The battle raging Ramat Aviv isn't just about the neighborhood's character. It's a battle over Israel's image.
By Nehemia Shtrasler
The sight was elevating: 800 neighborhood residents took a break from what they were doing and went out to demonstrate. Their goal: to protect their homes. They weren't asking for much: just to maintain their way of life, the character of their neighborhood, their values, dignity and right to educate their children as they see fit.
Nobody was paying them. They had no political party or foreign sponsors. They collected the money to fund their demonstration themselves because they knew that if they didn't, the missionary group Chabad could continue to slowly take the neighborhood over, just as is happening in Migdal Ha'emek, Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem.
A few people set up a counter-demonstration against the 800. They believe that the people in question are merely "good Jews" who just rented a few apartments to preach Torah there. All they want is for us to put on tefillin a little, to light candles on Friday night. What charming simplicity.
They don't realize that it's a well-organized plan to take control of the neighborhood. They aren't even aware that a yeshiva opened in the neighborhood staffed by "messengers" who are prepared to sacrifice their souls for their Rebbe.
These "messengers" have one explicit goal: to return the people of the neighborhood to Judaism. The more Jews keep the Sabbath and follow the mitzvoth, the faster the Messiah will come. Though actually he already did come, in the form of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, according to Chabad. The Rebbe has died in the meantime, but he lives on - their belief system is a mystical, un-Jewish thing, about which the Rabbi Shach commented: "Chabad is the cult closest to Judaism."
As in every neighborhood, here too they identified the most vulnerable point: the young. That's why every Friday they ply the grove by the Alliance school, trying to persuade the children to put on tefillin and drop by the Chabad House for a "conversation." At night they lurk among the trees and on benches for the teens, offering refreshments and sweet talk. They cunningly tell these kids, "You have the soul of a righteous person," and don't cavil at saying that their mothers and fathers are sinners. They even whisper that people who don't honor Shabbat are doomed to hell.
Puberty is a vulnerable stage and some of these kids, who want to rebel against their parents anyway, listen. The nice people of Chabad have no problem taking in a youngster and destroying a family in Israel.
Where are the police and the municipality as strangers badger children among the trees at night?
The Chabadniks understand that the middle class is groaning under its burdens. So they opened a few kindergartens in the neighborhood that charge little and give much, including a hot meal. Some parents succumbed to the temptation - and lost their children. This neighborhood sorely lacks kindergartens without religious affiliation. But the city allows Chabad to open one kindergarten after another, even at the expense of a building that had been a cultural center until two years ago.
These Chabadniks with their butter-wouldn't-melt smiles have no problem flouting the law. They rent apartments and turn them into studios. They build without permits, establish hostels and mikvas in violation of municipal ordinances, but the city doesn't block them. Mayor Ron Huldai did denounce Chabad in Ramat Aviv, saying they were harassing the residents. But his job is to stop the harassment, not just talk about it.
Imagine what would happen to me if I went to Kfar Chabad, rented an apartment and dared to open a class to teach a modern interpretation of the Bible, or women's rights or Darwinism. In the evening I'd go out and roam the neighborhood, trying to persuade their children to visit my home on Shabbat to see what a nonobservant Jew does on the day of rest.
Soon enough you'd have to visit me at the burn ward at Ichilov Hospital, if not worse.
And if all that happened, the good souls among us would say: Why did he have to interfere in their way of life? Why provoke them?
But when they come from Kfar Chabad to Ramat Aviv, these same good souls say, in the name of an artificial, suicidal liberalism, "We should understand them," and, "We mustn't oppose others because that is unenlightened racism."
Only they are allowed to sell their rotten goods, rife with ignorance, superstition, terrible discrimination against women, bottomless hatred of Arabs and Gentiles, and nonsense about the Messiah. We may not even protect our values of humanism, education, rationalism, equality, literature and the great inventions of science that changed the face of mankind.
The battle in Ramat Aviv isn't just about the neighborhood's character. It's a battle over Israel's image, and the 800 residents who got up and left their homes and went out to demonstrate last Monday are just the harbingers.
Showing posts with label chabad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chabad. Show all posts
Monday, June 14, 2010
Friday, December 12, 2008
Chabad
By Rabbi Jason Miller
Chabad Lubavitch has been getting a lot of press recently since the tragic murders of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg (z"l), the Chabad shlichim (emissaries) in Mumbai, India who were killed by terrorists. Their story underscores the important mission of these Chabadnik leaders willing to relocate their families to far-flung corners of the earth for kiruv (Jewish outreach). I've heard from several young people who stopped at the Chabad-Lubavitch Nariman House while backpacking through India only to be treated so warmly by Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife. I experienced similarly warm hospitality when I visited a Chabad House in Sumy, Ukraine a few years ago with students from the University of Michigan.
I have always been amazed and impressed by Chabad's devotion to the Jewish people. Their marketing machine and political savvy are the envy of Jewish leaders everywhere. But I have also been skeptical at times about their approach and their agenda, especially on college campuses where the Jewish students are hyper-impressionable.
Due to their belief that Rebbe Menachem Schneerson (left) is the mashiach (messiah), many have cynically described Chabad Lubavitch as the closest religion to Judaism. Regardless of this belief, which is often denied by Chabadniks in large metropolitan Jewish communities where such a messianic tenet would not be well received, Chabad is doing important work throughout the globe.
In many Jewish communities, Chabad has taken on the important job of training young people to work with the developmentally disabled through The Friendship Circle. The program, now with over sixty chapters, matches teenage volunteers who become friends and mentors to children with special needs. Chabad has also pioneered important programs in the Former Soviet Union, including in the devastated community of Chernobyl.
If you're interested in a fair and in-depth study of Chabad Lubavitch, I would highly recommend Sue Fishkoff's The Rebbe's Army.
The most daring, insightful coverage of Chabad however can be found in last month's issue of New Voices magazine. The young columnists of the New Voices journal demystify Chabad, answering questions like: Why, unlike most ultra-Orthodox, do the Lubavitch reach out to rather than reject secular Jews? What do they get when you put on tefillin? Are they Zionist or anti-Zionist? What do they think of mainstream Jewish movements and what do those movements think of them? Do all Lubavitchers even share the same views on these issues?
A blogger on the Moment Magazine blog writes: "Takedown or not, New Voices has done what no other serious Jewish publication has dared do: subject Chabad to the same journalistic scrutiny every powerful, religious movement deserves."
The New Voices issue includes Chabad-related stories about the Agriprocessors Kosher meat scandal, an interview with a Reform rabbi about the place of Chabad in the religious life of secular Jews, a critique of non-Orthodox support for Chabad, and an exploration of the contemporary meaning of the Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.
