Jewish Journal archives January 27, 2006

DANVERS — Twenty Jewish gravestones at Congregation Sons of Jacob Cemetery on Route 114 in Danvers were damaged in what police believe was an incident of reckless vehicular vandalism that occurred late at night on Jan. 20.

“Although this is still under investigation, we don’t believe it was a planned attack or an anti-Semitic act,” says Neil F. Ouellette, Danvers Chief of Police. He notes that the incident occurred near a “lover’s lane” where people in cars have been known to park and drink. “At this point, we believe the damage was caused by a confused driver trying to get out of an exit.”

James Hacker, president of Salem’s Temple Shalom, is more skeptical. “Clearly it’s a possibility that this is a hate crime — we don’t know. We’re still awaiting reports from the police.” He is suspicious because the damage occurred in a secluded area near the back of the old cemetery where the remains of many of the area’s earliest Jewish settlers are buried.

Congregation Sons of Jacob (now known as Temple Shalom) was formed by Lithuanian, Polish and Russian immigrants in 1898. Many of the memorial stones in the old cemetery date back more than a century and are haphazardly situated with very narrow paths between them.

A Temple Shalom member who was visiting the cemetery discovered the damage on Jan. 22. Superintendent David McKenna, who maintains the grounds at 21 different North Shore cemeteries including Sons of Jacob, investigated and immediately notified local police.

“We take this situation very seriously,” states Chief Ouellette. The automobile at fault was heavily damaged in the incident. Although police believe it was a dark gray four-wheel drive, they have recovered evidence that will help them zero in on the exact make and model. They hope this will lead them to the owner; however Ouellette has also called for the perpetrator to identify him or herself.

“We’d like whoever was responsible to come forward and make amends. We will work with them,” says Ouellette.

Superintendent McKenna hypothesizes that the car may have been stolen because “it seems hard to believe that someone would intentionally do that kind of damage to their own vehicle.” In his 40 years of caring for cemeteries, he doesn’t recall an incident similar to this one.

“However I don’t think it was a premeditated anti-Semitic act,” says McKenna, who helped start the Danvers Committee for Diversity. “I don’t see evidence of it being a hate crime, although it is hateful because of the sorrow it will cause the families. I just think it was someone who was very drunk or very stupid who drove up there, and couldn’t find their way out.”

The recent snowfall has obscured the destruction; however McKenna, who documented it, says it is extensive. “Many of the memorial markers were knocked over and chipped. Some of the stones were split right down the middle, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to repair them.”

Temple Shalom leaders are attempting to contact the families whose stones were affected. “A lot of families in our temple are third or fourth generation, so we will make a sincere effort to contact the grandchildren or great nieces or nephews of the people whose stones were damaged,” states Hacker.

Hacker estimates the total damage to be between $12-15,000, and he doubts that it will be covered by insurance. “It was not a budgeted item; however somehow we’ll manage it,” he promises. “We have an obligation to repair or replace the stones of former congregants who have no living descendants.”

“It’s very disheartening to think that someone would disturb the final resting places of some of our former members,” he adds.

House Defeats Proposed Financial Disclosure Law
Legislation Would Have Required Synagogues To
Make Annual Financial Reports to Attorney General

The Massachusetts House of Representative defeated a proposed law on Jan. 25 that would have required synagogues and churches to make annual disclosures of their finances to the state.

The legislation, entitled “An Act Relative to Charities in Massachusetts,” was defeated by a vote of 147-3. If passed, it would have eliminated exemptions in place since 1954 which relieve religious institutions of disclosure obligations under the state’s charitable reporting statutes.

The measure had been adopted by the Senate late last year by a vote of 33-4, but fierce opposition from religious groups, and a threatened veto this week by Governor Mitt Romney, turned opinion against the law.
Numerous Jewish organizations, including the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Jewish Community Relations Council, united to oppose the measure.

On its website, the SCM said the bill would “financially and administratively burden our synagogues” and pose a “threat to the separation of church and state.”

“We are concerned about impositions on our synagogues that would require a lot of work in terms of filing the forms, but also a tremendous amount of additional costs associated with … financial reviews and audits, which would add to the burdens that synagogues are already feeling,” said Alan Teperow, the SCM’s executive director.

Teperow says that additional costs could be as high as $30,000 for synagogues with more than $500,000 in annual revenue, which would have been required to do full audits under the proposed law. Synagogues with revenues over $100,000 would have been required to do a financial review.

“Bottom line, it’s going to hurt our congregations and ultimately our communities,” said Teperow.
The law first arose in response to controversies within the Boston Archdiocese. Church members concerned about the actions of the Archdiocese were frustrated in their attempts to learn about the church’s finances, and turned to the state.

“I filed this because one of the largest public charities in New England, the Archdiocese of Boston, had demonstrated great irresponsibility,” said State Senator Marian Walsh, a sponsor of the bill that has come to be known as the Walsh Bill. “[Church members] came to me and said, ‘Why can’t I get an annual report?’”
The board of Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead, which would have been required to perform a full audit under the law, has registered its opposition to the measure in a letter to State Representative Doug Petersen.

Petersen told the Journal he was planning to oppose the legislation, which he described as a “broad brush solution.”

“Given the absence of a problem, except in this one particular denomination, I’m not feeling inclined to want to pull in anybody else who is not having a problem,” said Petersen. “These are private organizations whose primary function is not charity. I just think it’s an unnecessary intrusion of the state upon the church.”

According to the state, however, the tax exemptions religious organizations now enjoy are possible precisely because they are considered public charities.

The notion “that religions are different from other charities is simply untrue and legally uninformed,” says Senator Walsh. “Religions are public charities and religious organizations are tax exempt, not because they are religious, but because they are public charities.”

Walsh says religious organizations can keep their finances private provided they are willing to forego their tax exemptions.
“Some charities want it both ways — they want all of the privileges and subsidies of being a public charity, but they don’t want the transparency and accountability of being a public charity,” she says. “Openness is hard for some people. If you want to pay taxes you can have all the darkness you’d like.”

The idea that religious institutions should be treated just like any other charity is problematic, according to Brad Kramer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, one of the organizations opposing the bill.
“Whatever the current language on the statute books is, there is a difference between houses of worship in general and other non-profits,” says Kramer.

“Other non-profits have a broader responsibility to their beneficiaries and to their donors, and arguably to the public at large,” he added. There is something special in our history for religious institutions. Even if they are out there doing good in the world, their primary purpose isn’t a charitable purpose.”

