General news - Chabad tangents
Costa del kosher
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
The ultra-Orthodox public has discovered the joys of vacationing
abroad. But catering for them is not so simple
By Irit Rosenblum
During the Passover holiday some unexpected guests will be vacationing
in Costa del Sol: a group of ultra-Orthodox from Israel and other
countries who will enjoy "an elevated Torah atmosphere, amazing trips,
gourmet glatt kosher l'mehadrin food and 1,500 square meters of
ultra-modern spa facilities," according to Ma'agalim, an ultra-Orthodox
travel agency that is organizing the trip.
The luxurious boutique hotel, Grand Elba Estefona, part of the Best
Small Hotels in the World chain, will be converted into a strictly
kosher facility before the arrival of the guests. Each one will pay
4,780 euros for a week, including meals, Torah classes, entertainment,
spa facilities, a a health club and heated swimming pool (flights not
included).
The Costa del Sol hotel joins a list of hotels in ski resorts in
Switzerland and spas in Slovakia and Italy that have recently been made
kosher given the rising demand among the religious and ultra-Orthodox
sectors. The religious public has also started to discover the allure
of trips to more distant venues such as South America, China, Thailand
and Alaska, and Medraft is offering them challenging jeep trips in
Turkey, Bulgaria and Montenegro with kashrut certification levels that
vary according to the demands of the group.
The director general of Gesher Tours, Nahman Kedar, estimates that in
2004 some 6,000 ultra-Orthodox travelers spent time abroad, compared to
some 4,000 in 2003 and less than 100 in 2000. In the current winter
season, more than 2,000 religious people have headed off for ski
vacations.
Separate saunas
It is no simple matter to make a spa abroad usable for ultra-Orthodox -
separate pool hours for men and women must be arranged, male and female
therapists must be found, there has to be a Torah scroll, synagogue and
separate beds in the rooms. Each of the hotels that have been made
kosher have not only sauna facilities, a swimming pool and tennis
courts, but also lectures given by rabbis and a daily class. Spa
treatments, for the purposes of this kashrut certification, are deemed
health-related treatments.
Michael Ebenbaum, a Gur Hasid and the owner of the Ma'agalim travel
agency, says: "In recent years, there has been a substantial increase
in the number of religious people going to hotels for Passover, because
it's a holiday that requires a lot of work, but lately there's also
been a lot of demand for winter vacations. It started in the more
progressive, modern Orthodox circles and slowly it's also reaching our
circles. Foreign ultra-Orthodox residents are already used to going to
hotels in France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria and their kids start
to learn how to ski at age 3. In France, for example, there are 80-90
kosher hotels."
Shalhevet Hasdiel, a journalist and editor at the religious magazine,
Style Elegant, says the religious and ultra-Orthodox publics are
catching on to trends in the general public, albeit a bit later. The
ultra-Orthodox, she adds, are not made from one mold and "there are
several shades of black. There are some ultra-Orthodox who don't have a
lot of money and in the summer they trade apartments with a family from
a different city. The Jerusalem cousins go to the beach and the Bnei
Brak side goes to the Western Wall. Some ultra-Orthodox people have
money but do not go on vacation. There is a strata of ultra-Orthodox
from Europe and the United States that was used to the good life abroad
and now they live in villas in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem and want to
continue traveling and enjoying."
The magazine Hasdiel lists the options available to the religious
traveler in Israel and abroad and also includes in its survey a list of
synagogues and kosher restaurants. The magazine is distributed by
direct mail to exclusive ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh,
Ra'anana, Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. According to some
estimates, she says, there are several thousand very wealthy
ultra-Orthodox people and more than 20,000 in the middle and upper
class.
The popular thing among the secular public, weekend getaways, is not as
popular among the religious because they spend Saturdays in the
synagogue and cannot travel. On the other hand, last-minute deals have
reached this sector as well. The Kosher Yashir company sold quite a few
such trips this past summer. "The religious have learned to be more
flexible and they are trying to live just like everyone else," says
Kedar.
`Shabbos goys'
All of the large travel and tourism companies in Israel - Natour,
Diesenhaus, Ophir Tours and others - have special departments for
dealing with the religious traveler. But, according to a manager at
Natour, Moti Zlotnick, the vacation purchasing style among the
ultra-Orthodox is more personal. "They buy from someone whom they know
and trust, someone from their community and less from the large
companies that are not part of their social milieu," he says.
The ultra-Orthodox travelers must contend with problems that are
unknown to secular travelers. "Independent travelers, not on an
organized tour, travel with two suitcases," says Aviva Blush of Derech
Hahofesh - Kishrei Te'ufa, "one full of clothes and the other full of
food - tuna fish, cold cuts and a burner." According to her, organized
tours for the religious are $300-400 more expensive than other tours,
because of the kashrut requirements as well as the fact that the
religious travelers must stay at a hotel in close proximity to
synagogues, which are usually situated in city centers. "Our flights
from Malaga, for example, return on Saturday," explains Blush, "but our
travelers can't leave the hotel before the Sabbath is over and
therefore the hotel charges for another night even though they don't
stay over there that night."
Even modern technologies - including the simplest ones - often pose a
problem for the religious traveler, such as using electronic room keys
on the Sabbath, and therefore, "We pay for a Shabbos goy," says Blush,
"and he circulates around the hotel and opens doors. Lights that
automatically turn on when a room is entered also pose a problem on the
Sabbath."
However, over the years, things have gotten a bit easier. Kashrut
awareness is developing in various cities around the world - in Paris,
for example, there are 150 kosher restaurants - and it is possible to
travel to them without bringing a suitcase full of food from home.
*********
There is hardly any city that does not have a Chabad center - including
Athens, where the Chabad members opened a restaurant ahead of the
recent Summer Olympic Games.
********
In Switzerland, every supermarket sells kosher products and in
Budapest, Paris and London, there are food shops with kosher sections.
Religious travelers who prefer traveling independently to foreign
locales can get help from the "lir'ot olamot" (seeing the worlds) Web
site, which contains a vast amount of information: synagogues and
special museums, practical articles about Jewish communities around the
world, restaurants, kosher food and mikvehs (ritual baths). Its address
is: http://www.olamot.co.il.
Staying home
According to a survey commissioned last year by the Tourism Ministry,
56 percent of households in the ultra-Orthodox sector (which numbers
590,000 people, which is equivalent to 107,000 households) went on
vacation in the past three years. Twenty-seven percent of the vacations
were in Israel and the rest were abroad.
Ahikem Ramot, the manager of the Kinar Hotel in the southern Golan
Heights, which caters to the religious public, says that lately there
have been signs of polarization among the ultra-Orthodox and that they
are more careful and stringent in their demands.
Every group requests its own kashrut supervisor and wants to be
separate from other religious groups. "Lately there has been
considerable demand not just for disconnecting the television, but also
for removing it from the room altogether," he says. "Today there are
even requests for the ovens in the kitchen to be replaced, and guests
don't just make do with the food they bring with them. You really have
to go through Passover cleaning every week," he says.
The manager of the Golan Heights Tourism Association, Israel Eshed,
says that the ultra-Orthodox vacationers who come there typically do
not want to see other ultra-Orthodox people and that's why they also
stay in non-religious communities and not necessarily in the religious
ones. "In the weeks after Tisha B'Av, when they are permitted to tour
and the kids are on vacations, the ultra-Orthodox come, for example, to
Moshav Ramot, which is a secular settlement," says Eshed. "They enjoy
an active vacation just as the secular population would - kayaking,
horseback riding and going on jeep tours. Those who are stricter about
their kashrut requirements come with their own dishes, and we cover the
tables with wax paper." (I.R.)
