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The historian who uncovered the ADL’s secret plot against the far-right John Birch Society
(JTA) — A historian leafing through files in an archive discovered how a Jewish organization helped bring down an influential far-right extremist movement in the United States in the 1960s and ’70s by going undercover and acting as self-appointed spies.
The discovery of the Anti-Defamation League’s covert operation targeting the John Birch Society is the basis of a chapter in a new book by political historian Matthew Dallek of George Washington University. Published in March, “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right” is Dallek’s fourth book. It examines the roots of today’s emboldened conservative movement in the United States.
“Birchers” is a history of a group that at its height numbered as many as 100,000 members and “mobilized a loyal army of activists” in a campaign against what it saw as a vast communist conspiracy. He also examines how the Birchers’ mission to defend Christianity and capitalism morphed into a radical anti-civil rights agenda that groups like the ADL saw as an existential threat.
Dallek, who grew up in a Reform Jewish household in Los Angeles, recently sat with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to discuss the rise of the Birchers, how the ADL infiltrated their ranks and whether such tactics are justified in the name of fighting extremism.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
JTA: Before we get into the Jewish aspect of the book, meaning the chapter on the Anti-Defamation League’s relationship with the John Birch Society, let’s take a step back. Who are so-called Birchers? Why do they matter?
Mathew Dallek: The John Birch Society was a household name in the 1960s, becoming the emblem of far-right extremism. It didn’t have huge numbers, but it did penetrate the culture and the national consciousness. Its leader, Robert Welch, had argued at one point that President Dwight Eisenhower was a dedicated agent of a communist conspiracy taking over the United States. Welch formed the John Birch Society to educate the American people about the nature of the communist threat.
In its heyday, the group had about 60,000 to 100,000 members, organized into small chapters. They sent out literature trying to give members roadmaps or ideas for what they could do. They believed a mass education of the public was needed because traditional two-party politics was not going to be very effective at exposing the communist threat. They would form front groups such as Impeach Earl Warren [the Supreme Court’s chief justice] or Support Your Local Police. They tried to ban certain books that they viewed as socialistic from being used in schools. Some Birchers ran for school board seats and protested at libraries.
Critics feared that the Birchers were a growing fascist or authoritarian group and that if they were not sidelined politically and culturally then the country could be overrun. The Nation magazine wrote that Birchers essentially had given their followers an invitation to engage in civil war, guerrilla-style. Those fears sparked a big debate about democracy. How does one sustain democracy and, at the height of the Cold War and in the shadow of World War II, Nazi fascist Germany, and the Holocaust?
As you were researching, you came across a trove of historical internal documents from the ADL in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York. Why did you devote a chapter to what you found in those documents? What did those files reveal to you about the John Birch Society?
These papers are a goldmine. They’re this incredible and often detailed window into the far-right and, in particular, the John Birch Society. They show the ADL had an extensive, multi-dimensional counterintelligence operation that they were running against the Birch Society.
People knew at the time that the ADL was attending events where Birchers were speaking. But the ADL also had undercover agents with code names, who were able to infiltrate the society’s headquarters in Belmont, Massachusetts, and various chapter officers. They dug up financial and employment information about individual Birchers. And they not only used the material for their own newsletters and press releases, but they also fed information to the media.
Another layer is about a debate that’s been going on: Were the Birchers racist and antisemitic? The Birch Society always insisted that they did not tolerate white supremacy and didn’t want any KKK members. They said they accepted people of all faiths and races. And it’s true that they did have a handful of Jewish and Black members.
But what the ADL found was that a lot of hate was bubbling up from the grassroots and also leaking out from the top. The ADL was able to document this in a systematic way.
Some critics of the ADL today say the organization has strayed from its mission by focusing not just on antisemitism but on a wider array of causes. But from reading your work, it sounds like the ADL even then took an expansive view of its role, examining not just direct attacks on Jews but also how the political environment can jeopardize Jews. Am I getting that right, and why did the ADL devote so many resources to a group like the John Birch Society?
So, a few things: It’s the late ’50s and ’60s, and a civil rights coalition is emerging. Benjamin Epstein, the national director of the ADL, was friendly with Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court justice, and Martin Luther King. John F. Kennedy went to an ADL event and praised the ADL for speaking out very strongly in defense of democracy and pushing for the equal treatment of all Americans.
