Of Public Record

“It’s not strange that they have been so frequently expelled. What is surprising, is that they persist… The Jewish People could have done much good for mankind” but “it is as though they were not made to coexist.”

Award-winning playwright and author Antonio Gala, in an op-ed published by the Spanish daily El Mundo

 

If you are revived after, say, 100 years, your new life will in no way resemble your old one… existence as you knew it will have been irrevocably discontinued. And unless key members of your social circle froze themselves with you, you’re going to be very lonely.

Author Judith Shulevitz, inadvertently channeling Choni Hame’agel, in an essay about the prospect of freezing dying people to later revive them.

 

“We reviewed your report of “Death to zionst baby killer israeli jews” [Facebook page name]. Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the Page you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.”

Initial response by Facebook administrators to a complaint.  The company later removed the page at issue.

 

“We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos. It is a fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence. It happened everywhere, here and there.”

Osama Hamdan, top Hamas representative in Lebanon and a member of the Hamas political bureau, in a television interview  

 

“Your governments always say they don’t pay. When you go back, I want you to tell your people that your government does pay. They always pay.”

An Al Qaeda guard to a kidnapped Italian woman.  An investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda and its direct affiliates have taken in at least $125 million in revenue from kidnappings since 2008

 

“You have to wonder w the shelling how patients at Shifa hospital feel as Hamas uses it as a safe place to see media.”

Nick Casey of the Wall Street Journal, in a tweet that was quickly deleted, although he was still put on a Hamas list of journalists who “lie/fabricate info for Israel” and “must be sued” – although Hamas has resorted to less legal means of revenge.

 

The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy… The fact you are unwilling to examine the philosophical foundations of what you do does not mean those foundations are not there; it just means they are unexamined.

Physicist George Ellis, considered one of the world’s greatest cosmologists, in an interview

 

“Send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she’ll get rid of the pain.”

A Belgian physician manning a medical hotline in Flanders, responding to the son of a Jewish woman who had fractured a rib.  Health ministry officials were “looking into the incident”

 

“Jews are a litmus test of what’s going on. It’s not only Jews who will leave the country. It’s not only France who will go down the drain, it’s not only Europe, it’s the entire Western world, including the United States.”

Dr. Richard Prasquier, former president of France’s national Jewish association, on the implications of rising anti-Semitism in his country and other European nations

 

“I’m sure that people who bring their kids to Maimonides find the case is never probed. Maimonides is very dependent on the Haredi community.”

Rabid anti-charedi blogger Shmarya Rosenberg, quoted in The Daily Beast, sharing his belief in a conspiracy theory to hide instances of disease in Jewish babies.

 

“That Mayor de Blasio has stepped back from Bloomberg’s position is outrageous—he is in essence saying, ‘Go kill your infants as long as you vote for me.’”

“Activist” Ben Hirsch, quoted in the same article, on his conclusion that New York’s new mayor may not seek to regulate the practice of metzitza bipeh as his predecessor did.

 

“These haredi get in at 8 and work till 5, they don’t move… When they work, they really work.”

Liat Mordechay, co-founder 24me, an iOS calendar lifestyle application, on why she employs “the ultra-Orthodox”

 

“It is very difficult to identify Hamas because they don’t have uniforms or any visible insignia; our photographer hasn’t even seen anyone carrying a gun.”

Eileen Murphy, the New York Times’ vice president for corporate communications, responding to an inquiry about why, among the many Gaza photographs the paper has published, none depict Hamas members.

 

“I acted as a doctor through to the very end.”

French physician Nicolas Bonnemaison, who, at least seven times, ended the lives of comatose patients in his care without permission from their families.  A Paris jury acquitted him of all charges.

Pain and Gain

Living lives of comfort and ease, it’s difficult for many of us to fulfill the direction of the first siman in the Shulchan Aruch to “be pained and distressed over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdosh.”  Do we experience agony at the fact that the holiest spot in the universe lies in picturesque ruin, trampled daily by the feet of deluded masses? Do we feel sick over the reality that, no matter how nice the weather and the house and the bungalow and the cars, we are in golus?

