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To turn out Jews against Mamdani, we need a ‘Great Schlep’ from Park Avenue to Park Slope
This piece is adapted from a sermon delivered on Oct. 18, 2025. It can be viewed here.
On Shabbat, I told my congregants something I believe strongly: that Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York’s Jewish community.
Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like “globalize the intifada,” his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, his call to arrest Israel’s prime minister should he enter New York, and his thrice-repeated accusation of genocide in last week’s debate — for these and so many other statements, past, present, and unrepentant — he is a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York.
Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination — these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and State of Israel at the door is as nonsensical a proposition as it is offensive — no different than asking me to reject God, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith.
One need look no further than the events of the past week (or, for that matter, the past two years) to understand the shape and substance of the Jewish soul — how bound up we have all been with the plight of the hostages and our jubilation at their release. In our highs and in our lows, in our tortured angst and our fragile hopes, in our prayers and our protests, we feel our connection to Israel and its people. It is the invisible string that has tugged at our hearts since the very beginnings of our people.
Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely rhetorical sleight of hand or political naivete, though it is, to be clear, both of those things. His doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes, an anti-Zionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again — in Washington, in Colorado, in ways both small and large, online and in person — has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence. This past summer, you may recall, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of “Death to the IDF.” Where exactly would a Mamdani administration stand should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island, or in Central Park? I am not one to play the politics of fear. The entire thesis of my career is to play offense, not defense. But right now, I am throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late.
For me, the breaking point came not with Mamdani’s earlier statements, his accusations of Israeli genocide, his refusal to name Hamas a terrorist organization, or, for that matter, the flimsiness of his experience, policies, and associations. For me, the damning moment came in a statement he made to a Brooklyn synagogue last week, when he sought to assure that community, as reported in the press, that his views on Israel would not amount to a litmus test for service in his administration. “I am not a Zionist,” he said. “I’m also not looking to create a city hall or a city in my image. I’m going to have people in my administration who are Zionists — whether liberal Zionists, or wherever they may be on that spectrum.”
And while one could commend Mamdani for focusing on professional qualifications rather than political inclinations, for me, the comment was a most unsettling tell. The comment was a most unsettling tell. When Mamdani says “Zionists are welcome” in his administration, he may think he’s offering reassurance, but in fact he reveals something darker — the assumption that Jewish self-determination is an ideology to be tolerated, rather than a birthright to be respected. The very need to say it betrays a bias so deeply held that it should make us shudder.
Some believe it unwise to raise alarms given the likelihood of Mamdani’s election. Better to hold our tongue in anticipation of the need to work with him. I hear the concern and understand the pragmatism. I choose principle instead.
A vote for Mamdani is a vote counter to Jewish interests. A vote for Curtis Sliwa, whatever his merits, is a vote for Mamdani. There is a path to victory — i.e., Andrew Cuomo — but it means every eligible voter must vote. In the last election, somewhere between 15-20% of eligible voters turned out; we must do better. Nobody can sit this election out.
And yet, as good as it feels to speak my mind — and important as it is to do so — the truth is, doing so neither moves the electoral needle sufficiently nor addresses my deeper concern in this mayoral race.
How so? First, in my synagogue, I am preaching mostly, if not entirely, to the converted. I had my congregants at hello. For me to name the dangers of an anti-Zionist mayoral candidate in this community is a declaration so self-evident that not only does it risk being cliché, but it could serve to feed the very intersectional politics that have fueled Mamdani’s campaign in the first place.
Hopefully my words will prompt my congregants and their network of likeminded voters to turn out in this election, and that is not nothing. But all of my congregants — and there are a lot of them — who have emailed me, called me, and texted me urging me to go scorched earth on Mamdani, to invite Andrew Cuomo to address our community, all fail to understand that it is not the Park Avenue Synagogue community that needs convincing but the Korean, African-American and Latino communities of New York. We must turn out the vote, but if it is a win that you want, Cuomo needs to speak at more churches and fewer synagogues, more barbershops and fewer boardrooms, up his online game, and meet New Yorkers where they are. If it is a win you want, I’d encourage Jewish New Yorkers to redirect their angst from their rabbis who already believe what they believe and instead direct it to the issues, places, and people where the needle needs to be moved and can be moved.
