The idea that extreme criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic is controversial. BY BEN HARRIS https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/israel-and-anti-semitism/?utm_source=MJL_Maropost&utm_campaign=MJL_Holocaust&utm_medium=email YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE What Is BDS? MODERN ISRAEL Anti-Semitism 101 ANTI-SEMITISM & BIGOTRY In the wake of the Holocaust, explicit anti-Semitism went into a kind of remission. The kind of nakedly anti-Jewish sentiment that had been so common prior to the genocide — images of Jews with hooked noses and greedy eyes; conspiracies about Jewish power and financial domination — became politically taboo, particularly in Europe. As the consensus that such forms of anti-Semitism were beyond the pale took hold in the decades after World War II, a form of criticism of the State of Israel emerged that went beyond critique of particular Israeli actions or policies to attack the foundations and legitimacy of the state. Some began describing this as “the new anti-Semitism.” The notion that fierce criticism of Israel, even criticism that attacks the legitimacy of the state, is essentially anti-Semitic is a controversial one, and many reject it vehemently — Jews and Jewish groups among them. But the essence of the claim rests on the idea that opposing Zionism is the functional equivalent of denying the Jewish people the right accorded to most peoples of the world: the right to self-determination. As such, anti-Zionism is essentially anti-Semitic, even if it’s not motivated by explicit anti-Jewish animus. Examples of discourse that are commonly said to meet this standard include equating Israeli policy with that of the Nazis, demonizing Israel, describing Israel as racist, or denying Israel’s right to exist. Excessive criticism of Israel, characterizing it as a uniquely pernicious force in the world, or lambasting it for things that other countries do as well but with little protest, has also come to be regarded in some quarters as anti-Semitic. To proponents of this idea, the replacement of “Jew” with “Israel” as the object of anti-Semitic discourse is emblematic of the shape-shifting nature of anti-Semitism. Just as anti-Semitism morphed as Europe secularized in the 19th century, from an idea rooted in Christian theology into one that saw Jews as racially distinct, the Holocaust had caused the virus of anti-Semitism to mutate once again, replacing antipathy toward Jews as individuals with opposition to the personification of Jewish power and nationhood: the State of Israel. With Israel’s establishment in 1948 — and particularly as it grew to become a regional superpower following the wars of 1967 and 1973 — centuries of anti-Semitic rhetoric about a secretive Jewish cabal that pulled the strings of world governance now had a visible and undeniably real manifestation of Jewish power to latch on to. Among the earliest proponents of the idea that opposition to Israel’s existence constitutes a new form of an ancient hatred was Abba Eban, Israel’s foreign minister from 1966 to 1974. Writing in The New York Times a week before the United Nations adopted a resolution equating Zionism with racism in November 1975, Eban wrote: “There is, of course, no difference whatever between anti‐Semitism and the denial of Israel’s statehood. Classical anti‐Semitism denies the equal rights of Jews as citizens within society. Anti‐Zionism denies the equal rights of the Jewish people to its lawful sovereignty within the community of nations. The common principle in the two cases is discrimination.” Eban’s op-ed, and the U.N. resolution that prompted it, came as Israel was transforming itself from a beleaguered democracy beset on all sides by enemy states into a regional superpower that had prevailed in two major wars within six years, tripling the land under its control in the process. The year before, two Anti-Defamation League staffers, Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein, published a book entitled “The New Anti-Semitism” in which they suggested that indifference to the possibility of Israel’s elimination was anti-Semitic. In 2003, a book of the same title by Phyllis Chesler went even further, calling Israel “the Jew of the world — scorned, scapegoated, demonized, and attacked.” Charges that Israel deliberately kills Palestinian children, Chesler wrote, were a modern-day blood libel. As Israel’s relative power grew and Palestinian resistance exploded into sustained violence beginning in the 1980s, intense hostility toward Israel became a mainstay of left-wing discourse. By the turn of the millennium, many Jewish leaders were openly fretting that the entrenchment of anti-Israel sentiment on American campuses had created a hostile — that is, anti-Semitic — environment for Jewish students. The outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000, and the collapse of the once-promising Oslo peace process in the years that followed, further intensified global criticism of Israel — and cemented the idea that Israel was being held to an impossible standard. In 2006, Indiana University Professor Alvin Rosenfeld published a controversial essay claiming that progressive Jewish critics of Israel were fueling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel’s right to exist. Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident turned Israeli politician, has suggested three criteria that determine when legitimate criticism of Israel has veered into anti-Semitism: demonization, delegitimization, and double standard. Delegitimization implies that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavor or otherwise indicates that Israel is not a legitimate political entity. Demonization is the use of imagery or metaphors that portray the Jewish state as a uniquely malignant force in the world. And double standard is lavishing criticism on Israel for things that other countries do without arousing significant opposition. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, is often criticized as anti-Semitic under two of these criteria. Because it calls for the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, which if implemented would effectively overturn Israel’s Jewish character, the movement implicitly rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. And because it focuses on Israel alone (ignoring other countries that are also occupying disputed lands, for example), it runs afoul of the double standard criterion. Under President Donald Trump, the United States made this position official American policy in 2020 when he labeled the boycott movement anti-Semitic. The Anti-Defamation League has offered a slightly different test. According to the ADL, criticism of Israel becomes anti-Semitic when it holds all Jews responsible for Israeli actions, denies Israel the right to exist, or employs classic anti-Semitic imagery or ideas. The ADL considers the BDS movement’s goals to be anti-Semitic, particualrly its denial of Jewish self-determination, along with faulting it for making traditional expressions of anti-Semitism more likely or politically palatable. The idea that fierce criticism of Israel, and even denial of its right to exist in its current form, is anti-Semitic is highly contested. Among the most common arguments made by critics of this linkage is that many Jews themselves oppose the existence of Israel — most noticeably, though by no means exclusively, the various Hasidic groups that believe it is heretical to establish Jewish sovereignty in the holy land prior to the coming of the messiah. Ilan Pappe, an Israeli-born historian, has called the idea that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic “outrageous and ridiculous” and charged that it is used as a tool to stifle debate and criticism of Israel. Proponents of BDS insist the movement is not anti-Semitic, saying it peacefully opposes Israel for what it does, not what it is, and that its many Jewish supporters belie the notion that it’s rooted in anti-Jewish animus. “We reject the assertion that BDS is inherently anti-Semitic and defend activists who employ the full range of BDS tactics when they are demonized or wrongly accused of anti-Semitism,” the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace says on its website. “We believe BDS is a meaningful alternative to passivity engendered by two decades of failed peace talks, and is the most effective grassroots means for applying nonviolent pressure to change Israeli policies.” Most mainstream Jewish organizations reject these arguments, holding that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are practical equivalents — if not theoretical ones. And in recent years, they have gotten substantial support from world governments from this position. The most significant endorsement was the adoption in 2016 of a working definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a 34-nation partnership committed to promoting Holocaust education and remembrance. While noting that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country” is not anti-Semitic, the IHRA definition included several examples of criticism of Israel that do qualify as anti-Semitic. Among them: Denying Jews the right to self-determination by claiming Israel is racist, holding all Jews responsible for Israeli actions, using classic anti-Semitic ideas to characterize Israel, and comparing Israel to the Nazis.

