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Israeli democracy is ‘robust,’ former PM Naftali Bennett assures New Yorkers
(New York Jewish Week) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told an audience here that reports of the deaths of Israeli democracy are exaggerated, and urged American Jews to make their concerns known to the new far-right government rather than walk away.
“There are a lot of foolish words flying out in the air,” Bennett said last night in remarks at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan, referring to various proposals among newly installed Israeli cabinet members. “There’s a core of responsibility that will fend off the most radical of the suggestions, but to be fair, I don’t know.”
Speaking onstage with Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, Bennett appeared to be referring to two critics of LGBT rights in Israel, Bezalel Smotrich and Noam Party leader Avi Maoz, when he said, “No one’s going to touch the LGBT community in Israel. No one’s going to mess around with it. Israel is robust.”
Bennett, who served as prime minister from 2021 to 2022 in the rotation government that preceded Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power in December, spoke at the Reform synagogue at a particularly tense time in Diaspora-Israel relations. Leaders of groups representing American Judaism’s largely liberal community have expressed deep concerns over proposals by Netanyahu’s new coalition partners to greatly expand Jewish settlement in the West Bank, curb minority rights and strengthen Orthodox control in matters of Jewish religious status.
Two weeks ago, Goldstein wrote a statement saying that he is “alarmed” by recent reforms, introduced by Israel’s newly installed justice minister, that would allow Israel’s parliament to override decisions by the Supreme Court and further politicize the selection of its justices. He implored Netanyahu to reject the overhaul.
On this too, Bennett sought to be reassuring. He criticized a Supreme Court that he said had “gradually usurped authority that it didn’t have,” but said that it needed only a “small little nudge” to address those concerns. “I smell a compromise coming,” he said.
“I recommend you enter a dialogue with the government” in Israel, he urged the audience. “Speak up and talk with the government. Israelis sometimes think the world revolves around Israel and don’t always see the broader view of Jews around the world and the world itself. I think sharing with the Israeli leadership, what’s going on and what it means and what the implications are, is meaningful. There are ministers who have never been abroad, so you are what you are experience.”
Bennett, who stepped away from politics last year ahead of the November election, also spoke at length about his efforts to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine in the first months of Russia’s unprovoked war on its neighbor. Bennett asserted that in meetings with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president said he would no longer demand regime change and demilitarization in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Vlodomyr Zelensky told him Ukraine would “no longer want to join NATO, which was the very reason for the war.” Bennett suggested the negotiations fell apart because of Ukrainian objections. “I want to be cautious here,” he said. “The message [from Zelensky] was ‘we don’t want to run yet to ceasefire for various reasons…. Putin was an aggressor and he needs to pay the price.’”
Despite Bennett’s reassurances that Israel’s democracy remains robust, many audience members remained wary about the new government.
“I’m concerned about what I’m seeing in Israel,” said Asaf Jacobi, 39, who earned his law degree in Israel and served in its military. “They’re trying to unstabilize the checks and balances in Israel to the extreme. [Netanyahu] is clearly putting his interests over the country, and you can see people in the streets are really not happy with what’s happening. It’s too religious and too extreme.”
Debra Delorenzo, who has lived in the Upper East Side her whole life, said Bennett “did a wonderful job. He’s a good speaker and engages the audience.” And yet, she said, “I wanted him to address certain things and he skirted around it. I wanted him to talk about the occupation. I wanted him to talk about [Netanyahu] who I can’t stand. Israel is a democracy, but it’s losing it’s panache about it. It’s become more of an occupier. I love Israel, and I”m Jewish, but there are things going on there that [Bennett] didn’t address.”
One elderly woman, who declined to give her name, welcomed the political changes in Israel.
“We love the government,” she said. “And we think that the change in the judicial system should have occurred long ago.”
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Stabbing of Jewish man in Manhattan prompts calls for Mamdani to turn down temperature
The stabbing of two men on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday — one of whom was wearing a kippah on his way home from a Tisha B’Av service at a modern Orthodox shul — has intensified New Yorkers’ fears of being visibly Jewish in public, leaders and community members said.