/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=546203
By Irwin N. Graulich (03/03/05)
There are times when God gives an indivudal a very appropriate name.
And it came to pass, that an Indiana preacher, Wead, brought forth a
son who was a very bad weed (sic). And this son became an evangelical
motivational speaker, even though he did not actually graduate from the
Central Bible College. This man, known as Douglas, who had three
brothers, kept close company with J. Douglas Cassidy, a Springfield
businessman who wound up serving time for conspiracy and tax evasion,
something The New York Times has conveniently forgotten to mention.
Furthermore, this holy man, Wead, has been associated with Jim Bakker,
the televangelist whose name is synonymous with scandal. And the public
continues to inhale Wead's vile smoke--and mirrors. How sick is The New
York Times for publishing transcripts of "private" conversations
between then Governor George Bush and a pseudo friend. Next stop on the
Times hit list--shocking photos of the president relieving himself in a
bathroom stall.
The former newspaper of record has taken the outrageous place of The
National Enquirer, using so-called expose journalism. To be clear,
there is probably no one in America, rather the entire world, who has
not uttered something foolish or embarrassing in "private." Had there
been tapes of private telephone conversations with Mother Teresa or the
Lubavitcher Rebbe, there would certainly be provocative and
disconcerting conversation chatter.
That The New York Times, a publication once revered by decent people,
would choose to give a platform to an Amway huckster like Wead, is
another nail in their journalism coffin. Is there a pure soul at the
Times' offices on 43rd street who has not uttered much worse in their
past. Wead's excuse about this being "historical" because it is a
conversation with a future president is quite pathetic. So is the
implication that he never sought to profit from these tapes.
Douglas Wead's book, "The Raising of a President," is simply a total
waste of trees and an environmental disaster. Its lack of any
credibility will place it on the "dollar shelf" at Barnes and Noble
very quickly. Wead understood the implications of his actions that
taping a person without their permission is against the law in many
states. Therefore, this religious criminal was quite careful to use his
Radio Shack weapon in the states where his activity was technically
legal.
If Wead's parents are alive today, they surely must be embarrassed by
the son they raised. When St. Laura Bush criticizes you as she did with
Wead, it means that you are, at the very least, bordering on evil.
Shame!
Mr. Wead has broken the all important third commandment, which clearly
states to religious people, "Those who carry God's name "In Vain" with
them by claiming to be religious, must be very careful with their
deeds." This brilliant commandment shows the importance of religious
people exhibiting good behavior at all times because they represent
God, whereas a secular individual only represents themself. Therefore,
the Lord must have recently reserved a special "hot spot" for Doug,
since he obviously is a religious fraud, in addition to being a human
swindler.
The important lesson of this tragedy is that there is a clear
difference between public and private. Just like we do things in our
bedroom or bathroom that we would not do on the street, there are
certainly things we say in our bedroom or den that we would not say in
the public sphere.
Richard Nixon and Hillary Clinton made remarks in private that were
described as antisemitic. Yet their records clearly show that they are
indeed pro Jewish and pro Israel. Any Jew who falsely accuses these two
figures of antisemitism, is not only a total fool, but implies that
Nazi "antisemitism" was not really that bad, if Nixon and Clinton could
be part of that label.
There is no doubt that Wead knows he is an insignificant player, and
simply used his brief association with the president to give him his
"10 minutes of fame." The "human weeds" of the world are dangerous for
our future, because everyone will have to "guard their tongue" from
childbirth.
The amazing thing is that the specifics of what George W. even uttered
were actually quite positive, although ABC News and The New York Times
tried to spin it otherwise. The fact that the liberal media cannot
catch Bush in a lie or even an offensive remark in private taped
conversations, shows what a decent guy our president truly must be. In
keeping with the media's criticism of Dubya's mis-speech, they
continually make a mountain out of a misplaced syllable.
Funny that the Bible, a work which most people at the Times are truly
ignorant, goes out of its way to explain that the greatest leader in
history, Moses, did not speak very well and actually stuttered. This
shows that one does not necessarily have to be eloquent like Neville
Chamberlain, to become a great leader. Moses would probably have had
great difficulty with the word "nuclear."
I can guarantee that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln uttered
four letter words while holding the office of president. Had this
language been in an inaugural acceptance speech or the Gettysburg
Address, that would have been an entirely different story. When George
W. Bush said during the recent presidential campaign that "he would not
answer any question about anything that happened before he was 40," it
established a brilliant precedent for other politicians.
Douglas Wead continues to preach "Love" while he acts horribly. What
the bad Weads of the world do not realize is that Judeo-Christian
"Love" is a verb not a noun. One must constantly be acting on it,
improving it, working on it and respecting it. Confidentiality and
honesty are important components of this love. That is why the Bible
says "Love God AND do His commandments." The idea is not just to throw
around the term "love," but to couple it with acting properly, as the
commandments teach us.
Mr. Wead should be excommunicated from the Church either formally or
informally. He can donate his royalties, as he has mentioned, to
whatever charity he chooses. However, he is still a scumbag!
Page printed from: http://www.americandaily.com/article/6992
Eli
JUDY LASH BALINT, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 24, 2005
When Svietka Rivilis's mother had to choose between Israel and the
United States as they emigrated from the former Soviet Union, the young
Svietka declared, "I'll never go to Israel, that fascist country."
Today, Svietka is a proud Israeli and a double emigrant, having left
both the former Soviet Union and the United States.
FAMILY HISTORY
Svietka grew up in what she calls a typical Russian family: as an only
child with an absent father. The family has roots in Lvov and Kishinev,
but Svietka's mother, a teacher, moved to Moscow, where Svietka was
born. On her mother's side, Svietka is a distant relative of the
Lubavitcher Rebbe, whom she now regrets not having met when she lived
in the United States.
Svietka's mother made one trip to the US in the early 1970s and
returned unimpressed.
"But she recognized that there would come a time when she wouldn't be
able to feed her family since she had no 'connections,' so she applied
to leave," Svietka recalls.
BEFORE ARRIVING
After several months in transit camps in Vienna and Italy, Svietka,
then 11, and her mother arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they had
distant relatives.
"I come from the real America," says Svietka with a smile, "where women
look like dairy farmers, drink pitchers of beer and go tail-gating."
After a short stint learning English as a second language at a public
school in Milwaukee where there were 10 Jews out of a student body of
1,000, Svietka skipped a grade, played for three different varsity
teams, and eventually graduated high school one year early.
It was attending a Conservative synagogue during her junior high school
years and her membership in the United Synagogue Youth movement that
exposed her to different ideas about Israel, and where she "began to
understand what it meant to be a Jew."
At the age of 14 she told her mother she wanted to move to Israel.
"Finish university first, then we'll discuss it," her mother replied.
During her high school and college years, Svietka's Jewish identity
blossomed and as she recounts, "I went on every organized program to
Israel that existed."
She volunteered on an army base through Volunteers for Israel,
completed Project Otzma and Marva, and started to learn Hebrew on a
kibbutz ulpan program.
Every time she returned from Israel to Milwaukee, she would spend weeks
crying and pining to get back for another Israel fix.
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in
social work, Svietka felt the pull of Israel was too strong to resist
any longer. That's when her mother finally told her "go already - I
can't stand seeing you so miserable." Leaving her mother was the most
difficult thing for her to do, she says, "but I just felt that I
couldn't live in the States any longer."
UPON ARRIVAL
Svietka's first stop in September 1989 was the absorption center at
Kfar Saba. Instead of concentrating on studies, she spent every minute
hitchhiking to get to know the country.