The interview with the Reform rabbi who shares his thoughts on Chabad is very interesting. The rabbi is Rabbi Rick Jacobs (left), Senior Rabbi of Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York. I met Rabbi Jacobs last year at a STAR Foundation PEER Alumni retreat and was extremely impressed. Rabbi Jacobs tells a funny story in the New Voices interview:
I was in midtown Manhattan, and I'm walking down the street and this wonderful friendly warm Chabadnik stops me and says, 'Are you Jewish?' I'm walking along, I'm wearing a grey suit. I don't know, maybe I have curly Jewish hair. I said, 'Yes, are you?' And he looked at me and started to laugh and he pointed to his tzitzit and to his beard. I said, 'You know, appearances are not always reality.
Rick's story reminds me of another story: Two Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical students (a man and a woman) were walking by the main gate of Columbia in New York's Upper West Side when a Chabadnik asked the man if he put on tefillin that morning. His response? "No, but she did!"
I'm not sure what the ultimate attraction to Chabad is for so many -- not just the impressionable Jewish college students who flock to Chabad houses for the Rebbetzin's homemade chicken soup and challah, whiskey shots with the rabbi, or hot cholent on Shabbat afternoon. For some college students it may well be that the Chabad rabbi looks, well, more authentically Jewish than his or her Reform or Conservative rabbi back home -- which means more Eastern European and more pious.
The bigger question for me is the new fad of contemporary, progressive Jewish families joining Chabad congregations (in many communities called simply "The Shul"). I know this is driving many rabbis crazy. In some cases, rabbis are seeing their congregants attend Chabad congregations to complement their other synagogue membership. They may go to Chabad for a Shabbat service or even a holiday service (e.g., Simchat Torah), but wouldn't think of not attending their ancestral synagogue for High Holiday services or to celebrate their child's bar or bat mitzvah. But in other cases, Reform and Conservative congregations are seeing their membership numbers decrease to the benefit of the Chabad shul down the street. Again, this could be chalked up to the "authenticity factor" or it could be something deeper. Perhaps it is the warmth that the Chabad rabbis display in their outreach efforts much like the warmth that was a trademark of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, stationed in Mumbai and racking up all those "mitzvah points" through their generosity.
May their memories be for blessings.
Rabbi Jason Miller is a Conservative rabbi ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was the first Gladstein Fellow. Rabbi Jason holds a master's degree from the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at JTS.
Rabbi Jason is interested in how modern technology affects Jewish life, particularly the impact of the Internet on Jewish education and the global Jewish community.
Chabad Lubavitch has been getting a lot of press recently since the tragic murders of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg (z"l), the Chabad shlichim (emissaries) in Mumbai, India who were killed by terrorists. Their story underscores the important mission of these Chabadnik leaders willing to relocate their families to far-flung corners of the earth for kiruv (Jewish outreach). I've heard from several young people who stopped at the Chabad-Lubavitch Nariman House while backpacking through India only to be treated so warmly by Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife. I experienced similarly warm hospitality when I visited a Chabad House in Sumy, Ukraine a few years ago with students from the University of Michigan.
I have always been amazed and impressed by Chabad's devotion to the Jewish people. Their marketing machine and political savvy are the envy of Jewish leaders everywhere. But I have also been skeptical at times about their approach and their agenda, especially on college campuses where the Jewish students are hyper-impressionable.
Due to their belief that Rebbe Menachem Schneerson (left) is the mashiach (messiah), many have cynically described Chabad Lubavitch as the closest religion to Judaism. Regardless of this belief, which is often denied by Chabadniks in large metropolitan Jewish communities where such a messianic tenet would not be well received, Chabad is doing important work throughout the globe.
In many Jewish communities, Chabad has taken on the important job of training young people to work with the developmentally disabled through The Friendship Circle. The program, now with over sixty chapters, matches teenage volunteers who become friends and mentors to children with special needs. Chabad has also pioneered important programs in the Former Soviet Union, including in the devastated community of Chernobyl.
If you're interested in a fair and in-depth study of Chabad Lubavitch, I would highly recommend Sue Fishkoff's The Rebbe's Army.
The most daring, insightful coverage of Chabad however can be found in last month's issue of New Voices magazine. The young columnists of the New Voices journal demystify Chabad, answering questions like: Why, unlike most ultra-Orthodox, do the Lubavitch reach out to rather than reject secular Jews? What do they get when you put on tefillin? Are they Zionist or anti-Zionist? What do they think of mainstream Jewish movements and what do those movements think of them? Do all Lubavitchers even share the same views on these issues?
A blogger on the Moment Magazine blog writes: "Takedown or not, New Voices has done what no other serious Jewish publication has dared do: subject Chabad to the same journalistic scrutiny every powerful, religious movement deserves."
The New Voices issue includes Chabad-related stories about the Agriprocessors Kosher meat scandal, an interview with a Reform rabbi about the place of Chabad in the religious life of secular Jews, a critique of non-Orthodox support for Chabad, and an exploration of the contemporary meaning of the Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.
The interview with the Reform rabbi who shares his thoughts on Chabad is very interesting. The rabbi is Rabbi Rick Jacobs (left), Senior Rabbi of Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York. I met Rabbi Jacobs last year at a STAR Foundation PEER Alumni retreat and was extremely impressed. Rabbi Jacobs tells a funny story in the New Voices interview:
I was in midtown Manhattan, and I'm walking down the street and this wonderful friendly warm Chabadnik stops me and says, 'Are you Jewish?' I'm walking along, I'm wearing a grey suit. I don't know, maybe I have curly Jewish hair. I said, 'Yes, are you?' And he looked at me and started to laugh and he pointed to his tzitzit and to his beard. I said, 'You know, appearances are not always reality.
Rick's story reminds me of another story: Two Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical students (a man and a woman) were walking by the main gate of Columbia in New York's Upper West Side when a Chabadnik asked the man if he put on tefillin that morning. His response? "No, but she did!"
I'm not sure what the ultimate attraction to Chabad is for so many -- not just the impressionable Jewish college students who flock to Chabad houses for the Rebbetzin's homemade chicken soup and challah, whiskey shots with the rabbi, or hot cholent on Shabbat afternoon. For some college students it may well be that the Chabad rabbi looks, well, more authentically Jewish than his or her Reform or Conservative rabbi back home -- which means more Eastern European and more pious.
The bigger question for me is the new fad of contemporary, progressive Jewish families joining Chabad congregations (in many communities called simply "The Shul"). I know this is driving many rabbis crazy. In some cases, rabbis are seeing their congregants attend Chabad congregations to complement their other synagogue membership. They may go to Chabad for a Shabbat service or even a holiday service (e.g., Simchat Torah), but wouldn't think of not attending their ancestral synagogue for High Holiday services or to celebrate their child's bar or bat mitzvah. But in other cases, Reform and Conservative congregations are seeing their membership numbers decrease to the benefit of the Chabad shul down the street. Again, this could be chalked up to the "authenticity factor" or it could be something deeper. Perhaps it is the warmth that the Chabad rabbis display in their outreach efforts much like the warmth that was a trademark of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, stationed in Mumbai and racking up all those "mitzvah points" through their generosity.
May their memories be for blessings.
Rabbi Jason Miller is a Conservative rabbi ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was the first Gladstein Fellow. Rabbi Jason holds a master's degree from the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at JTS.
