QUESTION: I am the father of one of your students at Rockhurst University. This is a strange avenue of posing a question to you. My daughter came home from one of your lectures in the course you teach there and in discussing her studies mentioned that you said that in Jewish law contraception or birth control on the part of the Jewish man is forbidden under virtually all circumstances. We are passed child-bearing age so this is irrelevant to us personally; however, I was shocked to find this out. I am surprised that no one talks about these things.

ANSWER: Yes, this is a strange route for my receiving a question sent to me. There are not very many Jewish students at Rockhurst University, but your daughter is obviously one. In our introduction course to Judaism we discuss lifecycle events and included in that are issues like contraception and abortion. Most Jews, even better read and intelligent ones, are shocked to find out that Jewish law has a whole gamut of views on both contraception and abortion.

Most traditional and Orthodox Jews will, under many circumstances, practice contraception. If you look around the community you will see that except for Chassidim or exceptionally pious Jews, generally speaking, the size of families of most religiously practicing Jews is not unusually large. Obviously, most modern Orthodox and traditional Jews are practicing some form of birth control during their child-bearing years.

This topic is discussed extensively in the Talmud and elsewhere, including many religious rulings and articles that have been written throughout the Middle Ages and in modern centuries as well.

What I said is correct. Namely, that under virtually all circumstances male contraception is prohibited in Jewish law. This is not a sexist, male chauvinist issue! I want to be very clear about this. In Chapter 9 of Genesis when Noah and his family exit the Ark after the Flood, G-d commands “Noah and his sons to populate the world and fill it.” What the verse is talking about is that after the Flood, Noah and his sons are commanded to really “repopulate” the world. The standard interpretation of that verse as well as other episodes in Genesis, including Judah and his sons in a separate incident involving a woman known as Tamar, leads the rabbis and Jewish law to mandate a prohibition against male contraception. Since “Noah and his sons” were commanded to “populate the world and fill it,” that verse is seen as preventing men from any form of contraception.

The danger of a column like this is that this is a very involved and somewhat complicated topic and I am not doing justice to it or the analysis of it by a short response, which this column necessitates. I devoted close to a half an hour in my lecture to this very topic so obviously my response here has to be very brief and perhaps unfair to an intelligent discussion of the total theme.

Since the Torah does not address women at all in that verse or these discussions, the rabbis that do permit contraception in a Jewish marriage say that birth control, therefore, should be left in the hands of the women. In this day and age with wonderfully effective forms of female contraception in a whole variety of ways, without going into details in this column, contraception can very successfully and satisfactorily be practiced in any Jewish marriage by the wife.

Thanks J-LEAD

In the Oct. 27 issue of The Chronicle, an article submitted by KU Hillel titled “KU Hillel’s J-Lead gives college students ownership over Jewish programming” This program has been a great opportunity for college students to understand grant allocation and lay leadership opportunities that will exist for them in their communities after college.
J-LEAD, a program of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, has provided the funding to KU Hillel and allowed this opportunity for students. The KU Hillel program was named in honor of the Jewish Community Foundation’s program. We have been very appreciative and feel that through this opportunity we are able to encourage development into Jewish adulthood for our own Kansas City community and beyond.

Malinda Kimmel,
Assistant Director of Jewish Student Life
KU Hillel

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths and yet is one of the least funded by the National Institute of Health (2 percent of the overall budget). As some of you may recall, my mom Barbara Hersh died from this terrible disease in November 2006. I did not know anything about pancreatic cancer at the time of her diagnosis. But sadly within the 145 days until she died, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the disease. The reason why pancreatic cancer (PC) is thought to be a “death sentence” is that there are no early detection tests available and once symptoms are present, it is typically stage IV — there is no stage V. Who is at risk? The short list includes Ashkenazi Jews, which is why I continue to try to educate our community. Ninety-four percent of people with PC will die within five years of being diagnosed. The majority of those people die within three to six months of diagnosis. PC statistics have not changed for the better by more than 3 percent in the past 40 years. I hope with awareness and funding this will change in my lifetime. November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month; to learn more and find ways to help please visit www.pancan.org.

Michelle Hersh
Phoenix, Ariz.

Spineless insanity?