"I know every junction in this country from those days," she says.
Following ulpan, Svietka and three other olim rented an apartment
together in Ramat Hasharon, but within a year, Svietka moved on her own
to Kiryat Arba "for ideological reasons." Her next goal was to get
accepted into the Israeli army. Not so easy, since she was already in
her early twenties, way past the age of conscription."I believe if you
want to really understand the mentality, to stop being a galut
[Diaspora] Jew and really become an Israeli, you have to go. Plus, I
adore men in green with that little Tzahal [IDF] insignia on their
breast pocket," she laughs.
Persistence finally got her accepted into basic training ("a joke after
the Marva program"), after which she set her sights on becoming "pkida
plugatit" with the paratroopers.
Svietka spent more than a year with the paratroopers before deciding
her next post should be as an officer. Undeterred by army personnel who
told her she was too old to become an officer, Svietka went on to
become the first officer assigned to dealing with immigrants in the
IDF.
After being demobbed with a rank of captain in 1996, Svietka bought a
house in Eli and became its resettlement coordinator, a position she
held for three years.
"I sold myself out of the job," she says smiling. "Basically, after I
sold all the houses available in the settlement, I was out of a job."
Her next career move was to work for MK Benny Elon at the Ministry of
Tourism. She is currently working out of the Tel Aviv offices of the
Chernoy Foundation as project coordinator for The Jerusalem Summit, her
"dream job."
LIVING ENVIRONMENT
"I bought a view and the house came with it," she says of the
spectacular vista from her living room in Eli, looking south towards
Shiloh and Jerusalem.
"Eli is a model for what Israel could and should be. Secular and
religious people respecting each other and living together."
FINANCES
"I'm disgustingly rich," she jokes. "Don't you know that settlers get
everything for free in this country?"
Svietka claims to be the only Israeli not in minus at the bank, since
she refuses to buy anything if she can't pay cash for it.
ROUTINE
"I go overseas every day," she says of her one-hour commute from Eli to
Tel Aviv. After work (sometimes until 3 or 4 a.m.) and on weekends,
Svietka works on design projects and handicrafts that she's marketing
under the label "Svietka's Funky Stuff from Shomron."
LANGUAGE
She can banter in the latest slang in Russian, English and Hebrew. At
work and with friends, she switches effortlessly between all three
languages.
CIRCLE
Her two best women friends are an Israeli she met in the IDF, and a
successful American businesswoman who has been here for more than 30
years. "All my guy friends are Israeli, since we met in the army." Her
best friend from America, another Russian migr , is set to make aliya
in March.
FAITH
"I don't fit into any standard category. I'm a fanatical Jew, a zealot,
but I have no religious background. In America, we drove to shul on Yom
Kippur while observing the fast. I keep a very strict kosher home, but
eat out at non-kosher restaurants. I drive on Shabbat but do not light
fire. I am just a weird Jew and a regular Israeli."
IDENTIFICATION
Svietka describes herself as "an Israeli with leftover sparks of
Russian and American culture. I'll never be a true Israeli because I
won't throw garbage out of my car window."
The more years she lives here, the more she feels that "this country is
a miracle that we can't take for granted."
PLANS
Only half joking, Svietka says she plans for a nice young man to follow
up on this profile, call The Jerusalem Post and find his beshert.
In the works is a self-published book of "my own badly-written poetry."
She's also seeking a publisher for a more serious autobiographical book
for children "with a twist."
Svietka quotes the Ethics of the Fathers to sum up her life in Israel:
"Who is rich? He who is content with what he is given."
"I'll never be embarrassed to say that I moved here and stay here
because I am a pure, fanatical, irreversible Zionist."
Copyright 1995-2005 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/
03/09/05
Canadian Jewish News
By SHELDON KIRSHNER
Staff Reporter
The mass influx of Soviet Jews into Germany since the early 1990s has
revitalized a community that was in sharp decline, but their
integration has been problematic, a conference at the University of
Toronto was told last week.
The conference, The New German Jewry and the European Context, was
attended by experts from several countries, including Germany and
Israel.
The organizer, Y. Michal Bodemann, a University of Toronto sociology
professor, is the author of A Jewish Family in Germany Today: An
Intimate Portrait, published recently by Duke University Press.
At least 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union have immigrated to
Germany since reunification in 1990 and the end of the Cold War about a
year later, said Julius Schoeps, the director of the Moses Mendelssohn
Centre For European Jewish Studies in Potsdam.
Claiming Russian Jews have "saved Jewish life in Germany," he said
the community was in its "death throes" prior to these historic
developments and consisted of just 30,000 Jews.
Due to these events, Germany currently has the third largest Jewish
community in western Europe after France and Britain, noted historian
Michael Brenner, the chair of Jewish studies at Ludwig Maximilians
University in Munich.
Germany's Jewish population would have dropped to 20,000 had it not
been for this wave of immigration, he said.
In the past two years, more Russian Jews have settled in Germany than
either Israel or the United States, Schoeps disclosed.
Such has been the impact of Soviet immigration that several Jewish
communities in Germany, notably Halle and Schwerin, consist virtually
entirely of Russian Jews, said Judith Kessler, the editor of the
periodical Jewish Berlin.
And although they have culturally enriched the community and will
probably form its leadership in the future, upward of 75 per cent of
Russian Jews are unemployed and rely on welfare payments, Kessler
observed.
Bodemann said a high proportion of the new immigrants are geriatric,
with a medium age of 54, and tend to be pensioners. Kessler said only
about 15 per cent of Russian Jews are under the age of 20.
Given Germany's current high unemployment rate, many younger Russian
Jews are moving to the United States in search of better job
opportunities.
Brenner said Britain rather than Israel has become the destination of
choice for young Jews wishing to leave Germany.
If these trends continue, Bodemann observed, the Jewish community may
shrink to about 65,000 within 25 years.
Schoeps said 80 per cent of Jews in Germany today are of Russian and
eastern European origin. In Brenner's estimation, the community is
made up of "little islands of different groups," ranging from
Russians and Israelis in Berlin to Iranians and Romanians in Hamburg.
"It's anything but a homogeneous community."
But the leadership of its chief body - the Central Council of Jews in
Germany - has always remained in the hands of German-born Jews,
Brenner said.
Citing figures he amassed in 1999, Schoeps said about 50 per cent of
Russian Jews feel they have yet to be properly integrated in German
society.
In general, Russian Jews are better integrated in Israel and the United
States than in Germany.
Some 80,000 out of about 200,000 have registered with the Jewish
community, but only a fraction are really active in it, he went on to
say.
In somewhat wry fashion, Kessler described the average Russian Jew as a
civil engineer who wants a flat and a job from the Jewish community.
Many Russian Jews are in mixed marriages and regard themselves Jewish
in ethnic rather than religious terms.
Seventy per cent hold academic degrees, but approximately 40 per cent
are out of work, Schoeps said. As a result, some Russian Jews suffer
from psychosomatic and family problems.
They are largely cut off from Judaism and Jewish culture, and their
affiliation with the community is at best marginal, Kessler said.
Sixty per cent are atheists, but two-thirds hope their children will
marry Jews.
The majority join Jewish organizations not for religious but for
economic reasons.
Nearly half of all Russian Jews are from Ukraine and other former
Soviet republics.
Most immigrated to Germany to improve their economic status and join
friends and relatives already there.
Anti-Semitism was not a significant factor in their decision to leave
their former homelands, she stated.
Bodemann suggested Germany generally attracts a class of more
assimilated Russian Jews.