Rabbi Jason is interested in how modern technology affects Jewish life, particularly the impact of the Internet on Jewish education and the global Jewish community.
Monday, December 08, 2008
The Human Spirit: Call-up for candle lighters
Dec. 4, 2008
Barbara Sofer , THE JERUSALEM POST
This Hebrew month of Kislev, the season of Hanukka, began with a call-up for candlelighters. Last Friday, the first day of Kislev, the words of Hallel in my Jerusalem synagogue sounded like a cry of anguish: Please, God, save now! But then our worst fears were confirmed: Terrorists had murdered Rivka and Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, directors of the Chabad House in Mumbai, and their house guests.
In the Diaspora, where the sun had not yet set, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the educational and social services arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, turned to Jewish women through the media, which for a moment were focused on the world family of Lubavitch. Light Shabbat candles, he urged, not for the death of the Holtzbergs, but as a fulfillment of their lives' mission: bringing light.
Thank you, Chabad. Thank you to the thousands of emissaries who brave Herculean challenges to bring Yiddishkeit to the world. Thank you to their parents, who part from tender young couples who will relocate, not for a semester, but for a lifetime.
THE LUBAVITCH shluchim whom Rabbi Menahem Schneerson charged with ministering to the Jewish people everywhere in the world are known as Tzivot Hashem, God's army. The military terminology isn't metaphorical. Only those with a soldier's strength and stoicism can take on the harsh conditions, the constant discomfort of blazing trails of Judaism through rugged terrain. They head for the wilderness at the difficult period of life when they're bringing up small children. They set up shop in lands with archaic medical infrastructure, far from supportive family and friends, not to mention kosher stores, Jewish schools and synagogues. They bring into the intimacy of their home local and visiting Jews, masses of back-packers, and the ragged and soul-weary.
It's a lifetime service - what we call in Israel tzva keva, the standing army. In Laos and Cambodia, in frozen Siberia, there's nothing watered-down about their Yiddishkeit, but they have a talent for sharing Jewish tradition without eliciting antagonism - an antidote for many who associate religion with coerciveness and politics.
It's not all cheerful dinners. On TV this week, a now-reformed Israeli told how when he sat in an Indian prison for drugs, Rabbi Holtzberg visited him and brought him books and hope. And there's the chronic need for fund-raising. Each Chabad House is independent, and the directors need to raise their own operating budget. That includes the festive meals that all of us Jewish travelers enjoy when we're touring or working abroad. The comforts of Shabbat on the road are also made possible by the sacrifices of these young people.
And the most amazing part of all is that they do all this and make us feel welcome almost as if we're doing them a favor and not the other way around.
This national service is the mission of both men and women. In Mumbai, the Holtzbergs hosted thousands of guests, young and old, provided classes and religious services. Despite media descriptions of Rivky as "the rabbi's wife," she served as co-director of the center. Over the past two decades, in the memory of the late Rabbanit Chaya Mushka Schneerson, Chabad women have taken on more formal roles of teaching, organizing outreach activities and counseling visitors. Terror victim Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich was reportedly getting help from Rivky on paperwork to move to Israel.
JEWISH TRAVELERS like to swap personal Chabad travel stories. One repeating theme is the wonder at the mix of people sitting side by side at Shabbat tables, breaking halla together. You might meet an acquaintance from Petah Tikva or Poughkeepsie, backpackers from Haifa and Halifax, and an itinerant rabbi or two. Two of the slain this week, Benzion Chroman, a Bobov hassid, and Leibish Teitelbaum, a Volover hassid, were kashrut supervisors. At the gracious Chabad table in Beijing, my husband and I once sat across from three road-weary kashrut inspectors representing three different kosher certifications. They'd spent the weekdays traveling over broken roads to the backwaters of China to inspect food production plants. (If I'd ever thought that certain canned fruit and vegetable products didn't really require kosher certification, I changed my mind after hearing their reports.)
In Jerusalem those men might never have eaten at each other's tables or at the home of a Lubavitch hassid, for that matter, but on the road, Jews of all persuasions join together. That spirit of unity pervaded the unamenable arena of Israeli media coverage this week. As we followed every detail of the horrific tragedy in Mumbai, no one spoke of the victims being secular, religious or haredi. They were simply "Israelis."
HOW DID this attack on a Chabad House fit into the plans of the Mumbai terrorists? According to The New York Times, the Chabad House was an "unlikely target" of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed their series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial centers - "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
Let's look at the other targets: two famous hotels, a tourist cafe, a hospital, movie theater, police barracks. To those of us who live with terrorism, these are all familiar choices of those who want to destabilize the Western world. In addition are the Jewish targets: bar or bat mitzva gatherings, synagogue services, a Passover Seder. Let's not pretend otherwise: At the heart of international jihad lies odium for Israel and Jews.
Much about the terror attack in India remains hazy, but from the beginning Indian officials reported the meticulous preparation and professional execution of the terrorists' strategy. Who can imagine that those who knew the floor plan of the giant Taj Mahal Palace Hotel better than the hotel's security agents would stumble by accident on a hassidic center in a metropolis of nearly 20 million people? It's about as likely as a truck accidentally running into a Djerba synagogue in April 2002 or it being by chance that that wheelchair-bound terror victim tossed into the sea on the Achille Lauro in 1985 was a Jew.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni affirmed that the Chabad House was indeed attacked as a symbol of the Jewish people.
Chabad Houses go way beyond symbolism; they're outposts of the Jewish people living and reclaiming our heritage. Thank you, Chabad. We owe it to your emissaries, who sacrifice so much for the Jewish people, to carry out their mission after their deaths. Lighting candles is a good place to start. But then we must go further to make our homes reflect the values of their Chabad House. The Chabad army fights with bowls of chicken soup, tefillin and the light of candlesticks, with loving-kindness and openness to the other, even when it's not convenient.
Conscription time is right now. Kislev 5769.
Barbara Sofer , THE JERUSALEM POST
This Hebrew month of Kislev, the season of Hanukka, began with a call-up for candlelighters. Last Friday, the first day of Kislev, the words of Hallel in my Jerusalem synagogue sounded like a cry of anguish: Please, God, save now! But then our worst fears were confirmed: Terrorists had murdered Rivka and Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, directors of the Chabad House in Mumbai, and their house guests.
In the Diaspora, where the sun had not yet set, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the educational and social services arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, turned to Jewish women through the media, which for a moment were focused on the world family of Lubavitch. Light Shabbat candles, he urged, not for the death of the Holtzbergs, but as a fulfillment of their lives' mission: bringing light.
Thank you, Chabad. Thank you to the thousands of emissaries who brave Herculean challenges to bring Yiddishkeit to the world. Thank you to their parents, who part from tender young couples who will relocate, not for a semester, but for a lifetime.
