Monthly Archives: January 2022

In one of many oddball stories in the Talmud, the commentary on the Hebrew Bible, were told about an ancient diss: one rabbi tells another rabbi that his voice is so bad that if the Holy Temple were still standing, he wouldnt be allowed to sing in it.

As Miriam Anzovin puts it in her first TikTok, Shimon is pitchy but Chiyyah is bitchy.

Shes not obviously your typical teacher of Talmud.

Following the same schedule as Daf Yomi, the page-a-day Talmud study cycle whose participants number in the tens of thousands worldwide, Anzovin hair-tosses, speed-talks and eyebrow-pops through her homemade recaps, distilling the daily dose to its sauciest moments.

In Anzovins very online breakdowns of the Talmud, everyone is relatable: Rabbi Hanina Ben Dosas wifes neighbor, thwarted by divine intervention more than 2,000 years ago, is a Karen; Rabbi Yochanan, whose radiant beauty is a matter of Talmudic discussion, is a legendary hottie; and Rav and Rav Huna are besties beholden to a bro code.

Some of it is extremely boring, Anzovin says of her source material. And some it is extremely not safe for work.

DAF REACTIONS Megillah 3! One quick tip to find out if that random guy u met is a ##demon or not! PLUS the Divine Voice has SOMETHING to SAY! ##dafyomi

A non-Orthodox woman with bleach-blonde hair, Anzovin might not look like what most people conjure when asked to think of someone who studies Talmud, which has historically been the domain of Orthodox men. But she may be the quintessential participant in Daf Yomi, whose very mission is to make the long, dense and often arcane Oral Torah more accessible and inclusive.

Her approach is pretty simple make it funny and her process fully digital.

She begins her mornings listening to Rabbanit Michelle Farbers Daf Yomi podcast while she puts on her makeup. Then shell read a summary of the same material on MyJewishLearning.com. From there, shell skim the text itself on Sefaria.org and riff about it with her chavruta over Google Chat. All along, shes waiting for inspiration to strike.

Sometimes its right there at the surface, the modern connection, or the kind of language I would use to describe the scenario in a millennial sense, she says. And sometimes you gotta dig a little harder to find it.

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Anzovin, 36, a content producer for JewishBoston.com, first became interested in Daf Yomi after hearing Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, speak highly of the movement. But it was the middle of the seven-and-a-half-year cycle, putting her enthusiasm on hold. Later, the Hanukkah stabbing in Monsey in December 2019 several were injured and one was killed got her fully committed.

One week later, on Jan. 5, 2020, a new cycle began with Anzovin on board.

Every single day that I do the daf is my response to that, is my response to antisemitism, to Jew hatred, she said.

Courtesy of Miriam Anzovin

Anzovin, a content producer for JewishBoston.com, makes her Daf Reactions videos in her free time.

Her videos defy norms in other ways: her coquettish affect (and occasional profanity) make them evoke the juicy conspiracy theories and brilliant life-hacks popular on TikTok more than the dialectic of staid first-century rabbis. For the most part, Anzovin leaves what others might consider the true substance of the Talmud arguments about Jewish law on the cutting room floor.

The videos have, perhaps inevitably, drawn a few unhappy comments which failed to deter her. She noted a bewildering detour the Talmud takes to consider a scenario in which a snake has entered a womans vagina.

Nothing that I say could ever be worse than the things that are in the Gemara, she said. And I say that with love.

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On TikTok, she offers a spicy daily take on Talmud - Forward

Soon, homes near the synagogue were evacuated as city, state and federal officials descended on the scene, the chief said. Mr. Akram was in contact with law enforcement officials throughout the ordeal, according to Mr. DeSarno.

The negotiation team had a high frequency and duration of contact with him, Mr. DeSarno said. There were times when the communication ceased, he said. The relationship between Mr. Akram and the negotiators, according to Mr. DeSarno, ebbed and flowed a little bit and sometimes got intense.

Experts on hostage situations say that maintaining dialogue is crucial.

Crusaders, criminals and crazies are the people that hold hostages, and youre not always sure which one it is at first, said Robert J. Louden, a professor emeritus of criminal justice and homeland security at Georgian Court University in New Jersey. The information you can develop about the situation allows you to best determine which kind of situation you have.

The synagogues service was being livestreamed on Facebook, and for a while after he arrived, the audio remained live, letting anyone listen in real time as Mr. Akram angrily made his demands.

At one point, apparently referring to the hostages while speaking to a negotiator, Mr. Akram said, Their children are being traumatized right now because you guys dont want to work with me.