It’s easier these days, unfortunately.  We’re reminded.

It will be less of a challenge, too, to access the sadness of Eicha and our kinos this Tisha B’Av, when (unless we’re wonderfully surprised first by Moshiach’s arrival) we will focus entirely on the churban Beis Hamikdosh and its appalling offspring, the subsequent tragedies of Jewish history.

Because, no matter how one chooses to regard past weeks’ events in Eretz Yisrael, and no matter what may have been accomplished or might yet be, the situation is in fact dire and seemingly hopeless.

Some may take heart in the elimination of terrorists who, in their happiest dreams, and all too often in reality, exult in the murder of innocents.  To be sure, it is certainly not improper to feel relief in the removal of destructive forces from this world.  But anyone who thinks that there isn’t a steady supply of others ready to step into the bloody boots of recently dispatched psychopaths is fooling himself.

And the same is true of anyone who feels satisfaction at the discovery of so many “offensive tunnels.”  (The phrase’s adjective is doubly apt; the subterranean structures are not only intended as means for killing and kidnapping Jews, but offend morality itself.)  To be sure, each tunnel destroyed is one less conduit for murder and extortion.  But there are governments and groups that will be only too happy to send the necessary funds and materials to burrow new holes in the ground for the vipers and rodents.  (Yes, dehumanizing words.  Claims to humanness can be forfeited.)

And then there are the korbonos, the brave young men whose lives were abruptly ended as they were protecting their friends and relatives by fighting evil.  In our world, sometimes, at least in the short run, evil wins.

Even the dream-within-imagining of Hamas’ destruction, though still far from coming true, would lead, experts warn, to worse.  Other groups of (if it can even be envisioned) even more murderous Islamists wait in the wings; and a Gaza serving as their pernicious playground would not bode well at all for Israel’s citizens, or for civilization itself.

We may not overlook, either, the global anti-Semitism that has found a convenient reason to resurrect and invigorate itself, and is expressing itself so openly and honestly, with Jews being attacked, shuls besieged, swastikas brandished.  And the “soft” anti-Semitism of some of nations who ignore body-counts everywhere but in Gaza.

Yes it seems hopeless.  But pain, in the end, at least in Judaism, must not lead to despair.  On the contrary, anguish is what paves the way to redemption.  “All who mourn Yerushalayim,” Chazal inform us (Bava Basra 60b), “merit to see its rejoicing.”

There’s a reason, in other words, why Tisha B’Av is followed by the Shiva Dinechemta, the “seven weeks of consolation.”  The reassuring Haftoros we will read over those weeks offer not platitudinous comfort but, rather, pointed reminders of how things are destined to end, with a world enveloped by “knowledge of Hashem as water covers the seas.”

And so our pain on Tisha B’Av is rightly felt.  And it is more accessible than ever for those of us who in the past might have felt only pain, as the Chiddushei HaRim put it, at the fact that we weren’t feeling pain.

The key is to realize that all the world’s evils, all the wars and hatreds, all the terrorists and despots, all the bloodshed and madness, derive their power, in the end, from the distance we have put between ourselves and Hashem, a distance manifest in the fact that the Beis Hamikdosh is still absent.  When we look at Gaza today, and the West Bank, and all the Jews living under the threat of implacable, rabid and irrational enemies, we need to understand that it is the churban, in fact, that we are seeing.

The month of Av, we might remind ourselves, leads to that of Elul, in which we begin to prepare for Rosh Hashana, when we will declare Hashem’s Kingship over creation.  That Divine dominion is a reality, even if the King isn’t making it evident to all the world.  The day will come, though.

And may our mourning merit that we see it ourselves, and soon.

© 2014 Hamodia

Of Public Record — quotes culled from recent days’ media

“I lied.  Like they do”

Ron Dermer, current Israeli ambassador to the U.S., as a college undergraduate, responding to his mother when she asked him how he had managed, on his professor’s demand, to argue persuasively that Israel should be condemned for its treatment of Palestinians

 

“We are like brothers.  We can fight, and we can reconcile.”

Ayed Thawabteh, a Fatah activist from Hebron, on his current support for Hamas, despite its murder of hundreds of his compatriots.

