
Hudson Valley Association of Reform
bis, and the North Jersey Board of R
Paula Dillon and Lisa Eig are the
co-chairs. For information, call (20
1322 or go to www.emeth.org.
Rabbi
Steven Sirbu
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8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
17/68
Bergen County Chabad joins other centersin visit to IsraelThirty people from Chabad of NW Bergen
County in Franklin Lakes and Chabad of
Old Tappan joined more than 500 others
from other New Jersey and U.S. Chabad
centers to create the largest delegation totour Israel in 2016.
Thousands of people and groups, ranging
from the British rock group Manfred Mann to
former presidential hopeful Ben Carson, had
canceled their trips to Israel in recent months
citing security concerns. But “For us, there
was never a doubt that the trip would go
on” said Rabbi Chanoch Kaplan, direChabad of NW Bergen County.
The eight-day trip began on March
included visits to more than 40 his
and modern sites, ranging from the W
Wall and Hebron to the Begin Museu
Yad Vashem.
A return trip is planned for 2018.
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New fiscal consultant for EmunahMel Zachter of Staten Island is Emunah of America’s new
consultant for iscal operations. Before going to Emanuah,
he had been an executive partner at Loeb & Troper CPA’s
LLP. Mr. Zachter is a board member in many not-for-proit
organizations; he is also co-president of Ohel Children’s
Home and Family Services.Emunah of America’s president, Karen Spitalnick,
announced Mr. Zachter’s appointment, effective immediately.
He joins Emunah at a critical time in its continued growth, and
he will be a member of the senior cabinet of the organization,
assisting in its efforts to enable Emunah Israel to provide
essential care and services for thousands of challenged and
needy children, adolescents, and adults in Israel.
Mel Zachter
JHAL residentthe subject ofHolocaust bookHolocaust survivor Abe Peck, a resi-
dent of the Jewish Home AssistedLiving in River Vale, is the subject
of a just-published book, “Abe vs.
Adolf,” that recounts his survival
story. Here, he displays his tattoo as
a prisoner and holds the book. It is
available on Amazon.com.
Sinai high schoolersperform a special‘Wizard of Oz’The students of Sinai’s Rabbi Mark & Linda
Karasick Shalem High School at the Torah
Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck per-
formed an original production of “The Wiz-ard of Oz” to a standing-room-only audience.
The teen production, featuring many stu-
dents who have profound dificulties with
basic communication, came into being
through the dedication and support of the
teachers at Sinai Shalem. Work on the show
began in September, and used curri
components designed to focus on
skills as reading, presentation, organi
and teamwork. The staff wrote the sc
ensure that every student had a role.
-
8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
18/68
Rockland
18JEWISH STANDARD APRIL 22, 2016
Jewish Federation of Rockland County
Women’s Philanthropy
jewishrockland.org/spring-gala
May 4 • 7 PM • The Rockleighcocktails • dinner • auction6 PM VIP Reception & photos with Orly. Dietary laws observed.
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To be a good ambassador, you have
to be able to stand in, or at least
understand, two places at once.
There is the country you rep-
resent. And there is the country where you
are stationed, where you present your cre-
dentials. One leg in each of two worlds, as
it were.
Liraz Levi is the de facto ambassador of
Israel at the Jewish Federation of Rockland
County. His title is shaliach, representative;
he is, strictly speaking, not working for the
diplomatic corps of the State of Israel, or
even the Jewish Agency for Israel, the orga-nization that he oficially represents. Strictly
speaking, he is working for the federation.
His job, though, is to represent Israel and to
promote an understanding and appreciation
of Israel in the Rockland community.
Mr. Levi grew up knowing there was more
than one world. His two
sets of grandparents
were neighbors who lived
across the street from
each other in Herziliya,
near Tel Aviv. His moth-
er’s family was observant
and Yemenite; his father’s
was secular and Turkish.
He grew in nearby Kfar
Saba, a town whose sub-
urban greenery is remi-
niscent of Rockland’s. He
was enrolled in the public
Orthodox school system,
attending a boys-onlyhigh school.
During his service in
the Israel Defense Forces,
he worked as an analyst with an intelli-
gence unit in Tel Aviv, and headed a human
resource department there. After the army,
Liraz Levi at largeAn interview with the Rockland Jewish Federation’s shaliach
“Like almost every
Israeli, I looked for
new adventures,” Mr.
Levi said.
First he moved to
Toronto and worked
selling Israeli prod-
ucts in mall kiosks. He
returned to Israel and
worked for Groupon
Israel for a year. Then
he took his real post-
army trip, to Thailand.
