H eadlines
Truck Continued from Page 1
including LGBT-oriented
events, have resulted in
similar community backlash,
according to 6ABC.

Moshava’s attendance had
provoked criticism, as some
accused Moshava of being
culturally appropriative of
Palestinian cuisine, the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency reported.

Eat Up the Borders’ original
post on June 19 stated that,
“In order to best serve our
guests, we decided to remove
one of our food vendors for
Sunday’s event so that we could
deliver an optimal experience
to all. This decision came from
listening to the community we
wish to serve and love.”
Sheynfeld responded on
Instagram: “We really do hope
that in the future you don’t
succumb to such antisemitic
and dividing rhetoric and keep
true to your words of a safe
environment for all religions
and nationalities — not just
all of them except Israeli and
Jewish ones.”
Meantime, Eat Up the
Borders received more than
4,200 critical comments
about the removal of Moshava
from the event’s lineup. After
receiving complaints, Sunflower
Philly’s Executive Director
Melvin Powell explained to
NBC10 that, moving forward,
both an Israeli and Palestinian
vendor had to be present, in
order for one or the other to
attend. However, due to timing
issues, the Palestinian vendor,
unnamed by Powell, would
have been unable to attend
June’s Taste of Home event.

Sunflower Philly subse-
quently announced
on Facebook the morning of June
20 that the Taste of Home
event was canceled, citing an
“ongoing issue with one of our
event partners.”
“The fact that we couldn’t
accurately represent both of them
is the reason why we canceled the
event today,” Powell said.

That same day, Moshava’s
10 JULY 1, 2021
The Moshava Food Truck, which made its public debut this May
Instagram account publi-
cized that they were planning
on meeting with Eat Up the
Borders and Sunflower Philly
representatives “to try and
educate and grow together in a
safe space for everyone.”
“Although we were disap-
pointed with how the situation
was greatly mishandled,”
Sheynfeld wrote, “we do not
believe the organizers’ inten-
tion came from an anti-Semitic
place, but the threats they were
receiving to their event were.”
Eat Up the Borders, which
temporarily deactivated
its Instagram account the
morning of June 20, issued
an apology online on June
23, saying, “We want to be
very clear that we do not
support antisemitism or allow
antisemitism in our spaces.

Our actions were ignorant and
inexcusable.” On June 24, the Philadelphia
City Council passed a resolu-
tion to allow the Committee
on Commerce and Economic
Development to investigate
Moshava’s exclusion from the
Taste of Home event, discuss
recent antisemitism and
consider precedents for future
similar cultural events.

Among other organiza-
tions issuing statements, the
American Jewish Committee
Philadelphia/Southern New
Jersey applauded the passing of
the resolution.

“AJC will continue to work
with elected officials, faith
leaders, and partner organiza-
tions to safeguard the rights,
freedoms and safety of all
Philadelphians,” AJC Director
JEWISH EXPONENT
Courtesy of Moshava
Marcia Bronstein said. “We
also look forward to the
Philadelphia Human Relations
Commission and Pennsylvania
Human Relations Commission
investigations to ensure that
discriminatory and hateful
incidents and threats of
violence and the failure of
anyone to report those threats
never take place in our city or
state again.”
Representatives from the
AJC, Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia, Jewish
Community Relations Council,
Anti-Defamation League, Jews
in ALL Hues and the Board
of Rabbis of Philadelphia
will meet with the Taste of
Home organizers on July 13
“to understand the threats of
violence, provide education
and urge further action to
ensure their events are truly
inclusive,” according to the
Jewish Federation’s Twitter
account. Iterations of Taste of Home
were held in April and May,
with Moshava attending the
May event, the food truck’s
public debut.

Moshava has garnered
positive attention and support
from the community in the week
following the Taste of Home
cancellation, Sheynfeld said.

“I feel even more empowered
that when this stuff happens,
you have to speak up and say
something and know that there
is a community that, you know,
will be there to support you,”
he said. l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com |
215-832-0741 JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Vaccinated Continued from Page 1
And, anecdotally, several
Jewish communities
in Philadelphia were more than
willing to get vaccinated when
the opportunity arose.

Reform Congregation
Keneseth Israel, in partnership
with the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia, Kehillah
of Old York Road and Wellness
Pharmacy Services, held two
vaccine clinics in March
and April with 1,600 and
1,000 attendees, respectively,
Executive Director of Keneseth
Israel Brian Rissinger said.