Jews of mixed ancestry who endured anti-Semitism in the old country
find themselves in an ironic situation and a twilight zone in Germany,
he said.
Unless they convert to Judaism, they may be excluded from membership in
the Jewish community, which generally defines Judaism within an
Orthodox framework.
"This is humiliating for them and causes alienation."
Brenner said eastern European Jews settled on "blood-soaked" German
soil after World War II despite Germany's central role in the
Holocaust. Indeed, German Jews went back to their former homes within
weeks of Nazi Germany's defeat. And in Cologne, Jews re-established
their community even prior to Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945.
Yet, after the Spanish Inquisition, hundreds of years elapsed before
Jews started returning to Spain, according to Brenner.
He said German converts to Judaism play an increasingly important role
in Jewish life, but scholars have not paid sufficient attention to this
phenomenon.
In the meantime, Chabad Lubavitch is increasing its influence in
Germany to the point where it may one day dominate religious life in
the community.
Among the other participants at the conference were Hanno Loewy of the
University of Constance, Leslie Morris of the University of Minnesota,
Frank Stern of the University of Vienna, Dan Diner of the Hebrew
University, Liliane Weissberg of the University of Pennsylvania, and
Anna Shternshis of the University of Toronto.
Matthew E. Berger
Special to the Jewish Times
MARCH 22, 2005
Washington
When Brandl Rifka was serving time in a Florida prison, she asked for a
special meal to break the Yom Kippur fast. Instead, she was given ham.
"They did it purposefully," she recalls angrily.
Brandl Rifka, who asked that she be identified by her Hebrew name
because she is on probation, said she became more religiously observant
during the two years she spent in Florida prisons after being convicted
of fraud.
In a telephone interview from Florida, she said she faced anti-Semitism
on a daily basis from prisoners and guards who, she says, inhibited her
attempts to practice her religion, and by others who suggested she
accept Jesus.
"It's beyond punishment," she said. "If you're a Jewish prisoner,
you're ostracized in many ways."
The question of inmates' ability to practice their religion will come
before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 21. The court will hear oral
arguments in the case of Cutter v. Wilkinson, an Ohio case that is
challenging the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress in 2000
that was intended to expand religious freedom in prison.
That legislation, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons
Act, said prisons should not impose substantial burdens on religious
expression, unless there was a compelling government interest. It also
said prisons should use the "least restrictive means of furthering that
compelling governmental interest."
The court's decision could have implications beyond the prison issue.
The legislation requires a compelling reason for the government to deny
religious organizations reasonable land use. If the court strikes down
the existing law, the land use provision would be defeated as well.
The case before the court stems from complaints by members of several
fringe religions - Wicca, Asatru and the Church of Jesus Christ -
who filed lawsuits after being denied the ability to worship and
purchase religious books and ceremonial items.
Experts say that some inmates become closer to God and religion while
they are imprisoned, partially because they are seeking understanding
and forgiveness for their misdeeds.
But just as Jews and other minorities are becoming more connected to
their faith, they face serious difficulties in expressing it.
"Prisons these days are much more punitive and restrictive than ever,"
said chaplain Gary Friedman, chairman of Jewish Prisoner Services
International, a Washington state-based group that advocates for
prisoners' religious freedom and provides services and materials.
"Corrections people are feeling the people's mandate to punish, and
that means restricting everything, and it extends to religious
practice."
Prisoner advocates say that even though the situation continues to be
difficult for Jews, the 2000 law has been instrumental in aiding their
fight for Jewish expression.
It is unclear how many Jews are in prison, because the government does
not keep statistics on inmates' religion. Friedman said his
organization is in touch with 5,500 inmates, but estimates the number
of Jews in prison could be double that.
The situation for Jews and other religious inmates varies from state to
state.
Some prisons prevent all religious expression, concerned that prisoners
will use religion as a way to get increased privileges. Indeed, some
Jewish prisoners interviewed admitted they were drawn to worship
services in part because it got them out of their cells each week.
But other prisons allow some religions to flourish while stifling
religious minorities.
In some states, such as Colorado, the chaplain service is run by
evangelical Christians who do not advocate for rights for Jewish
prisoners, Friedman said.
And most states do not provide adequate kosher foods, forcing observant
prisoners to eat vegetarian meals, which may lead them to stop keeping
kosher, he said.
Richard Dobelle, who spent more than 12 years in federal prisons for
trafficking cocaine, recalled in a phone interview from Florida that he
told the chaplain at one federal prison that he couldn't have grain
products on his tray during Passover, but the Christian chaplain didn't
tell the kitchen staff.
"He wouldn't do it," said Dobelle. "He said they couldn't do it, but
the kitchen told me something different."
Dobelle, who was released last December, said some prisons allowed him
to wear tefillin regularly but others did not, considering them a
potential weapon.
At one prison, he had to petition up the chain of command to keep his
tefillin in his room but the request was denied. He was told to go to
the chaplain every day to retrieve them; eventually, he sneaked them
in.
Friedman said prisons are scared of tefillin because the straps could
be used as a weapon or a tool for suicide. That, he said, is why many
penitentiaries do not permit their use.
At the heart of the court struggle is an effort to get prison officials
to think about ways to let religious materials in, Friedman said.
Instead, their tendency is to exclude anything if it could possibly
pose a threat.
A U.S. District Court in Ohio ruled for the plaintiffs in 2001, saying
the Religious Land Use Act did not violate the Establishment Clause of
the Constitution, because government is allowed to alleviate
governmental interference with religion.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed the decision
in 2003, arguing the legislation advanced religion by "giving greater
protection to religious rights than to other constitutionally protected
rights."
The Bush administration is defending the law, arguing that it does not
afford religious beliefs a new status, but ensures that religious
freedoms are evenly extended.
A wide consortium of Jewish groups are parties to a brief, filed by the
Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, that says the law has the purpose of
protecting the free exercise of religion from unnecessary government
interference.
For its part, the Ohio government has argued that religious
accommodations compromise prison security, and that the law would lead
to a dramatic enhancement of prisoner rights, disrupting prison
operations.
"It is a powerful tool that prisoners advancing religious claims can
use to obtain accommodations," said the respondent's brief. "And the
standard Congress mandates - strict scrutiny - is the most
demanding test known to constitutional law."
They also argue that the law exceeds Congress' powers.
In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a broader version of the
legislation, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, ruling that
Congress did not have the authority to enact such a law, which, the
court said, infringed on states' rights.
The new law, meant to address some of those concerns, cites federal
grants to state prisons as justification for the measure.
Meanwhile, experts and former prisoners say Jews are at a disadvantage
because there are only a handful of them at each penitentiary, as
opposed to many Christians and Muslims.
"It's like Tonto and the Lone Ranger riding alone, with all the Indians
around them," said Robert Burns, a former inmate who is now director of
prisoner services at the Aleph Institute, a Chabad organization that
reaches out to Jews in prison.
While some Jews embrace their religion in prison, others assimilate for
fear of anti-Semitism.
Brandl Rifka tried to get other Jewish prisoners to celebrate Rosh
Hashanah with her. She bought tuna fish and potato chips from the
commissary - her definition of a "special meal" at the time - and
went to bring it to her peers. An officer stopped her, called her a
profanity, threw the meal on the ground, and with a foot on her back,
made her pick it off the floor.
"I was discouraged from being a Jew," she said. "I understood at that
point if I didn't embrace my Judaism, that is how it gets lost for
everybody."
