Category: Judaism

The mitzvah of rescuing hostages and a hero pilot

Very often, a particular Mitzvah is associated with one particular Parsha in the Torah. Pidyon Shvuyim, the rescuing of captives is one of the greatest Mitzvos in the Torah. I would like to suggest that this Mitzvah is particularly associated with the Parsha Re’ay.

The Rambam writes that whoever fulfills this Mitzvah is mekayem no less than 8 Mitzvos in the Torah. Three of these Mitzvos are found in Parshas Reay. Before we enumerate the these Mitzvos, however, I would also like to suggest that there is a forgotten hero of Pidyon Shvuyim. He is a man that engaged in this Mitzvah on his own – on three separate occasions in just one day over half a century ago.

I remember that day. My parents z”l, talking about that fateful day 53 years ago. And since it was my mother’s yahrtzeit, I tried to meet that forgotten hero. Yesterday, I found him and spent a good part of that day with this 91-year-old forgotten hero. I video-taped Uri Bar Lev for several hours this past Thursday. He revealed to me many details of what had transpired, and a few of them – for the first time.

It was the fifth of Elul, 5730 – September 6th, 1970. This was a time when evil people first began to use guns and explosives to threaten human lives – hundreds of innocent human lives. It was the time when people first began to blow up airplanes.

On September 6th of 1970, four planes were hijacked. The planes were flown to an abandoned British airfield in Jordan. Rabbi YitzchakHutner zt”l and his daughter were on one of those planes.

But there was another plane that evil people had planned to hijack. It was El Al Flight 219. What follows is a description of three events that took place on that flight, and an expression of gratitude, Hakaras Hatov, to Captain Uri Bar Lev, of whom no book was ever written about, no documentary ever made, and no movie ever produced.

El Al Flight 219 originated from Ben Gurion Airport to Amsterdam going onto New York. The new crew, including its captain, Uri Bar Lev, took over from Amsterdam to New York.

Also boarding that flight were two suspicious people: Leila Khaled and Patrick Arguello – flying under assumed names.

Soon after takeoff, Uri Bar Lev and his co-pilot got word that two terrorists were hijacking the plane. They locked the door to the cockpit. The terrorists had shot and gravely wounded an El Al flight attendant. They put a gun to the head of a stewardess and told her to tell the pilots that if they did not open the door, they would shoot her in the temple.

Bar Lev had a plan. Years earlier, a Boeing trainer had told him that the new 707 had the versatility of a real fighter plane. Bar Lev who flew for the Israeli air force then asked him if the 707 was capable of doing “climbing and diving” maneuvers. The instructor said, “Yes, but don’t go over negative 2 G.”

Bar-Lev had to save the stewardess, and all of the passengers that were about to be hijacked. He had had enough altitude to put the plane in a steep dive. The aircraft plummeted 3,300 meters in under 60 seconds. His passengers would be in for the ride of their lives, but they were all seated and strapped in.

• On the other hand, a terrorist does not strap himself in nor does he or she sit down. They would be too easily overpowered. As Uri Bar Lev knew would happen, Arguello and Khaled would be thrown to the floor by virtue of the G forces.

Bar Lev, who had stowed one of the Israeli security force (Shabak) sky marshals in the cockpit because of his suspicions, instructed him to go out the moment that he levelled back. Both that sky marshal and the second Shabak sky marshal who was in the back, came forward and shot Arguello dead. Khaled was subdued.

His superiors in Israel were aware of the other hijackings, but did not tell Bar Lev. They had instructed him to fly immediately back to Israel. But one of the stewards was injured. He looked at him and saw him a very pale white. The steward said, “Uri, mah yikreh li – Uri, what will be with me?”

A doctor on board told Captain Bar Lev that the steward would be fine. Captain Bar Lev inquired as to the doctor’s specialty. He answered that he was a dentist. Uri Bar Lev then disobeyed the orders of his superiors, and radioed into London’s Heathrow Airport, requesting permission for an emergency landing.

It was granted.

I told Uri of the Mishnah in Sanhedrin that says, “Whomsoever saves one life..” – although completely secular, he finished the Mishna by himself. He told me that his zaideh was a Rav in Ukraine and Poland.

But back on the plane, he knew that there would be an investigation because there was the matter of the dead body of Arguello. Three months earlier an Israeli sky marshal had killed a terrorist in France and was placed in jail. Captain Uri Bar Lev radioed another El Al pilot and in coded Hebrew worked out that the two Shabak men would leave via the luggage compartment and enter into the same compartment on another airplane. Tickets were issued to the two Shabak men and they were regular passengers on the second plane.

In the meantime, the steward, Shlomo Videl, was taken to the hospital in London and survived.

What happened to Captain Uri Bar Lev? The Israeli government was not happy with him for disobeying instructions. There were hearings and inquiries, but Bar Lev stood his ground.

What is the chain of command in such an event? Is the captain in charge of the safety of his passengers? Or does the Shabak retain authority? Ultimately, it was resolved that the captain is in charge, but there were repercussions to his career.

This author believes that from a halakhic perspective, Captain Uri Bar Lev did everything right. He was a true hero in every sense of the word. El Al and Shabak did not see things the same way. Captain Bar Lev retired 3 and ½ years later.

Terrorist Leila Khaled, spearheaded the hijacking movement which culminated in what we know as the Post 9-11 world we live in today. Every time we take off our shoes, belts, and laptops out of their cases before we board our flights we must thank Leila Khaled. Indeed, a sycophantic adulatory movie was made about her while the Pidyon Shvuyim hero, Captain Uri Bar Lev, remains obscure.

The administration of El Al should perhaps consider looking into this matter and maybe correct this half century old wrong.

The world has gone mad and is morally bankrupt. We need true heroes, and Captain Uri Bar Lev is an unsung hero.

What were his three separate actions that day? He saved a planeload of people from becoming hostages – pidyon shvuyim in the most pristine form. He saved the Shabak sky marshalls. More pidyon shvuyim. And he saved steward Shlomo Videl the steward from death. In each of these 3 actions he fulfilled the Rambam’s 8 Mitzvos in Pidyon Shvuyim. (8 times 3= 24)

· 1] Lo saametz es Levavcha – Do not tighten your heart(Dvarim 15:7)

· 2] veLo Sikpotz es yadcha – Nor shall you tighten your hand (Dvarim 15:7)

· 3] Lo saamod al dam rayacha – Do not stand idly by your brother’s blood (VaYikra 19:16)

· 4] Lo yirdeno beferech leainecha – Do not let him go down in excessive labor in front of your eyes (Vayikra 25:53)

· 5] Pasoach tiftach es yadcha lo You shall surely open your hand for him (Dvarim 15:8)

· 6] Vechai achicha imach – And your brother shall live with you (Vayikra 25:36)

· 7] Veahavta lerayacha kamocha –love your friend as yourself (Vayikra 19:18)

· 8] Hatzel lakuchim lemavais – Save those taken toward their death (Mishlei 24:11)

Pidyon Shvuyim isn’t just in paying ransom of any kind We see from the ge’ulah in Egypt that the verb Pidyon refers to physically taking captives out as well. We can redeem hostages physically as Captain Uri Bar Lev did. May the IDF succeed in doing so for the hostages of the Simchat Torah massacre.

Source: Rabbi Yair Hoffman – Arutz Sheva

Why are Asian Jews importing etrogs on Sukkot even though their countries grow them?

Rebecca Kanthor, a member of a progressive Jewish community in Shanghai, knows that she can easily order lulavs and etrogs in a few clicks online.

Kanthor, who belongs to Kehilat Shanghai, simply logs onto Taobao, China’s equivalent to Amazon. Etrogs, important components of a ritual for the Sukkot holiday, are known as xiang yuan (fragrant citrus, or citron) in Chinese.

