Leading rabbis in the United States and Israel are contemplating whether to prohibit Jewish conversion for individuals who have participated in anti-Israel demonstrations. In recent months, multiple rabbis, primarily in the US, have grappled with the issue of converting individuals who display clear anti-Israel sentiments yet seek to join the Jewish faith, forcing them to decide whether this constitutes a deal-breaker. While no actual ban has been implemented on any specific protester to date, such a decision appears to be imminent.

Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, a prominent young rabbi in the United States, has delved deeply into this question. He recently approached both chief rabbis, Rabbi Kalman Ber and Rabbi David Yosef, with this inquiry. Simultaneously, he consulted several well-known rabbis in Israel, with Rabbi David Stav explicitly ruling that such individuals should not be converted.

"In the past year, a renewed wave of hatred toward Israel has swept the world," Rabbi Poupko wrote to the chief rabbis. He noted that these individuals are effectively Israel-haters, even though they "claim they don't hate Israel and that all their talk stems from compassion for the Palestinian people and their desire to help them." These protesters "demonstrate in front of synagogues, study halls, and Jewish schools, harass Israelis, assault them, and engage in various other forms of persecution, as well as write about Israel as if they were evil murderers, blood libels similar to what Israel-haters did in previous generations."

Rabbi Poupko mentioned that at least one rabbinical court in the US encountered a case where an individual who participated in anti-Israel protests sought conversion, raising questions about the process.

"While they accepted the commandments to live as an observant Jew, and the court found no fault in their observance of Sabbath, kosher laws, and so forth, they discovered the individual had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and questioned whether this fact diminishes the acceptance of this person as a convert," he wrote.

The reason, according to him, is that since this person actively harms Jews, they distance themselves from Judaism, even if they are willing to accept the religious laws. "By choosing to participate with Israel's enemies against the majority of the Jewish people who live in the Land of Israel, even though they said 'your God is my God,' it is nevertheless inconceivable to convert them."

Rabbi David Stav, rabbi of Shoham and chairman of the Tzohar organization, has already determined that in his view, there is a prohibition against converting such protest participants. In response to Rabbi Poupko's inquiry, the rabbi explicitly wrote: "This is a very weighty question. The foundation of conversion is joining the Jewish people. Someone who hates the Jewish people and its national expressions cannot be part of it. Of course, one must examine them and see if they have abandoned these views, but if not – it is not right to accept them."

Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon, rabbi of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, also addressed the issue. He noted that it's necessary to examine whether the participation stems from alienation from the Jewish people or if it's highly inappropriate but localized behavior. "It's clear that participating in such demonstrations is a serious transgression," he wrote, explaining that this stems from violating commandments such as "love your neighbor as yourself" and "do not stand idly by your neighbor's blood." According to him, "It is certainly forbidden to encourage and assist those who fight and harm Jews."

"Since if a convert doesn't accept even one commandment we cannot convert them, it appears we cannot accept this convert as long as they intend to continue committing this transgression and participating in these demonstrations," he stated. He further clarified that the entire essence of conversion is connecting to Israel, and therefore "If they indeed find themselves identifying with Israel's enemies and antisemitic movements rather than with their Jewish brothers and sisters, then the very essence of conversion does not exist here."

Rabbi Rimon clarified that one must examine whether the conversion itself would create harm to the Jewish people, but if the irregular behavior is limited to demonstration participation, it's not clear that conversion would create harm. Therefore, he recommended speaking directly with the conversion candidate to clarify that these are actions with serious implications. "If they repent – good, and if they don't repent – we must examine whether this is a local logical failure or if the convert truly opposes the Jewish people, and if so, there is no place to convert them."

Rabbi Poupko, who has dealt extensively with this issue, wrote an article on the subject that is expected to be published in the Techumin journal. In the article, he noted, "There is no doubt that the rabbinical court has been given authority to accept or reject the convert based on their understanding of the worldview and commandments that the convert accepts upon themselves, and to what extent they believe they will continue on the path of Torah and commandments after conversion." Therefore, "Since this convert who demonstrates against Israel comes before a more general rabbinical court, the court can tell them that their worldview is not their worldview... they can and must tell them that they cannot accept them."

In such a case, he suggested, that convert is invited to go to a rabbinical court of ultra-Orthodox groups that oppose Israel, such as Satmar or Neturei Karta, and they will make the decision. "It's impossible to accept both positions. They cannot follow the conditions of Jewish law and customs of the Satmar Hasidic movement while also opposing the Jewish people's residence in their land."

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110 leading American rabbis have united in an unprecedented action, signing a petition calling for a boycott of Portland, Maine, following the city council's September decision to cut economic ties with Israel and divest from the country.

The anti-Israel resolution came after lobbying efforts by Maine for Palestine, a Muslim organization in the state, and the JVP – Jewish Voice for Peace Maine chapter. Citing "the ongoing killing of Palestinians in Gaza," the city moved to boycott major corporations including Intel, Boeing, and Caterpillar. In a subsequent development last month, Mayor Mark Dion issued a public apology for his vote, acknowledging it as a "serious error in judgment" and "a betrayal of trust of Jewish people."

The initiative, spearheaded by Rabbi Dovid Asher of Virginia, will appear as a full-page advertisement in newspapers, bearing signatures from prominent religious leaders including Rabbi Pini Dunner of Beverly Hills, Rabbi Menachem Penner, Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, Rabbi Yamin Levy of Long Island, Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, and Rabbi Shaul Robinson of Manhattan's Lincoln Square Synagogue.