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
A contested estate led family to search its past
By Jennifer Moroz
Posted on Sun, Mar. 27, 2005
Inquirer Staff Writer
When 88-year-old Isaac Wolowicz died four years ago, he left almost $4
million, no immediate family and no will.
The door was left open for a nephew he never knew - one who his known
relatives say couldn't possibly exist - to lay claim to his entire
estate.
The ensuing quest to determine whether a stranger could be the Cherry
Hill clothier's rightful heir would span three continents and reach
back to the Holocaust, when the lives and family ties of the
Polish-born immigrant and millions of other Jews were shattered.
The case was resolved this month in state Superior Court in Camden
County, lawyers doling out the small fortune that Wolowicz had quietly
amassed over the years.
But resolution did not come before genealogists were consulted,
documents produced from Russia, depositions taken from family and
friends in France and Israel. And not before the realization that
digging up an old man's body and submitting his DNA for testing might
be the only way to determine whether an eccentric, Russian-speaking
maintenance man in Jerusalem truly was his dead brother's son.
"It's an amazing story," said Michael Heine, a Cherry Hill lawyer and
court-appointed mediator in the case. "It dealt with sensitive issues,
international issues, legal relationships, religious issues. It dealt
with history, it dealt with morality, it dealt with intrigue. It had
mystery."
The battle over Wolowicz's estate also had a poignancy, for he had
spent much of his life mourning family members who died under Hitler's
regime. If the man in Israel was who he said he was, Wolowicz never got
the chance to rejoice in finding one who survived.
·
Born in 1912, Wolowicz grew up in Zyradrov, Poland, about 25 miles from
Warsaw.
His younger brother, Shlomo Zelman Wolowicz (who is known in court
papers both as Shlomo and Zelman), would be among the first to perish.
A Polish soldier, he was killed at age 23 when the Nazis invaded Poland
in 1939.
What happened to the rest of the family is unclear. But according to
court filings, Wolowicz fled and spent the Holocaust years hiding in
Russia and France. When he returned to Poland after the war he found
that most of his family - including parents, his other brother, and a
sister - had been wiped out.
Wolowicz left Eastern Europe for New York, where he met and married a
Russian-born bookkeeper named Mollie Rutenberg. The couple later
settled in Cherry Hill, and Wolowicz started Wolow's, a store at the
Berlin Farmer's Market specializing in men's and western gear that he
would run until his death.
The couple had no children. When Mollie died in 1993, Wolowicz was
again left without any close family, and no relatives nearby. Geri
Cairy, whose family helped run the store, said that Wolowicz had
friends and relatives he still saw in New York and Israel, but that she
and her daughter Dana were the closest thing Wolowicz had to family in
South Jersey. "He was a very private man," said Cairy, of Sicklerville,
who did bookkeeping for Wolowicz's store. "It was hard to get close to
him, but we got as close as anybody could have."
In his later years, those who knew him said, Wolowicz dwelled on the
people he had lost. When he died, Wolowicz was still paying off the
$250,000 he pledged to name the sanctuary at Chabad Lubavitch of Camden
and Burlington Counties in Voorhees for his family. A plaque at the
Chasidic congregation lists in Hebrew the names of Wolowicz's 38 family
members who died at the hands of the Nazis.
Rabbi Mendel Mangel, who met Wolowicz in 1994 when he first started
coming to Chabad Lubavitch, said the old man believed his life was
spared to keep his family's memory alive. "He worried that no one would
remember who they were," Mangel said.
Mangel said Wolowicz had discussed donating money to a local school in
his family's name. Cairy said he also planned to visit an area school
to share his Holocaust experience.
When he died in his sleep Feb. 26, 2001, Wolowicz left a lot of
unfinished business. Said Haddonfield lawyer Glenn Henkel, the
court-appointed administrator of Wolowicz's estate: "None of this would
have happened if he'd just written a will."
·
Dana Cairy, 28, said the man she called "W" would have been devastated
by what ensued. "He always thought people were out for his money," she
said. "But to actually see people out for his money, that would have
destroyed him."
Court records show that Wolowicz was worth almost $3.8 million when he
died, just under $2 million after estate taxes and other payments were
deducted. The potential heirs started lining up. There were two
surviving first cousins, the rest more distant.
As lawyers were preparing to divide the money among those relatives,
Henkel got the call that would change everything.
The man on the other end of the line said he represented Alexander
Altshuler. Altshuler was, the man said, the biological son of
Wolowicz's younger brother, Zelman. And as the closest living blood
relative, he was laying claim to the old man's entire estate.
The tale that Altshuler would unravel stunned Wolowicz's cousins. He
said he had grown up in Leningrad always believing that the people who
had raised him, Boris and Sara Altshuler, were his biological parents.
How and when Altshuler, 66, learned otherwise is unclear. But according
to lawyers involved in the case, professional heir hunters led him to
Wolowicz's estate.
Altshuler's current lawyer, Sal Daidone, of Voorhees, would not permit
an interview with his client, a "very unusual intellectual" with an
advanced degree who moved to Israel in his 50s to reclaim his Jewish
heritage and ended up working as a maintenance man. Even with an
interpreter, Daidone said, an interview would be unproductive because
Altshuler "speaks in parables" and answers questions "with a 10-minute
philosophical response."
According to Daidone and court filings, Altshuler was born Isaac
Wolowicz in 1938, the son of Zelman and Zelda Wolowicz. After Zelman
died, Daidone said, Zelda fled to Leningrad, taking her baby boy with
her. When the Nazis laid siege to that city in 1941, she again fled,
this time to Siberia, where she died a few years later, leaving the
child in her sister Sara's care. According to adoption papers in the
court file, Sara and her husband, Boris, later officially adopted the
boy, renamed Alexander.
After reviewing those and other documents and speaking to Altshuler's
daughter, a university professor in Russia, a genealogist hired by
Henkel agreed that Altshuler must be Wolowicz's nephew. But Wolowicz's
cousins were still skeptical.
"There were a lot of factors that didn't convince us this was our
relative," said area lawyer Lee Herman, who represented Wolowicz's
first cousin, Helen Tannenbaum, now deceased.
Another first cousin, Halina Reitman, who lives in Israel, said she saw
Shlomo in Warsaw in 1938, the year Altshuler was born. "Shlomo was very
close to his family, and I believe it is impossible that he would have
married and fathered a son and not have shared that news," Reitman said
in court papers.
Family members questioned the authenticity of Altshuler's
documentation. Even if the papers were genuine, they said, there was no
proof that the man in the records was the right man.
"There was evidence that suggested two people with similar names but
who were not the same person," said Llewellyn Mathews, a Cherry Hill
lawyer who represented Reitman and second cousins Koby and Nehemia
Zucker, all from Israel.
The most conclusive way to confirm, or rule out, a family tie was a DNA
test, lawyers for the family concluded. But that would require exhuming
Wolowicz's body from a plot in a New York state cemetery, where he was
buried next to his wife.
Altshuler refused on religious grounds, calling an exhumation
"repugnant to Jewish ethics and Jewish religion" in court papers. And
state Superior Court Judge Allan Vogelson in Camden County was hesitant
to force such a drastic move. Also in question was whether such an
order by a New Jersey judge would be valid in New York.
·
The case was at a standstill, with Altshuler unable to prove that he
was Wolowicz's nephew, and Wolowicz's cousins unable to prove he
wasn't. Meanwhile, legal costs were mounting. By the fall of 2004, the
estate was worth about $1.6 million, Henkel said.
It was time for the parties to cut their losses.
"If the case were litigated and the court found Altshuler to be who he
said he was, he could take everything, and vice versa," Mathews said.