After asking the hostages, one by one, how many children each of them had, he appeared to address the negotiator, saying Why are you going to leave seven children orphaned?

At about 5 p.m., one male hostage was released, unharmed, while the other three continued to be held, the authorities said.

Originally posted here:

11 Hours of Fear, Negotiation and Finally, Relief - The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2022 /CNW/ - The Congressional Caucus For the Advancement of Torah Values was recently inaugurated in Washington, DC by a bi-partisan group of Democrats and Republican congressmen and congresswomen.

Caucus Co-chairs are Congressman Don Bacon (R -Nebraska District 2) and Congressman Henry Cuellar (D - Texas District 28).

Championed by Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter, Founder of Dirshu, the largest Torah organization in the world, Members of the US House of Representatives met to support the Caucus launch, and discuss ongoing issues of concern to Jews in the United States, Canada and around the world.

In his address to the Congressmen/Congresswomen, Rabbi Hofstedter who is based in Toronto, Canada, outlined the issues on which the Caucus will focus:

"The rise of anti-Israel bigotry that has led to an increase of antisemitism incidents on college campuses and elsewhere;

The rise of hate crimes against Jews in New York city and elsewhere, where Jews easily identifiable by their garb are targeted;

The uneven-handed lockdown of Synagogues and Yeshivas in New York that was and inconsistent with city and state policy."

Dirshu, is an Orthodox Jewish International organization founded in 1997 in Toronto by Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter, the son of Holocaust survivors. It includes 200,000+ supporters dedicated to the study of Jewish texts, sponsoring Torah lectures and offering financial incentives to individuals and groups to learn and master Talmud, Halakha and Mussar texts. Dirshu operates in 26 countries on five continents with its US headquarters in New Jersey.

Congressman and Co-Chair Bacon said, "The purpose of this Caucus is to pledge our friendship to our Jewish friends, our brothers and sisters. We are 100% standing with you against antisemitism in any form. I don't care where it comes from left or right."

Congressman and Co-Chair Cuellar said, "This Caucus is going to be so important in a bipartisan way. We have to be able to have the strength so we know what's good, what's bad, what's moral and what's not moral."

Story continues

Speaking in Washington to the Members in attendance, Rabbi Hofstedter said, "Torah values have been under attack for many years basic values such as the deep respect for religion, for human dignity, honesty, integrity, self-sacrifice, charity, compassion and empathy. These values are the foundation of the USA. As Members of Congress, your attendance and participation here demonstrates your personal commitment to supporting Jewish values and to promoting unity. I feel a deep sense of encouragement about what lies ahead and I intend on conveying your messages of encouragement to all members of our organization in your respective districts. We at Dirshu look forward to working together in the months and years to come, to ensure that freedom of religion is never abridged, and that never again, in fact, remains just that Never Again."

The attending Members of Congress were asked "to continue to be more clear and forceful in their condemnation of antisemitic acts especially in light of the increased number of hate crimes against Jews." Congressional districts represented included Florida, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas and Wisconsin.

Rabbi Hofstedter added, "We appreciate and continue to rely on the support of the United States and the benevolence of its government to protect Jewish people when we have been the subject of persecution and under attack. Let us celebrate the inauguration of this Caucus as we embrace its principles and strive energetically and bravely to ensure freedom of religion and religious education, even in the most challenging of times. Let us battle, together, against antisemitism. Let us fight to restore human dignity and advanced Torah values in America and throughout the world. Doing so, we should always be mindful of the Torah values as embodied in the Declaration of Independence with the firm reliance of the protection of divine providence."

NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:

David Eisenstadttcgprdeisenstadt@tcgpr.com(C) 1-416-561-5751

Celebrating the recent inauguration of the Congressional Caucus for Torah Values in Washington, DC (L-R) Congresswoman Kat Cammack (R- Florida Dist. 3); Caucus Co-Chair Don Bacon (R-Nebraska, Dist. 2); Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter, Dirshu Founder; Caucus Co-Chair Henry Cuellar (D-Texas, Dist.28); Congressman Dan Meuser (R-Pennsylvania, Dist. 9); Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania, Dist.1) Photo Credit: Sruly Saftlas (CNW Group/Dirshu)

Dirshu Logo (CNW Group/Dirshu)

Cision

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SOURCE Dirshu

Cision

View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2022/18/c3723.html

Originally posted here:

DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS INAUGURATE THE CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TORAH VALUES - Yahoo Finance

Rabbi Carnie Shalom RoseJanuary 14, 2022

And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had previously exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, God will be sure to take notice of you and when this comes to be, you pledge to carry up my bones from here with you to the Holy Land. Sefer Shemot 13:19

Each and every time I return to the study of Parashat Beshalach, I am struck by the image of a hassled, harried somewhat stressed-out Moshe Rabbeinu making final preparations for the Exodus of the entire Israelite Nation after hundreds of years of Egyptian servitude and bondage. And despite being deeply engaged in what surely must have been a monumental and herculean task, with a long list of last minute responsibilities, Moshe himself engages in the securing of the remains of the patriarch Yosef.