In their forceful statement, the rabbis declared, "We, the undersigned, sign our names to publicly express our hurt and outrage at the City of Portland for their one-sided action against the State of Israel. While we all love the State of Israel, this letter is not about our support for Israel but rather to inform the City of Portland about the deep pain and lasting damage they have caused to the American Jewish community."

The letter emphasized the dangerous implications of Portland's action: "Portland's decision to align with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign only fuels the current surge of antisemitism that has overwhelmed our country. FBI statistics have repeatedly shown that more than one in two religious hate crimes are perpetrated against ethnic and religious Jews. Hatred rises where BDS is present. Religious persecution is caused by the demonization and the delegitimization of minorities, often resulting in the targeting of the Jewish community."

The religious leaders pointed out Portland's selective criticism, noting that the city overlooked 120 active conflicts worldwide, including Sudan's civil war with its significant civilian casualties: "it is very disheartening to see Portland focusing its criticism solely on the one Jewish state, grappling with the painful complexities of war and defense against Iran's proxies," they stated.

"Every conflict, every civilian casualty, deserves equal attention and compassion. Rather than embracing a Jewish community still reeling from the shock of the heinous October 7th massacre and the aftershocks of record-high global antisemitic incidents, the Portland City Council has decided to set a double standard that inspires and encourages antisemitism across the United States.

"Whereas, the City of Portland has departed from its natural order by taking sides in a horrific and bloody international conflict, be it advised that we, the undersigned, call upon our congregants and constituencies to avoid doing business with any municipality that anchors hatred of Jews within its bylaws by placing another yellow star upon a Jewish entity. This resolution may also run afoul of anti-discrimination legislation and executive orders passed by 38 states, thereby risking termination of the ongoing contracts it has with them," the rabbis wrote in an unprecedented move.

"We ask our memberships and all people of good conscience, who support the democratic racially diverse leading role of America in the Middle East, to avoid patronizing and financially contributing to the City of Portland until such repeal of the targeted divestment takes effect," they added. The rabbis concluded with a conciliatory note: "With apologies to all fair-minded Portlanders, we hope and pray these actions help restore your city to a more equitable tolerance for all peoples."

The post US rabbis call for boycott of Portland over antisemitic policy move appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Shalom Boguslavsky's new book boasts probably the longest book title you have ever read: "The Unlikely and Oft-Overlooked Story of the Rise and Fall of Jewish Eastern Europe." The first sentence in this highly popular history book, written by the tour guide, lecturer and blogger, who has a strong passion for Eastern Europe, proudly tells us that, "It is a ridiculous feat to recount five hundred years of history in one book."  But Boguslavsky was forced to tell this story in one book as it is precisely this 500-year period from the 15th century to the Holocaust that creates a clear narrative arc: at the start of the 16th century (the period of the Expulsion of the Jews of Spain, the growing strength of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of America by the Europeans) there were only a few tens of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe; by the mid-18th century (prior to the American War of Independence and the French Revolution) this number had already grown to 750 thousand; and by the end of the 19th century (the birth of Zionism, the eve of the First World War, against the backdrop of a tremendous wave of emigration to America), there were some 6.5 million Jews there.

But Boguslavsky's book does not necessarily deal with these relatively well-known global events, which accompanied the rise of Judaism in Eastern Europe, but actually focuses on the no less interesting but much less remembered (or "oft-overlooked" in his words) developments of that particular area. Who are the people and the cultures who shared the Eastern-European domain with the Jews? What is the connection between the Jewish mythology of that period – the shtetl, the incessant battles between the Hasidim and the Litvaks (the Misnagedim or "opponents" who later took on the term Litvaks as they came from Lithuania) and so on – and the reality of the other surrounding nations and states? Our inability to perceive the conditions leading to the development of such a major force in world Jewry, does to a large extent underscore the importance of one of the maps presented at the beginning of the book: that large land of two kingdoms Poland-Lithuania, which at the time encompassed Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Kaliningrad. This is an immense swathe of land that has changed over the years, it expanded and was later downsized, it was partitioned and then reunited, and for the duration of those hundreds of years it was plagued by revolutions no less than those occurring in Western Europe. This certainly had an impact on the Jewish population.

Boguslavsky's interest in the Jews of Eastern Europe began as a necessary part of his profession. "I began to travel to Eastern Europe, mainly to Ukraine, due to personal circumstances, and also as I was extremely interested by it," recounts Boguslavsky. "The more I traveled the more I became captivated with it, and I thought: I travel in any event and deal with guiding and tourism, so why shouldn't they pay me for those trips? So, I began to take groups of tourists with me. I obviously needed to engage in an orderly effort to learn the relevant material so as not to talk garbage when providing commentary on the sites in question. When I learned the general history of those places, it cast Jewish history in a completely different light, and gave me the broader context that I had been missing until then, and that people usually are not aware of. The second thing that happened is that I was overly critical of certain images that had been traditionally associated with the Jews of Eastern Europe. They still remained firmly implanted in my head, but then, gradually I began to see things that did not really fit in with those images."