Walsh says that exempting religious institutions just for being religious would violate the Constitution.
“Under our First Amendment, we can’t exempt religions, because then we would be subsidizing,” she says.
Kramer adds that there’s something “ironic” in the fact that a law proposed in response to a concern over one particular denomination would, given the legal status of the Archdiocese, require just four filings from the Catholic church, but thousands from each individual synagogue.

Such filings are unnecessary, Kramer says, because synagogues are already accountable to their members.
Walsh stresses that she has no desire to place additional reporting duties on religious groups, particularly if they end up cutting back some of their good works to pay for financial audits.

She supports an amendment to the bill that would raise the income threshold to $500,000 annually for a financial review and $1 million for a full audit, a measure she says “perfects” the law.

“It’s not a burden, it’s an opportunity to be open and accountable,” says Walsh. “We know when we keep things open, they are more honest.”

LYNN — The sign above the entrance has been taken down and the going-out-of-business notice has been posted in the window. Soon, the remaining items will be boxed and moved to a storage facility as the Hadassah Thrift Shop prepares to close down its location on Sutton Street in downtown Lynn.

The final shopping day was scheduled for Jan. 24.
“Apparently, the building is being converted into condominiums,” says Ellen Kayser, chapter coordinator of Lynn-Swampscott-Marblehead Hadassah, which oversees the store. “[The owners] sent us a notice saying that as of the 31st, we were being evicted.”

The shop has moved numerous times since it first opened for business on Munroe Street in 1956. In its early days, it sought larger spaces as it outgrew smaller quarters. But in recent years, the evolving character of Lynn has forced the shop to relocate a number of times. Its previous home on Mount Vernon Street was sold to a developer two years ago who hoped to build condominiums on the spot. Now it’s happening again.

“It’s like yuppieville now,” says store manager Pat Newcomb, referring to changes in the city. “It’s very difficult. Rents are very high.”

Newcomb has been at the store for 23 years and speaks with a kind of seen-it-all weariness. Having rolled with the store’s fortunes for more than two decades, she is unfazed by this latest turn.

Newcomb oversees the goings-on with an almost maternal sense of responsibility, assisted by Patricia Carney of Peabody and Dianne Daris of Lynn, as well as Buddy, a perky, long-haired canine eager to pose demurely for a photographer.

The threesome have an obvious affection for their customers, many of whom have developed personal relationships with the staff.

“The people, most of them are absolutely super,” says Carney. “They come in, they give you a hug. We know their families, when their daughters have babies.”

In recent months, customers have been asking where the store will be moving, a question that still doesn’t have an answer.

Hadassah says it is searching out alternative locations with help from civic organizations hoping to keep the shop in Lynn.

“The plan is that we’ll be moving on the 30th and putting all of the equipment, all the racks and spring and summer clothes into storage, and then we’ll be looking for new space,” says Kayser. “The city of Lynn has contacted us about helping us find new space. We hope to reopen in the spring.”

Patricia, a nurse from Winthrop, says she hopes the store sticks around. She has been a customer for five years and always finds great buys, including the black cardigan sweater she was wearing.
“It’s like a boutique in here,” she says.

Customers like Patricia not only keep the store in business, but often end up working there as well.

“Everyone that works here started as a customer,” says Newcomb, who hopes to stay on with the store when it locates new facilities. “I’m not going looking for a job after they close,” she says. “If they move in Lynn, I’ll stay. I’ve always worked. If I stay home I don’t know what I’d do.”

Like others around the country, the Hadassah Thrift Shop is a fundraising vehicle for its parent organization, the women’s Zionist Organization of America. Over the past 50 years, the Lynn store is said to have raised over $1.5 million for the group’s projects in Israel.

As part of her dissertation in American studies at Harvard, Stephanie Wellen Levine studied the lives of Hasidic teenage girls living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn — headquarters
of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. From 1997-8, she accompanied her subjects to Bais Rivka, an all-girls school. As a “participant observer,” she also shopped, partied, and shared meals with them.

Levine interacted with 32 different Hasidic girls, aged 13-23. She culled the material into seven distinct “portraits,” disguising the girls’ names and backgrounds to protect their identities.

“Their lives were so intriguing and juicy that I felt compelled to transform the project into a mainstream book,” says Levine, who published “Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers” in 2003.

Levine, who lives in Cambridge and teaches in the English department at Tufts University, discussed her work at Marblehead’s Temple Emanu-El on Jan. 12. The event was co-sponsored by LSM Hadassah and the Temple Sisterhood.

The researcher embarked upon the project with several assumptions that were quickly dismissed upon meeting the girls. “I thought the girls would be meek and mousy. And I expected that the possibility that their lives could be anything other than the Platonic essence of feminine subjugation seemed as unlikely as a suckling pig on a Shabbos table,” she admits.

However, Levine was pleasantly surprised with what she discovered. “My expectation was to feel sorry for them. But I was surprised at their self-awareness, confidence and inner strength. In many ways, the girls were quite actually similar to mainstream American girls who worry about things like school and friendships. For example, they love to shop, despite their modesty codes,” she said.

The observant girls spend much of their time in single-sex environments, which Levine believes helps preserve their innocence and make them less inhibited. As an outsider of the closely-knit Hasidic community, it was a challenge for Levine to get the girls to trust her. She was helped by the fact that she looks considerably younger than her 35 years.

The book’s unusual title refers to the diversity Levine found among her subjects. “There were mystics who lived steeped in spiritual notions and seemed almost divorced from mundane teenage concerns like clothes and popularity. There were mavericks — rebels who were pushing the edge of the community’s expectations. And finally, the merrymakers were the mainstream, fun girls,” explains Levine.

Levine found the mavericks, who questioned their faith and broke fundamental rules, particularly intriguing. “This is a strict culture. I was interested in what happens to those who don’t fit it,” she says.

She spent a considerable amount of time interacting with a group of mavericks called the 888ers who smoked pot, wrote poetry, and interacted in mixed-gender settings. Instead of living with their parents, the 888ers had an apartment at 888 Montgomery St. — hence their name.

They were able to pay the rent because one young woman named “Devorie,” who attended the ultra-Orthodox Touro College, had a secret job waitressing at a strip club. While Devorie never stripped, she would allow men to squeeze her and pass her 20-dollar bills.

On one occasion, Levine visited the strip club with another maverick named “Chaya.” Levine still finds it ironic that her one and only visit to a strip club was with an Orthodox Jewish girl.

“Chaya was in the throes of rebellion but hadn’t completely lost faith. She was a beautiful girl, and at one point someone offered her lots of money to take off her shirt. She didn’t take it, but her hemming and hawing was a sight to behold. Chaya’s guilt over being there was painful,” recalls Levine.