Isadore Zack, who helped lead the spy operation, at one point wrote to his colleagues that it was only in a democracy that the Jewish community has been allowed to flourish and so, if you want to defend Jewish Americans, you also have to defend democracy.
There certainly were other threats at the time, but the Birch Society was seen by liberal critics, including the ADL, as a very secretive group that promoted conspiracy theories about communists who often became conflated with Jews.
Would you consider the ADL successful in its campaign against the Birchers?
They were successful. They used surreptitious and in some cases underhanded means to expose the antisemitism and the racism and also interest in violence or the violent rhetoric of the Birch Society in the 1960s.
The ADL was at the tip of the spear of a liberal coalition that included the White House, sometimes the Department of Justice, depending on the issue, the NAACP, Americans for Democratic Action, labor unions, the union-backed Group Research Inc., which was tracking the far-right as well. The ADL was one of the most, if not the most effective at constraining and discrediting the society.
Clearly, however, the Birchers’ ideas never died. They lived on and made a comeback.
It’s somewhat ironic that you reveal the existence of this spying apparatus devoted to targeting an extremist and antisemitic group in the 1960s given the infamy the ADL would earn in a later era, the 1990s, for allegations that they colluded with police agencies in San Francisco to spy on and harass political activists. They eventually settled with the Arab American, Black and American Indian groups that brought a federal civil suit. I know you didn’t study these revelations, which are outside the scope of your book, but could you perhaps reflect on why undercover tactics were seen as necessary or justified?
It’s important to remember that in the mid-20th century, law enforcement in the United States was often led by antisemites or people who were much more concerned with alleged internal communist threats — the threat from the left.
From the ADL’s vantage point, one could not rely on the government entities that were by law and by design supposed to protect Jewish Americans. There was a sense that this work had to be done, at least in part, outside of the parameters of the government.
When I first discovered the ADL’s spying, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. But I realized they weren’t just spying to spy, they exposed a lot of scary things, with echoes in our own times — like easy access to firearms, a hatred of the government, a denigration and defamation of minority groups. And this was all happening in the shadow of the Holocaust and World War II. I became much more sympathetic; they were very effective, and they had a vision of equality of treatment for all Americans.
It’s obviously controversial. I try not to shy away from it. But they had a lot of good reasons to fight back right and to fight back in this nonviolent way.
That last thought brings to mind another, right-wing Jewish group that existed in this era of taking things into our own hands, that did use violence, explosives even.
You mean the Jewish Defense League, led by Meir Kahane.
Yes, exactly.
He was a Bircher. Toward the end of my book, I mention that he was a member for a while, under his alias Michael King.
Antisemitism is on the rise, and lots of initiatives are being organized to address it, both by existing groups like the ADL and new ones. The ADL’s budget has almost doubled over the past seven years. I am seeing Jews talk of fighting back and taking things into their own hands. And we are in this politically precarious movement in American history, all of which suggests parallels to the era you examined. What kind of wisdom can we glean from examining the ADL’s secret and public fight against the John Birch Society as people who care about the issues affecting Jews today?
A lot of liberals in the 1960s and a lot of the leadership at the ADL grasped the axiom that things can always get worse.
In 2015-2016, you’ll recall, there was Trump’s demonization of Mexican immigrants, and the so-called “alt-right” around him and his campaign and expressions of vitriol by people like Steve Bannon.
There was an assumption among a lot of Americans and among a lot of Jewish Americans that the fringe right — the antisemites, the explicit racists, the white supremacists — that there’s not a majority for them and they can never achieve power.
If you go back and you look at Trump’s closing 2016 campaign ad, it’s textbook antisemitism. He flashes on screen these wealthy Jewish international bankers, and he argues that basically, there’s a conspiracy of these global elites who are stealing the wealth of honest Americans. There’s also 2017, the white supremacists in Charlottesville, who said “Jews will not replace us” and Trump saying there are fine people on both sides.
