KUMMUNIQUE

Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique - full of love
of Israel and Aliyah inspiration!

In this issue you will find:

1. "Deuteronomy 26" by G-d Almighty
2. "Photo Essay: Seventh Summer Western Aliyah Plane Arrives Wednesday" by Ezra Halevi
3. "Pro Baseball Coming To Israel" by Jerry Crasnick
4. "Afterimages" by Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg

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1. "Deuteronomy 26" by G-d Almighty

1. "Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and you possess it and live in it,
2. that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you bring in from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name.
3. "You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, `I declare this day to the LORD my God that I have entered the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.'
4. "Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.
5. "You shall answer and say before the LORD your God, `My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.
6. `And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.
7. `Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression;
8. and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders;
9. and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10. `Now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which You, O LORD have given me.' And you shall set it down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God;
11. and you and the Levite and the alien who is among you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given you and your household.
12. "When you have finished paying all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.
13. "You shall say before the LORD your God, `I have removed the sacred portion from my house, and also have given it to the Levite and the alien, the orphan and the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed or forgotten any of Your commandments.
14. `I have not eaten of it while mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor offered any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the LORD my God; I have done according to all that You have commanded me.
15. `Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as You swore to our fathers.'

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2. "Photo Essay: Seventh Summer Western Aliyah Plane Arrives Wednesday" by Ezra Halevi
From Israel National News

The summer's seventh planeload carrying Western immigrants to Israel arrived Wednesday. More than 3,000 Jews have arrived this summer from North America and England.

Wednesday's flight included, among its 240 passengers, 70 young single men and women, 45 families and 30 retirees – hailing from 23 US states and Canadian provinces. The flight was organized, as were previous flights, by the Nefesh b'Nefesh organization, together with the Jewish Agency.

Nefesh b'Nefesh co-founder Rabbi Yehoshua Fass addressed the new immigrants, speaking about the experience of seeing Biblical prophecies being fulfilled. "Walking down the aisle of the airplane, seeing an 85-year-old and a 5-year-old share this same process; seeing a couple who survived the Holocaust filling out their paperwork; seeing single olim [Jewish immigrants] exchange numbers – it is truly a time of redemption."

Two of the newest Israelis, Oren and Ora Nidam, "knew forever" that they wanted to make Israel their home. The couple grew up in the American Jewish heartland – Ora is from Fairlawn, New Jersey and Oren grew up in Westchester, New York. They lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, but made all their decisions with Aliyah [immigration to Israel] in mind.

Now, with their two-year-old daughter Kliel Amukah Tehillim and five-week-old son Nachman Mizmor L'David, they have finally made it. Ora says she looks forward to acclimating to both life in Israel and two-child motherhood simultaneously in their new hometown – Jerusalem.

Over the past four years since its inception, Nefesh b'Nefesh has steadily increased the numbers of immigrants it has helped move to Israel. As crowds of soldiers, well-wishers and Aliyah enthusiasts cheered for the new arrivals, Rabbi Fass promised to bring unprecedented numbers home next summer.

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3. "Pro Baseball Coming To Israel" by Jerry Crasnick
From ESPN

HINSDALE, Mass. -- On the site of the former Camp Wyoma, where an eighth grader named Dan Duquette once played volleyball and pitched horseshoes at his church picnic, 60 American ballplayers of various skills, ages and religious persuasions have gathered in pursuit of a common goal:

To play professionally in the Israel Baseball League in June 2007.

The good news: The morning signups, pre-workout salutations and several 60-yard dash trials are complete before the first ambulance is summoned.

Barely 10 minutes into the tryouts, activity ceases and hearts commence thumping when a camper mysteriously collapses on the grass. After several anxious moments, the camp trainer determines that it's nothing serious. The fallen player, more winded than injured, gets to his feet and hits the showers while the ambulance drives away.

Shortly thereafter the pristine, tree-ringed grounds of the Duquette Sports Academy are awash with a sense of bustle and hope. Infielders chatter, catchers' mitts pop, and too many hitters swing the bat with the authority of a rolled-up Boston Globe.

Duquette, who scouted in Milwaukee and ran the Expos' farm system before stints as general manager in Montreal and Boston, says tryout camps are a "truth serum" of sorts. When you dispense with the sprints and long-range throwing out of the chute, the rest is just a charade for lots of candidates.