Because my real concern is the painful truth that Mamdani’s anti-Zionist rhetoric not only appeals to his base but seems to come with no downside. What business does an American mayoral candidate have weighing in on foreign policy unless it scores points at the ballot box? I don’t doubt that Mamdani’s anti-Zionism is heartfelt and sincere, but its instrumentalization as an election talking point should frighten you in that it says more about the sensibilities of our fellow New Yorkers than it does about Mamdani himself. And the fact that the latest polls suggest that the Jewish community of New York is almost evenly split between Mamdani and Cuomo further names the problem to be not just one of our fellow New Yorkers, but our fellow Jews.
Which means that if there is a play to be made here, given the limitations of time, resources, and people, our efforts should be directed to where we have influence and where the needle can be moved. Those in the middle — the undecided, the proudly Jewish yet unabashedly progressive, the affordability-anxious, Netanyahu-weary, Brooklyn-dwelling, and social-media-influenced — who need to be engaged. In other words, other Jews. Jews who may not be you, but may be your friends, may be your children, and may be your grandchildren.
It is these Jews, our friends and our family, who need to be persuaded to prioritize their Jewish selves. I am imagining an informal campaign, reminiscent of what the comedian Sarah Silverman organized in 2015, when she called on young Jews to go to Florida to persuade their Bubbies and Zaydes to vote for then-Sen. Barack Obama. It was called “The Great Schlep.” Now, 10 years later, in 2025, we need a Great Schlep in reverse. Not from the Upper West Side to Surfside, but from Park Avenue to Park Slope, to remind the ambivalent and undecided that Jewish identity is not a partisan position but a sacred inheritance always in need of defense — especially today.
Who are these Jews about whom I speak? First, in many cases, they have grown up with an Israeli prime minister with whom they not only do not identify, but who represents the very antithesis of every other liberal Jewish value they hold dear. They don’t want anything to do with Netanyahu or the vision of Israel that he and his government represent. For them, Mamdani’s rejection of Israel may be a difference, but it is one of degree, not in kind. Second, these Jews feel strongly that they are not voting for the “Mayor of Jerusalem” and therefore local issues preempt everything else — like finding a job and living well in the city in which they were born without having to spend 50% of their monthly paycheck on rent. Third, the Cuomo you see as a commonsense experienced candidate – who, like any politician, comes with both personal and professional baggage — they see as an exemplar of the same-old, same-old tired politics in desperate need of being rejected.
For a Jew who wants to live a frictionless Jewish existence and return to a pre-Oct.-7 world when being a Jew was a nonevent, it is more appealing to vote for the candidate believed able to do the greatest good for greatest number of New Yorkers, no matter how preposterous some of his proposals are, even if that candidate lacks the credentials to run my fantasy football league, never mind the most complicated city in America.
So, when you talk to your friend, colleague or family member, under no circumstances roll your eyes or wag your finger. One should not do so because such an approach is sure to backfire, but, more importantly, because to do so delegitimizes the altogether legitimate feelings that person holds.
And when you do share your views, if it were me, I would begin the conversation by talking about love. How love — be it of another person, of family, or of country — never exists in a vacuum. How it evolves, it changes, it challenges. How the meaning of love comes not in the black-and-white cases — of love without question, or when there is no love at all — but in the gray areas — when love is tested. It is then — in those moments when we measure and re-measure, when the conditions of our love are challenged — that we find out who we really are, and discover what love is all about.