The sense that democracy is incredibly fragile is not just a theory or a concept: It’s an actuality, the sense as well, that the United States has only been a multiracial democracy for not very long and a haven for Jews for not that long either.
The work that the ADL and the NAACP and other groups did to try to constrain and discredit as fringe and extremist still goes on today. It’s harder to do for all sorts of reasons today including social media and the loss of faith in institutions. But it still goes on. You see the importance of institutional guardrails including the Department of Justice that is prosecuting 1,000 Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
The last thing I’ll say is that one of the admirable things in the 1960s about the ADL and the liberal coalition it belonged to is that it built support for landmark legislation like the Immigration Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of ’65. And a coalition eventually fell apart, but it was powerful, reminding us why Jewish American groups should care about or focus on issues that don’t directly affect Jewish people.
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Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it.
So far, 2026 has been a banner year for antisemites.
All hateful ideologies have slivers of truth within them; that’s why they work, moving from partial truth to wild exaggeration to scapegoating all members of the group for the perceived sins of some of them. Which is why 2026 has been a bonanza.
First, the release of the Epstein Files revealed a massive network of rich, connected elites — disproportionately Jewish and connected to Israel — who, at the very least, socialized and worked with a convicted sex offender, and in some cases may even have participated in his crimes. .
Then, Israel’s prime minister lobbied a U.S. president in the Situation Room (completely unprecedented), persuading him to launch a rash, costly, bloody, and thus far unsuccessful war on Iran, in violation of everything “America First” was supposed to stand for.
Worse, for some on the internet, those two stories are connected. The conspiratorial compulsion to manufacture facts to fit the larger theory leads to a fictional storyline: Epstein was working for Israel, Epstein handed the Israelis kompromat, Israel is blackmailing Trump, Israeli interests are dictating American foreign policy, and only Iran and China are standing up to the ‘Epstein Government.’
To be clear, there is no evidence for this hyperbole and speculation, which moves beyond valid critique of Israel into antisemitic conspiracy-mongering. Donald Trump has been pushing for war on Iran for 40 years, he wanted to push the Epstein Files out of the news, Epstein was working for himself not the Mossad, and there are some geopolitical reasons why some people might’ve seen this war as a good idea. Nor do Benjamin Netanyahu’s lobbying or AIPAC’s influence in Congress, however nefarious one may believe their intentions to be, amount to a Zionist conspiracy. The tech industry, the Christian Right, the fossil fuel industry, Big Pharma, Wall Street and other groups exert equal degrees of influence, often for equally nefarious ends.
But there is at least some basis for these false claims, and online influencers are connecting the dots. And whatever I may write in this article, it will be read by around .001% of the people who’ve seen China’s “White Eagle” videos or Iran’s “Lego” videos, which have gone viral online and amassed tens of millions of views, not to mention interviews by Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson. Sometimes these commentaries cross into overt antisemitism, sometimes they ‘merely’ allege a sinister conspiracy of Zionists or Epstein Associates to control the United States. Sometimes they’re from the Right, sometimes from the Left, and sometimes they horseshoe together. But this combination of real-world events and motivated propaganda is now a five-alarm fire, Defcon-1 crisis.
This crisis demands a response. But so far at least, what we’ve heard from the Jewish Establishment has been… crickets.
Unbelievably, the ADL’s website is focused on its “Best Schools in Antisemitism Report Card,” as the organization still obsesses over campus activists and professors instead of addressing the explosion in antisemitism since the Epstein Files release and Iran war, largely from networks of right-wing antisemites in government and online.
And, to my knowledge, no major Jewish organization has put out a statement in response to the Epstein Files, and the avalanche of revelations they have contained about his social and business relationships with Jewish figures and organizations, particularly in the years after his 2008 conviction in Florida for procuring sexual massages from a teenager. Indeed, files released last January revealed that prosecutors had prepared a much more significant indictment against Epstein, charging him with abusing more than a dozen girls over a period of six years, but set it aside when Epstein pled to lesser state charges.
(The Wexner Foundation, whose patron Les Wexner was Epstein’s leading client for two decades and who one witness claimed was a participant in his sexual parties, wrote a letter to its alumni following Wexner’s evasive congressional testimony saying that, at present, “we are only listening. We will sit in a posture of taking in your feelings and feedback.”)
