October 28, 2020 9:33 am
Thousands of Ethiopian Jews take part in a prayer on the Sigd holiday on the Armon Hanatziv Promenade overlooking Jerusalem, Nov. 27, 2019. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
(JTA) — Tel Aviv University announced the launch of what it says is the world’s first academic program focused on the holy scriptures of Ethiopian Jews.
The program, aimed currently at graduate students, was announced last week by the university’s Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology. It is is titled Orit Apprehenders, which refers to one of the central pieces of scripture in the Ethiopian Jewish community.
In a statement, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, the TAU professor who is leading the new program, called it a “rescue operation” to preserve understanding about the Orit.
The Orit is the Ethiopian variant of the Hebrew Bible, Rom-Shiloni said. Prior to the compilation of the text known today as the Hebrew Bible, Jewish communities had similar “but certainly not identical” versions, she added.
Ethiopian Jews brought the Orit with them when they immigrated to Israel beginning in the 1980s. The text is written in Ge’ez, a Semitic language used by clergy in Ethiopia. Around the Orit, an unwritten liturgy evolved over the centuries that includes songs, rabbinical interpretations and stories in Amharic and Tigrinya.
The new study program aims to preserve and teach that liturgy, which is fading as Ethiopian Jews integrate into Israeli society.
“These cultural treasures are facing extinction,” Rom-Shiloni said.By Cnaan Liphshiz
‘None of you should be seen at these protests’: Satmar rabbi denounces Borough Park protests
October 28, 2020 4:26 pm
Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum (center), the head of the Satmar Hasidic group, arrives at Ben Gurion international airport in August 2007. (Shooki Lerer/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — A leader of a major Hasidic sect denounced protests earlier this month where local Orthodox Jews voiced their anger at lockdown measures targeting their neighborhoods.
Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, leader of a faction of the Satmar Hasidic community based in Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic enclave in New York’s Orange County, denounced the protests Tuesday at an event in Borough Park, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the protests took place.
“None of you should be seen at these protests,” Teitelbaum told the crowd, according to BoroPark24. “Praise unto the person who doesn’t follow in the ways of the evil.”
The protests took place over two nights earlier this month and were called in response to new restrictions placed on Orthodox neighborhoods aimed at curbing rising COVID-19 test positivity rates in those neighborhoods. Violence broke out at both protests, with masks burned in the streets and journalists chased and surrounded by mobs.
Heshy Tischler, a local radio host, ex-convict and City Council hopeful, was arrested after he led a mob that surrounded a reporter and member of the Hasidic community at one of the protests.
By Shira Hanau
Trump administration set to allow ‘Jerusalem, Israel’ on passports, Politico reports
October 28, 2020 4:19 pm AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitterShare to EmailEmailEmailShare to WhatsAppWhatsAppWhatsAppShare to MoreAddThisMore
(JTA) — The Trump administration is set to allow Jerusalem-born U.S. passport holders to add “Israel” to their birthplaces, Politico reported.
On Wednesday, Politico quoted an administration official who confirmed the change, which reverses decades of policy under Republican and Democratic presidents.
Jerusalem-born Americans began seeking to change to their passports almost immediately after Congress passed a law in 1995 recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but the State Department until now has not allowed the change. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Obama administration’s right to disallow the inclusion of “Israel” in a case that was decided according to precedents granting the executive branch preeminence in determining foreign policy.
Allowing Israel as a designated birthplace for those born in Jerusalem is consistent with President Donald Trump’s 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his moving of the U.S. embassy there the following year.By Ron Kampeas
Biden campaign ‘concerned’ about prospective sale of F-35s to the United Arab Emirates
October 28, 2020 3:53 pm AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitterShare to EmailEmailEmailShare to WhatsAppWhatsAppWhatsAppShare to MoreAddThisMore
United States Deputy Secretary of State and the former Deputy National Security Advisor for President Barack Obama Anthony Blinken speaks at the 2016 Concordia Summit – Day 1 at Grand Hyatt New York in New York City. on Sept. 19, 2016. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)
(JTA) — Joe Biden’s top foreign policy adviser said the campaign was concerned about the Trump administration’s plans to sell stealth combat aircraft to the United Arab Emirates.
We “have concerns about what commitments may or may not have been made to the UAE with regard to the F-35,” Anthony Blinken said on a press call Wednesday with Jewish media.
