Uncategorized
Learning Hebrew brought me closer to Judaism — and alienated me from Israel
(JTA) — Speaking to the media in the United States before and after his latest election as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu reassured American Jews and other supporters of Israel that their widely expressed fears of the undemocratic nature of the new Israeli governing coalition were overblown and would not in fact come to pass.
Netanyahu told the New York Times that he was still at least notionally committed to a peace deal with the Palestinians and told journalist Bari Weiss that policy would be determined by him, and not cabinet ministers like the self-described “proud homophobe” Bezalel Smotrich and convicted criminal Itamar Ben-Gvir, or the haredi Orthodox parties.
Then he returned to Israel, and promptly tweeted, “These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and indisputable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” Netanyahu was asserting absolute Jewish sovereignty over the entirety of the West Bank, with no room for Palestinian statehood — as those politicians want and as his many American Jewish critics feared he would do.
That last tweet, despite reflecting the official position of Netanyahu’s newly inaugurated government, did not attract nearly as much attention in U.S. media as Netanyahu’s previous press tour. Because unlike Netanyahu’s fluent English-language interviews with numerous American press organizations, this tweet was in Hebrew — a language in which only 22% of American Jews possess an even minimal degree of fluency.
Like many non-Orthodox American Jews, I was once one of those other 78%. I was brought up attending a Reform synagogue, and I learned how to read enough Hebrew phonetically to have a bar mitzvah ceremony, reciting my Torah portion by rote memorization. I learned the aleph bet, and a few basic words here and there, but not much more. If I read Torah or Talmud at all, it was entirely in English translation.
But unlike many non-Orthodox American Jews, I became interested in learning Hebrew as an adult, as part of a broader interest in learning more about Jewish history, and I enrolled in courses starting in college to study Biblical, Mishnaic and modern Hebrew. Eventually, after years of study, I enrolled in a doctoral program in Jewish history at the University of Chicago, where I had to pass a rigorous Hebrew proficiency exam as a prerequisite to advance to doctoral candidacy status.
In many ways, this should have made me an ideal American Jew. After all, numerous commentators have opined on the need for more American Jews to learn Hebrew, to bring us closer to both Israeli Jewish culture and to Jewish history as a whole. As one Israeli educator stated, “Once you have Hebrew, all Israeli culture can be injected into your life.”
A wide array of American Jewish philanthropists and charities have identified funding Hebrew language education for American Jews as a priority. They should see someone like me — who went from knowing barely enough Hebrew to get through my bar mitzvah to now reading Haaretz each day in Hebrew — as a success story.
Except that this call for more American Jews to learn Hebrew often comes with an embedded political assumption: that if more American Jews learned to read and speak Hebrew, we would feel more closely linked to Israel and reverse the declining support for Israel among young American Jews.
There’s even a claim that American Jews do not have the right to criticize Israel without being able to follow Israeli political discussions in the original language. Daniel Gordis, of Shalem College in Jerusalem, complained that left-wing American Jewish journalist Peter Beinart should not be taken seriously as a commentator on Israeli affairs, as Beinart apparently “cannot read those [Hebrew] newspapers or Israeli literature until it is translated.”
The assumption is clear: If American Jews do not know Hebrew, we cannot be connected to the state of Israel, nor can we truly understand the Israeli politics we might wish to opine about. If we learned Hebrew, one Israeli-American advocate wrote, we would “be more united and support Israel in spectacular ways.”
Except that in my case, the exact opposite happened. As I learned more Hebrew, I saw how Israeli Jewish politicians often spoke in different terms in English and in Hebrew, tailoring their appeals for different audiences. Netanyahu’s recent sojourn to the United States is only one example. Take Ayelet Shaked, who sounded moderate notes to English-speaking audiences on a trip to Britain, while also telling Hebrew audiences that the “Jewish” character of Israel should supersede the notion of “equality.”
Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with code-switching. Politicians of all kinds do that. But the fact that some Israeli politicians think they have to sound more moderate in English than in Hebrew is telling. And when I opened myself up to what some Israeli politicians say in Hebrew, such as when Netanyahu falsely spread allegations of Arabs stealing votes in the last Israeli elections, something he did in Hebrew and not in English, or when new coalition partner Itamar Ben-Gvir put up a billboard reading, “May our enemies be gone” in Hebrew next to the pictures of three Israeli left-wing politicians, two Palestinian and one Jewish, it opened my eyes to a lot of aspects of Israeli politics that some American Jews would rather not hear.
So yes, it would be good for more American Jews to learn Hebrew. It would be a positive step for more American Jews to engage more heavily with Jewish culture and history. I certainly have no regrets about my time spent studying Hebrew.
But we should be honest about what the effects of that Hebrew language education would be. It might not be to simply make more American Jews “defend Israel” against its detractors. It might mean a more honest engagement with Israeli politics as they truly are, rather than how they are presented abroad to English-speaking audiences. And for some of us, that might even push us further away.
—
The post Learning Hebrew brought me closer to Judaism — and alienated me from Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration
ס׳האָט זיך לעצטנס געשאַפֿן אַ נײַער סאָרט לייענקרײַז דורך פֿייסבוק, וווּ מע לערנט תּורה אויף ייִדיש צוזאַמען.
אינעם לייענקרײַז, וואָס הייסט „די ייִדישיסטישע ישיבֿה“, לייענט מען חומש מיט רש״י — סײַ אויפֿן אָריגינעלן לשון־קודש סײַ אויף ייִדיש־טײַטש. „די גרופּע איז אָפֿן פֿאַר אַלע מינים מענטשן,“ האָט דערקלערט דער לינגוויסט און ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט לייזער בורקאָ, וועלכער האָט אָרגאַניזירט די גרופּע. „פֿרויען און מענער, ייִדן און נישט־ייִדן, געי און ׳גלײַך׳. נײַע תּלמידים דאַרפֿן פֿאַרשטיין ייִדיש גוט, אָבער זיי דאַרפֿן נישט האָבן קיין תּורהדיקן הינטערגרונט.“
די גרופּע טרעפֿט זיך יעדן דינסטיק דורך פֿייסבוק. נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, שטעלט זיך אין קאָנטאַקט מיט בורקאָ, אויפֿן אַדרעס leyzertag@gmail.com אָדער דורך פֿייסבוק.
The post The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall
(JTA) — When David Freedman discovered a long-forgotten photo album in his parents’ Montreal basement last year, he found nearly 100 pages of century-old photographs from his grandfather’s year in British Mandate Palestine, capturing Jerusalem street scenes, market stalls and holy sites.
The photographs were not only century-old and in near-perfect condition, but included figures who would later become central to Jewish medical and political history, among them Israel’s future first president Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem ophthalmologist Abraham Ticho, malaria researcher Israel Kligler, future British prime minister Winston Churchill and Herbert Samuel, Britain’s first high commissioner for Palestine.
David Freedman said he knew he had “struck gold” when he found the album, which had been untouched for decades. “I realized in disbelief I was looking at extraordinary images of Jerusalem,” he said.
Though Freedman said the album showed his grandfather’s “passion for skillful, impromptu photography,” it was images of a site that epitomizes endurance that are having the broadest impact.
Freedman’s pictures of the Western Wall has inspired a public appeal by the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum, which is asking people to look through old albums and attics for photographs, postcards and other visual material that could help expand the historical record of Judaism’s holiest site.
The request comes ahead of a major exhibition opening in 2027 marking 60 years since the 1967 Six-Day War brought the wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel, under Jewish control for the first time in nearly two millennia.
Although the Western Wall is now one of the most photographed sites in the world, museum curators say the visual record of earlier decades remains surprisingly fragmented, with many of the most intimate images likely still tucked away in private collections and family albums.
