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Philip Sherman, cantor, actor and ‘busiest mohel in New York,’ dies at 67
(JTA) — Cantor Philip Sherman’s biggest audience might have been for his role as a judge on the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.” But his most prominent role was as one of New York’s most in-demand mohels, performing, by his own estimate, more than 26,000 circumcisions during his 45-year career.
The tally included the offspring of celebrities; babies born in far-flung countries; and his own sons and grandsons. “My record is 11 in one day – [two pairs] of twins and seven others,” Sherman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2014, in an article naming him one of “America’s Top Mohels.”
That record stood for the rest of his life. Sherman died at 67 Wednesday in New York City. The cause was pancreatic cancer, according to his family; optimistic and determined throughout his yearlong battle, he had announced a six-month sabbatical in June.
“It was always family first” for Sherman, his daughter Nina Sherman Green told JTA, even as he participated in the formative moments of thousands of Jewish families. She recalled the hours he spent teaching her and her two brothers the skills he considered essential: how to read from the Torah, how to root for the New York Giants and, perhaps most of all, how to drive.
The last was in some ways pragmatic: Sherman’s work had him ping ponging across New York City and its suburbs daily, from early in the morning until dusk. (Circumcisions must be performed during the day, according to Jewish law.) There was lots of time to practice, and many places to be.
His children learned to navigate the city’s highways and side streets. He also demanded that they be able to parallel park in 20 seconds. Sometimes, though, their job was to wait in the car and fend off parking enforcement as Sherman raced inside, wearing his signature bow tie, to perform the ceremony that Jewish tradition considers essential to bringing baby boys into a covenant between them and God.
“He would run in, run out because it was important to him to cover as many brisses as he could,” said his son Elan Sherman, who was with him on the record-setting day. “He wanted to leave that mark on the Jewish community, that he was really there as much as he could be for all Jewish babies.”
Cantor Philip Sherman poses with his children, their spouses, and his grandchildren in a 2022 family photo. (Courtesy Sherman family)
Green noted that her father would emphasize to parents that they should not be deterred if they or anyone else they knew could not afford his fee.
“He did many on the house, and it was something that he was really grateful that he was able to do,” she said, adding, “Living day to day, knowing that he was doing mitzvot for everybody, that gave him a lot of pride.”
A typical Phil Sherman bris was fast and funny. He was known for adding levity around a procedure that often induces great anxiety. But he was also deeply proud of his part in carrying on a tradition that dates back to the Bible.
“I’m there to fulfill a Torah commandment, to educate, let them know what the significance is, briefly, appropriately, tastefully,” he once told the New York Times about a procedure that would take him between 15 to 20 seconds to perform. (He believed that doctors who work as mohels, increasingly the norm in some Jewish communities, unnecessarily add discomfort for babies and their parents.)
In the same article, Sherman also listed the celebrity offspring for whom he performed the procedure, including the grandchildren of two Israeli prime ministers, the sons of movie stars and other celebrities, including actress Rachel Weisz, and the son of the then-Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer.
Sherman was himself a celebrity of some note. Articles about the modern, pager-carrying mohel appeared in local media by the early 1990s, and the creation in 1997 of his website — emoil.com — occasioned an “Only in New York” brief in the New York Post. (His vanity plate had the URL.) A profile in the New Yorker followed two years after that. That was also the year that he stood alongside Whoopi Goldberg in an ad for a short-lived online currency called Flooz. In 2009, New York Magazine featured him as “the busiest mohel in New York” — complete with a photograph showing him surrounded by 30 babies he’d recently circumcised.
A member of the Screen Actors Guild, Sherman played rabbis in small roles on TV and film and consulted with creators who wanted to get the Jewish details right. In 2011, he was cast in “Our Idiot Brother,” the Paul Rudd vehicle. “I played a mohel, but the scene was cut,” Sherman told JTA. “How ironic.”
He played a character billed as “Aliyah Man” in an episode of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” In “Orange is the New Black,” about a women’s prison, he had a brief scene as a judge presiding over a trial involving one of the prisoners.
“The really amazing thing about that is that it’s a real part in a real show, where I’m not playing a rabbi or cantor or some Jewish guy,” he told JTA at the time.
