Original article was published on The Jerusalem Post

Where can Israel and Jewish sports lovers read about female Israeli golfer Laetitia Beck tying for 53rd at the recent Meijer LPGA Classic, kayaker Talia Eilat winning the bronze at the European Championships, and the Israel South All-Stars baseball team going to the Little League World Series Regional Qualifier in Poland? They can read these stories and more – and catch a sneak preview of Team Israel’s Olympic uniforms – on the Follow Team Israel Facebook group!

Founder David Wiseman, a father of three who playfully places his date of Aliyah from Sydney, Australia, to Jerusalem to the 2004 Athens Olympics, is pleased to report that the Facebook group surpassed an astounding 100,000 followers in July.

A passion project

The page is a hobby and passion project for Wiseman when he is not doing his Buzz Dealer digital branding and online reputation management “day job.”

The project has combined his three loves – Israel, Judaism and sports for an audience he reports “is not always Jewish or Israeli and doesn’t always care about sports.”

standing in lights of sport arena (credit: INGIMAGE)

Wiseman reports that he “doesn’t provide scores, but rather stories – that is what they connect to.”  He is pleased to provide “a constant stream of positive content about Israel which is not political” and is unconcerned “if the person comes in No. 100, No. 14 or No. 2.  Wiseman just wants “to shine a little light on athletes and what they do.

Read more

The original article is published at jns.org

“Seeing the smiles on the children’s faces as they interacted with a sports legend was truly heartwarming,” said Rabbi Simcha Scholar, CEO of Chai Lifeline.

Bartolo Colón, a professional baseball player and former Major League Baseball pitcher, visits Camp Simcha. Credit: Courtesy.

Bartolo Colón opted to visit Camp Simcha, which serves 430 children and teens with cancer and other blood disorders, in New York’s Catskill Mountains in order to inspire the campers.

“I wanted to come to make every child in camp feel happy,” the four-time all-star Major League Baseball pitcher, who now plays professionally for a Pakistani team, told JNS in Spanish.

The 51-year-old Dominican American signed baseballs, shared stories with the campers, played catch and offered words of encouragement.

“I didn’t really expect to see something so organized and beautiful,” he told JNS, noting “the excellent atmosphere of the camp and their facilities.”

Bartolo Colón, a professional baseball player and former Major League Baseball pitcher, visits Camp Simcha. Credit: Courtesy.

The pitcher, who won 247 games for 11 Major League teams over a 21-year career and was an American League Cy Young Award winner in 2005, told JNS that he was particularly moved by “feeling the affection of each child and seeing that joy and willpower on their faces.”

The camp is a program of Chai Lifeline, a more than 35-year-old nonprofit.

“When athletes like Bartolo visit, it’s a grand slam for our campers,” stated Rabbi Simcha Scholar, the nonprofit’s CEO.

“Seeing the smiles on the children’s faces as they interacted with a sports legend was truly heartwarming and is a reminder of the power we all have to bring joy to those who need it most,” he added.

Bartolo Colón, a professional baseball player and former Major League Baseball pitcher, visits Camp Simcha. Credit: Courtesy.
Read more

The original article is published at JPost.com

MAHAZ’S FARMS sit in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where fellows are taught skills related to regenerative agriculture and homesteading arts—all in a Jewish context.

In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (not far from Charlottesville), a diverse group of Jewish adults are taking a break from their careers and studies and spending four intense months as Mahaz Fellows. They spend their long days immersed in the rhythms and activities of two nearby farms where they are learning skills related to regenerative agriculture and homesteading arts—all in a Jewish context.

Jorian Polis Schutz, a Harvard graduate and world-traveler described on Mahaz’s website as a “writer, artist, publisher, curator, educator, land-steward, community builder, culture instigator, entrepreneur, yogi, and gentleman ecologist,” purchased the Virginia farms in 2013. Polis Schutz, who is also co-author of ‘An Introduction to Sabbath Agriculture’, founded the Mahaz Homestead Program in 2021

The fellowship’s thoughtfully chosen, unironic name, Mahaz–Hebrew for “outpost”– tells a lot about the goals and vision of the program. The root word of Mahaz– achaz /“hold” and “be held” provides an additional connection to the aim of the program. The website elaborates: “When we ‘hold’ the land, the land holds us, sustainably, intergenerationally, as a heritage. In this precarious time, we must establish outposts where we can re-learn to root ourselves in sacred relationships with our living home and stronghold (ma’oz) — its contours and micro-climates, its ecological expressions and seasonal successions, and its wider community inter-connections.” Finally, they point out that the two-letter root of the letters aleph and het suggests vision, as in hozeh (a seer), suggesting that returning to the land guides us toward balanced living and richness.

