Chef fulfils Holocaust survivor's dream

Leah Samet, 93, an energetic Holocaust survivor from Ramla, had a dream—to sit in her living room with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with famous Israeli chef Assaf Granit cooking delicacies for her and her family, just like on television.

Samet's eldest daughter, Tsipi Gover, 67, saw in Yedioth Ahronoth an article about the project "Fulfilling Small Dreams for Big People," and decided to try her luck and ask for help in realizing her mother's dream.

Granit and Samet (Photo: Hagit Frenkel)

Gover knew the chances for Granit to agree to this were slim, as he is, putting it mildly, very busy. As the co-owner of Jerusalem’s famous Machneyuda restaurant and London’s award-winning The Palomar, and the host of the Israeli prime time show Kitchen Nightmares (based on Gordon Ramsay’s "Kitchen Nightmares"), Granit is famous for being a hard guy to reach.

But, to everyone's surprise, Granit immediately agreed when the request was made.

"I have a large family—two daughters, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren—and I love to host," Samet said. "I cook all the time for everyone, and I like someone to cook for me, too. I saw chef Granit cooking on television, I like the way he cooks and I wanted to (experience it)," explained Samet.

Granit with Samet's family (Photo: Hagit Frenkel)

On Sunday, at 1pm sharp, Chef Granit came with his team of cooks to Samet's small kitchen. With the help of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he conducted the work in the home kitchen, just like on television, and prepared a mouth-watering dairy meal. "My grandmother was also called Leah and they remind me of each other," Granit said, noting that he was very moved by her request. "Since Leah came from Eastern Europe, I decided to prepare a meal based on the food from the area from which she immigrated to Israel. "In Israel, eastern food has a great influence on the local cuisine, perhaps because of the climate, but the traditional food of Eastern European Jews deserves respect in the Israeli kitchen, and I am happy to cook for Leah in this style."

Photo: Hagit Frenkel

Samet, who survived World War II in the Czernowitz ghetto in Romania, married her late husband in a displaced persons camp in Germany and immigrated to Israel in 1948. "My favorite food is baked potatoes," Samet said. "I did not ask for a special menu, the main thing is for the whole family to eat together." Laughing, her daughter added: "potatoes are easy on her teeth, their soft."

In the kitchen, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren finish cutting the vegetables into a salad. Chef Granit bakes the mushrooms, tastes the sauce, and arranges the airy "polenta" made of potatoes on a serving plate.

Photo: Hagit Frenkel

The grandchildren and the great-grandchildren are a little weary that Granit may just shout at them, like on television, but to everyone's delight the atmosphere is pleasant as everyone sits around the antique table in the dining area. Great-grandma Samet sits at the head of the table, all raise their glasses for a toast, and chef Granit receives a warm and loving hug from the old lady as she tells everyone: "It really is a dream come true."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Chef fulfils Holocaust survivor's dream : http://ift.tt/2veAwGv

Alarm bells in Turkey after synagogue attack

On a quiet backstreet not far from Istanbul’s famous Galata Tower on Thursday night, a group of Turkish ultra-nationalists launched an attack on the city’s Neve Shalom Synagogue. Protesters held placards bearing photos of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, where Israeli authorities last week imposed new security restrictions for Palestinian worshipers. They hurled stones and kicked the synagogue’s steel doors. “Zionists, come to your senses,” said Kursat Mican, a local leader of the Alperen Hearths group that spearheaded the protest. “If you prevent our freedom of worship there then we will prevent your freedom of worship here.” Ivo Molinas, the editor of Turkey’s Jewish newspaper Shalom, summed up the feeling of many Turkish Jews with a post on Twitter. “I am a Turkish citizen,” he wrote. “Why are you protesting in front of my place of worship?” No one was injured in Thursday’s attack, which was later followed by a second protest by an Islamist group outside Istanbul’s Ahrida Synagogue. But the demonstrations served as a reminder of the challenges confronting Turkey’s small Jewish community, which not only contends with widespread anti-Semitism but also finds itself caught in the crossfire any time Israel faces criticism. Turkey has a complex relationship with its small Jewish minority, which today numbers around 17,000 people. Officials talk proudly of the fact that Ottoman Sultans welcomed Jews expelled from Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and of the efforts made by Turkish diplomats to save Jews from the Nazis. But anti-Semitic tropes are deeply engrained and widespread in the media, popular culture and in political rhetoric. A new historical drama, Payitaht, aired on the state broadcaster’s flagship entertainment channel, depicted a plan to kill the Ottoman Sultan by plotters who exchange coins imprinted with the Star of David. Hitler’s Mein Kampf can often be found on sale in mainstream bookshops and supermarkets. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself once used the term “spawn of Israel” to insult a protester after a mining disaster in 2014. His ministers, advisors and officials have repeatedly been criticized for using anti-Jewish language and conspiracy theories when attacking critics or seeking to explain economic or political problems.

