When I was in college at Boston University, there were often free recitals by top quality musicians. How nice to have such a treat here in Highland Park!

About thirty years ago when the Soviet Union first opened its doors, an elderly woman arrived in Israel who was visited by many rabbis. She was not religious, but she was the granddaughter of someone famous: the Chofetz Chaim. They wanted to hear about her conversations with and stories about her famous grandfather. There was one story in particular that was related. The granddaughter, against her parents’ and grandfather’s wishes, had attended university. After much education, she came back to her grandfather and said to him, when are you going to give up your old-fashioned ways? The world is moving forward with science and technology; all sorts of exciting new discoveries are happening. The Chofetz Chaim replied, with all these great discoveries, they will build bombs. One day there will be a bomb to destroy the world. While they are building bombs, I am building people.

Rabbi Bassous then went on to relate this to the parsha, where the people build a tower toward the skies.

More on Congregation Etz Ahaim in this post.

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The Kosher Cooking Carnival, post-holiday edition, is on Batya’s blog. Thank you, Batya.

The painting is Tower of Babel by Brueghel.

Hat Tip: a friend who used to belong to Congregation Etz Ahaim and now lives in Israel; and another friend who was pleased to hear it sung at his father’s Reform temple in a suburb north of New York City.

Stained Glass Window at Congregation Etz Ahaim, Highland Park, New Jersey

Genesis 1:16 -

And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.

This portion of the Torah is the one my son will be reading next October, when he turns 13, and we celebrate his bar-mitzvah.

For more Window Views, visit:

I made this sepia in Photoshop by desaturating the photo and then moving the color sliders to increase the yellow and magenta. For more information see Sepia Scenes.

There are a lot of Ashkenazim at Congregation Etz Ahaim. A while back, I wrote a post about Voices of Etz Ahaim, a marvelous oral history book put together by two Ashkenazi members. Many of the Ashkenazim are women married to Sephardi men, but sometimes it’s the reverse. I decided to make a list of “key ingredients” of why Ashkenazim are attracted to Etz Ahaim. Then I add my own personal note at the end.

1) food: Sephardim (the women–the men can’t locate the kitchen…so maybe I should say Sephardot?) know how to cook. Elaborate kiddushes might include dishes such as meat patties on pastry, borekas with a variety of fillings, bulghur & chickpea salad with grated carrots and parsley, and fancy cookies. A simpler kiddush has chickpeas and olives. And there’s usually a jar of herring for the Ashkenazim who need their fix.

2) International flavor: Countries represented include Turkey, Greece, Italy, Israel, Iran, Iraq, France, Morocco, Brazil, Russia. French is spoken in pockets; it’s fun to listen in on the conversations.

Ladino is part of the service. Bendicho su nombre is sung when the Torah is taken out. Ain Kelokeinu is also half Hebrew, half Ladino: non come estro Dio (there is none like our God).

3) Community: It is the only synagogue in Highland Park that isn’t over-crowded and bursting at the seams. We remember “losing” our boys as toddlers in the the large kiddushes of the our previous synagogue. And at Etz Ahaim friendliness comes with the territory.

4) Rabbi Bassous: Our rabbi is both learned and kind, a natural teacher. One can learn from him no matter what your level of Jewish education.

Did I mention the food?

On a more personal note, I like the way the misheberachs (prayer for the sick) are done at Etz Ahaim. When my mother z”l (may her memory be a blessing) was very sick with cancer, the misheberach was very important to me. I didn’t care to say it “quietly to oneself” as was done in the Ashkenazi shul we attended. At Etz Ahaim the women can stand at the mechitza (the separation between men and women) with their requests, and the Rabbi says each name loudly and clearly. I started attending Etz Ahaim on my own, in part so I could hear my mother’s name said out loud. My oldest son soon joined me, as his best friend was at Etz Ahaim. His younger brother soon followed (at that age they went to the groups).