This year’s eight fellows, ages 21-38, and the fellows from the past three cohorts, come from across the United States from careers in finance, the arts, education, social work, nonprofits and even from the field of agriculture. The fellows, who share a curiosity and desire to be close to the land and to develop practical skills very few of their peers back home possess, often learn of the program by word of mouth. While the program has a website and shares word of their mission and program on more conventional Facebook groups and Listservs, program director, Miri Kaiser and director of education, Rabbi Psachyah Lichtenstein, strive to preserve the intimacy of the program and their project. Kaiser offers, “We treasure human relations and our genuine circle of people who treasure farming.”

Kaiser reports that interest in Mahaz “sprouted” (her words) around the time of Covid. “People were shaken from their habitual lifestyle and were seeking something slower, some grounding, something more substantial.” While the farms initially offered more informal apprenticeships, this “influx of interest” led to the fellowship program. This pleases Kaiser, who observes that there has been a “divorce of Jewish peoplehood and their relationship to the land and agriculture.”

Lichtenstein sees this relationship as foundational in Judaism and feels strongly that Jewish farming is not just one more way to express one’s Judaism. “The connection of Jewish tradition and culture and farming is not just one more avenue to connect Jewishly, but it is the primary way to connect the creator to creation. It is the foundation of Jewish culture, born out of a time we were connected to the land and our food system.” He proceeds to offer biblical and historical examples from the Hebrews tending the land and taking care of sheep in Goshen, to working the land in the times of the prophet Jeremiah.

In their four months on the farms, fellows work in a range of horticultural projects including vegetable and medicinal gardens, fruit and nut orchards, and ecological landscaping. Expectations for full participation in the long, often hot and repetitive tasks of farming from 8 am to 5 pm Mondays through Fridays are high. Approximately 16 hours a week are spent farming, 16 learning and two at “community circles.” In most cases, they are expected to be able to lift a 40-pound bag and be ready to work in the rain and during the summer heat. Fellows receive a monthly stipend.

One Shabbat a month is spent as a community on the farm, though participants are welcome and often elect to stay for other Shabbatot.

Work on the farm, which meets seasonal and project needs, often includes planting, weeding and irrigating in the gardens, collecting and washing eggs, assisting with animal care, preservation in the pantry kitchen, herbal processing in the apothecary, landscaping and forestry.

The 16-hour weekly enrichment curriculum includes Intro to Farming, Jewish Studies and homesteading arts. The farming class includes lectures, group discussions and hands-on components as fellows learn to build their own garden beds, maintaining healthy soil, composting and more.

Jewish studies classes explore cycles, rhythms and themes of Jewish tradition within the context of agricultural processes and land stewardship. Lichtenstein offers an example of learning Jewish texts in class and applying it in practice. “You can learn the (biblical) laws of leket and peah for days on end and all the nuance, but when you actually grow a field and grow produce and harvest and grind and bake, gratitude rises out of the food itself because it is not separate from the bread—you see and appreciate it and it puts you in a reverent state. We teach reference through our connection with the food system.”

Homesteading arts offers exposure to such crafts and skills as bushcraft, woodworking, cobb building, leatherwork, broom making and fermentation.

On the day that Lichtenstein and Kaiser spoke with the Jerusalem Post by Zoom, students had been studying about perennial systems. More specifically, they were learning about the best ways to tend and maintain raspberry bushes.

Josh Weinstein, 36, a systems engineer who lived in New Haven, Connecticut prior to the start of the program, describes Mahaz as a “one of a kind experience.” It is also a radical departure from what he describes as “the last thirteen years (at various companies) on the computer all day.” Weinstein has enjoyed learning, living and working side by side with the other fellows who come from diverse Jewish backgrounds and considers the setting to be “one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been” as it is “like a painting in all directions.”

Weinstein is proud of the range of activities he has engaged in thus far and in the skills he has developed. “We built a large garden from scratch and tend it, we raise chickens, collect eggs, and help raise cows for meat.” In addition, he is pleased that he has learned wilderness skills and such crafts as whittling. Weinstein also appreciates the careful thought and attention and Jewish approach which goes into every aspect of the farm. “They are really thoughtful about how they treat the land and relate to animals.”

Weinstein credits Rabbi Lichtenstein as “the reason I am here” and enjoys the ongoing opportunities to “study torah of the earth.” Through his Jewish learning in such a hands-on setting, the laws of Shabbat melachot (work) became more relevant. The fellowship also provided Weinstein with his first opportunity to observe shechita, Jewish ritual slaughter. “I participated in the shechita of four sheep—it was very intense—we kept and tanned the hides. It changed my perception of tefillin, mezuzot and torah scrolls.”