I would share with that other person that love is a commodity that neither is endless nor can be distributed equally. To be a Jew, to be anything for that matter, means to prioritize one love over another. The math is not precise; love cannot actually be measured in bushels and pecks. Concerned as we are with the well-being of humanity, we simply cannot nor should be expected to care for every human the same way. To paraphrase the moral philosopher Bernard Williams: A man who sees two people drowning, his wife and a stranger, and pauses to consider which one maximizes the public good, is a man who has had “one thought too many.”
Self-preservation and self-interest are not only legitimate, but essential to sustaining an ethical life. It is why, when the rabbinic sage Hillel was asked by a would-be convert to distill all of Jewish teaching into a single sentence, he did not quote the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Rather Hillel said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to another.” One cannot love another as yourself, argued Hillel and Jews throughout the ages. The best we can do is to love another because they are like us, created alike in God’s image. There are limits to love. There is a place for self-concern.
And for Jews, ahavat yisrael, love of Israel, does take precedence over other loves. Every human being is created with equal and infinite dignity, yet we prioritize the needs of our families, our people, and our nation. This week we began reading the book of Genesis, the most universal story of all — not the creation of the first Jew, but the first human being. Universal as the story is, the 11th-century commentator Rashi immediately reads it as a justification for the Jewish claim to the land. In the 11th century, Rashi’s comment served as a defense against the Crusader-era argument that Jews have no claim to Israel. In our day, Rashi’s comment can be read as a reminder to progressive Jews of the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to the land. You can love Israel without loving all Israelis. You can love Israel without loving its government. In this moment when the Jewish connection to Israel sits precariously at the intersection of identity politics and rising antisemitic violence, it is not only allowable to place the Jewish body politic at the forefront of our concern; it is required of us.
Some will argue that disqualifying Mamdani because of his anti-Zionist posture only feeds the antisemite’s charge of dual loyalty. I hear this objection and respect those who say it, and I fully reject the argument. I reject it first because it surrenders to a Jewish insecurity and fear about what the antisemites might think. I don’t care what the antisemite thinks, and neither should you. And second, I reject it because it betrays a category error with regard to the place Israel has in my Jewish being. Israel is not a detachable policy preference; it is integral to my Jewish identity. To delegitimize Israel, as Mamdani has repeatedly done, is an attack on my personhood as a Jew, as an American, and as an American Jew. This is not about dual loyalty; this is about my fundamental security and the security of my co-religionists.
And lest you think I don’t understand, be assured that I do. I understand that it is not easy. It is hard to prioritize love of Israel when the government of Israel does not reflect your sensibility — that feeling of your love being tested. I understand that it is hard to prioritize one’s Jewish self over the array of other identity labels we wear. I understand that it is hard to reach beyond the sparkle of the shiny new object in favor of the one that is scuffed, worn, and familiar.
I wish it were otherwise. I wish we had two candidates with equal interest, or better yet, equal disinterest in the Jewish community. I would love nothing more than our mayoral contest to be focused solely on affordability, food instability, education, policing, sanitation, taxes — the everyday issues that shape our great city’s life. A contest where all of you could argue to your heart’s delight about which policies best serve the future of our great city, and I could give sermons on, well, anything else. But this election cycle, that is simply not the case. We can only play the cards we are dealt. And in this hand, I choose to play the one that safeguards the Jewish people, protects our community, and ensures that our seat at the table remains secure. I choose steadiness over spectacle, tested loyalty over reckless gamble.
It’s a story as old as the Bible itself. We stand in the Garden — staring at that Big Apple — wondering what is in our long-term best interest. The options are before us. We are wrestling within and with each other and we know we have to make a choice.
Let us choose wisely: To engage, mobilize, turn conviction into action, self-concern into ballots and most of all — vote. Now is the time to make our voices heard.
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The post To turn out Jews against Mamdani, we need a ‘Great Schlep’ from Park Avenue to Park Slope appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Sex, drugs and Torah scrolls: At the Psychedelicatessen, visitors receive a powerful dose of art
Hypothetically, if someone you had every reason to like and trust told you that if you went up one flight of stairs, you would “probably see things you never expected to see, ever,” how would you react? A sane individual might feel curiosity or skepticism, tempered with a dose of fear.