She is quick to point out that the 888ers represent a small minority in the Hasidic community. “A criticism of the book is that I focused too much on those who did not fit in. Although some left the path, they usually found their way back,” she acknowledges. “I didn’t meet anyone that wanted to find another religion. Yet it’s a fundamental dichotomy for the few who can’t fit in, and the devastation and anguish is inevitable.”

Levine, who grew up in a secular Jewish home in New Jersey, is envious how the Hasidic girls thrive in their spiritually-based environment. She admits that her parents worried that she’d become ultra-religious as a result of her study. “ I’d come home to visit and they’d say, ‘Let’s go out for lobster,’” she admits.

Yet her encounters with the girls were profound, and inspired a novel, which is set in the Hasidic community. It is tentatively titled “The Mute Girl and the Messiah.” She hopes to publish it next year..

Real Men Eat Horseradish
Hersh Goldman is the North Shore’s King of Jewish Humor

And he pokes fun at the fact in one of the many cartoons he compiled in an anthology titled, “Jew-Hersh Holiday Humor.” The book is a collection of cartoons about all things Jewish culled from years of publishing his work in The Boston Jewish Advocate.

“I was paid for every cartoon they published,” Hersh said, with great humility.
The loquacious, friendly artist, who by day works for the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development in Boston, gave up his dinner hour to be interviewed on a recent blustery night. His home on Essex Street does not contain an art studio. Instead, true to his nature, Hersh prefers simplicity. His studio is a pen and plain white paper.

The youngest of three sons, Hersh was born on May 5 (he declined to give the year) at Lowell General Hospital. “I wanted to be near my mother,” he quipped.

As a child, he enjoyed drawing even before entering school. His mother, who taught in both Hebrew and public schools, helped him draw objects and people that interested him. Both she and Hersh’s father, a civil engineer who helped build roads in Massachusetts, encouraged their son’s artistic ability.

After high school, Hersh entered a three-year art program at Vesper George School of Art in Boston. He also graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell with certification to teach art in the public school system.

Ellen, Hersh’s wife of 23 years, supports her husband’s avocation. The couple have three children — Rachel, a psychology major at Northeastern University, and 15-year-old twins, Nina and Nathan.

In 1978, Bonim Books, a division of Hebrew Publishing Company, published an art instruction book penned by Hersh. Titled “Step-by-Step to Jerusalem,” the book provides detailed instructions on how to draw subjects found in Jerusalem, such as windmills, a Bedouin tent, Rachel’s Tomb, the Tower of David and Absalom’s Pillar.

“People of all ages would enjoy the book,” said Hersh. “Unfortunately, it was so popular, it sold out.”

Though Hersh’s preferred medium is pen and ink, he also enjoys painting in pastels. “I painted a copy of a Chagall and sold it to Ben Entine who lives right here in Swampscott,” said Hersh. “It feels good to know that my work is in the homes of people who live nearby.”

Hersh also revealed a little-known fact about the Russian-born painter famous for treating his subjects with humor and fantasy and drawing deeply on the resources of the unconscious. “His name was Segal and he changed it to Chagall so it would sound more French!” said Hersh. “I admire Chagall’s work, but I don’t admire that he tinkered with his name.”

In spite of his feelings, Marc Chagall redeemed himself in Hersh’s eyes. During the Six Day War in 1967, the beautiful stained glass windows Chagall created for the chapel at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem were smashed. When the artist heard the news, he asked about the number of people killed. “There were no deaths,” he was told. A relieved Chagall responded, “Good. I can make more windows, but I can’t make more people.”

Hersh also greatly admires the work of Pablo Picasso and related a story about a retort Picasso made to a known Nazi about his painting of Guernica. “Oh, you’re the one who made Guernica,” said the Nazi to Picasso. “No, you did!” came Picasso’s quick reply. “I just painted it!”

Hersh’s dream job is to give art lessons to children who show a genuine interest in the craft. “It makes me happy to see other people happy,” he said wistfully. “If people are using their God-given talents, they become happy. And happiness is contagious.”

Visual art is not Hersh’s only God-given talent. He’s also a short story and editorial writer for various newspapers, including The Jewish Journal. “I was blessed with enjoying all of my art,” he said. “I’m my best fan and worst critic.”

Hersh Goldman is also quite the mensch, as a visitor learned recently when, after their interview, he helped her down the stairs in the dark on that blustery night.

Gail Lowe is a freelance writer and principal of WordPower, a marketing and event management company based in Danvers and Lynn.

Ben Harris
Jewish Journal Staff

If architecture is the art of problem solving, then Moshe Safdie is arguably the chief constructor of solutions. With a reputation that spans the globe, and with buildings of his creation covering a geographic area no less expansive, Safdie has established himself as one of a cadre of international superstar architects, in a league with Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry. Among his projects are a new airport in Toronto, the public library in Vancouver, the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, the new Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, the Boston Museum on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and Modi’in, a city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv frequently referred to as Israel’s city of the future, that Safdie has planned literally from the ground up.

Born in Haifa in 1938, Safdie emigrated to Canada as a child and now has offices in Toronto, Jerusalem and Somerville. He says his Israeli heritage has greatly informed his work, particularly his much heralded ability to create contemporary designs in traditional settings.

“I would say my Israeli upbringing is probably the foundation of my political thinking and cultural roots,” Safdie told the Journal. “I would say that my experience working in Jerusalem in the 1970s in particular, as a young architect, certainly had an influence on my being attentive to historic heritage. The Jerusalem experience was a very important lesson.”
It is a lesson that Safdie put to use here on the North Shore as the designer of the new Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. At the PEM, the challenges were particularly acute. The oldest continually operating museum in the country, the PEM has evolved over more than two centuries into a sprawling institution of 24 older buildings nestled in Salem’s historic central district.
“It’s no mean trick to actually do a contemporary building that works within the context of an historical environment,” says the PEM’s executive director and CEO, Dan Monroe. “It’s not easy to create a contemporary building that actually works within, and plays off of, that environment, and at the same time stands alone and has integrity as an example of contemporary architectural expression.”

Hailed by the Boston Globe as one of Safdie’s finest efforts, the new building integrated several of the older structures into one facility, complete with the requisite soaring atrium and oodles of glass and natural light. Tops of the buildings echo the distinctive New England features of traditional Salem architecture and subtly impressive touches are found throughout, from the way sunlight filters through several floors of gallery space to the conversation-friendly acoustics in the entryway.
Safdie says the PEM was one of his most challenging projects and jokes that the “building had more meetings per-square-foot than any project I ever did.” But in the end — the project took nearly a decade to complete — the effort was worth it.

