editorials
Ukraine in Turmoil
I n retrospect, politicians and pundits agree that
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to
launch an all-out attack on neighboring Ukraine was
predictable. They point to Putin’s paranoid obsession with an
ever-growing list of accusations of Russia-targeted
expansion in Eastern Europe by the West and NATO,
and the unsupported charges of Ukrainian atrocities
against the country’s Russian-speaking minority. Yet,
in the run-up to the attack, there was hope that an
invasion could be averted and that reason, diplomacy
and a universal interest in world order would prevail.

That was not to be.

While governments and their leaders were issu-
ing warnings and threats designed to deter Putin,
the international Jewish aid world was ramping up
its efforts for rescue and relief of Jews in Ukraine.

Instead of waiting for the attack to launch, the relief
agencies planned for it with something close to mil-
itary precision.

The size of Ukraine’s Jewish community is unclear.

A 2020 demographic survey numbered 43,000 Jews.

The European Jewish Congress says that number
could be as high as 400,000. In any case, by the
morning after the invasion, Jewish federations in this
country were announcing a Ukraine emergency fund
and their partnering with the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee (JDC), the Jewish Agency
for Israel (JAFI), HIAS and World ORT — all of
whom have been working in Ukraine for decades
and have established relationships in Ukraine to help
facilitate relief protocols.

We applaud the quick mobilization and careful
planning of the Jewish relief effort, and the related
fundraising activities of our local federations and the
umbrella Jewish Federations of North America. In
this time of crisis, our communities are proving once
again that we are our brothers’ keepers.

While governments and their leaders
were issuing warnings and threats
designed to deter Putin, the
international Jewish aid world was
ramping up its efforts for rescue and
relief of Jews in Ukraine.

The Jewish Agency has established six aliyah-pro-
cessing stations at Ukrainian borders to help facilitate
a safe and quick aliyah for those eligible, interested
and able to take advantage of the opportunity; has
accelerated a program to upgrade security at Jewish
institutions across Ukraine; and has arranged care
for the more than 1500 Ukrainians involved in
JAFI-sponsored programs in Israel, Budapest and
elsewhere, who cannot return home.

JDC’s work in the area is focused on Ukraine’s
Jewish population — many of whom are refugees in
their own country. That work includes continuing
care for nearly 40,000 impoverished elderly Jewish
Ukrainians and thousands of vulnerable younger
community members and involves as well as works
with dozens of local organizations devoted to com-
munal safety and welfare.

Israel has announced a significant aid package for
Ukraine’s Jewish community to support security
assistance, food distribution and absorption of refu-
gees. But, on the political side, the Israeli government
has pulled its punches. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid
condemned the Russian invasion. But Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett, in speaking about assistance to Jews
in Ukraine, did not name the cause of the situation
or place fault. That reluctance to confront Putin and
Russia caused some to criticize the government’s
failure to respond to the invasion with moral clarity.

Others were more accepting, recognizing the fragil-
ity of Israel’s reliance on Russian goodwill to allow
preemptive moves against Iranian terror-supporting
activity in war-torn Syria. On Monday, however,
Israel announced it would join the U.N. vote to con-
demn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the fluid and fraught situation in Ukraine, we
find comfort knowing that our community’s inter-
national partners are there to help. We encourage
our readers to donate generously to those life-saving
efforts. JE
Ketanji Brown Jackson — a Republican Opportunity
W ith war raging in Eastern Europe, you could
be forgiven for missing the news last week
that President Joe Biden nominated U.S. Court of
Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S.

Supreme Court. The nomination is consequential —
not because Jackson would be the first Black woman to
sit on the court, but because the nomination presents
an opportunity for Senate Republicans to rise above
partisan politics and join in approving a worthy can-
didate on her merits.

The Jackson nomination comes at a significant
inflection point in the Biden presidency, as it will be
considered and debated during the runup buildup
to this year’s midterm elections. Most agree that
Democrats face significant challenges in the com-
ing round of voting. But if Republicans are seen as
obstructionist or unreasonable in their treatment of
the Jackson nomination, they could pay a price at the
polls. Besides, even if her nomination is confirmed
Jackson is not likely to change the current ideological
14 MARCH 3, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
balance of the Supreme Court — which is also likely
the case for any other Biden nominee.

Republicans should embrace the Jackson nomi-
nation because she is qualified for the job. Indeed,
her resume reads much like many others who have
served on the Supreme Court. She attended Harvard
University for her undergraduate degree, attended
Harvard Law School and served as an editor of
the Harvard Law Review. She then clerked for U.S.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, the justice
whose seat she will fill, if confirmed.

Jackson also brings a different blend of work expe-
riences to her potential new position, as she will be
the first justice to have served as a federal public
defender. In her two years in the appellate office of
the DC Public Defender Service Jackson obtained a
different perspective of the federal criminal justice
system — something that has served her well in her
eight years as a U.S. District Court judge, and in her
current position on the prestigious U.S. Court of
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The upcoming hearings on Jackson’s nomination
will be her fourth appearance before a Senate confir-
mation panel. Democrats are hoping for bipartisan
support for her nomination this time, just like there
was in her three previous appearances. While we
join in that hope and believe such a move to be in
Republican interests, we are not optimistic. We want
to be wrong. But last week’s reflexive Republican
efforts to link Jackson to the “radical left” and to tar-
nish her record by calling her “the favored choice of
far-left dark-money groups,” make us doubtful.