The first thing that Boguslavsky noticed, which contradicted those preconceptions that had "been implanted in his head," he claims was the number of Jews spread across the lands of Eastern Europe. "There were simply masses of Jews there," he says. "At some point, more than three-quarters of world Jewry were concentrated in that region. This was information that was already available, but it became much more present and tangible when I was there and saw the little that remained of it with my own eyes. It is still possible to feel the prominent presence of the Jews in that region to this day. The first example that caused me to understand this was one of the remains of the synagogues that I saw. Even the little that remained of it was extremely grand and majestic. I thought to myself that it is from the literature written about that period, rather than the academic research, that we always tend to gain the impression of the small, shabby and pitiful shtetl with the non-Jews on one side of the river and the Jews on the other side, and everything is so small and abjectly impoverished. And then, all of a sudden, you see a synagogue hewn from stone in the center of the town, a magnificent edifice built by the King of Poland's own personal architect. Thus, a number of factors began to accumulate that did not correspond with the image that I had entertained, and so I began to delve into this subject a little more.

"In the beginning, I thought to myself, 'Wow, how smart I am, I have unearthed completely new ground here,' but as soon as I began to read I immediately grasped that I had not uncovered anything at all. Everything that I thought I understood – the world of academic research already knew. Prof. Majer Bałaban, Prof. Israel Heilperin and all the leading lights in this field have already written everything there is to write much more eloquently than I could write. But it transpires that there is a gap between what is known to the world of academic study and the popular perception of things. And I, in my profession, am supposed to give this out to people who do not hail from an academic background or who have been dealing with such issues for their entire lives. And so, this is how I decided to take the leap and try and bridge that gap."

Where did the Cossacks come from?

The book weaves the general history of the region with the local Jewish history and the Jewish memory, or the Jewish mythology of Eastern Europe. Familiarity with the broader view of the story, says Boguslavsky, sheds a different light on our story, that of the Jews. "If you ask historians dealing with Jewish history what was the greatest event that occurred in the last third of the 18th century, the rise of the Hasidic movement will always stand out together with the bitter split between the Hasidim and the Misnagedim, Boguslavsky points out. "Ostensibly, this is an internal Jewish theological-ideological dispute, a fight for the spiritual leadership of the Jews, and similar issues. However, when you study the wider picture, you come to understand that all this took place in parallel to the Civil War, revolutions, invasions, and severe internal political strife in the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. The Jews were involved in all these affairs. At that time, the historic Four-Year Sejm (Parliament) discussions were well underway, which were intended to determine the fate of the kingdom, and the Jews sent their emissaries to it, took part in the rebellions, and played an important role in the wars – both as victims but also as fighters, here and there. So, to what extent did the Jews who lived at that time really regard the halakhic disputes, such as the question of whether it is permitted to stand on your head during prayers, as a central issue? I don't know and there is no way of checking this. But we really should not be telling our story without the broader context."

How does that context have a specific impact?

"The issue of the denunciatory letters sent by opponents of Hasidism to the Russian government is a central pillar in the conflict between the Hasidim and the Misnagedim. I have heard this story more times than I care to remember, and I have never come across anybody who mentions that there is a wider context to the use of such a tool: the Russian government in those areas, which were given over to Russia following the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom, was completely new, it had just materialized there. So, everybody was trying hard to prove to the new administration that they were loyal to it and that the other side was full of treachery and plans to undermine it. This is also a government, and once again it is important to mention here the wider context, which until that point had not come across any Jews at all. Until that time, there had been no Jews in Russia so that its government had absolutely no idea who these people were and what was happening among the Jews. So now, each side was convinced that it had been presented with a golden opportunity to go to the new administration and present to it the reality of the situation as it saw it, and in a manner that would support its own cause.

"This is not the only context. This dispute is also connected to the processes of modernization that were just beginning to take shape at that time. The leadership crisis in the Jewish world that led to the rise of Hasidism is a direct outcome of the crisis of modernity. The Enlightenment is not the only thing that was born out of that crisis. Hasidism too, as well as the Misnagedim movement, along with the Enlightenment, are modern phenomena. These are three distinct movements that appear at the same time, against the same background, and under the same circumstances. I believe that this puts the whole story in a much more interesting context than the purely internal Jewish theological and sociological aspect that it has been customary to talk about."

Another example is that of the Khmelnytsky Uprising in the mid-17th century, clearly one of the more severe traumas that is indelibly etched in Jewish historical memory – but without any context. "The story usually goes something like this: people called Cossacks, known by and familiar to only a handful of people, suddenly appeared from nowhere, and they slaughtered us because they are antisemites with a deep-rooted hatred of anything Jewish," says Boguslavsky. "The truth is that this is correct, as who did not hate Jews during that period? Having said that, when you zoom out from what was clearly a horrific series of pogroms, you see a historical event in dimensions that are reminiscent of the Thirty Years' War, one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in Western European history, which was just coming to an end when the Khmelnytsky Uprising began. We are talking about several decades of wars resulting in millions of dead and wounded, with a whole spectrum of factors involved. An epic drama of which we remember an episode that lasted for a year and a half and which was not necessarily the most fatal event for the Jews at that time, but regarding which the most eloquent text was written, which also survived, the book "Yeven Mezulah" or the "Abyss of Despair", written by Rabbi Nathan Nata ben Moses Hannover. What would have happened had this book not been written or had it not survived? We might have completely forgotten about this event or not even known about it."