During this time,
he learned that the
Jewish Agen cy sen temissaries to Jewish
summer camps. He
had always been fas-
cinated by the idea of diaspora Jews.
“When I was a young boy, I felt really
attracted, really curious about Ameri-
can Jewry,” he said. A stint as a soldier
accompanying a Birthright group didn’t
slake his interest. The prospect of actu-
ally spending a summer with American
Jews, making a mark, fascinated him.
“They sent me to Camp Ramah in Wis-
consin, which was amazing. I discovered
the Conservative movement. I didn’t
know what it meant. I just fell in love
with all the ideals of equality and beinga community together,” he said.
At Ramah, he spent two summers as
a counselor for special needs kids. Back
in Israel, he worked for the Conservative
movement’s high school program, Tichon
Ramah Yerushalayim. There he was one
of four counselors “spending ive m
being moms and dads for a group
schoolers, getting to know them,
them know what it is to live in Jeru
spending time traveling the countr
“It was one of the best experi
I’ve ever had in my life,” he said.
As shaliach, Mr. Levi still is h
people get to know Israel — onl
time he’s the one doing all the tra
“I’m trying to bring as much Isra
can, all over the county,” he said.
cially the modern Israeli culture.”
He hopes to dispel ignorance
Israel. He’s sympathetic about tha
rance and the funny questions it eAfter all, “I don’t know lots of pa
America.”
Still, he can’t helped be amused
person asked me about the city i
ert, Beersheva. He asked if came
the way to transport there,” he sai
There is no question in his
though, that he will return to Israe
“It’s a great experience being he
ing the American dream, being i
York,” he said. There are so many o
tunities. But it’s a once-a-lifetime t
need to come home. Israel is my
and my home and that’s where I’m
ing from and something I miss.”
But when he returns home, heto stay in touch.
“I want to study internationa
ness and the relationship betwee
ish American people and Israeli
said. “I want to keep working wit
ish Americans.”
Five songsOne of the tools Liraz Levi likes touse to introduce Israel and its diver-sity to Americans is its culture, andspecifically its music. Here’s his listof five favorites he would recom-mend as an entry to contemporaryIsraeli music.
1) Hatikva Shesh. “They’re doingreggae music, the first Israelis to doit. They started in 2007. They gotreally successful this past year. Themost famous song from this era is‘The Most Israeli,’ which talks aboutall the small Israeli things that makeyou the most Israeli,” Mr. Levi said.
2) Cafe Shachor Hazak. Theband’s name means “strong darkcoffee” and it consists of two Ethio-pian cousins.
“They started working two yearsago. Last year there were protestsby Ethiopians about human rights, afew months after what happened in
Ferguson, Missouri. Their music released during those protests,”said.
3) Amir Benayoun. “When itcomes to Mizrachi music, he is really classic, really authentic. He ha great voice. In the last year hestarted expressing his political vwhich I think makes music less g
Most of his songs from the last 1years are really good.”
4) Shlomit Jersey. “She got famous a few months ago on X Fator Israel. She’s part of the Chabmovement. She was secular andtoday’s she’s charedi. She sings in English.”
5) Dudu Tassa. “He’s a well-knsinger, musician, and composer. started working in the early 200doing rock music. For the past feyears he’s combining his familybackground from Iraq, where hisgrandfather was a really famoussinger, with his rock music.”
Liraz Levi
-
8/18/2019 Jewish Standard, April 22,2016
19/68
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NCJW offers lectureon women pioneers
Julianna Margulies narrates a screen-
ing of “Makers: Women Who Make
America,” a glimpse of trailblazing
women who are pioneers in theirield, for the Rockland section of the
National Council of Jewish Women on
Wednesday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m. The
meeting will be at Reform Temple
of Rockland (formerly Temple Beth
El), 415 Viola Road, in Spring Val -
ley. Refreshments will be served. For
information, go to ncjwrockland.org.
RJS annual galaRockland Jewish Family Service will
hold its annual gala; this year it will
honor Lyn and Hank Meyers, Dr.
Joan Black, and Lauren Lipof f. The gala will be at Congregation Shaarey
Israel in Montebello, on Sunday, June
5, at 6 p.m.
For more information, call (845) 354-
2121, ext. 177, or email [email protected].
New City shul releases CDTemple Beth Sholom of New City has
released a new CD, “Ruach of Temple
Beth Sholom,” in time for Passover. It can
be downloaded; to ind it, google “Ruach
of Temple Beth Sholom.”
Using the latest in digital technoloy,including multitrack recording, Temple
Beth Sholom produced the entire CD in
house. TBS members, a mix of amateur
and professional musicians and singers,
recorded