However, if you are anything like the crowd that gathered at YIVO for the opening of kosher-pop-art-visionary Steve Marcus’ new exhibit, “Psychedelicatessen: A Powerful Dose of Art,” the answer is simple: you’d get your tuchus upstairs, and fast.
In the gallery, the dose of art was as powerful as the exhibit title (and exhibit director Eddy Portnoy) had warned. The walls had gone groovy with technicolor mashups of Judaica and LSD, Flower Power and Maimonides. Strange shiducchim were being made in that room: There was a yad, a ritual Torah pointer, flashing a peace-sign instead of a pointer finger; a drawing of the “Power to the People” fist wrapped in tefillin; a wall of famous-rabbi-themed blotter art; a poster for “The Grateful Reb” in which a skeptical-looking Hasid in a tye-dye shirt (presumably the Grateful Reb himself) stood in front of a colorful mandala. It was like walking through a Hasidic hippie’s hallucinations.
As it turns out, Steve Marcus is neither entirely a hippie nor entirely a Hasid, though he has had brushes with both worlds. Marcus was born in the Summer of Love, 1969, just a year after the original Psychedelicatessen, an East Village headshop, got busted by narcs. Marcus spent his childhood — maybe even his life — surfing the afterwaves of the 1960s. He read MAD Magazine and Cracked. He gorged himself on Looney Tunes. As a teenager, he dug into Comix, the underground world of illustration concerned with hippie preoccupations like sex and drugs. As for Judaism?
“About a year after my bar mitzvah, I took a long sabbatical,” Marcus told me. It was the day after the opening, and we were sitting on a bench in the empty gallery. Marcus was jittering his knees up and down like he’d had too many Astro Pops.
He grew up Masorti, attending shul with his parents on Saturday morning and then booking it to the Yankee game that same afternoon to eat non-kosher hot dogs with his dad. But when Marcus was in his late thirties, his father died of a heart attack on Rosh Hashanah at the age of 66. “He was blown out like a candle,” Marcus said. “It kind of rang my bell.” He decided to say kaddish for his father three times a day for almost 11 months. It was during this period that he started grooving with the ultra-Orthodox.
“The only people showing up to shul three times a day are hardcore,” he said. He had noticed some of his Haredi compatriates studying Torah. When he asked how much it would cost to study there for a semester, “they were like, ‘You want to learn? You just come!’” For the past 17 years, at least three hours a day, Marcus has done exactly that.
Since turning to Talmud, Marcus has kept his art kosher. He obeys halachic stipulations such as not drawing the moon or the sun (or naked ladies, for that matter). He says halacha does not limit his work, but makes its reach more expansive, allowing Jews of every religious stripe to enjoy his art. But other halachic rules rankled him at first, most of all the Hasidic man uniform. Marcus looks like a countercultural Tevye. He is grizzled and bearded, and wears a baseball cap as religiously as other Jewish men wear yarmulkes. On the night of the gallery opening, he was wearing a camo jacket.
Earlier in his religious journey, he consulted a famous rabbi about his fashion troubles: “I said, ‘This white shirt, black suit, black hat thing? I don’t think it’s gonna happen … Is this a problem?’” The Rabbi in question replied with an interesting analogy. “‘You need to think of the halacha like a box,’” he said. Just because some people were crowding in one corner of the box didn’t mean that that was the only place in the box to stand.
“Sometimes, unfortunately the world, especially the Jewish world, wants to put everybody in a box,” Marcus said. “I think it’s hard to put people in a box.”