While American Jews may spend anywhere between $20 and $200 on a single etrog grown in the Mediterranean, etrogs grown in China, mostly in the southwestern Yunnan province, are available on Taobao for about $2 each.

• Taobao also sells a wide array of traditional products made from the etrog, including tea, perfume, preserves and candy. The fruit is well known in China as a medicine used to treat everything from stomach issues to severe cough. (The components of the lulav, the other major component of Sukkot rituals, are available, too, in potted form: palm, willow, and myrtle plants go for around $7 altogether.)

But even though etrogs are available locally, most Jewish communities throughout Asia opt to import them from countries such as Israel or Italy for Sukkot. That’s because rabbinic authorities on Jewish law have for decades debated whether etrogs grown in Asia meet the standards for ritual use.

The etrog plays a central role on Sukkot, when Jews are commanded to hold it as they shake the lulav and recite the holiday’s prayers. The fruit’s ritual significance has given rise to a competitive marketplace: Some Jews pay hundreds of dollars for the perfect fruit and spend hundreds more on etrog boxes.

Most important to observant Jews today are the rules proclaiming that an etrog must be clean and without blemishes; that it retains its pittom — a protrusion separate from the stem; and that the plant must not be grafted.

“Most important: etrog is a weak tree,” said Rabbi Shalom Chazan, an emissary for the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement stationed in Shenzhen, China. “Usually, farmers will make a graftage between an etrog and lemon tree to make it stronger. That makes the etrog not kosher. We don’t know if the Chinese farmers do it or not, therefore we buy from Israel or Italy, and Morocco, to make sure it’s kosher.”

Chabad will import about 40 etrogs to share with the eight Chabad communities throughout China this year, he said.

Centuries of debate

These rules are borne out of rabbinic commentary, not the Torah, which only describes the ritual fruit as p’ri etz hadar, which has been interpreted as “fruit from the beautiful tree,” “beautiful fruit from any tree” or the “choice fruit of a tree.”

Scientists have traced the fruit’s genetic origins to the triangle of southwest China, northern Myanmar and northeast India. Today the etrog still grows in abundance in that area. But it was after the fruit migrated that it caught on with ancient Jews.

According to David Z. Moster, a Bible scholar and author of “Etrog:

• How a Chinese Fruit Became A Jewish Symbol,” the etrog was the first citrus fruit that traveled from East to West — likely because of its thick rind that hardens rather than rots over time, preserving the fruit and seeds inside. It arrived in Israel around the fourth to third centuries BCE, and while it is not clear when exactly the etrog became the “choice fruit of the tree,” it quickly rose as an important symbol to distinguish Jews from Christians and Samaritans while fulfilling rules laid out in the Torah.
• “Every Jewish community has, in the past, found what they wanted the most,” said Moster. “There’s the Yemenite etrog, which, if you get a really good one, you get the size of a football… A lot of the European Jews are looking for [an etrog with] a gartel, a belt… Now, in the modern world, a person like me can go to Borough Park [a heavily Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn] and see 10,000 etrogim in one day.”

In modern times, most Jews in the West used etrogs grown in what is now Israel, the Caribbean or North Africa, including Morocco. But in the East, where most Jewish communities formed in the 18th and 19th centuries, debates over the etrog continued, especially with the discovery of the Chinese “Buddha’s hand” citron, which sprouts finger-like protrusions due to a genetic mutation.

1. Rabbi Asher Oser of Hong Kong’s historic Ohel Leah synagogue has researched the subject heavily for classes he has taught. He found documents revealing debates among Baghdadi rabbis about the Buddha’s hand citron, which is often not considered an etrog at all. (“All etrogim are citrons but not all citrons are etrogim,” Moster wrote.) Most important, the rabbis wrote, was continuing tradition.

“In the city of Baghdad we don’t allow the Dibdib tree, which has all the signs of an etrog, except it is sour,” wrote Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad in 1909 in response to questions about the Buddha’s hand. “If a person is in a strange place and they find a fruit completely similar to etrogs of the place where they are coming from, then they can be used. If they’re not completely similar… they should not be used.”

Hong Kong’s Jewish community has continued the tradition today, ordering etrogs from Israel or the United States.

Thapan Dubayehudi, a member of the Jewish community in Kochi, India, said Jews enjoyed local etrogs from trees outside of the local synagogue until the late 1990s. But as more Jews began traveling between Israel and Kochi every year, the community elected to ditch the local fruits and use Israeli ones brought back by individuals.

“There’s high-quality, rabbinically blessed supplies coming from Israel. Then why would we grow the local varieties that are usually smaller and not exactly the same species?” Dubayehudi said. “It’s been 30 years, none of the trees are left there.”

A World War II etrog rescue, of sorts

According to researchers, etrogs from what is now Israel or Iraq have long been preferable in Asia.

Jewish communities in Shanghai and Kobe, Japan, for decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries received etrogs from the wealthy Abraham family, international traders who had brought a Baghdadi etrog plant with them to Shanghai. It was planted outside the Abraham mansion and tended by Chinese gardeners, according to Yecheskel Leitner’s 1987 book “Operation–Torah Rescue.”

Leitner wrote that this tradition ended after Pearl Harbor, when patriarch David Abraham was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp and the family’s property was seized by the Japanese, who had occupied parts of the city. With the Jewish community desperate for the ritual fruit at Sukkot, someone was sent to climb the walls around the family’s garden and pick etrogs to distribute. The Japanese army then cut down the tree in retaliation.

With no other choice, the Jews were left to source local etrogs and were again faced with the Buddha’s hand variety. The community was conflicted.

“Some experts in halacha [Jewish law] used this etrog for the religious observance without pronouncing the customary blessing over it — to denote their doubts regarding its authenticity,” Leitner wrote. Others used it as a symbolic physical reminder of the mitzvah, while others refused to use it at all.

Getting ‘creative’ to import etrogs

In today’s world, importing fresh fruit across borders is a complicated process that can require significant paperwork and sometimes diplomatic intervention.

• Chabad was only able to legally import etrogs into China beginning in 2017, after a Chinese professor of Jewish studies helped the communities provide adequate documentation, according to an article from that year on the Lubavitch website. Before then, emissaries had to come up with “creative alternatives,” said Rabbi Shalom Greenberg of Shanghai. Chabad emissaries did not elaborate when asked what those solutions were.

In Taiwan, decades ago, community members would bring etrogs from Hong Kong back to Taipei in their luggage. Since Chabad arrived in 2011, they have been legally imported with the help of the Israeli representative office but not always made available to the wider community.

Today, the Japan Jewish Community in Tokyo also gets help from the Israeli consulate and Chabad, though “nothing is certain until it arrives,” said Rabbi Andrew Scheer. One lulav and etrog set is priced at $150 before shipping, and as far as Scheer knows, etrogs don’t grow locally. “If it could be produced locally, that would be best. Just like with cars, ‘Made in Japan’ implies the highest quality.”

The etrog has long been hard to get, said Moster.

“In many Jewish lands, if they wanted an etrog, they’re gonna have to send someone on a multi-thousand-mile trip and cross many nations, just to be able to pick this thing up and get it there in time,” he said. “So the idea of it being historically hard to get also added to its value.”

• At least one community in Asia has used locally grown etrogs since its establishment over 2,000 years ago: the Bene Israel in Western India, where the citron is known as the bijora.

In Bene Israel Jewish culture, the bijora appears across traditions and holidays, said Esther David, a Bene Israel writer from Ahmedabad, a city of about 8 million with a community of about 100 Jews.

• “For Bene Israel Jews, Bijora is a holy fruit and placed as an offering with a myrtle twig on the chair of Prophet Elijah, at the synagogue. Bijora is also placed on the prophet’s chair during the circumcision of a Jewish male child,” David said. During a malida — a ceremony of thanksgiving to the prophet Elijah unique to the Bene Israel — a bijora is placed on the ceremonial plate.