However much the people in Epstein’s orbit did or did not know, or did or did not do, they must be brought to account. Yet there has been no reckoning, no accountability, hardly any response at all from the Jewish mainstream.
This has been a profound moral failure. In the words of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, who has spoken out forcefully on the issue, “That there has been overwhelming silence since the release of era-defining information on the theft and raping of children — including not only the nation’s most powerful leaders, but Jews who routinely gave prestigious talks in our community — is a moral desecration and abdication of duty. Our sacred obligations require us to show up unequivocally for those harmed — especially children! — and to condemn all sexual abuse and violence. I do not know why this might ever seem complicated.”
The silence has also fanned the flames of antisemitism, especially because, as a Jewish Studies colleague put it to me, antisemitism thrives on the claim that you aren’t supposed to talk about when Jews in powerful positions act wrongly.
Now, if you’re of the opinion that antisemitism is a mysterious, baseless hatred that has always existed and always will exist, maybe you don’t think this news matters much. Today they hate us for Epstein and Iran, tomorrow will be something else.
But that view is dead wrong.
First, it flies in the face of the data that shows massive increases in antisemitism in the wake of Trump’s nationalism, and, later, the Gaza war. The hatred underlying antisemitism may be timeless, but it is fueled by the times. It is not a binary; it rises and falls and rises again.
Second, the Judeo-Pessimistic view ignores how antisemitism feeds off of conspiracy theories, political ideologies and resentment. The “Jews will not replace us” chant did not come from nowhere; it came from the nationalist right’s Great Replacement Theory. And the recent explosion in attacks on American Jews came as a response to the Gaza War; just as innocent German Americans and Japanese Americans were scapegoated during World War II, innocent Jewish Americans are scapegoated today.
Nothing Jewish leaders say or do will eradicate antisemitism. And preschoolers at a Michigan synagogue are not in any way responsible for the crimes of Epstein or the machinations of Netanyahu. Any time Jews are scapegoated and targeted for the perceived misdeeds of others, that is antisemitic, full stop. But, to paraphrase the Yom Kippur liturgy, we can mitigate the severity of the decree.
What might that look like? Let’s look at Epstein first, Iran second.
First, we need a real, public reckoning with the Epstein Files and the long relationships Epstein had with notable and/or rich American Jews (Wexner, Larry Summers, Howard Lutnick, Leon Black, Alan Dershowitz, Woody Allen, Ehud Barak, Robert Maxwell, Leon Botstein, and, most notably for antisemites, Lynn Forester and Ariane de Rothschild), and his support of Jewish and Jewish-adjacent institutions (including Ramaz, Hillel International, Harvard Hillel, YIVO, the Jewish National Fund, Mount Sinai Hospital, UJA-Federation of New York, Seeds of Peace, Touro College, Friends of the IDF, American Jewish Committee, and several Orthodox yeshivas).
This isn’t about outing or shaming; individuals or organizations who dealt with Epstein before 2008 can honestly claim they had no knowledge of his criminal behavior. Rather, it is about public, communal teshuvah, recognizing that our community institutions failed, our ethical values failed, and some of our wealthiest members failed as well. We did not protect the vulnerable (Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:16), judge rich and poor alike (Deuteronomy 1:17, Leviticus 19:15), or treat all people as made in the image of the Divine (Genesis 1:27).
These should not be mere performative statements. We should act, as a community, to repair what is broken – first and foremost by listening to Epstein’s victims, financially compensating them, and sharing their stories. There should be a community-wide campaign to fund organizations that combat sexual abuse and domestic violence, and help victims recover. (Examples include Za’akah, Shalom Bayit, as well as initiatives at Mount Sinai and many Jewish federations.) And our organizations should also use this moment to revisit their own politics on preventing misconduct and abuse. There should be strong words and even stronger actions.
Regarding the Iran War, the problem runs deeper.
