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Noshes....................................................4oPINIoN................................................. 16cover.story.....................................20keePINg.kosher.............................. 32dear.rabbI........................................34torah.commeNtary.................... 35crossword.Puzzle..................... 36.gallery............................................... 37caleNdar........................................... 38obItuarIes..........................................41classIfIeds.......................................42real.estate.......................................44

CONTENTS

Israeli scientists learn how to multiply fishl The global fish crisis that is expected to take trout, salmon, and cod off the menu by 2050 may have been wrongly diagnosed. While a 2010 report by the united Nations Environment Program says that overfishing and pollution have nearly emptied the worlds stock of fish, a new Israeli study finds that the reason why fish larvae are doomed biologically to die days after hatching is a more important reason why fish are endan-gered.Dr. Roi Holzman and Victor China of

the department of zoology at Tel Aviv universitys George S. Wise Faculty of life Sciences say the reason why 90 percent of fish larvae are doomed to die mere days after hatching has to do with hydrodynamic starvation. With this understanding of the mechanism that kills off the majority of the worlds fish larvae, leaving only a marginal

proportion to populate the worlds oceans, We can help find a solution to the looming fish crisis in the world, Dr. Holzman said.The researchers say that hydrody-

namic starvation defined as the phys-ical inability to eat because of environ-mental incompatibility is the reason so many fish larvae perish.By focusing on the constraints

placed on larvae survival, we have a better chance of producing higher quality mariculture, Dr. Holzman said. (Mariculture is a specialized branch of aquaculture involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other products in the open ocean.) If we can produce better fish, this will have huge implications for our ability to maintain fish populations.The study was published in PNAS.

ViVa Sarah PreSS / iSrael21c.org

Candlelighting: Friday, July 4, 8:13 p.m.Shabbat ends: Saturday, July 5, 9:21 p.m.

Torah too R-rated for some chasidim, so they edited itl It started with bus stop librar-ies in 2011, branched out to beach libraries last summer, and now Tel Aviv-yafo Municipality has opened its first street library on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv.Tel Aviv already has 22 public

libraries, and more than 400,000 books are borrowed from them every year, but Mayor Ron Huldai decided it was time to take the books to the people.A recently published Bible study guide in use in a chasidic village in suburban New york omits some suggestive passages from the Book of Genesis, according to Israeli scholar and blogger David Assaf of Tel Aviv university.The censored chumash, or Bible,

was printed for Beit Tziporah, a girls school in New Square, a vil-lage of Skverer chasidim in New york States Rockland County.

For example, the chumash de-letes a section at the end of Gene-sis 19 in which lots two daughters get their father drunk and sleep with him so they can get pregnant. The chumash also omits the entire first two Torah portions of Genesis, cutting out the story of the worlds creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, and the Tower of Babel, beginning in-stead at the story of Abraham.Is this because the first two por-

tions are about non-Jews?Among other omissions in the chu-

mash: The story of Onan, who spilled his seed rather than impregnate Tamar; Judahs sexual encounter with his daughter-in-law Tamar, disguised as a prostitute; and Potiphars wifes attempted seduction of Joseph.Meanwhile, other seemingly adult

stories are left in, such as the tale of Dinas rape, Assaf notes.

Uriel heilman / JTa.org

l One hundred years ago, the armies of Europe were gearing up for what would be known first as the Great War, and then as World War I. Despite the implied promise, the war trig-gered by the assassination of Aus-trian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, did not end all wars. But it did end four empires German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman and shattered a gen-eration of young European men, who were raised on the virtues of idealistic nationalism and eagerly enlisted to fight for glory.The war took the lives of more

than 9 million soldiers; 2,515 of them are buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The cemetery was opened after General Edmund Allenby conquered Jerusalem from the Turks in 1917.Inside the cemetery, the Jerusa-

lem Memorial commemorates 3,300 British Commonwealth soldiers who died during the war in operations in Egypt or Palestine, and who have no known grave. The Jerusalem War Cemetery is open permanently, and visitors are always welcome.

rachel neiman / iSrael21c.org

In Jerusalem, soldiers of the Great War

Noshes

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Would the exemptionextend to employers with religiously grounded objections to ... pills coated with gelatin? Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, dissenting from Justice Samuel Alitos ruling granting Hobby Lobby a religious conscience exemption from providing its employees with contraceptive insurance

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Extant is a sci-fi/mystery series, produced by STE-VEN SPIELBERG, set to start on CBS on Wednes-day, July 9, at 9 p.m. Halle Berry plays an American astronaut who inexplica-bly returns home pregnant after a year in space. The supporting cast includes CAMRYN MANHEIM, 53, (The Practice). She plays Sam Barton, Berrys best friend and confidant.

The Times of Israel reported on June 23 that filmmaker

JERRY NEWBERGER and sports writer JONATHAN MAYO are organizing a special trip to Israel for Jewish major and minor league baseball players. Newberger thinks that he could make an interest-ing film about how the trip affected the players who went to Israel. It also would allow these players, most of whom have little Jewish religious back-

ground, to get in touch with Israeli/Jewish life and culture. They already have the enthusiastic backing of Houston pitcher JOSH ZEID, 27, whose sister went on a Birthright Israel trip. (It was life chang-ing for her, Zeid told the Times.) Players who have given them positive responses include Pitts-burgh first baseman IKE DAVIS, 27, Detroit second baseman IAN KINSLER, 32, and now-retired out-fielder GABE KAPLER, 38. Tigers manager BRAD AUSMUS, 45, the former coach of Team Israel, gave Mayo and Newberger some baseball contacts in Israel to help with orga-nizing clinics led by the players. The duo caution that the project is still at an early stage and much work needs to be done before it becomes a real-

ity.

N.B.

Damon LindeloffDamon Lindeloff

LEFTOVERS:

HBO cautious with new series

Noah Silver

Steven Spielberg Camryn Manheim

Leftovers began on HBO last Sun-day, June 29. HBO

ordered just 10 episodes. Pundits speculate that the network wants to see whether theres sustained interest in a series about what happens to people left in a suburban com-munity when most of the population is taken up to heaven by the rapture (a Christian belief that Chris-tian believers will be taken up to heaven in advance of other events, mostly bad, happening on earth). Ive never read about any Christian denomination that believes unconverted Jews will be included in the rapture, and one of the leftovers is a character with a Jewish name Levin.Leftovers was co-

created by DAMON LINDELOF, 41, who also created Lost. The end-ing of Lost, which was quasi-religious with characters, alive and dead, reuniting in a church disappointed and con-fused a huge portion of the shows audience. Speculation is that HBO is hedging its bets about another Lindelof series with a metaphysical plot line until after the first ten shows air. The cast includes Amy Brenneman, the former star of Judg-ing Amy, whom many think is Jewish. Her father was born and raised a Congregationalist Prot-estant and her Jewish mother converted to her fathers faith decades ago. (By the way, Lindelof was

raised and had his bar mitzvah in Teaneck).The FX series Tyrant

began last Tuesday, June 22, but you can catch up via encore showings and on-demand/on-line view-ing. Basic plot: Bassam Barry Al Fayeed (played by British actor Adam Rayner) is from the fiction-al war-torn Arab country of Abbudin. A physician and the younger son of Abbudins dictator, he has been living in self-imposed exile in Los Angeles for nearly 20 years. Barry returns to his homeland with his American fam-ily for his nephews wed-ding. His arrival leads to a dramatic culture clash, as he reluctantly returns to the familial and national politics he once left. The pilot, which got good re-views, and most of the rest of 10-episode first season was filmed in Israel. The supporting cast includes NOAH SILVER, 18, who plays Sammy, the son of Barry and his wife, Molly. Silver has made Israeli films, as well appearing in American shows like The Borgias. Also in big supporting roles: JUSTIN KIRK, 45; MORAN ATIAS, 33, and Ashraf Barhom, 34. Kirk, whose mother is Jewish, plays an Ameri-can diplomat stationed in Abbudin. Atias, an Israeli Jewish actress, plays Leila, the wife of Jamal, Barrys older brother, who is next in line for his countrys presidency. Playing Jamal is Barhom, a Christian Israeli Arab and University of Haifa grad.