Parashat Acherei-Kedoshim 5781 Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim / פרשת אַחֲרֵי מוֹת־קְדשִׁים Read on 24 April 2021 (12 Iyyar 5781). Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim is the 29th and 30th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. Torah Portion: Leviticus 16:1-20:27 Acherei Mot-Kedoshim is another double portion, combined in non-leap years (every two or three years, the extra month of Adar II is added to reset the holidays to their proper, appropriate seasons. Acherei, the first of the two portions, starts off talking about the rituals for Yom Kippur, a Shabbat Shabbaton, a Sabbath of Sabbaths, observed on the tenth day of the seventh month (now Tishrei). Aaron, the High Priest, is to first sacrifice a bull for his own sin offering, and then a he-goat will be offered to repent for the congregation of Israel. He is to take two goats. By lot, one will be the offering. The other will be cast into the wilderness, symbolic of Israel casting off its sins. Note that this section is read during the Yom Kippur morning Torah service. The Children of Israel are also commanded not to do any sacrifices away from the Tent of Meeting (later confined to the Temple), and they are to completely drain the blood of any animal used as an offering. They are then to cover the blood as well, and thus not mimic the pagan practices rampant in that area at that time. The last part of the sedrah discusses forbidden relationships. This is a list of relatives that people can not have intimate relations. Note that this portion is read during the afternoon Torah service of Yom Kippur. Parashat Kedoshim contains a lot of different commandments that facilitate Israel’s holiness. The phrase “I am Hashem, Your God” appears many times after the dissemination of particular commandments. The first commandments exhort Israel to honor their mothers and fathers (in that order) and then honor Shabbat. It then addresses the timely manner in which sacrifices are offered and then eaten, leaving items harvested that fall to the ground for the poor, and dealing honestly with others in business, like having accurate weights and measures. We are told to love our fellow as ourselves and not stand aside if someone is in trouble and we can help without putting our own life in danger. We are not to mate different species of animals nor mingle different fibers (cotton and wool). We are not to imitate the pagan rituals of indigent tribes, like “pass our children through fire for Molech”. Similarly, we do not put any faith in sorcery, witchcraft or superstition. We only put our faith in Hashem. Finally, punishments are enumerated for anyone who engages in the forbidden relationships discussed in chapter 18 of the previous parashat.

The idea that Jews are good with money is one of the oldest Jewish stereotypes. But it's undeniable that Jews are well-represented in finance and business. BY MJL YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE What Is BDS? MODERN ISRAEL Anti-Semitism 101 ANTI-SEMITISM & BIGOTRY The idea that Jews are innately good with money is among the oldest Jewish stereotypes, one that continues to impact perceptions of Jews today. In China, books touting the supposed secrets of Jewish financial success have been best-sellers, while all over the world anti-Semites have long railed against Jews’ purported control of international banking. As with many stereotypes, this one has its origins in fact. Jews have long been well-represented in the fields of finance and business. This is commonly attributed to the fact that for centuries, Jews were excluded from professional guilds and denied the right to own land, forcing them to work as merchants and financiers. However some academics contend that the historical evidence does not support this thesis and that Jewish financial success is instead due to the community’s high literacy rates. Whatever its causes, Jewish business and financial success has more often than not been a major driver of anti-Semitism. Shakespeare’s Shylock character, a money lender who extracts a pound of flesh from a debtor who defaulted, is among history’s best-known caricatures of the Jewish businessman. That caricature lent a sinister undertone of greed and exploitation to Jewish financial dealings that would be invoked to justify anti-Jewish measures for centuries to come. Supposed Jewish control of the global financial system — a feature of what some call economic anti-Semitism — was a major theme in Hitler’s war against European Jews, Father Coughlin’s anti-Semitic rants in the United States, and the czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Related slurs include claims that Jews are wealthy, greedy and stingy, obsessed with material goods and profit, and that they exploit their economic advantages to help their own people, to the detriment of the public good. Origins of the Jews and Money Stereotype Jews have been associated with moneylending for at least a millennia. The most common explanation for this has been the exclusion of European Jews in the Middle Ages from various guilds, their confinement to ghettos and restrictions preventing them from owning land. Additionally, medieval Christian theology held that charging interest (known as usury) was sinful, which kept many Christians from becoming financiers. The field thus came to be dominated by Jews. The historian Howard Sachar has estimated that in the 18th century, “perhaps as many as three-fourths of the Jews in Central and Western Europe were limited to the precarious occupations of retail peddling, hawking, and ‘street banking,’ that is, moneylending.” The fact that Christians regarded such occupations as incompatible with their religious principles fed the notion that Jews were morally deficient, willing to engage in unethical business practices that decent people had rejected. An alternative explanation holds that the Jewish penchant for finance is a result not of professional exclusion, but the Jewish emphasis on learning and literacy. A number of scholars have posited versions of this thesis. In their 2012 book The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492, economists Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein contended that, with the destruction of the ancient temples in Jerusalem and the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora, Jewish continuity suddenly became dependent on widespread religious literacy. Those who educated themselves remained Jews, whereas those who did not assimilated or converted to other faiths. Over time, the Jewish community evolved into a uniquely educated population, which in turn incentivized Jews to abandon farming in favor of better-paying professions and businesses. Evolution of a Stereotype From the fact of Jewish overrepresentation in occupations that Christians largely regarded as degenerate emerged a stereotype of the Jew as the embodiment of commercial greed, exploiter of the poor and the source of economic pain and misery for the masses. Perhaps nothing did more to solidify this image in the European imagination than The Merchant of Venice. In this play, written in the late 16th century, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who extends a loan guaranteed by a pound of flesh from the Christian merchant Antonio. When Antonio’s ships are lost at sea and he cannot repay the loan, Shylock summons him to court where, despite being offered twice the original loan as repayment, he insists on exacting his pound of flesh, which he plans to obtain by lopping it off Antonio’s body with a knife. Though scholars disagree whether Shakespeare was reflecting the ingrained anti-Semitism of his day or offering a subtle critique of it, Shylock has become synonymous not merely with Jewish greed but with anti-Semitism generally, a perception deepened by early onstage portrayals of the character as a vengeful villain. Shylock had a lasting influence on the depiction of Jews in English literature and was used as a propaganda device by the Nazis. Dozens of productions of The Merchant of Venice were mounted in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Jews did hold prominent financial positions in Europe, which made them ready scapegoats in times of economic crisis. For centuries, so-called court Jews acted as the principal financiers for the European aristocracy’s projects. In the 1760s, one of those court Jews, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, established a banking business in Germany that would eventually grow into a vast international conglomerate and yield one of the largest family fortunes in world history. The Rothschild name became synonymous with Jewish financial power, invoked as shorthand for the secretive and outsized power Jews were alleged to wield over the economic fate of the world. Despite his own Jewish ancestry (his parents converted the family to Protestantism when he was a child) Karl Marx, the philosopher who first popularized the idea that capitalism is inherently exploitative, singled out Jews in particular for their role in promoting it. As moneylending evolved into institutionalized banking, Jews continued to occupy major positions in the financial world. Across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, Jews built a number of influential banks, further feeding anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. With mass Jewish immigration to the United States beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews assumed prominent positions in the growing financial center of New York, establishing Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and others. They also figured prominently in government financial positions. Between 1987 and 2014, the U.S. Federal Reserve was chaired by a succession of three Jews. Four of the eight men who served as U.S. Treasury secretary between 1995 and 2020 were Jewish. Three of the 12 presidents of the World Bank between its founding in 1946 and 2020 have been Jewish. Jews are also significantly overrepresented among the wealthiest Americans. Half of the 10 richest Americans in 2016 were Jewish, according to Forbes, despite Jews making up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population. As a result, talk of “international bankers” is still widely regarded as a veiled form of anti-Semitism. When Donald J. Trump, campaigning for the presidency in 2016, charged that his rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers,” some saw an evocation of anti-Semitic stereotyping. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, urged Trump in a Twitter post to “avoid rhetoric and tropes that historically have been used against Jews and still spur #antisemitism.” Contemporary Manifestations Not all invocations of Jewish financial prowess are malicious, and some are deeply admiring. In China, eagerness to mimic Jewish business success has driven a recent publishing trend purporting to reveal the secrets to wealth contained in ancient Jewish texts. Crack the Talmud: 101 Jewish Business Rules, 16 Reasons for Jews Getting Wealthy, The Secret of Talmud: The Jewish Code of Wealth and Secret of Jewish Success: Ten Commandments of Jewish Success have all been published in China in recent years. In the West, however, talk of Jewish prominence in finance is more frequently pernicious. David Duke, the former KKK grand wizard, has repeatedly inveighed against Jewish “domination” of media and banking (along with the pornography industry and efforts to “de-Christianize” America). Eustace Mullins, a Holocaust denier who died in 2010, argued in several published works that the Federal Reserve was created by three Jewish “enemy aliens” to take over the American monetary system. The anti-Semitic website Jew Watch includes a page listing “International Banks & Jews Who Founded Them.” Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam has long claimed that Jews control the international financial system. Such ideas have also been internalized by the general public. According to studies conducted by the ADL, substantial percentages of respondents in virtually every country surveyed believe Jews have too much power in business and international financial markets. Roughly half of respondents in France agreed with that idea, as did one-third of Germans and nearly three-quarters of Egyptians. Even in the United States, where anti-Semitism is fairly low by global standards, some 18 percent of respondents said Jews have too much power in the business world. Pushing back against this type of rhetoric is often complicated by the fact that it’s rooted in fact, making a clear line between legitimate criticism and anti-Semitism difficult to establish. Writing after actor Seth MacFarlane drew criticism for joking at the Academy Awards that it’s best to be Jewish if you “want to continue to work in Hollywood,” journalist J.J. Goldberg offered one way to draw that line. As with the Jews and finance stereotype, MacFarlane’s bit was based in inarguable fact — by Goldberg’s count, more than 80 percent of top Hollywood studio chiefs are Jews. According to Goldberg, such talk veers into anti-Semitism when one speaks of “the Jews” controlling movies — the implication being that a corporate entity known as “the Jews,” acting as an organized group, is conspiring to exert its authority. It’s undeniable that Jews are disproportionately among the wealthiest Americans and overrepresented in top positions in the financial world, but it’s anti-Semitic, according to Goldberg, to say that “the Jews” are.