Cantor Philip Sherman played a judge on a 2018 episode of “Orange is the New Black.” (Netflix)
Sherman grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his family had little money or connection to Jewish practice. Inspired by the religious observance of his grandparents on the Lower East Side, he enrolled in the joint program at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, graduating in 1979 with degrees in music and Bible. While still an undergraduate, he received training and certification as a mohel from the former chief mohel of Jerusalem, the late Rabbi Yosef Hakohen Halperin.
“Cantor Sherman was a beloved friend and colleague,” Cantor Mark Kushner, one of the mohels to whom Sherman directed families during his leave, told JTA on Wednesday. “We trained together in Jerusalem over 45 years ago. We spoke nearly every day. I will miss him dearly.”
Adept in leading prayer according to both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions, Sherman also served as cantor at a number of Manhattan synagogues, including Park East Synagogue, Lincoln Square Synagogue and Congregation Shearith Israel-The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, where he worked full time early in his career and returned on a part-time basis more recently.
Sherman boasted about being the only motorcycle-riding rabbi in the actors union, and his love of driving — and steering others on the right path — remained a constant of his life and work.
Even in his final weeks, Green said, Sherman was offering driving pointers on his way to hospital appointments. “He was still directing me,” she said. “He was still being a backseat driver in the front seat, which was his role. He was still navigating … and making sure I knew which lane to be in.”
Sherman is survived by his children; their spouses; and six grandchildren.
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The post Philip Sherman, cantor, actor and ‘busiest mohel in New York,’ dies at 67 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rabbinical Council of America Slams Canada’s Trudeau for Agreeing to Comply With ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Blair Gable
The Rabbinical Council of America, one of the world’s largest organizations of Orthodox rabbis, has penned a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, slamming the leader over his promise to comply with the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief, Yoav Gallant.
In the letter dated Monday, the council expressed “profound outrage and disappointment regarding your recent statement that Canada will comply with the ICC indictment of democratically elected leaders of Israel, who stand accused of crimes against humanity.”
“This decision reflects a deeply troubling moral inversion, legitimizing a politicized institution increasingly marked by bias rather than a commitment to impartial justice,” the letter continued.
The council added that Trudeau’s backing of the ICC decision “tarnishes [Canada’s] reputation as a nation committed to human rights and democracy,” stating that support for the “antisemitic” ruling represents a “betrayal” to Jews within Canada and across the world.
The Hague-based ICC issued arrest warrants last week for Netanyahu, Gallant, and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri (better known as Mohammad Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Israeli leaders have lambasted the ICC’s decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as “antisemitic” and politically motivated, calling the allegations false and absurd. US lawmakers have said they intend to push legislation to sanction the ICC over its move.
This week’s letter from the rabbinical council said that its members were “deeply alarmed” by recent anti-Israel protests in Montreal, which included an “effigy” of Netanyahu” being set on fire. Though Trudeau condemned the demonstration, the council claimed that the Canadian government has exhibited a pattern of “selective enforcement” regarding hate speech laws. The group also urged the Canadian leader to take decisive action against Iran, citing the Iranian regime’s recent attempted assassination of former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler.
Following the ICC ruling, Trudeau confirmed that Canada would comply with the decision and arrest Netanyahu if he arrived on Canadian soil.
“We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts,” Trudeau said during a press conference last week. “This is just who we are as Canadians.”
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Canada has been rocked with protests condemning the Jewish state. Last Thursday, for example, more than 85,000 Quebec students participated in a “strike for Gaza” to demand their universities divest from Israel. The demonstration quickly escalated into violence, with students engaging in vandalism. Trudeau issued a statement condemning the protests as “acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence.”
Though Trudeau has repeatedly condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, he has also implemented arms restrictions on the Jewish state. Earlier this year, Canada canceled 30 arms exports permits for Israel.
Meanwhile, over the past year, Jews have endured a rising tide of antisemitism and targeted violence in Canada. In 2023, Jews were the victims of 78 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto, according to police-reported data.Overall in Canada, Jewish Canadians were the most frequently targeted group for hate crimes, with a 71 percent increase from the prior year.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Looks to Washington to Punish the ICC
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday he believed the United States would punish the International Criminal Court for having issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister.