When the fellowship ends at the end of the summer, some fellows may elect to work on this farm, move on to larger farms, or even build their own homesteads. Brocha Leah Barmatz, 23, who has grown up in Postville, Iowa, Brooklyn, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey and has traveled extensively, was a Mahaz fellow two years ago, and now lives on the farm. She initially

responded to a post by Kaiser on Facebook and was immediately drawn to the program. “I was blown away by the interview, by the types of questions Miri asked,” Barmatz recalls. “I never realized a culture like this, which took an interest in youth development existed.” She loves how “each individual (in the fellowship program) is a big part of things and fit together in to a wholesome unit.” Barmatz found the work on the farm to be fulfilling. In addition, she reports, “I was so grateful for the learning opportunities, the quiet, the slowness and how it was so nourishing for me.”

Barmatz decided to return and now is responsible for managing a small garden of kale, cabbage, beans, turnips, zucchini and culinary herbs, she helps with Mahaz logistics, and she is part of “the home team,” helping plan workshops in such areas as crafts, laser cutting and pottery. She has also helped bring some of Mahaz’s ideas to the larger Jewish world. She and a partner attended the Sababa Music Festival in New Jersey where they set up a booth for Refualary, another farm department, which considers itself “a Jewish space for herbal healing arts and community.”

Kaiser and Lichtenstein are always pleased when fellows take what they learned at Mahaz and share it in the world. Kaiser notes, “I hope they will go out and teach what they’ve learned. When it is genuine, there is a natural contagion to it,” Kaiser notes. She shares proudly the story of one student who went back to her community in Brooklyn and taught others to make elderberry syrup, while another student grew tomatoes on her Brooklyn balcony. “They will always have the skills. They will generate their own effect. It is important that they find a niche they love.” Lichtenstein is similarly proud of his alumni and their newly acquired skills. “They are part of their tradition and steeped in what it means to be human.”

Read more

The original article is published at JPost.com

Lissan teaches Hebrew language to Arab women in an effort to promote “linguistic justice and equal access to basic rights and services for all Jerusalem residents.”

When Jerusalem residents Talia Vekshtein and Sirin Smoom ascended the bimah to address the congregation at Manhattan’s B’nai Jeshurun on a Shabbat morning in May, they were not sure what to expect.

The two Israeli friends and colleagues are not typical Israelis who speak at American synagogues, and the topic of their talk was not the typical content coming out of Israel – especially as the war and hostage crisis still rage in Gaza.

Fortunately, the congregation was very excited to hear stories about their organization, Lissan (the Arabic word for “tongue” or language), which, according to its website, teaches Hebrew language to Arab women in an effort to promote “linguistic justice and equal access to basic rights and services for all Jerusalem residents.”

For Smoom, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, this was her first time in a Jewish house of worship.

“Visiting the synagogue for the first time left a profound impression on me,” writes Smoom in an email. “I was struck by the warmth of the community and the respectful manner in which everyone engaged in the service.

LISSAN GREW out of the desire of women in east Jerusalem to improve their Hebrew language skills. (credit: Courtesy Lissan)

“The presence of both a male and a female rabbi was noteworthy and spoke to the synagogue’s inclusivity. The rabbi’s teachings provided deep insights into Jewish beliefs and practices, and what stood out was the prayers for peace for both Israelis and Palestinians – a rare sight that fostered a deeply peaceful and inclusive atmosphere in a very holy place. The readings from the Torah further enhanced my sense of reverence to Jewish traditions.

“Overall, it was an unforgettable introduction to a place of worship that cherishes tradition, community, and spiritual contemplation.”

Vekshtein, in an email, enthuses about the congregation and the opportunity to speak about Lissan together with her colleague.

“For me, visiting B’nai Jeshurun was deeply meaningful because the space of the Shabbat morning service provided emotional processing and spiritual connection within a supportive and inclusive community framework.

“These days, when our land is fraught and it’s so difficult to express all the pain and sorrow, I didn’t expect such an emotional experience far from home, outside my local community.

“It was moving for me to witness a Jewish community that, in the name of Judaism, sanctifies values that are both Jewish and universal – human dignity, equality and justice, and calls for peace and healing between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

“Experiencing this together with Sirin, and seeing her warmly welcomed with open arms and love, was also deeply meaningful and touching for me. The warm reception we received at B’nai Jeshurun showed me that we have true shared values within the American Jewish community and that together, even in this time, there are large and strong communities that believe Jerusalem and the region as a whole can look different.”

For B’nai Jeshurun’s longtime rabbi, J. Rolando Matalon, inviting the two made perfect sense and fit in with the mission of the shul.

“We brought the women from Lissan at the suggestion of one of our members who is a supporter of the organization,” he explains by email.

