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Poetry: Let My People Go p.2 The Crucible of Freedom (Editorial), Amala
Levine p.3 Roundtable: What Price Freedom? p.4 Liberation Theology,
Rabbi Michael S. Friedman p. 6 Freedom and the First Amendment,
Michael A. Bamberger p.8 A Personal Haggadah, Joseph Sofer p.10
Why are these Films Different from all other Films? Steve Klausner p.13
Women’s Freedom in Israel, Cantor Angela Warnick Buchdahl p.14
A Journey to Freedom, Eric Levine p. 16 The Pharaoh Within, Rabbi Maurice
A. Salth p.18 Freedom: The Possibility of Choice, Danielle Freni p. 20
Breaking Boundaries: Islamic Women Speak Out, Livia D. Thompson, p.22
SPRING 2010 “Even if you were
willing to change
your last name,
your identity and
who you are,
they would still
find you.”
“That’s why
we came
here, to be
free.”
Roundtable: What Price Freedom? Page 4
THIS ISSUE: FREEDOM
2
POETRY
EDITORIAL
Let My People Go
The Crucible of
Freedom
When Israel was in Egypt land,
Let my people go,
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let My people go.
Go down, Moses,
‘Way down in Egypt land,
Tell ole Pharaoh to let My people go.
“Thus spoke the Lord,” bold Moses said:
Let My people go.
If not I’ll smite your first-born dead,
Let My people go.
Go down, Moses,
‘Way down in Egypt land,
Tell ole Pharaoh to let My people go.
O let My people go.
The origin of this American spiritual dates back to Virginia, 1853.
It became the rallying anthem for the Contrabands (free slaves
who had escaped from the Confederate Army to the Union-held
territory). The song was made famous by Paul Robeson’s resonant, deeply moving rendition .
In Israel a Hebrew translation of the song is often used as part of
the Passover Seder.
THE COVER
Roman terracotta tragic mask
Paul Robeson
American Spiritual
F
reedom is not gained easily; it has to be demanded, fought for; it tests the resolve, strength and
tenacity of the oppressed. How often did Moses
plead with Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” how often
did the slaves in this country raise their voice to their
masters, using the same biblical words, until finally the
shackles were broken. Their freedom was a battle long
waged and hard won.
“Freedom is action. It is a continuous fight,”
writes Joe Sofer of his family’s multi-generational passage through the crucible to freedom. The personal stories, the book and film reviews in this issue of HaShiur
all attest to a fundamental human desire for freedom so
strong that it overcomes hesitation, obstacles and peril.
Once attained though, freedom is not to be taken for granted. Even in “this sweet land of liberty,” celebrated in America’s national anthem, where the right
to freedom of speech, religion and assembly are constitutionally guaranteed, they remain subject to dispute,
as Michael Bamberger’s article on the First Amendment
makes clear. In addition, discrimination, overt or covert,
continues to test the country’s commitment to freedom
and demands continued vigilance.
Just as much as our political freedom is tested
again and again, so are our personal freedoms, not
least by ‘the pharaoh within,’ as Rabbi Salth calls the
limitations, the ‘narrow spaces,’ we create or accept
within ourselves. Some, like addictions, dependencies
and destructive relationships, enslave us to the point of
paralysis. Others, like customs and habits thoughtlessly
repeated, act as an automatic inner censor, lulling us
into surrendering the freedom of choice and action so
beneficially granted in this country. As President John
F. Kennedy once observed, “Conformity is the jailer of
freedom and the enemy of growth.”
“Freedom is the possibility of choice,” says
Adina Tal, founder of the Nalaga’at theater in Tel Aviv
whose actors all are deaf-blind and, in some cases, also
mute. Yet they overcome the physical challenges to their
freedom of expression by using alternative ways of
communication. Darkness turns into light of a different
kind—more luminous than any klieg light—because it
is the beacon of freedom.
Freedom from oppression and enslavement to
the inner or the outer “pharaoh” comes with the obligation to use it wisely. Freedom is not license; it does not
offer an invitation to self-indulgence, which in effect
From The Offenbacher Haggadah by Fritz Kredel, 1927
would amount to nothing less than a new form of imprisonment, ruled by the whims of self-interest. Instead,
freedom demands that it be handled responsibly. We
are not only individuals but also members of a community, and the actions of one affect the well-being of
all, positively or negatively. Moses was keenly aware of
his own limitations of speech and stature; probably he
would have preferred being spared the leadership role
but he did not shirk his responsibility to plead again and
again for his people’s freedom until, finally, it was won.
HaShiur speaks with many voices—the clergy,
members of the congregation and, in this issue, also
with the voices of some who work at Central Synagogue
in various capacities. Their experiences, as related in a
roundtable conversation, and in the thoughts expressed
by Livia Thompson and Danielle Freni in their articles,
all demonstrate that freedom is one of the fundamental
concerns that binds our community together.
Now, the annual ritual of the Passover Seder
is impending, when we gather to reconsider the meaning of freedom by retelling the events of long ago. Such
recollection brings to mind the many other occasions
that Jews had to flee from oppression, pogroms and
persecution throughout the course of history. The story
also challenges us to explore the ‘narrow spaces’ within,
the personal demons that limit our freedom to stand up
to ourselves and be the best we can. In his reflections
here, Rabbi Friedman notes that “Jews wrote the original liberation theology,” and every year, the ceremonial
passage through the crucible of freedom offers a chance
to celebrate its challenges and rewards.
Amala Levine
5
4
ROUNDTABLE
What Price Freedom?
T
he decision to leave one’s
homeland is one of the most
wrenching and not taken
lightly. This became abundantly
clear during a roundtable conversation with four immigrants to this
country who now work at Central
Synagogue. All of them had left the
former Soviet Union between 1988
and 1995. They vividly described
their lives as marked by anti-Semitism, professional and economic
restrictions, and religious oppression, until the breaking point.
“In 1989, when I left Mol-
Misha Bederman, Arkady Frukhtman,
Rudy Raskin, Gail Shamilov, Amala Levine, Editor
dova, it was the beginning of the
collapse of the Soviet Union and
Jews were blamed for everything
that went wrong,” said Arkady
Frukhtman.
Rudy Raskin had the same
experience in Leningrad. “My family and I also left in 1989. At the
time, things were worse than before.
It was a very tough time for Jews;
they were represented as the worst
enemy of the Soviet Union.”
Misha Bederman from
Kiev told the story of what happened to his little daughter in first
grade. “She had just
started to learn the
Ukrainian language
and every day we
checked the homework, everything
was perfect but she
always got a bad
score. My wife was
also a teacher at
the school but she
had a different last
name. She went to
Ukrainian language teacher and
asked her about the
bad scores. So the
teacher said, “Why
you worry about
this Jewish girl?”
It was the whole
system, that was
the attitude, even
toward a little kid,
just because she is
Jewish, she was put
down.”
“We will ruthlessly
crush and destroy the
enemy”
Soviet poster
“There was no protection,
no future” said Gail Shamilov.
“Even if you were willing to change
your last name, your identity and
who you are, they would still find
you.”
Faced with such persistent,
pervasive anti-Semitism, the question of identity took on particular
poignancy. Professional schools in
the Soviet Union remained closed to
most Jewish applicants. No matter
how much money a family offered
in order to obtain a place at a university—and money was certainly
expected to change hands on such
occasions—or how good the grades
were, the fact remained that Jews
would not be accepted, except for a
token few. To build a professional
career was almost impossible and
for that reason some changed their
last names or intermarried.
“In America you can say
you are a Jew
and you are not afraid.”
“There were quotas for
everything,” said Rudy and everyone agreed. “It did not matter which
part of Russia you lived in, Kiev,
Leningrad, Moldova, everywhere it
was the same.” It was an unwritten
law but obvious to everyone that
being Jewish made you all but
unemployable.
Misha recalled that “In the
factory they were supposed to give
you work. They were supposed to
have 10 Ukrainians, 20 Russians and
1 Jew, so they couldn’t be accused
of anti-Semitism. But they wouldn’t
have more than one, never. It was
tough to find work. It was a bit
easier to breathe after 1989. That
was the first time I was allowed to
March for Soviet Jewry, Los Angeles, 1970’s
leave Ukraine as tourist. I went to
Bulgaria and Poland to buy things
and then sold them in Ukraine.
That’s when I became business man
because of the economic hardship.
But at least I was allowed to do
something.”
