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IFCJ partner Sharansky named “Man of the Year”

December 21, 2009

Some thirty years after he was imprisoned by the Soviet Union for the crime of wanting to live as a free Jew in Israel, statesman and author Natan Sharansky was named “Man of the Year” by the Russian Federation of Jews earlier this week.

During the 9 years he spent in a Soviet gulag, Sharansky became the face of Soviet Jewry–who were being denied basic freedom of religion as well as the ability to emigrate to Israel or other countries by the communist regime–and became one of the best-known Soviet dissidents around the world. He had been denied an exit visa to Israel in 1973, and was sent to prison in 1978 on trumped-up charges of treason and spying for the United States. He detailed his time in the gulag–and how his faith in God (and, to a great extent, his lovely wife, Avital) sustained him–in the touching book, Fear No Evil.

Despite the hardships of prison, much of which he spent in solitary confinement, and constant interrogations by the KGB, Sharansky never lost hope or gave in to his captors. When he was finally released in 1986, in a final act of defiance, when his captors told him to walk straight toward freedom, he walked in a zigzag.

Sharansky, who spent years as an Israeli cabinet minister and as a scholar, now heads the Jewish Agency, IFCJ’s partner in bringing Jews home to Israel on aliyah (as immigrants).

Sharansky has long written and spoken about the essentiality of Jewish identity to Israel and to Jews around the world, and has ben marshalling the resources of the Jewish Agency to strengthen Jewish identity in the Diaspora. At the event, he announced that Hebrew language “ulpan” classes in Russia will be re-opened after having been canceled due to budget cuts:

“We will teach Hebrew to more than 2,600 new students,” Sharansky declared. “I am determined to continue to act for strengthening Jewish identity in the former Soviet Bloc and among Jews throughout the world. I intend to use the award to strengthen the ties between Jews in the former Soviet bloc and the State of Israel.”

For more information on bringing Jews home to Israel, learn about IFCJ’s Wings of Eagles program.

The appropriate reaction to terror: Sderot turns missiles — into a menorah!

December 18, 2009

Sderot, the southern Israeli town that’s been battered by thousands of Kassam rockets launched from the nearby Gaza Strip, has found yet another way of making clear their unbroken spirits: Led by a local yeshiva, residents turned hollowed-out pieces of rockets that hit the city into a huge public menorah, which they’ve been lighting each night of Hanukkah.

Sderot menorah
Yeshiva students lighting the menorah made from Kassam rockets, which was placed on top of the yeshiva. (Courtesy David Cohen, Yeshivat Hesder Sderot)

This turning around–using something intended to harm them as a means of proclaiming the Jewish people’s enduring connection to God–is a particularly Jewish response: When Syrians used to shell kibbutzes in the Galilee region in the early years of the state, the Zionist response was always to build more. Israelis call this response “dafka” — a word with a number of meanings, but in this context, it means doing the exact opposite of what someone’s trying to make you do.

Not for nothing does the Bible repeatedly call the nation of Israel a “stiff-necked people.” Sometimes–unfortunately–the label refers to the nation being led astray, but the same quality is what gives the Jewish people the resilience to cling to their ways and their God. They do this in the face of far powerful opponents, as in the case of the yeshiva students who defeated the far more powerful Syrian-Greek empire, who established the festival of Hanukkah. And they do this today as a single country singled out and piled upon by dozens of other countries who can’t accept that they exist, and they do this fighting terrorist foes who wage war against them in the style of the Biblical Amalek, who attacked the weak and most defenseless. The terrorists’ blatant disregard for the sanctity of life–even of their own people–makes it that much more difficult (and that much more imperative) for nations of conscience to fight them.

That imperative brings us back to the Macabbees, the yeshiva students who defeated an empire and brought light into the world.

SFI wishes all of Israel,and all who love her, a happy and joyous Shabbat and final night of Hanukkah.

(Read the complete story about the Sderot menorah by the incomparable Aaron Klein here.)

Hanukkah tradition: Ma’oz Tzur — “Rock of Ages”

December 12, 2009

ChanukiaOne of Hanukkah’s traditions is that, after saying special prayers and lighting the Hanukkah menorah, families sing Ma’oz Tzur — an ancient Hebrew liturgical poem usually translated as “Rock of Ages.”

A very loose 19th century English translation — “Rock of Ages let our song/Praise thy saving power” — is a familiar and lovely hymn, but it misses much of what the original is. (It’s also not the familiar “Rock of Ages/Cleft for me” hymn.)

In Hebrew, Ma’oz Tzur refers to God’s willingness to vanquish evil in this world — describing the various exiles the Jewish people have endured, along with God’s greatness for redeeming them from each of them. Its final verses pray for a restoration of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and for the dawning of the Redeemed Age.

Go here to listen to the music of the most common tune, and here’s a literal translation of the original (our comments are in italics):

O mighty stronghold of my salvation, to praise You is a delight.
Restore my House of Prayer [referring to the Holy Temple] and there we will bring a thanksgiving offering.
When You have prepared the slaughter for the barking foe,
Then I shall complete with a song of hymn the dedication of the Altar.

My soul had been sated with troubles, my strength has been consumed with grief.
They had embittered my life with hardship, with the calf-like kingdom’s bondage.
But with His great power He brought forth the treasured ones,
Pharaoh’s army and all his offspring Went down like a stone into the deep [referring to the destruction of the Egyptian army during the splitting of the sea].

To the holy abode of His word He brought me. But there, too, I had no rest
And an oppressor came and exiled me. For I had served aliens,
And had drunk benumbing wine. Scarcely had I departed
At Babylon’s end [referring to the first exile -- to Babylonia] Zerubabel came. At the end of seventy years I was saved.

To sever the towering cypress sought the Agagite, son of Hammedatha [referring to the evil Haman of the Purim story],
But it became a snare and a stumbling block to him and his arrogance was stilled.
The head of the Benjaminite [referring to Mordechai of the Purim story] You lifted and the enemy [Haman], his name You obliterated
His numerous progeny – his possessions -on the gallows You hanged [referring to Haman's sons, who were hanged].

Greeks gathered against me then in Hasmonean days [referring to Hanukkah].
They breached the walls of my towers and they defiled all the oils;
And from the one remnant of the flasks a miracle was wrought for the roses.
Men of insight – eight days established for song and jubilation.

Bare Your holy arm and hasten the End for salvation -
Avenge the vengeance of Your servants’ blood from the wicked nation.
For the triumph is too long delayed for us, and there is no end to days of evil,
Repel the Red One [referring to Esau, referring to evil dominators such as the Roman Empire and Spanish Inquisition]  in the nethermost shadow and establish for us the seven shepherds.

Late Hall of Famer Reggie White’s spiritual journey into scripture — in the original

December 5, 2009

Watch this moving ESPN story from 2004 about Reggie White, the famed NFL football star and preacher, which explores the spiritual journey he took in his last years: While remaining a committed Christian, White learned Hebrew so that he could learn scripture in its original form and, in doing so, deepened his already complex and meaningful faith.