Austen Haeems, a member of the Ahmedabad community, has been growing etrogs for over a decade and providing them to the community free of charge. He says they are grown naturally and without grafting, starting from the seed. The trees produce 30 to 40 fruits each year.

• But if there isn’t enough to go around, bijoras are readily available at local markets for about 100 rupees, or $1.20, year-round.

“On my dining table, you will always find one etrog. My wife keeps it until it dries up,” Haeems said.

Source: JTA via Jordyn Hamme = TOI

Ignoring warnings, Israelis take kids on Uman pilgrimage in war-torn Ukraine

Tired and hungry, Ofer Azran waits patiently as his six-year-old son browses for a wallet at one of the overpriced convenience stores that pop up in Uman ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Azran and his son traveled for 30 hours from Israel, through Poland and much of war-torn Ukraine to get to the Uman gravesite of Rabbi Nachman, an 18th-century luminary who inspired the Breslov movement of Hasidic Judaism, by the eve of Rosh Hashanah. His burial place is the focus of the world’s largest Jewish pilgrimage outside Israel.

The wallet — the child’s first — is a reward for his good behavior during the arduous journey, which is challenging generally and has become significantly more complicated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shut down commercial air travel in that country.

• This year, hundreds of parents to young children have ignored the repeated warnings by the governments of Israel and Ukraine to stay away from the war-torn country — at least 21 people were killed in an explosion in Uman in April — and have traveled with them on the pilgrimage.

An estimated 32,000 pilgrims have made their way to Uman this year.

The presence of children highlights the determination to keep the pilgrimage alive despite new perils and complications. Many pilgrims and their supporters view this as the epitome of Jewish religious devotion. But back in Israel and elsewhere, the war has amplified criticism over the pilgrimage, which some Israelis have long treated with disdain.

Azran, an electrician from Petah Tikva and a divorced father of five, dismissed these concerns offhand. “And is Israel any safer? Any second, a rocket could hit you and kill you,” said Azran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees it differently. When Israel is under rocket attacks, he said during a cabinet meeting this week, “citizens enter shelters and there is protection.” In Ukraine, “there are no shelters and no protection,” he said. Stopping short of advising Israelis not to travel to Uman, he urged them “to act responsibly regarding their trips at this time.”

But Netanyahu’s warning was eclipsed by the brouhaha caused by his following remark: “The Holy One has not always protected us, both on Ukrainian and other European soil.”

• Several ultra-Orthodox lawmakers called his remark “heresy” and one of them, Yisrael Eichler, wrote an acrimonious response that blamed Zionism for some elements of the Holocaust.

Eliyahu Revivo, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, also traveled to Uman this year, despite Netanyahu’s warning. A spokesperson for Revivo told The Times of Israel that Revivo was “not in any violation of a directive by the prime minister and is taking all precautions to stay safe.”

Orit Struk, an ultra-Orthodox cabinet minister in Netanyahu’s government, spoke out more clearly against the Uman pilgrimage, underlining the internal debate in religious circles. “Dear Jews, don’t go there!” Strock, who is the minister in charge of West Bank settlements in Netanyahu’s cabinet, said in a statement. “Don’t risk your lives! There are enough places of worship.”

Strock, who has raised 11 children in a small Jewish settlement in the predominantly Palestinian city of Hebron, said this in explaining why she opposed a special $4 million funding that the government gave for aid to Israelis traveling to Uman.

This prompted allegations by right-wingers of hypocrisy on Strock’s part in light of the relative lack of safety where she lives. “Should Haredi leaders take her text, and just insert ‘settlements’ instead of Uman?” Mannie Girah, a prominent Haredi columnist, said on Channel 14, a right-wing television channel.

Shimon Riklin, a high-profile right-wing journalist, challenged this reasoning, saying the Land of Israel trumps Ukraine’s religious significance. Girah retorted: “We’re entering the usual argument about what trumps what: Halachah [Jewish law] or Zionism.”

A long, colorful journey

To many Jews in Uman, the back and forth about the pilgrimage is background noise — if that.

“I don’t follow what they say on television,” Azran told The Times of Israel. “But my boy’s turning seven and I need to get him to the gravesite,” he added in reference to the belief shared by many Breslovers that a child who visits the gravesite before that age will grow up to be without sin.

This is a time-honored tradition whose origins are attributed to Rabbi Nachman personally, Zvi Mark, a scholar of Hasidic movements at Bar-Ilan University, told The Times of Israel. But many parents bring their children simply to initiate them, “to shape them and set them on the path,” Mark added.

Azran’s son, who has in the meantime selected a black billfold as his first wallet, looks up proudly as his father recounts the journey’s trials. “First, the flight to Poland. Then a taxi to the train station. Then we changed trains. Then 15 hours in a crowded train. Then we waited for five hours at the Polish border crossing and another two at the Ukrainian one. Then a minivan. It’s just a killer, my back is killing me,” Azran said.

With thousands of Jews, many of them in black-and-white Haredi attire, in Pushkina, the name of the neighborhood around the gravesite, the sights and sounds on the eve of Rosh Hashanah feel like some futuristic version of a shtetl, the Jewish villages that dotted Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Stands and shops selling anything from silver to watermelons line the main street, where powerful speakers blast Hasidic music, often with a techno twist.

Dozens of kosher restaurants sell Israeli street food and there are even two spots called “Uman Starbucks” where visitors can serve themselves tea, coffee and lemonade out of huge containers — free of charge — courtesy of the World Breslov World Center, a nonprofit that is in charge of multiple aspects of the pilgrimage.

• About 20 synagogues, some of them featuring multiple prayer halls that are often very crowded, dot the Jewish area.

Pushkina has an internal economy where products and services are listed in shekels or dollars, almost always at prices many times those of the local Ukrainian economy.

Most business owners are Israelis.

Many regulars here know this and try to do whatever shopping they can outside the Jewish area. “But right now, after the hassle of just getting here, I’m going to bite my lip and pay the high prices,” said Azran about the wallet he bought his son for $15.

• In and around Uman, there is also a lively trade in narcotics and prostitution for some of the pilgrims, who are predominantly men.
• Some, including two pilgrims interviewed anonymously by The Times of Israel, said they engaged in partying with drugs and prostitutes before the actual pilgrimage. Such behaviors are monitored closely by Ukrainian police in Uman and are frowned upon by many pilgrims. Brawls with locals and robberies are commonplace, especially outside the Jewish area.

Whereas sex, drugs, and violence may exist on the periphery of the Uman pilgrimage, spirituality and kindness seem to be much more central to the experience. It’s not uncommon to see men break down in tears, or simply walk around calmly with tearful eyes, after a visit to the Tziun, the gravesite, which is a shrine with a trapeze-shaped roof.

People stop to greet one another on the street, and group hugs by men are not uncommon. Benevolence is the default for human interactions.

Another Israeli father with a six-year-old son in Uman, 36-year-old Maor Ohana, came to Ukraine from Moldova, also spending about 30 hours on the road. But his son, Shimon, “enjoyed the ride to the max, because we were on a bus with other children. They played and snacked on way too many sweets,” he says.

This year, hundreds of parents to young children have ignored the repeated warnings by the governments of Israel and Ukraine to stay away from the war-torn country — at least 21 people were killed in an explosion in Uman in April — and have traveled with them on the pilgrimage.

The presence of children highlights the determination to keep the pilgrimage alive despite new perils and complications. Many pilgrims and their supporters view this as the epitome of Jewish religious devotion. But back in Israel and elsewhere, the war has amplified criticism over the pilgrimage, which some Israelis have long treated with disdain.