“The Western Wall, the Kotel, in its simplest form, is a structure of ancient stones. Yet its true meaning has never resided in the stones alone — it has been shaped and elevated by the countless individuals who have stood before it over the centuries,” Eilat Lieber, the museum’s director and chief curator, said in a statement.
Next year’s exhibition, titled “Eyes on the Wall” and curated by Shimon Lev and Yael Brandt, will be the first large-scale exhibition dedicated entirely to the Western Wall, the museum said, and will trace its transformation over nearly 2,000 years. It will be one of the major exhibitions staged by the Tower of David Museum since it reopened in 2023 after a $50 million renovation of its ancient citadel complex.
The wall, the exposed section of an ancient retaining wall around the Temple Mount, the site of the biblical Jewish temples, has long been Judaism’s most sacred places of prayer and pilgrimage. From 1948 until the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Jews were barred from going there.
Among its most iconic images was David Rubinger’s photograph of three Israeli paratroopers standing at the wall shortly after its capture, looking upward in a mixture of awe and disbelief. The picture was taken 59 years ago this week.
Abraham Orkin Freedman, a Canadian physician and Zionist activist, took his photographs before the site was so contested. He arrived in Palestine in July 1920, just as Britain was replacing military rule with a civil administration, and stayed until 1922, serving during that period as managing director of Hadassah Hospital. His grandson David, also a doctor, said the album’s timing gives it much of its historical value, with photographs that capture people in the streets, as well as the terrain and buildings of Jerusalem during the nascent years of the British Mandate.
Among the images Freedman uncovered, the one that struck him most was a photograph of women praying side by side with men at the oldest part of the Western Wall, a scene far removed from the gender-separated prayer sections at the site today. The question of mixed-gender prayer at the Wall remains politically charged, with a recent High Court order to advance the egalitarian section followed by Knesset moves to strengthen Chief Rabbinate control over prayer at the site.
After recognizing the album’s significance, Freedman met with his family who decided collectively to give it to the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum for safekeeping, research and public access. Freedman said the family was proud the album had found “a new home, not many meters from where my grandfather once stood.”
Lev said he hoped the appeal would bring more discoveries like Freedman’s into public view, expanding the visual record of the Western Wall beyond official archives.
“There is something profoundly moving in the moment when an intimate private photograph transcends its original purpose and becomes an important historical testimony,” Lev said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances
(JTA) — Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Tuesday that an 18-year-old man has been charged in connection with the March arson attack that destroyed four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish volunteer emergency service.
Subhan Ahmed, a British national, was charged on Monday with “assisting an offender” in connection with the arson.
The ambulances were set ablaze in the early morning of March 23 in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in London. The incident spurred increased patrols in Jewish communities.
The charge is the latest development in an investigation being led by the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit.
Four others have already been charged in connection with the attack.
Three British nationals — 20-year-old Hamza Iqbal, 19-year-old Rehan Khan and 18-year-old Judex Atshatshi — along with a 17-year-old dual British and Pakistani national were all charged in April with “committing arson, destroying or damaging property, and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.”
The four have remained in custody ahead of a trial planned for January. Ahmed, meanwhile, was released ahead of a June 16 court date.
The ambulance arsons came at the early edge of a wave of incidents that have put London Jews on edge and induced the city’s police force to step up their presence in Jewish communities. The incidents have included multiple incendiary devices placed near synagogues as well as the stabbing in April of two Jewish men in Golders Green. The Metropolitan Police reported last week that antisemitic hate crimes in the capital rose 72% in May.
Following the announcement of Ahmed’s charge, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish organization, thanked the police and the Crown Prosecution Service “for their ongoing work investigating this attack and other arson incidents targeting the Jewish community.”
It added in a statement, “These are very serious allegations, and it is right that those responsible are being held accountable.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post 5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances appeared first on The Forward.