One of my favorite Eli Wallach stories Acting legend ELI WALLACH, who died last week at 98, was a great storyteller. Heres one of my favorite Wal-lach anecdotes. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Wallach went to the University of Texas because the tuition was very low. While there, he became a pretty good horse-man. This came in handy when he was cast as the leader of a group of about 40 mounted Mexican bandits in the great 1960 Western, The Magnificent Seven. The movie was filmed in Mexico and real-life Mexican cowboys were hired as Wallachs gang. Wallach related how they quickly bonded around him and kind of viewed this little Jewish guy from Brooklyn as their leader. A couple of times, Wallach actually had to tell them to cool it when they misread a situation and thought the director or another cast member was dissing their chief. (By the way, Robert Vaughn is now the sole surviving Magnifi-cent co-star.) N.B.

Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven

California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at [email protected]

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Turning dance into mourning and uniting in loveRabbi URi Goldstein

Nothing can compare to being in Israel right now.

Nothing can compare to being in Israel over the last two and a half weeks since the news of the kidnappings of Eyal, Gil-ad and Naftali first came out. I would like to share a snapshot of my experience of this moment.

When I heard the terrible news, the first thing that came to mind was this verse from the book of Lamentations: The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

What was supposed to be a night of joy turned quickly into a night of mourning.

Why did I think of this verse? Prob-ably, because like many people, I am a narcissist. I channel every major world event through the prism of my own experience. I dont think that Im alone. How many times have you heard people tell you exactly where they were at the moment that they learned of the JFK assassination? I can envision clearly the precise moment on September 11, 2001, that I heard about the attacks on the Twin Towers.

Why do we do this? Its probably because we have a sense that these major events are not just happening: They are happening to us. Even if we are far from them physically, we instinctively feel as if we are experiencing them, wherever we might be. To say that I remember where I was on September 11th is actually to say,

This is where September 11th happened to me.

That is how I have been experiencing this terrible night as well. We had just fin-ished celebrating my oldest sons gradu-ation from sixth grade. (In Israel, kids graduate elementary school after sixth grade. Seventh and eighth grades are on a continuum with high school.) The kids, wearing their bright-orange class T-shirts, were slapping five, trading emails, and taking pictures with each other and with the teachers.

Then the text messages started coming. One by one, parents who seconds earlier

had been laughing with their children began gathering around their phones. Faces fell. Mothers began crying. One mother who had made aliyah from Britain came over to us, and smiling though her tears, she said, This is the way it is here. Ups and downs coming at the same time. Youll be in the middle of a simcha and suddenly hear terrible news.

That was my experience tonight. Our dance is turned into mourning.

But tonight, I think that there is more to it than simply wanting to claim a moment as our own. Here in Israel, the last two and a half weeks have been filled with a wide

array of emotions: tension and antici-pation, anger and even some sadness, but the emotion that has probably been most palpable during this time has been love. The charge to bring back the boys was led by their remark-able, strong, articulate mothers, who have radiated love for their chil-dren. This country has responded by embracing the families and loving their children as well, as Iris Yifrach, Eyals mother, said last night to a crowd of tens of thousands in Tel Avivs Rabin Square.

It is remarkable to see [almost] an entire country join together to love three teenage boys; to know that behind every prayer, every song, every headline and hashtag, was the sense that we had gained three new broth-ers and they had gained thousands of brothers and sisters throughout the world, as Gilad Shaers mother said at

the same rally. Tonight, all of Israeli society is joining together in grief over three boys who taught us how to unite in love.

Maybe that is the secret of this countrys resilience. Yes, Israeli society is notoriously loud and abrasive, but maybe, just maybe, in these heartbreaking moments, we dis-cover another side: That, in the words of Song of Songs at its core, it is suffused with love. A love that unites us in grief and gives us hope for a brighter future.

Uri Goldstein is the rabbi of Congregation Ahavat Achim in Fair Lawn. He and his family are now in Israel on sabbatical.

How goodly are your tentsBringing the Jewish people together

lee lasheR

With a heavy heart I cant help but think of the following verse from this weeks Torah portion, Balak:

How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!

As for me, O God abounding in grace,I enter your house to worship with awe

in Your sacred place.To You, Eternal One, goes my prayer:

may this be a time of your favor.In Your great love, O God, answer me

with Your saving truth.I find myself often thinking about this

verse when I see the countless acts of chesed, or kindness, and tzedekah, char-ity, that our community does day in, day

out, week in, week out, year in, year out. And this happens in Jewish community after Jewish community around the world.

My own rabbi, Shmuel Goldin of Con-gregation Ahavath Torah, and I happen to have discussed this concept recently, and I must tell you I experienced it myself growing up. It taught me so much. In fact, it changed my life.

On our recent KMF Kilometers for Koby hike in the Golan in Israel, I had a power-ful experience. It was another How lovely are your tents, O Jacob moment. Here is what I wrote to describe it:

Once we made it down Har Bental we continued our hike through some beau-tiful fields and valleys, and at one valley we saw acres of vineyards that are used to

produce some of Israels finest award-win-ning wines. There, we heard an incredible story from 1967.

It seems when Israel was victorious in the miraculous 1967 Six Day War and cap-tured the Golan Heights, soldiers came to this particular spot and found a mock kib-butz set-up with various rooms and loca-tions all marked in Hebrew. This was used by the PLO to practice training for terror attacks against kibbutzim in the northern part of Israel. This even included practice for raiding the childrens area of a kibbutz.

Israel tore down this despicable place and planted vineyards. We plant, seed, grow, create, and with Gods help bring blessings. Our enemies sadly focus on destruction.

As I think about Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal zl and their families (and really all of us) and sit here with tears in my eyes, I have two competing emotions and thoughts.

First, I wonder what kind of people kid-nap and murder children and teenagers,

and how many Palestinians celebrate this despicable crime. This part of their society the part based on hate, intolerance, vio-lence, and murder must transform. Only then can we achieve our dreams of peace.

Secondly, the outpouring of extra prayers, love, acts of kindness, mitzvot, and unity especially unity by Am Yis-rael, the national of Israel, during this time brings light into a seemingly dark world.

We cant let go of this. In fact we need to do more of these positive acts and work harder to bring the Jewish people together. The Jewish people represent hope, love, faith, and kindness, and our enemies are the exact opposite. The world must understand this. Bilam did when prophe-sized Mah tovu ohalecha Yaacov How goodly are your tents, O Jacob.

Note the last part of this sentence only in great love can we find Gods truth.

Lee Lasher is the president of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood.

Near where Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel, and Gilad Shaer were abducted, Israelis light memorial candles. Yonatan sindel/Flash 90

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Letter from IsraelUnanswered prayers

abiGail Klein leiChMan

I write this on Tuesday morning, as all of Israel and decent people everywhere reel from the cruel shock of yesterday afternoons discovery of the bodies of kid-napped teenagers Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrach.

