Home NOVEMBER_2024 Jlife NJ Extra- November 1, 2024

Jlife NJ Extra- November 1, 2024

Lee Yaron, an award-winning journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, will speak about her book, “10/7: 100 Human Stories,” on Sunday, Nov. 3 at 10:30 a.m. at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick.

Her book provides intimate profiles of some of the nearly 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage during the terrorist attack by Hamas. It showcases a diverse array of  victims from left-wing kibbutz residents, Mizrachi Jews, Bedouins, Christian and Muslim Arabs, to young people enjoying a music festival. Through interviews with survivors Yaron also explores how the attack ripped open Israeli society, radicalizing some and generating feelings of betrayal in others who feel the army and government didn’t protect them. It also shows how the attacks have put the entire Middle East on the precipice of disaster.

Yaron’s investigative reporting has previously resulted in the founding of state-level commissions and the changing of substantial bodies of Israeli policy and law.

Registration is required at aemt.net. Cost is $15 for temple members; $18 for non-members and $10 for seniors and students.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Shurat Hadin-the Israel Law Center, will speak Sunday, Nov. 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Young Israel of East Brunswick on “Bankrupting Terrorists One Lawsuit at a Time.”

As an activist attorney, she and her colleagues pioneered the strategy of combating terror financing, the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel and fought against the use of civil lawsuits against Israel. Darshan-Leitner has represented hundreds of terror victims in legal actions against international terrorist organizations and terrorist supporting countries winning millions of dollars on their behalf against such entities as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria in American, Israeli, Canadian and European courts. In recent years she has initiated a legal campaign to block terrorists from using social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter, to spread their message of violence and hate against Jews and Israel. Darshan-Leitner has been chosen twice as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post.

The program is being presented by the synagogue’s Israel advocacy committee in partnership with the Wasser Jewish Learning Institute. The program is free, but pre-registration is required at israeladvocacy@yieb.org.

Marlboro Jewish Center will commemorate Kristallnacht on Sunday, Nov. 3, at 4 p.m. at a program featuring singer, songwriter and composer Avi Wisnia sharing and speaking about the PBS documentary, “How Saba Kept Singing,” recounting the remarkable story of how his grandfather, Cantor David Wisnia, survived Auschwitz by using his singing skills to entertain the Nazi guards.

Avi and his grandfather, who died at age 94 in 2021, often performed concerts together.

Cantor Wisnia began his singing career as lead soloist in the 80-man choir of the famed Tlomackie Synagogue in Warsaw and had been training to be an opera singer when the Nazis invaded a day after his 13th birthday.  He spent more than 60 years in the cantorate, including a long tenure at Har Sinai Synagogue, then in Trenton, now in Pennington. At Auschwitz, the teen composed two songs, one in Yiddish, called “The Little White House,” and the other in Polish called “Oswiecim” (“Auschwitz”), which were smuggled out and are in the permanent collection of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Cantor Wisnia later managed to escape a train transport and spent weeks wandering through woods before meeting up with the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, which took him on as a translator after realizing he spoke several languages, including English. He fought with them until the end of the war, becoming “the mascot of Company H” and earning a citation for bravery.  That military service earned him the opportunity to come to America. His memoir, “One Voice, Two Lives: From Auschwitz Prisoner to 101st Airborne Trooper,” was published in 2015.

Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, is considered the unofficial start of the Holocaust when on Nov. 9-10, 1938 more than 1,600 synagogues were burned across Germany and Austria, Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed and 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.

The event is open to the public, but pre-registration is required at mjcnj.com/form/brokenglass. For information, call (732) 536-2300.

The 25th Annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival will he held Nov. 7-21 featuring 13 films, including six Israeli offerings and eight making their debut in the Garden State. The festival, sponsored by Rutgers University’s  Allen and Joan
Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, will show 11 of the films at the Regal Cinema Commerce Center in North Brunswick; five will also be available virtually and two will be exclusively virtual. Virtual screenings will be available Nov. 15-21 with the exception of the film, “Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,” a documentary about the American singer/songwriter, which will play live Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. with Ian and its director, Varda Bar-Kar, also appearing. It will be available virtually from Nov. 18-21.

The festival, which also features live appearances by actors, directors and experts at many showings, will kick off live on Nov. 7 at 3:30 p.m. with “Running on Sand,” which was nominated for an Israeli Academy Award, about an Eritrean refugee scheduled for deportation who is mistaken for a top Nigerian soccer player. Despite having no soccer skills he hides his identity and his presence both heals and exposes racial divisions among his teammates. It will also be shown  Nov.16 at 7 p.m. A virtual Zoom discussion link about the film with Don Seeman, associate professor in the department of religion and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University, will be made available to ticket holders.

Among the other films is “Call me Dancer,” a documentary being shown Nov. 12 at 3:30 p.m. and Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. about an Indian street dancer, Manish Chauhan, discovered by an Israeli ballet master who arranges for him to receive scholarships and an internship with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company. Chauhan, now a professional dancer, will appear at both screenings.

Tickets are $15 and $8 for students, both virtual and live, per film; $150 for an all-access pass for in-person films; $65 for a five in-person film pass or for a five virtual film pass. Tickets may be purchased at bildnercenter.rutgers.edu/film. For more information about other films and screenings go to rujff@sas.rutgers.edu or call (848) 932-4166.

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