Israel has said it will appeal the ICC decision to move against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
But during a visit to the Czech Republic, Saar said other countries were also dismayed by the decision, including the United States.
“I tend to believe that in Washington, legislation is going to take place very shortly against the ICC and whoever cooperates with it,” Saar told a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar added that Israel would finish the 14-month-old war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas and ensuring the Islamist terror group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.
Saar said Israel did not intend to control civilian life in Gaza, adding that peace was “inevitable,” but couldn’t be based on “illusions.”
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US Enovy Hochstein: Delinking Lebanon, Gaza Conflicts ‘Key’ to Securing Ceasefire Deal
A man walks past rubble of destroyed buildings which was previously a market area, in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh, on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
JNS.org — US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein, who played a pivotal role in brokering this week’s ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, on Wednesday emphasized the importance of delinking Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah from the war against Hamas in Gaza.
In an interview with Channel 12 News, Hochstein said that “the real issue was the linkage that Hezbollah had made between Lebanon and Gaza, and being able to break that linkage, delinking the two conflicts, was the key to solving this one.”
However, in a Wednesday briefing for the American Jewish community, Hochstein said that the Lebanon deal could pave the way to a deal to release the hostages still being held by Hamas.
“The Lebanese deal here opens an opportunity on the hostage deal,” he said. “They [Hamas] wake up this morning at 4 am with Hezbollah, that used to be actively supportive of Hamas in the northern front, cutting a deal and ending that conflict.”
Hochstein in the Channel 12 interview also addressed reports that he had told Jerusalem and Beirut that it was “now or never” to get the deal done, denying that he used that language.
“I did say that there is a window of opportunity to do this now and either we did it — and I thought that all the conditions were there — and that if they did not want to do it now, they would have to wait for a new president to come in, which probably meant March or April, as a new administration doesn’t do things right away and that could come as an opportunity loss. So it was a moment of opportunity here,” he said.
He also addressed concerns about the agreement’s implementation, given the failures of UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War and was supposed to disarm Hezbollah and force it north of the Litani River.
“I’ve been openly critical of Resolution 1701 […] because I thought it was very nice words but there was nothing that was set in place to enforce it, frankly, on either side […] so we were determined to be able to bring about a change in that, and created a mechanism here that will be chaired by the United States together with France and others, and bring in other allies who will support the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces],” he said.
While the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) will be “part of” the enforcement mechanism, complaints of violations will not be going to UNIFIL for review, he said.
“The United States will have, one, the ability to share information quite immediately [regarding] a suspected violation on either side with the other party, being able to work with the LAF […] and other security services in Lebanon to investigate it, monitor it, dismantle it if necessary, discontinue it, and those are all things that we are now putting together, literally in these hours and day, to put this effort together,” he said.
“And we’re not going to stop; it’s not a temporary effort. It’s an enduring mechanism that will look at these violations and address them immediately,” he added.
He addressed former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett’s criticism that the agreement doesn’t go far enough in terms of establishing a buffer zone to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its terrorist infrastructure and forces along the border, and also concerns that the Iranian terror proxy has not been weakened enough.
“Hezbollah is weakened. It is degraded. And at some point, you have to say, what’s the point of degrading it [more],” he said.
He went on to say that a buffer zone and a ceasefire agreement were mutually exclusive.
“There are fantasy deals, that are utopia, where you get a ceasefire agreement with a security zone, etc…. but those won’t ever happen,” he said. “There will never be an agreement that also has Israel as an occupying force in another country. That country will not sign that deal. You have to choose. If you choose to have a dead zone or a demilitarized zone, then you’re there as an occupier and you are not there in agreement, which means that while you may have two, three kilometers inside Lebanon, or maybe even four or five, there is no agreement to stop shooting at Israel from longer ranges,” he added.
The US envoy also denied reports that the Biden administration had threatened not to veto a UN Security Council resolution if the deal wasn’t signed.
He said he had briefed President-elect Donald Trump’s senior national security advisers about the details of the ceasefire deal “because it’s very important for them to understand and support it, because they are going to have to carry it going forward and implement it as they take office in just a few weeks.”
The post US Enovy Hochstein: Delinking Lebanon, Gaza Conflicts ‘Key’ to Securing Ceasefire Deal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.