“Though it’s a big building, it fits to the scale of Salem,” says Safdie. “When you walk by you don’t feel like it’s a big building. There’s a sense of uplift — the whiteness, the sun, the sails — that I find very pleasing. People come out of this building feeling uplifted. That’s not easy to come by.”

Safdie first came to international prominence in 1967 with the building of Habitat 67 in Montreal. Inspired by travels through the United States where he witnessed first-hand the depredations of urban housing projects, Safdie aimed to find a ‘solution’ to the problem of how to build high-density, economical housing that afforded its inhabitants a sense of humanity. The result is an arresting pile of prefabricated housing units, each with its own entrance and garden, that resembles nothing so much as a stack of concrete LEGOs.

In “Moshe Safdie, The Power of Architecture,” a documentary to be screened at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston next month, Safdie confesses that he did in fact design the project with LEGOs. The film shows Safdie returning to the site more than three decades after it was built, strolling the grounds and admiring his handiwork. Though it was intended for lower-income families, Habitat 67 has become an icon of urban architecture and is now a well-heeled enclave.

In the film, we follow Safdie on visits to some of his best-known buildings and eavesdrop as he muses on his work. He is an eloquent spokesman, with an eloquence that rivals that of his buildings — dramatic structures of glass and light, each with countless nifty solutions to the conundrums of contemporary architecture. In Modi’in he has found a way to avoid the soullessness that frequently accompanies rapid development. Apartment buildings are built like staircases into the hills and the main roads trace the arcs of the valleys, retaining a sense of oneness with nature.

“Nature is full of the most exquisite designs, all of which have evolved through natural selection responding to survival,” Safdie says. “For me, architecture follows that model.”

In Salem, the back-and-forth between Safdie and the museum, and the countless meetings with civic review boards and the city council, underscore the particular challenges of erecting major new buildings. Unlike painting or music, architecture is not a solitary art. Placing bold and innovative structures in urban settings — Safdie’s stock in trade — has an immeasurable effect on a city, rendering architecture an inextricably social and political act.

Perhaps as a result, Safdie does not shy away from the political. In a departure from the overall tenor of the film, Safdie weighs in on one of the most pressing political issues in Israel today: the construction of a separation barrier in the West

Bank.
Safdie calls the wall a “physical crime” that “desecrates the land.” What’s more, and maybe worse, it’s unattractive.
“Anything that ugly cannot be good,” Safdie says in the film. “I believe that intuitively.”

Safdie explained later that this was his opinion as an architect. As an Israeli, his reasoning is different, but his opinion is no less lacerating. “I don’t believe fences work. I believe fences are short-term solutions. They are overcome [by] those who want to penetrate them. They’re usually a replacement for the need to resolve a conflict.”

Though Safdie is in the business of solving problems, he doesn’t believe the conflict with the Palestinians can be resolved through design.

“I don’t think the issue is architectural, although I think it is spatial,” he says. “We are sharing a piece of land with the Palestinians which is four dimensions. This intertwined situation means somehow we have to learn to live together. I do share frustration with those who say the Palestinians are not getting their act together. It’s extremely frustrating. I also realize that some of our own actions have caused some of that. Obviously this is a reaction to a reaction to a reaction. I just deep in my heart do not feel that there’s a military solution or a spatial disengagement solution. We just have to deal with it politically.”

Though he has designed buildings the world over, and recently completed the impressive new Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Safdie says he would refuse to design a similar work for the Palestinians. They should be developing their own identity, Safdie says, and should find a Palestinian architect.

“Moshe Safdie, The Power of Architecture” will be screened at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on Feb. 5 at 1:45 pm. Tickets can be purchased online at www.mfa.org.

Tom Tugend
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” a project that sounds as hopeless as staging “Springtime for Hitler” on Broadway, has been conceived, written, directed and performed by American Jewish comedian Albert Brooks.

In the film, the protagonist is a down-on-his-luck American Jewish comedian named Albert Brooks, who jumps when the U.S. State Department offers him a mission to India and Pakistan to find out what makes Muslims laugh.

As the chairman of the State Department commission explains, neither politicians, generals nor diplomats seem to be having much luck in winning the hearts and minds of Muslims, so perhaps killing them with jokes might do the trick.

Besides, if he does a good job and turns in a 500-page report, President Bush, who, the chairman assures a skeptical Brooks, has a great sense of humor, may confer the Medal of Freedom on the comedian.

To Brooks’ objection that India is a Hindu nation, an expert informs him that there are 125 million Muslims in the country.

Urged on by his wife (played by Amy Ryan), who sees the harebrained idea as a great patriotic act, Brooks starts out, accompanied by two unenthusiastic government handlers (Jon Tenney and John Carroll Lynch).

Arriving in New Delhi, his first job is to hire a local secretary. After interviewing a string of candidates who either speak no English, can’t type, or question whether he is a Jew (“Well, part time,” is the answer), Brooks finally hits the jackpot with the beautiful and efficient Maya (Sheetal Sheth).

In the best Hollywood tradition, Brooks decides to loosen up the natives by putting on a show in the form of a stand-up comedy routine, complete with a talking dummy.

Naturally, whatever can go wrong goes wrong, the audience listens in stony silence, and his handlers begin to doubt Brooks’ professional talents.

Denied a visa by Pakistan, Brooks sneaks across the border for a clandestine campfire meeting with a group of budding Pakistani comics. Since everybody, including the unwitting Brooks, is smoking hashish, the impromptu show is a rousing success.

As an accidental by-product, Brooks almost starts an Indian-Pakistani nuclear war and is whisked to safety just in time.
In execution, Brooks’ brilliant concept turns out not quite as hilarious as it sounds, with the director-actor falling back on some fairly hoary shticks.

But the movie has its moments, none better than when Brooks is invited to meet with three producers at the Al- Jazeera television network.

The elated Brooks assumes he will now have a chance to explain his vital mission to the Muslim world and for the occasion dresses up in a silk cream-colored tunic with gold sequin trim over matching pants and beaded Indian slippers.
Instead, the producers explain that Al-Jazeera has decided to launch an entertainment channel, whose first offering will be a sitcom about an American Jew living in a Muslim housing complex. The title of the show is “That Darn Jew,” and Brooks is offered the starring role.

Brooks declines, but as he bolts for the door a producer shouts after him, “Do you know how we can contact Jerry Seinfeld?”

