O pinion
Going Beyond So ‘Never Again’ Rings True
BY RABBI AKIVA POLLACK
NEVER AGAIN?
“Did I really see that?”
That was the thought going
through my head as I called
the police to report someone
relieving himself on the holy
walls of my synagogue.

“Don’t you think you are
overreacting?” I momentarily
challenged myself.

Absolutely not! The syna-
gogue is the sanctuary we come
to in order to connect with our
better selves. The climax of our
daily supplications is called
the Amidah. According to the
Talmud (Brachos 10b), we pray
the Amidah prayer with our
feet together.

This is based on Ezekiel’s
opening prophecy. He shares
with us a vision of the heavenly
courts, describing the feet of
the angels as “their feet were a
straight foot” (Ezekiel Ch. 1, V.

8). By emulating the angels, we
are elevating the spiritual parts
of our beings. The synagogue is
the place where humans act as
celestial beings. Yet this ghastly
individual used this sanctuary
as his personal restroom.

The police were called, and
the security camera footage
was sent to the media. That’s
when the despicable history of
the vandal was exposed.

Sheidali Dzhalilov, the per-
petrator of this repulsive act,
had written on his Facebook
page some extremely hateful
and anti-Semitic statements.

Specifically, he had com-
mented on a video from a
Palestinian channel that “this
video makes me wanna kill
every Jew out there, finish what
Hitler couldn’t.”
urinated on our hallowed
walls, I was watching on the
screen as he raised his middle
finger at the security cameras. I
stared in shock as he disgraced
a house of G-d. I was at a loss
as to what to do. Should I cower
in my office and call the police?
Should I chase after him and
scream? In the end, I did call
the police, but I did so not out
of fear but out of responsibility.

ized. Apparently it happened
“again.” So what do we do? Yes, the
judge sentenced the defendant
to some jail time. Two months
to be exact. Truthfully, though,
that doesn’t solve the issue. Not
due to its briefness — I actu-
ally thought it was fair — but
because punishing the perpe-
trator won’t restore dignity to
our house of G-d. Teaching a
Are you someone who never joined a synagogue? Start going once a year
on Yom Kippur. Do you come every Shabbat but step out when the rabbi
starts his speech? Stick around; maybe you’ll learn something.

Dzhalilov was eventually
caught and pled guilty to eth-
nic intimidation, desecration
of a house of worship and insti-
tutional vandalism.

As a grandchild of Holocaust
survivors, it is difficult to express
the hurt I felt when I read the
appalling Facebook post for
the first time. I felt a gnawing
pain as I contemplated someone
finishing what Hitler couldn’t.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitic
posts are not uncommon, but
for those words to be translated
into action at our very steps is a
terrifying thought.

On the night Dzhalilov
There is a phrase that
became very popular after the
Holocaust. The phrase was
“never again.” Apparently
“never” is not quite as long as
we thought.

The Jewish people are resil-
ient. Three-thousand years of
Jewish history has been 3,000
years fraught with persecution
and expulsion. Unfortunately,
we lost millions along the way
but somehow we overcame.

The Holocaust began with
a night called Kristallnacht
or “The Night of Broken
Glass,” when synagogues
were desecrated and vandal-
lesson won’t reverse the reality
that our synagogue was used as
someone’s toilet.

The only way to restore the
dignity that befits our syna-
gogues is by taking the ini-
tiative. I am not referring to
marches on Washington nor
am I advocating picking up
signs and taking to the street. I
am asserting that change starts
from within. I am stating that
we must start respecting our
synagogues in the way they
deserve to be respected.

The sad truth is that many
synagogues are almost vacant
on most weeks. High Holiday
attendance is diminishing by
the year. According to the Pew
Research Centers Religious
Landscape Study, in 2007, 39
percent of Jews attended syn-
agogue weekly and 27 percent
seldom or never attended. In
2014, 36 percent attended syn-
agogue weekly and 30 percent
seldom to never attended.

It’s time to take a stand. Are
you someone who never joined
a synagogue? Start going once
a year on Yom Kippur. Do you
come every Shabbat but step
out when the rabbi starts his
speech? Stick around; maybe
you’ll learn something.

Of course, we need to send
Dzhalilov and all anti-Semites
a loud and clear message. In
no way do I mean to blame the
Jewish people for anti-Semi-
tism, but how can we expect
others to respect our places of
worship when we barely even
show up? No one is going to
listen unless we have a seri-
ous heart-to-heart discussion
within our own communities.