A highly selective memory

The book is replete with figures we have heard of, but also brings to life from the 'abyss of despair' colorful characters, who might not have left a personal stamp on history but their stories are no less riveting. One of these figures, whose story to a large extent is the story of the entire period, is Fabus Abramovich of Kraków. "A rogue and a con artist who took over the community in Kraków at the end of the 18th century. This is an amazing story. He was the leader of the opposition in the community. In the Jewish communities of that period, an oligarchy comprising just a few families was able to rule all the community institutions for more than a hundred years on occasion, even though elections were actually held annually. In terms of the situation in those days, this was one of the most democratic forms of government that existed on Earth, but such an oligarchy also gives rise to opposition, which is usually composed of those people who were not given the jobs that they believed they ought to have been given. In the 18th century, when the initial buds of mass politics were just beginning to sprout, the opposition began to portray itself as ostensibly being the force that represents the 'simple people' against the 'arrogant elite'. Of course, had they succeeded and risen to power they would have acted precisely as those preceding them did. These struggles were always a sordid affair, but the events in the community of Kraków were especially sordid and violent.

"Our man, Abramovich, took advantage of the fact that Kraków was conquered time and again by various forces during the period of the partition of Poland-Lithuania. Against the background of this tumult, he succeeded in creating a devious bureaucratic manipulation that would appoint him as a dictator to rule over the community. Jewish communities in Europe were run for hundreds of years by a joint leadership of four 'parnasim' (heads of the community), each one running the community for one month at a time on a rotation. Underneath the parnasim were the 'tovei ha'ir', the good (elder) citizens, who themselves were above the rest of the community. This form of government, which has roots in the Hellenistic-Roman world, ensured decentralization of power, creating checks and balances. The community rabbi too had his own form of power. Abramovich left this entire structure in place in Kraków but then placed himself above it all as a sort of dictator. He managed to convince the community that the governor had appointed him to this position; while he persuaded the governor that the community had asked him to assume that position. He relied on the fact that both sides would fail to uncover the deception.

"In the end, it failed, and the deception was indeed exposed. This story, apart from the fact that it is extremely entertaining, reflects the fact that the leadership structure of the Jewish communities, which worked so well for hundreds of years, had ceased to function by the end of the 18th century. Due to its inherent weakness, all sorts of issues began to crop up, such as the Hasidic takeover and manipulations such as that of Abramovich.'"

One of the declared goals of the book is to change the image of Jewish Eastern Europe. "The image that we have is of a later period, the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century. The period about which authors such as Sholem Aleichem and others wrote, the era of mass emigration to America, was one rife with crises. People tend to emigrate when bad things occur. The Jewish town was old and decrepit at that point, and the majority of the Jews were living under the rule of the Russian Empire, an extremely despotic and antisemitic form of government. This is the period addressed by the literature with which we are familiar and these are the memories that people carry with them.

One of the declared goals of the book is to change the image of Jewish Eastern Europe. "The image that we have is of a later period, the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century. The period about which authors such as Sholem Aleichem and others wrote, the era of mass emigration to America, was one rife with crises. People tend to emigrate when bad things occur. The Jewish town was old and decrepit at that point, and the majority of the Jews were living under the rule of the Russian Empire, an extremely despotic and antisemitic form of government. This is the period addressed by the literature with which we are familiar and these are the memories that people carry with them. They are not historians, they do not have an overall perception of the periods from the 15th century onwards, in some of which life was better and in some it was much worse. They are familiar with what they remember, and the tendency is to assume that the reality with which we are familiar is the fixed, permanent situation. This picture is not completely baseless, although it is somewhat exaggerated, and this is the death knell. But we are interested in the entire period, not only the demise but also the ascendancy and the golden period of prosperity.

"To all of this, we need to add the existing image that we have regarding Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the rest of the places that make up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. We regard these as being extremely antisemitic areas, where the local inhabitants are breastfed on antisemitism. This has always been a matter of concern for me. Could the Jews be such complete idiots who specifically went to those places where they were so hated? That is simply not logical. If so many Jews chose to live there of all places, this must mean one of two things. Either the fact that there were so many Jews there led to the hatred of our people, and this is not very flattering for us as Jews, or that the situation there was not as bad as in other places.

"And lo and behold, just as it was clear to anybody living throughout those eras, it was indeed not as bad there. In other places, where we do not regard the local inhabitants to be antisemites from birth, they simply did not allow the Jews to settle among them. The best method of not being attributed the current image of an antisemite was prevalent already back in the Middle Ages, by expelling all the Jews, and in this manner, nobody would accuse you of antisemitism. This is the reason why nobody accuses the English of being antisemitic. They threw out all the Jews back in the 12th century and since then, everything there has been just 'peachy keen'. The Jews lived in Eastern European countries and thus they were subject there to the best things and the worst things too. And it is from here too that we have the most historical sources and memories."

The fact that masses of Jews lived in this region distorts the perception as to the actual scope of persecution of the Jews. "If a war is being waged – and wars at the time were without intervention from the High Court of Justice or human rights groups such as B'Tselem, with armies massacring civilian populations without any remorse, just for the fun of it – then in a place that was home to tens of thousands of Jews, then it is a predictable consequence that hundreds and thousands of Jews would be killed. If the same type of war occurs elsewhere, where only a few thousand Jews were living, then a few dozen or perhaps a few hundred Jews would be killed. Clearly, thousands of Jews being killed leaves a much more lasting impression, but this does not necessarily mean that the warlords and the soldiers in those places with a much denser Jewish population were more antisemitic. We remember one event, and the other, smaller event, we have never heard of – and this is what shapes the story."