Even if Jews, despite the
obstacles, achieved a certain amount
of economic success, their problems
did not end. Then they would become the prey of gangsters, racketeers or kidnappers who extorted
protection money or ransom in large
amounts and the government and
police would stand idly by because
the victims were “only Jews”. In
fact, these officials would often add
their own monetary demands.
Nonetheless, there were
varying degrees of anti-Semitism
within the sweeping geographic
span of the former Soviet Union. For
example, Rudy worked for a while
in Uzbekistan where he thought
that life seemed a bit easier for Jews.
Misha agreed and related how,
during World War II, his mother
had moved to Kazakhstan and his
grandmother to Uzbekistan,
“Where they share everything and
they know that Jew is not so bad.
People were more tolerant there.”
Reflecting on why the Asian
parts of the former Soviet Union
seemed more hospitable to Jews
than Russia, Ukraine or Moldova
for example, it was suggested that
the reach of Moscow’s central
government and the control of the
Communist party were weaker in
those distant parts. Also, a large part
of the local population there was
Muslim, another religion marked for
exclusion, so that harassment and
ill-treatment were more spread out
and their effects less harsh.
Everyone at the roundtable
came from a religious background.
They emphasized how difficult it
had been to keep their religious
traditions, when there were so few
synagogues. Arkady remembered
that during his grandfather’s time,
“Before the Russians took over
Moldova in 1940, there were synagogues. But then there was only one
left and that was very small. My father still tried to celebrate the main
holidays but it was difficult. There
was no religious freedom and most
of us who left Russia did not know
much about Judaism. After I came
here, I could compare, here I could
practice. There was no religious
freedom in the Soviet Union.”
Misha agreed, “My family
also tried to celebrate the Jewish
holidays but we could not get inside
the synagogue in Kiev, which was
in a very small house. The police
were at both ends of the street and
we could only walk up and down
outside. Here in America you can
say you are a Jew and you are not
afraid. For me it was the best feeling
when I came to this country and I
could say who I am.
Most of the time I work in
the sanctuary. I don’t know what
better place it can be, not only walls,
but the people. This is like home for
Jews; you can come with your problems, with your needs. Over there
only your family, your relatives help
you.”
“Here they look you in the
face in talking to you and look at
how professional you are,” said
Rudy.
“Right,” continued Arkady.
“What matters is a good personality and how you work. But most of
all, I came for my kids.” Everyone
agreed, though they also emphasized how the situation here is different for their children.
“We brought with ourselves
our restrictions,” observed Rudy.
“Our children are absolutely free,
they cannot imagine what it was like
in Russia, and we cannot explain
how much Communism influenced
us, how we were brainwashed.”
“There is so much freedom,
even a good thing in excess can be
too much,” said Gail, “so we have
to teach our kids that they need to
be faithful to their family, their faith
and the history of the Jewish people.
We have to remind them.”
“Some of the kids now read
Torah, they know something,” said
Rudy. “But basically they are absolutely free.”
“Which is good,” everyone
agreed.
“That’s why we came here,
To be free.”
“Before we left Ukraine,”
concluded Misha, “I said to my
wife, ‘We could make our life here,
maybe the next generation will
blame us that we left.’ But when
I asked the same question of my
daughter now, how she felt, she
said, ‘I’m so happy.’ So I think I
■
did not make bad decision.”
Misha Bederman is maintenance supervisor
at Central Synagogue; Arkady Frukhtman,
building manager; Rudy Raskin, maintenance; Gail Shamilov, director of finance.
They and their families immigrated to New
York from various parts of the former Soviet
Union.
6
7
REFLECTIONS
Liberation Theology
O
n a Shabbat morning nearly
2000 years ago, a young
man walked into a synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth.
According to the Gospel of Luke,
he was given the honor of reading
the Haftarah, which that day was
selected from chapter 61 of Isaiah.
“He came to Nazareth,
where he had grown up, and went
according to his custom into the
synagogue on the sabbath day. He
stood up to read and was handed
a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He
unrolled the scroll and found the
passage where it was written: ‘The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring
glad tidings to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to
let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it
back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue
looked intently at him. He said to
them, “Today this scripture passage
is fulfilled in your hearing.”
That one sentence is the
very first sermon Jesus gave. Its
focus is liberation. In 1973 a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest named
Gustavo Gutierrez built on Jesus’
first sermon by asserting that the
Gospel of Christ demands that the
church concentrate its efforts on liberating the people of the world from
poverty and oppression. According
to mainstream Christian theology,
all human sin arises from a desire
to participate in Adam’s original sin
of eating the apple in the Garden of
Eden. Participation in Christ liberates the Christian from individual
sin. But in A Theology of Liberation,
Gutierrez writes that oppression
is the root of all human sin. This
has two manifestations: the oppressor sins to establish dominance or
maintain power; the oppressed sin
in their struggle against tyranny.
Jews wrote the original
liberation theology.
Anthony Pinn, who teaches
philosophy and religion at Rice
University, describes liberation theology by saying, “God’s presence in
the world is best depicted through
God’s involvement in the struggle
Rabbi Michael S. Friedman
for justice.” Gutierrez asserted
that Latin America in particular
had been victimized by colonialism, imperialism, and multinational
corporations, among other forces.
Perhaps it is this original antipathy
to existing power structures that has
caused liberation theology to be perceived as a dangerous concept. In
a 1984 position paper on liberation
theology, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
(now Pope Benedict XVI) criticized
liberation theology for being too
sensitive to the historical exigencies
Gustavo Gutierrez
of the moment. In other words, it
was a fad. Theology, he believed,
should be eternal and immutable;
it should not be adjusted to address the needs of particular people
in particular places at a particular
time. However, he praised the “Efforts which are being made within
the framework of a correct and
ecclesial theology… which stresses
the responsibility which Christians
necessarily bear for the poor and
oppressed.”
Over the past decades,
liberation theology has spread
from Latin America throughout the
world. Today it may be more fitting
to speak of various “theologies”
of liberation, as Gutierrez’s writings have become popular among
Africans, African-Americans, Latin
Americans, Asians, Native Americans, and feminists. In the process,
each group has created its own
interpretation of liberation theology.
During the 2008 election
campaign Rev. Jeremiah Wright,
then the Obama family’s pastor,
became one of the most polarizing
figures in the nation. Part of the
criticism leveled against Rev. Wright
was directed at his espousal of what
he called “black liberation theology.” When he was interviewed on
Bill Moyers’ PBS show in April 2008,
Moyers acknowledged the controversy over liberation theology and
gave the Reverend the opportunity
to explain it.
Moyers: “Black liberation
theology reads the Bible through
the experience of people who have
suffered and who are then able to
say to themselves that we read the
Bible differently because we have
struggled. When I hear about the
interpretation of scripture from the
oppressed, I think well, that’s the
Jewish story too.”
Wright: “Exactly. These
are people who wrote the word of
God, that we honor and love, under
Egyptian oppression, Assyrian oppression, Babylonian oppression,
Persian oppression, Greek oppression, Roman oppression. So that
their understanding of what God
is saying is very different from the
Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians.”
In other words, Jews wrote
the original liberation theology. The
Bible and early rabbinic writings
are generally not the literature of
the conquering hero. Ours is not
the theology of the powerful and
the victorious. On Yom Kippur we
read from the prophet Isaiah, “Do
you call this fasting? Is this a fast
day that I, God, would like? No,
this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice, to
get rid of exploitation, and to free
the oppressed.” In addition to that
powerful annual reminder, the Passover Haggadah asks us to humbly
imagine ourselves as the lowly
slaves who had gone forth from
Egypt. Interestingly, there are some
among us who need not struggle to
hearken back to a generations-old
story. The personal stories in this issue of HaShiur testify to the fact that
liberation continues to be part of our
narrative, even in our own day.
Traditional Jewish theology
holds that our covenant with God
is based on God’s performance of a
history-changing miracle in freeing
us from slavery in Egypt; therefore
we owe God our eternal allegiance
and our commitment in the form of
mitzvot. We relive this covenantal
formula every time we sing Mi Chamocha, every time we say Kiddush,
and every time we gather around the
Seder table. For us, liberation is the
basis of covenant. Thus the Passover
Haggadah also recapitulates the narrative of our people. It instructs us
to tell our story in a particular way:
“Begin with degradation and end in
exaltation.” And we can only end in
exaltation if we continue the work of
liberation, for only when all are free
■
can we truly exult.