THE LUBAVITCH shluchim whom Rabbi Menahem Schneerson charged with ministering to the Jewish people everywhere in the world are known as Tzivot Hashem, God's army. The military terminology isn't metaphorical. Only those with a soldier's strength and stoicism can take on the harsh conditions, the constant discomfort of blazing trails of Judaism through rugged terrain. They head for the wilderness at the difficult period of life when they're bringing up small children. They set up shop in lands with archaic medical infrastructure, far from supportive family and friends, not to mention kosher stores, Jewish schools and synagogues. They bring into the intimacy of their home local and visiting Jews, masses of back-packers, and the ragged and soul-weary.
It's a lifetime service - what we call in Israel tzva keva, the standing army. In Laos and Cambodia, in frozen Siberia, there's nothing watered-down about their Yiddishkeit, but they have a talent for sharing Jewish tradition without eliciting antagonism - an antidote for many who associate religion with coerciveness and politics.
It's not all cheerful dinners. On TV this week, a now-reformed Israeli told how when he sat in an Indian prison for drugs, Rabbi Holtzberg visited him and brought him books and hope. And there's the chronic need for fund-raising. Each Chabad House is independent, and the directors need to raise their own operating budget. That includes the festive meals that all of us Jewish travelers enjoy when we're touring or working abroad. The comforts of Shabbat on the road are also made possible by the sacrifices of these young people.
And the most amazing part of all is that they do all this and make us feel welcome almost as if we're doing them a favor and not the other way around.
This national service is the mission of both men and women. In Mumbai, the Holtzbergs hosted thousands of guests, young and old, provided classes and religious services. Despite media descriptions of Rivky as "the rabbi's wife," she served as co-director of the center. Over the past two decades, in the memory of the late Rabbanit Chaya Mushka Schneerson, Chabad women have taken on more formal roles of teaching, organizing outreach activities and counseling visitors. Terror victim Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich was reportedly getting help from Rivky on paperwork to move to Israel.
JEWISH TRAVELERS like to swap personal Chabad travel stories. One repeating theme is the wonder at the mix of people sitting side by side at Shabbat tables, breaking halla together. You might meet an acquaintance from Petah Tikva or Poughkeepsie, backpackers from Haifa and Halifax, and an itinerant rabbi or two. Two of the slain this week, Benzion Chroman, a Bobov hassid, and Leibish Teitelbaum, a Volover hassid, were kashrut supervisors. At the gracious Chabad table in Beijing, my husband and I once sat across from three road-weary kashrut inspectors representing three different kosher certifications. They'd spent the weekdays traveling over broken roads to the backwaters of China to inspect food production plants. (If I'd ever thought that certain canned fruit and vegetable products didn't really require kosher certification, I changed my mind after hearing their reports.)
In Jerusalem those men might never have eaten at each other's tables or at the home of a Lubavitch hassid, for that matter, but on the road, Jews of all persuasions join together. That spirit of unity pervaded the unamenable arena of Israeli media coverage this week. As we followed every detail of the horrific tragedy in Mumbai, no one spoke of the victims being secular, religious or haredi. They were simply "Israelis."
HOW DID this attack on a Chabad House fit into the plans of the Mumbai terrorists? According to The New York Times, the Chabad House was an "unlikely target" of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed their series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial centers - "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
Let's look at the other targets: two famous hotels, a tourist cafe, a hospital, movie theater, police barracks. To those of us who live with terrorism, these are all familiar choices of those who want to destabilize the Western world. In addition are the Jewish targets: bar or bat mitzva gatherings, synagogue services, a Passover Seder. Let's not pretend otherwise: At the heart of international jihad lies odium for Israel and Jews.
Much about the terror attack in India remains hazy, but from the beginning Indian officials reported the meticulous preparation and professional execution of the terrorists' strategy. Who can imagine that those who knew the floor plan of the giant Taj Mahal Palace Hotel better than the hotel's security agents would stumble by accident on a hassidic center in a metropolis of nearly 20 million people? It's about as likely as a truck accidentally running into a Djerba synagogue in April 2002 or it being by chance that that wheelchair-bound terror victim tossed into the sea on the Achille Lauro in 1985 was a Jew.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni affirmed that the Chabad House was indeed attacked as a symbol of the Jewish people.
Chabad Houses go way beyond symbolism; they're outposts of the Jewish people living and reclaiming our heritage. Thank you, Chabad. We owe it to your emissaries, who sacrifice so much for the Jewish people, to carry out their mission after their deaths. Lighting candles is a good place to start. But then we must go further to make our homes reflect the values of their Chabad House. The Chabad army fights with bowls of chicken soup, tefillin and the light of candlesticks, with loving-kindness and openness to the other, even when it's not convenient.
Conscription time is right now. Kislev 5769.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Mumbai and the Chabad Movement
Tragedy befalls a place of prayer and comfort.
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
Perhaps the most telling story I've heard about Chabad emissaries is that some will buy burial plots once they arrive at their distant outposts: It is a gesture to the community -- and perhaps also to themselves -- that they have come to stay.
I first discovered this Hasidic movement, which has captured the world's attention since the killing of several of its members in Mumbai, after 9/11. The world no longer felt safe and in the months after the attack, my husband and I would flee to the Hamptons, driving every weekend to the East End of Long Island, long after the glamorous summer crowds had gone.
One of the places we found open -- year round, in fact -- was the Chabad House in Southampton. The congregation was located inside a private house. Prayers took place in a cozy sanctuary the size of a living room as little children scampered about.
It was an Orthodox service but not oppressively so; men and women sat apart, divided by a row of plastic plants. I sat on a chair close to the plants, in the front, where I had full unfettered view of the pulpit, and for the first time in those awful months I felt safe.
I still remember the rabbi's first sermon, about the Valley of Dry Bones -- that amazing biblical passage where the dead come to life again. I thought of the hopelessness I had felt on 9/11, the collective hopelessness, but then, listening to the story of how even a bunch of bones had been brought back to life, I too felt a sense of possibility again. And safety.
I thought of that sense of safety and comfort as I watched the horrific events unfold in Mumbai, and specifically at the Chabad House.
I am absolutely certain that Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivka, massacred by the terrorists, had also set up a safe-haven. Theirs was a retreat for Jews living in and around Mumbai or even those who were merely passing through.
I would venture that's one of the secrets behind the Chabad movement's extraordinary growth -- that they build little sanctuaries for lost Jews, alienated Jews, secular Jews, Jews who have no interest in traditional religion.
Chabad has redefined religion in part by getting away from the notion of large, formal temples to establishing places of worship that are small, intimate and, above all, deeply comforting; they have made religion personal.
And so, even as some other branches of Judaism and other religions have withered, they have ventured to the far corners of the earth: Siberia, Alaska, Kiev, Odessa, Ho Chi Minh City. But no matter where the Chabad house the philosophy is always the same -- to bring even the most alienated Jews back into the fold.
You go to a Chabad house and you can count on being invited to Friday night dinner by the rabbi and his wife. The model emphasizes old-fashioned notions of community and home -- the sense that religion is not a once-a-year affair but a way of life.
