Special blurb from our President!
andrew cohen
By President Elan David
Levi Cooperman
Good Evening,
On
Wednesday, November 26 at approximately 9:45 p.m., a group of unknown
terrorists attacked the Nariman House otherwise known as the Chabad
House of Mumbai, India. The terrorists captured six hostages.
Among the six, two of them were Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg (29, Brooklyn,
NY), and Rebbetzin Rivka Holtzberg (28, Brooklyn NY). The following
day all of the hostages were killed, including the Rabbi and his wife,
four other hostages in the Chabad house and a total of 172 people all
around the city of Mumbai. In a terrible day for humanity, let
alone Jews, we see another sign of anti-Semitism, which has been going
on since the early days of Judaism, and there is very little sign of
it stopping in the near future. In 2005, documentary maker Marc
Levin, created "The Protocols of Zion". The title is a play
on words on the famous pamphlet "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
which blames Jews for the decline of Communism and many more events
which are obviously falsified, and a new copy comes out every 5 years.
Levin's film absolutely shocked me. One of the first scenes
takes you to the office of an unknown historian. Levin sits down
with him and asks him a few history questions to make sure that he knows
what he is talking about and, he does. What happens next is frightening.
Levin asks the historian very simply "So who destroyed the World Trade
Center on 9/11/2001?" Without even thinking the historian replies
"The Jews." The movie takes us through the surprising growth
of Anti-Semitism in America, New York, and the world following the 9/11
Attacks. The movie put me into a whole new mind set of how prevalent
anti-Semitism is, even in the USA, even in New York, even on Long Island,
in Nassau County. If you go on Google news and search the words
swastika and vandalism, you will be able to find 70 accounts of vandalism
in the terms of a swastika in the past 9 months. One includes a Long
Island Jew, who on his My Space page posted a picture of himself with
a swastika tattooed on his chest with a quote that read, "I AM THE
NAZI JEW, AND I HATE MY ANCESTORS". We must all be advocates
for Jews around the world by continuously embracing our religion along
with our involvement in the state of Israel. Anti-Semitism is a terrible
thing, and we can help stop it by refraining from jokes pertaining to
Jews, and help those who are misinformed about Jews. It may seem like
something totally out of our hands but we can certainly make a difference
and help.
At this time I would like to
publicly apologize to Andrew Cohen for making him angry.
On this
upcoming Wednesday the 10th, at Manetto Hill Jewish Center (244 Manetto
Hill Road, Plainview, NY), Chazak will embark on it's first inter-divisional
lounge night in a very long time! This is an amazingly exciting event
and a lot of hard work and collaboration has gone into the planning
of this fabulous event. Both the Chazak and Rakevet board understand
the importance of opening the borders and creating new friendships with
Jews from other places. On behalf of The Chazak board and Eddie Ward
we would like to thank the Rakevet hierarchy as well as Divisional Director
Mike Hirsch for helping us make this program possible, and we are all
excited to see you on Wednesday.
Spring Kinnus
planning has begun and we already have amazingly exciting programs,
which you will all want to be a part of.
Quote of the
Week:
"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power."
US essayist, historian, & novelist (1783 - 1859)