The phenomenon is not confined to Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Anti-Semitic diatribes are also prevalent in anti-imperialist and left-wing nationalist circles, as well as their right-wing and Islamist counterparts.

However, Erdogan, who casts himself as a leader of the Muslim world, has taken a tougher stance on Israel than some of his predecessors.

Ahrida synagogue, where the cantor's podium was built to resemble Noah's ark

Although Turkey and Israel announced a rapprochement last year after a six-year diplomatic freeze, Erdogan has made clear that he will continue to censure Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. Following the decision to place metal detectors—since removed—at the Al-Asqa mosque after the killing of two Arab-Israeli policeman by Muslim gunmen, Erdogan issued a series of harsh condemnations.

Turkey’s Jewish citizens defend the right of politicians and the public to criticize the state of Israel. The problem, they say, is that ordinary Jews face blowback. “The intensification of the conflict between Israel and Palestinian always extends to the Turkish Jewish community,” said Karel Valansi, a columnist at the news portal T24 and the Jewish newspaper Shalom. “There is no clear distinction in the minds of many in Turkey between Israel and Jews.” Turkish officials have made efforts to publicly support and promote the Jewish community in recent years. In 2015, a Hanukkah celebration was held in public in Istanbul for the first time in several decades. The same year, one of Turkey’s deputy prime minister’s attended the re-opening of Edirne Synagogue, near the border with Bulgaria, which was given a $2.5 million renovation after languishing for many decades in a state of disrepair. But Aykan Erdemir, a former member of parliament with the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) now based at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said that life has become more difficult for Turkey’s minority groups in the wake of last year’s attempted coup. Erdogan portrays the failed putsch, which left 250 dead, as a plot by foreign and domestic powers conspiring to destroy the country—tapping into deeply-ingrained national fears about threats to the Turkish state. “Turkey was a challenging place for religious minorities even before the coup,” said Erdemir. “Things, however, have gone from bad to worse within the last year. Turkey’s government-controlled media systematically demonize minorities, presenting them as fifth columns.”

President Erdogan (Photo: Reuters)

Erdogan condemned the attacks on Istanbul synagogues, saying that it was “a big mistake” to target a place of worship. “We have no issues with the houses of worship of Christians or Jews,” he said. Opposition leaders also denounced the attacks. Despite the protests, Turkish Jews say that physical assaults against them have been rare in recent years and that the government has taken warnings of Islamic State attacks very seriously. Some say they feel safer in Turkey than they would in Europe. But most agree that Turkey must do more to tackle the hate speech that Jews encounter in public debate, the media and on social networks. And they would like to see greater awareness of the fact that Jews are separate from Israel, so that they do not have to brace for a backlash each time it hits the headlines.

Selin Nasi, a columnist for the Turkish newspapers Shalom and Hurriyet Daily News, said that Turkey’s Jews want to feel accepted by politicians and by society. “They want to be treated as equal citizens,” she said. “They don’t want to be perceived as enemies. They love their country. They don’t want to come to the fore each time a crisis breaks out and be held responsible for what Israel is doing.”

Reprinted with permission from The Media Line.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Alarm bells in Turkey after synagogue attack : http://ift.tt/2vbRzJf

2 US men get 35 years for terrorizing New Jersey Jewish communities

Two New Jersey men were sentenced Friday to 35 years in prison after having been convicted of dozens of terror offenses committed at Jewish communities in the north of the state, according to website Northern Jersey.

Between 2011 and 2012, Aakash Dalal and Anthony Graziano from Lodi, NJ, tried to burn down two synagogues in the cities of Paramus and Rutherford, threw Molotov cocktails into the home of a rabbi in Rutherford, and spray-painted anti-Semitic graffiti at synagogues in the cities of Maywood and Hackensack.