Marcus plants his eye-popping, mindbending art in familiar cultural boxes — pop art, Judaica, Flower Power counterculture — and then, before you get too comfortable, he explodes them with something unexpected. He showed me a piece called “Daf Yomi Agin!”, a yeshiva-bokher take on Robert Crumb’s famous ’70s poster “Stoned Agin!”, a six-panel depiction of a guy melting into blitzed-out goop. Except in Marcus’ version, the man is a Hasid turning aqueous at the thought of restarting the Daf Yomi, a seven-and-a-half-year cycle in which you read one of the 2,771 pages of the Talmud each day.
“They have an expression in yeshiva called ‘breaking your teeth,’ right? Which is when you’re trying so hard to understand something that they break their teeth over it,” Marcus said. “To me, it’s more like melting my brain than breaking my teeth, so that’s why it’s like this slow progression to a complete meltdown.” He has done the Daf twice already. One time, he said, he even went to the yeshiva in Lublin where the Daf Yomi began. He said his presence shattered the minds of the Hasidim. “I showed up, and it’s like I look like the hair in the matzo ball soup or something. They were like, ‘How do you know about such a place?!’”
A lot of Marcus’ stories start like this: Two dudes of different walks of life collide. First they are baffled; then they are bros. The phrase “Hey, man” makes frequent appearances. Marcus told me stories about his Zuni friends out in New Mexico who invited him to a secretive winter solstice holiday called Shalako in which the Zuni build a new house and feast on a dish that’s “almost like a cholent made of mutton.” He talked about meeting author Ken Kesey (whose grandson, Caleb Kesey, printed the rabbinic blotter art), and painting his Jeep with a phoenix rising against a psychedelic background. He told a story about a World War II vet named “Buzzy Katz” he used to hang out with who taught him how to cut onions. Marcus seems down to hang with the whole world.
“I’m one of those people that feels at home wherever I am,” he said. “I put on a backpack. I get into a truck or whatever and I fly over to another place.”
The post Sex, drugs and Torah scrolls: At the Psychedelicatessen, visitors receive a powerful dose of art appeared first on The Forward.
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What sort of Yiddish do today’s Yiddishists speak?
פֿון לייזער בורקאָ
ווען מע וואָלט הײַנט געשטעלט די שאלה, „וואָס פֿאַר אַ ייִדיש רעדן די ייִדישיסטן?“ וואָלט אַ לץ מסתּמא געענטפֿערט: הײַנט רעדן זיי ענגליש. אָבער לאָמיר נישט מאַכן קיין חכמות און טראַכטן נאָר וועגן יענע ייִדישיסטן, וואָס רעדן ייִדיש טאַקע — אַזעלכע וואָס שרײַבן און לייענען אַרטיקלען אין „פֿאָרווערטס“, למשל. ווי אַזוי רעדן מיר?
די לינגוויסטקע עמאַ ברעסלאָו האָט לעצטנס פֿאַרטיידיקט איר דיסערטאַציע דווקא אויף דער טעמע. זי האָט אינטערוויויִרט דרײַסיק ייִדיש־רעדער, אַ טייל פֿון זיי — אויף דער ייִדיש־וואָך פֿון יוגנטרוף — ספּעציעל פֿון ניו־יאָרק, באָסטאָן און מאָנטרעאָל. דערבײַ האָט זי אַנטדעקט עטלעכע וויכטיקע און אינטערעסאַנטע פֿאַקטן.
איין פֿראַגע פֿון דער דיסערטאַציע איז, ווי אַזוי מע זאָל אונדז רופֿן. ווען ברעסלאָו האָט געפֿרעגט די מענטשן, אויב זיי רופֿן זיך „ייִדישיסטן“, האָבן מערסטע געזאָגט — ניין. דאָס איז אַליין אינטערעסאַנט, פֿאַר וואָס די ווערטער „ייִדישיזם“ און „ייִדישיסט“ קלינגען הײַנט עפּעס אַלטפֿרענקיש און מע וויל נישט הייסן אַזוי. ברעסלאָו האָט נישט געפֿונען קיין בעסערן נאָמען, רופֿט זי אונדז „די מיעוט־קאָנטעקסט־ייִדיש־קהילה“ (minority-context Yiddish community). אין דער דאָזיקער קאַטעגאָריע נעמט ברעסלאָו אויך אַרײַן געוועזענע חסידים, וואָס קומען אַ מאָל אויך אויף די ייִדישיסטישע אונטערנעמונגען.
