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What’s most amazing is that this war with Amalek continues—that the world is still so concerned with the fate of Israel and the small number of Jews in the world who do not even amount to a percentage of error when calculating the world’s population.

My motto is never again, never forget, and never forgive. While some have criticized me for never forgiving the Nazis for what they did to my family, it is precisely this hatred that makes me the fighting Rabbi I am. I refuse to forgive. This is what motivates me to speak out against injustice wherever it may be found.

Yes, I hate the extremist Muslims because they are the new Nazis. They murder Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people of all different backgrounds and faiths. This week is Purim, a time in which we remember how Haman wanted to murder all Jews. The Hitlers and Hamans are alive and well today and continue resounding
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Yes, I hate the extremist Muslims because they are the new Nazis. They murder Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people of all different backgrounds and faiths.
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their pledge to annihilate Jews in both Israel and throughout the Diaspora.

As the Mishnah teaches us:

For sins against G d, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) brings forgiveness. For sins against one’s neighbor, the Day of Atonement brings no forgiveness until one has become reconciled with one’s neighbor.

In order to forgive another human being, that person must first ask for forgiveness, but “turn the other cheek” is not innate to Judaic principle. In Judaism repentance ( Shuvah) is a process of introspection and authentic remorse, which must be manifest and demonstrated through actual deeds — by a recognizable transformation. In other words, true Shuvah means, given the same set of circumstances, one will not return to the evil actions and deeds that prompted the initial behavior. By doing so, we can move closer to G-d, and He is forgiving, as is conveyed in the following Talmudic Tractate, Yoma, 85b:

A king had a son who had gone astray from him on a journey of hundred days. His friends said to him, ‘Return to your father.’ He said, ‘I cannot.’ Then his father sent a message to him, saying, ‘Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.’ In a similar way, G d says, ‘Return to me and I will return to you.’”

The above Tractate imparts a significant lesson about the individual’s responsibility to build a personal relationship with G-d, which is through demonstrable remorse and action — through a conscious return to the laws and the path He provides in the Torah.

Yet, there are some things beyond us to personally forgive. Thus, Rabbi or not, it is not my personal obligation or place to forgive the atrocities that the Nazis committed when they wiped out most of my family or for me to judge and decide their sense of remorse and whether or not the deeds of another reflect a genuine transformation. That is between them and G-d alone.

Nevertheless, right before the day of Purim, the Commandment “Zachor Et Amalek, “Remember Amalek” ( Devarim 25:17-19; Sanhedrin 20b), resounds, reminding us not to forget the harsh lessons we learned from the Amalekite, the descendants of Esau, when in the desert from Egypt and when Saul took pity on Agag, the Amalekite king, sparing his life but disobeying G-d’s Command to destroy every last one, and, analogously, the incarnation of evil. The Lubavitcher Rebbe expands on this concept in “ The Everlasting Battle: Parshas Zachor“:

The war with Amalek was not a one-time affair, to be forgotten as soon as it was over. The Jewish people are commanded by G d to always remember Amalek’s evil actions, and to destroy his memory utterly. Torah is most explicit:

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So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he—can you believe this—renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means “Aryan!”
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‘Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt; how he met you on the way, and cut down all the weak who struggled behind you, when you were weary and exhausted; and he did not fear G d. Therefore, when the L rd your G d will relieve you of all your enemies around you, in the land which the L rd your G d gives you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!’”

In essence, to forgive is also to forget, and, once again, we are reminded by G-d’s Command never to do so. Imbued in Torah are the instructions for leading an ethical life, and G-d provides us with the blueprints to do so through His laws and also with the Free Will to choose whether or not to follow the path He has set. Suffice it to say, if we are to choose to live by His laws, tolerance and forgiveness are not to apply to the incarnation of evil. Otherwise, we make no distinctions between good and evil or right from wrong, and there is nothing to set us apart, as the following passage clearly denotes:

Whoever is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.

Iranian leadership in responding to criticisms of its program to acquire nuclear weapons, sounded much like Hitler when they proclaimed, “Israel must be wiped off the map!” and that the Holocaust is a “myth!”