As Duquette assesses the talent before him, he acknowledges that three or four positive reviews out of 60 would be a decent haul.

"You have to start somewhere," he says.

Exporting baseball
Near the end of the best-selling novel "Exodus," Leon Uris writes of Israel's magnetic pull for dispossessed Jews in search of refuge in the late 1940s.

"Many came with little more than the clothes they were wearing," Uris writes. "Many were old and many were ill and many were illiterate, but no matter what the condition, no matter what the added burden, no Jew was turned away from the doors of Israel."

Today's audition in the heart of the Berkshire Mountains has less to do with Zionism than the search for employment. The campers have hauled out their sweats and dusted off their dreams in hopes of playing a kid's game in a region that's too often rated NC-17 for violence.

All the ballplayers here have seen the images on CNN and Fox, of age-old hostilities festering to the surface and cross-border reprisals giving way to tenuous cease-fires. It's a near-constant loop of suffering and despair. But several profess not to be concerned.

"I would say 95 percent of the country is totally safe," says Jacob Schulder, a camper from New Jersey who recently visited Israel for the 20th time. "There are places in the Bronx you can't go and there are places in Israel you can't go. That's the way life is."

Baseball's quest to globalize has helped the sport make inroads in several new frontiers. When Jim Lefebvre is preaching the gospel in China, Lee Smith is teaching curveball grips to young pitchers in South Africa and Stubby Clapp and the Canadians are beating the tar out of the United States in the World Baseball Classic, the baseball landscape clearly is changing.

So why not Israel, a nation with a fondness for pizza, bowling, malls, reality TV, McDonald's, Home Depot and Blockbuster Video? Statistics show that Israel has the highest percentage of home computers per capita in the world, the highest ratio of university degrees and the second highest per capita output of new books each year. Shouldn't a society this enlightened embrace the most cerebral sport of all?

That sentiment mirrors Larry Baras' thinking when he hatched the idea last year of bringing pro ball to the Land of Milk and Honey. Baras, 54, owns SJR Food Inc., a Boston-based specialty baking company. While various newspaper profiles have referred to him as a "Boston millionaire" or "Boston baker," those descriptions make Baras wince.

"Don't let me anywhere near a kitchen," he says.

Baras' signature product is the "Unholey Bagel," which comes with the cream cheese already inside. Eight years ago, Baras thought he might drum up some business by dropping a bagel from the top of the Prudential Center in Boston and having Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek catch it on the street. But he couldn't negotiate a satisfactory price with Varitek's agent, Scott Boras, so the promotion died.

As an Orthodox Jew, Baras was interested in doing volunteer work in Israel last summer when the light bulb clicked. His son works for the Brockton (Mass.) Rox of the independent Canadian American League, and Baras was attending a game when it struck him how family-friendly baseball can be.

"Brockton is a tough town, but I would go to games and see families," Baras says. "There were teenagers with tattoos on their arms and balloon hats on their heads. I'm thinking, 'Here it is, Saturday night, and you have thousands of kids enjoying this most wholesome thing and having a blast. If I could take something like this and transfer it over to Israel, what a gift that would be.'"

Baras has spent the past year on a quixotic journey, making trips to Israel, soliciting sponsors and educating himself on the ins and outs of retrofitting stadiums. He has garnered media attention while navigating the inevitable bureaucratic hassles, dotting his "I's" only to stumble across an endless array of uncrossed "T's."

The Israel Baseball League hierarchy is full of heavy hitters. Baras' list of advisers includes Marvin Goldklang, who ran minor-league teams with Bill Murray and Mike Veeck, Smith College economics professor and author Andrew Zimbalist, and former Portland Trail Blazers president Marshall Glickman.

Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. Ambassador to both Israel and Egypt, brings credibility as the new league's commissioner. When Kurtzer's three sons learned he had been chosen for the role, they congratulated him for finally doing something worthwhile with his life.

Duquette, a Dalton, Mass., native and Amherst College graduate, is the league's director of player development. His camp has been designated as the U.S. training ground for the Israel initiative.

When Duquette was working for the Expos, former Montreal owner Charles Bronfman talked wistfully of expanding baseball to Israel one day. The Expos helped plant the seed for baseball in Canada by establishing two academies, and Duquette sees the same potential for Israel. About 2,500 youngsters and adults currently play organized baseball or softball in Israel, a country roughly the size of New Jersey.