Gutierrez recieving an Honory Doctor of
Divinity degree from Yale University, 2009
8
9
LAW
Michael A. Bamberger
Freedom and the First Amendment
W
hen people ask me about
my work, I respond that
I am primarily a First
Amendment lawyer. Most of the
questioners assume from that response that I am a protector of free
speech (which is correct); others
assume that I litigate church/state
issues, which assumption, although
incorrect, is a reasonable and appropriate one. Such differing responses
arise from the fact that, in only 26
words, the First Amendment spells
out three of our most important
freedoms — the freedom to speak
freely, the freedom to practice our
religion and not have one imposed
upon us, and the freedom to associate with whomever we would like.
It also includes the right to petition
the government about grievances.
The speech, religion and association
freedoms are core freedoms, important to all of us both as Americans
and as Jews. (As evidence of the importance of these freedoms, orators
like to point out that they are found
in the first of the Bill of Rights. But
we have to look elsewhere for such
support, for the facts are that in 1789
Congress sent 12 proposed amendments to the states; the first two
were not ratified, so that what had
been the third proposed amendment
became, appropriately, the first.)
Originally the First Amendment freedoms were proposed as
four separate provisions. The fact
that we find these four freedoms
together in the First Amendment
is something of a fine coincidence.
In many ways they are related and
often support one another. For
example, it would be a restriction on
the right to practice one’s religion if
one could not assemble with fellow
believers and could not speak about
one’s religion to others.
Immigrants to the United
States, commencing with the
Pilgrims, Quakers and those few
17th century Jews arriving in the
New World, down through the
most recent immigrants in the 21st
century, have often come to America in search of the right to speak
freely and to exercise their religion.
Despite these high expectations,
many earlier immigrants, when they
became the majority in a community
in America, were not anxious to see
others have comparable rights. Several of the colonies had established
churches and others, such as in early
New Amsterdam, had denied rights
of citizenship to disfavored religionists including Jews. In Virginia,
Baptists were physically attacked.
As late as 1787, eleven of the original 13 states denied Jews (and other
disfavored religionists) political
equality.
... in only 26 words, the
First Amendment spells out
three of our most important
freedoms
When the First Amendment
was ratified in 1791 as part of the
Bill of Rights, it applied only to the
federal government but not to the
states. (Madison had unsuccessfully
sought to include in the constitution itself a limitation on religious
discrimination by the states.) Although most states had provisions
in their state constitutions granting
rights similar to those in the First
Amendment, it was not until the
first half of the 20th century that the
Supreme Court clearly held that the
First Amendment limited actions of
the states just as it did the federal
government, so that limitations
imposed on freedoms by all levels
of government were prohibited in
significant ways.
Despite the importance of
each of these rights, the claim by
someone of one of these rights at
times collides with claims by others under another of these rights.
Speech which insults or denigrates
another’s race or religion is banned
by many, perhaps most, public universities under speech codes, even
if such speech is based on religious
belief or convictions. A person can
deny the Holocaust, espouse Fascist
views, speak ill of another’s religious beliefs, deny God or deny
evolution because of the free speech
component of the First Amendment. These conflicts regularly are
brought before government officials
and courts. For example, in 2003
the Denver school board excluded
a Baptist school from its school
voucher program because Baptists
“teach hatred” of a group, namely
gays. The Baptist school contended
that its right to teach, practice and
speak of its religion was being
abridged; the school board argued
that, were it to fund the Baptist
school through vouchers, it would
be wrongfully funding religionbased discrimination.
An interesting case to be
heard later this year by the U. S.
Supreme Court again highlights the
inherent tension among the freedoms granted in the First Amendment. Hastings Law School, a
division of the public University of
California, has a non-discrimination
policy for student organizations.
The Hastings branch of the Christian Legal Society welcomes all
Hastings students to attend and
participate in meetings, but does
not allow them to become members
unless they affirm a number of religious commitments, which exclude
members of religions holding tenets
differing from CLS’ Statement of
Faith as well as those who engage in
“unrepentant homosexual conduct.”
Hastings found this commitment
requirement to violate the religion
and sexual orientation provisions
of its anti-discriminatory rules, and
denied registration as a student
organization, with its accompanying financial and other benefits. The
lower courts upheld the law school,
and the case will be heard by the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Both sides in the case rely
on the First Amendment. The CLS
argues that its rights of free speech,
expressive association and free exercise of religion have been violated.
One of Herblock’s famous cartoons during the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1955
Hastings and those who support
it say that if the state must fund
groups which, even for religious
reasons, discriminate based on the
religious or social beliefs of others,
the state violates the First Amendment rights of those who as a
result have suffered discrimination.
Further, they contend that granting
the CLS the benefits of registration,
by relying on a religiously-based
exemption from the non-discrimination standards not available to
others, violates the establishment
clause of the First Amendment.
I expect that Jews and Jewish organizations will be found on
both sides of this case. On the one
hand, Jews have generally fought
against discrimination because they
generally suffer discrimination. On
the other hand, it is troublesome
that a state university Hillel could
be required to admit adherents of
Jews for Jesus as members and officers in order to obtain benefits available to other student organizations.
Perhaps the entanglement created
when the state funds religious
organizations is so complex and
potentially dangerous that the First
Amendment should be interpreted
to bar such funding — even when
similarly available to non-religious
organizations.
The rights granted by the
First Amendment are important to
all Americans. But they are particularly precious to minorities, such as
us Jews. However, their application
is unexpectedly complex. Therefore
we must carefully consider the appropriate balance of the competing
rights and interests.
■
Michael A. Bamberger is a practicing
attorney and a law professor in New York.
10
11
ESSAY
Joseph Sofer
A Personal Haggadah
A
ccording to our Passover
Seder, “in every generation,
each person is obligated to
view themselves as if they had gone
forth from Egypt.” For many of us
this is a reality.
I remember vividly the cold
December morning standing along
with a few other young men on the
tarmac of Mehrabad airport in Tehran. Together, we were loading suitcases onto the last El Al flight out of
Iran. The giant plane reflected the
brilliant rays of sun over our heads,
barely sheltering us from the freezing temperatures. I was only seventeen. The bitter cold wind penetrated our shivering bodies, keeping us
awake despite the days of sleeplessness we had endured. The airport
workers were on strike and earlier,
when we boarded the airplane, the
Israeli pilot had asked all young
passengers to leave the plane and
Iranian revolution 1979
help with loading the suitcases. We
were tense, scared and speechless,
not knowing whether the air traffic
controllers would clear the plane for
take-off.
My dad and I were the only
ones in our family who had stayed
in Tehran untill right before the 1979
revolution. The rest of the family,
my mom, younger brother and two
sisters had already traveled to Israel
for what we all naively believed to
be a short while, until things calmed
down again. As matters got worse,
my dad wanted to make sure that
I, too, would leave for safety. At
the time I was a student at Tehran
Polytechnic University and thus
exempted from serving in the
military. However, a few months
before our departure, I was notified
by the university that my exemption had been terminated, and I was
supposed to report to the army at a
specified date. I understood that as
one of the few Jews in the university, I was singled out. The winds
of anti-Semitism had always blown
gently and almost unnoticeably;
now they had turned into a storm.
We devised a plan to convince the
school administration to reinstate
my military exemption. As a result,
I managed to get permits to leave
the country as a tourist during the
winter break.
Until a few months ago,
I had been blessed with a
privileged life...
Finally our plane took off
and after an hour’s flight, we heard
the now familiar voice of our pilot
announcing we had left Iranian air
space. Everyone clapped and some
shrieked joyously. I was happy
too, but not quite elated. I knew I
was safe, I knew I was free. But I
didn’t quite know what it meant
to be free. My life and its familiar
structure had been shattered, with
each piece falling somewhere far
and unknown. I was leaving the
smells, the sounds, the people, and
the culture that I had grown up
with, never to see and sense them
again, except in my memory. Until
only a few months ago, I had been
blessed with a privileged life, and
although a Jew and a minority, my
religion had hardly interfered with
my freedom to live a happy life. As
long as I did not call attention to
my Jewish identity, I could mingle
freely among people. But things
had changed drastically overnight,
for us and for millions of others who
were not advocates of an Islamic
revolution. Without quite realizing it, the process of gathering the
pieces of my life and reassembling
them had just begun.
