April 10, 2012 | 12:12 pm

Jon Stewart: Faith/Off - Easter vs. Passover

Posted by JewishJournal

Passover celebrants have to take it up a notch to compete with the chocolate eggs and fake grass of Easter.

April 10, 2012 | 11:04 am

White House rejects plea for Pollard release

Posted by  Tom Tugend

Jonathan Pollard. Photo by Wikipedia/U.S. Navy

The White House on Monday evening rejected fervent Israeli and American appeals to commute the life sentence of Jonathan Pollard and release him after 26 years in prison.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told reporters that the Obama administration “has no intention to release Pollard.”

Pollard was convicted in 1985 of violating the Espionage Act and passing classified information to Israel, while working as a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst.

The White House statement came in response to a letter received the same day from Israeli President Shimon Peres, seeking clemency for the 57-year old Pollard and particularly citing his deteriorating health.

Pollard, incarcerated at the federal penitentiary in Butner, North Carolina, was rushed to a nearby civilian hospital Friday, after complaining of severe pain. His condition was reported Monday as serious, but stable.

Among those appealing on Pollard’s behalf were Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. In an open letter, they stated that “whatever [Pollard’s] crimes, 26 years [in prison] is enough. We hope and pray that President Obama will act swiftly and compassionately to release Mr. Pollard promptly.”

Peres is slated to visit Obama in June and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award.

However, Peres has come under considerable pressure within Israel to reject the medal unless Pollard is freed.

According to the Israeli media, some 35,000 Israelis have signed a petition to that effect and 80 Knesset members have expressed similar sentiments. Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger urged all Jews to pray for the health and freedom of Pollard, whose Hebrew name is Yonatan Ben-Malka.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  appealed in January of last year to the White House for Pollard’s release, but the request was also rejected.

Among prominent Americans who have reportedly voiced their support for Pollard’s release are former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz and former CIA director James Woolsey.

On Sunday, Peres met with Pollard’s wife, Esther, who asked the Israeli president to use his influence to free her ailing husband, “because I do not want to be his widow.”

4 Comments — Leave your comment

April 5, 2012 | 12:10 pm

Become an Inspiration Addict

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Photo by Wikipedia/Fir0002

In my senior year of high school, I drank the juice of inspiration, and all of a sudden everything in the world started to matter. I used to think inspiration could be found anywhere, but I learned there are indeed bad books, pointless movies, and invites worth turning down. These comprise the “cold zone.” They take energy from you, as compared with the “hot zone” people and activities that you leave with more energy. Our task is to fine tune our spiritual antennae to detect the hot zones that charge us.

Our end goal is not to be perfectly rested or on an artificial high. The goal of the inspiration addict is that we can do good works, pour out positive energy, and give inspiration wherever we go. Just as we need food to keep our bodies going, we need inspiration-“food” to keep our souls burning.

With fake inspiration, we run between counselors, movies, books, and houses of worship without ever feeling spiritually satiated. But with deep human inspiration that truly touches and changes us, we leave the experience overflowing. Personally, I tend to be very inspired by deeply human stories—those who overcome obstacles, those who commit their lives to serving others, the limits of human possibility, self-transformation, love, etc. Most recently I have been inspired by Margarita, the leader of a movement to support the poor in rural Argentinean villages. As an inspiration junkie, I found myself writing down every word she shared about how she would work for the re-distribution of wealth. My notepad again was full of scribbles when I recently went to hear the young talented writer Jonathan Safran Foer describe his reasons to write a new haggadah to reconnect with his Jewish roots.

Our bodies instinctively transfer food into energy. But we must learn how to intentionally transfer inspiration into energy. Otherwise, it remains entertainment and not inspiration-food that we pass along and truly live by. The art of living inspired is to learn how to keep our inspiration tank full enough that we do not burn out, yet outpouring enough that we live with the holy fire.