What you need to know about this ritual welcoming the Sabbath. BY RABBI MICHAEL STRASSFELD, RICHARD SIEGEL AND SHARON STRASSFELD YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE Shabbat Candle-Lighting Times SHABBAT What Is the Kiddush? SHABBAT As a ceremonial object or art, the candle is generally overlooked, yet it has great significance. Whether intended for practical purposes such as providing light, or for more evocative, quasi-magical ends, such as rekindling the winter sun, almost every festival and celebration incorporates the use of candles at some point. The Significance of Fire in Judaism Fire is universally recognized as one of the basic elements of the world. It is mysterious, frightening, mesmerizing. Its attraction is almost irresistible. In the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), the image of a multicolored flame emanating from a candle is taken as a metaphor for God’s relation to the world and man. The flame is a single entity, yet it appears to be undergoing constant change. The flame adheres to, relies on and appears to emanate from the candle, yet is a distinct and separate entity. The white interior of the flame is constant, but its exterior is always in motion and changes color. Reducing fire to a few metaphors, however, robs it of its natural power and mystique. Fortunately the tradition, by incorporating the lighting of candles into the celebratory cycle in a number of different ways [e.g., Shabbat candles, Havdalah (at the end of Shabbat), Hanukkah candles, memorial candles], left open the possibilities for recognizing the many potentialities of fire. It is for us to rediscover those potentialities and allow them to “illumine our eyes.” On Friday night, one is required to light candles in the house for the sake of shalom bayit (harmony in the home) and oneg Shabbat (Sabbath joy). The candles ought to be in the room where the Sabbath meal is to be eaten. How to Light the Candles The exact time when candles are lit varies each week depending on the time the sun sets. (Find this week’s Shabbat candle lighting times here.) Women traditionally light candles, but in liberal communities candle lighting can be done by any Jewish adult. Candles may be lit, at the earliest, 1-1/4 hours before sunset, but the [customary] time is up to 18 minutes before sunset. If the [traditional 18-minute] time limit cannot be met, candles may be lit during the 18 minutes immediately preceding sunset. At least two candles should be lit. These represent “shamor” [“keep”] and “zakhor” [“remember”], the first words of the commandments [in the two Ten Commandments passages in the Torah] concerning Shabbat (Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12). They also symbolize the unity underlying all apparent duality, such as man and woman, body and soul, speech and silence, creation and revelation. It is permissible to light more than two candles. In fact, it is considered particularly meritorious to do so. This is implied in an interpretation of “And God blessed the seventh day” (Genesis 2:3). “With what did he bless it? Light.” Some people light an additional candle for each child in the family. Once you’ve lit a certain number, it is a custom never to decrease that number. Students away from home should light candles for themselves, as they are no longer within the household of their parents. https://youtu.be/_u2B_3lJaUY Blessing the Candle Lighting The ritual of lighting the candles involves: 1. The actual lighting of the candles 2. Drawing the hands around the candles and toward the face from one to seven times (three is most common) 3. Covering the eyes with the hands 4. Saying the blessing Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel shabbat. Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us to light Shabbat candles. The halacha for this [i.e., the method prescribed in Jewish law] is a bit complicated. A blessing must [normally] be said before an act. However, since the blessing over the Shabbat candles is also the act which initiates Shabbat, it is forbidden to light a fire after the blessing is said [because of the traditional restriction against kindling a flame on Shabbat]. To get over this bind, one lights the candles and then covers one’s eyes while saying the blessing. When the eyes are opened, the already lit candles are enjoyed for the first time, as it were, therefore both completing the blessing and not violating Shabbat. There are several intentions associated with the waving of the hands around the candles: it serves to usher in the Shabbat Bride as the light of Shabbat fills the room and surrounds the person; it symbolizes the culmination of the six days of creation into the seventh day of rest; it draws the warmth and light inside oneself. After saying the blessing, you can softly utter prayers for yourself or others. You should not make use of the light (e.g., by eating or reading by it); otherwise it [may be considered] a wasted and invalidated blessing. If there are no candles available, you can make the blessing over electric lights or gas (e.g., camping lanterns). From The Jewish Catalog, reprinted with permission from the Jewish Publication Society.

