The 90`s

Musings, Ruminations and Observations

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of February 9th - February 15th, 1994

My favorite editor, Andrew Polic, (who is actually a pretty nice guy, but don't let that get around too much, he'll think I'm getting soft) cut-out a nice chunk of my last column, which, takes me comments and assertions about the Palestinian Arabs out-of-perspective.  So, here are the deleted portions:

I wrote about equating the reestablishment of the state of Israel with the Reconquista of Spain by the Spanish.  Here are the missing parts; "Much as the Spaniards of old were driven out by the invading Moors, so, too were Jewish hopes dashed in the middle of the seventh century by the Moslem Conquest and their successor regimes - but no matter who controlled the area, no one was able to eradicate the Jewish presence from the land.  There are seven some Galilean villages that survived intact from Second Temples times to this very day. We must stress again and again that we are not the alien presence in the land."

"Nineteenth Century accounts, too numerous to mention, clearly describe a Palestine that was virtually devoid of habitation and vegetation.   The majority of Palestinian Arabs are a pastiche of peoples, fused together from the flotsam and jetsam of the defunct Ottoman Empire and other Arabs who streamed into the country as a result of Jewish redevelopment and its concurrent creation of economic opportunity, much as Mexicans stream across the Rio Grande today.  Some others were brought in by the Ottomans - notably from the Caucasus region and from Egypt in an attempt to colonize Palestine."

The state of Palestine at the turn of the century was exactly as described in the Torah and the prophets - striking in its desolation and devastation, just as the holy writings said it would be without her people - the Jewish people.  Likewise, the re-blooming of the land is also as Scripture foretells along with the in-gathering of the Jewish people from "the four corners of the earth."

The gist of my last column was that we are the indigenous people of Israel.  The current peace process makes me nostalgic for the Labor party of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan.  Meir was emphatic that there was no such thing as a "Palestinian people" and that they were a no-people from no-place.  Right-wing Labor Party Knesset Member Ra'anan Cohen said in The Jerusalem Report that his party "has been hijacked by history and by the doves" and that "the country as a whole seems to have gone crazy."

Strange Intersections

There is a corner in downtown Ramat Gun (the number two municipality in the "Big Orange" Greater Tel Aviv metroplex) where Ben Gurion Avenue and Jabolinsky Street meet,  These are two men who were at loggerheads over the destiny of the Jewish people for decades. Ben Gurion represented unrepentant agrarian-nased labor socialism, Havlagah (restraint) regarding retaliation against Arab terror and accommodation with the British occupiers.

Jabotinsky represented free-market urbanized capitalism with swift and harsh retaliation against Arab terror and independence from the British yesterday, not tomrrow.

That intersection is more than a fluke and more than a metaphor.  Today's peace and appeasement madness among many of the Israeli masses has been made possible by a synthesis of many Laborite security/territorial/secular ideologies and those of capitalism and urbanization represented by the Likud.  In fact, it is a perverse reality that the booming Israeli economy, made possible by the foundation left by 15 years of Likud economic reforms has turned many an Israeli into Gordon Gecko (from the movie Wall Street.)

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange had $43 billion in turnover in 1993, up 55 percent over 1992.  More than 1,140 issues were traded, up from 777 in 1992. Some share prices were up by 1,400 percent.  Real Estate stocks were up 60 percent and assessed real estate values were up 60 percent and assessed real estate values were up 20 percent.  Israel is one of the only nations without a capital gains tax on profits derived from the stock market.

A new breed of Israeli has been born who is probably belongs to neither Labor or Likud.  This can best be seen by a story a friend of mine relates. While visiting Israel last month, meeting with bankers in Tel Aviv, the subject of the Golan came up.  The bankers all said, to the amazement of their visitor, "don't worry, if Rabin gives-back the Golan the stock market will go up by 50 percent." This friend of mine observes that this new Israeli believes in defense by means of a wall of stock certificates.  So protected does this new Israeli feel ensconced in his office towers and in front of his computer screens that he often can't see the forest for the trees.

This new Israeli is a Likudnik in economic terms (you can't sell socialism to him) but a Laborite on security/territorial issues.  It's no wonder leaders of both parties are mystified.