What’s most amazing to me is that this war with Amalek continues—that the world is still so concerned with the fate of Israel and the small number of Jews in the world who do not even amount to a percentage of error when calculating the world’s population. The rhetoric is apocalyptic, even Biblical. Why care about Israel and the Jews? It must be a spiritual struggle of the generations. The Torah then has been proven to be incredibly wise in warning us never to forget or worse, to underestimate Amalek the anti-Semite—no matter how he may appear.

On Purim and we will read the story of how Haman, a descendant of Amalek, persuaded Achashveros, King of Persia, to destroy the Jews. But it’s also the story of our time! Once again Persia threatens to destroy the Jews, only this time its name has changed.

We no longer call it Persia, we call it Iran. Do you know why?

There was a love fest between Hitler and Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Persia, from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. The shah was enamored with the concept of the Aryan master race—especially because Nazi racial theorists referred to Aryan origins in the Proto-Indo-European lineage of Persia. So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he—can you believe this—renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means “Aryan!” From that point on, Iranians were constantly reminded that their country was bonded with Nazi Germany for all time.

During the war years, Iran became a haven and headquarters for Gestapo agents and German operatives. In Tehran’s marketplace, it was common to see placards that declared, “In heaven, Allah is your master. On Earth, it is Adolf Hitler!” (Edwin Black, 12/19/05, JTA)

And so how could the president of Iran now deny that the Holocaust ever happened when his nation is named for Hitler’s master race?

Let there be no mistake, the ultimate agenda of Iran and Hamas—like that of Hitler’s Germany—is not simply the destruction of Israel, but of the Jewish people.

The Torah is clear, Amalek and Haman and all of Jewish history teach us that we must take our enemies for their word. They mean what they say and they say what they mean.

ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What is unique about Holocaust education in the state of New Jersey?

For more than 35 years, the charismatic rabbi, author and teacher, Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg, has been one of the pioneering voices for Holocaust and Genocide Education. Working in the Jewish and secular communities, he has been fighting for human rights, respectful Holocaust commemoration and preventing genocide.

Rabbi Rosenberg is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El in Edison, New Jersey. He received his ordination and Doctorate of Education from Yeshiva University in New York. Rabbi Rosenberg also possesses A.A., B.A., M.A. and M.S. degrees in communication and education, and a Doctor of Divinity from The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Rabbi Rosenberg has taught Public Speaking at Rutgers University in New Jersey and Yeshiva University in New York; and also a graduate course in Holocaust at Rutgers University. He has also served on the New Jersey State Holocaust Commission as interfaith chairman.

Dr. Rosenberg has received several awards for his work, including the Chaplain of the Year Award from the New York Board of Rabbis for his efforts during and following 9/11, and the Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz Award, established by the New York Board of Rabbis to honor rabbis who excel in public service. He appears frequently on radio and television, has published numerous books and hundreds of articles regarding the Holocaust and recently authored the Rosenberg Holocaust Siddur and the Rosenberg Holocaust Haggadah. We spoke with Rabbi Rosenberg about his work in Holocaust and Genocide education, and also about his new book, Echoes of the Holocaust.

Rabbi Rosenberg would welcome more personal Holocaust memoirs and stories from the Sephardic communit.

Listen to the interview https://www.radiosefarad.com/rabbi-dr-bernhard-rosenberg-holocaust-educator/

Anti-Semitism may start small, but it grows exponentially in a short time Time to learn from history.

On November 9th 1938, mobs burned synagogues, destroyed Jewish homes and businesses, vandalized Jewish hospitals, orphanages and cemeteries, and dragged thousands of Jewish men, women and children into the streets, where they were beaten and humiliated.

The Germans later called this night “Kristallnacht” – The Night of Broken Glass – because of the tons of shattered glass that scattered throughout German cities, after it had taken place.

The Jews began to call that date the beginning of the Holocaust because of the tremendous violence, which started on that night and grew even more dreadful as time had passed. The cost of the broken window glass alone came to millions of Reichsmarks.

The Reich confiscated any compensation claims that insurance companies paid to Jews. The rubble of ruined synagogues had to be cleared by the Jewish community. The Nazi government imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million in 1938) on the Jewish community. After assessing the fine, Hermann Göring remarked: “The swine won’t commit another murder. Incidentally…I would not like to be a Jew in Germany.”

To what murder was he referring?

