“Chaim Constantinidis tells the extraordinary story of Zakynthos’s Jewish community, the subject of two upcoming productions

In the late spring of 1944, Nazi ships of death were making stops in the ports of the Ionian Islands. They had stowed 2,000 Jews from Corfu in their holds and another 400 from Cephalonia, and were heading for Zakynthos. The mission of the SS squads was to round up all of the members of the Jewish community in the region and sail them to the western port city of Patra, where they would be transferred onto trains for Auschwitz.

…The story is set to come alive on the big screen in two American productions: The first is “No Man Is an Island,” a documentary directed by Yannis Sakaridis, and the second a feature film by Theo Papadoulakis, which is still in the making. Two Greek Americans are behind the projects, producers Gregory Pappas and Steven Priovolos, who rallied eminent members of the diaspora in the US and, of course, Hollywood, behind the projects. One of the executive producers is Sid Ganis, a former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences whose Greek-Jewish family hails from Ioannina in northwestern Greece.”

This is a remarkable and inspiring story – see full article here:

https://www.ekathimerini.com/161394/article/ekathimerini/community/the-greek-island-that-hid-its-jews-from-the-nazis

On June 11, I wrote in my Times of Israel blog to ask JNF-Israel not to evict the Sumarin Family from its home of 50 years in Silwan just South of Jerusalem’s Old City Walls. This is a matter of fairness and justice.

Here is that blog – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jnf-israel-dont-uproot-the-sumarin-family-from-its-home-in-silwan/ It in I explain the issue and list a number of articles in the Israeli press that goes into greater depth.

Here is a short video that interviews the Sumarin family.

I ask you now to sign the petition lending your own support for the Sumarin family that has lived in its home for more than 50 years. I also ask you to forward this blog with your own request through your social media to ask others to sign the petition.

Many thanks in advance.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/prevent-the-eviction-of-the-sumarin-family

Colum McCann’s new novel Apeirogon is based on the actual murder of two young girls, 13-year-old Smadar Elhanan who lost her life when three Palestinian suicide bombers exploded themselves on Ben Yehuda Street in West Jerusalem on September 4, 1997, and 10-year-old Abir Aramin who was shot in the back of the head ten years later in Anata just four kilometers Northeast of Jerusalem’s Old City by an 18-year-old Israeli soldier as his jeep sped around a corner.

The girls’ fathers, Rami Elhanan (an Israeli Jew) and Bassam Aramin (a Palestinian Muslim) met at the Hotel Everest between Jerusalem and Bethlehem through Combatants for Peace, an organization of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters who shared one thing in common, “that both sides had once wanted to kill people they did not know.”

For my review of the book, see my blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/apeirogon-by-colum-mccann-book-recommendation/ .

Yesterday, the LA Jewish Journal printed my op-ed that called upon American lawmakers to make clear that annexation is a reckless and destructive step that would have serious long-term ramifications for the region and for the American-Israeli relationship.

See – https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/317501/american-lawmakers-just-weeks-to-take-a-stand-against-annexation/

On June 30th, 2020, Israeli courts are scheduled to hear the final appeal of a case in which JNF-Israel through its subsidiary organization Himanuta will seek to evict the Palestinian Sumarin family from its long-time home in Silwan, East Jerusalem only steps south of the Old City walls.

I posted at the Times of Israel a blog that gives a fuller explanation including background articles, a suggested email protest text, and email addresses at JNF-Israel where you can join me in protesting the JNF actions to expel this family of 18 from its long-time home.

If you feel as I do that this is a gross injustice, please follow through and email your own letter of protest – see https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jnf-israel-dont-uproot-the-sumarin-family-from-its-home-in-silwan/  

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the Senior Rabbi of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, spoke with eloquence and power on Friday evening from his congregation’s bimah by zoom about George Floyd’s death and justice.

The link to Ammi’s 25-minute sermon is below, or you can read a pdf of it by clicking at the lower right on the screen.

https://www.swfs.org/resources/senior-rabbis-messages/george-floyd/

It’s often difficult for American Jews to focus our attention on anything other than the multiple crises facing the United States today. However, there’s another crisis that has been growing over the past few years within the liberal American Jewish community that needs our attention, our relationship with the State of Israel.

I have posted a blog at the Times of Israel that addresses this here:  

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-growing-crisis-in-the-american-jewish-community/ .

Here is a link to the Webinar in which Rabbi Stanley Davids and I spoke on Leil Shavuot before Temple Sinai of Oakland, California. The Webinar itself – https://oaklandsinai.box.com/s/cg17caiw971ino5ls9xhxofy5qkau6ly

I reached out this morning to my friend Marra Gad, who lives in Los Angeles and is the author of a moving memoir The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl. She shared with me what she sent out to her friends yesterday.I asked her permission to post and she graciously gave it. She wrote:

“I send my heartfelt thanks to those of you who have reached out to me over the last day or so to say that you are supporting me…and that you see me.

Sprinkled among the messages, however, have been notes saying that people support me, but that there is surprise that I am so affected by the murder of George Floyd, the racism and the violence because….

“…you’re not really black.”

“…I don’t think of you as black.”

“…I don’t see your color.”

My brother and I were discussing this last night, and he rightly pointed out that the brutal murder of George Floyd should affect every single person on the planet. Simply because we are human, and the act was so sub-human on every level.  And if it isn’t affecting you, I would encourage you to ask yourself why.

But for those of us who are black, bi or multi racial, the impact is intensified.  And I am absolutely on that list.  

I am black…white…and Jewish.  That is my wholeness. I am here to be seen for all that I am…and I will not allow anyone to deny any part of me. 

Look at me.  See my color.  How beautiful and powerful I am. See that my strength and lifeforce comes from being black. Just as it comes from being Jewish.

The world has tried for far too long to keep black and brown people invisible.  And a part of what is happening right now in the streets of America is the voice of the people demanding to be heard saying NO MORE.  It is a demand to be seen.   And my voice is with them.

If you cannot or will not see and honor me for all that I am, you do not see me at all.  And if you do not choose to see all of me, you are not being my ally or my supporter.

Marra B. Gad”

American World War II Master Sargent Roddie Edmonds was captured and became a Prisoner of War held by the Nazis along with 200 Jewish soldiers in 1944-1945. As their leader (among 1275 others), Roddie saved all of their lives by refusing to follow Nazi orders to separate Jews from non-Jews which would have meant certain death for his Jewish soldiers. He never spoke to his son about what he did.

After Roddie’s death, his son researched his father’s story resulting in this 14-minute documentary that includes the testimony of many of the men (now very elderly) under Roddie’s command who survived due to his courage and heroism.

Roddie Edmonds has been honored as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.