A large majority of American Jews oppose the Iran War, just as they opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza. Yet individuals and organizations that publicly take such positions are marginalized in the Jewish community, and are often banned or shadow-banned from Jewish gatherings and religious institutions. (For example, 70% of American Jews oppose unconditional aid to Israel, but AIPAC targeted a pro-Israel congressional candidate for taking that view, leading to an anti-Israel opponent being swept into office.) We like to say that our community tolerates a wide range of views, but our institutional rhetoric of “standing with Israel” and a quick glance at the speaker list of any mainstream Jewish gathering makes it clear that some views are more favored than others.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu and Trump say, repeatedly, that anyone opposing the Israeli government’s policies (let alone the state itself) is a self-hating Jew, a traitor, or an antisemite. They are the antisemites’ best partners, insisting that there is no daylight between Israel’s actions and American Jews. That you’re either for us or against us.
We need the opposite of such false binaries and false equations. We need space for legitimate criticism, precisely so that illegitimate antisemitism can be recognized and called out. It’s not always easy to do so: The Nexus Project, which works to disentangle antisemitism and valid critique of Israel, has produced a helpful three-page guide to doing so in the context of the Iran War, in which the difference is often one of degree, rather than kind.
For example, it is indeed outrageous that Netanyahu pitched this war in the way he did to our increasingly demented-seeming president. One doesn’t need to resort to conspiracy-mongering to note that. Was this war ever in the American national interest? Did anyone really think the Iranian people would rise up against their government after America blew their cities to smithereens? All these are valid questions. Yet often they are posed in terms of antisemitic imagery depicting Jews, or Israel, as a giant puppetmaster or octopus manipulating world affairs. By validating legitimate criticisms, we can better call out illegitimate ones.
Honestly, I’ve long ago given up on most large Jewish organizations making space for diversity of opinion, because their donors tilt to the right, a structural reality I wrote about in this publication 10 years ago.
So my call, instead, is to Jewish centrists, moderates and progressives. If you want a Jewish community that reflects your Jewish values, you need to pay for one: You need to donate at the same levels as right-wing donors do. You need to take back the mainstream Jewish community by spending money and dictating your priorities.
To repeat, these efforts won’t end the scourge of antisemitism; there is no use arguing with bigots. But the bigots are not our audience — rather, the point is to combat the narratives that are persuading more and more people to join their ranks. By standing up for our values, we can put some space between Jeffrey Epstein (and his accomplices) and the Jewish community as a whole. And we can differentiate between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and antisemitic conspiracy theories based on them. We can stand up to the lies about Jews that are spreading like wildfire right now — by proudly and forcefully telling the truth.
The post Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it. appeared first on The Forward.
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In major shift, all but 7 Senate Democrats vote to block weapons sales to Israel
(JTA) — A record number of Senate Democrats voted on Wednesday to block the sales of certain weapons to Israel, marking a sharp rise in the number of senators backing the move.
Wednesday was the third time in as many years that the Senate voted on resolutions to limit weapons sales to Israel, introduced and promoted by the Vermont independent and progressive leader Bernie Sanders.
In 2024, 19 Democrats voted for at least one of the “Block the Bombs” resolutions on the table at the time. Last year, 24 senators endorsed the move.
Now, 40 senators — all but seven Democrats — voted for at least one of the two resolutions they faced on Wednesday, more than doubling the support in two years. The new backers include several Jewish moderates who describe themselves as pro-Israel as well as multiple senators who are seen as likely 2028 presidential candidates.
“I have struggled with these Joint Resolutions of Disapproval as much as any vote since I joined Congress,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a moderate from Michigan, in a statement calling the issue of support for Israel “raw, painful and personal.”
“My entire life, I have been — and continue to be — a strong supporter of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel. The people of Israel, like all people throughout the region, deserve long-term security and peace,” Slotkin said. “But being pro-Israel today is not about simply supporting the political or military agenda of Prime Minister Netanyahu, just like being pro-American should not be equated with loyalty to President Trump.”
All three measures fell short in the Republican-led Senate. Still, the vote on the weapons sales resolution in particular offered a powerful demonstration of shifting sentiment in the party about Israel. A survey released this week found that 80% of Democratic voters hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up sharply over the last three years. The findings correlate with a growing number of polls showing rising opposition to Israel in both parties, with a steeper rise among Democrats.
In addition to Slotkin, three other Jewish senators newly voted for the resolutions: Adam Schiff of California, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Jon Ossoff of Georgia.