They have made inroads even among the militantly secular, I suspect, precisely because of their sense of conviction. No matter where they are in the world, in the Chabad houses of Siberia or Southampton the rabbis wear the traditional black hats and dark suits, the women long dresses and wigs. There is little attempt to blend in or assimilate.
It can be jarring to run into them on the streets of Southampton or South Beach, strolling in their religious garb, trying to ignore the stares of women in halters and fashionably dressed men in Bermuda shorts and sandals.
Of course, the determination to stay true to their practices may be what endangers the movement most now. They are, it would seem, easy targets.
I attended a memorial for the victims of Chabad Mumbai at my synagogue on Saturday. It was very crowded -- filled with people I had never seen before. Worshippers went up to the pulpit and pledged thousands of dollars.
The purpose? To build a new Chabad center in Mumbai.
Ms. Lagnado, a reporter for the Journal, is the author of "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World" (Harper Perennial, 2008).
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
Perhaps the most telling story I've heard about Chabad emissaries is that some will buy burial plots once they arrive at their distant outposts: It is a gesture to the community -- and perhaps also to themselves -- that they have come to stay.
I first discovered this Hasidic movement, which has captured the world's attention since the killing of several of its members in Mumbai, after 9/11. The world no longer felt safe and in the months after the attack, my husband and I would flee to the Hamptons, driving every weekend to the East End of Long Island, long after the glamorous summer crowds had gone.
One of the places we found open -- year round, in fact -- was the Chabad House in Southampton. The congregation was located inside a private house. Prayers took place in a cozy sanctuary the size of a living room as little children scampered about.
It was an Orthodox service but not oppressively so; men and women sat apart, divided by a row of plastic plants. I sat on a chair close to the plants, in the front, where I had full unfettered view of the pulpit, and for the first time in those awful months I felt safe.
I still remember the rabbi's first sermon, about the Valley of Dry Bones -- that amazing biblical passage where the dead come to life again. I thought of the hopelessness I had felt on 9/11, the collective hopelessness, but then, listening to the story of how even a bunch of bones had been brought back to life, I too felt a sense of possibility again. And safety.
I thought of that sense of safety and comfort as I watched the horrific events unfold in Mumbai, and specifically at the Chabad House.
I am absolutely certain that Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivka, massacred by the terrorists, had also set up a safe-haven. Theirs was a retreat for Jews living in and around Mumbai or even those who were merely passing through.
I would venture that's one of the secrets behind the Chabad movement's extraordinary growth -- that they build little sanctuaries for lost Jews, alienated Jews, secular Jews, Jews who have no interest in traditional religion.
Chabad has redefined religion in part by getting away from the notion of large, formal temples to establishing places of worship that are small, intimate and, above all, deeply comforting; they have made religion personal.
And so, even as some other branches of Judaism and other religions have withered, they have ventured to the far corners of the earth: Siberia, Alaska, Kiev, Odessa, Ho Chi Minh City. But no matter where the Chabad house the philosophy is always the same -- to bring even the most alienated Jews back into the fold.
You go to a Chabad house and you can count on being invited to Friday night dinner by the rabbi and his wife. The model emphasizes old-fashioned notions of community and home -- the sense that religion is not a once-a-year affair but a way of life.
They have made inroads even among the militantly secular, I suspect, precisely because of their sense of conviction. No matter where they are in the world, in the Chabad houses of Siberia or Southampton the rabbis wear the traditional black hats and dark suits, the women long dresses and wigs. There is little attempt to blend in or assimilate.
It can be jarring to run into them on the streets of Southampton or South Beach, strolling in their religious garb, trying to ignore the stares of women in halters and fashionably dressed men in Bermuda shorts and sandals.
Of course, the determination to stay true to their practices may be what endangers the movement most now. They are, it would seem, easy targets.
I attended a memorial for the victims of Chabad Mumbai at my synagogue on Saturday. It was very crowded -- filled with people I had never seen before. Worshippers went up to the pulpit and pledged thousands of dollars.
The purpose? To build a new Chabad center in Mumbai.
Ms. Lagnado, a reporter for the Journal, is the author of "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World" (Harper Perennial, 2008).
Why Israelis Love Chabad
An unusual outpouring of emotion for an unusual ultra-Orthodox sect.
Yossi Klein Halevi, The New Republic Published: Thursday, December 04, 2008
Jerusalem, Israel
Gavriel and Rivkie Holtzberg, the young Israeli couple who ran the Chabad House in Mumbai and were murdered there by jihadists, died bound and helpless, like those Jewish martyrs disparaged for their quietism by the Zionist ethos. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Holtzbergs never served in the Israeli army--yet when they were buried on Tuesday, Israeli society mourned as though they were fallen soldiers. When their coffins arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, they were draped in the national flag. Israeli leaders, including President Shimon Peres, who doesn't usually attend the funerals of terror victims, came to the Holtzbergs' funeral. When I came into work that morning, I found the young woman in the room beside mine weeping.
The devastating scene of the Holtzbergs' surviving two-year-old son, Moishe, calling out for his mother during a memorial service, was repeatedly shown on TV. But Israelis weren't only mourning the destruction of the Holtzberg family; they were mourning the loss of national heroes. Newspaper accounts recalled how Gavriel bribed prison guards in India to smuggle in wine for Shabbat to an Israeli inmate held on drug charges. Even after they lost a child to Tay-Sachs disease, the Holtzbergs insisted on remaining at their post--to continue, as Gavriel explained, "to do mitzvas," fulfill the commandment to help their fellow Jews.
In embracing the Holtzbergs, Israelis were restoring to the national ethos the old concept of kiddush hashem, religious martrydom--confirming a process that began with the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The iconic image of that war was a photograph of a religious soldier being led into Egyptian activity as he carried a Torah scroll. That image was so jarring precisely because it cast an Israeli soldier in the role of a pre-Zionist model of heroism. Since then, all our wars have ended inconclusively, expressions of the limitations of power. The more nuanced Israeli attitudes toward heroism are reflected in Jerusalem's renovated Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, which now not only extols the secular heroes, like partisans and ghetto fighters, but also those who responded to dehumanization by maintaining their religious dignity, running underground schools and prayer groups.
Since the Mumbai massacre, there have been calls here for the Israeli government to subsidize security at Chabad houses across the globe, seen by Israelis as extensions of home. "Our Chabad," summed up one headline on an Israeli news web site. The warmth with which so many Israelis have responded to Chabad proves--along with the growing popularity of prayer lyrics in Israeli rock music and of informal "secular" prayer groups spreading in Tel Aviv and elsewhere--that large parts of Israeli society may be entering a post-secular phase.
Still, it is doubtful the country would have reacted with the same emotional intensity had the Holtzbergs been ordinary ultra-Orthodox Jews rather than Chabadniks. Mainstream Israelis resent ultra-Orthodox Jews for separating from the state and its obligations even as they demand that it subsidize their separatism. Chabad neither separates nor demands, but gives. Israelis encounter Chabad's embrace most often abroad. When our young people just out of the army travel the most remote corners of the world (because military service doesn't provide enough dangers and thrills), they invariably encounter a Chabad house.