Prejudice against Jews has always existed in the United States, but American anti-Semitism differs from its European precursor in fundamental ways. BY JONATHAN SARNA https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/anti-semitism-in-america/?utm_source=MJL_Maropost&utm_campaign=MJL_Holocaust&utm_medium=email YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE Anti-Semitism 101 ANTI-SEMITISM & BIGOTRY Black-Jewish Relations in America AMERICAN JEWS Antagonism toward Jews in America has been evident almost as long as Jews have lived there. In 1654, the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, singled out Jews as “deceitful” and “very repugnant” and sought to have them expelled. In the 19th century, the late historian John Higham observed, Americans united by little else — Kansas farmers, Cambridge intellectuals, and Manhattan day laborers — shared one great fantasy in common: they believed that Jews lay at the root of their problems. Over the centuries, anti-Semitism waxed and waned, often tracking closely with various social and economic crises, but it never fully disappeared, returning with a vengeance in the early 21st century after a long period of remission. But anti-Semitism in America is fundamentally different from its Europe precursor. For one thing, African Americans, Catholics, and Mormons experienced the brunt of American religious violence during the nation’s first century. Antagonism toward Jews has always had to compete with other forms of animus. Never was Judaism the nation’s least favored religion. Whatever prejudice Jews experienced, others suffered far worse. For another, American ideals have been uniquely inhospitable to anti-Jewish prejudice. Freedom of speech and religion is baked into America’s founding documents, and the United States never had a single established church from which Jews stood apart. Having never received their emancipation as an “award,” as was the case with the Jews of Europe, American Jews never feared losing it. They could use their freedoms to fight back vigorously against prejudice — and they did. Moreover, in a two-party system where close elections are the rule, neither party could long afford to alienate any major bloc of voters. State-sponsored anti-Semitism, so common in Europe, has never factored in American politics for long. Still, anti-Semitism has been a feature of American life since the earliest years of the republic. Despite the guarantees of freedom of religion enshrined in America’s founding documents, it required a hard-fought bill to win Jews the right to hold public office in Maryland in 1826, and another 51 years before Jews achieved full legal equality in New Hampshire. In 1820, a newspaper in New York observed that “prejudices against the Jews exist here and subject them to inconveniences from which other citizens of the United States are exempt.” The Civil War era resulted in an unprecedented surge in anti-Semitism. Part of it was the prominence of several Jews in the ranks of the Confederacy, which heightened prejudice. And some blamed Jews for many of the evils associated with war, which helps explain why General Ulysses S. Grant, in 1862, expelled Jews from an area stretching from Mississippi to Illinois and from the Mississippi River to the Tennessee River. Abraham Lincoln reversed Grant’s order as soon as he heard of it. Anti-Semitism crested in the United States between 1877 and World War II, an era of massive social and economic change. As America’s Jewish population surged from less than 250,000 to well over 4 million, some persuaded themselves that behind all the changes roiling American life lay a clandestine Jewish conspiracy. Anti-Semitism escalated further in the 20th century. Jews faced physical attacks, many forms of discrimination, as well as intense vilification in print, on the airwaves, in movies and on stage. Immigration restrictions, without explicitly saying so, looked to limit the number of Jews entering the country. Educational quotas, restrictive covenants, occupational discrimination, and physical attacks against Jews limited the civil rights of those who had settled there already. In 1913, a particularly infamous incident took place in Atlanta when a 29-year-old Jewish factory superintendent named Leo Frank was convicted of murdering one of his employees, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. Crowds around the courthouse chanted “Hang the Jew!” When Georgia governor John Slaton commuted Frank’s sentence in 1915, a mob broke into the jail and lynched him. Leo Frank was lynched after being falsely accused of raping an employee of a Georgia pencil factory in a decision tinged with anti-Semitism. Following World War I, manifestations of anti-Semitism rose further. Beginning in 1920, automaker Henry Ford’s weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, purported to describe an international Jewish conspiracy based upon the notorious anti-Semitic forgery known as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Only in 1927, under intense economic and legal pressure, did Ford publicly apologize “for resurrecting exploded fictions.” While Ford attacked Jews in public, numerous American universities worked privately to limit the number of Jewish students they admitted. Even harsher restrictions faced Jews in fraternities, clubs, hotels, resorts, and elite neighborhoods. So-called restrictive covenants excluded Jews from some of the most desirable neighborhoods in major cities and newly emerging suburbs. Physical violence against Jews likewise became common during this period, particularly in cities where German Americans sympathetic to Adolf Hitler took to the streets, and where Catholic supporters of the increasingly pro-Nazi radio priest, Father Charles Coughlin, beat Jews mercilessly. Yet for all that, anti-Semitism never went unopposed. Liberal newspapers and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League openly fought it. A growing interfaith movement headed by liberal-minded clergy worked to counter it. And Jews themselves often found ways to circumvent it. Following World War II, organized anti-Semitism in America declined dramatically, as did discrimination against Jews in employment, housing and daily life. By the early 1960s, almost all resorts and housing developments had dropped their restrictive clauses, anti-Semitic college quotas had mostly ended, and professional fields proved more receptive to Jews than at any previous time in the 20th century. The South served as the major exception, where Jewish support for the civil rights movement had undermined the region’s longstanding philo-Semitism. In the 1950s, a spate of bombings targeted black and Jewish institutions alike. In just one 12-month period in the late 1950s, explosives were planted at Jewish institutions in Miami, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Nashville, Birmingham and Gastonia, North Carolina. On October 12, 1958, a bomb tore apart the Temple, the oldest Reform congregation in Atlanta. A widely-distributed paperback with the explosive title “165 Temples Desecrated,” published in 1971, chronicled antisemitic acts that took place just between 1965 and 1970. In the North, the special relationship between blacks and Jews, born in part of their partnership in the civil rights struggle, began to fray. Merit-based educational programs aided Jews far more than blacks, anti-Semitism declined faster than racism, and Jews moved out to sparkling suburbs while blacks languished in dangerous inner cities. Subsequently, some radical African-American activists came to view Jews more as obstacles than as allies. Some spread the canard that Jews bore central responsibility for slavery. Others embraced the Palestinian cause and railed against the State of Israel. In 1991, a riot — local Jews dubbed it a pogrom – convulsed the heavily Jewish Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. As the 20th century drew to a close, scholars began to express hope that anti-Semitism had become a thing of the past. Leonard Dinnerstein, author of the first scholarly history of anti-Semitism in America, published in 1994, concluded that anti-Semitism “has declined in potency and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.” But anti-Semitism nevertheless endured. On the extreme political right, Holocaust deniers, conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists continued to spout hatred against Jews. On the extreme political left, black nationalists, anti-Israel activists, and neo-Communists spouted anti-Jewish hatred too. Much like the anti-Semites of the 19th century, these groups had different complaints and little outwardly in common, but they shared the belief that Jews lay at the root of their problems. From the margins, anti-Semitism moved back in the mainstream in the 21st century. A rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, witnessed chants of “Jews will not replace us.” A year after that, on October 27, 2018, a mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue left 11 people dead and seven wounded, the deadliest attack ever on the American Jewish community. Subsequent attacks on the Chabad of Poway Synagogue in California and on a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2019, coupled with hundreds of reports of vandalism and harassment, made clear that anti-Semitism was back. Still, anti-Semitism in America remains distinct, and the factors that make it so — the guaranteed freedom to resist it; the greater prevalence of other types of animus; the incompatibility of fundamental American ideals with anti-Jewish prejudice; and the general inhospitality of American politics to appeals to bigotry — are as vital to recall as those elements that are common to anti-Semitism elsewhere in the world. Today, as in the past, anti-Semitism reveals as much, or more, about America as it does about Jews.