On Oct. 30, Israel’s oldest newspaper, Haaretz, reported: “A Saudi royal offered a $900,000 reward to anyone who captures an Israeli soldier, on Saturday. Prince Khaled bin Talal, the brother of business tycoon and Fox News co-owner Walid bin Talal, told the Saudi-based broadcaster Al Daleel that the captive would then be released in exchange for Arabs held in Israeli prisons.
“Khaled’s offer comes days after the prominent Saudi cleric, Awad al-Qarni, put $100,000 on the head of every Israeli soldier.” (visit http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/saudi-royal-offers-900-000-reward-for-capture-of-israeli-soldiers-1.392666 for the entire article.)
On Oct. 20, 2010, President Obama authorized more than $60-billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia. (http://www.fpif.org/articles/tracking_the_saudi_arms_deal).
Is this a mere paradox? Or, spineless insanity, or craven complicity in the destruction of America’s sole, genuine ally in the Middle East?
Arab ‘allies’ provide Americans over $60 billion reasons to “drill, baby, drill” on-and off-shore the USA, ASAP.

J. Scott Brown
Leawood, Kan.

Imagine one morning you and your family are awakened by shouts and screams. Then suddenly, the police break into your house. They start breaking the china, destroying the furniture and shattering windows while showing great satisfaction in their destruction. Then you and your family are told to get dressed and are taken to the police station for no apparent reason. On the way, you see your synagogue in flames and your neighbors throwing rocks at it.

On Nov. 9, 1938, mobs burned synagogues, destroyed Jewish homes and businesses, vandalized Jewish hospitals, orphanages and cemeteries and dragged thousands of Jewish men, women and children into the streets where they were beaten and humiliated. The Germans later called this night Kristallnacht — The Night of Broken Glass — because of the tons of shattered glass that scattered throughout German cities after it had taken place. The Jews began to call that date the beginning of the Holocaust because of the tremendous violence, which started on that night and grew even more dreadful as time had passed.

On Nov. 7, 1938, the Third Secretary of the German embassy in Paris, Ernst Von Rath, was murdered by Herschel Grynzpan, a 17-year old German-Jewish refugee. Herschel wanted to avenge his parent’s expulsion, together with 15,000 other Polish Jews from Germany, to Zbonszym. The Nazis used the murder as an excuse to start the mobs and riots that began the “final solution,” the extermination of Jews.

The German government attempted to disguise the violence of those two days as a spontaneous protest on the part of the “Aryan” population. But, in reality, Kristallnacht was organized by the Nazi chiefs and their thugs with technical skill and precision. The Nazi chiefs commanded the Gestapo and the storm troopers to incite mob riots throughout Germany and Austria.

Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the plan, to rob the Jews of their possessions for the benefit of the Reich and then to sweep them forever from the German scene. Furthermore, thereafter, Jews had no place in the German economy, and no independent Jewish life was possible, with the dismissal of cultural and communal bodes and the banning of the Jewish press.

During the week after Kristallnacht, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Berlin reporter called that night “The worst outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in modern German History.”

During Kristallnacht, more than 1,100 synagogues were destroyed, as well as 7,500 Jewish businesses and countless Jewish homes. Several hundred Jews were killed and 30,000 were arrested and sent to the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau, where thousands more died.

Today, many historians can trace a pattern of events, occurring before that night, which would suggest that such an atrocity was to happen. In 1933, when the Nazis took power, German anti-Semitism adopted quasi-legal forms. One of the new anti-Jewish forms of action, which had begun with the Nuremberg laws of 1935, included the separation of the Jews from the daily structure of German life. The Jews, systematically, were deprived of their civil rights; they were isolated from the general populace through humiliating identification measures. The Nazis boycotted the Jewish shops and took away their jobs. Then they made the Jews declare the value of their possessions. The Civil Service and the police often arrested the Jews and forced them to sell their property for a pittance.

