TRUE
ZOO SEA CHANGE
“Of Animals and Men” tells a fascinating story in
a clumsy manner.

JUNE 17, 2021 / 7 TAMUZ 5781
PAGE 22
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM — WHAT IT MEANS TO BE JEWISH IN PHILADELPHIA —
$1.00 OF NOTE
LOCAL Vandalized BLM
Sign Prompts
Mt. Airy Vigil
More than 50 people
decry the incident.

Page 4
LOCAL Gratz College
Names Zev Eleff
as President
Paul Finkelman to
become chancellor.

Page 6
BOOKS ‘The Netanyahus’
Is Reviewed
Also, a Philadelphia
native considers her
childhood. Page 21
Volume 134
Number 10
Published Weekly Since 1887
Why Do
People Call
Israel an
Apartheid State?
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, a nongov-
ernmental organization, published a
report on April 27 called “A Th reshold
Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the
Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.”
At more than 200 pages, the report
details the ways in which “Israeli author-
ities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis
and discriminate against Palestinians,”
concluding that the Israeli government’s
“intent to maintain the domination of
Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across
Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian
Territories]... coupled with systematic
oppression of Palestinians and inhumane
acts committed against them” amounts to
“the crime of apartheid.”
It is a charge that the Israeli govern-
ment denies with vigor and has denied
since it fi rst was leveled against the state
in the 1970s.

Mark Regev, an adviser to outgoing
See Apartheid, Page 14
Koach Baruch Frazier’s Juneteenth seder plate in 2020
Photo by Koach Baruch Frazier
On Juneteenth, Joy and
Grief Mingle for Black Jews
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
WHEN KOACH BARUCH FRAZIER
prepares their seder plate, they nestle
beets next to okra, blackeyed peas, eggs
boiled in hibiscus tea, hot red peppers,
baked sweet potato and cornbread, all
arranged in a plate set next to a kiddush
cup fi zzing with red soda.

Frazier puts away their Passover seder
plate on the 22nd of Nisan, like many
Jews, and, on June 19, instead favors
another seder plate, heaped with foods
tinted crimson, representing “ingenuity
and resilience and bondage,” in obser-
vance of Juneteenth.

Juneteenth is the national recogni-
tion and celebration of Union Army Gen.

See Juneteenth, Page 15