Pittsburgh, Young Israel, And Memories Of Old New York

Pittsburgh, Young Israel, & Memories of Old New York...

by Gerald A. Honigman

The dead were not even buried yet, but the predictable had already occurred...

Senator and President Barack Obama cozied up to the likes of rabid hate-mongers Al ("let's go get the diamond merchants") Sharpton; shakedown artist, Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson; Louis ("Satanic Jews") Farakhan; Jeremiah Wright--in whose Chicago church the Obamas were treated weekly to anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel visceral attacks for twenty-two years and who published the Hamas (destroy Israel) charter in his church bulletin (hey, there weren't any other churches in Chicago for Barack and Michelle to choose from)--and too many others like them to be merely coincidental.

The same ilk--who witnessed all the above, yet responded by pouring additional millions of Hebrew dollars into the campaign and voting for Obama a second time around--immediately blamed President Trump for the recent Pittsburgh synagogue massacre because of his alleged tolerance of haters. By the way, most would also vote for the devil before a Republican, even if the latter had angel wings with a halo over the head. And I say this as a Florida NPA Independent.

The good news is that another group of Jews has since spoken out about this horrific tragedy and the unfair accusations being levelled against the President. They are people whom I'm familiar with on a very personal level. Before I elaborate upon this, please note that the following link takes you to the recent news story about these people. Please read it either now or after this essay...

https://unitedwithisrael.org/major-jewish-group-slams-attacks-on-trump-after-pittsburgh-tragedy/

Okay, now let me get personal about the modern Orthodox Young Israel folks. And even if you're a "Never Trumper," you may still find at least some of this interesting if you read with an open mind...

Back in the early "˜70s, I lived in New York City (Brooklyn) while attending the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, a consortium of Princeton, Columbia, and NYU based at the latter's Washington Square campus. At the same time, I was also working for a major organization's (Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein's ADL) Research and Evaluation Department, focusing on Middle East issues.

It was during this sojourn in the Big Apple that I developed strong friendships in the Young Israel movement.

I recall entire city blocks being closed down to car traffic on the festive holiday of Simchat Torah to provide more room for dancing.

I attended the magnificent Rabbi Steve (Shlomo) Riskin's evening classes. He made Aliyah long ago and became Chief Rabbi for Judea and Samaria. After millennia (***Question for my Christian friends: Was Yehoshua/Jesus born in Bethlehem of Judea or Bethlehem of the West Bank? See Matthew 2:1), those territories only also became known as the "West Bank" due to London's imperial shenanigans in the early, post-World War I, 20th century.

To distinguish between the east bank (of the Jordan River) of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine, which was gifted to Arab nationalism in one of its many different species with the creation of the Emirate of Transjordan on almost 80% of the total area in 1922, the Brits and Transjordan's Hashemite Arabs, who conquered Judea and Samaria (with their British-led Arab Legion of Sir John Bagot Glubb/"Glubb Pasha") during their attack on a reborn Israel in May 1948, renamed the additional, newly (and illegally)-acquired lands the West Bank. Holding land on both banks, the Arab entity created in most of the original 1920 Palestine Mandate thus changed its name to Jordan in 1950.

Back to Sinatra's city that doesn't sleep...

I remember going to Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's amazing concerts at Brooklyn College, going on Young Israel Shabbaton retreats in the Catskill Mountains (actually plateaus), and hearing the beautiful "Yedid Nefesh," Beloved of the Soul, sung with piano accompaniment, there for the first time. Google it--you won't be disappointed.

At times I walked miles from my apartment in Flatbush to meet my friend Avi so we could attend early morning weekday services at his preferred little shtiebel in Borough Park (and other times eating Kosher pizza there too). Others even kashered my kitchen for me...

Once, a 5-yr. old Chasidic little snot pointed his finger at me while telling his mother, who was doing a special (shatnez) test on the content of my new suit, to make sure a biblical forbidden mix of certain fibers was not present. He told mommy in Yiddish that I was a Gentile. She almost fainted (I was paying to have this done)...I just laughed.