Mondays date on the Jewish calen-dar was 2 Tammuz, a day of emotionally mixed connotations for me. On 2 Tammuz a decade ago, my 10-year-old niece Malka Klein (may she rest in peace) was killed by a speeding van as she crossed a street on her way home from school in Rehovot. On 2 Tammuz four years ago, our first grand-daughter, Elisheva Leichman, was born in Jerusalem.

Yesterday we began our day by sing-ing Happy Birthday to Elisheva on the phone, and ended it by traveling to Rehovot for a 10th yahrzeit gathering at Malkas grave. We drove home in silence in our rented car, never thinking of turning

on the radio. And so it was not until 10:30 last night that we learned of the discovery of the boys lifeless bodies.

How could it be that these precious teenagers already were dead as millions of us gathered for mass recitations of Psalms? How could it be that they lay bur-ied even as their mothers appealed to the U.N. Human Rights Council, wishing not for revenge but only for the chance to hug their sons again?

Hopes are dashed and prayers left unan-swered for reasons no mortal can fathom.

As of today, thousands of words have been written about this heartbreaking tragedy, and thousands more will follow. I cannot add much to the outpouring of grief, anger, sadness, and the inevitable political commentary from all points on the spectrum.

But I would like to share just a few of the local reactions I have seen.

From a young woman in my neighborhood:

The only thing we, as individuals, can do is try and make this world a slightly better place, in memory of the boys who wont come home. Please pledge that for the duration of the seven days of mourn-ing, every time you go to the supermarket or the makolet [grocery], you will donate three food items to the needy one for

each boy. If you enjoy a meal out, consider buying an extra meal to give to someone outside who looks hungry. Hopefully the families will find some small comfort in knowing that the memory of their sons is being honored by kind deeds.

From Women in Green:

Rabbi Steven Burg of the Simon Wiesenthal Center addresses a memorial gathering at Votee Park in Teaneck on Tuesday evening. A similar meeting for students at five local Orthodox middle schools and their parents was planned for Wednesday evening, after this paper went to press.

see LETTER PaGe 15

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Better togetherYavneh students and Jewish Home at Rockleigh residents learn from each otherPhil Jacobs

Shirlee Stern spent her career as a librarian in suburban Maryland.She loved to read childrens books to groups of preschoolers, who sat glued to her every word.

Ms. Stern, who lives in the Jewish Home of Rockleigh, still loves reading to preschoolers, but now she holds the books up to the cam-era in her computer and uses Skype. On the other end, students at the Yavneh Academy in Paramus sit in a circle and watch her.

That is just one aspect of the intergenera-tional relationship between Rockleigh resi-dents and Yavneh students. At least once a month throughout the school year, more than 22 Yavneh Academy eighth-graders vis-ited the home, where they taught residents about technology. Students showed resi-dents how to do everything from using email to researching a topic on Google to shopping online.

In the last three years, Yavneh students have brought everything from a smartphone to a laptop to an iPod to the home, and have helped residents use software ranging from Skype to green-screen technology.

The program, which grew out of a meet-ing between Yavnehs director of educational technology, Chani Lichtiger, and Rockleighs executive vice president, Sunni Herman, was so successful that Yavneh recently announced that it had received a generous grant from the Legacy Heritage Fund. The grant, called Better Together: Connecting Generations, will help ensure that the pro-gram will continue.

The project that provided the climax to this school year put Yavneh students and Rockleigh residents in a dancing mood. The Yavneh students, all eighth-graders, used a popular Katy Perry song, Firework, as the soundtrack to a music video they produced. They used green-screen technology to make it look as if they and the Rockleigh residents were standing in front of a fireworks display. Everyone in the video is dancing some standing in place, some from their wheel-chairs and many of them, students and elders alike, lip synch the words.

Cause baby, youre a fireworkCome on, show em what youre worthMake em go ah, ah, ah!As you shoot across the sky-y-yMs. Stern loved every minute of it.The children are proactive in having proj-

ects to do and coming up with great ideas, she said. They had us miming, and it was just like Hollywood when we saw ourselves on the screen.

They were so good and so loving. They behaved so nicely. Their eyes were wide open. We had this interaction which was just marvelous.

Ms. Lichtiger said the connection between the two institutions opened up new worlds to the residents.

Our students taught them how to get on

the Internet, how to get an email address, she said. Some of the residents even started communicating with family members, because our students taught them how to do it.

Rabbi Jonathan Knapp, Yavnehs head of school, said that the intergenerational pro-gram is important to the students as well as to the residents of the Jewish Home.

In a short time, its become one of the schools signature programs, he said. Its a win-win for the residents and the students. There wasnt any fear from our eighth-grad-ers, just a little bit of the unknown. They embraced the opportunity. And the reason why it worked so well was the exuberance of the Home at Rockleigh. The Home allowed this to develop in such a great way.

The Rockleigh program became so popular at Yavneh in its first year that now students have to apply to join it.

Among many other lessons, students have learned that bullying is not a new phenom-enon, and that its scars can last a lifetime.

George Hantgan, who lives at the Home, talked about having been bullied when he was a child. His mother chased away the bul-lies with a broomstick.

Hes 92 and he remembers being bullied when he was a little boy, Ms. Lichtiger said.

Ms. Herman is a Yavneh parent; she met Ms. Lichtiger at an open house meeting at the school.

We were showing different things that we do to integrate technology, Ms. Lichtiger recalled. Ms. Herman was impressed. She

Students from Yavneh Academy in Paramus bring the latest technology to residents of the Jewish Home of Rockleigh.

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said, I cant believe the things you are doing here. We really ought to have a relationship.

The effects on Home residents also are far-reaching. We were opening up a new world for the residents, Ms. Lichtiger said. Some of them had never touched a computer. Some had cell phones and never used them except to make calls. Our kids were calling the children of some of the residents and asking them for their email addresses. When the residents then started communicating with their family members, it was an incredible experience.

As they learned about Google, the residents often talked to the students about their lives. As he learned about Google Earth, one resident went on a virtual trip to his birthplace in Europe with the students, and he described what it had been like to grow up as Jew surrounded by hostility and anti-Semitism.

Ms. Lichtiger said that sometimes students would learn even more difficult life lessons, when a resident with whom they had been working died.

The relationships were built from week to week to week, Ms. Lichtiger said. Sometimes they were so close that the students kept in touch during summer vacation.

Ms. Lichtiger said the students program has evolved. At the end of the first year, they were taught interviewing skills. They interviewed a resident, and created a personal video telling that residents life story. The videos were shown at a special presentation; the resident sat with his or her student interviewer and the residents family mem-bers. Each resident was presented with his or her video.

They have that for life, Ms. Lichtiger said.Next, she continued, We excerpted life lessons from

the different interviews, and we put together a video of those lessons.

The students also benefitted from the program.The first year we chose students who didnt necessar-

ily shine in other ways, she said. By the end of the expe-rience with the Rockleigh residents, they were like differ-ent children. They felt great about themselves. It made a difference in their lives. They didnt shine in the past, but now they did shine.

At the start of the second year, Home residents received many pieces of artwork from a school in Israel.

That began yet a different relationship, Ms. Lichtiger said. We wanted to write thank you notes for the artwork to the Israeli children. So the emails needed to be written in Hebrew. We brought along an Ivrit (Hebrew) teacher, and using a program, we translated the English of the resi-dents into Hebrew.

We started to see that the students were learning so much from the residents. The residents were making a difference in the lives of our students.

Sophia Malozany of Suffern, N.Y., who just graduated from Yavneh, said she loved every visit to the Home.