Their rise and fall

The book paints the rise of Jewish Eastern Europe in bold colors along with the years of its glory and grandeur, but it also focuses equally on the long and hard years of its demise. Boguslavsky succeeds in persuading the reader of the existence of a strong bond between the overall geopolitical processes and the severe crisis experienced by the Jewish population. "In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Jews developed into a status of their own within the feudal order, just like the classic classes of the nobility, the peasants and the bourgeois," he explains. "In Poland-Lithuania there were two parallel urban classes: A Christian urban class and a Jewish urban class, more or less equal in size. One of the issues that set the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth apart from Western Europe was that it was engaged in the conquest and settlement of non-developed lands, mainly in Ukraine and Belarus. In the process of the settlement and regulatory organization of these territories, the government and the nobility encouraged different types of people to settle there: urban dwellers, peasants, and Cossacks. The Jews had good reason to take an interest in settling down there, as they had been pushed aside and removed from other locations, and this led to a situation whereby they developed into an extremely important factor in these areas.

"Therefore, the entire system in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became dependent on the Jews in relation to a number of matters – for example, in the mediation efforts between the nobility and the peasants, or in the field of public administration. Somebody had to manage the estates, postal services, fishponds, and forests. The concept of a 'leaseholder', which is very familiar to us from Jewish literature, comes from here. Leaseholding is the accepted method of management in the feudal regime – a type of privatization: the government or the noblemen who own the estate do not manage the day-to-day running of the lands on their own. They issue a 'tender' and then check to see who is ready to run everything and pass on the profits to them. This is privatization in its pre-modern form. The Jews were also responsible for the transportation of goods. The peasants would grow agricultural produce and the Jews would then export this. The local Jewish merchant purchased the goods from the peasants and then sold them wholesale at a regional fair, and from here the produce was then transferred to the next fair, and it would proceed from one fair to another until it was eventually shipped abroad. The imported goods would also be passed on via the Jews. The result is that large parts of the largest country in Europe were simply unable to function without the Jews.

"In other places, the Jews were not involved in leaseholding. In Medieval times, the Jews were traditionally involved in commerce, but here the commerce actually moved aside somewhat in favor of the leaseholding. This is based on the fact that the Polish nobility took control of the Jews in the 16th century: the Parliament of Nobles was much more powerful than the king, and the nobles simply succeeded in taking control of the asset that was called the Jews. They took it from the king for themselves, just as they took other assets, and in essence, they used the Jews for whatever they deemed to be important to them."

All this was turned on its head once modernity appeared at the doorway and the social order was undermined. "The nobility began to decline and the state became more centralized. During this modern era, the king was not made any weaker and actually gained power: suddenly there was no such thing as every nobleman doing whatever took his fancy. And so, the status of the Jews was undermined. Their unique role was eroded. And as soon as the Jews become like everybody else, then those selfsame 'everybody elses' no longer wished for the Jews to be part of them. And this is what leads to their demise. Prior to the rise of nationalism, society was divided up into groups – there were nobles and peasants, there were Catholics and Protestants, and there were also Jews. But, then when all of a sudden there is a collective identity, the question inevitably arises: Are the Jews really part of it? These questions arise and this is also the trigger for the revival of Jewish nationalism, which did not occur in a vacuum, disconnected from what was happening in the greater environment surrounding the Jews at that time."

Jewish Eastern Europe has become a genuine magnet for young Israelis these days. Do you understand why this is happening at this specific juncture?

"The truth is that I have no clear answer to this. I can however hazard a guess: This is a reaction to the dismissal of the Diaspora, which was an extremely acceptable approach in Israel until not so long ago. People who made aliyah from Eastern Europe preferred to leave behind what was there, but after a few generations there is no longer any sense of urgency to escape from this, and now, all of a sudden, they are beginning to show interest and they really wish to learn. This is part of a natural process of searching for your roots, even among today's youngsters. The discourse surrounding identities picked apart the liberal 'Israeli' identity, and so young people whose families came from Eastern Europe are now asking themselves why everybody has an identity apart from me. Suddenly everybody is looking for their own personal identity."

Boguslavsky (47), a resident of Jerusalem ever since he made aliyah at the age of five, is married with two children. Until a number of years ago, he was known to the followers of the blog entitled "Drop the Scissors and Let's Talk about it". Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he became a social media influencer and even almost a media star. The strongly opinionated and well-reasoned analyses he published on social media regarding the war attracted considerable attention, turning him into one of the leading commentators in that field for some time, even though he is neither a journalist nor an academic researcher of the conflict.

"It became a part of my routine," he says. "I used to travel to Ukraine several times a year, I have friends there, colleagues, acquaintances, and relatives, and so when the war broke out, it naturally preoccupied me and is still doing so. Writing on that topic provided me with a form of escapism. This is a war that I felt was 'close to home' so that by writing about it on a more intellectual level, I was able to stand back and distance myself from it to some extent. Apart from that, I also saw that many people were writing nonsense about what was going on there and that really annoyed me.