I remember yet another Young Israel friend do something very special for me on one Purim (as in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Esther) eve. He took me to four very different synagogues to see how each celebrated the holiday...a beautiful Syrian Orthodox Jewish shul on Ocean Parkway (tens of thousands of descendants of Syrian Jewish refugees live in the Greater New York City area alone--just a small part of the other half of the Middle East refugee problem that no one ever hears about); a non-Lubavitcher Chasidic (in retrospect, probably anti-Zionist Satmar) shul, etc.

So much was packed into my four years in NYC--besides my flounder fishing trips to Long Island.

I lived there when the U.N. passed the infamous Zionism Equals Racism resolution at the same time Arabs were still slaughtering and making slaves out of black Africans in the Sudan and elsewhere and outlawing the very languages and cultures of tens of millions of native Kurds, Amazigh/Kabyle/"Berbers," and others as well.

I recall wearing my "I'm Proud To Be A Zionist" button while taking the D Train into Manhattan in response and--I swear, the good Lord must have arranged the timing for this--taking a lunchtime break from work and walking right into my hero, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, America's U.N. rep, who had recently delivered an eloquent speech nailing the world community for passing such an infamous resolution.

Moynihan was a giant of a man both in stature and in his humanity...I couldn't help myself. I ran up to him and grabbed his hand with a tear in my eye and thanked him...a TRUE Liberal, in the best meaning of the word--not the "Progressive" duplicitous hypocrites who have replaced such great people today, practitioners of selective morality and the double standard supreme.

I was at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on July 4, 1976 watching the parade of tall sailing (and other) ships pass underneath in honor of America's bicentennial. I was there with my best friend Ari--whom I met four years earlier while we were both fishing near the same bridge. Ari is from Israel, and we would both learn later that same day that Israel had raided the airport at Entebbe, Uganda to free most of the 248 hostages Arab and other terrorists had taken earlier from an Air France flight... a bicentennial not to be forgotten, for sure.

I have other lasting memories from the early "˜70s in NYC as well--like traveling to Chinatown from Flatbush with my cousins after midnight--some five decades ago.

Many years later, when I was married and had my four children, they asked to spend time in the big city too, feeling "deprived" for growing up several stones' throws from an actually clean stretch of ocean, breathing fresh air, having lots of living space, having manatees swimming within a block east or west of the house and sea turtles nesting on the beach there as well, having gopher tortoises stroll through the backyard, and other such torments.

So, we all spent some time at the Hotel Pennsylvania, across from Madison Square Garden, near the Empire State Building, taking in Broadway, museums, Soho, the Village, Katz' Deli (of When Harry Met Sally fame), visiting my old NYU haunts, and so forth. Oh yes, I was in frequent contact, via computer, with my editor and publisher as well. http://q4j-middle-east.com would be published not long afterwards. As timely as ever, it's in leading universities all over the world--including in Arab lands.

Young Israel...

No condemning President Trump for his historic Jerusalem decisions, axing the Iran nuke deal, appointing Nikki Haley to deal with a rabidly anti-Israel United Nations, kicking the PLO out of Washington, D.C., making NATO cough up more for its own defense, and such from these folks--if you get my drift.

It's no surprise that my old friends would be the group to expose the shame of others--especially Jews--looking for any and all excuses to trash President Trump, even using the slaughter of fellow Jewish innocents at prayer to further their pathetic, dirty agenda.

While, as with any president (or anyone else), Mr. Trump certainly needs to be fairly critiqued, that's not what those demonstrating in Pittsburgh and elsewhere have in mind.

Here's that Young Israel news story again...

https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Funitedwithisrael.org%2Fmajor-jewish-group-slams-attacks-on-trump-after-pittsburgh-tragedy%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C1f3fc19f469f4d520ae708d63fa398bd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636766369199160821&sdata=XiIra4HvP5sE8%2FCBOvZvEjkLR92WpJaxnQwYWhW6WEY%3D&reserved=0