At first it was kind of hard, because we had to learn about one another, Sophia said. But it got easier as we moved along.

She talked about Skype sessions about bullying as one of the high points of the year. Another was the Firework video.

To see the residents waving their arms and smiling it was really nice, she said.

The program has been magical for Ms. Lichtiger.Ive been involved for more than 30 years in teaching,

and when I started this program with the Jewish Home at Rockleigh I felt we were making a big difference, she said. I saw the children change and the residents change with their relationships. These memories will be with our students forever.

Its been a totally remarkable experience.

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Local rabbi takes aim at gun violence preventionWill urge communities to leverage their purchasing powerLois GoLdrich

Sometimes, being number one is a dubious distinction.Certainly, that holds true in the case of gun ownership, where the United States with 97 guns per 100 people holds first place in the world.

That means that there are more than 300 million guns in the country. That makes it easy to agree with Rabbi Joel Mosbacher that theres a real culture of gun love in this country.

The religious leader of Mahwahs Con-gregation Beth Haverim Shir Shalom since 2001, Rabbi Mosbacher has perhaps an even greater and more personal interest in these statistics than do most concerned citizens.

My work in this area is personal, he said. My father was murdered in Chicago 15 years ago.

Now, for the first time, I feel there is a meaningful thing to do with this story.

Over the next year, Rabbi Mosbacher will spend half of his time working directly with his congregation, and the rest of the time working on what he calls a powerful campaign.

Under the auspices of the Metro Industrial Areas Foun-dation, a national network of multifaith community orga-nizations, Rabbi Mosbacher will help com-munities across the country engage in an initiative to prevent gun violence. New Jersey Together, which is part of the national coali-tion and has tackled issues ranging from the environment to hunger, was instrumental in creating the new national strategy.

The campaign, which takes its name, Do not stand idly by, from the Book of Leviticus, will resonate with people of faith as well as with lawmakers, Rabbi Mosbacher said. Its goal is to leverage the purchasing power of cities and states who buy 40 percent of the guns in the country to pressure gun man-ufacturers to create safer gun distribution standards.

Were trying to hold [gun companies] accountable, he said, describing the compa-nies as pretty powerful players in this story.

This approach, which the rabbi will further through visits, conference calls, videoconfer-encing, and Skyping with faith leaders across the country, already is being used in 10 states.

After Newtown, New Jersey Together and the national organization tried to figure out how to act powerfully on the issue of gun vio-lence, Rabbi Mosbacher said. The leaders helped develop a national strategy.

With the leverage approach already being

tried in a number of states, the national orga-nization began to look at

this as a national campaign, he continued. Once that decision was made, leaders of the national group realized that they needed staff members to coordinate the efforts of the various states.

I was pushing for a national staff per-son, Rabbi Mosbacher said. The leaders of Metro IAF said, Why dont you do it?

Although he explained that Im a congre-gational rabbi, born to do it, and that I love being one of the lay leaders in New Jersey Together, Rabbi Mosbacher was urged to reconsider.

Their view was that because I have a per-sonal story and connection to the issue and because my congregation [helped] develop the strategy, I could bring something special to the campaign.

After extended conversations with both Metro IAF and his congregation, it was agreed that the national organization would provide the congregation with enough resources to bring in a full-time assistant rabbi for one year, in exchange for my being able to work on the campaign half-time. That is an extraordinary gift from the congregation, Rabbi Mosbacher said.

He is also flattered by Metro IAFs belief that he is a person who could be a part of

making this work.Rabbi Mosbacher, who will remain in the

community while he works on the cam-paign, stresses that this is not a sabbatical.

Im not leaving the congregation. Im staying and sharing the responsibility of ensuring the success of the shul.

The assistant rabbi, Daniel Kirzane, offi-cially took up his duties on July 1. The con-gregation, which has had a series of rabbinic interns for 10 hours a week, has already begun to ramp up its use of additional staff.

Rabbi Mosbacher said he will try to pre-pare faith leaders to meet with mayors and police chiefs in their communities.

Several weeks ago, he was invited to speak in Atlanta and to join faith leaders there in meeting with the citys mayor. This week he is traveling to Los Angeles to enlist local religious leaders in the campaign.

So far, weve got 30 jurisdictions signing on to campaign, he said. Were trying to get it to 50 by the end of summer. The New Jersey towns include Jersey City, Oakland, River Vale, Mahwah, Bloomfield Livingston, Montclair, and West Orange.

Rabbi Mosbacher will try to balance the congregations needs with those of his new position. Ill be at every bar mitzvah and major holiday [service], he said, pointing out that much of the Metro IAF work can be done Monday through Friday.

Also to be balanced are the needs of his family, though, fortunately, he said, my wife and two boys, ages 16 and 11, understand what Im doing. Calling his sons budding activists, very engaged and supportive, he said they understand as much as anyone how their grandfather died.

He noted that this campaign is not about gun control.

Were not trying to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. Its not about adding laws but [rather] keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldnt have them. Its gun violence prevention.

Were going at it from a pretty differ-ent angle, he said, pointing out that the approach is getting a good reception from people. Its a different take. Hopefully we can go across lines. I met with the mayor of Atlanta, and he was receptive. His police officers are not excited about hav-ing to face guns.

Rabbi Mosbacher said anyone who wishes to become involved in the cam-paign should email him [email protected].

We can do this in a really meaningful way on the local level, meeting the mayor and police chief and inviting them to use their purchasing power, he said. We have the ability to make an impact.

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, inset, and at far right, at a gun show in Nurenburg, Germany. The other faith lead-ers, from left, are Rev. Tyrone Stevenson, Rev. Richard Gibson, Diane Boese, Donna Weinberger, Rev. Pat-rick OConnor, Rev. Anthony Bennet, and Joe Morris.

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A rabbi hasnt walked into the bar ... yetRestaurateur learns that combining liquor and kashrut is no joke in TeaneckLarry yudeLson

Its not every day that a liquor license comes up for sale in Teaneck. (State licensing laws limit the number of licenses in a formula based on a towns population.)

So when Jonathan Gellis heard that the owner of Vinny Os in Teaneck was look-ing to sell the establishment, including the license, after 28 years behind the bar, he realized that only one of the more than 20 kosher restaurants in Teaneck could sell alcohol.

That seemed to be an opportunity.Mr. Gellis is a stockbroker by day. Hes

used to working in a regulated business and the alcohol business in New Jersey is highly regulated.

Mr. Gellis grew up in Teaneck; his par-ents moved the family here from Brook-lyn in 1975, back when the town had only one kosher restaurant. His four children attend Yeshivat Noam and the Frisch School, and he serves on the board of both institutions. He also is president of Congregation Keter Torah.

So he took it for granted that after he renovated Vinnys, polishing the old oak tables and laminating them with base-ball cards, and installed 28 TV screens that could display nine different games between them, that he would be able to open Teanecks first kosher sports bar he and his partners plan to call it The Doghouse without too much difficulty.

Of course, there were obstacles.The townships inspector didnt like

the way the plumber installed a fix-ture, so it had to be redone, to take one example.

But such surprises were expected. They just added time.

Securing kosher certification, how-ever, has proven to be trickier than Mr. Gellis had thought it would be.

His initial plans to open this coming week have been postponed he hopes only until July 15 pending approval by a kashrut certifying agency.

Immediately after the deal to buy the bar for a reported $300,000 was finalized, he approached the Rabbinic Council of Bergen County, the countys Orthodox rabbinic organization, which generally provides certification to local restaurants, to ask for supervision.