Ontario, California, USA Shabbat Times Rosh Chodesh Iyyar occurs on Monday, Apr 12 Rosh Chodesh Iyyar occurs on Tuesday, Apr 13 Yom HaZikaron occurs on Wednesday, Apr 14 Yom HaAtzma'ut occurs on Thursday, Apr 15 Candle lighting: 7:05pm on Friday, Apr 16 This week's Torah portion is Parashat Tazria-Metzora Havdalah (50 min): 8:14pm on Saturday, Apr 17 Powered by Hebcal Shabbat Times Zmanim for Ontario פרשת תזריע-מצורע April 16 - ד׳ אייר Candle lighting 7:05 Shabbat ends 8:03 72 minutes 8:36 This week's 10-Minute Torah (April 17, 2021): "Parashat Tazria-Metzora" 5781 https://youtu.be/SQpekvl6WLo Adult Torah Study Class Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:30 pm PT Parashat Tazria-Metzora / פרשת תַזְרִיעַ־מְּצֹרָע Read on 17 April 2021 (5 Iyyar 5781). Parashat Tazria-Metzora is the 27th and 28th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. Torah Portion: Leviticus 12:1-15:33 Links to come יוֹם הַזִּכָּרוֹן Yom HaZikaron (Israeli Memorial Day) for Hebrew Year 5781 begins at sundown on Tuesday, 13 April 2021 and ends at nightfall on Wednesday, 14 April 2021. Israeli Memorial Day. Note that Hebcal displays modern holidays like Yom HaZikaron according to the Israeli schedule. Although Yom Hazikaron is normally observed on the 4th of Iyyar, it may be moved earlier or postponed if observance of the holiday (or Yom HaAtzma'ut, which always follows it) would conflict with Shabbat. Yom HaAtzma'ut / יוֹם הָעַצְמָאוּת Yom HaAtzma'ut (Israeli Independence Day) for Hebrew Year 5781 begins at sundown on Wednesday, 14 April 2021 and ends at nightfall on Thursday, 15 April 2021. Israeli Independence Day. Commemorates the declaration of independence of Israel in 1948. Note that Hebcal displays modern holidays like Yom HaAtzma'ut according to the Israeli schedule. Although Yom HaAtzma'ut is normally observed on the 5th of Iyyar, it may be moved earlier or postponed if observance of the holiday (or Yom HaZikaron, which always precedes it) would conflict with Shabbat. Upcoming Services Shabbat Ma'ariv Service Friday, April 16, 2021 @ 7:30 pm Shabbat Shachrit Service Saturday, April 17, 2021 @ 10:00 am Replay of this past Shabbat's services: Friday Night Shabbat Ma'ariv, April 9, 2021 https://youtu.be/ml8C62e3JFk https://www.facebook.com/TempleSholomofOntario/video s/2736981326583015 Sermon @ 48:50 Saturday Morning Shabbat Shachrit, April 10, 2021 https://youtu.be/drsR7NbJwrQ https://www.facebook.com/TempleSholomofOntario/videos/3840018069448573 D'var Torah @ 1:16:00 Hebrew School at Temple Sholom of Ontario First Session Sunday, April 18, 2021 10:00 - 10:40 am PT Second Session Sunday, April 18, 2021 10:50 - 11:30 am PT Hebrew school is starting up at Temple Sholom of Ontario. We will hold classes virtually on Sundays at 10:00am PT. There will be two sessions, 40 minutes each, with a 5 - 10 minute break in between. The first session is designed for children approaching B'nai Mitzvot, ages 10 - 13. We will have two parts. First will be Hebrew reading and we will probably read from the week's Torah portion using a Chumash and an online site. We will then have a short discussion of that weekly sedrah/portion. After break, the next hour (60 minutes) will be for all students. This week we will be participating in the World Wide Wrap, an event sponsored by the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs (see below) that seeks to instruct everyone on tefillin. Please join us for this exciting event that teaches how to fulfill the commandment. Please let us know if you'd like to join us and of course if you have any questions. RSVP for Zoom links. Temple Sholom of Ontario is proud to announce we are offering: Next session: Sunday, April 18 @ 12:00pm PT Miller Intro to Judaism Program If you're thinking of converting to Judaism: Completion of the Intro Program fulfills the learning requirements for conversion of the Rabbinical Assembly of America. Once you finish the course requirements and secure a sponsoring rabbi, you are eligible to become officially part of the Jewish People. If you're already Jewish: Whether you were born Jewish but never quite learned what it’s all about, you’re back after a long hiatus, or you’re just looking for a deeper understanding of your heritage, most of us could use a bit of a refresher. Jews from all walks of life enroll in the program: from people who had a Jewish day school education to those whose strongest connection was the annual box of matza on the kitchen counter. More details to follow. Please let us know if you're interested. Application is attached below or reply with request for more information

Hatred of Jews has been around for centuries, but only in the 1800s did it begin to be referred to as 'anti-Semitism.' BY RICHARD LEVY https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/where-the-word-anti-semitism-comes-from/?utm_source=MJL_Maropost&utm_campaign=MJL_Holocaust&utm_medium=email Hatred of Jews has been a feature of world history for centuries. But only in the late 19th century did a new specific word emerge to describe it. What prompted the coining of the neologism “anti-Semitism” was the perception of an altered relationship between Jews and the peoples among whom they lived that could not accurately be described as mere “Judeophobia” or “Jew-hatred.” The felt need for a new word affected not just self-identified anti-Semites. It was recognized by Jews and non-Jews throughout Europe and wherever Europeans settled in the world. Anti-Semitism, as a concept and a movement, was a response to the so-called Jewish Question, which was itself precipitated by the remarkable economic, cultural and political ascent of the Jews during the 19th century and their entry into mainstream European life. For some of the peoples among whom they lived, this rapid accumulation of power was ominously threatening. Accustomed to seeing Jews as small-time chiselers, heretics, peddlers, and parasites, they were now confronted by Jewish political leaders, cultural luminaries, bankers, captains of industry, army officers, professors, and bosses. No longer powerless outsiders, Jews were seen as wielders of surreptitiously acquired power. Seeing only the dramatic success stories, this view ignored the thousands of still impoverished Jews dwelling in Eastern Europe and in the slums of central and western European cities. Nevertheless, it was the fear of what Jews would do with their wildly exaggerated power that animated efforts to disempower them before it was too late — first in Germany, and then in many other countries. Conservative Christians, disaffected democrats, former liberals, nationalists, cultural critics, thwarted academics, and visionary social reformers took action against the Jewish enemy in a variety of ways. Some, though certainly not all, were convinced that a mass movement organized on the basis of Jew-hatred was the best way to proceed — assuming, probably correctly, that the great majority of their countrymen harbored some degree of resentment, suspicion, or disdain for Jews. The term anti-Semitism emerged to describe these efforts. In Germany, Wilhelm Marr, if not the coiner of the word then certainly one of its major early popularizers, thought of himself as a modern man, a student of history and science. Anti-Semitism allowed him to distinguish the party he launched in late 1879 — the Antisemites’ League — from the religious bigotry of medieval Jew-hatred. Like many (but not all) who shared his goals, Marr defined the Jewish Question as one of race, not religious deviance. In the past, persecution had been episodic; outbursts of terrible violence alternated with long periods of quiet relations between Jews and their neighbors. In Marr’s view, such lackadaisical Jew-hatred had allowed Jews to grow stronger and, in fact, launch plans for conquest of the non-Jewish world. Mere religious prejudice had failed to halt their rise. The Jews had become too powerful, too entrenched in society, to be beaten back by the occasional pogrom. Anti-Semitism rejected these errors of the past. What was needed was disciplined and systematic struggle, nothing less than the institutionalization of anti-Semitism in political parties, grassroots organizations, lobbying agencies, newspapers, learned journals, and a variety of voluntary associations Action would be buttressed by modern mass media and new technologies, by unceasing agitation. Anti-Semites had to be prepared for the long struggle which was to continue for as long as it took to solve the Jewish Question. Whether Marr’s contemporaries wished to admit it or not, the modern world was engaged in a race war, a war that could not have a peaceful end. While many agreed with Marr’s goals and methods, the term anti-Semitism itself was never wholly embraced. Some found it too evasive, others too pseudo-scientific. The German philosopher Eugen Duhring (1833-1921) objected to its avoidance of naming the enemy directly. It was also seen as too imprecise. Not all Semites were deemed inimical. For example, when Nazis sought Arab allies before and during World War II, they found it advisable to disavow use of the term in propaganda directed at the Middle East, reassuring potential allies that Arabs were a noble race. Even today, Arabs — Semites themselves — object to being associated with the Jewish Question. Others, quite hostile toward Jews, claim that because they are Semites, they cannot be accused of anti-Semitism. Another source of controversy that adheres to the term, even today, is its correct orthography. Should it be anti-Semitism or antisemitism? The issue is with the word Semitism. The word emerges from the study of languages, and may have once been a reasonably neutral description of the peoples and cultures of the Middle East, essentially just a means of distinguishing language groups. But those who favor antisemitism over anti-Semitism note that the term Semitentum, usually attributed to the German Enlightenment thinker A. L. Schlozer (1735-1809), was polemical from birth, invented to establish a polarity between superior white Christian cultures and those of the inferior Orient. By the time the word was appropriated by critics of the Jews, however, it had lost even a semblance of neutrality. Semitism came to signify a bundle of uniformly negative traits. Placing “anti” and a hyphen in front of a word typically results in its opposite. But anti-Semitism is essentially a synonym of Semitism. As a result, it’s now commonplace in academic circles to drop the hyphen. The noted Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt has championed the change, saying the use of the hyphen “completely distorts the meaning of the word.” The Anti-Defamation League and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance have dropped the hyphen. However, the change is far from universal. The Associated Press, the standard bearer of journalistic style, continues to use the hyphen, as do many major news outlets, including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The Merriam-Webster dictionary and the U.S. State Department also continue to use a hyphen. Editor’s Note: Like many academics, the author of this piece prefers to render the term “antisemitism” without a hyphen. At the time of publication, the AP Style Guide continues to call for the hyphenated version, which My Jewish Learning has elected to follow.