The obvious question is why? Why was it essential for Moses to pause from the important work of preparing the Bnai Yisrael at this critical and liminal moment in Jewish History to locate, secure and arrange for the transport of the mummified remains of a long deceased ancestor?

One possible explanation is alluded to in the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 13a-13b: All those years that the Israelites were in the desert, those two chests one of the dead (the bones of Josef) and the other of the Shechinah (the Ark of the Covenant) proceeded side by side, and passersby would ask: What is the nature of those two chests? They received the following reply: One is of the dead (Joseph) and the other of the handiwork of the Divine Presence (the Tables of the Ten Commandments). But is it then, the way of the dead to proceed with the revelation of the Divine? They were told, This one (Joseph) fulfilled all that was recorded in the other (the Commandments) [and thus, it makes perfect sense for them to sojourn side-by-side].

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This Talmudic passage underscores a deep truth that we all know well. The most profound lessons that we learn in our lifetimes are those that are at once profoundly transcendent as well as demonstrably attainable. The Ten Commandments were given to the world amidst thunder and lightning in a miraculously supernatural manner. In sharp contrast, Joseph lived a Godly existence in base settings that were remarkably challenging; first as a lowly slave and then as a revered Viceroy of the Egyptian aristocracy. Moshe, our greatest of teachers, understood that the nascent Nation of Israel (and all of humanity!) was in need of both models in the right proportion to ensure that the way of life that the Almighty had intended could be actuated and effectuated.

May we who hear of these two remarkable chests, be inspired this week anew to quest for this balance in our own lives so that we, too, can live lives of transcendent holiness and earthly sanctity, Amen!

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose, D.Div., is the Rabbi Bernard Lipnick Senior Rabbinic Chair at Congregation Bnai Amoona and a member of the St. Louis Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, which coordinates the dvar Torah for the Jewish Light.

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Torah portion inspires search for balance in life - St. Louis Jewish Light

I found out that Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others had been taken hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Tex. when many other observant Jews did: after the end of Shabbat.

There was a knock on our door. It was someone from the 10.27 Healing Partnership, a grant-funded organization that provides resources and support to those impacted by the Tree of Life attack.

My spouse, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, is a leader of New Light Congregation, one of three congregations that shared the Tree of Life space. He was able to hide others and then escape the building himself on Oct. 27, 2018, when our congregants and friends were massacred during Shabbat services. I was fortunate that Jon walked home that day, safe, to inform my daughter and I what had happened to him.

When someone comes to the rabbis house on Shabbat to deliver news directly, it is usually not good news. This week, I was shocked to hear about the then still-unfolding situation in Texas, but appreciative that a kind and professionally- trained person had come to help me process the news. Whenever another antisemitic attack in a synagogue occurs, feelings of trauma, shock, distress, fear and anxiety all flood back quite readily.

Because I had been warned about the images I might see, I did not look at the news until after the hostages had escaped their captors, when Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who had the presence of mind and bravery to make sure the other two worshippers still inside the temple were ready to run, threw a chair at the captor and escaped. Rabbi Cytron-Walkers unsurpassable courage saved his fellow hostages lives as well as his own.

Rabbi Cytron-Walker told a Forward reporter that security workshops had instilled in him the ability to do whatever you have to do to get out. I also believe that part of Cytron-Walkers composure derives from his experience as a rabbi and his knowledge of Jewish wisdom.

In a parable described in the Talmud in Berachot 51a, the Rabbis instruct anyone who encounters the angel of death to flee, whether that requires jumping over a river, taking a different path, or hiding behind a wall. The message is to do anything necessary to elude the angel of deaths evil machinations.

Rabbi Cytron-Walker clearly absorbed the message of this passage and his own teaching for that particular Shabbat morning service must have steeled him as well.

Years of being a rabbis spouse led me to guess, correctly, that Rabbi Cytron-Walker had prepared a source sheet on Sefaria.org with notes for that days service. The source sheet the rabbi had uploaded but did not get to use detailed his concerns over hate crimes in this country, and the need for individuals to take action and fight back.