Mark Kelly of Arizona, who is seen as a likely presidential contender and is married to the Jewish former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, said in a speech on the Senate floor that he “cannot and will never abandon Israel” but was voting to stop the weapons transfers because he opposes “the reckless decisions being made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump.”
Along with Kelly, Ossoff and Slotkin, two other possible presidential candidates also newly voted against weapons sales to Israel: Cory Booker of New Jersey and Ruben Gallego of Arizona. (Both have Jewish family members.)
Senate Democrats also voted as a bloc to restrict President Donald Trump’s ability to continue the war against Iran, which he launched jointly with Israel in February without congressional approval. Trump entered a ceasefire last week without achieving the varying goals he had outlined.
The weapons resolutions would have blocked the sale of D-9 bulldozers, widely used in military operations, and 1,000-bombs to Israel, while not affecting the sale of smaller and defensive munitions. Four senators who voted to block the bulldozer sales voted not to block the bomb sales.
Jewish critics of the war and the Israeli government applauded the votes.
“It’s encouraging to see a growing number of senators recognize that unconditional US military support for Israel is no longer tenable in light of the Netanyahu government’s policies,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, which this week came out against U.S. support for Israel’s defensive systems for the first time.
Morriah Kaplan, executive director of the progressive group IfNotNow, said the vote represented “a powerful step toward shared safety” in the Middle East and a bellwether of change in the United States.
“Establishment Jewish institutions will spend the next week writing angry letters to the Senators who voted ‘yes’ and trying to convince U.S. Jews that these politicians are putting our community in danger,” Kaplan said. “But our community is no longer falling for the disastrous lie that our safety will come through bombs, bulldozers, walls, or repression.”
There was little sign of immediate public condemnation by the Jewish groups that historically have taken aim at lawmakers who vote against support for Israel. Following the votes, the American Jewish Committee tweeted only, “Thank you to the Senators who continue to stand by Israel as it continues to face ongoing terror threats on multiple fronts.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In major shift, all but 7 Senate Democrats vote to block weapons sales to Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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On Yom Haatzmaut — a tribute to the mallow plant
במשך פֿון דער זעקס-וואָכיקער מלחמה מיט איראַן, וואָס האָט זיך געענדיקט מיט אַ פֿײַער־שטילשטאַנד דעם 8טן אַפּריל, זײַנען מיר, ישׂראלים, און בפֿרט די אײַנוווינערס פון תּל-אָבֿיבֿ, געבליבן נאָענט צו דער היים צוליב די סכּנה פֿון דערווײַטערן זיך פֿון אַ שוץ-קעלער. די צאָרן און דער צער זײַנען געוואַקסן פון טאָג צו טאָג: ס׳איז מיר קלאָר געווען אַז דאָס איז אַ געפֿערלעכער שפּיל מיט פֿײַער, אַן איבעריקע מלחמה, און מיר — און די אײַנוויינערס פֿון איראַן — וועלן באַצאָלן דעם פּרײַז. (אונדזער דירה איז טאַקע אַ ביסל צעשעדיקט געוואָרן אין איינער פֿון די באָמבאַרדירונגען). דערפֿאַר קאָנט איר זיך פֿאָרשטלען מיט וואָס פֿאַר אַ פֿרייד האָב איך אָנגענומען דעם פֿײַער-איבעררײַס; תּיכף נאָך דעם בין איך טאַקע אַרויסגעגאַנגען פֿון דער שטאָט, און גלײַך אין דער נאַטור.
און עס איז ווי געשען אַ נס: די נאַטור האָט זיך מכּלומרשט אָפּגעשטעלט אין דער צײַט פֿון דער קריג. דער פֿרילינג, וואָס ענדיקט זיך דאָ בדרך-כּלל פֿאַר פּסח, האָט דאָס מאָל געוואַרט אויף אונדז, זײַנע פֿאַרערערס. כּמעט די גאַנצע צײַט פֿון דער קריג איז געווען ווינטערדיק, מיט אַ סך רעגנס, און איצט, סוף חודש ניסן, איז נאָך אַלץ געבליבן גרין, פֿול מיט בלומען און געוויקסן — אַ זעלטנקייט.