Yet vaccine
interest spanned across synagogue
denominations. Rabbi Yehoshua Yeamans of
B’nai Israel Ohev Zedek, an
Orthodox shul, said that 90%
of his congregants received the
vaccine “at the first possible
chance.” The Philadelphia Depart-
ment of Public Health does
not disaggregate vaccine data
based on religion or ethnicity,
so it is unclear what percentage
of the Jewish population, or of
any other religious group, is
vaccinated. However, enthusiasm for, or
at least uptake of, the COVID-19
vaccine seems high across the
board for Philadelphia Jews,
begging the question of why,
and what has driven the local
Jewish community to pursue
the vaccine.

“Our health and our
well-being and to save lives is
first and foremost within Jewish
law,” said David Kushner,
director of
government relations and special projects
for Amudim Community
Resources, Inc., who has
worked for years as a liaison
between the Jewish community
and local elected officials.

The concept of saving a life
as a priority, known as pikuach
nefesh, dictates that the saving
of a life supersedes virtually all
other halachot.

According to Mark Leuchter,
professor and director of Jewish
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM studies at Temple University,
“It is pikuach nefesh to put on a
mask, or do social distancing,
or work from home or, in this
case, to get a vaccine.”
But beyond the swathes of
ways to interpret pikuach nefesh
and its applications to the
COVID-19 vaccine, Yeamans
believes the case for vaccination
can be made because listening
to the medical establishment is
endorsed by Jewish law.

Yeamans felt it was his duty
to send emails to congregants,
stating that because it was a
medical recommendation to
receive the vaccine, it was also
the Jewish thing to do.

His congregation didn’t
dissent: “Nobody was upset
that we spoke about it openly.”
But that’s not to say commu-
nity members weren’t skeptical.

He was sympathetic to those
few congregants who chose not
to get the vaccine, who were
unconvinced of it, because of
its expeditiousness, or due to
an exceptional and negative
vaccination outcome drawn
out by the media.

“It’s a personal decision,”
Yeamans said.

Conversations around
vaccine willingness in the
community took
place at the tail end of a divisive
national election cycle, where,
according to Leuchter, the
Trump administration bred an
era of opposition to secularism.

Leuchter defines secularism as
“a society that is not governed
by a religious tradition, but that
enables people to have freedom
to practice that tradition or not
practice that tradition.”
But for some, whose religious
values guide them to make
decisions — including medical
decisions — secularism may
be seen more of a threat than
a freedom.

“From within those deeply
religious and conservative
communities, secularism
is a temptation away from
something sacred
and something holy, and therefore
something safe,” Leuchter said.

Conversely, interest or
trust in the vaccine does not
appear magically. Kushner
attributed Philadelphia’s high
vaccine rates, both in, presum-
ably, the Jewish community
and beyond, to the efforts of
the city to educate and make
resources accessible.

In October, Kushner worked
with the city’s Department of
Public Health to host a testing
site at the Politz Hebrew
Academy. More than 600
people were tested.

Kushner credits “the eager-
ness on the part of public health
officials, as well as the medical
community, to do outreach
and education to the general
public, and to specific subsets
of the community that have
unique cultural needs, such as
the Jewish community.”
He has since helped to
organize conversations
between Orthodox community
members and elected officials
to enhance “open dialogue and
a positive working relationship
between the community and
local officials/agencies.”
While some in the commu-
nity needed educational
opportunities in order to make
the decision to get vaccinated,
others just needed time or to
see that others in the commu-
nity had also gotten the shot,
Kushner said.

Morals or dogmas aside, for
some Jews in the community,
the decision to become vacci-
nated was a practical one: They
wanted a return to normalcy,
to their shuls, to community
connection. Even if individuals were
skeptical about the vaccine,
according to Yeamans, they still
understood that vaccination
was required for the synagogue
to resume in-person activity.

“They realized that if we
work together, everybody
does, it’s going to help remove
the masks, remove the social
distancing, which it has,”
Yeamans said.

When Yeamans’ shul hit
the 90% vaccination mark, it
was a “no-brainer” to resume
in-person activities.

As much as Yeamans and
Kushner have advocated to
their community about the
COVID-19 vaccine, neither
would take the credit for their
communities’ behaviors.

According to Kushner, “We
owe a debt of gratitude to our
community leaders, to our
public health officials and to
the medical professionals.”
And as these leaders and
officials guided the commu-
nity, Yeamans said he was
grateful that the community
was there to listen. l
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