This need for a lifesaving impulse is not new for Jews. Today, as at the time of the events of the Exodus, being a Jew is being vulnerable.

My husband left last night, as he does each evening since his mothers death, to say kaddish for her. The Orthodox synagogue where he prays during the week is always locked; it opens with a combination whose code is made known only to members. The times of services are never posted publicly and are only available through emailed newsletters.

All the synagogues in Squirrel Hill have locks or guards, and all the Jewish institutions have had security evaluations. After the attack, we recommended that other communities do so as well.

Despite the trauma of the Pittsburgh synagogue attack, none of us in our family have had hesitations about attending any synagogue recently, so long as there is appropriate security, and currently, both mask and vaccine requirements. We havent gone back to the building where the attack happened, but the plans for its rehabilitation as a worship space are in place. At our new synagogue home, there are professional security guards, an updated security system and synagogue member greeters alongside guards.

Even so, we are always alert to any unexpected noises and startle when we hear an ambulance or police siren. And yet, all of the survivors of the attack on New Light, as well as family members of the victims, attend regularly.

It is not that I have total faith in the security that keeps me returning week after week, but that we as a family believe attending synagogue is the best embodiment of joining with a community of shared values to pray and study Torah.

It will not be easy for Rabbi Cytron-Walker and his community to recover from the trauma he and the other hostages have experienced. They will need help and support.

After the Tree of Life shooting, four men who had survived a shooting in their mosque in Quebec City drove 12 hours to Pittsburgh each way to speak with those of us from the three Tree of Life congregations. This was only the first of many acts of solidarity we have experienced since the shooting.

To sit in a room with people have the same concerns after an act of violence in their worship space and have them explain to us how they helped their children and community cope with the fear that came from going back to the mosque, when I was also worried about how to help my daughters and community, was powerful and meaningful. The human connection that was made with strangers who cared enough to make a huge effort to travel so far in order to render assistance was immensely healing and therapeutic. I am pleased to see the powerful interfaith solidarity shown for the Colleyville Jewish community after this terrifying antisemitic attack. I hope there will be some form of agency set up in Colleyville to enable those both directly and indirectly impacted by the trauma of this event to heal, and that no one will feel ashamed to ask for help.

Having experienced firsthand this particular type of trauma, I know that healing is possible. The Torah portion not read in Colleyville last Shabbat contains the verse, for I the Lord will heal you (Exodus 15:26). I am hopeful that Rabbi Cytron-Walker will continue to teach many messages of Torah, including this one, over the long years ahead.

To contact the author, email editorial@forward.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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My husband survived the Tree of Life shooting. The Texas synagogue attack reopened our wounds - Forward

This week we marked Raoul Wallenberg Commemorative Day in remembrance of, and in tribute to, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg Canadas first Honourary Citizen and an Honourary Citizen of Israel who demonstrated that one person with the compassion to care, and the courage to act, can confront evil, prevail, and transform history. Accordingly, Canadas Country Pledges at the recent Malm International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism called for learning about and acting upon Wallenbergs heroic legacy, a call reaffirmed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Raoul Wallenberg Commemorative Day.

Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, was a beacon of light during the darkest days of the Holocaust, and his heroism warrants remembrance and reminder today. This is particularly resonant amidst the international drumbeat of evil mass atrocities targeting the Uyghers, the Rohingya, Afghans, Ethiopians, and others let alone the imprisonment of human rights defenders amidst a culture of impunity and the accompanying indifference and inaction.

From mid-May to the beginning of July 1944, some 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the death camp Auschwitz the fastest, cruelest and most efficient killing field in the Holocaust. Wallenberg arrived as a member of the Swedish Legation in Budapest, Hungary in mid-July 1944 and in a remarkable demonstration of ingenuity and inspiration rescued some 100,000 Jews in the last six months of 1944 alone more than any other single government or organization let alone the continuing indifference of the international bystander community.

As we mark also the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference on January 20th, where the Final Solution was foreordained, we recall that what makes the Holocaust so unspeakable are not only horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened, but that these horrors were preventable. Nobody could say we did not know. We knew but did not act.

I first learned of Wallenbergs heroism from the testimony of Holocaust survivors saved by him, when acting in the 1970s as pro-bono Counsel for the Association of Survivors of Nazi Oppression; from US congressman Tom Lantos, himself saved by Wallenberg, who inspired the conferral of Honorary US Citizenship on Wallenberg in 1981; from Raoul Wallenbergs family whom I have been serving as counsel for close to 45 years; and from Swedish diplomat Per Anger, who worked with Wallenberg in the rescue of Jews in Hungary in 1944 and later became Swedens ambassador to Canada.