צווישן די פֿאַרשיידענע בלומען און געוויקסן האָב איך באַמערקט אַז אויך די מאַלווע, וואָס אויף העברעיִש הייסט עס חוביזה, בליט נאָך מיט אירע חנעוודיקע וויאָלעטע בלומען. די בלומען בליִען, די קליינע פֿרוכטן זײַנען רייף, און די בלעטער זײַנען נאָך גרין.
די מאַלווע וואַקסט אין אַפֿריקע, אַזיע און אייראָפּע, און ישׂראל בתוכם. בדרך-כּלל שפּראָצן די ערשטע בלעטער פֿון דער מאַלווע אַרויס נאָך די ערשטע רעגנס פֿון ווינטער — אַרום דעצעמבער. זי וואַקסט פֿון זיך אַליין אין דער נאַטור, אָבער אויך אין די שטעט, אין די הויפֿן און אין נאָכגעלאָזטע גערטנער. אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט די רקפֿות (ציקלאַמען), למשל, אָדער אַנדערע איידעלע בלומען, איז זי נישט קיין מפֿונק, און וואַקסט אומעטום.
די בלעטער קאָן מען עסן פֿריש, אָדער געקאָכטע צי געפּרעגלטע (ווײַטער אונטן וועט איר געפֿינען אַ רעצעפּט דערפֿאַר). עס איז אַ ביסל שלײַמיק; איר טעם דערמאָנט אין שפּינאַט, און זי האָט אַ סך געזונטע קוואַליטעטן. אין די פֿריסטע סטאַדיעס איז די מאַלווע גאָר נידעריק, אָבער אַרום פֿעברואַר דערגרייט זי ביז דער הייך פֿון אַ מענטשן. אַרום מערץ באַווײַזן זיך שוין די שיינע בלומען פֿון דער מאַלווע און דערצו די רונדיקע קליינע פּירות, וואָס קינדווײַז האָבן מיר אַלע געגעסן מיט הנאה.
די מאַלווע וואַקסט טאַקע ווילד, אָבער זי איז נישט סתּם קיין פּראָסטע געוויקס. קודם-כּל, איר נאָמען אַליין: דאָס וואָרט „חוביזה“ איז אַן אַראַבישער טערמין, כובעזאַ. אויף אַראַביש הייסט עס „אַ קליין ברויט“ („כובז“ איז ברויט), און טאַקע, אויך אין עבֿרית רופֿט מען עס אַמאָל „לחם ערבֿי“ (אַראַביש ברויט). עס האָט אייגנטלעך אַן אָפֿיציעלן נאָמען: „חלמית“ (לויט דער משנה כלאיים ח, א), און דערצו אַ וויסנשאַפֿטלעכן נאָמען: malva. אויף ענגליש הייסט עס Mallow. אָבער אַ חוץ אַ קליינער צאָל מומחים, רופֿט קיינער דאָ עס נישט אַנדערש ווי כובעזאַ.
צוליב איר ברייטהאַרציקער מנהג צו וואַקסן אומעטום, האָט מען באַנוצט די כובעזאַ, מאַלווע, אויך אין דער צײַט פֿונעם „מצור“, די בלאָקאַדע פֿון ירושלים אין יאָר 1948. אין די ווינטער־חדשים וואָס ירושלים איז געשטאַנען איבערגעריסן פֿונעם ייִשובֿ, האָבן די ירושלימער באַלאַבאָסטעס אָפּגעריסן די מאַלווע־בלעטער און געמאַכט פֿון זיי פֿאַרשיידענע מאכלים, בפֿרט קאָטלעטן. לזכר דעם האָט מען שפּעטער, אין די פֿופֿציקער יאָרן, פֿאָרגעשלאָגן אַז מע וועט דערלאַנגען די באַרימטע קאָטלעטן לכּבֿוד יום־העצמאות (דעם אומאָפּהענגיקייט-טאָג). אָט למשל האָט דער דערציִונג-מיניסטעריום אין 1955 פֿאָרגעלייגט אַן אָפֿיציעלער יום-טובֿדיקער מעניו: כובעזאַ-קאָטלעטן אין פּאָמידאָרן ראָסל, סאַלאַט-כובעזאַ אין טחינה, יויך מיט קרעפּלעך, „שבֿעת המינים“-טאָרט אאַז״וו. אַזאַ מעניו קאָן מען געפֿינען אויך אין דעם פּאָפּולערן קאָכבוך „365 שולחנות ערוכים“ (365 געדעקטע טיש), וואָס איז אַרויס אין 1961, און וואָס מײַן מאַמע האָט געהאַלטן כּמעט ווי אַ שולחן-ערוך.