He was turned down.While we hold Mr. Gellis and his asso-

ciates in high regard, it is RCBC policy not to disclose the details of our internal deliberations, said the councils execu-tive director, Rabbi Meier Brueckheimer,

in an email to the Jewish Standard.Rabbi Brueckheimer, who like Mr.

Gellis is a member of Keter Torah, did not give the would-be restaurateur a reason for the ruling. But it seems a fair guess that the council, made up of Orthodox rabbis, felt uncomfortable giv-ing its kosher stamp to a bar. (The one area kosher restaurant with a liquor license is NoBo Wine and Grill, coinci-dentally located across Palisades Avenue from The Doghouse. As its name indi-cates, though, it serves only wine, not hard liquor.

We asked the RCBC to partner with us, Mr. Gellis said. If you hear of a problem, lets talk about it together, he said he told them. We all live in this community.

The Bergen County rabbis did vote to give Mr. Gellis permission to ask other kashrut agencies for supervision. So before Passover, he had reached out to the Orthodox Union, and officials there agreed to give him certification, and sent him an unsigned contract. Shortly after the holiday, he sent it back, signed.

No dice.Mr. Gellis said that the OU asked for

clarification from the local council that it would be OK for the agency to super-vise his Teaneck establishment. He got the OU the clarification.

The OU asked that The Doghouse not be advertised as a bar.

Mr. Gellis agreed, and speaks of it as a family restaurant.

The OU wanted to ensure that the staff

Jonathan Gellis has encountered a series of rejections in his attempt to open a Teaneck establishment known as The Doghouse.

see restaurateur page 15

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Uncertain JusticeJoshua Matz looks at the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and preconceptionsJoanne Palmer

A s we have seen once again in the last few weeks, as its ses-sion drew to its usual dra-matic end, Supreme Court decisions tend to be 5 to 4.

The winning side triumphs often, it actively gloats and the losing side slinks off to mutter darkly about idiocy and mis-reading and blatant politicization.

That is an entirely reasonable thing for those of us who are not Supreme Court justices and that is everyone except nine of us, and none of those nine people read this newspaper to feel, but it is nei-ther accurate nor particularly helpful to do so, Joshua Matz says.

Mr. Matz, who grew up in Suffern, is the co-author of Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution. Working with Laurence Tribe, the law-yer and Harvard Law School professor whose name was mentioned for decades as a likely Supreme Court nominee, Mr. Matz contends that in fact the justices are more different from each other than their glibly applied labels might imply, and that their own histories, beliefs, and casts of mind mean that the decisions they make are fueled by something more power-ful, more interesting, and more worthy of attention than the certainties of 5 to 4 might suggest. (Or, as Oscar Wilde put it, The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.)

Even before we get to the stories about the Supreme Court, there is a story about how Mr. Matz came to write about it.

Mr. Matz, 29, went through high school certain that his future lay in the sci-ences. NYU has a genetics lab in Rock-land County; Mr. Matz worked there as a teen. I would go to college and become a biologist, he remembers thinking. It was all set. He went off to the University of Pennsylvania, and almost by accident, I took a course called Ancient Greek and Roman Magic.

The syllabus was right out of Harry Potter, he said. I really got into it. I was most interested in the sheer foreignness of it to learn about that world you had to understand about spell battles, and about wearing amulets.

That immersion in a world whose rules had to be learned from the very begin-ning, whose very syntax was unfamiliar, led me indirectly to intellectual history, he said. There were intermediate steps he graduated from Penn with a triple major, in biology, philosophy, and his-tory. His next stop was Oxford Univer-sity, where he earned a masters degree in intellectual history. His interest was piqued by the way in which the study

of history itself did not begin to take the form it has today until late in the 19th cen-tury. Until then, he said, it was philoso-phy or theology narrative shaped by the moral or theological vision it was meant to convey.

As he fell in love with history, Mr. Matz also felt most drawn to the period right after the American Civil War. There was so much in flux then, he said. Race, gen-der, control over cultural life, the influx of immigrants with new ideas.

As his thinking about his own life evolved, Mr. Matz decided to become a historian; his interest lay in the intersec-tion between legal and intellectual his-tory. I went to Oxford thinking that I would get a J.D. in legal history, and then do history, he said. (Despite its grand name, a Juris Doctor degree means that if you pass the bar you can become a law-yer. Its the first degree a law school gives its graduates.) He thought that the J.D. would be useful because it would allow him to understand the legal documents that historians so often must read but so rarely fully grasp.

When I was in Oxford, though, I dis-covered that I did not love being a gradu-ate student in history, Mr. Matz said. Its lonely. You spent all day in the library,

alone, with dead peo-ples writing. And then I got lucky. I got into a bunch of good law schools, and I decided that I should check them out.

One of those law schools was Harvard. When I was there, I got lost. I had no idea where I was, he said. And then I saw this very kind old man, a sweet old man, walk by in the hallway. He said, You seem totally lost, and I said, I am.

At that point, I was lost on so many levels.

So he asked me what I was doing there, and I told him, and he invited me back to his office. I didnt see the name on the door. So we started talking, and I mentioned that I had just given a presen-tation to the Oxford history faculty on the history of gay rights in America. I started talking about it, and he said, Oh yes, yes, I know that case. I actually argued that one in the Supreme Court.

And I looked up, and I said, Youre Laurence Tribe! And he said, You should come to Harvard.

Mr. Matz did go to Harvard Law School, and although Mr. Tribe spent the first half of Mr. Matzs three law school years

in Washington, working for the Obama administration, when he returned, Mr. Matz became his research assistant, and then his teaching assistant.

The two men taught a freshman class on the history of the Constitution together; because he had never taught it before and did not have a syllabus for it, Mr. Tribe asked Mr. Matz to work with him to write one.

That course was the seed from which the pairs new book grew.

The freshmen were really smart, and they didnt come in laden with precon-ceptions, Mr. Matz said. That was great. There are so many more stories you can tell when you do not have to address a lot of preconceptions people saying I know that everything is always 5 to 4, and I already know what the Constitution says.

When you have to explain something to a new audience, you have to go back to first principles, and think about how you really want to tell this story. When we fin-ished, we asked ourselves why only these freshman should have the opportunity to

hear it as we told it to them.

So, what are the misconceptions?

The first and most glaring is that there are four conservative and four liberal justices and one swing voter, and the Constitution means whatever the swing voter happens to think, Mr. Matz said. There are many unan-imous opinions, and

the four right-leaning justices in particu-lar disagree with each other a lot. They are conservative in different ways. Often, Justices Scalia and Thomas want to go a lot further in changing the constitutional law than do Justices Roberts and Alito and Kennedy.

That liberal/conservative breakdown isnt that useful in figuring out when the justices will not vote to type, Mr. Matz continued.

And then, there is the ultimate and much more deep sense in which it turns out that the Constitution doesnt always mean what those nine people in their marble palace think it means. Sometimes, it means what legislators think it means, what voters think it means, what other people think it means, what you and I think it means.

It is neat and simple to tell that 5 to 4 story. It matches up with partisan needs. And I share that impulse I also think that Im right, if you agree with me youre right, and if you disagree with me youre

Joshua Matz, inset and above, left, joins co-author Laurence Tribe at a book signing for Uncertain Justice.

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wrong; and you people who are wrong, you can all just go fall into the pit. And its not wrong to feel that way but if you really care about whats happening, its not useful.

I have a romantic idea that it is not good for American democracy when you have groups of peo-ple who each can sit in their own echo chambers, in their own bunkers, with their own allies, saying that anyone who disagrees with me is a fool or a knave, youre with me or against me, and if youre wrong, youre also an idiot.