I also had occasion as a Canadian parliamentarian to address the Swedish parliament during the celebration of the Centennial of Wallenbergs birth in 2012, where I witnessed an international exhibit titled, in Wallenbergs own immortal words, to me there was no other choice. This phrase reflected his singular courage and commitment heroism that embodies the Talmudic principle that if you save a single life, it is as if you have saved an entire universe.

In transforming history and saving human universes, Wallenberg may be said to have presaged todays foundational principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.

In distributing schutzpasses, diplomatic passports conferring protective immunity, and establishing safe houses conferring diplomatic sanctuary, Wallenberg is credited with saving 50,000 Jews by these means alone. His heroic deeds affirmed and validated the principle of diplomatic immunity, the remedy of diplomatic protection, a foundational principle of international law and are a model of the diplomatic capacity to save lives. Simply put, consular or diplomatic assistance should not be seen as a matter of discretion, but a matter of legal obligation

In his protection and rescue of civilians amid the horrors of the Holocaust, including from death marches, and death camp transports on the way to Auschwitz, he manifested the best of what we today call international humanitarian law.

In his organization of hospitals, soup kitchens and orphanages, the staples of international humanitarian assistance that provided women, children, the sick and the elderly with a semblance of dignity in the face of the worst of all horrors and evils, Wallenberg embodied the best of what we today call international humanitarian intervention.

In saving Jews from certain deportation, death, and atrocity, he symbolized what we today call the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

Finally, Wallenbergs last rescue was perhaps his most memorable. As the Nazis advanced on Budapest and threatened to blow up the citys ghetto and liquidate the remaining Jews, he put the Nazi generals on notice that they would be held accountable and brought to justice, if not executed, for their war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Nazi generals desisted. Some 70,000 more Jews were saved, thanks to the indomitable courage of one person prepared to confront radical evil. In warning the Nazi generals that they would be held responsible for their war crimes, Wallenberg was a forerunner of the Nuremberg principles and what today we call international criminal law.

To the desk murderer Adolf Eichmann, who was organizing the transports to Auschwitz, Wallenberg was the Judenhund Wallenberg, the Jewish Dog. To the Jews, as those saved by Wallenberg would tell me, Wallenberg was the Guardian Angel.

Yet, while Wallenberg saved so many, he was not himself saved by so many who could. Rather than greet Wallenberg as the liberator he was, the Soviets who entered Hungary as liberators themselves on January 17, 1945 imprisoned him, where he disappeared into the gulag. The Soviets first claimed that he died of a heart attack in July 1947, before changing their story to claim that he was murdered, also in July 1947.

These contradictory Soviet claims have been refuted by several inquiries, including the 1990 International Commission on the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg, which I chaired, along with Wallenbergs brother Guy Von Dardel, US Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Russian scholar Mikhail Chlenov and former Israeli Attorney General Gideon Hausner.

Indeed, in 1985, as our Commission report cited, a US federal court found the evidence incontrovertible that Wallenberg was alive in 1947, compelling that he was alive in the 1960s and credible that he remained alive into the 80s a position held by Soviet Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov, who conveyed this information personally to Mikhail Chlenov and me in a meeting we had in Moscow in November 1989. I returned to Canada but arranged to meet with Dr. Sakharov for dinner on a return visit to Moscow scheduled for December 14th. While flying to Moscow, I learned that the meeting was not to be, as Dr. Sakharov had died of a heart attack that morning. I ended up speaking at his funeral and delivering the Sakharov-Wallenberg lectureship at the founding meeting of the Russian Jewish Congress in Moscow, dedicated to the heroism of both Wallenberg and Sakharov.

It is imperative that the international community finally secure for Wallenberg and his family the long-denied truth and justice owed to them. The countries of Wallenbergs honorary citizenship, including Israel, should lead an international consortium calling upon Russia to open its archives and reveal the long-sought, and suppressed truth about this disappeared hero of humanity, whom the UN called the greatest humanitarian of the twentieth century. For us, in Wallenbergs own immutable words, there should be no other choice.

May our commemoration of Raoul Wallenberg Day be not only an act of remembrance but a remembrance to act on behalf of our common humanity.

Irwin Colter is International Chair of the Canadian-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights; Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University and the first Isaacman Distinguished Visiting Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Gratz College; former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and longtime parliamentarian; and international counsel to political prisoners.

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Raoul Wallenberg rescued 100,000 Jews. He deserves better. | Irwin Cotler | The Blogs - The Times of Israel