Both men were 19 at the time the crimes were committed. They were indicted in 2013. Dalal was convicted of terrorism and 16 other counts in November 2016, while Graziano was convicted of terrorism and 19 other counts in May 2017.

Graziano and Dalal in court (Photo: AP)

Dalal, a former student at Rutgers University, was charged as the "mastermind" behind the attacks who instructed his childhood friend, Graziano, to carry them out but did not commit them himself. Brian Sinclair, an assistant Bergen County prosecutor, said the two were sentenced together as they worked together in complete cooperation. "They were partners in hate. Partners in intimidation and ultimately in crime," Sinclair said. "They saw the world with the same set of eyes. They saw Jewish people not as people but as subhuman and like reptiles," he added. Graziano threw a Molotov cocktail into the Congregation Beth El temple in Rutherford on January 11, 2012, while Rabbi Nosson Schuman, his wife and five children slept in the apartment upstairs. The family members suffered light burns. Graziano and Dalal also vandalized synagogues in Hackensack and Maywood in 2011, drawing swastikas and writing "Jews did 9/11." Graziano apologized to the Jewish community at the sentencing, asking for leniency. "I want a second chance to live a law-abiding life," he said. His lawyer presented him as a victim of brainwashing by Dalal, who told Graziano in one chat message: "I don't trust you until you kill a Jew."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

2 US men get 35 years for terrorizing New Jersey Jewish communities : http://ift.tt/2tMA7ri

British anti-Semitic incidents at record high, charity says

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Group dedicated to protecting Jews in Britain report 767 anti-Semitic incidents involving abusive behavior or assault in first half of 2017, marking a 30% increase since 2016; 70% of attacks take place in London and Manchester. British anti-Semitic incidents at record high, charity says : http://ift.tt/2eQjPLb

ADL condemns anti-Semitic sermons by two California imams

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned on Wednesday the anti-Semitic sermons by two imams in California who, following recent violence in Jerusalem and Israel’s decision to install security measures—that have since been removed—at the Temple Mount, "spewed angry and hateful invective toward Jews," as the ADL newsletter reported.

The ADL stated that Sheikh Ammar Shahin of the Islamic Center of Davis in Northern California prayed God would “liberate the al-Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews” and “annihilate them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt (Courtesy)

Also last Friday, Mahmoud Harmoush, the imam at the Islamic Center of Riverside, spoke in his sermon about a plot set in motion between World War I and II to usurp the land of Palestine from Muslims through “killing, crime and massacres.” He went on to suggest that Jews are currently trying to extend the Israel-Palestinian conflict to “most of the Middle East, and even, as I said, Mecca and Medina.” He ended his sermon with a call for Allah to “destroy them … disperse them and rend them asunder. Turn them into booty in the hands of the Muslims.” In response to both sermons, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that “these statements are anti-Semitic and dangerous. We reject attempts to cast the conflict in Jerusalem as a religious war between Jews and Muslims. At this time of heightened tension, it is more important than ever for the Jewish and Muslim communities to come together to condemn the use of stereotypes and conspiracy theories, and to rebuild trust so that people of all faiths can coexist with mutual respect in the Holy Land and around the world. ”

Let's block ads! (Why?)

ADL condemns anti-Semitic sermons by two California imams : http://ift.tt/2h3rJSo

Items from Auschwitz death camp to tour Europe, America

An exhibit of some items from the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz are going on a tour of Europe and North America to bring its tragic truth about the Holocaust to a wider audience. The exhibit—titled Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away—will be the first-ever traveling show done by the museum and will include 600 original items. Most of them will come from the Auschwitz museum, but also from other collections, like Israel's Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and from survivors.

 

Auschwitz from above (Photo: Bild)

"Today, when the world is moving in uncertain directions," the exhibition can be a "great warning cry for us all" against building a "future on hatred, racism, anti-Semitism and bottomless contempt for another human being," museum chief Piotr M.A. Cywinski said.

SS belt buckle from exhibit (Photo: AP)

The exhibit aims to tell victims' stories through their personal items. It will also show an original barrack from the Auschwitz-Monowitz part of the camp and a German freight train wagon that the Nazis used to bring inmates to the camp in.

