H eadlines
Rally Showed Community Seeking Comfort, Strength
NATIONAL RON KAMPEAS AND RUDY MALCOM
MORE THAN 2,000 people
spent a sweltering afternoon in
front of the U.S. Capitol at a
rally on July 11 that denounced
antisemitism as un-American
and made the case that Jewish
identity and support for Israel
are inextricable.

Those were the unifying
messages of the “No Fear”
rally, but there were differences
among the speakers and in the
crowd on how precisely Israel
figures in the fight against
antisemitism. “To stand united as one with
thousands of other voices in a
loud cry against antisemitism
was empowering,” said Michael
Balaban, president and CEO of
the Jewish Federation of Greater
Philadelphia, who attended the
event. “We must challenge this
vile hatred through collective
actions and our collective unity
in support of a secure Israel and
for our existence as a flourishing
Jewish community and, on
Sunday, we did just that.”
Speaker Ron Halber, execu-
tive director of the Jewish
Community Relations Council
of Greater Washington, stressed
the need to promote unity
among the Jewish people itself.

“While we can have differ-
ences, we need to reaffirm the
basics: that we’re all Zionists and
pro-Israel,” he said. “What joins
us together as a community is
far greater than what divides us.

“None of us should need to be
at a rally against antisemitism in
2021,” he added. “But we do need
to be here. Because we must
again respond to vile rhetoric,
physical attacks and symbols of
hatred against our people.”
Some of the most searing
messages came from people who
have suffered antisemitic attacks
in recent years. A recurring
theme among these speakers was
that they never expected to suffer
such attacks in the United States.

Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi
Shlomo Noginsky,
who sustained stab wounds in a July 1
attack in Boston, appeared with
his arm still in a sling and in
evident pain.

“I was born in the Soviet
Union in the city of St.

Petersburg,” Noginsky said in
Hebrew, with his brother trans-
lating his words to English. “I
remember how even as a young
child, I experienced terrible
antisemitism. Never in my
darkest dreams did I imagine
that I would feel the same way
here in the United States, the
land of freedom and endless
possibilities.” The crowd shouted “Hero!” as
Noginsky spoke. He had held the
attacker at bay outside a Chabad
facility where about 100 children
were in summer camp.

There was a sense among
some attending the rally that
Jew hatred was closing in from
all sides.

Joel Taubman, a rising
second-year law student at
George Washington University,
noted how, among both the
right and the left, there is a
“growing acceptance of antise-
mitic voices that have always
been there but until recently
were less accepted.”
The only instance of antisem-
itism being “out in the open” for
Ava Shulman used to be when
Klansmen marched down 16th
Street to the Capitol in 1965.

“My father turned the sprin-
klers on, and their white outfits
got all wet,” she said. “Now it’s
just so pervasive.”
Shulman noted that most of
the attendees were older, which
she attributed to apathy among
younger people, who, she said,
don’t “remember the Holocaust.”
Notably absent were represen-
tatives of more left-wing groups
that were asked to join but opted
out of attending because some
of the sponsoring groups adhere
to a definition of antisemitism
that encompasses harsh criti-
cism of Israel, including the
movement to boycott, divest and
sanction Israel. Groups like J
Street and Americans for Peace
Now oppose BDS, but object to
defining it as antisemitic.

Melissa Landa, who leads the
Alliance for Israel, a relatively
new group with a central tenet
that BDS is antisemitic, set the
tone at the outset of the event.

She first started planning for the
rally after antisemitism spiked
during the Israel-Gaza conflict
in May,
She spoke of the “shared
promise for our children, that
they will be free to live as proud
Jews, and exercise their religious
liberties granted by the United
States Constitution, free to wear
their yarmulkes and Magen
Davids and free to speak their
love of Israel without being
attacked in the streets of New
York or Los Angeles.”
Landa, like other speakers,
named lawmakers on the left
or the right who have in recent
months incurred accusations
of antisemitism. Mentions of
Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota
Democrat whose criticism of
Israel has been seen by Jewish
groups and others as crossing
into antisemitism, notably
garnered much louder boos than
those of Marjorie Taylor Greene,
a Georgia Republican who has
drawn fire for peddling antise-
mitic conspiracy theories and
for likening coronavirus restric-
tions to Nazi laws on multiple
occasions. Major mainstream groups
like the Anti-Defamation
League, the American Jewish
Committee and B’nai B’rith
International, as well as the
Orthodox Union and Reform
and Conservative movements,
signed on as sponsors, but few of
their representatives spoke.

Elisha Wiesel, son of
Holocaust survivor and Nobel
laureate Elie Wiesel, appeared
to nod to the concerns of some
liberal groups — that criticism
of Israel and support for the
Palestinians would be conflated
with antisemitism at the rally.

“We can disagree, even
passionately, without being
divided. We can even disagree
on Israel,” he said. “We must not
tolerate calls for an end to the
Jewish state of Israel through
a one-state solution that once
again leaves the Jews defense-
less. We must also not tolerate
denigration or hatred toward
the aspiration for dignity and
self-determination of our
Palestinian cousins. If we hate,
we will not win.”
Shlomo Noginsky, a rabbi who
was stabbed in Boston on July
1, addresses the rally against
antisemitism at the U.S. Capitol in
Washington, D.C., on July 11.