Azran, an electrician from Petah Tikva and a divorced father of five, dismissed these concerns offhand. “And is Israel any safer? Any second, a rocket could hit you and kill you,” said Azran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees it differently. When Israel is under rocket attacks, he said during a cabinet meeting this week, “citizens enter shelters and there is protection.” In Ukraine, “there are no shelters and no protection,” he said. Stopping short of advising Israelis not to travel to Uman, he urged them “to act responsibly regarding their trips at this time.”

But Netanyahu’s warning was eclipsed by the brouhaha caused by his following remark: “The Holy One has not always protected us, both on Ukrainian and other European soil.”

• Several ultra-Orthodox lawmakers called his remark “heresy” and one of them, Yisrael Eichler, wrote an acrimonious response that blamed Zionism for some elements of the Holocaust.

Eliyahu Revivo, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, also traveled to Uman this year, despite Netanyahu’s warning. A spokesperson for Revivo told The Times of Israel that Revivo was “not in any violation of a directive by the prime minister and is taking all precautions to stay safe.”

Orit Struk, an ultra-Orthodox cabinet minister in Netanyahu’s government, spoke out more clearly against the Uman pilgrimage, underlining the internal debate in religious circles. “Dear Jews, don’t go there!” Strock, who is the minister in charge of West Bank settlements in Netanyahu’s cabinet, said in a statement. “Don’t risk your lives! There are enough places of worship.”

Strock, who has raised 11 children in a small Jewish settlement in the predominantly Palestinian city of Hebron, said this in explaining why she opposed a special $4 million funding that the government gave for aid to Israelis traveling to Uman.

This prompted allegations by right-wingers of hypocrisy on Strock’s part in light of the relative lack of safety where she lives. “Should Haredi leaders take her text, and just insert ‘settlements’ instead of Uman?” Mannie Girah, a prominent Haredi columnist, said on Channel 14, a right-wing television channel.

Shimon Riklin, a high-profile right-wing journalist, challenged this reasoning, saying the Land of Israel trumps Ukraine’s religious significance. Girah retorted: “We’re entering the usual argument about what trumps what: Halachah [Jewish law] or Zionism.”

A long, colorful journey

To many Jews in Uman, the back and forth about the pilgrimage is background noise — if that.

“I don’t follow what they say on television,” Azran told The Times of Israel. “But my boy’s turning seven and I need to get him to the gravesite,” he added in reference to the belief shared by many Breslovers that a child who visits the gravesite before that age will grow up to be without sin.

Azran’s son, who has in the meantime selected a black billfold as his first wallet, looks up proudly as his father recounts the journey’s trials. “First, the flight to Poland. Then a taxi to the train station. Then we changed trains. Then 15 hours in a crowded train. Then we waited for five hours at the Polish border crossing and another two at the Ukrainian one. Then a minivan. It’s just a killer, my back is killing me,” Azran said.

With thousands of Jews, many of them in black-and-white Haredi attire, in Pushkina, the name of the neighborhood around the gravesite, the sights and sounds on the eve of Rosh Hashanah feel like some futuristic version of a shtetl, the Jewish villages that dotted Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Stands and shops selling anything from silver to watermelons line the main street, where powerful speakers blast Hasidic music, often with a techno twist.

• Dozens of kosher restaurants sell Israeli street food and there are even two spots called “Uman Starbucks” where visitors can serve themselves tea, coffee and lemonade out of huge containers — free of charge — courtesy of the World Breslov World Center, a nonprofit that is in charge of multiple aspects of the pilgrimage.

About 20 synagogues, some of them featuring multiple prayer halls that are often very crowded, dot the Jewish area.

Pushkina has an internal economy where products and services are listed in shekels or dollars, almost always at prices many times those of the local Ukrainian economy. Most business owners are Israelis. Many regulars here know this and try to do whatever shopping they can outside the Jewish area. “But right now, after the hassle of just getting here, I’m going to bite my lip and pay the high prices,” said Azran about the wallet he bought his son for $15.

• Whereas sex, drugs, and violence may exist on the periphery of the Uman pilgrimage, spirituality and kindness seem to be much more central to the experience. It’s not uncommon to see men break down in tears, or simply walk around calmly with tearful eyes, after a visit to the Tziun, the gravesite, which is a shrine with a trapeze-shaped roof.

People stop to greet one another on the street, and group hugs by men are not uncommon. Benevolence is the default for human interactions.

Another Israeli father with a six-year-old son in Uman, 36-year-old Maor Ohana, came to Ukraine from Moldova, also spending about 30 hours on the road. But his son, Shimon, “enjoyed the ride to the max, because we were on a bus with other children. They played and snacked on way too many sweets,” he says.

• The wartime pilgrimage by children is not the only such controversial custom. In recent years, Breslovers have been known to bring their week-old babies to Uman to be circumcised there – a custom deemed risky in a country where the procedure is rare and medical facilities are rudimentary.

Like many passengers from Moldova, Ohana and his son had waited for hours at a deserted tent city that the United Nations had set up for refugees leaving Ukraine in the early days of the war. The buses with pilgrims waited there until there was room at the nearby border crossing, which had a mile-long queue of cars on Wednesday.

As they wait, the pilgrims keep up the morale with songs and dances. Suddenly, an unmistakable sound pierces the stillness of the warm afternoon: A shofar being expertly blown by one of the pilgrims. The others, most of whom had paid thousands of dollars for the trip, rejoiced and resumed dancing in the dusty campground.

• A common criticism about the Breslov pilgrims is that the men leave their families on one of the Jewish calendar’s most important dates. “They can’t justify a trip to the French Riviera, so they go to Uman,” Dov Halbertal, a Haredi journalist, wrote about the pilgrims in 2016 in Haaretz.

Among those waiting at the tent city was Yoel Arendthal from Beit Shemesh and his nine-year-old son. Asked about bringing his son into a warzone despite the government’s advice, Arendthal says: “I don’t believe in a government. I don’t believe in a war. I don’t believe in anyone’s authority but that of G-d and Rabeinu,” meaning Rabbi Nachman.

Mark, the scholar, said there is some debate among Breslov followers about going to Uman when it’s dangerous to do so. “It’s complex. Some have given their lives to come, and even Rabbi Natan, Rabbi Nachman’s disciple, said that he’d crawl over knives to get to Uman on Rosh Hashanah,” Mark said.

Breslovers themselves largely refrained from going to Uman under communist rule in Ukraine, Mark noted.

• The gravesite is believed to be near a mass grave of victims of a pogrom that happened in the 18th century. Rabbi Nachman asked to be buried there as a tribute to the self-sacrifice of the victims. “So the pilgrimage and even its dangers correspond with the principle of self-sacrifice in Breslov thought,” Mark added.

He declined to offer a judgment on the phenomenon of child pilgrims at Uman.

“To say whether it’s reasonable, you have to enter the Breslov way of thinking,” Mark said. “Some parents go to Uman solely in order to bring their children, to give them an ‘Uman Rosh Hashanah,’ a gift for life that costs them a tremendous amount of investment,” Mark said.

Meanwhile, some of Mark’s fellow scholars leave their families for whole semesters to teach abroad, and travel each year to conferences, he noted.

“Sometimes, those very people ask me what compels pilgrims to leave their wives and kids on Rosh Hashanah to go to Uman,” Mark added.

Source: TOI

Hungary’s chief rabbi meets Netanyahu

Rabbi Slomo Koves, chief rabbi of EMIH – Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities, Hungary’s central orthodox Jewish community, and Rabbi Shmuel Oirechman, general director of the orthodox community, met on Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

• The meeting took place ahead of the possible relocation of the Hungarian embassy to Jerusalem and dealt with a series of events that are going to accompany this historic move, as well as with additional topics related to the Jewish communal life in Hungary.

Rabbi Koves stressed during the meeting the importance of the friendship between the two countries.