Blinken, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, noted that the Obama administration’s decision to sell stealth fighters to Israel aimed at ensuring the country’s military preeminence in the Middle East.
“The Obama-Biden administration made sure that our most advanced fighter plane would be available to Israel, but only to Israel in the Middle East, because we wanted to make sure that Israel was able to preserve its qualitative military advantage, and we have provided for the sale of some number of F-35s during our administration,” he said.
“And so reports that the administration has committed to provide these planes to the UAE is something we would look at very, very carefully, and make sure that the QME is preserved and also very important that Congress play a role,” he said.
Trump administration officials have sought to reassure Israeli leaders that any sale of F-35s will not harm Israel’s qualitative military edge.
Democrats in Congress have advanced legislation that would give Israel a say in arms sales to other countries in the Middle East, citing Israeli concerns about the proposed sale to UAE.
Blinken, in a rare instance of cross-party praise during a polarized election season, lauded the Israel-UAE normalization agreement that was coincident with the proposed sale of the jets.
Biden “was very clear that having Arab countries recognize Israel, normalized with Israel, is a positive step that we should support and applaud,” he said.By Ron Kampeas
Riga Holocaust museum to remain open after city waives rent
October 28, 2020 1:41 pm AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitterShare to EmailEmailEmailShare to WhatsAppWhatsAppWhatsAppShare to MoreAddThisMore
A man stands inside the Riga Ghetto Museum in Riga, Latvia, Jan. 11, 2014. (Fishman/Ullstein via Getty Images)
(JTA) — The city government of Riga, Latvia, waived its demand for rent from a Holocaust museum whose director said it couldn’t afford to pay.
The Riga City Council on Monday withdrew its intention to collect $12,000 in rent per month from the Riga Ghetto Museum, one of the Latvian capital’s three Holocaust museums, Rabbi Menachem Barkahan, who heads the Shamir Association that runs the museum, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The city also revised its plan to rezone most of the area it had leased to the museum for 10 years, agreeing to take away only half of its allocated 6,500 square feet. “This will allow the museum to keep its main exhibition, Ghetto Street, as is,” Shamir Association said in a statement Tuesday.
The museum’s previous 10-year lease, which expired this year, did not charge any rent.
Shamir “welcomed the decision, and thanked the council for choosing to maintain the agreement,” the statement read.
The Nazis and their collaborators murdered about 70,000 Jews in Latvia during the Holocaust. The Riga Ghetto refers to areas of the city where Jews were forced to live during the Holocaust.By Cnaan Liphshiz
Holocaust survivors are angry that a far-right politician has been nominated to lead Yad Vashem
October 27, 2020 12:56 pm AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitterShare to EmailEmailEmailShare to WhatsAppWhatsAppWhatsAppShare to MoreAddThisMore
Effi Eitam seen at the Jerusalem Supreme Court during a hearing on oil searching in the Golan Heights, Dec. 23, 2014. (Flash90)
(JTA) — Israeli Holocaust survivor organizations are calling the man nominated to lead the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum “unfit” for the job.
Effi Eitam, a former lawmaker who has said that Arab Israelis should not be allowed to serve in Israel’s parliament, is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s choice for the role. He is being vetted by a parliamentary committee and a vote on his candidacy is imminent.
The head of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel has sent a letter to Netanyahu and Zeev Elkin, a Cabinet minister involved in the decision, arguing against Eitam’s candidacy without mentioning him by name, Haaretz reported.
“We, who represent a wide spectrum of opinions, believe that the criteria for choosing a chairman must be professional and devoid of any political considerations,” Collette Avital wrote.
The chairman of the Israeli Association of Bergen-Belsen Survivors called Eitam “unfit” for the role.
“This is a job that requires someone who is familiar with the subject of the Holocaust and has a proven record of running an academic institution of the likes of Yad Vashem,” Shraga Milstein told Haaretz. “He is not a man who regards everyone as equal, which is a basic assumption for anyone running an institution like Yad Vashem.”
A member of the Israeli parliament from 2003 and 2009 and the former head of the now-defunct National Religious Party, Eitam, 68, has called Arab Israelis a “cancer” for society.
The current chairman of the museum, Avner Shalev, who has served in the role since 1993, is retiring at the end of the year.