The Man From Haagen Dazs

Reuben Mattus passed away this week.  Known primarily as the creative genius behind Haagen Dazs ice cream, it is lesser-know that for decades now he was a principle benefactor for many, many right-of-center Jewish and Zionist organizations.  A great number of groups came to depend on Mattus' generosity for significant percentages of their budgets. It is fair to say that through his charitable proclivities Reuben Mattus had a big impact on Israel and the Jewish world today.  He was the Reichmann of ice cream, his help was greatly appreciated and he will be sorely missed. 

The Funny Papers

The New York Jewish Week has been running a spate of articles and columns lately that have been overtly disparaging to the Likud.  Among them was Ina Friedman's piece on Jan. 14 pretending and prognosticating the demise of the Likud (a tad premature given our stunning election victories in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheva and Eilat) and James D. Besser's column the next week decrying the penchant of Likud Members of Knesset visiting with their friends on Capitol Hill and lobbying American and Jewish public opinion against the Rabin-Arafat pact.  Besser further grouses (in the name of unnamed "Israeli officials") about Likud's successful fund raising in this country "that will be used in the effort to topple the Rabin government."

Besser and The Jewish Week both show no context and are disingenous because that fail to mention Shimon Peres' weekly jaunts to Washington while opposition leader and his efforts to topple the Shamir government and further fails to make mention of Labor's successful fund raising here both in the past and today which equals or exceeds that raised by the Likud people. 

It's All in the Numbers

It's what I've been saying all along, finally confirmed by official Israeli statistics: More Jews have died in tragic accidents in Israel than have died in all of Israel's war.  There were 17,700 soldiers who have fallen in the line of duty and 20,000 killed on-the-roads in traffic accidents. By the way, still, fewer Jews have died in all of Israel's wars than died in one day at Auschwitz.

 Now Playing

Finally, here is a shameless plug, the kind you'd see from a guest on Late Night with David Letterman: I'm going to be on TV on Sunday, Feb. 13, hosting a special program about Judea and Samaria.  In Manhattan, I'll be on Zev Brenner's Talkline Network, Channel 65  at 3:30 p.m. and again at 8 p.m. on Channel 34.  In South Florida, I'll be on JFTV at 6 p.m.

If you've always wanted to see me live, this is your chance.

The 90`s

What about our inherent and inalienable rights

Note:Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of January 26th - February 1st, 1994

Samuel Bronston died on January 12th.  He was not exactly a household name. Bronston was a big-time Hollywood movie producer.  Some of his epics include Jack London, Fall of the Roman Empire and El Cid.

You may remember El Cid, it was one of those grandiose Hollywood blockbusters, set in the past and featuring both a cast of thousands and Charlton Heston in the title role.  Sophia Loren was in the movie, too.

Heston, as always, played a giant larger-than-life hero who leads his people from bondage to freedom and whose fame is so widespread, he becomes legendary even among his enemies.

El Cid takes place in the Middle Ages during the Spanish Reconquista (or, reconquest) of the Iberian Peninsula from the marauding Moors.  You may recall your European history - the Moors, Arabs, really, invaded Spain around the same time they were plundering, or trying to plunder to rest of the known world in the seventh and eighth centuries.  The Moors did a pretty good job of pushing the Romanized Spaniards back practically into France. In what a became a Catholic Holy War, the Spanish undertook the Reconquista to drive-out the Moors and reclaim Iberia for the Spanish and the Catholic Church.  This effort took over 600 years, culminating in the fall of Grenada and the unification of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella.

The Spanish Reconquista is depicted in nearly every history book as having a high patina of piety  - being enshrined as one of Western Europe's most noble achievements - an accomplishment whose legitimacy it would be heresay to question.

Last month, The New York Times Magazine, that bastion of pro-Palestinian sensibilities ran an essay by a Professor Anton Shammas where the history of the land of Israel was allowed to be perverted to afford the Palestinian Arabs an opportunity to bolster their case for their national rights.  Shammas invoked an example from the Reconquista, quoting the tale of a Palestinian Arab woman who still held the keys to their home, vacated some 500 years ago in Grenada along with current stories of people holding the keys to houses in Jaffa. He bemoans the plight of his people while never accepting an iota of responsibility for the naked aggression and Jew-hatred that caused their woes.