• The community leaders used the occasion to invite Netanyahu for a reciprocal visit to Budapest, which coincides with the 35th anniversary of Chabad in Hungary.

In honor of the historic events, the community has also translated in recent months Netanyahu’s bestselling book “Bibi – my story” into Hungarian. Hungary’s rabbi used the occasion to present to Netanyahu the first copy of the translation that is set to be published in honor of the embassy move and Netanyahu’s Budapest visit.

• Rabbi Koves also presented to Netanyahu the new plans for a Holocaust museum in Budapest, the construction of which has been ongoing for the last few years.

Source: Arutz Sheva

Header: Rabbi Koves, Rabbi Oirechman and Netanyahu.EMIH spokesperson

Zelensky ‘a disgrace to the Jewish people’ – Putin

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky brings shame on the entire Jewish people, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, pointing to Kiev’s turning a blind eye to neo-Nazi ideology.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the Russian leader was asked to comment on the criticism of Russia’s stated goal to “denazify” Ukraine, with Western experts arguing that such an aspiration is ridiculous because Zelensky himself is Jewish.

Putin responded by saying that his friends in the Jewish community do not share this view.

• “They say that Zelensky is not a Jew, he is a disgrace to the Jewish people. I’m not joking, this is not irony,” Putin said. He pointed to the fact that the current Ukrainian authorities openly celebrate Nazi figures, most notably supporters of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II.
• The Russian leader recalled that out of six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, 1.5 million were from Ukraine, with Ukrainian nationalists being heavily involved in mass executions.

However, nobody wants to hear about Bandera being an anti-Semite, because Zelensky himself is a Jew, Putin said. “But with his actions, he provides cover for this scum,” the Russian leader said.

• On Tuesday, Putin blasted Kiev’s decision to remove Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin – who he says basically founded Ukraine – from public squares and replace him with Bandera, whom he referred to as “a scoundrel and a fascist.” At the time, he said he was “surprised” by the move, pointing to Zelensky’s Jewish roots.

Source: RT

Ukraine: Jewish refugees flee to Poland following dam collapse

Following the breach of the Kakhovka dam in Southern Ukraine earlier this week, Ukrainian Jews are boarding buses and fleeing the country towards Poland.

Chabad of Poland is preparing to receive and shelter the group in Warsaw. The buses are expected to arrive just hours before Shabbat (the Sabbath) begins.

While the flooding is damaging homes and wreaking havoc on critical infrastructure, it’s also creating an environmental crisis the war-torn region is already struggling to manage. Late Wednesday the Ukrainian authorities urged locals to only drink bottled water and avoid eating fish from the river.

Both sides of the conflict have warned that minefields were likely flooded and have cautioned that landmines may have moved due to the floods.

• Nuclear watchdogs are worried that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia, which relies on the dam, is at risk of possible meltdown, only further imperiling those living and working in the area.

“Because of the war, our brothers and sisters in the Kherson Oblast area have already lost so much,” said Chabad of Poland Director Rabbi Sholom Ber Stambler.

“We must do everything possible to help them during this difficult time and ensure that they don’t also lose their hope.”

Since the start of the Russian incursion into Ukraine, Chabad of Poland has been on the front lines, helping Jewish Ukrainian refugees resettle in Poland and serving as a spiritual waypoint for those resettling in Israel and other nations. Throughout their time in Poland, Chabad’s locally-based emissaries have provided Ukrainian Jewish refugees in need with shelter, food, and religious services.

1. “Our team is already at work procuring the necessary food, accommodations, clothing and necessities to ensure the highest possible level of dignity and comfort for those en route from Ukraine,” said Chabad of Poland Co-Director Rabbi Mayer Stambler.

• “So many generous donors from across the Jewish world have already extended their offer of support for this group, and we’re working to ensure that the group is cared for upon their arrival.”

Source: Arutz Sheva

Coronavirus spread – and Rabbi Kanievsky said to learn Torah

Hours before the start of the Shavuot holiday (Festival of Weeks), the Siach Emunah institute published video clips of the late Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky learning Torah.

At the same time, the institute aired a never-before-seen video clip on the subject of Torah learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the video, Rabbi Kanievsky’s grandson can be seen asking, “There is now this plague, which is spreading, and there are many many people sick in Bnei Brak and in Jerusalem, an unending number of sick people, including in our community. And people are asking: Why did G-d bring this plague upon us?”

Rabbi Kanievsky then responded, “So that they will fear.” He added that the public should “learn Torah.”

The grandson then told Rabbi Kanievsky that there are those who say that because they continued learning as usual, the pandemic spread even more, and caused widespread infection.

“There was never such a thing,” Rabbi Kanievsky answered firmly.

Source: Arutz Sheva

The lady behind Codex Sasson

We met at a beautiful hotel in Italy and after hearing her wonderful presentation she had just finished giving in the main hall of the hotel on the Sassoon Codex, I had to have a chat with this wonderful lady, Mrs. Sharon Mintz.

I was pleasantly surprised at her soft and sweet voice, and her very relaxed and simple approach even though so many people wanted to speak to her at the end of her lecture. The amount of knowledge this woman has doesn’t match her very approachable and humble personality. She listens carefully to all those who speak to her and ask her questions, want advice, or simply want to hear more interesting stories about her career.

Sharon Liberman Mintz is the Curator of Jewish Art at the Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary and specializes in the fields of Illuminated Hebrew manuscripts and rare printed books. She has curated more than 40 exhibitions, over the course of 30 years at the Library, authored ten exhibition catalogs and has lectured extensively on a variety of topics in the fields of Jewish Art and rare Hebrew books. She is Senior Consultant for Judaica at Sotheby’s since 1995 and has cataloged and appraised Hebrew books for Judaica sales worldwide for over two decades.

In February 2009, Sharon collaborated on the cataloging and exhibition of the Valmadonna Trust Library at Sotheby’s, the finest private library of Hebrew books and manuscripts in the world. She was the Project Director of the acclaimed Judaica exhibition Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein (2005) and co-editor of the monumental catalog published in conjunction with the exhibition. How honored I felt to be able to sit alone with her and ask her about the incredible Codex Sasson story. Sharon lives and breathes Judaica books and manuscripts, she is one of the biggest experts in the world, as you talk to her though I get the feeling that it is not just a career for her it’s really a passion it’s part of her life. Her eyes light up when she describes the first time she touched Codex Sassoon with her hands, and when she tells me the story of this book it is as if she is telling a story of her life.

Sharon has made us all so much more aware of the importance of preserving and recognizing the value of these books and manuscripts for us as the Jewish nation – known as the people of the book! She gently encourages us to learn about it, to appreciate and to enjoy most of all these incredible pieces that can be seen at museums and libraries all over the world.

As we are about to finish the interview I wonder how many secrets she has kept or behind-the-scenes stories that cannot be publicized on the buying and selling of certain pieces and surely the drama and suspense we never heard behind the Codex Sasson, I understand though why anyone would trust her fully, she is reserved, professional and focused, yet so nice and friendly.

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed the conversation I had with Mrs. Sharon Mintz.

Source: Hadassah Chen – Arutz Sheva

Header: The ‘Codex Sassoon’ bible is displayed at Sotheby’s in New York on February 15, 2023. – According to Sotheby’s the Codex Sassoon is the earliest and most complete Hebrew Bible ever discovered and will be offered for auction with an estimate of 30-50 million US dollars, making it the most valuable printed text or historical document ever offered. (Photo by Ed JONES / AFP)

Haredi MK mocks pop star Noa Kirel: ‘I would donate clothes to her’

A senior haredi lawmaker took aim at a top Israeli pop singer Monday, while defending his party’s calls for increased state funding of haredi schools.