https://youtu.be/SQpekvl6WLo Parashat Tazria-Metzora/ פרשת תַזְרִיעַ־מְּצֹרָע Read on 17 April 2021 (5 Iyyar 5781). Parashat Tazria-Metzora is the 27th and 28th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. Torah Portion: Leviticus 12:1-15:33 This double portion follows the purity of food (kashrut). Tazria starts by discussing the restoration of spiritual purity for a woman who gives birth. She is unclean for seven days after the birth of a son, and two weeks after the birth of a girl. The shorter time for a boy is possibly because he has to be circumcised on the eighth day of life. She then brings a burnt-offering and sin-offering and her purity is restored. Today, she would come into the synagogue after the period of time and then bathing in a mikvah. The portion then discusses the impurity of skin blemishes. These are called tzaahat and beheret, depending on the appearance. These blemishes have been called “leprosy” and “elephantiasis”, and also by the transliterated terms. While their similarities to these modern diseases are questionable, their symptoms are not like any modern diseases. This is especially notable that it is the priest that diagnoses the conditions and the person is sent out of the camp for a period that can be as short as one week, if the blemish disappears in that time. When the person has been deemed to be “cured”, it is the priest who pronounces them clean. Some sages believe that the etiology of these blemishes is the person engaging in LaShon HaRah. This is HaShem’s punishment for a person gossiping and demeaning others behind their back. The skin reveals their offense and they now have to walk through the camp warning people, “Contaminated, contaminated”, thus keeping people away from them and preventing their ability to spread malicious talk. Metzora discusses the spiritual remedy of the metzora. The person, once the blemishes disappear and the priest deems them no long afflicted, takes two birds, one for a offering, one to let free. They offer a sin-offering and a guilt-offering. They immerse in a mikvah and shave themselves. They are anointed with blood and oil placed on their ears, thumb and foot, similar to the consecration of priests. The portion also discusses blemishes that can appear on utensils, articles of clothing and houses. Purification is similar to that of a metzora. Also, the article is either destroyed or the part of the house is cut away. Finally, we are taught about the purification of bodily issues. Some of these are naturally occurring, others are unnatural. The text gives the purification for these as well, again similar to the other purification rites.

Two millennia of European anti-Semitism can be traced to early Christian beliefs about Jewish culpability in the murder of Jesus. BY JONATHAN JUDAKEN https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-historical-roots-of-anti-semitism/?utm_source=MJL_Maropost&utm_campaign=MJL_Holocaust&utm_medium=email After the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) composed The City of God, a philosophical treatise that would become a keystone of medieval Christian thought and inform European attitudes toward Jews and Judaism for the next 1,000 years. Augustine’s position toward Jews was ambivalent, crystalizing a duality of fear and fascination that runs throughout the Western Christian tradition. Augustine claimed Jews were murderers of Jesus, for which they were forever doomed to exile and subordination. At the same time, he believed Jews should be protected from grievous harm, since wherever they lived they carried the Old Testament, which testified to Jesus’s fulfillment as the messiah and to Jewish blindness and rejection. This ensured Jewish survival, but at the cost of subjugation. Augustine is a good place to start in order to understand the roots of European anti-Semitism in early Christianity and medieval Christendom. For it was the writers of the New Testament, buttressed by church fathers like Augustine, who developed a coherent theology based on those writings and laid the seeds for centuries of Judeophobia. Augustine and the other church fathers were influenced by an earlier Greco-Roman legacy that both scorned and praised Jews. Many ancient thinkers were impressed by the biblical tradition and touted Jews for upholding the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. But Jewish difference aroused scorn. Some, like the historian Tacitus, found monotheistic beliefs and rituals bizarre or uncivilized. The most serious accusation was that Jews were misanthropes, hating all but their own group. But it was the expanding divide between the followers of Jesus and the Jews that fundamentally shaped the fate of anti-Jewish contempt, a conflict inscribed in the sacred texts of Christianity. The Gospels tell the story of Jesus of Nazareth, martyred as “King of the Jews,” whose original disciples were all Jewish but who Jews rejected as the messiah. Five enduring images in the New Testament would profoundly shape perceptions of Jews in the Christian West. First was the depiction of Judas, the traitor willing to sell out God for 30 pieces of silver. Second, was the portrait of Caiaphas and other Jewish leaders who were concerned only with their own power. Third, was the claim that Jews were “Christ-killers,” derived from the scene in the Passion narrative where the Jews call upon the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus, assuming perpetual responsibility when they insist “his blood be upon us and upon our children.” Fourth, was the association of Jews with Satan, which was reinforced in the Gospel of John, when Jesus says to a group of Pharisees, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” Lastly, is the supersessionist claim — the doctrine that the new covenant through Jesus supersedes the old covenant with the Jewish people — which crowned Jesus’ followers as the new Israel, bestowing upon them the promises given by God to the Jews and projecting onto the forsaken Jews the curses of those accursed by the divine. As the theology of Christianity developed from the second to the sixth century, these images would be amplified in sermons, repeated in the liturgy, rehearsed in passion plays, imbibed through folktales, and institutionalized as church law. Later, they would literally be carved into the stone and glass of cathedrals. Across Europe today one can still find the image of the synagogue depicted as an old, downcast, blindfolded, and broken widow opposed to the farsighted, upright church, a condensed supersessionist narrative for the illiterate masses. From the sixth through the 11th centuries, church leaders sometimes railed against good relations with Jews, which suggests that such intimacy existed. Anti-Jewish legislation oscillated between protection and enforced subordination and it varied with individual leaders who usually followed the law of utility, doing whatever was good for them. Most importantly, anti-Judaism was not economic and populist. Indeed, Jews were the only heretical group allowed to practice a separate creed, and social and economic relations were relatively amicable. A key turning point was Pope Urban II’s call for a crusade to liberate Christian holy sites from Muslims in 1095. The march of the Crusaders in the summer of 1096 marked the first mass slaughter and pillaging of Jewish “infidels” living in Christian territories, especially in the Rhine Valley, whose Jewish communities were the most numerous in Europe. In accordance with Augustinian doctrine, some counts and bishops sought to aid Jews until they were forced to yield before the zealous mob. Waves of new crusades over the next 200 years would follow with disastrous consequences. In their wake, new accusations against Jews emerged, most notably the blood libel, the accusation that Jews ritually murdered Christian children to use their blood for baking Passover matzah. New directives also followed: the mandate for a distinctive sign to be worn by Jews and Muslims to distinguish them from Christians, and the public condemnation of the Talmud in a series of mandated public disputations, beginning in Paris in 1240. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) denounced Jews as “usurers” for lending money at interest, updating the archetype of Judas and alleging that Jews were avaricious and cheated Christians wherever they could. This stereotype was most famously dramatized by Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Shylock (James D. Linton) The systemic persecution of Jews worsened in the 14th century, which was cataclysmic for all Europeans. The great famine of 1315-1317 was followed by the bubonic plague, which killed more than one-third of all Europeans. Associations of Jews with witchery, dark sorcery, and the Antichrist fed rumors that the Black Death was the result of a plot by Jews to destroy Christendom, carried out by poisoning wells and springs. This was the origin of conspiracy theories that charged Jews with acting as a cabal to destroy the Christian world. Looting and carnage in hundreds of Jewish communities resulted, often followed by expulsions. The most consequential of these would take place in Spain, where Jews had thrived for centuries, excelling in both intellectual and commercial pursuits and even serving as counsellors and physicians to the kings of Castile and Aragon. Following a brutal civil war from 1355-1366, a set of charismatic preachers fomented anti-Jewish violence, forcibly converting tens of thousands and massacring those who refused. Following conversion, all the barriers to social access were removed. In 1449, to reset limits on those with Jewish origins who were then integrating into all sectors of Spanish society, “blood purity” laws were passed barring the entry of “New Christians” to public office and certain guilds, military and religious orders, as well as some towns. Still, some converts practiced Jewish rites in secret. To root out heresy, the Inquisition was formally established