"The Israeli culture is very Americanized and baseball is the American game, so there's a level of interest there," Duquette says. "If you can make your sport important to the people in the culture and have the kids look up to the professional players, you have a chance to succeed."

Given the abuse Duquette received in the Boston papers and on talk radio after allowing Roger Clemens to leave for Toronto and trading for Carl Everett, he's certainly accustomed to operating in a hostile environment. If anyone is equipped to help run a league in the shadow of Hezbollah, it's a former Red Sox general manager.

Calling all dreamers
Along with bringing pro ball to Israel, Baras and his group are pushing for an Israeli entry in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Rules permitting, they will explore the possibility of asking Jewish major leaguers to take part. That means Shawn Green, Jason Marquis and others could get a call.

Boston outfielder Gabe Kapler, who routinely wears a blue T-shirt with "Red Sox" inscribed in Hebrew letters, won't require much prompting.

"I would jump at the opportunity," Kapler says. "It would be an amazing, pride-building experience. I feel very strongly about my bloodline -- being Jewish as a culture, not necessarily as a religion. It's part of who I am, what my makeup is all about and how I'm perceived."

Until the big names come on board, this flick is a cross between "Bull Durham" and "The Bad News Bears Go to Tel Aviv." Roughly 80 percent of the candidates in Hinsdale are Jewish. Some have negligible talent and are here strictly on a lark. Others have played college ball at a decent level and see this as their best chance to continue.

Adam Crabb, a right-handed pitcher, flew all the way from Australia to try out. Crabb, 22, works in the agricultural industry buying grain from farmers, and during a recent slow day on the job he was trolling the Internet when he came upon the Israel Baseball League Web site. He bought a plane ticket to Boston, attended a Red Sox-Tigers game at Fenway Park, then took his long-limbed, funky motion and infectious smile to the heart of the Berkshires.

"He might be the new Graeme Lloyd," says Jacob Schulder.

Schulder, a former Yeshiva University rabbinical student, is pursuing his masters degree in real estate development from Columbia University. Jim Pierce, a shortstop for Division III Thomas College in Maine, plays summer ball in the Boston Park League.

Justin Prinstein, a former George Washington University pitcher, majored in international affairs and wants to learn to speak Arabic, but not before he runs out of chances to play pro ball. Prinstein has attended tryout camps run by the Pirates, Tigers, Brewers, Reds and Braves, only to be told that his 83-85 mph fastball is a tad short.

"It's an exhausting process," Prinstein says. "I've been all over the country. And the funny thing is, I still don't feel like I've explored all the options. There's a ton of leagues out there."

Just to set the record straight, Reggie Evans is not and never has been Jewish.

"When I found out you didn't have to be Jewish and you can be old, I said, "I'm there,'" Evans says, laughing.

A ready audience?
While basketball and soccer are extremely popular in Israel, some observers are skeptical that baseball will develop a following. It might be too slow, complex and labyrinthine in its nuances to resonate.

Amit Kurz, 18, a member of the Israeli squad that finished ninth in the European Cup tournament this year, elicits puzzled expressions when he tells his countrymen that he plays baseball.

"The first question people ask is, 'Do you hit or do you field?'" Kurz says.

When Daniel Kurtzer was Israeli ambassador and speaking to academics visiting the U.S. on fellowships, he urged them to do two things to understand American culture: (1) Visit a Civil War battlefield, and (2) Attend a baseball game. While many of the Israelis were captivated by Gettysburg or Appomattox Courthouse, they were confused or bored to tears by baseball. "We have work to do," Kurtzer concedes.

This is why Larry Baras hopes to emphasize the family angle that's made minor-league ball such a hit in the U.S. Parks at Israeli games will have barbecue grills, picnic tables with umbrellas and lots of between-innings diversions.

In the town of Bet Shemesh, located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, there are 10,000 transplanted Americans and 240 kids in Little League. Baras is convinced the ballpark will be a happening place on summer nights. In the kibbutz of Gezer, where the first Israeli baseball field was built in 1979, the view alone might suffice. "It's the most beautiful field I've ever seen," Baras says.