Never again means never
again. l
Rabbi Akiva Pollack is the
executive director of the Russian
American Jewish Experience
(RAJE) at Congregation Beth
Solomon. Maintain Respect for the ‘Blue Slip’
ELEANOR LEVIE AND LYNNE JACOBS
KAVOD: HEBREW for respect,
honor, weightiness. No matter
what kind of Jew you are, a pri-
ority is undoubtedly respect for
yourself and for others — even
those holding different points
of view. And there’s a symbol
of kavod in the U.S. Senate
that’s not well known but long-
held: a single sheet of light blue
paper called the “blue slip.”
For more than 100 years, the
Senate Judiciary Committee
has extended the courtesy of
the blue slip. As tradition has
it, returning a negative evalu-
16 MARCH 14, 2019
ation (printed on blue paper)
or withholding the form alto-
gether allows a senator to seri-
ously slow or halt a nomination
to the district or circuit courts
of appeal of his or her own
state. Using this aspect of the
constitutional power of advise
and consent, each senator can
help make our federal judiciary
more fair, more diverse and
more mainstream.

Never have we needed the
respectful civility of the Senate
more, especially its responsi-
bility for checks and balances
on the executive and judi-
cial branches of government.

Last year, Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Grassley
let slip the tradition of the blue
slip. Taking over the chairman-
ship this year, Lindsay Graham
has also given a pass to nomi-
nees despite home-state sena-
tors finding them unqualified,
inexperienced or unfit.

The first circuit court judge
to be confirmed in more than
80 years without blue slip
approval was David Stras for
the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 8th Circuit in January 2018.

On Feb. 26 of this year,
for the first time in 100 years,
a nominee without blue slip
JEWISH EXPONENT
approval of either home state
senator was confirmed to a seat
on the United States Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Washington senators Patty
Murray and Maria Cantwell
were alarmed that Eric D.

Miller had repeatedly chal-
lenged tribal sovereignty, lands
and religious freedom.

Murray also objected to the
vetting process, or lack thereof:
“Not only did Republicans
schedule this nominee’s confir-
mation hearing during a recess
period when just two senators
— both Republicans — were
able to attend, but the hearing
included less than five min-
utes of questioning,” she stated,
adding, “less questioning for
a lifetime appointment than
most students face for a book
report in school.”
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown
did not return blue slips for
Eric Murphy and Chad Readler,
writing, “I cannot support
nominees who have actively
worked to strip Ohioans of their
rights. Special interests already
have armies of lobbyists and
lawyers on their side; they don’t
need judges in their pockets.”
See Respect, Page 18
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
Who Will Be Israel’s Next Prime
Minister After the April Elections?
BY DAVID RUBIN
EVERYONE KNOWS about
Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu,
Israel’s invincible leader, soon
to be the longest-serving prime
minister in history — except,
apparently, Benny Gantz didn’t
get that memo.

Benny is ahead of Netan-
yahu in the latest polls.

How can this be? Bibi is
a powerful international
spokesman, a skilled diplomat
and an expert economist. If
Americans were allowed to
vote, Netanyahu would likely
win in a landslide.

But in the upcoming April
9 elections, the only votes that
count are from Israeli citizens.

Israelis see a flipside to the leg-
endary Netanyahu, who some
view as indecisive in battle,
not resolute enough in meet-
ing the challenge of settlement
in the strategic, mountainous
heartland of Israel — Judea
and Samaria (the so-called
West Bank) — and they are
concerned with entrusting
him with the sovereignty of
Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capi-
tal since the days of King David
more than 3,000 years ago.

Once labeled by an
American magazine as “King
Bibi” due to his seemingly irre-
placeable status, things may be
changing for Netanyahu and
his Likud party. With the attor-
ney general having announced
bribery indictments against
him, Netanyahu seems to be
somewhat in defensive mode
as his nation enters an early
election once again.

So there is a new Benjamin
in town, or a new Benny, that is,
who seems to be taking Israel
by storm. Formerly chief of staff
of the Israel Defense Forces,
Benny Gantz has entered pol-
itics for the first time, form-
ing his own Israel Resilience
Party and seriously challeng-
ing Netanyahu’s predominant
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM right-of-center Likud.

Pundits projecting
Netanyahu’s virtually assured
victory may be irrationally
exuberant, the thinking being
that Gantz’s lead is only “tem-
porary.” The fact is that Gantz
is now the darling of the
media, which has become a
formidable foe to Netanyahu
in recent weeks. In a country
that has always been enamored
with generals and always seems
to be searching for the latest
“messiah” in the form of a new
centrist party, Gantz seems to
fit the current perceived need.

Voters are flocking in
droves to the tall and hand-
some Gantz, especially from
the establishment left-wing
Labor party, which seems to
be self-destructing more with
each passing day.