Israelis also love Chabadniks for their courage: Rivkie and Gavriel weren't yet buried when Rivkie's father announced his intention of taking over their work in the Mumbai Chabad house. Though few Chabadniks are drafted into the army, they don't avoid danger zones: Chabad activists rush to the front lines during war, providing religious services and dancing with soldiers to raise morale. One friend told me about her sister who was serving in a border post so sensitive that a visitor required special permission from the general in command of the front: "And then who shows up on Hanukah with jelly donuts? Chabadniks."
Contrast Chabad's embrace of the Israeli ethos with ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists--one of whom, Leibish Teitelbaum, a member of the Satmar hasidic sect, was killed in Mumbai. Teitelbaum's family demanded that his coffin not be draped in the Israeli flag, even though his body had been retrieved and flown home by the Israeli government--a reminder that Jewish anti-Zionism is less an ideology than a character flaw, a lack of capacity for gratitude. Chabad defines itself by its love for every Jew; the anti-Zionists define themselves by the Jews they despise.
Israeli society reciprocated the Teitelbaums' contempt, barely noting that other funeral. Watching the mutual estrangement that even a common Jewish death couldn't heal, it felt like one of those moments in Jewish history when schismatic sects evolve into separate faiths.
Israelis know Chabad's flaws--the cars mounted with the late Rebbe's photograph and the words "Welcome King Messiah," the replicas built around Israel of the Rebbe's house in Brooklyn, complete with red bricks chipped in all the original places. And also Chabad's hardline politics: There was no territorial compromise, including Israel's withdrawal from Sinai in 1982, that Chabad didn't vehemently oppose. But many Israelis overlook the messianic looniness and the political rigidity because they crave a connection with a form of traditional Judaism that loves them unconditionally. And though it's rare in Israel's grudging public discourse to express gratitude, this week at least, Israelis offered Chabad that same unconditional love in return.
Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
Yossi Klein Halevi, The New Republic Published: Thursday, December 04, 2008
Jerusalem, Israel
Gavriel and Rivkie Holtzberg, the young Israeli couple who ran the Chabad House in Mumbai and were murdered there by jihadists, died bound and helpless, like those Jewish martyrs disparaged for their quietism by the Zionist ethos. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Holtzbergs never served in the Israeli army--yet when they were buried on Tuesday, Israeli society mourned as though they were fallen soldiers. When their coffins arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, they were draped in the national flag. Israeli leaders, including President Shimon Peres, who doesn't usually attend the funerals of terror victims, came to the Holtzbergs' funeral. When I came into work that morning, I found the young woman in the room beside mine weeping.
The devastating scene of the Holtzbergs' surviving two-year-old son, Moishe, calling out for his mother during a memorial service, was repeatedly shown on TV. But Israelis weren't only mourning the destruction of the Holtzberg family; they were mourning the loss of national heroes. Newspaper accounts recalled how Gavriel bribed prison guards in India to smuggle in wine for Shabbat to an Israeli inmate held on drug charges. Even after they lost a child to Tay-Sachs disease, the Holtzbergs insisted on remaining at their post--to continue, as Gavriel explained, "to do mitzvas," fulfill the commandment to help their fellow Jews.
In embracing the Holtzbergs, Israelis were restoring to the national ethos the old concept of kiddush hashem, religious martrydom--confirming a process that began with the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The iconic image of that war was a photograph of a religious soldier being led into Egyptian activity as he carried a Torah scroll. That image was so jarring precisely because it cast an Israeli soldier in the role of a pre-Zionist model of heroism. Since then, all our wars have ended inconclusively, expressions of the limitations of power. The more nuanced Israeli attitudes toward heroism are reflected in Jerusalem's renovated Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, which now not only extols the secular heroes, like partisans and ghetto fighters, but also those who responded to dehumanization by maintaining their religious dignity, running underground schools and prayer groups.
Since the Mumbai massacre, there have been calls here for the Israeli government to subsidize security at Chabad houses across the globe, seen by Israelis as extensions of home. "Our Chabad," summed up one headline on an Israeli news web site. The warmth with which so many Israelis have responded to Chabad proves--along with the growing popularity of prayer lyrics in Israeli rock music and of informal "secular" prayer groups spreading in Tel Aviv and elsewhere--that large parts of Israeli society may be entering a post-secular phase.
Still, it is doubtful the country would have reacted with the same emotional intensity had the Holtzbergs been ordinary ultra-Orthodox Jews rather than Chabadniks. Mainstream Israelis resent ultra-Orthodox Jews for separating from the state and its obligations even as they demand that it subsidize their separatism. Chabad neither separates nor demands, but gives. Israelis encounter Chabad's embrace most often abroad. When our young people just out of the army travel the most remote corners of the world (because military service doesn't provide enough dangers and thrills), they invariably encounter a Chabad house.
Israelis also love Chabadniks for their courage: Rivkie and Gavriel weren't yet buried when Rivkie's father announced his intention of taking over their work in the Mumbai Chabad house. Though few Chabadniks are drafted into the army, they don't avoid danger zones: Chabad activists rush to the front lines during war, providing religious services and dancing with soldiers to raise morale. One friend told me about her sister who was serving in a border post so sensitive that a visitor required special permission from the general in command of the front: "And then who shows up on Hanukah with jelly donuts? Chabadniks."
Contrast Chabad's embrace of the Israeli ethos with ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists--one of whom, Leibish Teitelbaum, a member of the Satmar hasidic sect, was killed in Mumbai. Teitelbaum's family demanded that his coffin not be draped in the Israeli flag, even though his body had been retrieved and flown home by the Israeli government--a reminder that Jewish anti-Zionism is less an ideology than a character flaw, a lack of capacity for gratitude. Chabad defines itself by its love for every Jew; the anti-Zionists define themselves by the Jews they despise.
Israeli society reciprocated the Teitelbaums' contempt, barely noting that other funeral. Watching the mutual estrangement that even a common Jewish death couldn't heal, it felt like one of those moments in Jewish history when schismatic sects evolve into separate faiths.
Israelis know Chabad's flaws--the cars mounted with the late Rebbe's photograph and the words "Welcome King Messiah," the replicas built around Israel of the Rebbe's house in Brooklyn, complete with red bricks chipped in all the original places. And also Chabad's hardline politics: There was no territorial compromise, including Israel's withdrawal from Sinai in 1982, that Chabad didn't vehemently oppose. But many Israelis overlook the messianic looniness and the political rigidity because they crave a connection with a form of traditional Judaism that loves them unconditionally. And though it's rare in Israel's grudging public discourse to express gratitude, this week at least, Israelis offered Chabad that same unconditional love in return.
Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Light versus darkness
The story is much simpler than people tend to think. Two of the Jews murdered in Mumbai are a Chabad-Lubavitch couple, Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. He’s from Brooklyn, while she’s from Afula. They lived in Thailand and later in India for five years. They were there on a mission on behalf of Chabad; on behalf of Judaism.