One may ask how could the entire world stand by and allow such a disaster to occur. The fascist or authoritative regimes in Italy, Rumania, Hungary and Poland were governments who approved of this pogrom and wanted to use the pogrom as a case to make their own anti-Semitic policies stronger in their individual countries. The three Great Western powers — Great Britain, France and the United States — said the appropriate things but did nothing to save the Jews. Hitler, in the late 1930s told the world to take the Jews but there was just no one willing to take them in. Even in our own country, President Roosevelt and his administration kept on expressing their shock over the terrible events which were occurring in Germany and Austria, but when it came time to act and help save the refugees by bringing them to the United States, the United States government refused and replied by saying that they have no intention to allow more immigrants to enter the United States.

Looking back at Jewish history, every Jew should be cautious and alert to any hints which might be seen now. Kristallnacht teaches us many things. Among them are that we must remain vigilant and not permit even the smallest seed of anti-Semitism to take root.

Rabbi Bernhard H. Rosenberg, Ph.D., is a Kansas City native and a child of Holocaust survivors. He is the rabbi of Congregation Beth-El in Edison, N.J.

Gilad Shalit was born in Naharia, Israel, in 1986. He joined the IDF in 2005.

One year later, in 2006, a small group of Hamas terrorists dug tunnels under an IDF post, resulting in an attack of Kerem Shalom, near Gaza. During the resulting fight, two soldiers were killed, four wounded and one soldier — Gilad Shalit — went missing. He was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Twenty-four hours later, Hamas took responsibility and demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian terrorists from an Israeli prison. Now, more than five years later (1,934 days for those of us counting), Shalit is free.

Shalit was held in a dungeon with no human rights. In contrast, the Hamas terrorists in the Israeli prisons were given the chance to study, watch cable television and were able to see their families.

Since the first days of his kidnap, the Shalit family did everything they could to make sure their son remains in our thoughts. Television news programs in Israel did a daily count of the number of days Shalit was in captivity. The entire Jewish people — in Israel and in the diaspora — prayed for his safe return. There was great hope, but we all knew there would be a high price to pay.

The law in Israel says that Israel’s citizens have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court if they don’t agree with the government’s decision to release terrorists. Along with this, the government publicly releases the details of the exchange and the names of the terrorists to be released. Several appeals to the Supreme Court were made by bereaved families, which explains why Shalit wasn’t released until several days after the announcement was made last week.

Now, we wait for more terrorist attacks. While we celebrate Shalit’s release, Israelis understand that terrorists who murdered babies, children and innocent civilians, lynched soldiers and planned to bomb busses packed with people have been set free. And we know they will try and do it again.

It is important for us to understand the meaning of the deal:

From the Israeli perspective, the Israeli government tried to reduce the price Israel had to pay, which is why Shalit spent more than five years in captivity. Another factor is the situation in the Arab world. The lack of stability in the Arab world, and in Egypt specifically, could have allowed Hamas to move Shalit to Egypt and, from there, to an unknown destination. Both reasons pushed the Israeli government to set a deal now — before it’s too late.

From the Palestinian perspective, the pressure on Hamas was grave. Hamas is the government in Gaza, so it has to be pragmatic at times. New terrorist organizations in Gaza are putting political pressure on Hamas to show results. One of these results is to honor their promise to bring their prisoners home. We also must remember Abu Mazen in the West Bank — with the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah in the background — the deal is a victory for Hamas. Hamas kept its promise.

In order to try and reduce the damage to Fatah, Israel did not release prisoners like Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah terrorist more popular than Abu Mazen himself. Releasing those terrorists would mean danger to Abu Mazen’s control. For Israel, that could mean the loss of a potential partner for peace.

This victory for the Palestinians has future consequences as well. Hamas is a terrorist organization, so Israel is potentially giving them a huge incentive to kidnap more soldiers and civilians. And the released terrorists will become heroes. Eventually, they will want to prove their status by initiating more terrorist attacks against Israelis. On the flip side, we must remember that terrorists continue to kidnap and attack Israelis. So perhaps incentives will always exist for these terrorists.

The Palestinian terrorists discovered the soft underbelly of the Israelis long ago — the importance of human lives. They know Israelis will do anything to release their soldiers. So Hamas created a “price list” for kidnapped Israelis. With a live soldier bringing in the “best price,” all the way down to body parts, which would bring in lower “prices.”