I could not yet understand
how I would grapple with a second
exile in one generation. My dad
was twenty years old when he had
to leave Iraq along with his family, after the pogrom sanctioned by
the pro-Nazi Iraqi government in
1941. This tragedy was inflicted
upon Iraqi Jews after 2500 years of
uninterrupted life in that land. The
descendants of the Gaonim and
the great Academies of Sura and
Pompbedita, the heirs of the Babylonian Talmud, and the bearers of
Judaism’s longest existence in galut
were finally cut off from their past.
Every family was allowed to take
one suitcase, leaving behind all their
properties accumulated through
hundreds of generations.
I grew up hearing stories
of my ancestors in Iraq, stories of
persecution and oppression experienced by my grandparents and
parents. I knew I was part of a
special culture. Though we were
not religious, we knew very well
what it meant to be a Jew. Every
Yom Kippur, my mom used to tell
us a story about my grandfather,
when he was only fourteen, during
World War I. One day, on his way
home from school, he was arrested
by the Ottoman troops and taken to
jail. He was accused of being a Jewish spy for the British forces, sentenced and exiled to Syria. He was
ordered to walk the entire journey
together with a few other prisoners.
While away, he promised himself,
he would count the days to make
sure that he would not miss the
Yom Kippur fast. He started his fast
after eating a piece of bread, and
finished his fast by drinking a cup
of hot water. He eventually escaped
and went back home to Iraq, where
everyone thought he was dead.
He used to tell us that counting the
days to the High Holy Days gave
purpose to his existence and made
his exile tolerable.
My grandfather used to tell
me that one should always ensure
that the place where one lives has
the right hakem (judge) and the
right hakim(doctor ). And here now
was I, part of the third consecutive
generation of my family who had
to escape from my home because of
my identity as a Jew and because of
the failure of justice. But one thing
was becoming clear to me—we had
to remain proactive, carry on and
survive. We had to rebuild every
time we were broken up.
Though we arrived in Israel
safely, our family story did not
unfold as smoothly. Through some
miraculous chain of events, I came
to New York to study at Columbia
while my parents returned to Iran.
Because of their past contributions
to the country and their honorable
life, they thought they had nothing to worry about. However, my
dad was imprisoned, accused of
being a Zionist and a spy for Israel.
After his arrest, the revolutionary
guards raided our house, looking
for corroborating evidence. In my
dad’s study they stumbled upon an
open Koran along with recording
equipment and Koran tapes scattered on his desk. In their confusion, they asked my mother what
the Koran and the tapes were doing
in a Jewish home. She explained
that, even though we were Jews, my
dad had a keen interest in Islam and
continued on next page
12
13
FILM
used to study the Koran. Being an
industrious man, he had decided to
record the entire Koran on tapes and
distribute them throughout Iran.
He believed that the people should
be able to listen to the Koran at any
time.
When we were very young,
we never thought twice about dad’s
project. For the taping, an Imam
would come to my dad’s study at
the far end of our yard every day
early in the mornings to record
verses of the Koran. At night, after
work, my dad would listen to these
recordings with his Koran open, to
edit and prepare the master tapes
for mass production. This project,
which started as a hobby, took a
couple of years and was a tremendous success. After the tapes were
distributed throughout the country,
my dad received many letters of
thanks from various mosques for his
contribution. His endeavor became
a token of goodwill between a Jew
and thousands of grateful Muslims.
Little did we know then that this
hobby would one day save his life.
During his imprisonment, his interrogator told him that his past record
was not only clean, but his distribution of the tapes went a long way
toward his acquittal.
Meanwhile, my studies at
Columbia and my life in New York
were taking shape successfully. I
was fascinated with the resources
available to me as an engineering
student. I had begun to rebuild
my life again with hope and gratitude. I was awarded a scholarship
to continue my graduate work.
Not only did I not need to hide my
religion, but I could be proud of it.
I came to understand and appreciate my new country. The more I
acculturated, the more I understood
that never before in our history as
Jews had we achieved the kind of
freedom, recognition and stability as
we have in America. It is true that
throughout generations, the Jewish people experienced periods of a
so-called “golden age.” But those
periods were never based on a solid
foundation of justice. Rather, they
depended on the temporary political and economic expediencies of
their rulers.
Freedom is more than an
abstract noun. Freedom is
action.
In America the situation is
different. I began to understand
that because of its brilliant constitutional framework, the wrongs of
society may be eventually redressed,
even though the rights and privileges of minorities and women have
been won only after long struggles
and hard work. As my grandfather
had always judged a country based
on its hakem and hakim, we have a
justice system that is by comparison
the best in the world. My fascination with United States history and
its Constitution grew even more in
law school. Soon after passing the
bar, I got married to my wife, Tanya.
Together we started building a
cherished life in New York and have
been blessed with two children,
Stephanie and Andrew. I often
think of that cold December morning in Tehran, more than thirty years
ago, and I now understand why it
was not surprising not to know then
what freedom really meant.
As the years passed, it
became clear to Tanya and me that
freedom is more than an abstract
noun. Freedom is action. Freedom
is a continuous fight for the right
to a decent life for ourselves and
those around us. As our children
grow and our desire for their secure
future intensifies, I recognize that
because of my religion, I am part of
a tradition and a covenant that over
thousands of years has charged us
with mending the broken pieces of
human lives. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
once said that ours is the story of a
people “knowing in its bones the
reality of evil, [who] does not cease
wrestling until it discovers a path
from suffering to hope.”
This Passover, when my
family, like millions of other Jews
around the world, tells the story
of freedom from bondage to our
children, I plan to tell mine about
our partnership with God and our
responsibility to take action. I will
remind them that we have to be
thankful for our lives, but remember
that prayer alone will not always
suffice. I plan to tell them, as Abraham Joshua Heschel once said about
the Holocaust, that we should not
ask, where was the divine when
those atrocities were inflicted upon
millions of innocent people, but
we should ask, where was man?
Where were the millions of people
who stood idly by while lives were
extinguished?
Every year we repeat the
story of freedom, because the spirit
of our ancestors at Sinai will be with
us as long as we call ourselves Jews.
And because of our accumulated
common experience with the divine
and humanity over thousands of
years, we have the tools, the wisdom as well as the responsibility
to create a just and compassionate
world by minimizing the pain and
suffering of those who need us
■
most.
Joseph Sofer is a founding partner of Sofer
& Haroun, a boutique IP law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights
in NYC. He, his wife Tanya and their two
children are members of Central Synagogue.
Why Are These Films Different
From All Other Films?
W
hen new greenery sprouts
in Central Park, the final
games of NCAA March
Madness ensue, and the annual telecast of ”The Ten Commandments”
hits the airwaves, there’s one thing
you can be sure of. Passover is on its
way. And although New York may
be about to experience a shortage of
Shmura Matzah, there is no scarcity
of films on DVD that expand on
the themes of flight and freedom
beyond Charlton Heston’s iconic
portrayal of Moses.
In no particular order, here
are eight films that range from the
travails of our Hebrew forbears
under the taskmaster’s whip to the
pitfalls and pratfalls of the contemporary Seder table.
and Sir Patrick Stewart.
“The Prince of Egypt” is
primarily for younger viewers, but
the whole family can appreciate
the first-rate acting, animation and
music that revisit the early years
of Moses and his adoptive bother
Ramses with humor and humanity.
The onset of the 10th plague makes
an especially powerful scene.
Uprising (2001) (TV Miniseries)
N, B, A
The advertising tagline for this madefor-TV movie about the 1943 Warsaw
Ghetto revolt sums up the story:
“They did the one thing the Nazis
never expected. They fought back.”
KEY:
(B) available for rental from
Blockbuster.com
(N) available for rental from
Netflix.com
(A) available for purchase from
Amazon.com and other online
merchants
The Prince of Egypt (1998) N, B, A
Winner of the Academy Award
for Best Original Song, “When
You Believe,” this animated classic
sparkles with the all-star voices of
Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Sandra
Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Steve Martin, Helen Mirren, Michelle Pfeiffer,
Producer/director Jon
Avnet dramatizes the harrowing
experiences of the actual members
of the JFO, Jewish Fighting Organization, headquartered at 18 Mila
Street in Warsaw. San Francisco
Chronicle critic John Carman hailed
it as “…a solid network effort about
heroism in a most immoral world.”
Eschewing melodrama for historical
accuracy and genuine pathos, Avnet
and company provide a rewarding,
if heart-rending, four hours of viewing. It was nominated for Emmys,
Golden Globes, and other awards.