"It was an all-or-nothing game."
With the help of Heine, the mediator, the parties reached a settlement
that was finalized by court order March 7. Under the agreement,
Altshuler will get $405,000, out of which he will have to pay his legal
bills. An additional $225,000 will go to pay the cousins' lawyers, the
estate administrator, and the mediator. The eight cousins will share
the rest, about $1 million.
Whether Altshuler truly is Wolowicz's nephew and is entitled to the
money he was awarded is likely to remain a mystery forever. The
settlement in the case never established whether he was an heir.
"The family was willing to let him walk away with all the money, if it
was legitimately his," Herman said. "They would have welcomed him with
open arms... . It would have been terrific."
Altshuler, for his part, never cared whether he was a member of the
family.
"It's irrelevant to him," Daidone said. "Anything he recovered was
going to his daughter."
Who's Who
Isaac Wolowicz, a Polish immigrant who settled in Cherry Hill with his
wife, Mollie, and owned Wolow's, a clothing store at the Berlin
Farmer's Market.
Shlomo Zelman Wolowicz, his brother, a Polish soldier, who died in 1939
when the Nazis invaded Poland.
Alexander Altshuler, who grew up as the son of Sara and Boris
Altshuler, but claimed to be the nephew of Isaac Wolowicz.
Zelda Wolowicz, identified in court papers as Shlomo's wife. Altshuler
maintains that he was their son, born Isaac Wolowicz in 1938. After her
husband's death, he argued, she fled to Leningrad and then to Siberia,
where she died and left her child in the care of her sister and
brother-in-law.
Contact staff writer Jennifer Moroz at 856-779-3810 or
jmo...@phillynews.com.
marbl...@yahoo.com
This story was reported by DENISE M. BONILLA, RITA CIOLLI, CYNTHIA
DANIELS, MITCHELL FREEDMAN, CHRISTIAN MURRAY and TOMOEH MURAKAMI TSE
It was written by SAMUEL BRUCHEY.
April 2, 2005
Most months, the Friday evening "Holy Hour" at Our Lady of Lourdes
Church in Massapequa Park is devoted to the unborn.
Last night, with Pope John Paul II near death, more than 100 worshipers
who filed into the red brick church turned their thoughts and prayers
to the ailing pontiff.
"This is most special," said Marco Posillico, a congregant who helped
organize the Holy Hour. "It is dedicated to the Holy Father and his
total and complete recovery."
In churches and cathedrals from Riverhead to Rockville Centre, from a
Jewish center in Dix Hills to a Muslim mosque in Westbury, hundreds of
Long Islanders Friday joined in prayer and reflection for the
84-year-old pope.
"He's a saint," said Ollie O'Connell, 57, after attending the 12:10
p.m. Mass at St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre. "He's touched so
many hearts."
Outside, Sandy Bonadonna marveled at the Pope's vast travels and
tireless commitment to spreading the religion. "He promoted our faith
to all corners of the Earth," Bonadonna said. "He has gathered with
Eastern churches and he definitely promotes unity with other faiths and
respect."
As she stopped by the cathedral on her lunch break, Kathy Warszycki of
Kings Park recalled a trip to the Vatican she took with her son's high
school band. She had heard the pontiff was outgoing, but never expected
to have a personal audience with him - an experience she described as
"spiritual."
"He was so visible because he reached out to children," said Warszycki.
"That was something new, something a pope had not done before."
After attending a morning Mass at St. Isidore's Roman Catholic Church
in Riverhead, Marie Jacovino of Manorville said she saw the pope at
Shea Stadium in 1979 during his first of five trips to the United
States.
"It was just a thrill to see him," said Jacovino. "He really is the
pope of the people."
A regular at Holy Hour in Massapequa Park, Donna Crean, 44, of Oakdale,
said she felt fortunate to have seen the Pope in person in 1999 when
she attended a private Mass led by him in Rome, an experience she
called "awesome."
"He just exuberates holiness and peace and joy and love," she said
excitedly. "You can just feel it in his presence."
At Temple Judea of Manhasset, where the congregation will say the
Kaddish prayer of respect for the dead upon the pope's death, Rabbi
Abner Bergman praised the pontiff for reaching out to other religions.
"He was true to his faith, yet acknowledged the right and importance of
others to be true to theirs," Bergman said.
In the Lubavitch Chai Center in Dix Hills, Rabbi Yakov Saacks said he
was saddened by the pope's failing health.
"John Paul II was a gem," Saacks said, adding that he will spend a
portion of his Shabbat sermon discussing the pope. "He helped bridge
the gap between the two religions. He constantly reached out to Jews."
Msgr. Edward Wawerski, pastor of St. Ladislaus Roman Catholic Church in
Hempstead, scheduled a rosary in the early evening and decided the
church would be open until midnight. "After that, we will see what
happens and then decide," he said.
At Our Lady of the Island, the Rev. Roy Tvrdik was trying to decide
when to hold a special prayer vigil next week at the Eastport shrine.
"We want to do something to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in
this time of transition," he said.
After regular Friday services at the Islamic Center of Long Island in
Westbury, Aman Mohammed praised the pope for also reaching out to
Muslims.
"Dialogue is the best thing ... and I hope whoever replaces him in the
future will do the same thing," said Mohammed, of East Meadow.
Habeeb Ahmed, the center's vice president, said the world was indebted
to the pope for his human-rights efforts.
"He was a catalyst in bringing down Communism," Ahmed said, referring
to the pope's visit to his native Poland shortly after his
inauguration. He spoke to adoring crowds there about their human rights
under the Communist government.
But Ahmed Moustafa, 35, of Bethpage, said the pope and the "wealthiest
church on the planet" did not do nearly enough to help their followers
in poverty-stricken nations. He also criticized the pope for what he
said was an inadequate response to the priests accused of sodomizing
children. "He should prosecute them and put them on trial," Moustafa
said.
But Ziggy Wilinski, a retired postmaster in Riverhead, said John Paul
has been an inspiration to the Polish people for decades, and that even
now he is setting an example.
"In the last moments of his life, he still prays," Wilinski said at
Riverhead's Polish Hall. "As sick as he is, he shows a lot of
strength."
After morning Mass at St. Isidore's, the Rev. Kenneth Zach decided to
throw open the doors of the church to all who needed spiritual comfort.
As he stood on the steps outside the church, Zach said he would lead a
special Mass for the pope at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
During the service, Zach said, the congregation would pray that the
pope has the strength to accept God's will.
"Death comes for us all, even for the pope," Zach said. "We will pray
for peace and repose for him, even as we would for someone who is
nameless."
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
Lubavitcher
By Rick Holland / Daily News Staff
Friday, April 8, 2005
Pope John Paul II influenced millions of lives around the world, but he
had a profound impact on the life of Monsignor Timothy Moran of St.
Joseph's parish in Medway.
"He showed me the courage to grapple with the challenges and
difficulties in life, and watching (him) I learned we can be engaged in
insights that bring people together, rather than tearing them apart,"
said Moran.
What Moran observed was echoed by other area residents, young and
old, but the monsignor enjoyed a special privilege, having worked for
the Vatican during the 1980s. Moran was assigned to the equivalent of
the Vatican's state department, handling preparations for papal visits
among a variety of other diplomatic responsibilities.
In his work, Moran saw part of the pope's legacy being forged in
lands and among people who followed religions outside Catholicism. In
one assignment, Moran had to make preparations for the pope's 10-day
visit to India, where about 80 percent of the country's population of 1
billion are Hindu.
"The India goal was to move forward, by sharing a commitment to
truth, to get past particular religious differences," said Moran.