On November 7, 1938, the Third Secretary of the German embassy in Paris, Ernst Von Rath, was shot dead by Herschel Grynzpan, a 17 year old German-Jewish refugee. Herschel wanted to avenge his parent’s brutal expulsion, together with 15,000 other Polish Jews from Germany to Zbonszym. Herschel Grynszpan carried a revolver and thoughts of revenge with him as he walked through the streets of Paris on the morning of November 7, 1938. The 17-year-old German refugee had just learned that his Polish-Jewish parents, along with thoses thousands of other Jews, had been herded into boxcars and deported from Germany.

From the day Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, anti-Semitism had become encoded in the governmental policies of Nazi Germany. For years, Jews experienced state-sponsored discrimination and persecution, and Grynszpan had seen enough.

The young man who had emigrated to France two years earlier walked into the German Embassy on Rue de Lille in search of the German ambassador. When Grynszpan was informed that the ambassador was out on his daily walk, he was brought in to meet with diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Pulling out his revolver, Grynszpan fired five times at vom Rath and shouted, “You are a filthy kraut, and here, in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, is your document!”

Hitler sent his personal physicians to Paris to treat vom Rath, but two days later the diplomat died from his wounds. The Nazi regime found the murder to be a welcome excuse to launch a vast pogrom against the Jews living inside its borders. Until then, Nazi policies toward the Jews, such as boycotts and deportations, had been primarily nonviolent, but that all changed in the hours after vom Rath took his last breath.

The German government attempted to disguise the violence of those two days as a spontaneous protest on the part of the “Aryan” population. But, in reality, Kristallnacht was organized by the Nazi chiefs and their thugs with technical skill and precision. The Nazi chiefs commanded the Gestapo and the storm troopers to incite mob riots throughout Germany and Austria.

Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the plan, to rob the Jews of their possessions for the benefit of the Reich and then to sweep them forever from the German scene. Furthermore, thereafter, Jews had no place in the German economy, and no independent Jewish life was possible, with the dismissal of cultural and communal bodes and the banning of the Jewish press.

During the week after Kristallnacht, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Berlin reporter called that night “The worst outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in modern German History.”

During Kristallnacht, over 1,100 synagogues were destroyed, as well as 7,500 Jewish businesses and countless Jewish homes. Several hundred Jews were killed and 30,000 wee arrested and sent to the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau, where thousands more died.

Today, many historians can trace a pattern of events, occurring before that night, that would suggest that such an atrocity was to happen. In 1933, when the Nazis took power, German anti-Semitism adopted quasi-legal forms. One of the new anti-Jewish forms of action, which had began with the Nuremberg laws of 1935, included the separation of the Jews from the daily structure of German life. The Jews, systematically, were deprived of their civil rights; they were isolated from the general populace through humiliating identification measures. The Nazis boycotted the Jewish shops and took away their jobs. Then they made the Jews declare the value of their possessions. The Civil Service and the police often arrested the Jews and forced them to sell their property for a pittance.

One may ask, how could the entire world stand by and allow such a disaster to occur? The fascist or authoritative regimes in Italy, Rumania, Hungary and Poland were governments which approved of this pogrom and wanted to use the pogrom as a case to make their own anti-Semitic policies stronger in their individual countries. The three Great Western powers – Great Britain, France and the United States – said the appropriate things but did nothing to save the Jews.

Hitler, in the late 1930’s told the world to take the Jews but there was just no one willing to take them in. In the USA, President Roosevelt and his administration kept on expressing their shock over the terrible events which were occurring in Germany and Austria, but when it came time to act and help save the refugees by bringing them to the United States, the United States government refused and replied by saying that they have no intention to allow more immigrants to enter the country.

Kristallnacht teaches us many things. Among them that we must remain vigilant and not permit even the smallest seed of anti-Semitism to take root.

Read article in Israel National News – Arutz Sheva

Posted on:
Tuesday June 25, 2019

The Conservative/Masorti movement of Judaism expressed intense anger today at the status of immigrant detention in the United States, particularly reports of children being held in inhumane conditions and that a former internment camp used during World War II for Japanese-Americans at Fort Still, Oklahoma is now slated to be used as a new detention center for immigrant children.