It is time to cast the re-establishment of the State of Israel in terms of a Reconquista.  Our modern history basically tells a tale of return and the purchase of land with the kopeks dropped into JNF puskkas - but let's be frank about some hard truths:

It must be recognized, and we must educate everyone far and wide that there was never a time during the past 3,400 years when Jews have not lived in the Land of Israel.  There has never been any time in Jewish history when the Jewish people ever ceded or disavowed its claim to sovereignty to the Land of Israel. 

The Jewish People have been engaged in nothing less than a reconquest.  We've had to reconquer the land inch-by-inch from desert and swamp, from ruin to ruin.  We've had to reconquer the Jewish spirit from despair, weakness and hopelessness to pride, bravery and a future.  We've also had to fight against terrorism and war.

If you were to ask many of the so-called refugees from 1948 they will be hard-pressed to document residence in the land beyond a hundred years.  This is also why Palestinians come in many different shades of skin complexion.

Recognizing autonomy for the Palestinian Arabs is akin to the U.S. declaring amnesty for illegal aliens as it did a few years ago - it merely recognizes realities on-the-ground, but it doesn't make it legitimate or sovereign.  Visigoths sacking Rome didn't make Rome Visigoths.

The key difference between the Likud and Labor view toward autonomy for the Arabs is this: Likud at no time was or is willing to cede basic sovereignty over the land and its resources, while labor is busy serving as the midwife for a Palestinian State.  Likud would allow the Arabs to run their local community affairs, not a nation.

Yasser Arafat writes to Rabin on a letterhead printed "President of Palestine" on top.  The autonomy will be called the "Palestine National Authority." Their police force, 30,000-man-strong will be the "National Guard."  They will patrol borders, have an FBI and CIA, issue currency (whether Israel likes it or not) and stamps, they'll fly their flags everywhere and preach Israel's ultimate destruction nightly on their own TV news.

Labor's intense secularism negates the inherent holiness of the Jewish Reconquista of the Land of Israel and we have been remiss in imparting the sacred nature of the re-establishment of our independence.  Ours is no less sacred than the Spanish Reconquista - it just took us a longer time to accomplish than it did for the Spanish. And our current government is ceding Grenada to the Moors. Even the way Israel presents itself in the negotiations paints the Jews as a quasi-colonizing power.

Unless we start talking about our inherent and inalienable rights in Israel - and start believing it - we will be setting the stage for the next round when the PLO State will demand the repatriation of Jaffa, Ramle, Haifa and Nazareth.

The 90`s

Disagree? Yes! Bomb? No!

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of January 19th - January 25th, 1994

Some Jews wanted the New Year to get off with a bang.  In the dead-of-night two weeks ago a pair of crude homemade bombs were left at the front doors to two Midtown Manhattan office buildings by groups cryptically identifying themselves as "The Maccabee Squad" and the "Shield of David."  These makeshift weapons were apparently placed to protest the Rabin-Arafat accord and their attendant provisions. 

Among the Jewish groups with offices in the targeted buildings are the New Israel Fund, a far-left leaning charity in that dispenses money to "progressive" causes in Israel; Americans for Progressive Israel and the Progressive Zionist Caucus to name a few.

Let me say right-off-the-bat that I probably disagree with just about every position adhered to and advocated by these groups concerning the peace process, and that I am as anguished as many Jews are over the dangers facing Israel now, but this is not the point.

What is the point? The point is simply this: You can't go around physically attacking people who disagree with you.

These would-be "defenders of Israel" from the "Maccabee Squad" ought to wake-up and smell the coffee - New York 1994 isn't British Mandatory Palestine 1944.  We are not engaged in a struggle against the Police Department for our freedom and independence. We American Jews are merely spectators of the Israeli scene.  We can offer encouragement and support (on both the right and left) but as Benjamin Netanyahu has said, it is not for American Jews to insinuate themselves into Israeli policy making unless American Jews decide to make aliyah and become Israeli citizens.