איך אַליין פֿאַרשטיי נישט, פֿאַר וואָס מע שעמט זיך מיטן נאָמען „ייִדישיסט“. ערשטנס, וועלן די חסידים און פֿרומע ייִדן אונדז ווײַטער רופֿן „ייִדישיסטן“, ווי אַזוי מיר זאָלן זיך נישט רופֿן. אַזוי הייסן מיר אין זייער ייִדיש און אַזוי וועט עס בלײַבן. עס איז פֿאָרט בעסער ווי די אַלטערנאַטיווע נעמען (כּופֿר, אַפּיקורס אאַז״וו).
אַ צווייטער סורפּריז פֿון דער דיסערטאַציע איז די פֿאַרשידנקייט פֿון דעם ייִדיש, וואָס ייִדישיסטן רעדן. אַ דרויסנדיקער, אַ סטודענט, וואָלט אפֿשר געמיינט, אַז אַלע ייִדישיסטן רעדן דאָס זעלביקע כּלל־ייִדיש. דאָס איז אָבער אַ טעות: אַ סך ייִדישיסטן רעדן אויך פּויליש ייִדיש אָדער אוקראַיִניש ייִדיש אָדער געמישטע דיאַלעקטן. אַ סך ניצן אויך אַ מאָל פֿאַרשידענע וואָקאַלן אין די זעלביקע ווערטער; למשל, מע זאָגט אַ מאָל gut און אַ מאָל git, אָדער אַ מאָל zogn און אַ מאָל zugn.
ווען ברעסלאָו האָט געפֿרעגט מענטשן זייער מיינונג וועגן כּלל־ייִדיש, וואָס מע לערנט אין די קורסן, האָט זי באַקומען אַ סך נעגאַטיווע ענטפֿערס. באמת האָט קיינער נישט געענטפֿערט פּאָזיטיוו, כאָטש אַ טייל האָבן געזאָגט, אַז כּלל־ייִדיש קען זײַן ניצלעך בײַם אויסלערנען זיך די שפּראַך. אַ טייל אינטערוויויִרטע האָבן געזאָגט מאָדנע זאַכן וועגן כּלל־ייִדיש; למשל, אַז „קיינער רעדט דאָס נישט“ — כאָטש זיי האָבן דאָרט פֿאַרבראַכט מיט אַנדערע ייִדישיסטן, וואָס רעדן יאָ כּלל־ייִדיש, און מיט קינדער, וואָס רעדן עס ווי אַן אײַנגעבוירענע שפּראַך! בקיצור, עס איז פֿאַראַן עפּעס אַ געפֿיל, אַז כּלל־ייִדיש איז נישט „עכט“, ווײַל אַזוי ווייניק מענטשן רעדן עס פֿון דער היים.
די „מיעוט־קאָנטעקסט־ייִדיש־קהילה“ באַשטייט פֿון עטלעכע גרופּעס: מענטשן, וואָס רעדן גוט ייִדיש פֿון דער היים (native speakers); מענטשן, וואָס האָבן געהערט די שפּראַך קינדווײַז, אָבער רעדן נישט אַזוי גוט (heritage speakers); סטודענטן און אַזעלכע וואָס האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט די שפּראַך; און אויך געוועזענע חסידים, וואָס לעבן הײַנט אין דער „פֿרײַער“ וועלט. יעדע גרופּע רעדט אַוודאי אַנדערש, אָבער צווישן זיי זענען פֿאַראַן אינטערעסאַנטע פּונקטן צו פֿאַרגלײַכן.