Unlike the United States,
Israel is a parliamentary
democracy in which the citi-
zens vote, not for an individ-
ual, but for a party, and the
leader of the largest party has
the challenge of forming a coa-
lition with smaller parties, the
goal being to attain a majority
of seats in the Knesset, Israel’s
parliament. Remarkably, until recently,
Gantz didn’t need to say a word
on policy to achieve his strong
standing in the polls. In fact,
from his perspective, it was
better not to say anything. But
in a tiny country like Israel,
where most issues are poten-
tially explosive, issues even-
tually need to be confronted,
and as that happens and people
see what Gantz truly stands
for, the shift in popularity may
swing back to Bibi.

In his maiden policy speech,
Gantz seemingly inexplicably
praised Israel’s now unpopular
2005 unilateral withdrawal from
Gaza, in which some 10,000
Israelis were forcibly expelled
from their homes in a bitter and
painful process that nearly tore
the fabric of the country apart.

According to Gantz: “It was
a legal move that was adopted
by the Israeli government and
carried out by the IDF and the
settlers in a painful but good
way. We have to take those
lessons and implement them in
other places.”
The statement is especially
disturbing since it is well-
known that in every armed
conflict, Hamas intentionally
hides its armed forces, its weap-
ons factories and its missile
launchers in civilian population
centers, daring Israel to attack.

With President Trump’s
peace plan still not released,
but already being publicly
debated, it behooves all Israelis,
as well as Americans who care
about Israel, to understand that
the “land for peace” formula
that has been recycled and
regurgitated by virtually every
American administration in
recent years, was proven dead
after the Gaza withdrawal,
when the Hamas terrorist
organization set up its rocket
launching pads on the ruins of
the once peaceful and thriving
Jewish communities.

Netanyahu is a some-
times flawed yet experienced
leader, one who recognizes
the existential threat from
an Iran seeking to attack
Israel from both Lebanon
and Syria, while achieving
nuclear bomb status. Clearly,
Netanyahu has the firmness
and resolve that Gantz and his
potential partners on the left
don’t possess.

As Benjamin Netanyahu
faces his most difficult chal-
lenges, the world should know
two things, that Bibi is the bet-
ter Benjamin and Benny Gantz
is not the Messiah. l
David Rubin, former mayor of
Shiloh, Israel, is the founder and
president of Shiloh Israel Children’s
Fund. JEWISH EXPONENT
KVETCH ’N KVELL
Believing in Torah, Even As a Nonbeliever
IN A MARCH 1 letter about “tikkun olamism,” Steve Mendelsohn
opines, “But for us Jews who believe that there is no creator of the
universe ... the challenge is to figure out what in Judaism is the
baby and what is the bathwater. Unfortunately … the closer we
look, the more bathwater we see.”
I respectfully suggest to Mendelsohn there is much in the Torah
to grasp onto, even for nonbelievers. The Ten Commandments
was a step into the future for humanity. Whether dictated by
God or conceived by humans, it was the first statement in history
asserting that all people should be free. It established the sanctity
of marriage and motherhood, codified civilized behavior and
also created weekends.

Consider the astonishing image of the Red Sea parting:
Whether it really happened or not, nothing else in literature
comes close to it. And the sea didn’t part so Romeo could reach
Juliet, or Odysseus could get home; this indelible image was
solely for the purpose of freeing slaves. If not God, what do we
call such inspiration?
Perhaps we Jews have been most fascinated by God because
we can never truly know God. But we do know that sometime,
between 25 and 3,500 years ago, a small tribe called Israelites
decided that idol worship is useless, human life is sacred and
people must be free. They envisioned these beliefs as a covenant
with God, and whether God really spoke to them, or they just
imagined it, as they gazed up at the billions of stars, it made them
feel like they were part of it all, special in the universe, comforted
and empowered. And we’re Jews today, because our families have
been keeping that covenant ever since.

We can all believe in that.

Rueben Gordon | Encino, California
In the Best Interest of Jews?
The treasurer and a founding member of the board of the Jewish
Democratic Council of America wrote an opinion column
(“Does Omar Understand Impact of Her Words?,” March 7)
exposing U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism. I’m 100 percent
behind the JDCA on this.

But then she writes that the Jewish community in Minnesota
“has welcomed and provided support for so many refugee groups
including the large Somali population.” Now, how does this help
Jews? How does the JDCA think that the Somali population is
going to vote? For candidates that support Israel, or for more
Ilhan Omars?
Is it too much to ask for Jewish organizations like the JDCA
to promote what’s in the best interest of Jews? l
Zachary Margolies | Philadelphia
Statement From the Publisher
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in the opinion columns and letters
published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect
the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Publishing Group and/or the Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Send letters to letters@jewishexponent.com or fax to
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MARCH 14, 2019
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