Israel is a democracy and the nature of democracy is that sometimes in the marketplace of public opinion, you lose.  Such was the case in the last election and although I didn't like the outcome, it is not for U.S. Jews to get all holier-than-thou while sitting in Manhattan or Boca Raton.  Netanyahu has said that the Likud will use all "legitimate means, and I stress legitimate, to block this accord." This is their duty as the opposition in a parliament - and you won't see any internecine fighting other than debate coming from the Likud benches.   This is best epitomized by the words of Menachem Begin, who, in 1948, at a time of great betrayal by the Labor forces which resulted in the deaths of many Likudniks said, "in no circumstances will we use arms against our fellow Jews."

I challenge these "brave" bombers to demonstrate real courage - make aliyah and join the Israeli army if you feel that strongly about defending Israel, otherwise joining the rest of American Jewry and confine your activities to discourse, education, public relations and philanthropy.

In some non-Jewish wedding ceremonies the preacher intones, "What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder."  The Jewish people cannot afford fratricide. We are still beset on all sides by antipathy. Only by remaining one people can we hope to survive the vicissitudes, many dangerous, that confront us both in Israel and around the world.

As to groups such as the New Israel fund, I don't have to like their program, but they equally don't have to like mine.  If you see things our way, donate money to them. If you see things our way, contribute to groups such as the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, American friends of Ariel or the YESHA fund which benefits the communities in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan.  All these groups have an equal right to their point-of-view, to their ability to operate unhindered by violence or the threats thereof and all are entitled to the mutual respect that says we all have the right to believe as we choose.

Families may disagree, they may even fight, but all this is done out of love.  There is no place within the scope of Ahavat Yisrael - the Love of Israel and the Jewish people for brother to harm brother.  Those adhering to the beliefs of Jabotinsky and Begin would not have it any other way.

The 90`s

Investment in U.S. Jewry a necessity

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of November 3rd -9th, 1993

I remember a conversation I had some years back with then Defense Minister Moshe Arens.  "American Jewish fundraising is more important for American Jews than it is for Israelis," Arens asserted during a conversation on the state of U.S. Jewry.  What did he mean by that? He went on to say that all of the nearly $1 billion raised by U.S. Jewry and sent to Israel, this only amounted to a minute fraction of Israel's Fross Domestic Product and was really just a ripple in its economic stream.  Arens posited that fundraising for Israel did more for American Jews and their sense of self-identification and purpose than it did for Israel. He added that without Israel and a myriad of crises, what would American Jews do?

Arens made these statements several years ago before the recent blast-off of srael's economy into the First World stratosphere.  Last year, for example, Israel's economic growth rate exceeded six percent -- the highest in the industrialized world, surpassing Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the European Community.  The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has doubled in value each of the past two years and foreign investment is pouring in. Israelis bought a record number of new automobiles, (over 200,000) color TVs, VCRs and more.  More than one million Israelis traveled abroad last year, another record.

Israelis now shop at American-style shopping malls like Diesengroff Center in Tel Aviv, the Canion Ayalon Mall in Ramat Gan and the Canion Jerusalem Mall, the largest mall in the Middle East.   Israelis attend multiplex movie theaters, rent videos from video rental stores, eat at McDonald's, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, quaff quantities of Pepsi and Coke and dress better and more stylishly than ever before.  Michael Jackson, Madonna, Elton John, Bob Dylan and more have had no trouble garnering up to $50 per seat at their recent concerts. In short, Israel is no Third World developing country. The per-capita income of Israelis is very, very close behind the nations of Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Portugal, Southern Italy) and the range od social services provided by the government makes it an extremely progressive place to live.

I have always said that it is somewhat of a good thing that only 20 percent of American Jews have been to Israel, because if more went for a visit, they would find no nation of beggars, sand dines, tanks and daily combat.  The biggest daily combat these days are the legions of car-bound commuters slugging it out on Highway Four from Greater Tel Aviv (many, many office building) and the new suburbs in it periphery. In fact, the recently released study of the Greater New York Jewish Community by UJA/Federation indicates there are 145,000 Jews living below  the poverty line right here in our own backyard and the majority of American Jews are just living a middle class lifestyle.