“Fear has become a lived experience for far too many Jewish New Yorkers. That is not normal,” Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said at a press conference Friday near the location of the stabbing. “Today, Jewish parents are asking whether it is safe for their children to wear a kippah or a Magen David in public. Synagogues preparing for Shabbat are wondering whether they can afford additional security.”
Police said on Thursday afternoon, the suspect — identified as 51-year-old Raul Morales — stabbed an Asian man in the back with a knife before approaching a Jewish man and stabbing him in the torso with a screwdriver. Authorities said he yelled “Allahu akbar” during the attack. Both victims are expected to recover.
Morales is expected to face charges on Friday. Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime, and New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement Thursday that while the attacker did not have a known history of mental health issues, “the initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor.”
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the attack as “horrifying” and wrote on X that “these hateful and despicable attacks have no place in our city.”
At Friday’s press conference, City Council Speaker Julie Menin said she was having conversations with her daughter about whether it was safe to wear a Jewish star and with her sons about whether they should wear yarmulkes.
“How can this be normal?” Menin said. “We have to change what is happening in our city.”
But even as New York Attorney General Letitia James urged people not to “assign any particular outcome to this investigation,” adding she did not want to “draw any conclusions,” some leaders were quick to link the attack to a rising political temperature.
Some directly expressed their anger with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who on Wednesday issued a video address conceding he did not have the authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while also calling Netanyahu a war criminal and accusing him of orchestrating a genocide. Unable to arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani encouraged New Yorkers to protest instead.
The UJA-Federation of New York and Orthodox Union said at the time that the mayor’s words put Jews in greater danger.
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the spiritual leader of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, wrote in an open letter addressed to Mamdani that “you promised during and after your campaign to lead this city with unity rather than fear. Instead, you continue to divide Jews into those whose politics you deem acceptable and Zionists whom you cast beyond the pale.”
Mamdani was not at the press conference, and organizers did not answer a question about whether he had been invited.
“His words have profound, real-world consequence on us,” Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, told the crowd. “Shame on him for doing this for perceived political benefit when it has real-world consequence for the Jews of New York. He must stop. He must stop.”
Rabbi Yosie Levine of the Jewish Center — where the victim had attended a Tisha B’Av service before he was stabbed — also expressed disappointment at Mamdani’s remarks.
“When I was growing up, the only time we saw security outside of my synagogue or outside of my Jewish day school was when the mayor came to speak,” Levine said. “The police were there to protect him. Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us.”
“No elected official is responsible for every act of hate, but every leader is responsible for helping shape the climate in which we all live,” Treyger said.
New York City Comptroller Mark Levine at Friday’s press conference cast the attack as part of a broader trend of rising attacks on Jewish New Yorkers, citing 178 acts of antisemitic hate crimes in the first six months of this year.
Menin pointed to the dozens of swastikas painted on a playground at a Brooklyn playground earlier this year and swastikas spray painted on homes and a synagogue in Queens last month. On Wednesday, a Jewish man was shoved to the ground in Brooklyn, with the attacker making antisemitic remarks, leaving the victim with back and hip injuries.
Thursday’s attacks were just the latest in a series of crimes targeting the Jewish community, they said.
Rabbi Mark Wildes of the Manhattan Jewish Experience told the Forward he was teaching his weekly class when the attacks occurred nearby.
“It literally happened on my block,” he said. “Two of my kids were out and about, and this guy was still at large before they had caught him.” Wildes, whose children are visibly Jewish, said he and his wife immediately tried to get them home. “We were saying, ‘Where are they? Get them inside.’”
The post Stabbing of Jewish man in Manhattan prompts calls for Mamdani to turn down temperature appeared first on The Forward.
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Assailant stabs two men, one visibly Jewish, on Upper West Side
(JTA) — NEW YORK – An assailant stabbed two victims, at least one of whom was visibly Jewish, in an area of the Upper West Side known for its Jewish institutions.
Police said two male victims, aged 57 and 50, were in stable condition and being treated for stab wounds to the torso.
Rabbi Allen Schwartz of the neighborhood’s Congregation Ohab Tzedek told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that one of the victims was a congregant who is visibly Jewish and wears a kippah.