Hank Azaria portrays resistance leader Mordechai Anielewicz,
“Friends” star David Schimmer is
Icchak Cukierman, Donald Sutherland is Warsaw Jewish Council
Steve Klausner
chairman Adam Czemiakow and
Jon Voight is Nazi Maj. Gen Jürgen
Stroop.
The Wall (1982) N, B,
This fictionalized precursor to “Uprising” was broadcast a few years
after ABC’s “The Holocaust” presented the Shoah to the American
viewing audience. As seen through
the eyes of the fictional Dolek Berson (Tom Conti), the production also
features Rosanna Arquette, Griffin
Dunne, Dianne Wiest and Eli Wallach. Filmed on location in Poland,
“The Wall” earned its creators a
prestigious Peabody Award.
Passover Fever (Leylasede) (1995) N, A
As the title suggests, “Passover
Fever” (in Hebrew with English
subtitles) transpires during a Seder.
The matriarch of an Israeli family
attempts to deal with her children’s
and grandchildren’s problems
while confronting some thorny
marital issues of her own. As the
meal and the plot unfold, we learn
that the family is beset by a host of
very modern “plagues,” with both
comic and tragic consequences. The
film received the Best Screenplay
Award from the Montreal World
Film Festival, and Best Supporting
Actress Award from the Israeli Film
Academy.
Lambchop’s Chanukah and
Passover Surprise (1997) B, A
Legendary children’s TV host
Shari Lewis is joined by live action stars and puppets Lamb Chop
and Charley Horse. The little ones
should enjoy the highlights of two
Jewish festivals in song and dance.
In the Passover segment, puppet
continued on page 19
15
14
ISRAEL: CURRENT AFFAIRS
Cantor Angela Warnick Buchdahl
Women’s Freedom in Israel
S
ince its inception as a nation,
Israel has been considered
at the forefront of women’s
rights. Women pioneers were, by
necessity, given great responsibility
in the building of the land; Golda
Meir was an early Prime Minister
when few women were heads of
state. Women, like men, are required
to serve in the military, and a significant percentage of women are
currently members of the Knesset.
In general, women are highly educated and have risen to prominent
positions in politics and business. In
some ways, women’s rights in Israel
seem far ahead of where we are in
the United States. However, Israel
balances its democracy with the
principles of a religious state.
The conflicting views of
women from the secular and the
religious perspective, especially
when the latter is informed by
Ultra-Orthodox readings of Jewish
law, have compromised the progress
of women’s rights.
...separate is not equal,
a principle we know only
too well...
Women, like men in Israel,
have long struggled with the religious establishment’s governance
over their marriages, divorces, and
conversions. But for women these
issues are further complicated by
religious laws that put most decision-making powers into the hands
of men. In the case of divorce, a
woman is still dependent on her
husband to give her a get, a religious
divorce document, in order to be
officially freed from the marriage.
While the community can exert
some pressure on the man to give
1908 photograph of men and women praying together at the wall in Jersusalem.
her the proper divorce papers, if he
chooses not to, the woman becomes
an agunah, a “chained woman.” She
is not free to marry again or faces
serious religious repercussions since
she would be considered an adulteress and her future children would
be considered mamzerim, children
of an adulterous union. In cases of
marriage and divorce, Israel today
still rules according to ancient Biblical law, administered by a rabbinical, not civil, court.
Women’s civil rights have
been further curtailed under pressure from the Ultra-Orthodox community. For example, in what seems
a bizarre throw-back to American
segregationist practices of almost
half a century ago, the Ultra-Orthodox community has coerced the
government to institute more than
35 segregated bus lines, with seating
for men in the front and women in
the back of the bus. Recently, the
State sponsorship of such “kosher”
bus lines has been challenged, first
and foremost by the Israeli Religious Action Center (IRAC). They
are fighting not only this particular
issue, but the general move to separate men and women in all public
arenas. IRAC is getting unusual
support from a usually quiet group
of Ultra-Orthodox women who
are objecting on the grounds that
separate is not equal, a principle we
know only too well from our own
history in America.
As far as women’s rights
to study and practice their Judaism
are concerned, the situation is even
more problematic, as epitomized by
the experience of the Women of the
Wall. The Women of the Wall are a
group of liberal Jewish women who
want to be able to pray and read
Torah at the sacred site of the kotel,
just as men do on their side of the
Wall. They have been meeting for
over twenty years and sometimes
have been pelted with stones and
spit upon by religious men on the
other side of the divide. After a
lengthy legal battle for their right
to pray and read Torah at the Wall,
they were handed a devastating
ruling by the Supreme Court of
Israel, which declared that they
were not allowed to read Torah or
wear a tallit, a prayer shawl, at the
Wall. Toward the end of 2009, Noah
Frenkel, 28, a young Conservative
woman was arrested at the Wall for
the illegal act of praying with a tallit. Subsequently, in solidarity with
Noah, more than 150 women turned
out for a gathering of the Women
at the Wall, most of them wearing prayer shawls. Since it rained
heavily that morning, most of their
tallitot were not visible under their
coats. However, their statement was
unmistakably clear; they are going
to continue to fight back, though it
will likely be a long and arduous
road. It seems ironic that in the Jewish State of Israel, women are not
allowed to practice their Judaism
with the kind of freedom we have
in America and in many countries,
though not all, where Jews reside.
This spring, Livia Thompson and I will be leading a trip to
Israel that will explore women and
minority rights in contemporary
Israel. We want to take a closer
look at underlying and related issues that may influence the rights
and restrictions of women in Israel
today. As Naomi Chazan, former
Member of Knesset and founder of
the Women’s Movement in Israel
said recently in a speech at Central
Synagogue, “You can learn everything you need to know about a democracy by observing its treatment
of women and minorities.”
Israel presents a fascinating model as a society that is
so progressive in so many ways
regarding women’s rights, and yet
is also regressive in many civil and
religious rights for women because
of its complex nature as a democracy embedded in a religious state.
I hope that our trip will lead to a
better understanding how Israel
might best balance the best values of
our Jewish tradition with women’s
rights in a vibrant democracy.
■
The Wall in present day Israel.
17
FICTION
Eric Levine
A Journey to Freedom
T
he horses snorted in the cold
morning air as the coachman pulled the black wagon
to a halt outside the prayer house.
Two officers of the Imperial guard
jumped down and made their way
to the entrance.
It was the Friday before the
Passover festival and the Jews were
still at their morning prayers. But
that would not stop the arrest. The
Czar’s orders must be obeyed!
Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi, Reb
Yosef as he was affectionately called,
had known for some time that he
might be arrested. He had openly
defied the authorities by encouraging the sending of money to support
the Jewish communities in Turkishcontrolled Palestine. He had been
warned that it was a dangerous
thing to do while Imperial Russia
was at war with Turkey but for him
ahavas Yisrael, the love of his people
and their survival in Palestine, was
of far greater importance.
Still wearing his tallis and
tefillin, Reb Yosef was lead away.
...even the Czar had no
control over the Sabbath
angels.
As he reached the door he
turned to his congregants and with a
brave smile raised his arms and gave
them his blessing. “Do not fear, my
friends. This year I will not be with
you for Pesach but next year, with
God’s help, we shall celebrate our
deliverance from Egypt together”
“We must hurry,” the more
senior officer urged. “Those are
my orders…the Czar’s orders,” he
added, feeling the need to explain
himself.
“Then we must not keep
the Czar waiting,” Reb Yosef responded with a gleam in his eye.
“And with the Czar’s permission
I will complete my prayers while
we travel. I must first collect
some books and explain my
absence for I will be away for
some time.”
As sundown approached and the time for
lighting the Sabbath candles
drew near, Reb Yosef asked
if they could halt their
journey at the next village
since he was forbidden to
travel during the Sabbath.
The senior officer regretted that his orders did not
permit any delays. But
even the Czar had no control
over the Sabbath angels. For as
Reb Yosef began to hum the Sabbath welcoming song, both horses
stopped dead in their tracks and
nothing the coachman could do
would make them move on. It so
happened they had stopped outside
a roadside inn.
“Don’t worry, officer. We’ll
get there on time,” said Reb Yosef
reassuringly. Then, as if he knew
the horses would obey, he lead them
towards the stable at the back of the
inn, all the while continuing to hum
the Sabbath song. Forced to accept
the situation, the officer could only
shake his head disbelievingly. “He
certainly has a way with horses,”
was all he could say.