I would identify three primary types of inspiration: moment-inspiration, encounter-inspiration, and soul-inspiration. In moment-inspiration, given the conditions of one’s life at the moment, one is uniquely able to understand a truth more deeply. In encounter-inspiration, one experiences an event that is transformative. In soul-inspiration, the most powerful, one does not need a particular moment or experience to have a deep inspirational moment. Rather, it is self cultivated. One gains the tools to provide self-discovery and self motivation without external stimuli.

At one time, the Jews relied upon G-d for inspiration. The prophets would be filled with ruach hakodesh (Divine inspiration) and the ability to understand higher truths. But the rabbis teach that this type of inspiration ended with the deaths of Chagai, Zechariah, and Malachi (Sanhedrin 11a). The root of inspiration is spirit, since it is a spiritual process that also has a respiratory connection. G-d breathed the first breath into man to provide the capacity for inspiration, one that is deeply internal. Today, we must take it upon ourselves to open our hearts and allow ourselves to be inspired each and every day by infinite possibility. 

When you find environments and people that inspire you, hold them close! Also, we can learn to generate our own inspiration wherever we are if we cultivate the right life lens. When you find that you just cannot get enough, you will know that you have become an inspiration junkie!

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available on Amazon.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 4, 2012 | 6:06 pm

The Revolutions of Chabad and AJWS!

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

This is the story of two Jewish organizations. Neither receives the proper credit they deserve for the global diaspora revolutions they are inspiring.

Chabad-Lubavitch is politically right-wing, religiously ultra-Orthodox, and prizes Jewish ritual above all else, working to raise the profile and increase observance of mitzvot. The American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is politically left-wing, not religious, and prizes universalism, working to alleviate poverty around the world. 

At first blush, these organizations appear to have nothing in common: They serve different populations, in radically different ways, and sit at different tables at family functions.

A closer look, however, reveals that Chabad and AJWS have much in common. Their guiding principles and drive are of a piece.

Chabad and AJWS both

• Are driven by the messianic (one perhaps more explicitly than the other) idealism for a better tomorrow


• Think globally and value inclusion and cultural sensitivity


• Believe Judaism belongs firmly in the public sphere, where the core Jewish values of each are stated with confidence and passion


• Understand the importance of food (Chabad through Shabbat hosting) and AJWS through advocacy for the farm bill and by fighting hunger


• Are ideological absolutists, prioritize action over learning without neglecting learning, and have been led by very charismatic leaders who have inspired armies of followers

Chabad, which boomed under the brilliant Lubavitcher Rebbe, has been around for a few hundred years and currently has a budget and impact exponentially greater than AJWS. AJWS, led by the great Ruth Messinger, has been around for only a few decades but has already made a significant impact on Jewish global service. 

I do not know where I would be in life had I not become involved with these two groups. Chabad has provided me a spiritual home in dozens of cities around the world, and helped me grow in mitzvah observance during my Jewish journey in college. While I do not agree with many of Chabad’s political and ideological positions, I recognize that it is the strongest and fastest growing Jewish movement and I leave their houses inspired by how they give. No other religious group can rival Chabad’s ability to cultivate the energy to build outreach satellites around the world.

At the same time, there is no telling what kind of activist I would be today without AJWS. Rather than join the Peace Corps, AJWS provided me a Jewish home in the global south where I could serve as an observant Jew. Through opportunities as both participant and staff member on its programs, this organization rocket launched me onto a path of Jewish social justice leadership. These service-learning experiences throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and Central America in turn opened my heart to suffering around the world, my mind to strategic thinking, and my soul to an identity as a global Jew. Currently, AJWS is circulating a Jewish Petition for a Just Farm Bill (with more than 16,000 signatures) in an effort to achieve a more just Farm Bill, which covers foreign aid as well as domestic food policy. There is no Jewish organization as thoughtful and successful at addressing global social justice work as AJWS.