די געוועזענע חסידים רעדן חסידיש ייִדיש, וואָס די לינגוויסטן האָבן שוין גוט אויסגעפֿאָרשט. די סטודענטן רעדן געוויינטלעך אַ סאָרט כּלל־ייִדיש, וואָס זיי האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט פֿון זייערע לערערס. אַ סך ייִדישיסטן רעדן מיט אַ געוויסער השפּעה פֿון ענגליש — וואָס איז נישט קיין חידוש, אַזוי ווי די חסידים רעדן אויך אַזוי. מע זעט אין די טראַנסקריבירטע ציטאַטן אינטערעסאַנטע בײַשפּילן פֿון „בײַטן פֿון קאָד“ (code-switching) — ווען מע גייט אַריבער פֿון איין שפּראַך אויף אַ צווייטער, אַהין און צוריק, אין מיטן שמועס. אַ צאָל ייִנגערע ייִדישיסטן ניצן דאָס וואָרט like אין זייער ייִדיש, פּונקט ווי אויף ענגליש.
אַן אַנדער ענין, וואָס ברעסלאָו פֿאָרשט, איז די אויסשפּראַך פֿונעם קלאַנג ריש /r/. אין די אַלטע דיאַלעקטן זענען געווען צוויי הויפּט־סאָרטן ריש: דער גאָרגלדיקער אָדער אוּוווּלאַרער ריש (uvular R), ווי אויף פֿראַנצויזיש אָדער עבֿרית; און דער צינגלדיקער אָדער אַפּיקאַלער ריש (apical R), ווי אויף רוסיש אָדער שפּאַניש. ייִדישיסטן ניצן ווײַטער די צוויי סאָרטן ריש, ווי אויך דעם ענגלישן סאָרט ריש (retroflex R) — נישט געקוקט אויפֿן שווערן חרם, וואָס אוריאל ווײַנרײַך האָט אַרויפֿגעלייגט אויפֿן ענגליש ריש אין זײַן לערנבוך, „קאַלעדזש־ייִדיש“.
די גראַמאַטיק בײַ ייִדישיסטן איז אויך כּדאַי צו פֿאָרשן, ווי מע זעט אין די ציטאַטן. כאָטש אַ סך ייִדישיסטן האָבן אין די קורסן זיך מערסטנס געלערנט די כּלל־ייִדישע גראַמאַטיק, זעט מען אָפֿט, אַז מע רעדט נישט אַזוי. דאָס דאַרף אפֿשר נישט זײַן קיין חידוש, ווײַל אין די אַלטע דיאַלעקטן האָט מען אויך אָפֿט גערעדט אַנדערש ווי אין די ביכער. דערפֿאַר דאַרף מען נישט קומען מיט טענות צו די חסידים, וואָס זיי האָבן „קאַליע געמאַכט“ די גראַמאַטיק — ווײַל די גראַמאַטיק איז שוין געווען „קאַליע“ פֿון פֿריִער, און בײַ די ייִדישיסטן איז זי אויך גענוג „קאַליע“, אַחוץ געציילטע מומחים.
ברעסלאָו האָט אַנטדעקט וויכטיקע זאַכן, וואָס יעדע איז ווערט, מע זאָל זי ווײַטער אויספֿאָרשן: די אידענטיטעט פֿון די ייִדישיסטן, וואָס ווילן אַזוי נישט הייסן; די פֿאַרשידנקייט פֿונעם ייִדישיסטישן ייִדיש, וואָס איז לאַוו־דווקא כּלל־ייִדיש; זייער אויסשפּראַך און גראַמאַטיק, וואָס זענען נישט אַזוי ווי מע וואָלט זיך געריכט. די קליינע וועלט פֿון ייִדישיסטן באַשטייט באמת פֿון פֿאַרשידענע גרופּעס, וואָס יעדע האָט אַ ביסל אַן אַנדער כאַראַקטער און יעדע רעדט אַנדערש. ווי גייט דאָס ווערטל: צוויי ייִדן — דרײַ מיינונגען.