Israel feels so flush that it isn't asking for any U.S. aid to relocate its troops as a consequence of the Rabin-Peres-Arafat pact, even though this will cost an estimated $175 million.  It gets even better, Israel is donating $25 million this year to international $650 million fund to aid the new Palestinian autonomy!

So, then, without a crisis looming over Israel every day, without Israelis scrounging around to make ends meet, what are we American Jews to do? What are we to do with our nearly $1 billion in annual largesse that's currently going to the Holy Land?

Israelis remind me of the prototypical Jewish businessman as often spooked by Jackie Mason -- when asking an American Jewish businessman or professional, "So, how's business?" the businessman will reply, "oh, terrible, terrible, you shouldn't know from my tzurris."  All this while he business lives in Great Neck, Park Avenue or wherever and is driving a new Jaguar. Israelis moan, but the fact of the matter is they have a healthy economy with low inflation, high output and a reasonably good standard of living for all its citizens.

American Jewry does need a purpose, but looking to save Israel may not be our Holy Grail anymore.  we are extremely skilled at raising charity, but in the process we bear witness to the impeding disintegration of American Jewry due to aging, intermarriage (50 percent outside of New York) lack of synagogue membership and lack of Jewish education.  We are not a community that is growing by any objective or empirical standard.

Here’s what we ought to do:

We should declare an American Jewish Marshall Plan -- let's call it "Operation Survival" or something grandiose like that.  Let's publicize this war and wide as American Jewry's confronting its own battle for existence, its own battle for its very life.

We need o shift at least half the funds currently making its way to Israel and spend them here in the U.S.  We need to alleviate domestic Jewish poverty. We need to buttress our institutions of Jewish education. We must allocate the funding to ensure that every Jewish child who wants it can attend a full-time Jewish day school -- one of the only effective weapons we have against assimilation.  The Catholic Church maintains a far more extensive school network than we do. There's absolutely no excuse for the majority of Jewish kids to attend public schools if we can offer a viable alternative.

We must allocate funds to ensure that every American Jewish teenager gets an opportunity to visit Israel before they get to college.  This will strengthen bonds between Israel and a new generation of U.S. Jewry like nothing else. It will help deter intermarriage and build a population of givers in the future.  This is such a good idea, we ought to ask the Israelis (via the vestigial Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization) to chip-in and pay a portion of this project.

We need to establish a real national Jewish television service over cable TV.  This service should offer daily news programs so that we can keep our people better informed.  This service should offer Israeli programs with English subtitles so we can finally share more culture with Israelis than just falafel.  This service must offer educational programs for kids so they don't just watch stuff like "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" on TV in December.  We need this service to bring us together across the U.S. as a solid community -- because communication is the key to community.

We need to earmark scholarship funds for young people who want to serve the Jewish people by working for our Jewish communal institutions -- and we need to make sure that those who want to teach in Jewish schools are paid competitively.

Finally, we need to democratize Jewish life -- most of us Jewish leaders are self-appointed plutocrats.  In "Fiddler on the Roof," Tevya muses of the possibilities of proffering advice and attaining stature based on wealth.  While most Jewish leaders are devoted and well-intentioned, most American Jews are out-of-the-loop and haven't a clue as to how decisions are made and who gets to make them.  We need to have election for one, central American Jewish governing body -- elections all U.S. Jews can vote in. A fantasy? This kind of institution exists in Canada, in Great Britain, in South Africa, in France and other countries.  Having elections and opening-up the process to the will of the people will energize the masses and get the decisions out from the smoke-filled rooms.

Patrick Henry said that "taxation without representation is tyranny!" Many of us pay American Jewish taxes by giving generously -- many more would give if they had a voice in how and where the money gets spent and who spends it.  It would encourage more young people to get involved in leadership roles and it would enable us to set an agenda that would appeal to the majority.

Many people are speaking about Israel's new "Peace Dividend."  American Jews fought the fight for Soviet and Ethiopian Jews. We fought the fight for Israel's survival in the corridors of Congress and by empting our own pockets to the tune of billions of dollars.  It is now time for an American Jewish "Peace Dividend:" we are entitled to pay interest to ourselves so that our future returns are highly profitable -- and while we're at it, let's ask the Israelis to lend a few hands because helping American Jewry survive and thrive is one of Israel's best possible long-term investments.