in 1478. Those suspected of being crypto-Jews or marranos were tortured or brought to public trial, and sometimes burned at the stake in festivals known as auto-da-fé (act of faith). In 1492, the remaining 160,000 Jews were expelled from Spain. The discovery and conquest of the new world by Columbus that year, paid for in part by the confiscated millions taken from banished Jews, was the dawn of the modern world. As the transatlantic slave system developed in the Americas, the concept of races, previously applied only to describe animal breeding and blue-blooded nobility, merged with ideas of indelible blood purity from the Inquisition and were used to differentiate and hierarchize group character. Systems of racial classification were fully birthed during the 18th century Enlightenment as Europeans sought to describe, classify, order, and label the world. Racial systems legitimated slavery and colonial domination as natural at precisely the moment when Europeans were rethinking their own social order. Simultaneously, Enlightenment values of scientific reason, constitutional government, and tolerance warranted emancipating Jews from medieval structures. However, like the Augustinian ambivalence of old, Enlightenment ideas were also responsible for codifying new racial hierarchies that secularized the dichotomies of Christendom, especially when they were mixed with paeans to the people as the masses became involved in politics. Enlightenment values like liberty, equality, and fraternity were the backdrop to the revolution in France, where Jews were first given equal civil rights. Yet as industrialization propelled Europe to global hegemony in the 19th century, racism became a central axis of European identity. European nations and peoples defined themselves externally against colonized others and against Jews internally. Captain Alfred Dreyfus By the late 19th century, nation, culture, and race had become interchangeable terms. Jews and Judaism were also habitually depicted as the opposite of the highest values of the nation. A racialized, politicized, and programmatic anti-Semitism emerged as a force in western and central Europe based on the Aryan myth, which depicted Semites as a subversive group bent on ascendency. Exemplifying these trends, the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) ripped France apart over whether Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the only Jewish member of the military’s general staff, was a traitor selling military secrets to the Germans, or whether he was framed, as was proven the case. For those left behind by the age of revolutions, Jews like Dreyfus who had risen to such lofty heights represented, in Richard Wagner’s phrase, the “plastic demon of modernity,” the embodiment of all that was threatening in this brave new world. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery by the Russian secret police during the Dreyfus Affair and purporting to capture the plan for Jewish world domination, would become the blueprint for modern conspiracy theories. After the massive dislocation and death in World War I and the Russian Revolution, it went viral. Across postwar Europe, Jews were identified with those aspects of cultural degeneration and national corruption that fascists promised to eliminate. This would reach its crescendo in the Holocaust, where the horrors of total war transformed calls for racial hygiene into a distinctive siren song to cleanse and restore Germany, and ultimately all of Europe, by finally eliminating the Jew.

Ontario, California, USA Shabbat Times Pesach VIII occurs on Sunday, Apr 4 Havdalah (50 min): 8:04pm on Sunday, Apr 4 Yom HaShoah occurs on Thursday, Apr 8 Candle lighting: 6:59pm on Friday, Apr 9 This week's Torah portion is Parashat Shmini Havdalah (50 min): 8:09pm on Saturday, Apr 10 Powered by Hebcal Shabbat Times שבת פרשת שמיני April 9 - כ״ז ניסן Candle lighting 6:59 Shabbat ends 7:57 72 minutes 8:31 This week's 10-Minute Torah (April 10, 2021): "Parashat Shemini" 5781 https://youtu.be/FUgP81cUUqc Adult Torah Study Class Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:30 pm PT Parashat Shmini / פרשת שְּׁמִינִי Read on 10 April 2021 (28 Nisan 5781). Parashat Shmini is the 26th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. Torah Portion: Leviticus 9:1-11:47 Links to come Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) for Hebrew Year 5781 begins at Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) for Hebrew Year 5781 begins at sundown on Wednesday, 7 April 2021 and ends at nightfall on Thursday, 8 April 2021. Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה; "Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day"), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews and five million others who perished in the Holocaust as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi Germany and its accessories, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day and public holiday. It was inaugurated on 1953, anchored by a law signed by the Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion and the President of Israel Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. It is held on the 27th of Nisan. Replay of this past Shabbat's services: Passover Friday Evening Service with Rabbi Stephen Epstein, April 2, 2021 https://www.facebook.com/TempleSholomofOntario/videos/721770085165370 Sermon @ 33:10 Passover 7 Shabbat Morning Services with Temple Sholom of Ontario and Rabbi Stephen Epstein, April 3, 2021 https://youtu.be/D9zg7JGDiTY https://www.facebook.com/TempleSholomofOntario/videos/1367446650256173 D'var Torah @ 1:21:17 Passover 8th day Morning Services w/Yizkor led by Rabbi Stephen Epstein and Temple Sholom of Ontario https://www.facebook.com/TempleSholomofOntario/videos/728115767875633 D'var Torah @ 1:13:20 Hebrew School at Temple Sholom of Ontario First Session Sunday, April 11, 2021 10:00 - 10:40 am PT Second Session Sunday, April 11, 2021 10:50 - 11:30 am PT Hebrew school is starting up at Temple Sholom of Ontario. We will hold classes virtually on Sundays at 10:00am PT. There will be two sessions, 40 minutes each, with a 5 - 10 minute break in between. The first session is designed for children approaching B'nai Mitzvot, ages 10 - 13. We will have two parts. First will be Hebrew reading and we will probably read from the week's Torah portion using a Chumash and an online site. We will then have a short discussion of that weekly sedrah/portion. After break, the next hour (60 minutes) will be for all students. This week we will be participating in the World Wide Wrap, an event sponsored by the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs (see below) that seeks to instruct everyone on tefillin. Please join us for this exciting event that teaches how to fulfill the commandment. Please let us know if you'd like to join us and of course if you have any questions. RSVP for Zoom links. Temple Sholom of Ontario is proud to announce we are offering: Next session: Sunday, April 11 @ 12:00pm PT Miller Intro to Judaism Program If you're thinking of converting to Judaism: Completion of the Intro Program fulfills the learning requirements for conversion of the Rabbinical Assembly of America. Once you finish the course requirements and secure a sponsoring rabbi, you are eligible to become officially part of the Jewish People. If you're already Jewish: Whether you were born Jewish but never quite learned what it’s all about, you’re back after a long hiatus, or you’re just looking for a deeper understanding of your heritage, most of us could use a bit of a refresher. Jews from all walks of life enroll in the program: from people who had a Jewish day school education to those whose strongest connection was the annual box of matza on the kitchen counter. More details to follow. Please let us know if you're interested. Application is attached below or reply with request for more information Sunday April 11, 2021 Holocaust Memorial Day – March of Remembrance FEATURING SHAHAR AZANI - former member of the Israeli Consulate and Deputy Ambassador to Kenya. Senior vice president of the Jewish Broadcasting Service in New York as well as founder of Fourth Dimension Strategy. ESTER FAMIGLIETTI - survivor born in an internment camp shortly following the liberation. Ester will tell her story along with her parents experiences. VIRTUAL EVENT available on April 11 at 2:00 p.m. Virtual presentation YouTube.com search for: HRFVorg link will be provided 3:00 – 3:25 p.m. - Pre-March Music & Dance Outside, Registration, Refreshments 3:30 – 4:10 p.m. - Memorial YouTube Program in Sanctuary 4:20 – 5:00 p.m. - March of Remembrance e Memorial & March will be held simultaneously for two separate groups 5:00 – 5:15 p.m. - Special Candle Lighting Flyer attached below Rosh Chodesh Iyyar / רֹאשׁ חוֹדֶשׁ אִיָיר Rosh Chodesh Iyyar (Start of month of Iyyar on the Hebrew calendar) for Hebrew Year 5781 begins at sundown on Sunday, 11 April 2021 and ends at nightfall on Tuesday, 13 April 2021. Start of month of Iyyar on the Hebrew calendar. אִיָיר (transliterated Iyyar or Iyar) is the 2nd month of the Hebrew year, has 29 days, and corresponds to April or May on the Gregorian calendar. רֹאשׁ חוֹדֶשׁ, transliterated Rosh Chodesh or Rosh Hodesh, is a minor holiday that occurs at the beginning of every month in the Hebrew calendar. It is marked by the birth of a new moon. For this week's Mi Sheberach מי שברך list for those in need of healing, please advise any changes (Names will no longer be published to respect people's privacy). *The titles in blue and underlined are "hyperlinks". If you click on any of those, it will lead to that site/URL. The hyperlink gives a descriptive title with the actual link embedded in that title. Anyone who is concerned about clicking a link or hyperlink can access any of these resources by going to my website, www.modernrabbistephen.com. You can find them in the "Blog" and "Videos" sections, as well as the "Instagram Links" by clicking on the various pictures.