 

“For the first time in the history of the abhorred country, the state of Israel, sirens are heard around the clock and over three million people flee to their hideouts. Schools, governmental departments, and airports came to a halt. When have we ever heard of such things? This is the beginning of good things to come.”

Sheik Tareq Al-Hawwas, a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, in a Friday sermon on Qatar TV

 

“Nie Wieder Juden-Hass” (“Never Again Jew-Hatred”)

Front-page headline in Bild, the largest circulation paper in Germany

 

“They are not shouting ‘Death to the Israelis’ on the streets of Paris. They are screaming ‘Death to the Jews’ ”

Roger Cukierman, of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France

 

“arguably the most virulent anti-Israel leader in the world”

American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen, describing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and demanding the return of a “Profile of Courage” award the group gave Mr. Erdoğan in 2004

 

“But I have no doubt in my mind that along with all of them, Birthright shares some measure of the blame.”

Slate senior editor Allison Benedikt, opining on the death in Gaza of an American-born oleh serving in the IDF  

 

“Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not, under any circumstances.”

A sign, in Turkish, in a Belgian café, which was eventually removed by police

 

“Kill Jews” “Hitler should finish you off”  “Baby killers”

Phrases shouted at 22-year-old Samantha Hamilton, who was among six Canadian supporters of Israel attacked by a 100-strong mob in Calgary.  Her brother, she said, had a Star of David shirt ripped off, and was bitten and stomped on, suffering a concussion.  Her mother was punched in the stomach and knocked to the ground.

 

“… I would just like to remind you of the ruling by the Israeli rabbis, who have instructed the soldiers to knead the [dough for] the bread that the Jews eat with the blood of Arab and Palestinian children.”

Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab

Something Is Wrong With Gazans

The solution to the long and ongoing war between Hamas and Israel is an obvious one, and it consists of two words: Gazan Spring.

Everyone knows the facts.  Hamas, pledged to Israel’s destruction, is the de facto government in Gaza.  In the Palestinian parliamentary elections of January, 2006, it won 74 out of 132 seats.  Even though the United States and the European Union refused to recognize Hamas’ right to govern any area of the Palestinian Authority, it took control of Gaza and, began to fight with Fatah, its Palestinian rival. Over subsequent years, clashes and truces between the two groups became the recurrent reality.  Many hundreds of Palestinians have been killed there by their fellow Palestinians.

Just before the recent spate of violence between Hamas and Israel, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas entered into an agreement with Hamas to form a unity government. That latest attempt to heal the rift between the Palestinian faction that aims to eradicate Israel and the one that professes to back a two-state solution was widely expected to eventually meet the fate of previous, similar Fatah-Hamas pacts, which fell apart as a result of the two groups’ inherently diametric stances.

Now, with Israel’s full-hearted campaign to undermine Hamas’ ability to target of Israeli population centers – with some missiles having reached as far as Tel Aviv and Yerushalayim – there seems little hope that Hamas will emerge with anything but the defiant pride of a gravely wounded but still standing “freedom fighter” or, to use the more apt term here, “terrorist.”

The key lies in the phrase “still standing.”  It was the Palestinian population that provided Hamas what legitimacy it has as an elected entity.  A population giveth, but it can also taketh away.  The media claims that there are many Gazans, perhaps even a majority of them, who are disillusioned, and deeply, with Hamas.

That would be no wonder.  Gaza’s infrastructure has been deteriorating for years; civil servants’ salaries haven’t been paid for months, and Hamas’ coffers (although, tragically, not its arsenals) are empty. The blockade of its ports and borders has prevented the building of new homes (with the tons of concrete smuggled into Gaza employed exclusively to reinforce the tunnels used to attack Israelis). Social services have faltered, corruption of officials has increased, Egypt has withdrawn its support from the government and now, once again, Hamas’ lust to kill Jews has brought the population a rain of bombs and their resultant casualties (mostly, but, unfortunately and inevitably, not all of them terrorists).

Any sane Gazan should recognize the origin of his problems.