Just like any other good Chabadniks, they chose to dedicate themselves to other Jews, most of them Israelis traveling in Mumbai. Their lives, and in this case their deaths too, are yet another link in the longtime tradition of Chabad Hassidim – namely, to spread Judaism to every corner of the world; to bring a little Torah, compassion, and solidarity to any site where Jews can be found at. In order to achieve that end, they gave up on having leisure time and privacy, turning their home into a lively Jewish embassy every day, the whole day.
Chabad, after we put aside internal Jewish arguments regarding the right way to follow God, is the essence of Jewish mutual responsibility. It is the root of caring for others and of welcoming guests with open arms. There is no other movement that boasts people who are organized like that and who are willing to dedicate their lives in order to bring others closer to Judaism. At times we get upset when a Chabadnik attempts to convince us to lay tefillin (“thanks, I already did it at the office,”) but for many of us they mark our Jewish corner, in Nepal or in Venice, in Bangkok and in Paris.
Rivka and Gabi Holtzberg were emissaries on behalf of all of us, even if we don’t have the rabbi’s picture hanging on our wall.
And on the other hand, we have the murderers. They too, in a very different way, are emissaries. They are the emissaries of Islam 2008. We can babble endlessly about them being only a small group that does not represent true Islam. These evil forces have excellent spokespersons in the guilt-ridden West. However, the dozens of Muslim terrorists who massacred hundreds of Indians and Western tourists are yet another example of the bad winds within Islam.
Giant terror organizations such as al-Qaeda, and immense Islamic Brotherhood movements and Jihad groups are not marginal. They constitute true danger in their own countries, because they have a real hold among the world’s one billion Muslims. Frustration, zealotry, ignorance, and hatred for humanity motivate the Jihadists from Mumbai to Gaza and from New York to Somalia. These despicable Mujahidin also view themselves as the emissaries of God and of their religion. However, they spread their message with rifles and hand grenades.
A matter of temper
After all, in the history of humanity we have not yet seen a case where a group of Chabadniks took over a bus or hotel and held hostages. No other Jewish group, be it religious or secular, tends to express its frustrations via such violent storms. It’s a matter of temper. Our Jews, headed by the Chabadniks, spread their religion in wholly different ways: Tefillin, Shabbat candles, and even the traditional “why don’t you come over for Shabbat dinner.” They boast complete dedication, but not suicidal tendencies. They are willing to die in order to sanctify God’s name, but they are unwilling to kill in order to sanctify God’s name.
This is a simple story, because this is a war pitting the good guys against the bad guys. Even the arguments over “occupation” and “territories” around here are merely a small, even if important, front of the Islamic threat. After September 11th, the world suddenly noticed that almost anywhere horrifying terror acts take place, the murderers are Muslim Jihadists. The good guys suddenly realized that not all Muslims are terrorists, yet almost all terrorists are Muslim.
There are good Jews and good Muslims, just like there are violent and evil ones. The matter at hand is not the nature or character of individuals, but rather, the forces and undercurrents below the visible reality. The random encounter between the emissaries of Islamist Jihad and Rivka and Gavriel Holtzberg, the Jewish emissaries, is not so random after all. It is yet another case where the emissaries of barbarity hurt everything that is kind and good; this is yet another lethal mission by the dark fanatics of Islam that aimed to eliminate the noble mission of the dedicated and kind-hearted. In order to succeed in this battle, we must realize that this is yet another struggle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.
And light shall win.
Just like any other good Chabadniks, they chose to dedicate themselves to other Jews, most of them Israelis traveling in Mumbai. Their lives, and in this case their deaths too, are yet another link in the longtime tradition of Chabad Hassidim – namely, to spread Judaism to every corner of the world; to bring a little Torah, compassion, and solidarity to any site where Jews can be found at. In order to achieve that end, they gave up on having leisure time and privacy, turning their home into a lively Jewish embassy every day, the whole day.
Chabad, after we put aside internal Jewish arguments regarding the right way to follow God, is the essence of Jewish mutual responsibility. It is the root of caring for others and of welcoming guests with open arms. There is no other movement that boasts people who are organized like that and who are willing to dedicate their lives in order to bring others closer to Judaism. At times we get upset when a Chabadnik attempts to convince us to lay tefillin (“thanks, I already did it at the office,”) but for many of us they mark our Jewish corner, in Nepal or in Venice, in Bangkok and in Paris.
Rivka and Gabi Holtzberg were emissaries on behalf of all of us, even if we don’t have the rabbi’s picture hanging on our wall.
And on the other hand, we have the murderers. They too, in a very different way, are emissaries. They are the emissaries of Islam 2008. We can babble endlessly about them being only a small group that does not represent true Islam. These evil forces have excellent spokespersons in the guilt-ridden West. However, the dozens of Muslim terrorists who massacred hundreds of Indians and Western tourists are yet another example of the bad winds within Islam.
Giant terror organizations such as al-Qaeda, and immense Islamic Brotherhood movements and Jihad groups are not marginal. They constitute true danger in their own countries, because they have a real hold among the world’s one billion Muslims. Frustration, zealotry, ignorance, and hatred for humanity motivate the Jihadists from Mumbai to Gaza and from New York to Somalia. These despicable Mujahidin also view themselves as the emissaries of God and of their religion. However, they spread their message with rifles and hand grenades.
A matter of temper
After all, in the history of humanity we have not yet seen a case where a group of Chabadniks took over a bus or hotel and held hostages. No other Jewish group, be it religious or secular, tends to express its frustrations via such violent storms. It’s a matter of temper. Our Jews, headed by the Chabadniks, spread their religion in wholly different ways: Tefillin, Shabbat candles, and even the traditional “why don’t you come over for Shabbat dinner.” They boast complete dedication, but not suicidal tendencies. They are willing to die in order to sanctify God’s name, but they are unwilling to kill in order to sanctify God’s name.
This is a simple story, because this is a war pitting the good guys against the bad guys. Even the arguments over “occupation” and “territories” around here are merely a small, even if important, front of the Islamic threat. After September 11th, the world suddenly noticed that almost anywhere horrifying terror acts take place, the murderers are Muslim Jihadists. The good guys suddenly realized that not all Muslims are terrorists, yet almost all terrorists are Muslim.
There are good Jews and good Muslims, just like there are violent and evil ones. The matter at hand is not the nature or character of individuals, but rather, the forces and undercurrents below the visible reality. The random encounter between the emissaries of Islamist Jihad and Rivka and Gavriel Holtzberg, the Jewish emissaries, is not so random after all. It is yet another case where the emissaries of barbarity hurt everything that is kind and good; this is yet another lethal mission by the dark fanatics of Islam that aimed to eliminate the noble mission of the dedicated and kind-hearted. In order to succeed in this battle, we must realize that this is yet another struggle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.