The 90`s

Upper West Side was the place to be

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel Publisher Week of October 20th - 25th,1993

It is has to be the biggest Hebe Hop this side of Jerusalem or Crown Heights -- Simchat Torah on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Just mention Simchat Torah to a young, single, Orthodox Jew and what immediately springs to mind is a virtual cornucopia of mating and dating possibilities.  If there is a culmination, a pinnacle to the modern Orthodox social season, Simchat Torah is it. 

On Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah we technically celebrate the end of the holiday of Succot, the end of the plethora of holidays that makes the month of Tishrei so unique and the end of our annual cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses, the Torah.

In Second Temple times the three major Jewish festivals saw an explosion of shiddach, or match-making.  It was where Jews from far and wide, hither and yon gathered to give thanks, praise the Lord and meet members of the opposite sex.

Today, in North America young pilgrims make their way to the Upper West Side.  They come from Toronto, Baltimore, South Florida, L.A., Memphis and even from Brooklyn and Queens.  It is a convocation of the knitted kipah crowd. Everyone eligible and affable from 18 and up converges on their friends couches, on floors and in hotels just to see and be seen.

Synagogues such as Ohab Zedek on West 95th Street and Jewish Center on West 86th Street are besieged by battalions of eager young Jews, their eyes fervently serching the balconies and opposite sides of the mechtizah.

Hallmarks of the festival are virtual open houses, holiday meals where 100 or more are de reguerm where one hops from one house to another, from one oneg to the next in an effor to meet as many people as possible.

This year the West Side shuls tried something -- for Simchat Torah eve they combined their last hatkafuh (or circuit) of the Torah so that everyone from every synagogue would wind-up on West End Avenue between 84th and 86th Streets.  No more shul-hopping necessary. In this era of mega discount warehouses and giant supermarkets, one-stop shopping was the rule of the day this time around.

In a scene reminiscent of Israel, over 10,000 young Jews descended on the avenue for what was probably the largest singles gathering ever.  Residents in the buildings up above were hanging out of their windows, anxious to see what was causing all the fuss below. The police finally had to clear the street after midnight (after four hours) but that still didn't deter the determined and crowds milled about on the sidewalks until past 2:00 a.m.  Needless to say, a great many people arrived late for synagogue the next morning.  

The feeling one gets while enveloped in a crowd of thousands of young committed Jews is nothing short of energizing.  You know that here are vibrant, intelligent people in their 20s and 30s who have made a lifestyle choice to adhere to the faith of our fathers and mothers, to practice Judaism in the face of massive ignorance, disinterest and apathy by the masses of American Jewish young people; who have taken six days off since Rosh Hashanah in a society that hardly ever heard of Succot.

These Ortho-yuppies are the vanguard of American Jewish survival for the 21st century, by meeting and marrying other Jews, by raising their children in traditional homes, by sending them to full-time Jewish schools, by living the Jewish calendar they re-affirm the vitality of Judaism even in this sophisticated day and age.

Frivolity, mixing and mingling aside, you know what this is really all about for us when you've jammed-in, standing room only at a place like Ohab Zedek, when the Torahs a returned to the ark, resplendent in their holiday white covers, crowns and breast plates and the packed house joins in unison singing the words Etz Chaim Hee, "And when it [the ark] rested he [Moses] would say, 'Return Lord to the myriad thousands of Israel.  Arise, Lord to your resting place, You and the Ark of Your strength.' Let your priests (Kohanim) be clothed in righteousness, and Your devout ones will sing joyously. For the sake of David Your servant, turn not away the face of your anointed. For I have given you a good teaching, do not forsake my Torah. It is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness ad all its paths are peace.  Bring us back to you, Lord, and we shall return, renew our days as of old."

The miracle of Judaism is its constant renewals.  We always start over. There is always a new beginning, the New Moon, the New Year, the New cycle of reading the Torah, it is this constant newness amidst the old that rejuvenates our people through the millennia.  The throngs of young people in Manhattan for Simchat Torah is an apt metaphor for what the whole holiday season is about: a new generation holding fast to the teachings of their parents, looking ahead to tomorrow in an old, yet always new Jewish life year after year.