And if there are sane Gazans, they have presumably heard that despotic rulers and oppressive governments have, for better or worse, been toppled by populaces over recent years in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Were there a similar uprising in Gaza, a Gazan Spring, Mr. Abbas would be relieved of the temptation, to which he cravenly succumbed, to make any new deal with the devil that is Hamas, and might be emboldened to do more toward making peace with Israel than just mouth the bluster and platitudes that have been his stock in trade until now.

Whether Israel could come to trust a Palestinian leader of a unified populace is not easily predictable.  But the removal of Hamas from governance and its relegation to a mere renegade terrorist group firmly rejected by the clear majority of Palestinians would certainly sweeten the pot for Israelis (who, through regular elections, choose governments to represent their collective will).

A Gazan Spring wouldn’t come without bloodshed.  Societal upheavals, particularly in the Arab world, seldom do.  But shouldn’t that world’s defiant slogan Ash-sha`b yurid isqat an-nizam (“the people want to bring down the regime”) be ringing out in Gaza City?  Shouldn’t the vision of a bomber-less sky over their heads and open borders, not to mention of an eventual Palestinian state living in cooperation and prosperity alongside Israel, motivate Gazans to stand up for their futures?

One has to wonder at the fact that it hasn’t, that after eight years of Hamas rule, with all the suffering they have brought, the Gazan street hasn’t seen fit to assert itself.  Perhaps the populace just lacks the courage and determination that so many other Middle Eastern peoples seem to possess.

Or perhaps – though one hopes it isn’t the case – Gazans just share the visceral and ugly animosity that is the lifeblood of Hamas and similar groups.

After all, as Chazal teach us, just as love can bend the clear line of reason, so can hatred.

© 2014 Hamodia

Agudath Israel Statement On Recent Global Anti-Semitism

As Israel applies itself to the task of rooting out terrorists in Gaza, and destroying their tunnels and rocket launchers, there have been, as always when Israel acts to defend herself, condemnations of her effort to protect her citizens from an enemy bent on murdering them.

Seizing on the tragic consequences of even as just a war as the one Israel is conducting against Hamas, the condemners vehemently protest Israel’s actions – and, in the time-honored tradition of Jew-hatred, wax violent against Jews, wherever they may be.

And so, we have come to witness over recent weeks hatred and violence directed toward Jewish communities in France and other countries. Such incidents are reminiscent of an earlier, darker time in our history when hatred of Jews was openly and unabashedly expressed both verbally and physically. Witnessing these attacks today is a stark and chilling reminder that the scourge of anti-Semitism remains a malignant reality in the modern world.

Without questioning the sentiments or actions of the French government, or of the other governments involved, the fact that these incidents have primarily taken place in Europe, where just decades ago many “ordinary citizens” were complicit in the persecution and extermination of Jews, is not lost on us. Neither is the fact that these incidents come at a time of sharply rising anti-Semitism among the European populace, as indicated in various polls and studies.

The pretense that these attacks are not anti-Semitic, but merely a reaction to current events in the Middle East, is cynical and decidedly false. When a Paris mob besieges and throws bricks at a synagogue with 200 congregants inside, it is anti-Semitism. When a synagogue north of Paris is firebombed on Friday night and sustains damage, it is anti-Semitism. When a 17-year-old girl — referred to as a “dirty Jewess” — is assaulted on a Paris street by having her face pepper-sprayed, it is anti-Semitism. When a kosher grocery is torched in the Parisian suburb of Sarcelles, it is anti-Semitism.  When a Moroccan rabbi is pummeled into unconsciousness as he is walking to synagogue, it is anti-Semitism. When anti-Israel demonstrations in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Spain, Turkey and other countries are accompanied with calls to “slaughter the Jews,” with chants of “death to the Jews,” with slogans like “Hitler was right,” it is anti-Semitism. Pure and simple.

We have raised these concerns with our State Department and have been assured that these developments, and their grave implications, are being taken by our government with the utmost seriousness.  We have every faith and confidence that the United States will not stand by idly and that these blatant manifestations of animus against Jews will be responded to in a meaningful and effective manner.