Speaking in the Knesset plenum Monday morning as he presented the government’s budget plan, Knesset Finance Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) pushed back on criticism of increased funding for the haredi school system, as well as his party’s demand the Likud support increased funding for full-time yeshiva students.

• “I have a granddaughter who recently had a son. She is a young woman who works in high-tech and makes good money. She works with other young haredi women who learned with her at a seminary in Bnei Brak.”

“Yet her school only received half the money [per pupil] that state schools received. This is a school that is fully under the authority of the Education Ministry, where they learn core [secular] studies, take the matriculation exams, and go into high-tech.”

“And despite this, there are people here [in the Knesset] who say that they don’t deserve [equal funding]. She didn’t learn just the core curriculum – chemistry, algebra – she also learned Judaism. Yet only received half the amount of funding. Why?”

Gafni took aim at pop star Noa Kirel during his comments in the Knesset plenum, following her recent performance in the Eurovision, in which she finished third place.

“I spoke with my daughter recently; she never heard of Noa Kirel. Never heard of her. So what? So because of that she shouldn’t get the same kind of funding? I would donate clothes to [Noa Kirel].”

Source: Arutz Sheva

Netflix series brings Orthodox Jewish matchmaking to the masses

According to Jewish tradition, God has been making matches since the creation of the world. Aleeza Ben Shalom has been at it only since 2007 — but the Jewish matchmaker is about to bring what she calls “the most important job in the world” to the masses.

• As the host of “Jewish Matchmaking” on Netflix, Ben Shalom adapts the model of Orthodox arranged matches to Jewish singles from a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds, including secular, Reform and Conservative Jews from across the United States and Israel.

Formal matchmaking, known as shidduch dating and considered de rigueur in haredi Orthodox circles, has been depicted as oppressive and constricting on Netflix dramas such as “Shtisel” and “Unorthodox.” But Ben Shalom believes her basic approach to love and marriage makes sense for a wide array of people — and she’s out to prove it.

• “I’m hoping that people will see that matchmaking and Judaism is not just something that’s old, but that’s timeless, that’s relevant,” Ben Shalom told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“We can use this beautiful, ancient tradition of matchmaking and bring it to modern life, and help people to find love from any age, stage, any background. It doesn’t matter. It’s universal,” she said. “The wisdom that I share is from Judaism. It’s based in Torah, but it’s for the world. Anybody of any background, of any culture can watch this, can learn something from it and can implement it in their lives.”

• Ben Shalom isn’t the first to make the case that matchmaking services can help a wide array of Jews find lasting love. Ventures such as YentaNet, a pluralistic matchmaking service that arose about a decade ago, and Tribe 12, a Jewish nonprofit working with young adults in Philadelphia where Ben Shalom got her start, have sought to pair Jewish singles who might be a good fit for each other.

But the practice is most common in haredi Orthodox communities, where the norms around shidduch dating are well known and closely followed. Daters have a “shidduch resume” outlining their education, interests and family background; parents are involved in the process; and dating is intended to move quickly toward marriage. Dates typically take place in public spaces and couples are expected not to touch until they are married.

In formal Orthodox matchmaking, the shadchan, or matchmaker, is usually compensated by the parents, receiving around $1,000 upon a couple’s engagement, although higher-end services may charge more.

Some matchmakers may charge a smaller amount for the initial meeting with a client, while Ben Shalom’s company, Marriage Minded Mentor, charges $50 to $100 an hour on a sliding scale based on the client’s salary. (Sima Taparia, the star and host of “Indian Matchmaking,” the Netflix show that inspired “Jewish Matchmaking,” reportedly charges her clients around $1,330 to $8,000 for similar services.)

Matchmakers keep records of who in their communities is looking for a match, but they can also tap into networks of other matchmakers and databases of singles as they seek to pair their clients. “We don’t believe in competition, we believe in collaboration,” said Ben Shalom, who is currently based in Israel.

• Ben Shalom grew up in a Conservative Jewish community where matchmaking was not the norm, and later became Orthodox. She knew her husband for three weeks before becoming engaged, then touched him for the first time during their wedding four months later.

She knows that most participants on “Jewish Matchmaking” are unlikely to follow those same restrictions. Still, she encourages them to at least try.

• “I’m really trying to have you guys touch hearts,” Ben Shalom tells Harmonie Krieger, a marketing and brand consultant in her 40s, as she explains why she wants Krieger to abstain from physical contact for five dates. “You will gain clarity. If there’s no physical glue holding the relationship together, then there’s actually value-based glue that’s holding the relationship together.”

“I will accept the challenge,” Krieger says. “Maybe. Let’s see how it goes.”

Krieger is one of a number of non-Orthodox Jews who opted to be cast on “Jewish Matchmaking” after being unsatisfied with their own dating efforts. There’s Nakysha Osadchey, a Black Reform Jew who is desperate to get out of Kansas City, Missouri, where she hasn’t had luck finding a partner who understands her multicultural background. Living in Tel Aviv via Rome, Noah Del Monte, 24, is the youngest of the group, an Israeli army veteran and diplomat’s son who wants to transition from so-called “king of nightlife” to husband. In Los Angeles, Ori Basly, who works for his family’s wedding planning business, is looking for a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Israeli woman to fall in love with and bring home to his family.

The Jews cast on the show are all in different places in their lives, some grieving serious breakups or committed to specific religious identities, some picky about looks or hoping their partner will be OK with riding motorcycles.

Some of them are looking for particular Jewish commitments to concepts such as tikkun olam, which means “repairing the world” and has come to represent a social justice imperative for many liberal Jews; others want to be sure they’re matched only with people who share their approaches to observing Shabbat and keeping kosher.

Pamela Rae Schuller, a comedian whose material frequently centers on living with Tourette syndrome, a nervous system disorder, demurred when Ben Shalom first offered to set her up about seven years ago, after attending one of Schuller’s shows in Los Angeles.

“I was picking career first. And there are a lot of complicated feelings around dating and disability,” said Schuller, who stands 4 feet 6 inches tall and frequently barks because of her syndrome. “And I never even thought about a matchmaker.”

But in 2022, Ben Shalom reached out again, this time with a possible match, and a catch — it would be for a new Netflix show she was set to host. This time, Schuller was ready.

• “I have this life that I really, really love. I’m just at the point where I’ve realized I’d like someone to start to share that with,” she said. “I’m not going into this looking for anyone to complete me.”

Getting back into dating and then appearing on the show, which Schuller hasn’t seen yet, was both scary and exciting, she says

“I’m about to put myself out there. I think that’s scary for everyone, disability or otherwise,” Schuller said. “But I also want to see a world where we remember that every type of person dates.”

Plus, she added, “I love the idea that Netflix is willing to show diversity in Judaism, diversity in dating.”

Ensuring that she show accurately represented American Jews was the responsibility of Ronit Polin-Tarshish, an Orthodox filmmaker who worked as a consulting producer on “Jewish Matchmaking.” Her role was to ensure that Judaism was portrayed authentically. She also worked to help the Orthodox cast members feel more comfortable with their involvement on the show.

“Being Orthodox is who I am, and of course it infused every part of my work,” said Polin-Tarshish, who herself used a matchmaker to find her husband.

• Multiple recent depictions of Orthodox Judaism in pop culture — including the Netflix reality show “My Unorthodox Life” — have drawn criticism from Orthodox voices for getting details of Orthodox observance wrong or seeming to encourage people to leave Orthodoxy. Both “My Unorthodox Life” and “Unorthodox,” based on the Deborah Feldman memoir of the same name, depict formerly Orthodox women who left arranged marriages they described as oppressive.

Meanwhile, other depictions of Jews have been panned for botching details. Those include a grieving widow (herself not Jewish, but mourning a Jewish husband) serving hamantaschen at the shiva in the 2014 film “This is Where I Leave You,” and a storyline on the Canadian show “Nurses” about an Orthodox man rejecting a bone graft from a non-Jew.