I do think that there is a way to talk about issues that gets beyond that kind of thinking.

The questions the court faces are legitimately hard.

The book is aimed at giving people the resources to really understand what is going on, he contin-ued. In other words, Supreme Court justices are real people, the Constitution is ambiguous, and the jus-tices decisions are based on their own human under-standing of the law, shaped by their life experiences and the way their own filters light the document that guides them.

There is something else that guides Mr. Matz. I got into this in the first place because of something that might sound corny but is true, he said. I went to school at Gittelman thats the Reuben Gittelman Hebrew Day School in Suffern, which was affiliated with the Conservative movements Solomon Schech-ter schools and closed in 2012. They taught us that Jewish ethics are fundamentally about tikkun olam. The Jewish people have been oppressed, they taught us, and we should be alert to new forms of oppres-sion. We should have a personal moral responsibil-ity to prevent evil from happening when we see it happening.

The ethics that I learned from Gittelman played a fundamental role in my getting into law in the first place. Its why I worked on civil rights issues when I was an undergraduate, and a big part of what causes me to care in such a deep way about what the Consti-tution means. It is not an academic question, because it can fundamentally define our relationship to each other who has power over who, and what protec-tion we give to the vulnerable.

My Jewish education is a large part of how I came to care about these issues, Mr. Matz said.

I have a romantic idea that is not good

for American democracy when

you have groups of people who each can sit in their own echo

chambers, in their own bunkers, with

their own allies.

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JFSNJ honors volunteers

At the Jewish Family Service of North Jerseys annual meeting, executive director Leah Kaufman presents an inscribed cup to Paul Klein in recognition of his 15 years of service as a vocational counselor. Photos courtesy JFsNJ

Dan Schuster and Maria Balevski receive the Sadie & Lou Glatt Memorial awards for distinguished volunteer service. They deliver Kosher Meals on Wheels to home-bound residents in Fair Lawn and Wayne. For informa-tion on employment counseling or becoming a KMOW volunteer, call Melanie Lester at (973) 595-0111.

Local YU student commended for his grades and athleticsYisrael Feld of Teaneck was named the Skyline Conference Mens Basket-ball Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the 2013-2014 season. In his first year with the Maccabees, Mr. Feld was named Skylines Rookie of the Year after aver-aging 16 points per game, along with 3 rebounds and 2.9 assists. He was named the Skylines Rookie of the Week five times during the season as well.

Mr. Feld had the highest grade point average, 3.48, among the Skyline Con-ferences mens basketball players who were named to its first or second All-Conference teams. A mens basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year award is

presented to an all-conference per-former who carries the highest grade point average (minimum 3.30) cumula-tive for the fall and spring semester in the sport.

Its such an accomplishment to be recognized for your athletic per-formance but to top that off with an award for excellence in the classroom is amazing, Yeshiva Universitys athlet-ics director Joe Bednarsh said. I am so proud of Yisrael and all of the awards he earned this season, but I am most especially proud that he is showing it is possible at YU to achieve excellence athletically and academically.

Rabbi Lau is scholar-in-residence this weekend

This Shabbat, July 4-5, Rabbi Dr. Bin-y a m i n L au , a n author, activist, and master teacher, will be the scholar-in-residence at Con-gregation Rinat Yis-rael in Teaneck. On Friday night he will speak before Maariv, during the 9 a.m. Shabbat minyan, and he will speak again on Shabbat afternoon

at 6:55 p.m.Rabbi Lau heads the modern Ortho-

dox Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem and is the chair of the Human Rights and Judaism in Action project of the Israel Democracy Institute. He speaks on cur-rent issues, focusing on the humanistic values of Judaism and traditions facing the challenges of contemporary society.

The shul is at 389 W. Englewood Ave. Call (201) 837-2795.

OHEL offers twice-as-nice givingOHEL has announced a matching camp scholarship fund thanks to a generous anonymous family foundation; a gift to send one child to camp will send two. The foundation will match every camp scholarship gift, up to a total of $80,000, for children in OHELs Domestic Violence Program, children living with OHEL fos-ter families, and children with develop-mental disabilities whose parents cannot afford summer camp fees.

Children receiving scholarships hail from Passaic, Teaneck, Edison, and Lakewood, as well as Rockland County, the five boroughs, and Nassau County in New York.

For OHELs children, camp and summer recreational programs are not a luxury, but a much-needed opportunity to enjoy a nor-mal, healthy vacation away from the chal-lenges of home and school. Camp provides opportunities to make new friends, build self-esteem, try new activities, develop skills and confidence, and have fun. There is no government funding for camp.

This is the third year that a family foun-dation wishing to remain anonymous has promised to match camp scholarship gifts. For this summer, the challenge was increased from $50,000 to $80,000.

For information, visit www.ohelfamily.org/summer.

NORPAC event July 13

Dr. Ben Chouake and Allen Friedman host a NORPAC event for Rep-resentative Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) on Sunday, July 13, at 7:30 p.m. Rep. Schneider is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Call (201) 788-5133 or email [email protected].

Rep. Brad Schneider

Kessler named head of Jewish professional groupErik Kessler of Teaneck was recently installed as the president of the Jewi sh Profess ional Re source Organiz a -tion of NJ ( JProNJ) at its annual meeting at the Kaplen JCC on the Pali-sades. JProNJ is the umbrella organiza-tion for Jewish communal service pro-fessionals from across the New Jersey; the states chapter is the largest in the national organization.

Mr. Kessler has been JProNJs treasurer for five years. Since 2008, he has been with the Moriah School in Englewood where he oversees admissions, commu-nications, and HR. He is married to Dr. Dana Kessler, a pediatrician, and is the father of three children.

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Touro College and University System

DIRECTOR OF MSW RECRUITMENT, OUTREACH, AND ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT

The Touro College Graduate School of Social Work has experienced remarkable growth. With campuses in midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, over 300 graduate students, and more than 100 clinical partners, the School of Social Work seeks a dynamic, creative, and experienced social work leader. The successful candidate will be responsible for the recruitment activities for the MSW program. He or she will form partnerships with top social work agencies and will utilize a variety of social media and marketing strategies.

Minimum Requirements

MSW and LMSW required LCSW and/ or Doctorate in in Social Work or related field desirable Proven track record in social work administration for a minimum of 3-5 years

Thorough experience utilizing social media and marketing strategies Network of relationships with top human service executives

Please forward a resume or CV as well as a 1-2 page statement of your vision for the position to: [email protected]

was appropriately addressed, Mr. Gellis said. He had no problems with that.

And as the father of teenager himself, he decided not to sell alcohol until after 3 p.m. and to kick out unaccompanied minors at 10 p.m.

But the deal still hasnt closed, and he hasnt received a clear explanation of the holdup from the OU. The OUs kashrut depart-ment did not reply to emails from this paper seeking comment.

Now, Mr. Gellis is speaking with two other kashrut agencies he declined to say which. But one likely possibility is the Kof-K Kosher supervision agency, whose offices are just around the corner from The Doghouse and which supervises a kosher restaurant in Manhattan that bills itself as a sports bar.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gellis is down-playing worries that his establish-ment will prove a bad influence on the Teaneck community in

general, and on the neighborhood in particular. That neighborhood of Teaneck the Plaza is rich in kosher restaurants, many of which draw lunchtime traffic from three nearby yeshiva high schools.

Were not referring to ourself as a sports bar, but as a kosher restau-rant for the family, Mr. Gellis said. You can only drink if youre 21 or older.