No sooner had the Rabbi recited the Havdalah prayer to take out
the Sabbath than the horses were
ready to be saddled and backed into
the wagon shafts.
From there they traveled at
such speed that they reached their
destination in St. Petersburg at the
precise hour that had been ordered.
It was the feared Peter-Paul fortress.
The Rabbi was taken immediately before the Governor of the
prison, a tall, gaunt-looking man in
an imposing uniform.
“You are charged with high
treason and rebellion against His
Imperial Highness,” the Governor
said. “A special commission of the
Tainy Soviet has been formed to
investigate the charges. I must warn
you that if you are found guilty, the
penalty will be severe.”
“I have nothing to hide,
nothing to fear,” Reb Yosef replied.
He was then led away to a small,
dank cell in the depths of the prison.
And so the long days of
interrogation began. They took
place in a sparsely furnished room
in another section of the fortress.
Two members of the commission in
their military uniforms
sat behind a large
table while the chief
interrogator sat at a
smaller one, with a
chair for the Rabbi on
the other side, facing
the commission. A
secretary sat at a little
desk in the corner of
the room.
Each day
brought many questions
about religion: Why Jews
thought they were the chosen
people; why they wanted to
return to Palestine; wasn’t
it enough to live in different countries; what was
the difference between the
Chasidim and the Mitnagdim;
who were the most loyal
to the Czar? He would be
confronted with different
portions of the Bible that
seemed to contradict what
he’d been saying and asked
to explain. The worst questions
came in the evening, when he was
on the point of exhaustion. Those
were the political questions: Who
were his contacts in Palestine; what
were his connections to the Turkish authorities; how did he get
money into Palestine; who did he
pay? Each time the same questions
were asked but in a different order, spoken in a different way. Yet
despite his fatigue and the constant
demands on his attention, Reb Yosef
always responded in a way that disarmed the commission members.
The third day of his imprisonment was erev Pesach, the evening
of the Passover festival. All the
while the Rabbi had been refusing
the prison food. A glass of water
and the few almonds he had in his
pocket were his daily meal.
“So our prison food is not
to your liking?” the chief interro-
gator asked as he began the day’s
interrogation.
“It’s not a matter of liking.
The food is forbidden by my faith,“
the Rabbi answered. “But today
I have a special request. Tonight
is the beginning of our Passover
festival, when we celebrate our
deliverance from slavery. We are
commanded to eat special food of
flat bread and bitter herb and make
blessings over wine as we retell the
story of our rescue from slavery to
freedom. There are some Jews in
the city who will be able to provide
what is necessary…”
“You celebrate freedom
with poor man’s bread and bitter
herbs!” exclaimed the first member of the commission scornfully.
“What sort of freedom is that?”
Prison is the test of
my freedom.
“It is the perfect form of
freedom. For a slave can only eat
what he can find, so his meal must
be meager and mean. Whereas his
master is free to choose whatever he
likes, so he gorges himself to excess.
Now for a free man to choose the
food he ate as a slave, requires some
strength of character that only a person who is truly free possesses.”
At that moment the door,
which had been standing ajar,
opened and a tall man entered the
room, dressed in a similar uniform
to the other commission members.
Reb Yosef immediately stood and
recited a blessing.
“Why do you stand?” the
new arrival asked.
“Because, Sire, my religion
commands me to rise in the presence
of a monarch and to make a blessing for his safety and protection.”
“Rabbi, you see through my
disguise, more than my officials do,“
the Czar replied with a gruff laugh.
Everyone else rose quickly in some
trepidation. The Czar took the interrogator’s chair and sat down facing
Reb Yosef, ignoring the others, who
were left standing. “Sit down, Rabbi,” he commanded. “So you want to
celebrate your freedom in my prison!
What sort of freedom is that?”
“Prison is the test of my
freedom. You can lock me up, as
you do. You can make my life difficult. You can torture me but you
will never break me or take away
my freedom to worship God according to my ancient beliefs. You see,
Sire, my ancestors knew power and
wealth in Egypt. My namesake,
Joseph, was second only to Pharaoh
himself. But that was no freedom
because we were not yet a people.
We did not have our own land. We
had not yet received our Torah,
which is our lifeblood. It took slavery to set us on the path to freedom
and we only remain free so long as
we remember we were once slaves.”
“You are a wise man,” the
Czar replied. “You shall have all
you need to celebrate your festival
of freedom. But make no mistake!
Here you shall remain until my
commission has reported to me, for
I will not countenance treason.” He
rose to leave. “By the way, I hear
you have a gift with horses.”
“I spent some years as a
stable-hand, Sire, but that is a story
for another time and place. As for
now, I am content to leave my fate
in your hands for I see you are ■
both wise and just.”
The story is inspired by the true-life imprisonment of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi
(the Alter Rebbe) z”l.
Suggested Reading: Eliach, Yaffa, Hasidic
Tales of the Holocaust (Oxford University
Press: New York, 1982).
Eric Levine is a transnational corporate
lawyer, a founding principal of Millenia
Capital Partners, an investment advisory
firm, and CEO of its inner-city redevelopment division.
18
19
REFLECTIONS
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth
The Pharaoh Within
T
he Torah’s account of the
exodus from Egypt resounds
with the theme of freedom.
The liberation of the Israelite slaves
is the highlight of this famous text
and the foundation of our Passover
celebration each year. In addition,
the exodus story reminds each of us
personally that the struggle for freedom never ends. The word Egypt
in Hebrew, Mitzrayim, literally
translates as ‘narrow place’. The
Israelites escaped the Mitzrayim of
their enslavement and our tradition
teaches that we too have the opportunity to liberate ourselves from our
own contracted places. What was
true for the Israelites is also true for
us; freedom from our narrowness is
a hard won battle.
What were Pharaoh’s
weaknesses?
The Torah provides us with
the story of Pharaoh as a model to
show us how difficult it is to free
ourselves from our own constraints.
As king of Egypt, Pharaoh was
responsible for the well being of
multitudes and arguably the most
powerful man in the world, but he
was no match for his inner faults.
The Torah describes Pharaoh’s heart
as hard; this was his self-inflicted
inner enslavement. In part the ten
plagues are meant to highlight the
challenges we face as we seek to
repair the faults in our character.
What were Pharaoh’s weaknesses? He was stubborn, self-serving, controlling and he lacked empathy. Until the plagues these flaws
seem not to have seriously impacted
his effectiveness as a ruler. With
every plague Pharaoh was given the
opportunity to protect his people
but instead he chose to please his
inflated ego. One can understand
his ignoring the first few plagues
since the Israelite workforce was an
integral part of the Egyptian economy. Yet as the plagues worsened,
it became apparent to everyone,
except Pharaoh, that the Israelites
should be released. By the seventh
plague, even Pharaoh’s yes men, the
kowtowing advisors, pleaded with
him to release the slaves, admonishing him, “are you not yet aware
that Egypt is lost!” Only once death
strikes with the tenth plague, does
Pharaoh relent and let the people
go. Tragically, even after this decision, he changed his mind again and
led thousands more, including himself, to their final end in the waters
of the sea that the Israelites had just
crossed safely. [Exodus, chapter 14].
The Torah’s lessons are
many. We are obliged to address
our own failings. But it is tough
to recognize our own flaws and
often we will go to great lengths to
justify our inappropriate behavior
and attitudes. Just consider how
many times Pharaoh cited the need
to keep the slaves for the sake of
Egypt’s welfare. It is difficult to
change our ways, even when we
are given multiple evidence that
it would be in our own best interest to do so. Even when we finally
do decide to change, we still must
constantly beware of relapsing into
destructive behavior patterns.
Each Passover we are
charged with exploring our own
Egypt, the narrow spaces within
ourselves, in order to identify what
is not working. Our Jewish tradition
asks us to change our ways so we
may avoid the bitter end of Pharaoh
and his army. His death serves as an
example of what can happen if we ig-
... freedom from our
narrowness is a hard
won battle.
nore the signs that alert us to change.
Our Torah gives numerous
other examples of people who have
changed their behavior successfully.
One of these is Jacob. His transformation into a better self occurs as he
wrestles with a stranger [Genesis,
chapter 32]. This turning point happens just before his reunion with his
estranged brother Esau whom he
had cheated and mistreated in his
youth.