The movement issued the following joint statement:
“Today, most Americans recognize the 1940’s internment of American citizens of Japanese descent as immoral, illegal, and certainly lamentable. How tragic that America is again on the verge of incarcerating a new generation, this time of would-be immigrants. Hundreds and thousands of people are so desperate for a better life that they flee to the United States of America – knowing that the country’s leader says they are not wanted – and once here are placed in pens, cages, jails and prisons. Our government is paying for-profit companies with arguably no supervision and no oversight to hold these human beings – for unlimited time in subhuman conditions.
Judaism has a strong tradition of calling for loving the stranger (Deut 10:19) because we were strangers in a strange land. Two of the most powerful values Judaism teaches are the dignity of all creatures (k’vod habriyot) and b’tzelem Elohim, the firm belief that each and every human being is created in the image and likeness of God.

Our tradition values children. They are our future and our hope. Yet today in this country, we leave them in outdoor detention pens – with no diapers for babies, no toothpaste, no soap, often no clothes to speak of, and certainly no toys.
Children must be reunited with their families immediately and everyone seeking asylum at our borders deserves a fair hearing. We need more judges and more adjudication of asylum seekers at our borders, not more camps. We need more humanity and sympathy. Not more camps.

Further, we continue our support for a fair immigration policy that guarantees due process in immigration proceedings and protects the civil liberties of immigrants. We vehemently oppose capricious immigration raids like the one recently proposed.
To detain human beings in prison-like conditions, for undetermined amounts of time, despite the fact that they are not charged with any crime is unconscionable. Today’s transfer of children is only the first of many critical steps needed. The detention centers must be closed. Now. The United States of America and the Jewish community know this all too well from our histories. When we say never again, we mean it.”

Rabbinical Assembly
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Cantors Assembly
Jewish Educators Assembly
The Jewish Theological Seminary
Jewish Youth Directors Association
Masorti Olami
MERCAZ Olami
MERCAZ USA
Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano
The North American Association of Synagogue Executives

WE THE PEOPLE ASK THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO TAKE OR EXPLAIN A POSITION ON AN ISSUE OR POLICY:To protest for reading of P is for Palestine in Highland Park Public LibraryThis is to protest the rescheduling of any presentation by Golbarg Bashi to the children of our community, where the presentation is under the auspices of the Public Library (a quasi-government body), supported by taxpayers, which would give credence to her unabashed ant-Semitic and pro BDS views.PETITION: regarding P is for Palestine. Please sign and forward to your friends. Send to trustees@hpplnj.org,Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg

Please sign & share >> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/protest-reading-p-palestine-highland-park-public-library

RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG ARTICLE

Regarding Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comparing the border situation to Nazi concentration camps, she may or may not have said this on purpose to push our buttons . She just got millions of dollars of free publicity and her followers love it.
Rep. Cheney, of Wyoming, begged Ocasio-Cortez to “spend just a few minutes learning” the history of the World War II genocide, tweeting that “6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this.”
Ocasio-Cortez shot back at Cheney minutes after her posting.”Hey Rep. Cheney, since you’re so eager to ‘educate me,’ I’m curious: What do YOU call building mass camps of people being detained without a trial? How would you dress up DHS’s mass separation of thousands children at the border from their parents?” Cortez knows how to manipulate the press. She is neither stupid nor naïve. This was the wrong issue to attack her on and she is using the uproar to her own advantage.

Concentration camps were not a Nazi invention. Anna Lind-Guzik writes ” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, various imperial forces — including the British and Germans in their African colonies, the Spanish in the Caribbean, and Americans in the West — engaged in the practice of rounding up civilians into concentration camps as a tactic to suppress indigenous guerrilla warfare. By isolating the civilian population, fighters had fewer places to hide. Large populations of mostly women and children were held in terrible, quasi-permanent conditions, without trial, and died en masse from disease, malnutrition, and exposure.”
The term itself comes from reconcentración, a Spanish policy deployed against Cubans in the 1890s, which was then reused by the British during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

Applying the term “concentration camp” to the indefinite detention without trial of thousands of civilians in inhumane conditions — under armed guard and without adequate provisions or medical care may be an affront to many holocaust survivors and their children , however as human beings the Holocaust should have taught the world an important lesson about speaking out for humanity when humans are ill treated . This after all is the United States of AMERICA, the land of the free and the home of caring and sensitive people. In memory of the 6 million Jews who perished because they were considered less than human, I will not accept my government treating migrants, especially children like animals . Lock up those who have criminal records or send them back to their country of origin.
The term “never again” should be a lesson which Judaism teaches to the world. http://bernhardrosenberg.com/