And light shall win.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Welcoming the New Year in a Different Paris
October 23, 2008 - Mara Sokolsky, Jewish Exponent Feature
This past erev Rosh Hashanah found my husband and I scurrying through the streets of Paris's Jewish quarter. Hours earlier, those streets pulsed with the sounds of schmoozing and shopping. We, along with local Parisians and a gaggle of tourists feasted on Mi-va-mi's falafel l'authentique and Sacha Finkelsztajn's Viennese strudel.
But now the streets were quiet, the shops closed. The new year was at hand.
More than 30 years ago, I spent my junior year abroad in Paris. Young, eager and fluent in French, I soaked up the beauty and culture of that city like a happy sponge. Now, on our first big empty-nest vacation, I wanted to share some of that long-ago magic with my husband.
And magic it was. We glided on a boat under the magnificent bridges traversing the Seine. We climbed the hills of Montmartre; we sat with our espresso and watched passers-by from a string of outdoor cafes.
As Rosh Hashanah approached, we finalized our holiday plans with the local Chabad rabbi. He directed us, in Yiddish-tinged French, to a shteibel, a small house of prayer on the second floor of a nondescript building in the heart of the Jewish quarter. That's where my husband and I were hurrying as the old year fell away.
Lubavitch Chasidim are wonderfully hospitable, but they aren't known for their decorating style. The shteibel had all the makings of a beautiful, old Paris apartment: delicate moldings, chandeliers, hand-painted designs along the tops of the walls. Yet, mostly what you saw was a crowded, makeshift shul, with chairs, benches and tattered prayerbooks strewn next to a small women's section.
I sat alone in that section. Of course! The Lubavitch wives were home preparing dinner. Ultimately, three young women with various nose and lip piercings joined my ranks. They were traveling together from Australia and, like us, had invitations to go home with one of the families after the davening.
Our host was a warm, chatty dentist who had become Lubavitch in his early 20s. His cultured wife spoke excellent English. Only five of their 10 children were at home, but they had guests around their table from Algiers and Berlin. In a lively polyglot of languages, we chatted, gorged ourselves, and dribbled enough honey to help ensure a sweet new year.
But we needed to hear the shofar. In the morning, we went to the Synagogue des Tournelles, which we'd heard was beautiful and was within walking distance of where we were staying.
Tickets weren't required, but our admission depended upon a convincing argument to the guards posted outside. When they finally accepted that we were wandering Jews looking to be with our brethren, they opened the doors to the most- breathtaking house of worship I'd ever seen, much like a lavish European opera house.
I climbed the stairs to the balcony. Few women were listening to the service; most were chatting amiably. Occasionally, I'd hear a line in Arabic. So many Jews in France have North African roots. The Sephardic melodies were mesmerizing, so distinct from our Ashkenazi ones at home.
My husband remarked later that the men occasionally davened, but mostly kissed each other (four times on the cheek in true French fashion) and chatted as much as the women.
But when it came time for the shofar, the shul became still. All the men raised their tallitot over their heads. The women whipped out scarves and held them over their heads. It was a bit like watching everyone go under his or her own chupah.
I marveled at this ritual. Although far from home, it felt entirely natural to experience a connection with fellow Jews in heeding the call to be awake and centered as we entered the promise of the new year.
Mara Sokolsky is a freelance writer living in Providence, R.I.
This past erev Rosh Hashanah found my husband and I scurrying through the streets of Paris's Jewish quarter. Hours earlier, those streets pulsed with the sounds of schmoozing and shopping. We, along with local Parisians and a gaggle of tourists feasted on Mi-va-mi's falafel l'authentique and Sacha Finkelsztajn's Viennese strudel.
But now the streets were quiet, the shops closed. The new year was at hand.
More than 30 years ago, I spent my junior year abroad in Paris. Young, eager and fluent in French, I soaked up the beauty and culture of that city like a happy sponge. Now, on our first big empty-nest vacation, I wanted to share some of that long-ago magic with my husband.
And magic it was. We glided on a boat under the magnificent bridges traversing the Seine. We climbed the hills of Montmartre; we sat with our espresso and watched passers-by from a string of outdoor cafes.
As Rosh Hashanah approached, we finalized our holiday plans with the local Chabad rabbi. He directed us, in Yiddish-tinged French, to a shteibel, a small house of prayer on the second floor of a nondescript building in the heart of the Jewish quarter. That's where my husband and I were hurrying as the old year fell away.
Lubavitch Chasidim are wonderfully hospitable, but they aren't known for their decorating style. The shteibel had all the makings of a beautiful, old Paris apartment: delicate moldings, chandeliers, hand-painted designs along the tops of the walls. Yet, mostly what you saw was a crowded, makeshift shul, with chairs, benches and tattered prayerbooks strewn next to a small women's section.
I sat alone in that section. Of course! The Lubavitch wives were home preparing dinner. Ultimately, three young women with various nose and lip piercings joined my ranks. They were traveling together from Australia and, like us, had invitations to go home with one of the families after the davening.
Our host was a warm, chatty dentist who had become Lubavitch in his early 20s. His cultured wife spoke excellent English. Only five of their 10 children were at home, but they had guests around their table from Algiers and Berlin. In a lively polyglot of languages, we chatted, gorged ourselves, and dribbled enough honey to help ensure a sweet new year.
But we needed to hear the shofar. In the morning, we went to the Synagogue des Tournelles, which we'd heard was beautiful and was within walking distance of where we were staying.
Tickets weren't required, but our admission depended upon a convincing argument to the guards posted outside. When they finally accepted that we were wandering Jews looking to be with our brethren, they opened the doors to the most- breathtaking house of worship I'd ever seen, much like a lavish European opera house.
I climbed the stairs to the balcony. Few women were listening to the service; most were chatting amiably. Occasionally, I'd hear a line in Arabic. So many Jews in France have North African roots. The Sephardic melodies were mesmerizing, so distinct from our Ashkenazi ones at home.
My husband remarked later that the men occasionally davened, but mostly kissed each other (four times on the cheek in true French fashion) and chatted as much as the women.
But when it came time for the shofar, the shul became still. All the men raised their tallitot over their heads. The women whipped out scarves and held them over their heads. It was a bit like watching everyone go under his or her own chupah.
I marveled at this ritual. Although far from home, it felt entirely natural to experience a connection with fellow Jews in heeding the call to be awake and centered as we entered the promise of the new year.
Mara Sokolsky is a freelance writer living in Providence, R.I.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Scandals and disputes plague ultra-Orthodox circles in the U.S.
Lubavitch Hasidism (Chabad), on the other hand, in contrast to its great influence during the lifetime of the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, has become mainly an organizational framework that is represented by the thousands of shluhim (emissaries) who operate under its auspices all over the world.
Comments?
Comments?
Friday, January 12, 2007
Orthodox religious demographics that are more technologically advanced than I am, as demonstrated by their possession, and my lack, of cell phones
1. Amish teenagers
2. Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic rabbis.
My meeting with the Lubavitcher rabbi this afternoon went wonderfully. Longer update forthcoming!
2. Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic rabbis.
My meeting with the Lubavitcher rabbi this afternoon went wonderfully. Longer update forthcoming!
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