Many commentators
describe Jacob’s struggle during
that fateful night as a battle with
his former self. Once again, the old
wily side of Jacob might have tried
to outfox his brother Esau, but now
the mature, humble and loving part
of Jacob’s character emerges victorious. Though the violent struggle of
freeing himself from his past ways
leaves Jacob with a physical limp, he
has become a mensch.
As dawn breaks, Jacob receives a new name, which is Israel,
‘to wrestle with the Divine.’ To this
day we Jews are also known as
b’nei Yisrael, the children of Israel.
Like Jacob, we are Israel, the ones
who wrestle. Pharaoh’s fate is not
our destiny; instead our heritage
and legacy is that of being b’nei
Yisrael. But are we prepared to be
like Jacob? Are we willing to do
what it takes to free ourselves from
our narrow spaces?
May our arrival at the season of Passover and the retelling of
our great story of liberation inspire
us to begin the work that enables us
to answer this question affirmatively, with a resounding “Yes!”
■
DIFFERENT FILMS: continued from page 13
Charley Horse invites his entire
class to Shari’s Seder. G-rated hilarity ensues. Dom DeLuise drops by
just in time for a quick tutorial on
the items on the Seder plate, while
Robert Guillaume delivers a song
and dance explanation of the origins
of Passover.
Left Luggage (1999) N, B, A
This European production revisits
the harrowing escape of a Belgian
Jew who had buried suitcases full
of family treasures to keep them
from Nazi hands. Long after the
war ends, he continues to dig up
his native Antwerp to reclaim his
precious mementos. As Passover
approaches, his family must deal
with the wounds of the past, the
anti-Semitism of their unfriendly
building superintendant, and an
intra-generational clash between
Hasidic and secular observance. A
top-notch cast includes Maximilian
Schell, Isabella Rossellini, and Israeli
actor Topol.
Wholly Moses! (1980) N, B, A
This one is wholly amusing. Harvey
and Zoey, (Dudley Moore and Larraine Newman) two tourists visiting Israel, discover an ancient scroll
describing the life of Herschel (also
played by Moore). Even though
Herschel receives the command
from God to free the Hebrews and
journey to the Promised Land, Moses manages to blunder in and take
all the credit. Several other biblical
stories, including David and Goliath,
show up in the whimsical tale of the
poor soul who may be scripture’s
original schlemiel. Also starring
Madeline Kahn and Richard Pryor.
continued on page 24
21
20
ISRAEL: THE ARTS
FREEDOM
D
Danielle Freni
The Possibility of Choice
imming lights, then pitch
black silence.
The audience waits.
For a moment, the show seems no
different than any Broadway play.
But performances at the Nalaga’at
Center in Tel Aviv are unlike anything else. The actors are deaf-blind
and mostly mute, communicating
primarily through touch. As the
show begins, an audience filled with
hearing and seeing people, is swept
into a mysterious world where
touch, smell and taste tell a complete story.
Using tactile sign language
to converse with one another, the
players act out scenes while a narrator translates. Closed-captioning
in both English and Hebrew is also
provided. From the actors’ perspective, applause is indicated by
interpreters rapidly tapping them
on the back.
On a recent day, in Not
by Bread Alone, actors bake bread
throughout the performance. The
smell is meant to conjure feelings
of home as the actors relay personal
stories. The interactive experience,
which invites spectators onto the
stage to feel and taste the dough,
challenges the audience to rely on
other senses than sight and sound.
Adina Tal, who founded
Nalaga’at (‘Please Do Touch’) in
2002, says this unique theatre company offers a transformative experience for everyone involved.
“When I first began working with this group, a lot of [the
actors] talked about suicide,” Tal
says. “Today, they are a thriving
ensemble cast very much enjoying
what there are doing, happy with
their lives and feeling that they are
part of society.”
Over the last decade,
Israel’s deaf-blind community has
stepped up to address the misconception that living in silent darkness
is a hopeless existence.
“People who are disabled
are usually in a position where they
have to ask for help,” Tal explains.
“Here it is completely opposite.”
Though the actors lack the
ability to see or hear, each performance is rich with emotion. Itzik
Hanuna, who was born blind and
lost his hearing at age 11, calls his
work on stage “an outlet for expressing dreams, happiness and
sorrow.”
Within the walls of this
place there is greater love
and selflessness than I’ve
ever known...
In the last two years, more
than 100,000 people have visited the
center, which also includes a restaurant, staffed by deaf waiters, where
patrons are served in the dark. The
pre-theatre dining experience is
meant to stimulate the senses and
introduce audience members to a
new way of thinking.
Joelle Cohen-Finkelstein, the
head of fund raising, calls Na’alagat,
“a microcosm of an ideal society –
tolerant, accepting, receiving, and
respecting everyone, regardless of
one’s difference or difficulties. This
magical place connects different sectors, ages and ways of life, through
a common and simple message of
equality and justice.”
Indeed, Na’alagat is a
place where many unlikely friendships are born. Jews, Muslims and
Christians work together in dif-
In Not by Bread Alone, actors bake bread
throughout the performance.
ferent capacities to choreograph,
rehearse and eventually deliver high
caliber performances to sold-out
crowds. The experience of rehearsing together, at times chaotic, is a
continuous learning process. For
the deaf-blind actors who have
emigrated from the former Soviet
Union, Israeli sign language is an
entirely new language. Fortunately,
this peer group is adaptable and up
for any challenge. Working together
to communicate, those who can see
help lead the blind while those who
can speak translate for the mute.
From the center’s very inception, barriers were being broken.
Though she had 30 years of theatre
production experience, Nalaga’at’s
founder had never before ventured
into the world of the deaf-blind. It
was Tal’s impressive resume that
prompted a group of deaf-blind
aspiring actors to reach out to her in
1999. Her previous credits included
plays that focused attention on
social issues and Jewish identity. It
has long been Tal’s passion to create
thought-provoking art.
“In Judaism we are still
waiting for the Messiah,” she says.
“We have not yet come full circle.
That makes us look for new horizons and does not allow us to rest.”
For the nearly 1,000 deafblind people living in Israel,
Nalaga’at has brought dignity and
hope to a community that often feels
trapped. Despite advances in technology that allow many deaf and
blind people to function in ordinary
work environments, job opportunities are limited because of many
employers’ preconceived notions
about their ability.
At Nalaga’at, deaf, blind
and deaf-blind people work in a
number of capacities. And they
are not the only ones who benefit.
Interpreter Nehama Perel says her
work gives her strength and courage. Others say their role is more
like “magic” than “a job.”
“Within the walls of this
place there is greater love and
selflessness than I’ve ever known,”
is how Naama Ben Aharon, also an
interpreter, describes her experience.
“Freedom is the possibility of choice,” Tal explains. “That is
■
what we offer.”
Danielle Freni is director of communication
at Central Synagogue. She is the author of
several articles and has also been published
on www.InterfaithFamily.com
23
22
BOOK REVIEW
BREAKING BOUNDARIES Islamic Women Speak Out
M
any women, especially
those growing up in modern Western cultures, have
the freedom to make their own life
choices largely without governmental, cultural, religious, or societal
interference. It is easy to forget that
in many places of the world, young
women have far less choice and live
very restricted lives. In a number of
predominantly fundamentalist, nonWestern countries such as Iraq, Iran
and Afghanistan, girls are held back
by the religious and cultural rules
that limit their access to the public
world we often take for granted.
These young women are required
by traditional conservative Islamic
law, their families and communities,
to abide by religious and governmental rules that dictate their dress,
education, public behavior, and with
whom they might associate outside
their immediate family.
If you are a Muslim girl, you
disappear, until there is
almost no you inside you.
Yet, remarkably, despite
such restrictions and the potentially
disastrous ramifications of rebelling
against the religious and cultural
norms of their society, a number
of Islamic women from different
socio-economic classes and levels
of education have challenged the
constraints of their communities
and traditions. In powerful personal
histories, these women describe the
role of women in their societies and
their personal religious and political
journeys as they fight for the right to
speak and be heard. Some ultimately reject Islam altogether as incompatible with their identity as modern
women, while others search for a
way of reconciling their religion and
Livia D. Thompson, F.T.A.
culture with their need to be free.
The harshest condemnation of traditional Islam is found
in Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s graphic
account of her painful childhood
in a strict Muslim household in the
Sudan and Kenya where she was
subjected to genital mutilation, a
forced marriage, parental and tribal
demands, and cultural limitations
that forbade any aspiration to a personal future beyond marriage and
children. Not only was her life severely restricted socially, but it was
dominated physically and emotionally by the males in her family. Ms.