"Because (the pope) spoke of God, something resonated with people
around the world even if their own religious view was not quite the
same," said Moran.
While Moran had a first-hand chance to experience the effect of
the pope's life and actions, his legacy of reaching out to those with
different religious beliefs represents another important element of his
legacy.
"People's attitude towards Jewish people and Israel have changed
because of this pope," said Rabbi Mendy Kivman of Chabad in Milford.
"Many who looked at anti-Semitic attitude and behavior as the right
thing to do, now know that it is wrong."
Beyond cultural and religious boundaries, John Paul II was able to
build bridges to younger Catholics, who "loved him very much,"
according to Cheryl Duran, a leader with St. Brendan's Youth Apostolate
in Bellingham.
"I felt a very close connection to the Holy Father, he did a lot
of work with our generation," said Andrew Smith, 16, a St. Brendan's
parishoner. "He didn't hide himself in the Vatican like some other
popes might have...he genuinely spoke for us."
Even on positions on social issues, for which the pope was
sometimes criticized -- such as his opposition to abortion and same-sex
marriage -- Catholic teens were nevertheless inspired by a consistent
message.
"Some of my friends may have had problems with the Holy Father's
ideas about birth control and abortion, but he spoke for God, he taught
us what God wants us to know," said Valerie Kast, 16, a Franklin
resident.
The pontiff's ability to reach so much of the world's population
with a message of courage and commitment, is one of the reasons why
Moran believes his funeral services attracted such astonishing crowds.
"One of the most imposing images right now is just the amount
of(people) making (their) way to Rome for participation in the
services," said Moran.
An estimated 2 million people have journeyed to the Vatican for
the service, a pilgrimage that Moran noted is epic in its proportion.
"This funeral will be the most significant gathering of the human
family since the Garden of Eden or the flood," he said.
( Rick Holland is a staff writer for the Wellesley Townsman. )
Lubavitcher
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
By OMAR SHAKIR
On Monday evening, I attended the event "Confessions of a Muslim
Dissident" featuring Irshad Manji, the author of the top-selling book
"The Trouble with Islam."
To the casual observer, this event aimed to highlight the courage of a
feminist Muslim leader in standing up against the anti-Semitic,
homophobic and misogynistic elements of her faith and reforming her
religion in the face of widespread (and sometimes violent) opposition.
However, if one scratches slowly beneath the surface, it becomes
apparent that this event was consciously planned and executed to bash
an entire faith as a means of scoring political points.
The motivations of the event's organizational sponsors emphasize this
sad reality. Although Manji boasted having a wide array of co-sponsors
in her speech, the organization Manji's publicist contacted
originally to host the event was Hillel, the major Jewish organization
on campus. According to most sources, Hillel funded the majority of
this event, coordinated logistical planning and only sought other
co-sponsorships after the event had been planned.
Hillel's mission statement outlines the ambitious goal of
"provid[ing] a connection to Jewish life" and one of the major
Jewish co-sponsors of this event Chabad defines its primary objective
as "convey[ing] a compelling, rich, and meaningful Judaism that will
inspire all."
These objectives immediately call into question what interest these
organizations had in hosting this event and describing the necessity
for a reformation of Islam. These groups serve important roles on
campus and should focus on the wonderful missions they outline on their
Web sites.
If the genuine aim of the event was to foster discussion about Islam,
one would assume that the hosting organizations would notify and
coordinate the event with campus Muslim organizations, who dedicate
themselves to exactly that goal. Yet, neither the Islamic Society of
Stanford University nor the Muslim Student Awareness Network was
informed about the event until last Monday (long after the event was
scheduled). As an organization that itself represents a religious
community, Hillel has a unique responsibility to maintain respect for
other religious communities and not host events aimed at calling for
reform in another?s religion. By hosting such a controversial event
without consulting the targeted group, the event served to create
polarization, and not dialogue.
Moreover, Manji's tone and subtle rhetorical insinuations paint the
picture of an outdated, intolerant Islamic faith. Without a scholarly
background in Islam and with only her personal experience to guide her,
Manji makes many unwarranted assertions about "her faith" in a
sarcastic, cynical manner without any basis in textual scripture.
Although she extensively praised Islamic history and tradition, she
made these points in order to criticize the Islamic faith as it is
practiced today.
To the resounding cheers of a largely non-Stanford audience, Manji
suggested that Muslims today do not engage in any independent thought,
believe in a vast worldwide "Jewish Conspiracy," support slavery
and can only exist in intolerant, closed societies. By emphasizing her
"heroism' in standing up to institutional Islam, she further
emphasized the message of a backwards culture in many Muslim countries.
Her patronizing tone and entertainer-like style deliberately aimed to
polarize the Muslims in the audience, who she claimed are governed only
by "emotion" and not reason.
Unfortunately, this event is not an isolated incident - it is an
extension of an ongoing chain of Islamophobic events targeting Stanford
students by Hillel and other Jewish on- and off-campus organizations.
Last year, Hillel brought Daniel Pipes, who has publicly stated that
there is no harm in resorting to Japanese-style internment camps
against Muslims today, to campus to argue that militant Muslims are
those Muslims who actually practice their faith.
This year, Jewish organizations brought a professor who argued that
Arabs are untrustworthy and worse than the Nazis (Ruth Wisse, who spoke
on Oct. 29, 2004), a gay Muslim to talk about the way Muslims abuse
gays in their countries (Ali, who spoke on Dec. 1, 2004), and an Arab
woman to discuss "the Arab World's Hatred of America and Israel"
(Nonie Darwish, who spoke on Nov. 10, 2004).
Just a few months ago, Hillel hosted fervent racist David Horowitz, who
stated in his speech that the anti-war and Muslim organizations on
campus are "led by 60 Stalinists and include Muslim pro-terrorist
groups" as well as "North Korean Marxist-Leninist groups"
("Horowitz criticizes academia as 'leftist,' " Feb. 2).
These kinds of events serve to create a hostile environment towards
Muslims on campus. When Hillel, a fully staffed and housed organization
with a nearly $1 million annual operating budget, relentlessly attacks
Muslims at Stanford, who lack a single staff person and are comprised
only of student leaders operating with a meager $20,000 annual budget,
not much can be done to alter the tone of discourse on campus.
In a post-Sept. 11 America where Muslims are frequently targeted for
their beliefs and at a time in which Stanford lacks an Islamic Studies
Program and fails to offer a basic "Intro to Islam" course, these
events combine to create great misconceptions and stereotypes about
Muslims at Stanford. The recent breakdown of relations between the
Muslim and Jewish communities on campus is truly sad - however, real
dialogue cannot take place in the absence of mutual respect for one
another's beliefs and cultures. Monday's event proved that Hillel
has little respect for Muslims.
Sophomore Omar Shakir is co-president of the Coalition for Justice in
the Middle East.
Article URL:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/tempo?page=content&repository=0001_article&id=16921
Lubavitcher
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 02:00 02/05/2005
How Arik Sinai changed my life
By Yehoshua Saguy
SAN FRANCISCO - David Azoulay saw his future in the field of computers.
He studied electronics and computer engineering at the ORT school in
Acre and after his military service he returned to the school to be an
instructor there. When his brother opened a company in the United
States where he developed a program for sorting mail, Azoulay joined
him and worked as a project manager. But one evening in 1992 his life
changed entirely.
That evening he went to a performance by Israeli singer Arik Sinai in
Washington, D.C. The organization of the evening was catastrophic. The
impresario who represented Sinai in America asked Azoulay whether he
knew anyone who could organize an artistic performance in a more
professional way. "I told him that I'd only been in the States for half
a year but this field interested me and I was prepared to try."