For many American Jews, baseball is part of a cultural heritage forged through ancestors who emigrated to the U.S. from eastern Europe in the early 20th century. In the big eastern seaboard cities such as New York, Jews discovered that baseball could be an avenue of assimilation and a source of conversation at the dinner table.

"Baseball is a hard game to learn, but it's not unlike studying Talmud," Kurtzer says. "It's very complicated, but once you get it, it's interesting. You have a lot of statistics you can follow, and you can spend hours discussing it."

Just as Hank Greenberg was a role model in the 1930s and '40s, projecting an image of quiet strength when Adolf Hitler was calling the Jews an inferior race, Sandy Koufax made an enduring statement by refusing to pitch in the 1965 World Series opener because it conflicted with Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

"In the Talmud, it is written that some attain eternal life with a single act. On Yom Kippur, 5726, a baseball immortal became a Jewish icon," Jane Leavy writes in her biography, "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy."

Larry Baras remembers growing up in Brooklyn and seeing Hasidic Jewish boys, in their black suits, side curls and wide-brimmed black hats, engaged in heated debate. Every so often, the indecipherable streams of Yiddish were interrupted by references to "Mays" and "Mantle" and "Snider."

When Baras was a boy, his father, Hyman, presided over Sabbath meals before retiring upstairs with a copy of The Sporting News. On Shavuout, a holiday that requires Jews to stay up all night learning, Hyman Baras graduated to bigger things: He went upstairs with the "Baseball Register."

"I think everybody has some kind of a story," Baras says, "whether it's their relationship with their parents, or something in school. Baseball was always the sport played most often among Jewish kids -- in part because they weren't tall enough to play basketball, and their mothers would never let them play football."

Decision time
There's something to be said for dressing appropriately, and it becomes evident on tryout day that some aspirants haven't chosen wisely.

"You can tell who the novices are," Larry Baras says at 7:30 a.m. "Dan Duquette is running the camp, and 20 guys show up wearing Yankees hats."

Shortly after 8 a.m., the aspirants line up to sign the necessary forms and confirm they've paid the $50 registration fee. Judging from the pre-workout speakers, excitement is building for the new league in Israel.

This is a recurrent theme: Israelis could use a new diversion from upheaval and stress. And by promoting a new venture, Baras and his group are showing a welcome confidence in the future of Israeli society.

Despite an early misstep or two, Duquette and his staff unearth a few ballplayers. Camper Nate Fish attracts attention when he steps in the cage and drives a batting practice pitch off the chain-link fence in left field. Fish deftly shifts from shortstop to third base to the outfield, then squats behind home plate and throws several strikes to second base from the catcher position.

Fish, who is currently studying creative writing in New York, played college ball at the University of Cincinnati with Kevin Youkilis, the starting first baseman for the Boston Red Sox. They remain close friends, staying in touch by text message and reminiscing about old times whenever the Red Sox visit the Yankees.

Like Gabe Kapler, Fish is intrigued by the thought of combining his love of baseball with his affinity for Israel, a special place in his heart.

"I've been there twice and I feel really comfortable," Fish says. "I think they'll be cautious and smart about when and where we're playing. I think they would cancel games if they had to."

At the end of the day, Duquette and his staff designate several players -- including Fish and Australian Adam Crabb -- to be invited back for another camp in the Berkshires next spring. The campers who weren't selected receive a certificate of participation and a souvenir Israel Baseball League ball signed by commissioner Dan Kurtzer.

More tryout camps are scheduled for Arizona and Florida in early 2007, and Duquette foresees adding collegians, independent leaguers and players released by professional organizations next spring. The end result: A six-team league that will begin a 48-game schedule on June 22.

The outlook is considerably brighter than three months ago, when Baras joked that the new league had everything it needed "except for stadiums, players and fans." But when the magnitude of his venture dawns on him, it still sends a shiver through his spine.

"I'm fine during the day,'' Baras says. "I have to admit at 2 o'clock in the morning, when I wake up, I wonder if I'm nuts."

Maybe he's just a visionary. According to Psalm 1:3, a praiseworthy man is "like a tree deeply rooted alongside brooks of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and whose leaf never withers."

This is one of the miracles of Israel -- that a nation perched on a desert is so abundant in date palms and fertile orchards. The trees are already in place. Now they'll try to grow a game.