Some criticize these organizations for being too narrow of focus. “Why does Chabad only help Jews?” “Why does AJWS only help non-Jews?” I believe that we have a need for organizations that focus in these ways in order that they can achieve excellence. No group is better than Chabad at teaching ahavat Yisrael (love for the fellow Jew), and none is better than AJWS at teaching ahavat ha’briot (love for all people). Together, they can inspire all of us to higher levels.

My dream is to see a Jewish community that is fully observant in the mitzvot (as Chabad teaches) and leads the world in social justice (as AJWS teaches). When I applied for my first grant to found Uri L’Tzedek (the Orthodox social justice movement) in the spring of 2007, I was very aware that it was the great leadership and success of Chabad and AJWS that had enabled and inspired this innovation. Whether or not we agree with all of the approaches of Chabad or AJWS, they are the ones impacting global Jewish life, and if we do not join them, we are just spectators. They are succeeding for a very important reason—they see the big picture of our Jewish responsibility! Jewish values must be actualized—we can learn from the approaches of Chabad and AJWS how to go beyond our comfort zones to change the world.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 3, 2012 | 5:44 pm

The Shoes We Wear: A Statement of Identity and Values

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Photo by Wikipedia/Roland zh

How beautiful are thy feet in sandals.

A few days ago in the Argentinian shantytown where we were volunteering, a four-year-old boy said he liked my zapatos (shoes). Our shoes can reveal much about our socio-economic status, as I have been told many times while traveling in developing countries. While I am always surprised by this, since I think of my shoes as utterly basic, never have I been as affected as I was this time. This boy, who is not wearing shoes today and is unlikely to be wearing them anytime in the future, opened up my heart.

Shoes are symbolic in Jewish thought. On Yom Kippur, Tisha B’Av, and during shiva (7 days of mourning for an immediate relative) it is prohibited to wear leather shoes. Similarly, Jewish priests (kohanim) take their shoes off when they give their priestly blessing. Today, some Chassidim still remove their shoes before approaching the gravesite of a holy person. One Talmudic passage even implies that shoes are more important than a home: “A person should sell the roof beams of his house to buy shoes for his feet” (Shabbat 129a). Shoes contribute to our basic sense of human dignity: Rabbi Akiva instructed his son Joshua never to go barefoot.

The most famous biblical stories about shoes are about the importance of removing them before G-d. Joshua encounters an angel of G-d, and the angel tells him to take off his shoes, since he is standing on holy ground (Joshua 5:13-15). We see the same behavior with Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:5). The head of a synagogue in India where I spent Pesach a few years ago told me that they do not wear shoes in the synagogue because of the latter story. There is a humility that comes with being shoeless. As one’s skin touches the earth, one can feel the frailty of one’s humanity. Seeing the dirt upon one’s toes is a reminder of our inevitable return to that earth. 

Personally, when I enter a home, especially my own, I always take off my shoes. It is a sign that I feel that I am in a special place. Home is a place where I have a lower voice, speak more intimately, and open myself up. Taking my shoes off is an expression to all that I have removed myself from the chaotic and tough outside world and have entered a more soft and humble mode of being.

There is an ancient Jewish practice called chalitza, in which a woman whose husband has died is absolved from the obligation to marry his brother by pulling the shoe off his foot and spitting in his face (Deuteronomy 25: 5-10). This is meant to shame him for not taking responsibility for her. Shoes represent power, and to remove another’s shoe is to humble him. There are many parallels in other cultures, such as Cinderella’s glass slipper, which wins her the hand of the Prince, or Dorothy’s ruby shoes in The Wizard of Oz, whose magical power is to resist the attempt of the Wicked Witch to seize them, and later return Dorothy to Kansas.