Thirteen years after that evening Azoulay is the No. 1 Israeli
impresario in America. He was born in 1968 at the maternity hospital in
Nahariya, the son of a family that immigrated to Israel from Morocco in
the 1950s. The extended family had been sent to a transit camp in Acre,
and even though it was suggested to his father that he live with his
family in Kibbutz Afikim, they did not want to be kibbutzniks and moved
to Acre. The brother who invited Azoulay to America, 16 years his
elder, is Eli Argon, who had been a singer in the Artillery Corps
entertainment troupe and a reporter at Army Radio.
Azoulay focuses on Israeli artists, but he also organized a number of
major balls in the series of inaugural balls for President George W.
Bush and other projects. "In 1993 I brought Dudu Dotan here for
appearances in America," says Azoulay. "I was a rookie. This was my
first experience. Dudu was very enthusiastic and he said to me: `I've
already appeared abroad many times, but I've never been greeted as well
and so professionally.' We formed an excellent connection and Dotan
said to me: `Any Israeli artist you want, I'll help you get in touch
with him.' At that time he was chairman of EMI and had a lot of power."
In his first productions he paid high tuition costs. "I lost a lot of
money and I was cheated. There are a lot of fishy people in this
business. I organized performances that were artistic successes but
when we counted up the money, the catastrophe became clear. I went to
my brother and took a loan from him of more than half a million dollars
and I learned that it is better to do everything yourself than to get
help from certain types."
His own man
The decision to do everything himself worked perfectly. Two years ago
Azoulay organized a four-performance tour in large halls for Rita and
Rami Kleinstein. The tickets were snapped up but American Embassy
officials, who were suspicious after the collapse of the Twin Towers,
refused to issue a work permit for Rita, who was born in Iran.
Azoulay received word of this at his home in Washington. He contacted
Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to help, and the American ambassador
in Israel, who said his hands were tied, and finally the bureau of
President Moshe Katsav, who was also born in Iran. The president
contacted the ambassador and was told the new regulations even applied
to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and therefore nothing could be done.
Azoulay was already imagining the crash.
Only a few days remained before the first performance, nearly all the
tickets had been sold, and Rita was still unable to come. "There's
appropriate insurance against such situations, but I hadn't taken it
out," relates Azoulay. The newspapers in Israel reported that Rita had
not received a visa to the United States, and the people who had bought
tickets demanded their money back.
Azoulay decided on a final rescue move: He looked for a line to Tom
Ridge, who as head of Homeland Security was in charge of security and
visas. He recalled that at one of the events he had organized he had
seen the rabbi of the Chabad branch in Washington, Shem-Tov Levy,
embracing and engaging in a friendly conversation with White House
spokesmen Ari Fleischer. Azoulay contacted the Chabadnik and asked him
to use his connection with Fleischer who would in turn talk to Ridge.
The rabbi promised to try, Fleischer also promised and three hours
later Azoulay heard: Ridge had arranged everything. Rita could go to
the embassy and receive a visa.
Our conversation took place last week in the theater auditorium of
Foothill College in Silicon Valley. Outside the audience was waiting,
and Rita was on the stage making the final adjustments with the sound
and lighting people. Azoulay, unlike the rest of those present, looked
calm and relaxed.
"The proprietors of the auditorium forgot to tell us that it was
undergoing renovations and that all the roads leading to it were
blocked. When the trucks came with the equipment, we were in shock.
Very quickly I found an approach path, but it doesn't reach the
auditorium. We rushed out to the intersection, we brought a group of
Mexican day workers and all morning we worked as porters in order to
get the stage and the vast amount of equipment ready. It was only an
hour and a half ago that I managed to pop over to the hotel to shower
and change my clothes."
Throughout the conversation Azoulay doesn't say a bad word about anyone
- a very un-Israeli characteristic. All the artists who have appeared
with him are marvelous, all his colleagues win compliments.
Azoulay smiles and says: "I believe that in order to succeed you don't
need to say that everyone else is unsuccessful."
Reb Moshe
By Ben Arnoldy and Owais Tohid, The Christian Science Monitor
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - When Ashiq Nabi got into an argument with his
wife, she held up a Koran to protect herself, setting in motion a
deadly series of events.
fghan children read the Holy Koran, which has special status in
Islam.
By Shah Marai, AFP/Getty Images
In short order, word had spread through the tribal town in northwest
Pakistan that Nabi had blasphemed Islam's holy book. The terrified man
ran for his life.
Two days later, he was chased up a tree by more than 400 villagers.
"The mob spotted him and shot him dead," said Mazahar ul Haq, police
chief of nearby Nowshera.
The incident in April, latest in a string of vigilante killings over
blasphemy in Pakistan, illustrates the depth of rage among some Muslims
over allegations that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
defiled the Koran. (Related item: 'Newsweek' retracts Koran desecration
story)
The reports have triggered deadly anti-American protests in
Afghanistan, as well as demonstrations in Pakistan, Indonesia and other
Muslim countries.
The Koran has a special status in Islam that sets it apart from the way
many Christians view the Bible and Jews the Torah.
The Koran is considered to be the exact words of Allah, as spoken to
and through the prophet Mohammed, who dictated them in Arabic to his
companions in the seventh century. None of its 114 chapters, or suras,
has been altered. No translation is considered authentic, so Muslims
worldwide make their five daily prayers in Arabic, no matter their
native language.
Strict Muslims clean themselves ritually before touching the Koran.
They don't allow the book to be set on the floor and, in some cases,
hold that non-believers should not touch the book.
Christians have deep respect for the Bible - but a spectrum of views
on how to understand it.
Conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists regard it as the very
words of God, delivered through human authors who were guided by God.
The text, which can be faithfully translated into other languages, is
seen as inerrant and infallible, "a perfect book in history, science
and moral truth," says Charles Kimball, professor of religion at Wake
Forest University.
For believers such as the Southern Baptists, "not just the ideas but
the very words are God's," says Wayne Grudem, professor of Bible and
theology at Phoenix Seminary.
More liberal Christians, including many mainline Protestants such as
Methodists, would say the Bible contains God's truths in the form of a
historical record of people's religious experiences, Grudem says.
For Protestants, the Bible is the sole source of religious authority.
Catholicism adds the teachings and traditions of the church to the
weight of Scripture.
The Hebrew Scriptures, which Jews call the Torah, are seen by
traditional Jews as dictated by God to Moses. Every scroll, to be
authentic, is handwritten according to complex rules by a qualified,
religiously observant scribe, although Jews may read and study
translations in bound books, says Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, director of
Chabad.org, an arm of the orthodox Lubavitch movement.
Though all Jewish holy books are treated with great respect, there are
additional rules for the Torah. If a Torah scroll accidentally falls on
the ground, for example, the congregation is obligated to fast. Pages
damaged accidentally might be repaired, but if a Torah scroll were
defiled, it would have to be buried in a special place in a Jewish
cemetery.
In Pakistan, religious extremists have harnessed the emotions
surrounding the allegations about U.S. interrogators to challenge the
policies of President Pervez Musharraf's U.S.-backed government.
"Whether it is the existence of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, or
desecration of the Holy Koran at Guantanamo Bay, it benefits the
extremists," says Tauseef Ahmed, a political analyst in Karachi. "No
doubt it is a sensitive issue for all Muslims, but extremists try to
gain political mileage and fan hatred in society."
Contributing: Cathy Lynn Grossman; wire reports
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2005-05-16-holy-books_x.htm