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4. "Afterimages" by Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg
From the Jewish Standard

On a day when Israel lay poised to unleash its broadest ground operation yet, and Britain uncovered a plot that was days away from replicating the carnage of 9/11, I went to the movies.

Not just any movie. I went to see "World Trade Center." I'm glad I did.

I know there are many reasons people will give not to see this film, and most of them are valid. Some say it's too early to make a film about this immense tragedy. Others feel that such a movie can't help being exploitative and invades the sacred spaces of those who lost loved ones. Still others object to the showbiz dramatization of an ineffable experience and point to patented theatrical devices, such as slow motion-sequences, that can convert the holy into the Hollywood. Finally there are those who have not forgiven director Oliver Stone for his treatment of the assassination of President Kennedy in "JFK." Perhaps the most convincing argument not to see "World Trade Center" is that it still hurts too much. I respect these views, and wouldn't presume to tell someone else whether or not to go. I can only share my personal reactions.

In the theater, emotions ran high. Although it was a late-night showing and the room was mostly empty, there was a policeman who shushed someone loudly, saying, "Those were my friends who died out there — show some respect." Some people left their seats early on, and did not come back, apparently unable to deal with their feelings.

I expected to feel the same way I do each year, when I force myself to relive horrors on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. This turned out to be true, but at first I was surprised to find myself crying not during the disaster scenes, but during the interspersed family vignettes, which connected to the inner lives of John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, the two trapped Port Authority Police officers around whom the story revolves. The fleshing out of the officers' relationships with their loved ones, made poignantly possible by their sudden, perhaps permanent absence, is what provides emotional depth. On second thought, isn't this exactly how the Bible highlights loss? The sale of Joseph becomes real when we see his aged father Jacob rending his garments, and the death of the Canaanite general Sisera is given finality through the image of his mother watching for him at the window.

There are many movies that explore relationships better, and plenty with better special effects. But this movie consciously chose to take one small square of the jagged mosaic — a square that deals with heroism, and risking one's life to do the right thing — and make it the center. Looming behind the two men who are rescued are the 2,749 who were not, but art makes choices in how to preserve both triumph and tragedy. Art is an essential way through which a society decides how to fit the most indigestible nuggets into its ongoing narrative — how and what to remember.

As Jews, we did the same thing just two weeks ago on Tisha B'Av, when we expressed our powerlessness through some of the most powerful poetry known to mankind — from biblical verses to prophetic exhortations to medieval laments, or kinot. When adrift on a sea of chaos, we sought out the order and beauty of poetry. In the same way, America has commemorated its war dead in the sleek lines and etched words of the Vietnam Memorial. Why do we respond to catastrophe with art?

One answer is that by preserving disaster as art, we take back control over it. The horrors will live on, but in the frame we set around them. And since art is produced by human beings, the evil will be reduced to human proportions, almost able to be encompassed by human minds and expressed by human means. The kinot are two-edged tools — speaking of randomness, while testifying to order, lamenting helplessness, while hinting at control.

"World Trade Center" takes a defining American moment that evokes fear and impotence and chooses to frame it in terms of courage and self-sacrifice. When Theodor Adorno wrote in 1949 that "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," perhaps he meant that the Holocaust was so huge that the standard devices for making tragedy digestible simply don't apply.

The concluding voiceover, in which the rescued men say that their experiences taught them the good of which man is capable, reminded me of others who chose to extract meaning from life's tragedies. I thought of the parents in Israel who set up charitable foundations to memorialize their children who fall victim to terror, and physicians who immigrated to Israel to fill some of the void left when Dr. David Applebaum was murdered. There is a part of the soul that propels us to wrest meaning from apparent randomness, and to intuit the presence of God when He is so far away. Deep down we believe that a good God implanted this power of soul within us, and that the order we make is real, not contrived.

Sitting in the darkened theater did not feel like a distraction from affairs in the Middle East, nor unrelated to the revelations coming from England. Five years ago the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans sounded the alarm that Islamic terror was on the march. An unpopular war in Iraq has muffled that clarion call. France and Russia are even now ready to restrain Israel from confronting the evil that spawned 9/11. We have been given three reminders that the danger is as strong as ever — war in the Middle East, the foiling of a new terrorist plot, and the debut of a movie. Pray to God that we need no further hints.