The chalitza ceremony also reminds us that shoes for many are symbolic of suffering. Millions have suffered and continue to suffer from the practice of foot binding, an incredibly painful and debilitating custom in which a young girl’s feet are broken in multiple places (four toes are folded under the foot until they break, and the arch is broken to shorten its length to about 3 inches), and then maintained by binding the feet with cloth. In spite of opposition from the Manchu dynasty and the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government, the practice persisted until 1949, when the Communist government finally stopped foot binding for young girls. However, many women age 60 and older still keep their feet bound, as the process of allowing the foot to grow would involve further bone breaks and pain, and because some are loyal to the old ways. We should not encourage anyone, especially women, to inflict such pain in the pursuit of a perverted sense of the erotic.

Some have begun to address the importance of the shoes we wear. Tom’s Shoes, for example, will donate a pair of new shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes you buy from them. Of course, with millions more wearing shoes, the issue of killing more animals to get the leather for shoes also becomes an issue for many. As a result, there is now also a whole industry of vegan shoes. Finally, there is even a shoe museum in Toronto, which my wife Shoshana and I recently had the pleasure of visiting, dedicated to the history of shoes.

When I was in Senegal last year, a young boy named Mamadou was persistent that I repair my shoe after it tore. I would have discarded these shoes, but Mamadou taught me about the importance of valuing the shoes I own. It is said that the Kotzker Rebbe used to wrap up his worn-out shoes before throwing them away and saying, “How can I simply toss away a pair of shoes that have served me so well over the course of years.” He understood that there was almost a holiness to something so basic that has enabled us to be mobile and fulfill our life missions. As Forrest Gump famous said about his shoes, “They were my magic shoes, they would take me anywhere.” Shoes truly are a magical blessing.

The rabbis teach that one should say the blessing “Blessed are You Who has provided me my every need” when putting on shoes (Brachot 60b) and thus Rashi explains that there is nothing more degrading than walking barefoot in public (Shabbat 129a).

We take shoes for granted, but in many societies shoes are a luxury, and have symbolic significance. The Shulchan Aruch, the great Jewish code of law, lays out the order of how shoes are to be put on and taken off. This is not just purposeless legal minutiae. Rather, it is a way of reminding us, every time we put our shoes on or take them off, just how blessed we are. An act as simple as putting our shoes on can remind us of human and animal suffering, inspire us toward humility, help us to transition to a more personal space, and remind us of our countless blessings.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 3, 2012 | 12:57 pm

“Jacob and Jack” combines laughs and soul

Posted by  Tom Tugend

Veronica Alicino, Bruce Katzman and Nan Tepper (from left) cavort in "Jacob and Jack." now at the Zephyr Theatre. Photo by Chuck Green

“Jacob and Jack” is part backstage farce, part Yiddish soul, part time travel and, mixed together, a barrel of fun.

The play by James Sherman (“The God of Isaac,” “Beau Jest”) is set in Chicago in 1935, and then 75 years later in the present, with each of the six characters jumping from one era to another and back.

In the titles role, Bruce Katzman is both the stentorian Yiddish actor Jacob Shemerinsky and his present-day grandson Jack Shore.

Neither incarnation is a marquee name. Jack makes a living doing TV commercials, and when he got a chance to play in “The Diary of Anne Frank,” he recalls, “there were more people in the attic than in the audience.”

What ties the two time zones together is that Jack has been persuaded by his forceful mother to stage a tribute performance for her ladies club, commemorating his grandfather Jacob.

Facilitating the switches between past and present on the small stage of the Zephyr Theatre are five constantly slammed doors connecting the time-traveling characters in their dressing rooms and with the outside world.

Revolving around Jacob/Jack are his long-suffering wife and actress Lisa/Leah (Veronica Alicino), who, with good reason, suspects her husband of infidelities, and charming ingénue Deborah Knox, the object of desire in both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Nan Tapper, who doubles as the mother of both Jack and of the ingénue in different eras, is the no-nonsense Jewish matriarch, who gets her descendants out of their frequent scrapes.

Tepper displays a finely-honed comic edge as well as a grasp of graphic Yiddish, which cannot be printed in a family publication, either in English or in the mamaloshen.