 # # #

Of Public Record — quotes culled from recent days’ media

 

“It’s not like I was some social outcast… like I was an anarchist or somebody who just wants to destroy the world… No, I was a regular person.  And mujahedeen are regular people too.”

Canadian-born ISIS terrorist Andre Poulin (who in fact had a “violent threat” arrest record in Canada), in a video promoting jihad.  Mr. Poulin was killed in Syria last year at the age of 24.

 

“There’s a climate change establishment and I’m not in it.”

John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama, on being shunned by his colleagues for contending that predictions of future global warming are greatly overstated.

 

“[I just like] those funny, funny names”

Joram Kamau, the owner of a matatu, or minibus, in Kenya, on his choice of “Hitler” as the name of his vehicle (painted on the windshield in 7-inch-high letters and stitched into every seat).  Mr. Kamau said he had never heard of the Holocaust.

 

“I have ‘chai’ tattooed on my body.  I will always hold Jewish traditions near to my heart.”

Cliff Freid, who has opened a restaurant in Manhattan that serves food made from, or with, ants, worms and other insects, on the disconnect between the fare he offers and Jewish law.

 

“I kind of phased things in. I started with keeping kosher and keeping Shabbos, but the dressing came about 10 years later.  I think I really did see it the way I’d say most people who are outside the Orthodox world look at it: ‘Why should I give up summer clothes?’ And I was very surprised to find out when I made the changeover that it’s nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be.  It’s not about making yourself ugly, it’s about focusing on the inside, not the outside.”

New Jersey lawyer Janette Frisch, who began to undertake Jewish observance in college, on how dressing modestly on hot days ceased to be an issue for her.

 

“You cannot read the Hebrew Scripture without encountering the idea that there’s a very strong covenant between G-d and the Jewish people,”

Pew Research Center director of religion research Alan Cooperman, in an understatement, on Evangelicals’ particularly high regard for Jews, revealed in a recent poll that showed Jews are the “best liked group” in America.  (Atheists and Muslims were the least liked.)

 

“I did not leave Morocco for France to be confronted by Morocco again in France,”

An unnamed Casablanca-born Jewish doctor, to French journalist Michel Gurfinkiel

 

“Genocide”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offering his judgment of Israel’s bombing of missile sites in Gaza, a judgment Armenians would, and accurately, apply elsewhere.

 

“We don’t need statements of regret from Israel.”

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, after Israel apologized for civilian casualties in Gaza.  He didn’t indicate whether or not Israel needs rocket attacks on its citizens.

Fresh Air Amid the Reek

Even more remarkable than the article itself was where it appeared.

Written by Elissa Strauss, an essayist and a “co-artistic director” of a “non-religious Jewish house of study for culture-makers at the 14th Street Y” in New York, the piece – “What Did the Orthodox Do Now?!” – graced the pages of the Forward, where Ms. Strauss is a contributing editor.

The essay’s focus was the non-Orthodox Jewish media’s “fixation with Haredi Jews”; those organs’ “hunger for sensationalism” in their reportage on the Orthodox community; the “crude laziness” evidenced by such tunnel vision; and the reduction of “a whole community of Jews” to “a kind of caricature in stories that often traffic in stereotypes.”

Points well taken, and the Forward, of course, is a good example of such invidious ink-spilling.  It has some excellent reporters but also maintains a stable of writers and bloggers with chronically jaundiced views of the charedi world.  And so it deserves credit for publishing Ms. Strauss’ piece, which was essentially a rebuke of its own journalistic bent with regard to our community.

Ms. Strauss attributes the obsessive negativity displayed by some non-Orthodox writers for charedim to a desire to feel a “moral superiority” over their subjects, to “pat ourselves on the back for being so much better.”  But she also raises the specter of other “much more complicated emotions” involved, “possibly including envy…”

A second remarkable article appeared recently in a Jewish publication that doesn’t display any noticeable anti-charedi bent: the venerable politically conservative monthly, Commentary.  On the heels of Ms. Strauss’ piece, it published a lengthy scholarly historical and sociological overview of the charedi community, written by Jack Wertheimer, a respected professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  Titled “What You Don’t Know About the Ultra-Orthodox” (although the latter term is eschewed in the text of the article, in favor of “Haredim”), it presents an impressively clear and unbiased picture of the American charedi world and its ideals, and demonstrates what the piece’s subtitle promises: “The least understood and most insular American Jews have much to teach us.”