North Shore Offers Many Beautiful and Historic Spots for Weddings
Amy Forman
Special to The Journal

Looking for a place for a wedding with an ocean view or historic ambiance? The North Shore’s variety of historic homes, rich cultural history and proximity to scenic beaches provide ample opportunity for those seeking a venue beyond the traditional synagogue setting.

“A lot of brides are looking to be a part of nature during their wedding ceremonies,” says Event Designer Donna Kagan of Marblehead’s Elegant Touch, who finds that beautiful ocean views and sunset experiences are particularly desirable.

The North Shore boasts several picturesque locations that offer function space with a view.

Situated along Route 127 hugging the Atlantic coast, Endicott College in Beverly has two properties available for private functions. Tupper Hall, a mansion designed by Guy Lowell, the architect of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, features historic architecture, a grand fountain, and accommodates up to 200 guests in a variety of rooms which open onto the main ballroom and conservatory with ocean view. While the grounds are often used for photographs, the festivities occur inside. As is typical of other mansions, large parties may be seated in adjoining rooms. A further limitation is that catering must be provided by Tupper Hall’s executive chef.

Endicott will complete this spring a semi-permanent tented facility on the grounds of the Aggasiz Center, an ocean-front estate with direct ocean views. Because the tent will have sides and include fans and heat for temperature control, weather generally will not be a factor. Catering is limited to the on-site caterer or one local catering company.

Panoramic ocean views are also found at the Great House at Castle Hill in Ipswich, a 59-room Stuart-style mansion formerly owned by plumbing magnate Richard Crane, Jr., and now run by the Trustees of the Reservation.

Indoor/outdoor flexibility is achieved on the property’s spectacular grounds perched above Crane’s Beach, which feature balustraded terraces and the 1⁄2 mile long Grand Allee, and there are always two location plans for each wedding to accommodate fickle New England weather. For large parties to be accommodated in the mansion, however, guests must be seated among two adjoining rooms, with dancing in a separate ballroom. Due to accessibility concerns in bad weather, the property is available only from May through October. The choice of tent and catering vendors is limited to an approved list.

Many find the vagaries of New England weather, wind and insects to be worth the priceless ocean view, which can come with a steep price tag. A less expensive option may be to have a ceremony in a public space with a view, moving to another indoor location for the reception. One such scenic spot is the Rose Garden at Lynch Park in Beverly, an ocean-front, Italian-style rose garden built on the site of President Taft’s summer vacation cottage.

The spectacular garden setting of the historic Glen Magna Farm in Danvers rivals an ocean view. Used as a summer retreat for the family of wealthy shipping merchant Joseph Peabody, the property, now owned by the Danvers Historical Society, contains a classic Colonial revival mansion and the Derby Summer House, a National Historic Landmark. The award-winning landscape includes formal, rose and old fashioned gardens with gazebo and statues. Most weddings take place in the formal garden before the wisteria-covered pergola, but the dramatic foyer in the mansion is also used. With any outdoor setting, insects may be a factor and while the property does utilize a mosquito magnet, Director of Events Heather King advises clients to plan ahead, having a variety of insect repellants available. Receptions are either held in a tent on the property or within the mansion, where larger parties must be seated in separate rooms. A preferred list of caterers and tent companies must be used.

For a more informal approach, Smith Barn, owned by the Peabody Historical Society and located next to Brooksby Farm in Peabody, is an historic and rustic barn with twin balconies accommodating up to 240 people on two levels. In good weather, wedding ceremonies are held in Woodland Garden behind the Nathaniel Felton Junior House, also owned by the Peabody Historic Society, and guests enjoy the hilltop view from the barn’s two rear doors. Antique farm tools found throughout the property add to the rustic ambiance. With limited heating, the barn is available from April through November, and preferred caterers must be used.

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem offers historical and cultural wedding settings of a different kind. PEM has a variety of wedding options for a range of party sizes. In nice weather, ceremonies can be held in several of the museum’s garden areas, but the most popular place remains the reading room of the Phillips Library, with its grand columns and staircase, across the street from the main museum. Receptions are held amidst the museum’s Chinese export porcelain collection in the Bartlett and Copeland Galleries, the historic East India Marine Hall, or the Atrium with its arched glass roof at the heart of the museum. The Cotting-Smith Assembly House is also used for small receptions. Limited space is available during hours when the museum is open to the public, and parties must use one of two approved caterers.

“People are usually very surprised when they come at night because the space feels very elegant and exclusive,” says Functions Manager Natalia Laskaris. “A lot of people are looking for something out of the ordinary, and we can do that (at the PEM).”

In a museum, historic home or ocean-front setting, a variety of unique wedding experiences are available on the North Shore.

I was a second time bride. And though I like to refer to my current husband as my second husband, he was my first husband too. Ten years ago we were married by a Reform rabbi before 200 guests who had assembled in a historic casino for a lavish, Saturday evening affair. Ten years later, we renewed our vows before a Conservative rabbi with less than 30 guests, many of them under 7, who had assembled for an afternoon of tea, finger-sandwiches, champagne and cake.

Most people think of June as the matrimonial month, but January is the month that begins all things bridal. In addition to the many couples engaged over the December holidays and on New Year’s Eve, January is the month when the wedding vendors preview their latest and greatest wears. From gowns to china patterns, this month commences the “bride brain” contagion.

I must admit I am a bit of a wedding junkie. I watch the sappy love-story wedding shows on television for fun (hey, it’s better than the news!). And while all weddings are wonderful, of course, I am partial to Jewish weddings. Here’s why.

Jewish weddings are a family affair. Some other ceremonies become spotlight performances with the bride and groom playing the leading roles. In these situations, the wedding couple — but typically the bride — may succumb to the delusion that the wedding is all about her, that it is her day, and her day alone, to shine. It is rare to find a Jewish Bridezilla. Jewish weddings, however, are all about family. From including the groom’s parents on the invitation, to the custom of parents standing with the couple under the chuppah, the entire Jewish wedding reminds the couple that they are part of a larger family and bigger community.

One word, Yichud. Weddings take months and months to plan. Then the event just flies by. As the guests depart, the whole wedding seems like a blur. Taking the time immediately following the ceremony for the couple to spend time together, a tradition known as yichud, is so important. While not the original intention, it allows the couple to focus for a moment on just each other and the significance and meaning of the vows they have exchanged. Many non-Jewish couples like this concept enough that they choose to incorporate a moment alone after their ceremonies too.

Get it in writing. Jewish weddings begin with the not-so-romantic realism that the vows about to be spoken are serious business. Signing the ketubah, the marriage contract, with the requisite questions and witnesses, reinforces the gravity of the situation. The marriage contract ensures that both the bride and groom, in the presence of unbiased and unrelated witnesses, understand the importance of the marriage. And then the ketubah is framed and hung in the home as a constant reminder of the marriage benefits and consequences.