Eyeglasses from Auschwitz (Photo: AP)

The exhibit comes following a controversial art project by Israeli art student Rotem Bides, who features items she stole from Auschwitz. Bides, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, explained her actions by saying that "millions of people were murdered based on the moral laws of a certain country, under a certain regime. And if these are the laws, I can go there and act according to my own laws."

Wooden box made by Auschwitz inmate (Photo: AP)

Some items, like an SS military belt buckle, are linked to the perpetrators, the German SS- men who built and operated the camp in occupied Poland during World War II.

The Not Long Ago. Not Far Away project will visit seven cities in Europe, starting in Madrid later this year, and seven in North America. The names of the cities in North America have not been released yet. Some 1.1 million people, mostly Europe's Jews, but also Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war, were killed in the camp's gas chambers or died of hunger, disease and hard labor during World War II. The state museum was established in 1947 to preserve the memory of the victims and be a warning to future generations. In 2016, a record number of over 2 million people visited the Auschwitz museum.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Items from Auschwitz death camp to tour Europe, America : http://ift.tt/2tDlyGf

Muslim couple receives MA in Jewish Studies

Last month, a diverse class of 36 graduate students from the Ono Academic College received an MA in Jewish Studies, among them ‎Muhammad and Aida Masarwa, a Muslim couple from the village of Sulam in the north.

  

Their classmates—a group dominated by ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews—warmly embraced them throughout their years of study together.

Muhammad, 62, is a retired teacher of Arabic and civics, while Aida, 52, continues to teach Hebrew in their local grade school. In recent years, the couple has studied Bible, history, Jewish philosophy, Hebrew literature, Kabbalah, liturgical poetry, midrash, as well as Jewish viewpoints on exclusion and social justice.

Aida and Mohammed Masarwa

"We wanted to study for a Master's Degree, and we heard there was an option to study Judaism, so we said we would try,"‎ explains Mohammed Masarwa. "Since retiring, I have worked as a tour guide. This program interested me, and it does not seem strange to study Judaism. We live in this country, we hear about Judaism, and we wanted to expand our knowledge."

Masarwa‎ added, "‎I am a Muslim, and although I have extensive knowledge of Judaism, it’s clear to me that I still have a lot to learn. But to our surprise, we discovered that many of our Jewish classmates did not necessarily know more about Judaism than my wife and I did. The reason for this, in my opinion, lies in the fact that Judaism is similar to Islam in certain respects."

Muhammad and Aida had already earned bachelor’s degrees, so encountering Jewish students in an academic setting was nothing new to them. "‎Despite the differences between the students, the classes had a free, open atmosphere, and everyone felt comfortable stating their opinion," Masarwa said.

Among the students, he said, "‎the atmosphere was very open and pleasant. ‎They received us very respectfully, which is notable because the Jewish students did not resemble each other—each of them came from a different background and from a different culture. Together, we created an interesting discourse about Judaism and Islam."

Graduates receiving an MA in Jewish Studies

The couple’s four children are also in academia (medicine, optometry and pharmacology) and welcomed their parents’ decision to return to school. "‎They know we always enjoy learning new things, they just laughed at the fact we would be studying for a Master's Degree at our age," he said.

Their family was also very positive about their decision to study Judaism in depth. "We are open people and live with Jews, so everyone embraced our decision. Our children come from an academic background, so it was not strange to them that we decided to study for another degree—even in Judaism—considering the fact that we are educators," Masarwa explained.

Muhammad and Aida’s classmates included students from all parts of Israeli society. Moshe Yisraeli, a graduate of the hesder yeshiva in Kiryat Shmona—a program that combines traditional Jewish studies and military service—said he approached graduate school with some concern.

"This is a kind of Jewish study that is different from what I have known all my life. ‎It was very interesting to be in classes with Reform, secular and religious people. The arguments were not as volatile as the media often likes to present them," Yisraeli said.

Dr. David Biton, head of the School of Jewish Studies at Ono Academic College’s Kiryat Ono campus, said that after the success of this first class, enrollment has doubled for future classes.

"‎The MA program exposes students to different dimensions of Judaism and to the various groups that comprise it, creating connection and belonging between the past and the present, between East and West, between the visible and the concealed, and between tradition and modernity. The purpose of the program is to make higher education accessible to all segments of the Israeli population," he said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Muslim couple receives MA in Jewish Studies : http://ift.tt/2uYwQsd