טאַקע אַ שיינער אײַנפֿאַל — עסן כובעזאַ-קאָטלעטן לכּבֿוד יום־העצמאות — נאָר איין חיסרון האָט עס. ווי געזאָגט, וואַקסט די מאַלווע ווינטערצײַט, און אַ חוץ הײַיאָר, און נאָך זעלטענע יאָרן, זײַנען די בלעטער אין דער צײַט פֿון יום־העצמאות שוין אויסגעטריקנט, אָדער די אינסעקטן (וואָס האָבן אויך ליב כובעזאַ) האָבן זיי שוין אויפֿגעפֿרעסן. דערפֿאַר קאָן מען נישט פֿאַקטיש גרייטן די כובעזאַ-קאָטלעטן אָנהייב מײַ, ווען עס פֿאַלט בדרך-כּלל אויס יום־העצמאות.
מע דאַרף זיך מודה זײַן אַז בכּלל, מיט די יאָרן, האָט מען אַ ביסל גרינגעשעצט אָט די „לחם עוני“, די אָרעמע מאַלווע/כובעזאַ. ישׂראל איז געוואָרן רײַכער, און אין יום־העצמאות האָט מען אָנגעהויבן עסן דער עיקר פֿלייש „על האש“ – דאָס הייסט באַרבעקיו. אין די לעצטע יאָרן, נאָך דער „יורידישע רעוואָלוציע“ פֿון יאָר 2022, און בפֿרט נאָך דעם 7טן אָקטאָבער 2023 און די בלוטיקע מלחמות זינט דעמאָלט, האָבן אַ סך ישׂראלים בכּלל פֿאַרלוירן דעם אַפּעטיט צו יום־העצמאות. ווי עס שטייט אין קהלת: „לשׂמחה מה זו עושה“ (אויף לוסטיקייט — וואָס טוט זי אויף?). די פֿײַערונגען פֿון די לעצטע אומאָפּהענגיקייט-טעג האָבן עפּעס אַ ביטערן נאָך־טעם.
אָבער אפֿשר דווקא דאָס יאָר, לכּבֿוד דעם שפּעטערדיקן פֿרילינג און דער האָפֿענונג אַז עס וועט שוין נעמען אַ סוף צו דער מלחמה, קאָן מעט זיך צוריקקערן צו די באַשיידענע גוטע בלעטער. דערבײַ קאָן מען אַ תּפֿילה טאָן אַז ישׂראל זאָל אַליין אויפֿגעריכט ווערן, און איך גלויב נאָך אַלץ אַז עס קאָן זײַן בעסער סײַ פֿאַר אונדז און סײַ פֿאַר אונדזערע שכנים.
צום סוף, אָט איז דער צוגעזאָגטער רעצעפּט פֿון די געשמאַקע מאַלווע-קאָטלעטן:
500 גראַם מאַלווע־בלעטער, גוט געוואַשן
ציבעלע, צעהאַקט און געפּרעגלט
2 ציינדלעך קנאָבל, צעריבן
2 אייער
½ גלאָז מצה-מעל צי ברייזל (ברויט-קרישקעס)
זאַלץ און פֿעפֿער
איילבערט־בוימל
קאָכט די מאַלווע־בלעטער אין וואַסער אַ פּאָר מינוט. קוועטשט אויס דאָס וואַסער, און צעהאַקט די בלעטער. דערנאָך גיט צו די אַנדערע אינגרעדיענטן, און קנייט אויס רונדיקע קאָטלעטן. פּרעלגט (אָדער באַקט) זיי ביז זיי ברוינען זיך צו.
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