Eat, EAT! You will never go home hungry from a Jewish wedding. Like Italians, Jews understand it is not a celebration unless you are eating, and eating a lot. I will never forget the time I was attending a Jewish wedding on Long Island with a friend. There were sweets and wine before the ceremony and a full cocktail hour, with hors d’oeuvres and carving stations around the room after the ceremony. My friend kept eating and eating. I gently suggested she slow down. She was flabbergasted when, an hour later, we were escorted into the main hall for a five-course meal. And we each left with a piece of wedding cake in a box. I also remember the time I rented a car and drove six hours for a wedding only to be served wedding cake with cheese and crackers before getting behind the wheel to begin the long drive home.
I do so love weddings. After all, I have already had two of my own. At the drugstore this morning, I noticed the latest batch of bridal magazines. I could not resist paging through. Ah, the beginning of the wedding season.

It was a typical day in the life of a Jewish husband. My lovely wife handed me the grocery list, many pages of small writing and as heavily annotated as the Mishna. (“Don’t buy the store brand pineapple chunks. Buy Del Monte. And I mean CHUNKS not RINGS, dummy.”)

I ran to the car. She wanted me back in time to cook my famous El Diablo en Pineapple Chicken. She likes an early supper. “And drop by my sister’s on the way home and clean out her stopped up toilet!” she shouted. I hoped the neighbors didn’t hear.

She had announced earlier that supper was mine. In a clear ringing voice she declared, “You do supper.” But I’ve learned from our ex-president that the meaning of words is crucial. So, what did she mean by ‘do’?

Could I thaw out one of our chicken dinners from the back of the freezer where the polar bears lived?

Could I go eat a corned beef platter with slaw at the deli while she had a cracker and a glass of water at home?

“What IS the meaning of ‘do’,” I repeated. Our ex-president would have been proud of me, I thought. But my thought was interrupted by, “It means that you stand over the stove and cook that awful, mushy but filling pineapple chicken.”

Soon as I got home, naturally, I put on my pineapple chicken. Rings or chunks, who knows the difference in the yellow brown mush I pile on the platter? And I saved fifteen cents on the store brand. She’ll never know. Yellow mush is yellow mush.

While it bubbled I ran upstairs to examine our marriage contract, our ketubah, to see what it said about pineapple chicken and my sister-in-law’s toilet.

The ketubah — a pre-nup instrument that dates back a millennium or so. Another exclusive Jewish invention — but well behind monotheism, capitalism, and rolled cabbage with raisin sauce.

Hindus, Christians, Bud-dhists, Moslems — they’re all the same when it is time to link up matrimonially. They just mumble some words. Nobody signs anything. And words, well, words are like the buttercups of spring. They come and they go. Can you see a Hindu couple arguing about the grocery duties?

He: “No, my peacock, my rainbow, my lovely forest foxen, I said we’d eat with your parents next door.”

A Jewish lady would pull out her ketubah and call a lawyer. We may have invented them too. Lawyers, I mean, because I just carefully scrutinized my ketubah. It was clearly drawn up by my bride’s lawyer.

Listen to the groom’s declaration: “I faithfully promise … honor and cherish thee, protect and support thee and provide all that is necessary for thy due sustenance … and further obligations to thy maintenance … as are prescribed by our religious statute.”

That last sentence about maintenance covers a world of requirements clearly including pineapple chunks and sister-in-law’s plumbing. It is a formal “declaration” — full of promises — by the groom to the bride.

The bride makes no formal declaration. Zero. The contract that she signs says something frilly and feminine (and legally undefinable) about “plighting her troth.” What does that mean? Making up the grocery list?

She does sign up to “all the duties incumbent upon a Jewish wife.” No details, though. The Supreme Court would rule that short, weak-willed statement unenforceable in a lower court.

Furthermore, in a Jewish marriage — the ketubah, duly signed and witnessed — is handed to the bride for safekeeping.

Ted Roberts, the Scribbler on the Roof, is a syndicated humorist from Huntsville, AL. His website is www.wonderwordworks.com.

One of the most symbolic aspects of the Jewish wedding ceremony is the breaking of the glass under the chuppah, the wedding canopy, to commemorate one of the most painful occurrences in the history of the Jewish people: the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. As a rabbi or cantor often chants the verse from Psalms, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand whither,” the crowd hushes in a solemn moment.

Why do these sad words need to be included in the happiest days of our lives? We include this ancient rite to remind us that as long as the temple remains destroyed, there will continue to be sadness and pain in the world. Amidst our happiness, it is integral to recognize the enduring imperfection of the world.

Jewish consciousness calls upon us to remember those less fortunate, even at our greatest moments of joy. Yet many of us get caught up with wedding dresses, flowers, color schemes and party attire. We become so engrossed in the planning that we often disregard the spiritual, more meaningful aspects of the wedding.

It takes a little creativity, but there are many simple ways to infuse charity, mindfulness and kindness into your simcha.
One area to consider is the wedding dress. Women spend thousands of dollars for a gown they will ultimately wear for five hours (and hopefully never again). Instead, buy a dress from the Bridal Garden (www.bridalgarden.org), a not-for-profit resale bridal boutique run by Sheltering Arms Children’s Services. Their dresses, all donated by couture designers, sell from 50% to 75% off. Proceeds go to help needy children in New York City.

Another option is to use a bridal g’mach. The word g’mach is an abbreviation for the Hebrew phrase g’milut chasadim, which means kindness or charity. G’machs are a free lending system that assist those who can’t afford various household and lifecycle equipment. G’machs mainly carry religiously modest dresses, but some carry designer pieces, as well as other bridal attire. Most g’machs ask for a small donation to support other brides in the community who are financially unable.

“It meant so much to me that not only did I find the dress of my dreams, I also supported other brides who were not as financially fortunate,” said Jerusalemite Jessica Buntman, who rented her gown from a local g’mach. “You will be surprised at some of the beautiful gowns you can find.”

Brides-to-be know that invitations can become a costly expense. Stacy Miller of Chicago found cards designed by Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. “When searching for invitations, I couldn’t rationalize spending so much money on paper that people throw away,” said Miller. “I had worked with many Ethiopian children in Jerusalem and thought that I could use some of their artwork in designing my invitations. Not only did I feel great supporting their organization, the invitation caught many of my guests’ eyes. It was the best $200 spent on my wedding”.