https://youtu.be/FUgP81cUUqc Parashat Shmini / פרשת שְּׁמִינִי Read on 10 April 2021 (28 Nisan 5781). Parashat Shmini is the 26th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. Torah Portion: Leviticus 9:1-11:47 In the eighth day after the consecration of the priests, Aaron is told to take a bull-calf (2 yr old) for a sin-offering as a sin-offering for the priests. He is also to take a he-goat for a sin-offering for the people and a goat and lamb for a burnt-offering. Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s oldest sons and next in line for the spiritual leadership, took their incense pans and offered the wrong mixture (not sanctioned) to Hashem. They died by the hand of Hashem for their insolence. Moses told Aaron not to mourn. The rabbis suggest that they were drunk since after this incident priests were warned not to officiate in the Mishkan under the influence of alcohol. The portion then discusses the laws of Koshrut and which animals the Children of Israel are allowed to consume. Kosher animals are those with wholly cloven huffs and chew their cud. Fish which have both fins and scales are kosher. A list of edible birds are given but the general interpretation is that birds of prey are not kosher. Only insects that have wings, go upon all fours and have jointed legs above their feet are kosher. Since their specific identification has been lost throughout the ages, all insects are generally forbidden. Also completely forbidden as food are amphibians like frogs and snakes. While these are general guidelines, there is a list as well. Some of the animals mentioned are guesses since their interpretation has been lost in antiquity.

Parashat Pesach This week is Passover. Besides a special portion for the Shabbat that occurs during Passover, we have Torah readings for each of the Intermediate Days of the Festival as well. Pesach VII / פֶּסַח יוֹם ז׳ (on Shabbat) Torah Portion: Exodus 13:17-15:26; Numbers 28:19-28:25 This special portion recounts the Israelites passing through the Sea of Reeds. After the Israelites left Egypt and the House of Bondage, Pharaoh regretted letting them leave. He got his fiercest charioteers and chased them to bring them back. The Children of Israel approached the Sea and saw the Egyptians chasing them from afar and were worried that they were blocked from escaping and would be killed. They now regretted leaving. Hashem reassured Moses and told him to hold up his staff. Hashem put a pillar of cloud between the Children of Israel and the pursuing Egyptians that prevented them from advancing. Throughout the night, the Sea of Reeds split open and the ground beneath the sea hardened allowing the Children of Israel to pass through in safety. Once they were through, the pillar disappeared. The Egyptians pursed the Israelites into the Sea. Once the Children of Israelites were completely through to the other side, Hashem closed up the sea and all the Egyptian soldiers drowned. As the Children of Israel beheld that sight, they celebrated. Moses sang the Song of the Sea, the Shir HaYam that we also recite every Pesukai D’Zimra in our morning Shachrit service. Miriam the prophetess then led the women in dancing and praising Hashem. Pesach Chol ha-Moed Day 1 / פֶּסַח חוֹל הַמוֹעֵד יוֹם א׳ Torah Portion: Exodus 13:1-13:16 In the first intermediate day of Passover, G-d tells Moses to consecrate every first born to him. We are reminded how the Israelite first-born were spared by the destroyer in Egypt. We are told that when we reach the promised land, we will celebrate this as a seven-day feast and eat no leavened products. It also sets the stage for the seder that when our children will ask what does it mean, we shall answer that with a mighty hand, G-d freed us. We shall answer, behold with His Mighty Hand the Lord our G-d freed us from bondage of the house of slavery. Pesach Chol ha-Moed Day 2 / פֶּסַח חוֹל הַמוֹעֵד יוֹם ב׳ Torah Portion: Exodus 22:24-23:19 We here are given laws to obey when we enter the land. Some of the laws are to be fair when taking loans and not keep a person’s clothing overnight as a pledge, but give it back so that they can be comfortable. We are to consecrate the first-born of our children and our beasts. We are not to engage in false rumors and mete out justice fairly. Pesach Chol ha-Moed Day 3 / פֶּסַח חוֹל הַמוֹעֵד יוֹם ג׳ Torah Portion: Exodus 34:1-34:26 This is the portion where Moses returns to Mount Sinai to receive the second set of Ten Commandments. Hashem instructs Moses to make two stone tablets line the first and will once again inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which Moses broke when seeing the Golden Calf. G-d also tells Moses the thirteen attributes. These are given after the affair of the Golden Calf, so these are recited during times of fasting and repentance. Pesach Chol ha-Moed Day 4 / פֶּסַח חוֹל הַמוֹעֵד יוֹם ד׳ Torah Portion: Numbers 9:1-28:25 This discusses the terms of the Passover sacrifice, the Pascal Lamb. It is to be offered in the first month of the Spring (now Nisan) on the eve of the 15th day. If someone is unclean due to being in contact with a corpse (helping to bury the dead), then they can not partake. Instead, they will observe a second special Passover in the second month (not named here) on the eve of the fourteenth day. Anyone who purposely fails to observe this sacrifice will be cut off from their people. Pesach VIII/ פֶּסַח יוֹם ח׳ Sunday, 4 April 2021 / 22 Nisan 5781 Domingo 4 de abril de 2021/22 de Nisan 5781 Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 15:19-16:17; Numbers 28:19-28:25 Porción de la Torá: Deuteronomio 15: 19-16: 17; Números 28: 19-28: 25 This special Torah portion commands the Children of Israel to consecrate the first born of their flocks to Hashem as an offering. They shall not have any blemishes or defects. Pour out the blood and eat it before the Lord. Esta porción especial de la Torá ordena a los Hijos de Israel consagrar al primogénito de sus rebaños a Hashem como ofrenda. No deberán presentar imperfecciones ni defectos. Derrama la sangre y cómela delante del Señor. The portion then discusses the various pilgrimage festivals starting with observing the Passover in the month of Aviv. This is now called “Nisan” and starts the secular calendar in the spring. We are thus commanded not to eat any leavened products. La porción luego analiza los diversos festivales de peregrinación comenzando con la observación de la Pascua en el mes de Aviv. Esto ahora se llama "Nisan" y comienza el calendario secular en la primavera. Por lo tanto, se nos ordena no comer ningún producto con levadura. It then discusses the Feast of Weeks. We are to count seven weeks to Shavuot. We are then to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, which is Sukkot, for seven days (eight in the diaspora). Luego analiza la Fiesta de las Semanas. Debemos contar siete semanas hasta Shavuot. Entonces debemos guardar la Fiesta de los Tabernáculos, que es Sucot, durante siete días (ocho en la diáspora). Finally, three times a year, all the males are to appear before the Lord in the place the Lord will choose. Finalmente, tres veces al año, todos los varones deben presentarse ante el Señor en el lugar que el Señor elija.