Schwartz, who is in Israel, said he spoke to the congregant on the phone and that he is “alert.” “He may go home before Shabbos,” Schwartz said.
One person of interest has been taken into custody, according to the New York Police Department, who announced no immediate motive for the attack.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Assailant stabs two men, one visibly Jewish, on Upper West Side appeared first on The Forward.
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What sort of Yiddish do Yiddishists speak today?
Ask the question: “What sort of Yiddish do Yiddishists speak?” and a jokester might respond: “Well, these days they speak English.”
But let’s consider the Yiddishists who really do speak it in order to preserve it as a living language, because they see it as a treasured part of the Ashkenazi cultural heritage.
Their purpose is different than the Hasidim who speak the language as a way of preserving their religious lifestyle and traditional Jewish values.
Linguist Emma Breslow recently defended her dissertation about the way that Yiddishists speak the language. She interviewed 30 Yiddish speakers at the annual week-long Yiddish immersion retreat Yiddish Vokh and also met with Yiddish speakers from New York, Boston and Montreal.
When she asked people whether they considered themselves Yiddishists, most said no. Perhaps the words Yiddishism and Yiddishist sound rather old-fashioned today. Since Breslow couldn’t find a label that speakers could agree on, she uses the phrase “minority-context Yiddish community” in her study. This category, she writes, also includes former Hasidim who occasionally participate in Yiddishist gatherings.
One surprise in her dissertation is the diversity in this community’s Yiddish. An outsider might assume that all Yiddishists speak the same but that isn’t so: some adhere to Standard Yiddish — the literary standard established by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and used in most Yiddish language courses today. Others use the Polish or Ukrainian Yiddish dialect or switch dialects. Sometimes they would say gut (good) and other times — git; sometimes zogn (to say) and other times — zugn.
When Breslow asked people their opinion of Standard Yiddish she mainly received negative answers, although some acknowledged that Standard Yiddish could be useful for learning the language, since the spelling closely matches the pronunciation.
Some interviewees made unexpected comments about Standard Yiddish, as in “Nobody speaks that,” even if, being at the Yiddish Vokh, they might have earlier chatted with Standard Yiddish speakers, and even heard children speak it as a native language. Her dissertation discusses this feeling they have that Standard Yiddish lacks authenticity — maybe precisely because so few people speak it from birth.
The minority-context Yiddish community consists of several groups: a) native speakers — those who speak Yiddish well from home; b) heritage speakers — those who heard it as children, but don’t speak it well; c) students and others who studied the language as adults, and d) former Hasidim, who now live in the larger secular world. Each group speaks differently, but there are interesting points of comparison.
Among her subjects, the former Hasidim speak so-called Hasidic Yiddish — a dialect that linguists have been researching intensely in recent years. Students mostly speak a sort of Standard Yiddish, which they learned from their teachers. All of the Yiddish speakers often exhibited a certain influence or interference from English; no surprise, considering that Hasidim — the largest group of Yiddish speakers today by far — mix English words into their Yiddish too.
Breslow’s quotations include interesting examples of code-switching — when speakers go back and forth between languages. Some of the younger speakers use the word like as a discourse marker in their Yiddish just as in their English.
A second topic of Breslow’s investigation is the articulation of the Yiddish letter reysh, which is similar to the R sound. In the older dialects there were two sorts of reysh: the throat (uvular) reysh, like in French or Modern Hebrew, and the tongue-tip (apical) reysh, as in Russian or Spanish. In addition to those two pronunciations, today’s Yiddishists also use the English-style (retroflex) reysh. Interestingly, linguist Uriel Weinreich, who authored the textbook, cautioned in the preface that students should not use the American reysh.
The grammar of the Yiddishists is also worth examining. Although many have taken courses teaching the grammar of Standard Yiddish, they don’t necessarily follow the rules. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, since even authentic Yiddish speakers of previous generations spoke in dialects that differed considerably from the way Yiddish was written in books and in the press. That’s why there’s no reason to criticize Hasidim for “ruining the grammar,” as many non-Hasidic Yiddish speakers do, since Yiddish speakers have been “ruining” the proper grammar for centuries.
The post What sort of Yiddish do Yiddishists speak today? appeared first on The Forward.