But one neighborhood critic is not assuaged.

The Gemara says that if you go into a perfume shop, whether you buy something or not you come out smelling of perfume, said Varda Hager. Why do we need drinks at all?

She sent a letter to the OU through its website protesting the possibility of the organizations certifying The Doghouse, writing, Dont our children have enough distractions that give wrong messages?

She did not receive a reply.I live in this world, she said

in a later interview. Its a rough world to navigate. I dont want to

be sappy and say have a tehillim (psalms) bar Im not talking about this but why do something that has negative connotations attached to it?

Why would you name it Dog-house? Whats the message? Every-one I spoke to said it means Im in trouble with my wife.

Mr. Gellis said the name did not mean that at all. Instead, it refers to frankfurters.

It came from our not wanting to compete directly with any res-taurant in town, so we will have a specialty hot dog bar with differ-ent varieties of hot dogs and sau-sages and toppings, he said.

He is stress-testing different vari-eties of buns at home.

But his cook cant actually get to work on the menu which also will include beef jerky, barbecue brisket sandwich, and wings until theres a mashgiach to ensure that all the cooking is kosher.

Until then, the would-be restau-rant entrepreneur might as well be, well, in the doghouse.

restaurateur from page 11 murder of our three boys, a pioneering group of Jews headed

by Women in Green went up to Givat Oz a hilltop overlook-ing Tzomet HaGush [Gush Etzion Junction] in order to cre-ate a new Jewish presence in the area. Since the beginning of Zionism, the land of Israel is sometimes built with blood and tears.

From a family expelled from Gush Katif in 2005:But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land

from before you, then shall those that you let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein you dwell (Num-bers 33:5).

From Jerusalem Post columnist Herb Keinon:To understand Israel, to understand so much of what the

country does, it is necessary to understand the insecurity that gnaws at the psyche after incidents like this: after kid-nappings, after rockets randomly fired into living rooms, after bombs blowing up buses. Those incidents sap desire to take risks for peace.

From Rabbi David Stav, chairman of the Tzohar rabbinical association:

Now we have two options: the first is to return to the cyni-cism and arguments of yesterday, and to blame the police, the state, and anyone else. But there is another way too: to use everything that we have achieved in these days to [attain] new heights, to take all the love and faith that we learned from the [bereaved] families and take our people and our state to a new, beautiful and truthful place.

As Israelis always do, we will continue praying as we mourn, and we will keep faith that some prayers, at least, will be answered.

Letter from page 7

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Death shall have no dominion

There is not much that we can say about the deaths of the three teenagers kidnapped and murdered that can add to the discussion.

It is a nightmare from which there is no awakening. It betrays the most perverse and degraded understanding of the importance of human life. It is evil. There should be no room in the world for such perversion.

We are left nearly speech-less in its wake. Speechless and devastated.

We cannot help but note that the trauma seems to have brought the Jewish people together, although the price is infinitely too high. We hope that somehow, once the immediacy of the pain recedes, that feeling of all being in this together lingers.

We also hope that pain does not lead to more pain, and that our

leaders are granted the wisdom to respond to this outrageous provoca-tion in ways that lead eventually to peace.

As a hard-copy weekly, we cannot cover the situation as it unfolds, but our Facebook page is updated contin-ually. Please be sure to check it often

as this nightmare continues. We are at www.facebook.com/JewishStandard.

We hope that Dylan Thomas had it right in this verse:

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion. JP

The Glorious Fourth

W e hold these truths to be sel f-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien-able Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, as its name implies, tells the story of this nations birth, begin-ning with a sound-and-light show, and then funneling visitors through other exhibits. Some of them particularly videos of new immigrants taking the oath of citizenship are so moving that the unwary visitor might find themself in very public tears.

But the museums last exhibit is the one that packs the hugest punch.

Your head already full of the splen-did language and noble concepts of

the 18th century, you wander into a room that holds 42 life-size sculptures, grouped not in museum-like formality but as if their models had been talking to each other when somehow they had been frozen forever into bronze.

You are in Signers Hall, and those bronzes are the men who risked their lives for their ideals. As you look at them, you are struck by their size. Some were large, but this was the 18th century, when people were less well-nourished and on average much smaller than they are today. Some of the signers of the Constitution, those giants of American history, were the size of very small women.

You are struck as well by the fact that these men were human beings, real people, and that the risks they took were not at all theoretical. Their acts of courage and conviction led directly

to the freedoms we have today.Is this country perfect? No, of course

it is not. It was created and continues to be governed by people, and people by definition are imperfect. But it has given us as Jews just as it gives all of us, sim-ply as Americans the freedom to be ourselves, to live as we chose, in secu-rity, surrounded by beauty, with the freedom to practice religion as we wish or not at all if that is our wish. It gives us the freedom to pursue happiness.

This Fourth of July Shabbat marks a glorious coincidence, as our two cul-tures celebrations merge. Because it is Shabbat our fireworks will have to be virtual, but they will be no less vivid, golden, and ear-shatteringly joyous for it. On Friday night, as we mark our liberation both from political tyranny and from the weeks own burdensome rules, let freedom ring. JP

keeping the faith

An obligatory response

By now, Israel has launched and perhaps even completed an action to revenge the killings of three Israeli teenagers, whose bodies were found on Monday.While Israel is not subject to halachah it is a secular

democratic state halachah offers some perspective on the nature of a response to such horrific acts.

There is no question about what the terrorists behind the deaths of these three young men want. They want what all terrorists targeting Israel want: an end to the Jewish state and death to its Jews. In other words, the terrorists see themselves at war with Israel, which means that Israel is at war with them.

Is it a legal war, however, from the standpoint of hal-achah? The answer is yes.

Halachah recognizes two kinds of legal war: obliga-tory, and discretionary yet divinely sanctioned.

The wars waged by Joshua to conquer [Canaan] were obligatory, the Tal-mud explains, while the wars waged [with divine sanction] by the House of David for territorial expan-sion were discretionary. (See the Babylonian Tal-mud tractate Sotah 44b.)

The war against Amalek also is obligatory, because

it is mandated by the Torah. (See Exodus 17:14-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19.)

That would seem to shut down the possibility of obligatory wars in our day, because neither the seven nations of Canaan nor Amalek exist any longer. Mai-monides, however, adds another war to the obligatory category: one that is fought to assist Israel from an enemy that attacks it. (See his Mishneh Torah, The Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 5:1.) This would make an obligatory war even against modern-day enemies possible.

Maimonides Rambam does not explain how he came to add something not found in either the Torah or the Talmud. The best guess (but not the only one) is that he based his ruling on two Torah verses. The first,

Shammai Engelmayer is rabbi of Temple Israel Community Center | Congregation Heichal Yisrael in Cliffside Park and Temple Beth El of North Bergen.


JS-16*

Shammai Engelmayer

keeping the faith

An obligatory response

By now, Israel has launched and perhaps even completed an action to revenge the killings of three Israeli teenagers, whose bodies were found on Monday.While Israel is not subject to halachah it is a secular

democratic state halachah offers some perspective on the nature of a response to such horrific acts.

There is no question about what the terrorists behind the deaths of these three young men want. They want what all terrorists targeting Israel want: an end to the Jewish state and death to its Jews. In other words, the terrorists see themselves at war with Israel, which means that Israel is at war with them.

Is it a legal war, however, from the standpoint of hal-achah? The answer is yes.

Halachah recognizes two kinds of legal war: obliga-tory, and discretionary yet divinely sanctioned.