Instead of spending your bridal shower sitting around and opening gifts, have your friends come with a small gift to donate to an orphan or a less fortunate bride. If you do not know of anyone, contact your local rabbi. Stephanie Jacobs of Baltimore heard about a young bride in her community who had recently lost her father. Realizing that the family might

be in financial difficulty, Jacobs asked her friends to direct all gifts from her bridal shower to this young woman.
“When I heard about this new bride, I felt incredibly blessed to have both of my parents alive at my wedding and I also felt responsible to do whatever I could to help her,” said Jacobs. “I certainly did not need extra vegetable peelers or glasses or placemats and I thought she could use some of these items. We packaged all the gifts my friends got me, brought them to the rabbi’s house and he had them delivered to this new bride. I went to sleep that night feeling so fulfilled by what we did.”

At my wedding, there was a lot of food left over, so we donated it to a local Jewish food shelter. Left over flowers can also be sent to a hospital or a senior residence. Just contact these organizations and arrange to have someone come and pick them up.

Another idea is to suggest an organization your guests can choose to donate to in lieu of a present. Friends of mine specified three organizations that they asked people to donate to. Instead of giving parting gifts to your guests, make a donation on behalf of each guest to a particular organization and write it on their place card. An alternative is sending thank-you cards on the stationery from the place that you made a donation to. Guests will be grateful and certainly do not need another wedding tchatchka.

These are just a few examples of ways to infuse a Jewish consciousness into your affair. There are many others. All it takes is a bit of creativity and a mindfulness that you would like to infuse the Jewish value of tikkun olam into your simcha in whatever way possible.

Ali Feldman is a co-author of “The JGirl’s Guide”(Jewish Lights, 2005) and an educator. She teaches character improvement classes for middle school students in Miami Beach.

When I was in college, I spent the High Holidays with my great Aunt and great Uncle in Malden. I loved going to temple with Auntie Min and uncle Charlie (often my Auntie Jo from Cleveland would be in town and I was given a sense of extended family that, hitherto, I had never experienced). The temple itself was part of the family — my great-grandparents, along with so many others, were founders of the temple.My zayda, Hyman Krasner, for whom I am named, was honored by having a plaque in his memory adorn the main lectern on the bimah.

It’s Rosh Hashanah 1989. Auntie Min invited me to tag along again for old time’s sake. I am sitting in temple and during the silent prayers I am making deals with G-d: “Please, I’ll never date any more creepy guys, just send me someone nice. And while you’re at it, could you make him Jewish?”

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, Auntie Min leans over and whispers, “Don’t look now, but across the aisle and two rows back ... the blonde.” At the end of the service, Auntie informs me that she has already given a friend of the blonde’s mother my home phone number. I am not sure why I was so angry at her — perhaps I just couldn’t believe this septuagenarian was, well, being herself. She looked at me with all the seriousness she could muster and said, “What? You don’t have to marry him!”

Howard and I met at the breaking of the fast the following week and we were married almost exactly two years later. Almost 17 years after our first meeting, and two fantastic children later (Samuel, 11, and Rebecca, 7), we still visit the temple to which Howard’s family belongs. I look at seats where we all were sitting (now other people sit in Auntie Min and Uncle Charlie’s seats and Auntie Jo goes to temple in Brookline) and I remember — and smile — when I think that when G-d answers your prayers, you do have to marry him.

It was July of 1998 and I had just been hired as the new endowment director at the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. They had just moved into their new facilities on Front Street and everyone was excited about a fresh start.

I had just arrived from Dallas and was also looking for a fresh start, not only in my career, but in my life as well. I really wasn’t looking for a husband, but a way to begin developing a social circle and to find new friends in the community.
I met many men over the course of three or four months that summer. Little did I know that my future husband was to arrive on the ferry from Boston one fine Saturday afternoon.

I saw Richard Kiely as he stepped off of the ferry that day and as they say, it was love at first sight.

Richard isn’t Jewish and it was really difficult finding a rabbi to perform the ceremony. We finally found one in the far North Shore. As anyone who has planned a wedding knows, the costs begin to escalate and before you know it, you’re spending thousands of dollars. So we decided to elope to Las Vegas.

We found a wonderful rabbi in Las Vegas who agreed to marry us in a small chapel there (Aaron’s Chapel of the Bells) and proceeded to make plans. My wonderful Federation executive director, Neal Cooper, lent us his tallit so that we would have a chuppah to stand under, and my son’s yarmulke became Richard’s. A small crystal glass given to me by my bubbe was broken at the end of the ceremony. Our beautiful, hand-painted ketubah, which I carried on my lap in a tube on the plane, was signed and hangs in our bedroom today.

We spent the next seven days in Las Vegas and returned to Marblehead where our good friend Cheryl Brill helped us throw a July 4th wedding reception at her home. This May we will celebrate seven years of marriage here on our wonderful Greek Island in Leros. The North Shore holds a special place in our hearts and will always be wonderfully tied to our love.

Li and I have been happily married since 1964. It all began when I was in the army in the 1950s, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I would correspond with my many girlfriends back in Dorchester since I wasn’t the type who spent my off-time drinking. I wasn’t satisfied with the small amount of mail I was receiving, so I mailed my name and address to a love story magazine. It just so happened that my dear wife Li, who was a student at the University of the Philippines in Manila, saw my name and address and decided that she would like to correspond with an American.
I received two letters from her while home on leave in July 1954. Five years later, after being discharged from the army, I was working at a Jewish grocery store in Brookline and Li was as an exchange student at Binghamton City Hospital in New York. Every time there was a Jewish holiday, with its three-day weekend, I would drive the seven hours to Binghamton to visit her.

We fell in love and, after 41 years, still are. We were engaged on April 2, 1962. Before the end of her three-year tenure at Binghamton, and before she returned home to the Philippines, she spent two weeks with me and my family.
After she returned to the Philippines, we continued our correspondence. She began to make wedding plans and, because I felt I hadn’t sufficient funds to make the trip to the Philippines, postponed the wedding. Li felt that she lost face and mailed back the engagement ring. I was devastated and mailed the ring back to her. Once again, she mailed the ring back to me, whereupon I went to seek counseling and was told: “You had better make plans to go to the Philippines and get her!”

So, I got my passport, visa and shots and flew to the Philippines, alone, since my family couldn’t afford to accompany me. A week before our wedding, I contracted the flu. It happens that my best man, Li’s brother, and Li’s late father were both medical doctors, and got me nursed back to health, so that the rest is history. We now have two great children and a new grandson, Joseph Simon Tankel, born on Nov. 28.