"Truth be told, this is often the trigger that gives me the impetus to start writing: I see that someone else is writing absolute baloney and I feel a need to correct them. That's the reason that people write on the internet, no? And indeed, the knowledge that people in the West and in Israel have about Ukraine is sorely lacking, to put it delicately. I don't claim to be an expert on that country, but in view of the overall paucity in that field I am a genuine 'lily in a field of thorns'. The professional experts, almost all of them, are experts on Russia – and based on their expertise on Russia they tend to extrapolate and project their knowledge onto other post-Soviet states, usually looking at issues via a Russian prism. This is why what they said was hot air, and somebody had to portray a different picture of things and write less nonsense. I'm sure that there are those who will beg to differ but this is how I saw things."

You have recently ceased to write about this topic.

"I don't like repeating myself. If I have written something a number of times, then I get fed up. In addition, during the initial months of the war I spent long hours, often close to 12 hours a day, just going over all sorts of Telegram channels and other sources of information in a variety of languages in order to get my hands on the rawest of information available. It is not possible to go on living in that fashion for a long time. So today, I still try and keep up to date but not with the same intensity.

"And also – I wore myself out. There is a limit to the number of atrocities to which you can become exposed. When October 7 came round, I had already developed the ability, even before you actually see what is in the photo, to scroll down the feed as you know that this will be a trigger. Your finger knows to skip over it before your eye identifies what is in the image, because you really need to maintain your sanity."

The post Beyond 'Fiddler on the Roof': The untold story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Have you ever wondered where the cute rabbits you see in pet zoos and pet stores come from? At Israel Hayom, we took a rare glimpse into a rabbit breeding center (name withheld), from which we discovered a terrible trend – rabbits are being "produced" for sale.

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The documentation reveals a grim reality, where rabbits are kept in isolation, in cages exposed to the sun and in high density, without the possibility of hiding or burrowing, a sight reminiscent of the battery cages associated with the egg industry. While animal cruelty regulations were established last year that will gradually remove these cages from use in poultry farming – they are still used legally to breed rabbits.

Video: Rabbits in petting zoos and stores exposed to direct sunlight

"It's an industry, in the full sense of the word," says attorney Erez Wall, director of the Legal Department of the nonprofit Let the Animals Live. "The rabbits are both the product and the manufacturing machines and less important to the breeder than the bottom line."

According to Wohl, all violations of the regulations were corrected in both the breeding center documented and in other breeding centers; however, the rabbits' lives are still full of exploitation and loneliness – and extremely different from how rabbits would live in nature. "Even though rabbits are social animals, in the discussion of the issue that took place in court, the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture – who is supposed to enforce the law – insisted that it is unreasonable for breeders to be required to keep rabbits in groups, even if it is possible for breeders to do so in a breeding facility that holds hundreds of rabbits for long periods of time," Wall added.

The rabbit industry in Israel focuses on keeping them in zoos, petting zoos, and in private homes; however, the industry bases its breeding methods on methods common in Europe. As part of the court motions the breeding centers owners filed in court, they claimed that the cages bought are commonly used in Spain – one of the five leading countries on the continent in raising rabbits for slaughter. It is worth noting that the court recently rejected the nonprofit's petition on the subject, saying that "The applicant failed to point to the existence of the factual basis, according to which suffering was caused to the animals due to the way they were kept in the respondent's business."

Tamar Levi, director of the Born for Life animal shelter, where dozens of animals are kept who were rescued from pet stores, dog pounds, and homes, says that in the documentation you can see how a rabbit behaves in its natural environment. "Rabbits are fearful animals by nature. When they are not in a safe environment, that allows them distance and refuge from threatening animals, like humans, they suffer", she says. "They are very gentle animals. In petting zoos, they die from incorrect treatment and stress within six months."

The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for enforcing the law and its regulations; however, it is evident from the breeding center that was recorded that this enforcement was not very effective. According to sources familiar with the matter, this is a relatively minor case.

In an inspection conducted in a previous breeding center of the same breeder one year earlier, violations of the law were found – but for almost a year the Ministry of Agriculture did not bother to conduct additional inspections in the breeding center run by the same breeder. Only after the nonprofit's civil petition was submitted, and only upon the breeder's request, did the ministry bother to conduct an additional inspection.

"We feel that the Ministry of Agriculture's inspections are not done to protect the animals, but instead to torpedo our civil petition," Wall says. "We know of cases where the Animal Welfare Division of the ministry actually provided breeders who violated the law with legal advice behind the scenes, and in other cases informed the court that the violation of the animal welfare law and the judgments were done with its approval and guidance."

The Ministry of Agriculture issued the following response: "We reject the allegations made, and the evidence – in this case, the court also ruled that the nonprofit asked breeders to act according to criteria that have not been clearly defined by laws or regulations. The procedures conducted by the nonprofit without prior consultation on the subject create confusion among breeders and aim to torpedo the common goal of the Ministry of Agriculture and organizations for the sake of animals.

"Regarding the case described, as part of an inspection conducted at the breeding center, the Ministry of Agriculture's inspectors found shortcomings that constitute an apparent violation of the regulations, and the breeder was summoned for an investigation that has not yet ended, and therefore we cannot go into detail. However, it should be noted that additional inspections have been conducted there since then, the deficiencies were corrected, and no new or repeated violations have been found".