“So many times we watch shows as Jews and we kind of gnash our teeth, and are like, ‘They got it wrong! They got a basic thing wrong!’” said Polin-Tarshish, who previously produced the first-ever feature-length film by Orthodox women and worked on another reality show about arranged marriages across cultures. “That was my whole job, to make sure that they got it right. And thank God, baruch Hashem, I think we really did.”

Asked if her involvement on “Jewish Matchmaking” has received any pushback, Ben Shalom said she had gotten questions about how she could know whether the showrunners will accurately represent who she is.

Ben Shalom said she was confident in the production based on what she saw on “Indian Matchmaking,” but also because she believed she could pull off the delicate balance needed to represent her own community and make for great entertainment.

“You have to be smart about how you share who you are with the world, and you have to be authentic, and you have to be real, and you have to be true,” she said. “And you have to do that on reality TV with strangers that you’ve just met, and you have to do an interview. So only because I saw it done beautifully before, I knew that I had the ability to do that as well.”

Polin-Tarshish is excited for viewers at home to identify with the cast of “Jewish Matchmaking,” and to even get frustrated by some of the cast members’ actions. But most importantly, she says she is excited to have real, three-dimensional Jewish characters on screen.

“They’re real people in every sense of the word,” Polin-Tarshish said. “There are characters you’re going to love, there are characters you might even love to hate. But that’s life.”

Sorce: Arutz Sheva

Hungary: Tens of thousands visit ‘miracle rabbi’s’ gravesite

As many as 50,000 Jews traveled to a Hungarian town for the anniversary of a noted rabbi’s death this week, marking significant growth for the annual pilgrimage and generating what the town’s mayor called “culture shock” for non-Jewish locals.

• Since the fall of communism in 1989, Jewish pilgrims have been visiting Bodrogkeresztur, known as Kerestir in Yiddish, in April, timed to the death of Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner, a hasidic rabbi known as Reb Shayele whom some believe had special powers.

The number of pilgrims has swelled in recent years, thanks in part to efforts by the rabbi’s descendants to elevate his profile.

The estimated 50,000 visitors this year — other estimates placed the number lower, but still in the tens of thousands — would be over 60 times the number of the town’s year-round population. It also would likely set a new record for a Jewish pilgrimage in Europe, outpacing even the famed gatherings in Uman, Ukraine, at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

“It’s all a bit surreal,” Istvan Rozgonyi, mayor of the town in northeast Hungary, told Agence France-Presse this week. “Christians and Jews co-existed peacefully here for centuries, but the sudden influx in the last decade of so many foreign Jews has been a culture shock for some locals.”

In fact, Kerestir has not had a significant Jewish population since 1944, when the town’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Some of Reb Shayale’s family members were among them, though the rabbi himself died in 1925 and others in his family, including a brother and some of his children, had previously made their way to the United States, where his brother’s Staten Island grave is a pilgrimage site of its own.

Reb Shayele is considered in some hasidic circles to be a “miracle rabbi” who had supernatural powers of healing.

• He also famously advised a follower about how to rid his granary of mice, leading to the practice of affixing a picture of the “Mouser Rabbi” in one’s home to keep mice away.

“People call me every day to ask if I have the power from my grandfather,” Israel Grosz, the rabbi’s grandson and oldest living relative, told AFP.

Grosz lives in the United States. He believes, as many of the pilgrims do, that access to Reb Shayele’s powers is strongest at his grave. Many of the Jewish pilgrims to Kerestir, mostly but not exclusively men who gather in the town a few days before the anniversary of his death, go to the grave to ask for help with personal issues or for blessings. They visit his former house and the local Jewish cemetery where he is buried.

In recent decades, family members have worked to build up a Jewish infrastructure in Kerestir. They purchased the family’s home and erected a permanent tent over Reb Shayele’s grave, then bought the building next door to serve as a guesthouse. During the pilgrimage season, they add more tents to accommodate visitors to the grave and run shuttles to and from the airport in Budapest. Dozens of buildings in the town of about 1,100 have been purchased by people affiliated with the pilgrimage.

United Hatzalah, a Jewish emergency service based in Israel, sent a delegation to Kerestir. It treated well over 100 people this week, mostly for minor injuries and illnesses, it said in a press release.

• The influx briefly changes the town — police had to close it off for three days so fleets of buses full of Jewish pilgrims from across the globe could proceed through its narrow streets — and has induced tensions among locals who are divided on whether the pilgrimage is good for Bodrogkeresztur.

“They should go back to where they came from. I do not care that they used to live here,” one woman told the Christian Science Monitor in early 2020, arguing that Jews were driving up housing costs by buying buildings to serve as guesthouses. Another villager disagreed, telling the outlet, “They have the right to be here as their ancestors were unjustly taken away and killed in 1944.”

Orthodox Jews make other yearly pilgrimages to the burial sites of prominent rabbis across Europe, including in Turkey and elsewhere in Hungary. The most prominent of the pilgrimage sites is Uman, where the Rosh Hashanah event is known as a raucous affair. It took place last year despite the dangers of the Russia-Ukraine war and against the wishes of authorities,

The highest estimate for Uman attendance was 40,000, in 2018. This week’s Kerestir pilgrimage could have topped that, according to its organizers.

“We are proud that more people than ever came to Hungary this year to commemorate my grandfather’s memory and his influential teachings,” Menachem Mendel Rubin, who organized the event from his home in the United States, said in a press release. He thanked local police and the Hungarian government for their support.

As large as this year’s pilgrimage was, it’s unlikely to be the largest: Organizers expect record crowds in two years, for the 100th anniversary of Reb Shayele’s death.

Source: Arutz Sheva

Thousands at Birkat Kohanim at the Western Wall | Watch live broadcast

Thousands of people take part in the traditional Birkat Kohanim (Priestly Blessing) at the Western Wall today, Sunday morning. The event is being broadcasted live here.

The blessing, a Jewish prayer recited by Kohanim (Jewish priests in direct patrilineal descent from Aaron), is regularly performed during Chol HaMoed Pesach (the intermediate days of Passover) and in Sukkot.

Starting early in the morning, police have closed the primary routes to Jerusalem’s Old City, with the exception of local residents’ vehicles. Thousands of officers from the Jerusalem Police, Border Police, and reinforcement units, as well as volunteers, are stationed throughout the area, particularly on roads leading to the Western Wall. Their mission is to ensure the safety of the many worshipers and visitors who will be attending religious services and visiting the site.

Tens of thousands of Jewish worshipers did not let the recent tensions deter them from flooding the alleyways of the Old City under tight security, in order to receive the blessing of the Kohanim, the descendants of the Levi tribe – during both the Shacharit prayer and the Mussaf prayer.

Facing the mass of worshipers stood hundreds of Kohanim, covering their faces with prayer shawl and performing the blessing: “May the LORD bless you and guard you / May the LORD make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you / May the LORD lift up His face unto you and give you peace.”

The blessing is performed every morning every day of the year in any prayer that has at least one Kohen, but the Chol HaMoed period presents a rare opportunity to be blessed by so many Kohanim at the same time.

The Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch leads the prayer, and Israel’s Chief Rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau are also in attendance. At the end of the blessing, the Chief Rabbis also bless the pilgrims who came to Jerusalem.

The mass prayer at the Western Wall, which started during the War of Attrition (in 1970) has been taking place for over 50 years – twice a year.

The custom was brought back by Jerusalem resident Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gafner. During one of his prayers at the Western Wall, Gafner remembered a midrash (talmudic legend) that describes the unique nature of the priestly blessing, even after the destruction of the Temple – and decided to restore the ritual to its former glory.