Photos by Ron Kampeas via JTA.org
Philadelphia-area residents
were among those in attendance.

The rally made an impression on
them. “The rally was an important
statement for the Jewish people,”
said Wynnewood attorney
Robert Kitchenoff, a past
president of the JNF Eastern
Pennsylvania board of direc-
tors. “The rally was bipartisan,
with representatives of the
Biden administration, federal
congresspeople and some state
legislators speaking.”
“After Tree
of Life,
Charlottesville and the other
more recent attacks, we must be
vigilant. Never Again must have
meaning, and we can’t be afraid
to show our Jewishness. If we are
truly a pluralistic society, we can’t
accept being bullied,” he said. l
Ron Kampeas is Washington,
D.C., correspondent for JTA. Rudy
Malcom is a Washington-area
writer. Jewish Exponent Managing
Editor Andy Gotlieb contributed to
this article.

Mamash! Chabad Hosts First Shabbat in New Space
L OCA L
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
TWELVE YEARS AGO, when
Doniel and Reuvena Grodnitzky
hosted their first Shabbat
dinner as a Chabad house, they
4 JULY 15, 2021
had one guest.

Still, they were eager and
excited, envisioning a future
when they would be able to grow
and become a home to young
Philadelphia Jews looking to
connect. After 12 years, three locations
and a global pandemic, the
couple’s Chabad house is
relaunching, with the same goal
of building Jewish connections.

One July 9, Mamash! Chabad,
formerly Chabad Young Philly,
hosted its “grand opening”
Shabbat dinner with almost 90
JEWISH EXPONENT
people in attendance, celebrating
the launch of its new building at
1601-03 Lombard St.

The event debuted the
6,000-square-foot space,
complete with a new candle-
lighting station, kitchen,
bar and dining space built to
accommodate 200 dinner guests.

Yet grand opening is a bit of
a misnomer.

The Grodnitzkys have hosted
events and programming from
their new location for around
six weeks: Torah study groups,
Saturday morning Shabbat
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
services and a bris.

However, Rabbi Doniel
Grodnitzky felt like the building
wouldn’t truly serve its purpose
until it was home to the Chabad
house’s Shabbat dinners.

“Friday night is kind of our
flagship program,” Daniel
Grodnitzky said. “So that’s why it’s
a big deal for the community that
the most-attended Friday night
dinner in the city is finally going
to be at its permanent home.”
Making the event more
special to Mamash! was the
dinner’s co-sponsorship by
Remy and Alexa Moyal, a young
couple whose wedding Doniel
Grodnitzky officiated last June.

The Moyals met the
Grodnitzkys four years ago at
Chabad house at the Old City
Jewish Art Center and have
been part of Mamash! Chabad
ever since, frequently attending
Shabbat dinners and text study
classes. After a small, outdoor and
masked wedding ceremony last
June, the couple wanted to thank
the rabbi for helping out in their
pandemic-style wedding, and
they provided enough funding to
pay for a five-course dinner for
the Chabad house’s guests.

At Mamash! Chabad’s Shabbat
dinner, Doniel Grodnitzky
announced that the couple helped
sponsor the event in honor of their
wedding anniversary and that, to
keep their ceremony COVID-19-
safe, they sacrificed a dinner and
dancing. Before the rabbi could finish
his speech, Alexa Moyal said the
couple were swept off their feet,
and all 90 guests began to dance
around them.

“It was just such an incredible
release of emotion and excite-
ment for the Jewish community,”
Moyal said.

For the couple, the event was
the opportunity to take part in
wedding traditions that weren’t
available a year ago.

“It felt like the event came full
circle, and we were able to finally
feel as if we had danced on our
wedding night, even though it
was one year later,” Moyal said.

“And we’re incredibly grateful
for that opportunity.”
Though the event was capped,
and met, its 80-guest limit, the
Grodnitzkys designed a space to
accommodate more ambitious
goals, especially after their
previous location — their home
in the Graduate Hospital neigh-
borhood — could no longer fit
their Friday night company.

“It was so crowded, people
were eating in my kids toy
room and in our guest room,
even in the basement,” Reuvena
Grodnitzky said. “It became
very apparent that there just
wasn’t enough space anymore.”
Their building on Lombard
and 16th Street will not only
house a larger dining space and
kitchen, but also a kosher wine
and Judaica store, a work hub
with five available offices for rent
and two AirBnBs.

“We were really hoping to
be a community destination
for all things Jewish,” Reuvena
Grodnitzky said.

Along with its new space,
Mamash! Chabad also under-
went a rebranding; its new name
(pronounced mahm-ish) is
literally translated as “really” or
“truly,” but in informal conver-
sation the meaning is difficult
to put into words; it is generally
intended to invoke a sense of
jubilee. “It’s not even a word that
really means anything, neces-
sarily. It’s just a word that can
be used with any other word in
the English or Hebrew lexicon,
and it just emotes excitement.

And that’s what we’re all about,”
Doniel Grodnitzky said.

Even with all the new bells
and whistles, the Grodnitzkys
find the same joy in Shabbat
that they did back when
Mamash! was Chabad Young
Philly, when they were hosting
Shabbat guests in the single
digits. “It’s just pretty magical, all
the different friendships that are
formed and the bonds that are
made,” Doniel Grodnitzky said.

“And so we’re just getting right
back to it.” l
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