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Ukraine's Jewish communities are preparing for an unusually tense Shabbat, without knowing if they will be under Russian or Ukrainian rule when the Sabbath is over, or what the war will bring.

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Synagogues in the country were under heavy security for fear of looting and antisemitic attacks.

"I don't have the faintest idea what will happen here on Shabbat. The last time sirens sounded in the city was probably during World War II," said Rabbi Ariel Markovitch, head of the Israeli congregation in Kyiv and the son of Chabad House Rabbi Jonathan Markovitch.

Rabbi Ariel, his family, and other people were at Kyiv's Chabad House, which was stocked with food and extra mattresses.

The head of security at the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, an umbrella organization that represents 160 Jewish communities throughout the country, urged Ukrainian Jews to stay at home in accordance with local government instructions and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's request that all Ukrainians do the same.

The federation recommended that "everyone pray at home this Shabbat."

Rabbi Baruch Efrati explained that because Ukraine is in a state of emergency and lives are at stake, the principle of pikuach nefesh is in effect, making it permissible to leave cellular phones on during Shabbat, and if there is no alternative, radios.

"Jews living in war zones can reach an agreement with non-Jewish friends or neighbors that if anything unusual happens that demands movement or organization, they will call. Therefore, cell phones can be kept on for Shabbat. If there is no non-Jew, or concern that they will not inform Jews, then a radio can be kept on if tuned to a station that mainly provides news," Efrai said.

In an emergency meeting held Thursday, community rabbis in Ukraine decided to stay in their cities to help the local residents at this difficult time. The meeting also decided that families of emissaries would also remain, because it would be safer for them to stay in their homes than be on the roads.

Federation head Rabbi Meir Stembler said, "We're staying, and praying for it to be all right. Our job is to be with the communities, to help and calm them as much as possible during this war. We are already feeling shortages. People are hysterical because despite everything, no one believed that there would be an all-out offensive against Ukraine. We are organizing medicine, water, and food – including flour and dry goods – to last for a few weeks and distributing them to Holocaust survivors, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor so they can stay at home as much as possible."

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A senior New York Police Department official has formally confirmed that man reported to be a Lebanese Muslim masquerading as a Haredi Jewish man, who married a Jewish woman in a Haredi wedding ceremony in New York some two weeks ago, is in fact a Muslim from Lebanon.

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Speaking to The Yeshiva World website, NYPD Community Affairs Deputy Inspector Richie Taylor, an observant Jew, explained that the incident comprised "no credible threat to the Jewish community and there are no ties to this situation and terrorism."

Taylor's remarks sought to calm the community after rumors that the groom in question had ties to Hezbollah.

According to the original reports, the man – who called himself Eliyahu Haliwa, has admitted to both the NYPD and his wife that he is not Jewish. He says that he is not an anti-Semite and married a Jewish woman because he wanted to be Jewish. However, he had previous claimed that he worked for the National Security Agency and visited Israel, both of which are untrue.

Haliwa's story began some years ago, when he arrived at the University of Texas and tried to take part in the activity of Jewish groups on campus, including Chabad and Hillel. According to Lazarov, who manages the Chabad House at the university, Haliwa never studied in any Chabad-affiliated yeshiva and neither spoke nor read Hebrew.

After the start of the COVID pandemic, Haliwa met a girl from the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn via a dating site, where he presented himself as a religious Jew.

"When the relationship grew more serious, the girl reached out to me to check him out, and we – my wife and I, based on what we saw the few times he arrived for Shabbat dinner or to pray – that his lifestyle was not that of a religious Jew, to say the least," Lazarov said.

A few days ago, the man's new bride discovered – how remains unclear – that there were grounds to suspect that her husband wasn't Jewish at all, but rather a Shiite Muslim. According to various unconfirmed reports, the woman has sought shelter outside the couple's home.

Meanwhile, the local Jewish community continues to flagellate itself over the incident. After Rabbi Yosef Lazarov, who accompanied Haliwa to his chuppah, clarified that he had never looked into whether the groom was Jewish or not and said he was not involved in the engagement ceremony, Rabbi Ezra Zafrani, who prepared the couple's ketubah and sent his son, Rabbi David Zafrani, to conduct the engagement and marriage ceremonies, issued a public apology and accepted responsibility.

"I was completely misled by this man and others about his Judaism," Zafrani Sr. said in remarks published overnight on the site Haredim 10.

Zafrani admitted his mistake and said he had been wrong to allow the couple to marry without confirming the man's true identity ahead of time. "I'm amazed at myself for allowing this to happen, and I have no one else to blame. I have no words to describe the pain that this has caused our rabbis and our community. No apology can heal the wounds, but it must be made."

The rabbi has apologized to the bride's family and to the rabbis, and promised to be more careful in the future.

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Rabbis in Israel are launching a campaign against worshippers who refuse to be vaccinated for COVID and are enacting more stringent measures to protect congregations – including a recent rabbinical ruling that decrees that unvaccinated individuals may not enter synagogues, participate in a minyan, or be called to the Torah.

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Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan Yaakov Ariel, considered one of the leading halachic authorities in religious Zionism, has ruled that members of the community who decline to be vaccinated must face consequences for their actions, as they endanger others.

"A person who does not get vaccinated goes against Jewish law, which demands that people remain healthy. We need to demand that everyone be vaccinated," Ariel decreed.