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Being a soccer superstar couldn’t save him from the Nazis
For the past 20 years, the German Soccer Federation has awarded the Julius Hirsch Prize for organizations combating racism. This year, the recipients included an 11th-grade class that created an educational tool for anti-discrimination events, a children’s soccer league based in a disadvantaged area and a club originally founded in a refugee center.
Now, graphic novelist Julian Voloj has decided that it’s time for people to learn Hirsch’s story.
In 1911, Hirsch became the first Jewish player to serve on the German national team. He was the first player to score four goals in a single game, and he played for several soccer clubs that won the German football championship. Hirsch also was a decorated war veteran in WWI. Nevertheless, Hirsch was not spared from being a victim of the Holocaust.
“He was first seen as a hero and then seen as evil that needed to be destroyed,” Voloj said.
Voloj’s previous graphic novels have included an anthology of diverse Jewish voices and a story about the first Jewish congregation in America. He learned about Hirsch when he was working with Bayern Munich on a novel, completed in 2020, that explored the life of Oskar Rohr, another Jewish soccer player, who helped lead Bayern Munich to a 1932 championship.
With the help of a grant from the German soccer federation, Voloj is planning to complete Hirsch’s novel, “Juller,” in three years. He is working with an Israeli artist, Avi Blyer, to illustrate his work.
Voloj told me that, prior to the second World War, Hirsch was one of many Jewish German soccer players. “Soccer was an academic sport,” he said. Popular within universities, soccer emphasized values like teamwork and brotherhood, which stood in stark contrast to “the Nazi ideal” of manliness, which praised individual displays of strength and talent. In Austria-Hungary, many Jews became pioneers of the sport, including Hirsch’s teammate Gottfried Fuchs, who set a world record of 10 goals in a single soccer match. Unlike Hirsch, Fuchs survived the Holocaust by immigrating to Canada; he never returned to Germany.
For Voloj, the biggest struggle in writing about Hirsch comes with illuminating his personal life, rather than solely celebrating his accomplishments. “I know a lot about the statistics, but I don’t know so much about Julius Hirsch, the human being,” he told me.
He plans to start by depicting the religion and culture Hirsch was a part of — which he says might be the first time for non-Jewish readers to learn about these traditions. Voloj told me how he plans to recreate Hirsch’s Jewish wedding: showcasing the Chuppah and the smashing of the glass. In the scene, a rabbi will discuss its symbolism — a reminder of the fragility of life and the destruction of the Temple.
Tragically, though, this moment will be followed by one later in life, in which Hirsch divorced his non-Jewish wife as the German climate became increasingly dangerous for Jews. Hirsch hoped this would spare his children from persecution, but it was no use: Both of Hirsch’s children were sent to concentration camps. They ultimately survived, though, and Hirsch’s son later worked with a historian, Werner Skretny, to publish a biography of Hirsch.
A grandchild of Holocaust survivors, Voloj says he doesn’t want to focus overwhelmingly on Hirsch’s death, but instead to honor the life he led. However, it was still important for him to represent the antisemitic reality that Hirsch lived in; in the last part of the book, Voloj said, he will discuss how “the people who celebrated him basically abandoned him.”
Voloj says he believes that exploring Hirsch’s story is especially important today, when soccer is more diverse than ever and the German soccer team has become inclusive of many ethnic minorities. However, prejudice has also increased in many ways.
Voloj told me he sees “a lot of parallels in the experience” between the hatred that Jewish players faced under Nazi rule and what many Muslim players are experiencing today. However, he also said that many lessons could be taken from Hirsch’s early experiences when few fans cared that he was Jewish.
“There is something we can learn about the acceptance of the German Jewish players back then on the national team,” Voloj said. From his work, he hopes that readers can learn both from Germany’s dark past and also “overcome misconceptions about Jewish identity.”
The post Being a soccer superstar couldn’t save him from the Nazis appeared first on The Forward.