“At this time of increased tension and animosity between the Jewish and Palestinian communities, it is important to highlight some of the many examples of partnership and cooperation, and positive contributions to peaceful coexistence.

“Shortly after the presentation by the women from Lissan, we all saw the hatred that was unleashed on Jerusalem Day, which was a desecration of Torah, of Judaism, and of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. We cannot allow that to prevail; we must help the way of Lissan to prevail.”

While Smoom and Vekshtein smiled throughout their talk, shared their experiences warmly and openly and seemed comfortable together, their mission after October 7 is complex and at times difficult. Lissan’s continued success is due to the hard work Smoom, Vekshtein, and their teams have devoted to the program, especially in the difficult period since October 7.

Origins of the organization

LISSAN GREW out of the desire of women in east Jerusalem to improve their Hebrew-language skills.

“Ten years ago, some east Jerusalem neighborhood women approached two Hebrew University students to ask them to teach them Hebrew,” Vekshtein recounts. “They [the women] wanted to be able to speak with their doctors in hospitals, take the light rail, buy things on Jaffa Road, and find better employment.”

What started with once-a-week informal meetings has grown to a robust program which utilizes 50 Jewish and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian volunteers – mostly women – who co-teach Hebrew to over 500 people a year.

Smoom’s own mother is an example of someone who benefited from the program. With improved Hebrew-language skills, the Jerusalem teacher was better able to understand financial and legal documents.

Smoom notes the importance for Arab working women to feel comfortable in Hebrew. “You need to have [decent] Hebrew for any job raise or a higher position. You can’t do it only in Arabic.”

Smoom cites troubling poverty and unemployment data. She notes that more than 60% of families in east Jerusalem live under the poverty line and cites data indicating a greater than 75% unemployment rate. In addition, she points out that more than 70% have no or weak Hebrew-language skills.

Smoom points out the benefits for all east Jerusalem residents if they learn to feel comfortable in Hebrew, noting, “We get most of our services in Hebrew.”

For university students – even those studying in Palestinian universities – mastery of Hebrew is especially important. “You have to get your Hebrew to a high enough level to integrate [into the workforce], or take medical, pharmacy or law exams.”

But, as Vekshtein points out, finding culturally sensitive Hebrew teaching materials can be challenging since “most content is olim-focused and doesn’t take into account cultural needs.” As a result, Lissan writes content and curriculum with its students in mind.

Learning together provides opportunities for this nonhomogeneous group of students – and their teachers – to learn about each other’s lives and cultures.

Vekshtein recalls a recent class where a Christian Palestinian shared about her son’s wedding. “A Muslim student was so curious to hear more!”

It is also an opportunity to tackle head-on the sometimes difficult and complex realities of daily life in Israel. Vekshtein and Smoom note that, after October 7, some sensitive situations have come up.

Smoom notes, “Our students are asking to learn more key words they can use at checkpoints. It is difficult but important for self-protection.” This is an area where co-teaching is useful. She adds, “Most Israeli teachers don’t know about this. We take the experience of our Palestinian teachers who went through this experience and have a dialogue with their students.”

The period right after October 7 posed many challenges. On the most basic level, Smoom notes, the education system was closed and teachers and students were not available for in-person learning. “All of our staff are moms, and they had to stay home with their kids when schools were shut down.”

Vekshtein elaborates, “Staff had to deal with no school and husbands in the army. Other staff members were stuck behind the wall and couldn’t go to the other side.”

In addition, the course was traditionally offered on the Hebrew University campus, which was shut down right after October 7.

But logistics were not the biggest challenge. “It was hard on so many levels,” notes Smoom. “We continued talking about it [the war]” and how to proceed.

Smoom and Vekshtein decided to send surveys to their students and volunteers and were pleased to learn that “90% of the students said yes, they want to go back [to their Hebrew studies], they wanted a routine!” Learning initially resumed via Zoom.

Lissan brought in outside facilitators to talk about and process thoughts and feelings which Vekshtein acknowledges were “complex.” She was pleased that the staff ultimately said, “We put our trust in you and know you can make it happen.”

Vekshtein notes that they all learned ways of having effective dialogues without avoiding difficult topics. “This is not a dialogue group, but we learned how to deal with it if it comes up.”

Vekshtein and Smoom were pleased they were able to reopen in person. Vekshtein reports, “We ended up at full capacity, which enabled positive encounters during this time.”

Lissan’s important work of teaching Hebrew continues. Vekshtein reflects, “I never thought of our work as trauma healing but it is keeping us seeing the humanity of the other side.”

The B’nai Jeshurun congregants returned home with an unusual window into one segment of Israeli society whose members are reaping the benefits of their hard work with “the other.”

Read more