Rounding out the talented cast are Matthew Gottlieb as Jack’s agent and a stage manager, and young Matthew Scott Montgomery, alternating as a novice stage manager and as Moishe/Mickey, a hopeful, Hollywood-bound actor.

Director Lee Sankowich keeps the fast-paced action and the constant character rotations from devolving into bafflement. Adam Hunter gets credit for the ingenious set and Joanna Leskow for the costumes.

Performances of “Jacob and Jack” continue through May 6 at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., between Fairfax and La Brea Aves.

Show times are Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m. For information and tickets call (800) 838-3006, or visit www.brownpapertickets.com

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 3, 2012 | 10:44 am

Gerald Estrin, U.S. and Israel computer pioneer, dies at 90

Posted by  Tom Tugend

On a visit to Israel, Professors Gerald (Jerry) and Thelma Estrin pose in front of the WEIZAC computer which they and their staff built from scratch i the 1950s as the first computer in the Middle East. Photo courtesy Weizmann Institute of Science

Prof. Gerald (Jerry) Estrin, a computer pioneer in the United States and Israel, died March 29 at his home in Santa Monica at age 90.

Both Estrin and Thelma, his wife of 70 years, were born in New York City, earned their Ph.D.s in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and worked for three years with John von Neumann, the principal architect of the computer age, at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

In 1953, the Estrins accepted an offer from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel to build from scratch the first computer in the Middle East and the first outside the United States and western Europe.

On arrival, they faced only two problems. There were no parts or tools, from vacuum tubes to soldering irons, available in Israel, and there was no staff, trained or otherwise.

Nevertheless, the computer, named WEIZAC, with its closet-sized main frame and some 3,000 vacuum tubes, went online in 1955, and after 46,000 hours of solid service was retired in 1963.

Estrin’s legacy to Israel has been long-lasting. By building its own computer, in the face of widespead skepticism, “Israel got into the information revolution early in the game,” he said.

Perhaps even more important, WEIZAC spawned a cadre of engineers and technicians who, with their successors, went on to staff the country’s much admired high-tech industries and academic institutions.

Israel also left its mark on the mild-mannered academic. “I learned how to pound tables, which stood me in good stead when later I became chairman of the UCLA computer science department… but I also fell in love with the people,” he recalled in a 2004 interview.

Subsequently, Estrin served for more than two decades on the Weizmann Institute’s board of governors.

In 1956, both Estrins joined the UCLA faculty, Jerry to create a program in computer engineering, and Thelma as a pioneer developer of data processing in brain research.

Among his many research contributions, Jerry Estrin developed the concept of “reconfigurable computing,” which led to the creation of new types of programmable computer chips that are still in use today.

Away from the classroom and lab, he was an avid fan of UCLA basketball and the Metropolitan Opera, and, in addition, left two legacies.

One is a host of graduate students, who went on to notable careers in industry and academe, and who warmly remember the genuine modesty of their distinguished mentor.

The second legacy consists of three daughters, who carry on the family’s computer science tradition. Judith (Judy), who was born in Tel Aviv, is a Silicon Valley leader, who has co-founded seven technology companies.

Deborah is a UCLA computer science professor and founding director of the Center for Embedded Networked (ok) Sensing.

Margo is the Estrin maverick, choosing a career as doctor of internal medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to his wife and three daughters, surviving family members are four grandchildren, Rachel, Joshua, Leah and David.

The family suggests that persons wishing to make a contribution in Jerry Estrin’s memory consider one of the following organizations.

Weizmann Institute of Science - https://www.weizmann-usa.org/ways-to-get-involved/make-a-donation.aspx

UCLA Computer Science Dept - https://giving.ucla.edu/Standard/NetDonate.aspx?SiteNum=8 (Please specify Computer Science Fund)

Autism Speaks - http://www.autismspeaks.org/ways-give

0 Comments — Leave your comment