We eventually pulled in my husband (my daughter was born later). Now my husband is on the Executive Board, he’s the treasurer, he keeps track of the aliyot donations, he finds someone to do the haftorah each week, he finds lainers (men who recite Torah) and speech givers when the Rabbi goes away in the summer; they caught him!

But really, it’s the food.

In the late 18th Century the Ba’al Shem Tov started Hassidism in what is now the Ukraine. It was in response to the emphasis on Talmud study of the Litvaks. Instead, the emphasis is on prayer, joy, spirituality. Hassidim follow a rebbe. So today you have the Belzer Rebbe, the Gerrer Rebbe, the Satmar Rebbe (disputed leadership). Chabad or Lubavitch is also Hassidic.

There is a tiny branch of the Bostoner Rebbe here in Highland Park. The Bostoner is the only Hasidic branch named after an American city. All the other Hasidic branches are named after towns in Eastern Europe.

Yekkes are German Jews. Yekkes are known for being very punctual. This is as opposed to general “Jewish time” (an event that starts later than it is called for). The term “Yekke” comes from jacket, and it refers to the shorter, more Westernized jackets worn by German Jews, as opposed to the longer coats of Eastern European Jews.

Sephardi refers to Jews who were kicked out of Spain in 1492. However, it has come to refer also to Jews from Iraq, Iran, India or Yemen who never had ancestors who lived in Spain. That’s why in Israel they are called ‘Edot HaMizrach’ or congregations of the East. Sephardim are from countries like Morroco, Italy, Turkey, Greece (especially Salonika), Libya, Tunisia. Many have moved from those countries to France. We belong to a Sephardi congregation in Highland Park, Congregation Etz Ahaim. Why two thorough-bred Ashkenazim and children joined a Sephardi synagogue is a subject for another post. But we are not the only Ashkenazim there! (Ashkenaz = Germany and has come to mean any Jew from Europe).

I haven’t even begun to cover the history of religious Zionism here or how various Hasidic or Sephardic groups have responded to the modern State of Israel.

Two good posts on related topics:

• Why I am a Chasid of the Belzer Rebbe
• What Would Rav Kook Say

FYI, it was Gail‘s comment on this post that prompted the above post. So, folks, if you like what you are reading or if you are confused by what you are reading, let me know by commenting, and I’ll elaborate in a new post!

1) Even when you are dead, you may still not be at rest. Vandals can still attack your grave.
2) It is important to raise children from an early age to respect property. This can start with teaching children to pick up a candy wrapper from the floor. Unfortunately, the teens involved in this incident were not raised to respect property.
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My husband pointed out that if the teens were tried in a Jewish Halachic court, they would be considered adults. In the American judicial system, they are considered juveniles.

In my searches on the web, I discovered that cemetery desecration is all too common a pastime for some teens. Clearly, there are a lot of parents out there NOT teaching their children to respect property, especially buried dead people. On one forum, I found young men bragging about their exploits, and saying the only reason why this is getting such publicity is because it is a Jewish cemetery. Sad. And scary.

My husband said it will cost $200 and up just to repair one headstone. Some are not repairable. 499 headstones toppled.

Finally, the police is now calling this a bias crime. See the comments on Dov Bear.

“To say it was premeditated is an understatement,” said Poile Zedek administrator Caryn Lipson. “It had to be hours and hours of work by several people.”

From the Star Ledger:

Jack Oziel picked his way through the ruins of the vandalized Jewish cemetery yesterday, surveying hundreds of headstones toppled like dominos or lying in crumbled heaps.

He managed to locate the fragments of a granite Star of David that had marked his father’s grave lying on the grass. His mother’s tomb had cracked in half. And everywhere else Oziel looked, he saw more headstones of family and friends knocked down.

“I knew them all. I buried all these people. Now they are all in pieces,” Oziel, 91, said with red eyes as he surveyed the damage at the Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick.

And I know Jack Oziel. So I feel like I know all of those people buried there, too.

How can this be prevented? A surveillance camera? And who would do something so nasty?