Professor Wertheimer acknowledges various grievances and complaints some Jews voice about charedim; in each instance, though, he also explains the charedi viewpoint, and does so eloquently and well.

As in every community, there are, unfortunately, distasteful things and unsavory players in our own.  We do ourselves no favor pretending otherwise.  “The Haredim,” however, explains Professor Wertheimer, “are expected” by other Jews “to be free of vice because they are supposed to ‘tremble in fear of G-d’.”

How wonderful a testimony to the Torah’s truth such perfection would be.  Alas, free will is what it is, and living a superficial charedi  lifestyle cannot preclude bad behavior.  But generalizing from outliers to the community as a whole is wrong and indefensible.

As is the refusal Professor Wertheimer asserts “to acknowledge the good and not only the problematic or off-putting [to some outsiders] aspects of Haredi life.

Ms. Strauss puts it pithily: “We aren’t really interested in the Orthodox.  We aren’t willing to see a full picture, the good and the bad, the complexity of these many individuals living so differently than us.”

That’s a sort of unwillingness many of us charedim, too, are occasionally guilty of, whether the subjects of our opinionating are other groups of Jews, non-Jews or President Obama.  But it is particularly glaring, all said and done, in Jewish media reportage on charedim.

Not long ago we read in shul of how Bilam broke the news to his sponsor King Balak that Hashem has thwarted their plans to curse Klal Yisrael, the king responded: “Come with me to another place from where you will see them; however, you will see only a part of them, not all of them, and curse them for me from there” (Bamidbar 23:13).

At first thought that puzzles.  Why would Balak think that having Bilam look at the Jews from a different place and in a limited way might facilitate a successful curse?

Things, though, can look very different from different vantage points.  And a focus can be chosen.  One can aim one’s sights at the negative in a people – or a community or an individual; or one can pull back to see a larger, more comprehensive, and thus more accurate, picture.

Perspective, in the end, is everything, and a skewed one can be a very misleading and dangerous thing.  Balak clearly hoped that a view from a different “angle” might reveal something negative about Klal Yisroel, some vulnerability into which a curse might successfully settle.  Boruch Hashem, he had no success.

Unfortunately, some Jewish media have succeeded for years in portraying charedim from a malevolent perspective, sullying our community and beliefs with selective vision, animus and unjustified generalizations.

Ms. Strauss and Professor Wertheimer deserve kudos for pointing that out, and for suggesting that those media aim to be accurate and fair.  May those writers’ words be taken to heart by those who so need to hear them.

© 2014 Hamodia

Agudath Israel Responds to Israeli Ground Mission in Gaza

With the news that a ground invasion of the hornets’ nest known as Gaza is underway, Agudath Israel of America calls on all Jews to pray for the safety of the soldiers and the citizenry of Israel, and to undertake meaningful acts of kindness, charity, Torah-study and special observances to help merit Divine protection of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael, on the front lines and everywhere else

As has been the practice in many shuls over past years, in response to the call of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, the recitation of Tehillim (Psalms) 83, 130 and 142, followed by the tefila of Acheinu, is recommended.  But our every prayer should include entreaties on behalf of our fellow Jews.

May our tefillos be received in mercy by Hakodosh Boroch Hu, and help usher in days of peace and security.

# # #

Letter in the New York Times

To the Editor:

“A Damaging Distance” (news analysis, Sunday Review, July 13) may well be right that the reduced interaction between Arabs and Israelis is lamentable. But to attribute Israel’s erection of a barrier wall between Palestinian land and Israeli land to “the common wisdom that the two nations needed not greater intimacy but complete separation” ignores something rather important.

The wall was built for one reason: to prevent terrorism. In the three-year period after its erection, only a handful of murderous attacks were carried out in Israel. In the three-year period before it was built, 73 such attacks took place, and 293 Israelis were murdered as a result.

(Rabbi) AVI SHAFRAN
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, July 13, 2014