For the Israelis, the release of Gilad Shalit or any captive soldier or civilian, is of supreme value. Beyond the mitzvah of redeeming the captives, it is extremely important for future soldiers to understand that, as they are risking their lives for the state of Israel, the state of Israel will not abandon them in their time of need. It just becomes difficult when we all know that more Israelis will ultimately pay the price with their lives because of the trade for terrorists.

As Israelis have been compelled to do in the past 150 years, ever since the first Palestinian terrorist attack in 1851, we know there is never an easy or “clean” way to deal with terrorism. Everything is complex, there is always good inside the bad, and bad inside the good. Gilad Shalit’s case is no different. We are all happy that Shalit has been released and that he’s alive and well with his family. But we also feel compassion for the many bereaved families in Israel and worry for what is yet to come.

Lilach Nissim is the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City’s Israel emissary.

Beware of J Street

The Jewish community should be made more aware of J Street, the organization of Jews which proclaims itself to be “pro-peace, pro-Israel” while publicly advocating pro-Palestinian positions with such fervor they might as well be wearing kaffiyehs.

Very disturbingly, many rabbis are adherents of J Street. The J Street website exhorted these rabbis to use the High Holidays as the occasion to present the J Street playbook to their congregations. This was done to least one major area congregation, on Kol Nidre, the solemnest night of the year, to a captive audience in attendance under compulsion of conscience, destroying the possibility that most of his congregants could approach Kol Nidre with anything like the appropriate mindset.

From the bimah, this rabbi endorsed almost every single Palestinian demand. Stop building housing in Jerusalem itself,  the very capital of Israel! Give them a chunk of Jerusalem, which has never in history been an Arab capital of anything. Go back to the 1967 borders, with “land swaps.” Israel is tiny. Just what land would he swap? And why? The Arabs launched two aggressive genocidal wars against Israel, with the announced goal of exterminating not only Israel but also its entire Jewish population. Just when in all human history has any entity that engaged in two genocidal wars of aggression and lost them both been given land back?

The settlements, of course, must go. Why? If indeed there is a future Palestinian state with Jewish settlements within its borders, shouldn’t those settlements be able to exist in peace, just as Israeli Arabs have their own settlements within Israel?

J Street adherents give aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies. When rabbis in particular endorse Arab demands, the Arabs gleefully proclaim, “See, see, look at all those rabbis that support our position. Obviously, we are in the right!” J Street supporters are soul mates of Neville Chamberlain — appeasers who seem to believe that giving the Arabs everything they ask just because they ask it, will bring peace to Israel. They have already forgotten World War II, where giving Hitler the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia did not bring peace. It brought Auschwitz.

Lee Levin
Overland Park, Kan.

Where are the Jews?

In the Sept. 29 issue of The Chronicle, I wrote an article published on the opinion page titled, “How to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” I also sent the article to five friends in Israel.

All five of those friends had something to say about the article. Three of them, in addition to their comments, also wanted me to tell them about the reaction of the local Jews to the article. Subsequently, I wrote to them that there was no reaction at all.

Hearing this, one of my friends wrote, “Are there any Jews in Kansas City? If there are, are these Jews Jewish? I hope this will never happen to them. However, it is possible that, at some point in the future, some (all?) Kansas City Jews will be seeking a safe haven. When they arrive at our shores, we will receive them with open arms. So it goes.”

Zeev Dickmann, Ph.D.
Overland Park, Kan.

QUESTION: Why do we wash our hands after leaving a funeral or the cemetery?

ANSWER: This is a very old tradition. There are references to this over a thousand years ago in Jewish sources. It is symbolic of “washing away death” and probably symbolic of purification after exposure to death. Louis Memorial Chapel has a washing basin outside their chapel. It is even heated so that it can be used on the coldest days in the winter. One absolutely needs to wash one’s hands after leaving the chapel. Similarly one should try to wash after leaving the cemetery. I realize that is a challenge in winter months. But usually one can go to the nearest bathroom in the facility in the chapels of most of our cemeteries and wash there as well. There is also a similar tradition to have water waiting outside the shiva home upon returning from the cemetery, in which case one does not have to wash their hands on leaving the cemetery if one is going directly to the shiva home. It is also traditional not to dry our hands at that time but to let one’s hands “air dry.”