Hirsi Ali’s autobiography chronicles
her journey from blind obedience to
the rules of her tribal Islamic society
to their ultimate rejection, culminating in her flight to Western Europe.
She explains, “A Muslim girl does
not make her own decisions or seek
control. She is trained to be docile.
If you are a Muslim girl, you disappear, until there is almost no you
inside you.” [94] Since then, despite
being disowned by her family and
threatened by reactionary Islamists,
she has fought for the rights of
Muslim women and the modernization of Islam. She condemns the
fundamentalist Islam within which
she was raised:
“The kind of thinking I
saw in Saudi Arabia, and among
the Muslim Brotherhood of Kenya
and Somalia, is incompatible with
human rights and liberal values. It
preserves a feudal mind-set based
on tribal concepts of honor and
shame. It rests on self-deception,
hypocrisy, and double standards…
This mind-set makes the transition
to modernity very painful for all
who practice Islam… It was difficult for me, too. I moved from
the world of faith to the world of
reason—from the world of excision
and forced marriage to the world of
sexual emancipation. Having made
that journey, I know that one of
those worlds is simply better than
the other… The message of this
book, if it must have a message, is
that the West would be wrong to
prolong the pain of that transition
unnecessarily, by elevating cultures
full of bigotry and hatred toward
women to the stature of respectable
alternative ways of life.” [347-348]
Azar Nafisi, an Iranian
Professor of Western Literature, also
leaves her home and family, unable
to find a way to be free within the
constraints of revolutionary Iran.
In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Ms. Nafisi
speaks with the voice of a woman
from the intelligentsia who is caught
in the turmoil of the Iranian revolution and ultimately leaves her
homeland for the freedom of the
United States. Her tale is not so
much one of physical pain and poverty, but of the psychic struggles she
and seven young female students
endured when they tried to continue their studies of forbidden British
and American literature. Like Ms.
Hirsi Ali, Ms. Nafisi’s experiences
in a strict Muslim society leave
her angry and frustrated with the
dictates of a fundamentalist religion.
She does not believe she can live in
such a repressive society and finally
leaves her family and her friends in
Tehran. Her more recent autobiography, Things I’ve Been Silent About,
covering her life as a young woman
growing up in pre-revolutionary
Iran, describes the transformation of
her beloved country into a religious
dictatorship.
Exile is not the answer
for every woman advocating for
equal rights in a fundamentalist Islamic country. Shirin Ebadi,
the Nobel Peace Prize winner and
author of the memoir Iran Awakening, comes to a different conclusion
after living through the Iranian
Revolution. Ms. Ebadi is a trained
lawyer, whose right to practice law
is circumscribed by the increasingly restrictive rules of the Iranian
Republic. Instead of leaving her
country or rejecting her religion,
however, she decides to stay in Iran
to fight for women’s and children’s
rights. Her autobiography describes
how to balance a sense of personal
freedom with the public demands
of an Islamic state. In a poignant
passage she depicts how it feels
when the law is changed to give her
husband sole ownership of their
common property. She draws up a
special contract for them to sign that
acknowledges her right to be a coowner. Summarizing her life effort,
Ms. Ebadi writes:
“In the last twenty-three
years, from the day I was stripped
of my judgeship to the years doing
battle in the revolutionary courts of
Tehran, I had repeated one refrain:
an interpretation of Islam that is in
harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of
faith. It is not a religion that binds
women, but the selective dictates
of those who wish them cloistered.
That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come
peacefully and from within, has
underpinned my work.” [204]
Ms. Hirsi Ali, Ms. Nafasi
and Ms. Ebadi, as well as the many
others they have inspired, are courageous women who have refused
to be silenced because they believe
they have the right to be free, full
members of their society.
■
Livia D. Thompson, FTA, is senior director
of Central Synagogue.
Suggested Readings: Ali, Aayan Hirsi,
Infidel (New York: Free Press, 2007)
Ebadi, Shirin, Iran Awakening (New York:
Random House, 2006)
Nafasi, Azar, Reading Lolita in Tehran
(New York: Random House, 2004)
Things I’ve Been Silent About (New York:
Random House, 2008)
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DIFFERENT FILMS: continued from page 19
A Rugrats Passover (1995) (TV) N, A
Originally shown on the Nickelodeon network, the animated Rugrats
kids learn a wacky but essentially
faithful history of the holiday from
Grandpa Boris. The broadcast was
both a popular and critical success.
Halley Blair of The Forward called
the episode “a comical primer for
getting children ready for upcoming Seders.” The Chicago Daily Herald
considered it “among the best
holiday TV specials ever produced.”
As Grandpa Boris might say, “What
could be bad?”
For View-It-Yourselfers
Still don’t see anything you like?
Then simply pick up your mouse
and log onto YouTube. The following link will connect you to 80+
short films, among them “Manischewitzville,” JibJab’s “Matzah! Rap,”
“Aunt Gert’s Passover Song” and
the ever-popular “Matzah-Rena.”
http://www.jr.co.il/videos/passovervideos.htm
Or better yet, visit youtube.
com, type “Seder,” “Passover,” or
“Pesach” into the search bar and
begin your own journey from the
■
desert to…dessert.
Steve Klausner is an advertising copy
writer, an award-winning screenwriter and
long-time member of Central Synagogue.
LEADERSHIP
President
Kenneth H. Heitner
Vice-Presidents
Seth Berger
David B. Edelson
Juliana May
Phillip M. Satow
Treasurer
Frederic Poses
Secretary
John A. Golieb
Board of Trustees
Alan M. Ades
Karen Chaikin
Edith Fassberg
Janet H. Felleman
Richard A. Friedman
Michael Gould
Marni Gutkin
Peter Jakes
Cary A. Koplin
Samuel Lindenbaum
Jay Mandelbaum
Claudia Morse
Carol Ostrow
Valerie Peltier
Laura J. Rothschild
Richard G. Ruben
Mindy Schneider
Wendy Siegel
Emily Steinman
Stephanie Stiefel
Kent Swig
Marc Weingarten
David Zale
HASHIUR A Journal of Ideas
Honorary Trustees
Lester Breidenbach, Jr.
Gerry Friedman
Dr. J. Lester Gabrilove
Honorary Presidents
Martin I. Klein
Howard F. Sharfstein
Michael J. Weinberger
Alfred D. Youngwood
Clergy
Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein
Cantor Angela Warnick
Buchdahl
Rabbi Michael S. Friedman
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth
Cantor Elizabeth K. Sacks
Cantor Emeritus
Richard Botton
Senior Director
Livia D. Thompson, FTA
Director of
Development
Daniel A. Nadelmann
Director of
Lifelong Learning
Yonni Wattenmaker, RJE
is published twice a year by Central Synagogue,
123 East 55th Street, New York, NY 10022-3502
Editorial Committee:
Rabbi Maurice A. Salth, Amala and Eric Levine,
Steve Klausner, Rudi Wolff
Editor: Amala Levine,
Designer and Picture Editor: Rudi Wolff
Production Editor: Danielle Freni
PICTURE CREDITS
Cover: Courtesy, The British Museum
p 2: Paul Robeson, University of Bristol/Theater Collection
p 3: Offenbacher Haggadah, Offenbach am Maine: the
printing house of Doctor Guggenheim.
p 4: Undated Soviet poster, Source unknown
p 5: LA march, Courtesy, The Boston Globe
p 6: Diego Rivera, Courtesy, Diego Rivera Web Museum
p 7: Gutierrez, (top) BBC Mundo, (bottom) Daylife Publishing
p 8: Herblock cartoon, Courtesy, The Library of Congress
p10: The Telegraph, UK
p11: Koran, The Telegraph, UK
Tape recorder, Courtesy, Vintage Video History”
p14-15: Wall, Underwood-Library of Congress
(bottom) Public Domain Art
p16-17: Horse, Folk Art from European Amusement Park,
Courtesy, Antique Helper
p18-19: Jacob and Angel, St. Cuthbert’s Parish Church,
Edinburgh, Scotland
p21: Courtesy, Nalaga’at Center, Tel Aviv
p22: Islamic Woman, Courtesy, ArabComment.Com
Letters To the Editor please email
[email protected]
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permission from Central Synagogue.