"We must demand that unvaccinated people stay away from others. They should show respect by staying home and not infecting others. If someone like this arrives at a place where others are gathered, he [or she] must be asked to leave. Of course, not through violence, but he must not be allowed to remain [inside]," Ariel wrote.

"We must make the simple demand – do not cause us harm," the rabbi wrote.

Ariel underscored that individuals who refuse to be vaccinated "must not be allowed into synagogues, to participate in a minyan, or be called to the Torah." He said they could stay home or pray outside the synagogue.

Ariel joins a number of other leading rabbinical authorities in Israel who have adopted an almost unprecedented stance against vaccine refusal. This week, Rabbi Yitzhak Yehuda Yaroslavsky, a senior rabbi in the Chabad movement and head of the rabbinical court, also ruled that unvaccinated worshippers may not enter synagogues.

In related news, an unusual incident took place this week at a Torah lesson given by Rabbi Ben Zion Mutzafi. During the lesson, the rabbi argued with a student who claimed that "the Jewish people are not a laboratory" and said he believed in "the Creator."

Mutzafi was outraged and threw the student out. "More than 6,500 people have died," the rabbi told him. "Stop with your nonsense."

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In a letter recently sent to Tzohar organization heads, 12 local rabbis who say they were in the past "partners to Tzohar's marriage initiative [which helps couples marry independent of the direct involvement of the Chief Rabbinate]," which they called "a positive initiative that operated in conjunction with the Chief Rabbinate."

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It was at this stage that the rabbis said Tzohar garnered the support of a variety of rabbis, including many elders from the religious Zionist community.

However, over the years, the rabbis noted that support for the organization has diminished over its "crossing of red lines."

"Many activities were carried out over the years in the name of all the rabbis who perform marriage ceremonies that are unacceptable" to a majority of Israeli rabbis, they said. "All this without any internal dialogue between the rabbis in the organization and without a majority decision-making process," troubles them, they added.

According to the rabbis, "Red lines were recently crossed, and we can no longer remain silent. It seems the organization has begun to openly act against the … Chief Rabbinate, which is the spiritual center of the people and which rules on matters concerning all of Israel and the prominent signs of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

"The weakening of the Chief Rabbinate's power and independence could genuinely threaten to turn the country into a country of all its citizens," they warn.

The rabbis appear to have been most angered by Tzohar's food supervision initiative, which provides kosher certificates to a variety of restaurants across Israel. The rabbis noted that this particular initiative has been "met with enthusiasm by Reform rabbis and organizations [who are] fighting against the country's Jewish identity."

In addition, the rabbis criticized the Giyur K'Halacha conversion courts, which operate outside of the Chief Rabbinate. Although the courts are not run by Tzohar, the "organization heads constitute a central component in the organization," the rabbis said.

The rabbis also spoke out against "various comments by organization heads that slander the Chief Rabbinate" in their letter.

"The use of the public legitimacy afforded to Tzohar by the wedding initiative and in the name of rabbis who perform marriage ceremonies serves to creates a false impression that there are supposedly many rabbis who stand behind processes that reflect the position of a very small minority. The conduct heretofore described constitutes in practice the background for our resignation from the organization (at various stages during recent years) out of the sense that enough is enough."

The rabbis called on Tzohar to immediately cease this conduct, which they said "constitutes public deception" and "end any activity that harms Israel's Chief Rabbinate."

In a statement, Tzohar said, "Let's first get to the facts. Many of those signatories to the letter have never performed wedding ceremonies as part of the Tzohar organization of rabbis. Others have not belonged to Tzohar for over 10 years."

"Second, while we respect everyone's views, we find it odd that in a week in which it was decided to file an indictment for suspected robbery against a senior member of the rabbinate's kashrut system, the rabbis chose to criticize those who seek to improve the kashrut system. It is strange that these rabbis are defending a kashrut system that a majority of the rabbis in Israel do not themselves trust and demand nothing but exclusivity and a monopoly for themselves. Over the last year, hundreds of restaurants and businesses that were open on Shabbat and sold treif (non-kosher food) have joined Tzohar's kashrut system and are now closed on Shabbat and [are] kosher in accordance with stringent Jewish law."

It continued: "The organization will continue to promote Jewish identity in the State of Israel in the field of marriage and kashrut and a wide variety of other fields to boost Judaism's image in Israel and beyond."

Generally speaking, Tzohar has defined its main objective as "identifying national Jewish issues and successfully evolving workable solutions in response." The group seeks to provide "accessible, contemporary, friendly, no-strings, can-do" religious services, particularly in areas where the Chief Rabbinate's stringent approach poses obstacles for Israelis who are seeking religious services.

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The decision was announced Thursday in response to a legal challenge by non-Orthodox streams that called the exclusion of non-Orthodox rabbis discriminatory.

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Under the compromise reached with the petitioners, families of fallen soldiers would get to decide whether the ceremony would be officiated by a military rabbi, the default option, or whether to have it run by religious figures from other Jewish streams.

The new rules mean that Conservative and Reform rabbis, including women, will have the same status as Orthodox rabbis in military funerals even though they are not officially recognized by the state.

However, the military will still be allowed to veto a family's request if their choice of a rabbi would drastically change the burial procedures or undermine the sanctity of the chosen cemetery.

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