At one time people would purify themselves after exposure to death through a sacrifice known as the “red heifer.” We have not had access to that type of ceremony for over 2,000 years. The use of the mikvah and washing, etc. is the closest we have to those purification ceremonies.

There are many other symbols that take place at the cemetery. Many people have the tradition of leaving a stone, a rock or a pebble on the grave as a kind of “visiting card” that one has been there to pay respect to the memory of those buried there. Other people have the tradition of plucking a little grass and throwing it over their shoulder upon leaving the cemetery based on the verse talking about the fact that we are as “the grass of the field.” Even placing soil on the grave has to do with verses based in the Bible about “dust to dust” and completing a full burial by shoveling into the grave.

So many of these traditions are just that, they are not law but they are steeped in our Jewish past and should be highly respected.

An icon is lost

We lost a pillar of our community when Rose Evelyn Sporn died on Sept. 21, 2011.

Many people have called me who knew that she had devoted her life to the education of children. Letters from Rabbi Hadas and Rabbi Margolies wrote about her creative work. Many of your grandchildren were enchanted with her “Kiddie Kapers” plays. She put Jewish Women International on the map with her “Dolls For Democrary” program. Through her poetry and songs she left a legacy for President Harry Truman and Thomas Hart Benton. Randall Jessee (WDAF) once wrote her a letter saying: “You have done so much for many people of all faiths and races. You are one of the few people who really serves your city. Many times this is unknown to all but a few closest to you.” Bill Yearout (KCMO) also wrote letters to her, saying “Only one time in so many years does God create a talent like yours ... there will never be another Rose Evelyn Sporn in this century.”

She will be missed.

Sunie Levin
Leawood, Kan.

Oppose a Palestinian state

Editor’s Note: Bob Magoon wishes to share this New Year’s greeting he received with the entire Kansas City Jewish community.

My friends,
I would like to wish you a happy New Year. Here in Israel now it’s a complicated time, as I am sure you know.
The Arabs, who already have 26 Muslim countries, want to have one more country — their 27th country — inside of our very, very tiny country. Imagine what would happen if al-Qaida demanded to have a country created inside the U.S.A. Americans would never, ever agree to such a ridiculous thing.
It is our luck that our prime minister now is Benjamin Netanyahu, who is an excellent speaker. He has explained in a very clear way that (creating another country) is absurd. We already gave Gaza to the Arabs. Many wonderful and Zionist Jews in this area were thrown out of their homes. What did the Arabs do with Gaza? They send rockets from there to Israel and try to kill us, as always.
So the world must understand that Israel is the only Jewish nation. The Muslims have 26 countries. They can build another state there if they want, just not here.
Once again, I wish you all a good and happy year. For Israel, I wish a safe and quiet year.

Tirtsa Roi
Jerusalem, Israel

So many things happened in Israel during my visit home: the terrorist attack on the way to Eilat, rockets over my home town of Ashkelon, preparing for the discussion over a Palestinian state on Sept. 20, angry Erdogan in Turkey and the attack on the Israeli embassy in Egypt. Well, I guess it’s not a secret that in Israel there is never a dull moment…

But another important thing happened in Israel during my stay. I am not talking about anything security-related, or foreign affairs issues. I am talking about a social movement, one that has the support of more than 85 percent of the Israelis.

It all started one day when a young man from the city of B’nei Brak, Israel, decided to open a Facebook group. This group called for Israelis to stop buying cottage cheese because of its inordinately high price. Although that cheese is an important ingredient on the Israeli breakfast/dinner table, this peaceful boycott worked. People stopped buying cottage cheese. As a result, the price has gone back down to reasonable levels.

This one act of social networking set the dominoes into motion. Following the cottage cheese boycott, another important movement in Israel occurred. A group of approximately 100 young people set up tents in the center of Tel Aviv, one of the most expensive cities in the world, to protest the high cost of living, and the fact that it is nearly impossible today for young couples to afford to purchase their own homes in Israel. Word spread quickly, and Israelis from across the country were soon joining the protest in their own cities.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched on the streets time and time again; left wing, right wing, religious, seculars, Arabs, students, young families, elderly, etc. walking together in peace, shouting “The people want social justice!” At the end of every demonstration in every city, famous Israeli singers performed and showed their support. In the tent cities that sprang up across Israel, the peaceful protest continued, with young people playing guitars, singing, discussing social justice issues and talking to academics, Rabbis, Knesset members, etc. All of it without a hint of violence.