Whether any Republican senators will vote to
confirm Jackson remains to be seen. We hope some
do. But above all else, we encourage consideration of
Jackson’s qualifications on their impressive merit —
irrespective of other considerations. Ketanji Brown
Jackson is a gifted lawyer and respected jurist. She
has the background and experience to serve on the
U.S.Supreme Court and deserves to be confirmed. JE



editorials & opinions
An Open Letter from Mid-Atlantic Media
D ear Jewish Philadelphia:
We are the new owners of The Jewish Exponent,
but you already know us.

For the past seven years we have had the privilege
of working with the Jewish Publishing Group and the
Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia in the weekly
publication of The Jewish Exponent. You know our edi-
tors and reporters. We hope you have enjoyed our work.

When we learned of the possibility of acquiring the
Jewish Exponent — an iconic publication with a rich
history and an impressive reputation — we jumped
at the opportunity. And we are very pleased that we
succeeded. We look forward to serving the Greater
Philadelphia Jewish community and to carrying on the
tradition of excellence that has been the hallmark of the
Jewish Exponent since its first edition in 1887.

Our group, Mid-Atlantic Media, has been in the
Jewish publishing business for about a dozen years.

Although the publishing business is challenging, we
see Jewish communal media as a means of building,
promoting and strengthening Jewish communal life in
each of the cities in which we operate.

Our goal is to help build community. And we try to
do that with our communal publications. In addition to
our work with the Jewish Exponent, we own and pub-
lish the Washington Jewish Week and Baltimore Jewish
Times, and provide select media services for Pittsburgh’s
Jewish Chronicle and Phoenix Jewish News. In each city
in which we operate we focus on promoting local Jewish
institutions, organizations, leaders and everyday people
who make up the rich mixture of our diverse and far-
flung Jewish communities. And through the economies
of scale, which enables us to consolidate many of our
back-office and business functions, we have established
a model of operation that has enabled us to grow.

You can expect to see some modest changes in
the appearance, focus and content of your weekly
Jewish Exponent. In addition to a change in format
— which you will see with this edition — we are also
moving toward a more local focus for our stories and
reporting. Under this approach, you will hopefully
see local stories not covered elsewhere, and highlights
of people, events and institutions that are unique
to Jewish Philadelphia. We will feature a weekly
Synagogue Spotlight, introduce you to people in our
You Should Know column and highlight communal
leaders and up and coming personalities in a variety
of feature articles. We will also proudly include a
weekly Federation page, where the Jewish Federation
of Greater Philadelphia will keep you up to date on
events, stories and accomplishments of Philadelphia’s
premier Jewish communal organization.

We will also feature weekly editorials and diverse
op-ed pieces which we hope will be of interest to you
— even if you won’t always agree with all of the views
expressed. And regardless of whether you agree or
disagree with us, we hope you will let us know how
we are doing.

We welcome your input, value your opinion and look
forward to hearing from you through letters, website
posts, emails to our editor and staff reporters, and your
participation on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
pages. JE
High School Should Be Upsetting
H BY SAMUEL J. ABRAMS
igh school students today must be put
through the gauntlet of confronting real
viewpoint diversity and learning to man-
age differences if our nation is to move out of its cur-
rent polarized paralysis and actually create citizens.

My thoughts about high school came into sharp
focus recently when I had the opportunity to share
some ideas with the Academic Engagement Network,
a collegiate faculty group that seeks to oppose efforts
to delegitimize Israel and also to promote campus
free expression and academic freedom.

While I knew my words about open inquiry would
resonate with most attendees, I framed them around
my own experiences in high school, college and now
as a professor. In sharing my story, I was reminded
that too many high school students today are leaving
school ill-prepared for life in a raucous, diverse and
polarized society such as ours.

When students head off to higher education, they
enter a world with mob rule and a leftist orthodoxy
that dictates the curriculum in many places and
regularly produces young adults who are utterly
incapable of thinking critically, much less able to
contemplate belief systems that challenge their own.

To combat the indoctrination on our nation’s col-
lege and university campuses and train good citizens
more generally, I realized that high schools must be
the area of focus for all Americans, for it is in one’s
teens that so much value formation occurs, and thus
the skills and ability to question, debate and think is
critically formed.

In my high school experience in a pluralistic,
non-denominational Jewish day school in the
Philadelphia area, I came face to face with questions
that challenged my identity and worldview on an
almost-daily basis.

At Akiba Hebrew Academy (now Jack M. Barrack
Hebrew Academy), I had no choice but to form
my own opinions on a wide swath of issues from
Sabbath observance to questions of gender equity and
keeping kosher, as part of a student body was com-
prised of students who grew up in gender-segregated
Orthodox communities and others ate pepperoni
pizza and treated Saturdays like any other day off.

The wide band of beliefs and practices at Akiba forced
me and my classmates to not only think deeply about
our values but to understand and respect the views of
those who thought and lived differently than ourselves.

Some days were awkward and uncomfortable, but that
is part of learning and finding one’s voice.

These lessons have been critical to my teaching,
research, writing and commitment to diversity in the
25 years since I graduated.

This unusual and deeply pluralistic approach to
education is exactly what is missing in so many
curricula around the nation today, religious or oth-
erwise. Even today, the school states that its students
“engage energetically, intentionally, and consciously
with diversity” and actively seek “understanding
through meaningful, respectful dialogue” which
results in graduates who are prepared to confront the
complexities of the world.

Without such commitments from our schools,
where will young people learn the ability to
compromise and accept others’ views as valid and
legitimate? It certainly won’t happen in college.

See Abrams, Page 16
Letters should be related to articles that have run in the print or
online editions of the JE, and may be edited for space and clarity
prior to publication. Please include your first and last name,
as well your town/neighborhood of residence. Send letters to
letters@jewishexponent.com. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
15