His grandson, Rabbi Baruch Brandwein, says that ever since the ritual was restored, over 100 mass events of the Priestly Blessing took place in the Western Wall.

Source: YNET

French people largely ignorant, hold negative views, about Judaism, survey finds

On the fifth anniversary of the murder of French Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, and to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this week, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) released a survey on the French people’s knowledge of Judaism and the Jewish world.

CRIF recently commissioned the study from Ipsos on “French people’s knowledge of the Jewish world,” which it explained sheds light on “understanding of the relationship and the knowledge of the French to the Jewish world.”

The survey revealed a higher level of antisemitic prejudice among new generations compared to older ones, according to CRIF.

In particular, the study noted that 42 percent of respondents under the age of 35 subscribed to six or more antisemitic prejudices.

“We were convinced for a long time that antisemitism would die out over time, but we realize today that time is now against us,” CRIF President Yonathan Arfi told the Le Point newspaper.

The organization pointed out that modern antisemitism in France has taken on new “contemporary” forms in the “face of which our traditional tools of struggle are no longer relevant.”

“We also retain from this survey [evidence of] the loss of knowledge by the French of religions in general, and of Judaism in particular,” CRIF said.

The survey reveals that more than 70 percent of respondents did not know the chronological order of appearance of the three monotheistic religions.

Only 20 to 30 percent of respondents knew how to answer basic questions about the Jewish world (“Shabbat, main dietary restrictions, etc.”).

“If, according to this survey, having Jewish people in one’s close entourage makes respondents more sensitive to possible antisemitic words and allows them to be more receptive to the positive contribution of Jews in France, 85 percent of those questioned do not have Jewish people in their entourage,” CRIF pointed out.

• “Also, and even though this week is devoted to education and actions against racism and antisemitism, the survey revealed that for 16 percent of French respondents under the age of 35, the departure of French Jews to Israel or other countries is ‘a good thing for France,’” the Jewish communal body added.

CRIF stressed that “antisemitism has many faces” today, and that “the challenge is no longer just pure Holocaust denial.”

• “We are witnessing a competition of victimhood on the subject of the Holocaust and speeches of radical hostility towards Israel are multiplying in an uninhibited way,” they said.

“When we criticize Israel for what it is and not for what it does, we treat Israel exactly as antisemitism treats Jews: guilty in essence,” Arfi told Le Point.

Source: Arutz Sheva

Israel struck out at the World Baseball Classic, but the team’s Twitter account was a hit

Many fans were despairing as Team Israel trailed Puerto Rico 6-0 in the World Baseball Classic last week, but the team’s Twitter account had a different message.

“We will never give up,” the account tweeted.

“After all, Moses was once a basket case.”

While the quip couldn’t stave off the team’s ultimate 10-0 loss, it came in the course of a win for Avi Miller, the 30-year-old marketing veteran who runs the @ILBaseball account. For Miller — who tweeted the tournament from 3,000 miles away — the World Baseball Classic was a breakout moment, nearly doubling Team Israel’s social media followers and exposing countless baseball fans to jokes straight out of Hebrew school.

Miller told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his ambition was to do for Team Israel what the World Baseball Classic, an international Olympic-style baseball tournament, aims to do for baseball itself: deepen fans’ interest.

• “Of course virality is nice, because it creates more of a following. But then once you have a following, what are you doing with it?” Miller said. “So for me, and it’s even continued through today, and it will tomorrow and so on, is to create engagement with people, create interest in it, help to create and raise the fundraising efforts, help to create awareness of these programs.”

Team Israel won its first game but dropped the next three to exit the competition early.

• Some of those games were brutal: Across 15 innings on March 13 and 14, Israel managed just one base runner against its opponents.

But on the team’s Twitter account, the hits kept coming. One breakout post, seen more than 100,000 times, showed a photo of a seemingly apoplectic Jakob Goldfarb (who was actually celebrating, despite what his expression suggests).

In another popular post, the account outlined its “bubbie rankings,” using the Yiddish word for grandmother used in some Jewish families — and a homonym for the first name of one of the team’s pitchers. The list: “1) my bubbie 2) Bubby Rossman 3) other bubbies.”

From joking about storing a cooler of Manischewitz in the dugout to leaning into the “nice Jewish boy” vibe of the team, which was almost entirely composed of American Jewish ballplayers, the account’s sense of humor seemed to resonate.

Bill Shaikin, an award-winning baseball writer for the Los Angeles Times and a member of the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, called Israel’s Twitter “the best social media account in the tournament.”

“I thought the account was a wonderful mix of baseball information and witty nods to what your Jewish mother might say,” Shaikin told JTA. “If you know, you know. But, if you didn’t know, it still worked.”

Miller was well positioned to tell Team Israel’s story. A marketing consultant living in San Diego, he worked in communications for sports teams and the NCAA before expanding his portfolio to include tech clients. He’s also been involved with the Israel Association of Baseball in different capacities for a few years, mostly helping with social media and video editing. The Baltimore native is a Jewish day school graduate and cofounded a Moishe House in San Francisco.

“I’ve had these two worlds collide,” Miller said.

“I have a mentally strong relationship with baseball in my life, and then I have a bond to Judaism, from my entire upbringing. And for me as a passionate storyteller, my goal has been, both in years past and this World Baseball Classic, it’s been to help tell that story.”

That story, which included a late-game comeback win over Nicaragua and an impressive performance by Orthodox prospect Jacob Steinmetz, took place entirely in South Florida — a few thousand miles from Miller’s home in San Diego. Miller had been planning to be present at the tournament but was not able to — though no one would have been able to tell from the tweets.

“I think it’s similar to what a great YouTuber or videographer would tell you, is that to make the best video you don’t need the best camera ever made,” Miller said. “What I needed was the passion and the storytelling ideas behind it. Between that and then having contact with almost every single guy on the team and people on the ground, it gave me plenty of ideas to work with when it came to telling that story in a fun way.”

Miller said the feedback was overwhelmingly positive — and came from all levels of baseball fandom, from those who know little about Israel baseball, or even baseball, to die-hard fans.

“That to me is the best response to it, making it something that was approachable for all, but then still getting the signs of respect from the deep baseball people,” Miller said.

He also said there were, predictably, some negative responses. Miller said he made a conscious effort to shy away from politics, including keeping his own personal opinions out of the mix. Not everyone followed that tack.

“Could I have engaged with every single person that wrote in on any platform and was sending us messages about ‘Free Palestine,’ and [said], ‘Oh, you respect our boundaries now, because you don’t like the strike zone,’ all these different things?” Miller said. “Sure, I could have been sassy and responded within those spaces, one hundred percent. I could easily talk smack with anyone any day. But at the end of the day, that wasn’t the goal.”

Part of that restraint, Miller said, had to do with channeling the voice and priorities of the team itself.

“If you talked to Ryan Lavarnway, you talk to Josh Zeid, any of those guys about their views on Israel baseball, I can’t imagine the Palestinian conflict comes up as part of it because it’s simply not,” he said, referring to a Team Israel player and coach, respectively. “It doesn’t make that not an important thing to talk about, but in this case, the story was aside from that.”

In general, Miller said he worked to build relationships with the players and other members of the Israel baseball organization, to help craft an authentic presence of the team’s social media accounts — from the underdog mentality to the emphasis on team camaraderie.

• And in that vein, it was tweets showcasing players’ talents that Miller said made him most proud. Not only did the players’ families appreciate the content, but some of their agents did, too — with one pitcher even asking Miller for video highlights he could send to teams considering bringing him on. Miller declined to share who it was, but at least one Team Israel pitcher landed an MLB contract after the tournament, Rossman with the Mets.

“The most meaningful to me are ones where I can put out content that showcases an individual or multiple individuals and then knowing that that impacts that guy in some way,” Miller said.

Source: Jacob Gurvis – JTA via Arutz Sheva