The result: The protests caused the government to set a committee to devise ways to reduce the high cost of living. All Israelis are awaiting the results.

One must understand this is very different than the protests for freedom and democracy taking place in the Arab world. We already have freedom and democracy in Israel, so these recent Israeli demonstrations are not a threat to democracy. Simply put, they are a cultural shift in Israeli society. For years, people in Israel complained in front of the TV and never did more than that — a problem common to all democracies. Today, something is different: people believe that they can change their lives more than once every four years.

I dare say that I invite democracies around the world to watch and learn how a social protest can be done to effect change in a positive way.

If you would like to discuss Israeli current events, history, or anything about Israel, please remember to contact me at 913-327-8124, , or find me on Facebook. I look forward to talking to you!

Many people may have heard about, seen pictures of or visited the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. It is absolutely magnificent in the richness of its details, sumptuosity and grandeur. I always thought it was the world’s largest synagogue, but I was wrong.
As you drive into Jerusalem, when coming from Tel Aviv, you are able to see in the skyline a huge building. This building doesn’t have any remarkable architectonic features other than its size. One would never guess that it is a synagogue. Belz Beit HaMidrash HaGadol (The Belzer Hassidim Great Synagogue) is located in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Kyriat Sanz. This humongous building is an enlarged replica of the synagogue built in 1843 by the first Belzer Rebbe. It is composed of a grandiose main sanctuary, smaller study halls, party rooms for weddings, several libraries and other communal facilities. Next door to it is the home of the current Belzer Rebbe Yissachar Dov Rokeach. This synagogue, dedicated in 2000, took 15 years to complete. Curiously, I found out that it took the same amount of time to complete the original one in Belz back in 1843. I was amazed to learn that 6,000 people can sit and worship in the main sanctuary at once. Apparently that was not big enough, because the sanctuary is currently being enlarged. The very ornate ark inside the sanctuary is 12 meters high and weighs 18 tons. It has the capacity to hold 70 Torah scrolls!

Belz was made famous by the Yiddish song, my Shtetele Belz, whose refrain is known to anyone that grew up with Eastern European relatives:
Oy, oy, oy Beltz, mayn shtetele Beltz,
Mayn heymele, vu ikh hob
Mayne kindershe yorn farbrakht.
Beltz, mayn shtetele Beltz,
In ormen shtibele,
Mit ale kinderlekh dort gelakht.
Oy, eden Shabes fleg ikh loyfn
Mit ale inglekh tzuglaykh
Tzu zitzn unter dem grinem beymele,
Leynen bay dem taikh
Oy oy oy Beltz,
Mayn shtetele Beltz,
Mayn heymele, vu kh’hob gehat
Di sheyne khaloymes a sakh.
Beltz, my little town! The little house where I spent my childhood!
The poor little room where I used to laugh with other children!
Every Shabbos I would run to the river bank to play with other children under a little green tree.
Belz, my little town!
My little town where I had so many fine dreams!

During our visit to Jerusalem a few months ago, I was determined to see the synagogue from the inside. I tried to get in and couldn’t. Through a little ingenuity and persistence I managed to get one of the young Chassidim to show me around. We were very lucky because we not only got a great tour, but I was also able to gain insight and knowledge about my new-found friend. As I grilled the young man about his lifestyle I found out that he was a newlywed. He had just come in from London to get married and was enjoying a year of kest, a Chassidic tradition by which the new husband is maintained by his in-laws for a year (or more) to study. As his year of kest was coming to an end, my new friend was extremely worried about how he would make a living, mainly because he had no secular knowledge. I discussed several ideas with him and at the end of the tour gave him a small token of my appreciation for his time and kindness. I am sure that it was a novel experience for both of us; he had never met a Reform Jew before and I had never spoken with a Belz Chassid.

As we were walking toward our car, I could not help but think that this synagogue is a true wonder not only because of its size but because the Belz Chassidic sect was almost totally decimated after the Holocaust. Yet the existence of this massive synagogue is proof of our people’s resilience.