The wars waged by Joshua to conquer [Canaan] were obligatory, the Tal-mud explains, while the wars waged [with divine sanction] by the House of David for territorial expan-sion were discretionary. (See the Babylonian Tal-mud tractate Sotah 44b.)

The war against Amalek also is obligatory, because

it is mandated by the Torah. (See Exodus 17:14-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19.)

That would seem to shut down the possibility of obligatory wars in our day, because neither the seven nations of Canaan nor Amalek exist any longer. Mai-monides, however, adds another war to the obligatory category: one that is fought to assist Israel from an enemy that attacks it. (See his Mishneh Torah, The Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 5:1.) This would make an obligatory war even against modern-day enemies possible.

Maimonides Rambam does not explain how he came to add something not found in either the Torah or the Talmud. The best guess (but not the only one) is that he based his ruling on two Torah verses. The first,

Opinion

Numbers 10:9, recognizes the need to go to war in your land against an enemy who oppresses you. The second is not to stand idly by the blood of your fel-low (Leviticus 19:16).

The latter is seen as a commandment to take direct action in order to protect another person from phys-ical harm, especially if it could lead to the persons death. Since an enemy who oppresses you [in your land] is threatening deadly physical harm to the citi-zens of that land, Rambam apparently sees defending against that enemy as an obligatory war.

From the point of view of halachah, then, Israel is required to fight a defensive war against both the terrorists and the Palestinian Authority, their tacit state sponsor. That is because Hamas reportedly was behind this latest outrage, and Hamas now is a partner in the PAs governance. Also, the PA encourages ter-rorism by rewarding the families of suicide bombers financially, and by naming streets after terrorists.

The only real question is how such a war may be conducted, according to halachah.

According to Rambam, the first rule is that the enemy must be offered a chance to make peace (see MT, Kings, 6:1). Rambam claims that this applies to both obligatory and discretionary wars, while oth-ers say it applies only to obligatory wars. As noted, though, Israels war against terror is an obligatory one.

In any case, over the last 15 years of on-and-off peace talks, Israel has offered peace time and again, less seriously at some times and more seriously at oth-ers. Under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in fact, the late Yassir Arafat was offered almost everything he asked for, including a large chunk of east Jerusalem, but he rejected it.

The second rule, as Maimonides sees it, is that once an enemy is surrounded, there must be a way left open for innocent civilians and even faint-hearted combat-ants to escape. (See MT, Kings, 6:7.) Some authorities insist that Rambam meant this to apply to discretion-ary wars (Nachmanides, the Ramban, is one such authority), but there is no such limitation evident in the Mishneh Torah. Sadly, there also is no suggestion on how such a rule can be made practical.

The third rule is to leave standing the fruit-bearing trees of the enemy, as demanded by Deuteronomy 20:19. The Torah law applies to everything that is bene-ficial to people, not just fruit trees. It is not an absolute law, however, as Rambam sees it. He says it applies only if there is destructive intent (derech hashchatah). Thus, anyone who breaks utensils, tears garments, destroys buildings, stops up a stream, or ruins food with destructive intent transgresses the command. (See MT Kings 8 and 10.)

The key, of course, is the phrase destructive intent. The destruction has to be wanton, not purposeful. Blowing up a building used as a headquarters for ter-rorists (say a Palestinian police station) would not vio-late this rule. Destroying the homes of noncombatants may violate it.

As events demonstrate, Israel often honors this law only in the breach. Then again, it sometimes is hard to distinguish between an innocent home and a terror-ists lair because Hamas and its ilk hide behind inno-cent civilians, and other such facades (such as using Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to transport men and arms).

There is no question that any Israeli response to acts of Palestinian terror will be met with disapproval around the world. One criticism should never be heard: Violence is not the Jewish way. A defensive war is obligatory, not discretionary. It is very much the Jewish way.

JS-17*


Everyday work and freedomRemembering July 4, 1976, in Entebbe

Raise your hand if you live in the United States and are look-ing forward to going back to work on the Monday after the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Each year leading up to July 4, peo-ple across the United States take in their annual share of parades, barbecues, and fireworks. Sometime along the way, some-one invokes something about the nations founders and points out that this is the day that marks the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Before long, the holiday is over and its back to work.

But if we consider research from areas such as job satisfaction, employee engage-ment, and workplace productivity, any way you cut it, about three-quarters of the workforce is the opposite of excited about heading back to the office. That has enormous consequences for individuals,

the economy, and society. So what can be done to reverse the trend?

When we study people who are considered leaders in their fields, it is clear that no mat-ter what type of work they do, and whether they are world-renowned or better known in their own backyards, they follow many of the same fun-damental behaviors and prac-tices. On a day-to-day basis, they focus on and take respon-

sibility for all of the things that have to be done objec-tives, planning, decision-making, communication, and so on. Underlying it all, though, is something they each know about but dont spend time actively dwelling on: why they perform the work they do. And they do it as a matter course, almost always without seeking adulation or fanfare.

One example of this may be found in the few hours before July 4, 1976, when four Lockheed Martin C130 transport planes rumbled through the deep night sky over Africa.

The planes, filled with pilots, passengers, and cargo, had been airborne for nearly eight hours and their fuel supplies were growing low. Soon they would land as scheduled on a runway at Entebbe, the international airport outside of Ugandas capital city. That was not unusual. It was unusual that no one on the ground there was prepared for their arrival. Thats because no one was expecting them. And no one on the planes radioed their arrival, either.

Why those planes were making their way to Entebbe had to do with another plane. About a week earlier, Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris had been hijacked after a scheduled layover in Athens. There were 243 pas-sengers and 12 crew members aboard. The plane was diverted to a refueling stop in Benghazi, Libya, before reaching its final destination at Entebbe, nearly 2,500

miles away from its point of origin in Israel.The hijackers, two members of the German Baader-Mein-

hof gang and two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, soon were joined by a handful of comrades. They separated their hostages into two groups: those hold-ing Israeli passports and those holding passports from other countries. The hostage-takers then announced their demand: 53 of their brethren must be freed from Israeli, West German, Kenyan, French, and Swiss jails within two days. If they were not, the hostages would be executed.

In Israel, government officials argued the merits of con-ceding to the hostage-takers demands. Then, after a few days, some hostages were released. None of them were Israeli. Michel Bacos, the captain of the Air France flight, and his crew declined to be released as long as any of their passengers were detained.

That night, Israeli intelligence agents were dispatched to where the freed hostages were being debriefed, and they began gathering information about what was going on at Entebbe. Meanwhile, with the hostage-takers dead-line approaching, military leaders devised a plan. They labored through an unprecedented effort of coordinated research and discussion. Within hours, they had it.

The plan was audacious. Any chance of success it had, in fact, came from its very improbability. It relied on flying the C130s below radar and landing undetected at Entebbe. The first one would carry the Israel Defense Forces leg-endary Sayeret Matkal commandos, a black Mercedes sedan, and two Land Rover jeeps; the unit would use the vehicles as a decoy, pretending to be Ugandan president Idi Amins motorcade, to make the two-kilometer run from the landing spot to where the hostages were being held. Then, while the first team was working to free the hostages, three trailing planes, with support personnel, equipment, and space to bring freed hostages back home, would make staggered landings in quick succession. Once the mission on the ground was complete, the planes would take off for refueling in Kenya and then homecom-ing in Israel.

When it came down to it, the mission hinged on that first plane landing and without anyone on the ground at Entebbe noticing it.

Many people were involved in the planning and action, but the specific task and responsibility of landing the plane fell primarily on the shoulders of chief pilot Joshua

north jersey jewish standard, july 4 2014

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