As the Journal goes to press, it appears that Hamas is on track for an impressive showing in Palestinian parliamentary elections.

Regarded by Israel and the United States as a terrorist group responsible for the massacre of hundreds of civilians, Hamas enjoys a somewhat different reputation among Palestinians as an honest alternative to the corruption of Fatah, Yasser Arafat’s political faction that has long dominated Palestinian politics.

Prevailing wisdom has it that Hamas’s electoral success owes much to failures of the Palestinian Authority, which has squandered millions of dollars in foreign aid over the past decade, enriching its officials at the expense of the masses. Hamas has provided vital services, including scholarships for needy students, health clinics, and so forth.

Some have expressed the hope that victory at the polls will have a moderating influence on the organization, whose charter continues to call for the destruction of Israel. These hopes are profoundly misplaced. The terrorist group Hezbollah, which has become a significant player in Lebanese politics in recent years, continues to conduct armed attacks against Israel and to destabilize the border region.

The Hezbollah comparison is an apt one. A recent New York Times cover story detailed Hamas’s efforts to start a satellite television network similar to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, which broadcasts Islamic programming — replete with exhortations to suicidal violence against the infidels and children’s programming that propagates vile anti-Semitic canards — around the Arab world.

But Hamas’s success may ultimately prove to be less than the disaster some are predicting. Unlike Fatah, which has been punished at the polls after a decade of autocratic rule that failed to improve daily life for Palestinians, Hamas will now be held accountable for its actions. If a fundamentalist agenda overtakes its ability to govern responsibly, Hamas will pay the price. And if it uses its newly acquired powers to launch terrorist operations that destabilize the region and set back prospects for a negotiated settlement, the Palestinians will have no one to blame but themselves.

Since Prime Minister Sharon’s stroke and surgery three weeks ago, I have seen the most wrong-headed, irrational analyses of Israel’s situation.

Based on what I saw, peace was probably finished, Israel was in a state of confusion, and the citizenry was in panic. The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer wrote a column headlined “Calamity for Israel,” in which he wrote: “The stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could prove to be one of the great disasters in the country’s nearly 60-year history.”

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s representative at the U.N., said, “When your father is desperately ill, we his children feel very worried, nearly orphaned and very, very sad.”

Israel doesn’t have or need a father-like head of state. The all-powerful Father-Rulers dominate countries like Cuba, North Korea and Syria.

No modern democracy — with an honestly elected parliament, an established civil service, an independent judiciary and a free press — has ever collapsed with the death of a leader.

Think Roosevelt, Kennedy, Rabin. Remember how the successors stepped in, carried on, and fought for goals in the name of the former leader.

So it will be in Israel. People will go to work and kids to school. The military will stand fast in protecting the nation. And the movement towards disengaging from the Palestinians, setting the stage for their independent state, will continue. Life will continue with no existential crisis.

Should Ehud Olmert become prime minister, he will do just fine. Most polls are showing Olmert, in politics for 32 years and second to Sharon in the newly established Kadima party, with as much, maybe a bit more, electoral clout than even Sharon.

Why not? He is seen as a good politician and a key developer of the Sharon policy of withdrawal, disengagement and building the security fence. Plus, ten years as Jerusalem’s mayor may be Israel’s best training in diplomacy and administration.
Another reasonable electoral choice, especially for a likely coalition partner, is the Labor Party, headed by Amir Peretz — immigrant to Israel as a youngster, a working farmer, former mayor of Sderot (a town in the Negev), head of the Histadrut Labor Union, and chairman of the political party Amechad.

Rather than being anxious about Israel’s future, I look forward to the election. Israel’s parliamentary system means that every vote cast has significance; parties gain Knesset seats in proportion to the votes received. In the American system, the losing votes just evaporate. That’s why, come election time, many Israelis abroad return to cast that one vote.

I invite you, especially those who have never been, to fly to Tel Aviv, see the country, stay at least two weeks and, feel how safe and sec-ure it is.

You will be glad you did. Plus, I assure you that the next time you hear all the television blather about Israel in crisis, you will stand up with me and shout, “Dayenu, enough.”

Be assured that all potential prime ministers are well aware of Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons aimed at Israel. That’s a real existential threat to be addressed by Israel’s next prime minister. Stay tuned.

Is Alito Good For the Jews?
Two Views on the Confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito
to the U.S. Supreme Court

Parshat Va’ayra
Faith and Covenants

JONAS GOLDBERG

Jonas Goldberg is the rabbi of Temple Sinai in Marblehead.

The era of the Patriarchs has come to an end with the close of the Book of Genesis. With the beginning of Exodus, the period of Israel’s enslavement has begun. In last week’s reading, Sh’mot, God appeared to Moshe at the burning bush and commissioned him to be God’s partner in freeing the Israelites.

This week’s reading, Va’ayra, begins: “God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHVH. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage . . . I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I the Lord.’”

Is it possible that God never spoke to the patriarchs using His proper name? The great commentator, Rashi, says that the patriarchs were not in a position to recognize God’s attribute of being ne’eman, reliable, faithful. Only the generation of Egypt would discover that just as God is ne’eman to deliver Israel, they could be certain that God was ne’eman to fulfill the other promises as well.

Each year, we remember God’s promises as we drink four cups of wine at the seder. Some drink a fifth cup in celebration of the fulfillment of the fifth promise to bring God’s people back to the land.

Ne’emanut, God’s reliability and faithfulness, becomes a principle of faith throughout the Biblical period. The authors of our rabbinic literature saw God’s faithfulness as one of those core attributes worthy of the Jewish people’s emulation. Indeed, every time we say “Amen,” we are agreeing that God is ne’eman.

An additional element is the covenant (b’rit), the agreement between God and the people Israel. There are many kinds of covenants found in Biblical literature. Most of us will think of b’rit milah, the covenant of circumcision between God and Abraham. The Decalogue, read in three weeks, is a b’rit. The rainbow is a sign of the b’rit between God and Noah. On the High Holy Days, we often mention b’rit avot, God’s covenants with our patriarchs. In Va’ayra we learn that God remembers His b’rit to redeem his people from bondage.

Thus we see that the concepts of b’rit, covenant, and ne’emanut, faithfulness, are inexorably intertwined. They are part and parcel of each other and teach us that just as God is faithful to fulfill the covenants that have been made with us, we should remember the importance of our remaining faithful to the covenants and promises that we make with one another.

Ben Harris
Jewish Journal Staff

Tom Tugend
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Ben Harris Jewish Journal Staff

Tom Tugend Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Ben Harris
Jewish Journal Staff

Tom Tugend
Jewish Telegraphic Agency