Shaarei Shamayim

Once a year, the eyes of the whole world turn to Hollywood...and a distinguished movie star opens an envelope...and announces the name of the best actor of the year....and the audience goes wild with excitement, as the movie star, hugs those that are sitting near him, and then, to tumultuous applause, climbs up to the stage and receives the Oscar.

And once a year, the eyes of the whole world turn to Hollywood…and a famous television star tears open an envelope and reads the name of the best actress of the year in a television program and the audience goes wild as an excited actress hugs the people she is sitting with and then comes up on the stage to receive an Emmy.

And once a year, in an office somewhere, Buddy Selig, the commissioner of baseball, announces that the votes have been tallied, and so and so has received the MVP, the most valuable player award.

And once a year, the eyes of the whole world turn to Congregation Shaarei Shamayim on Sukkot, and before a congregation that listens with baited breath...I announce the “Lulav Of The Year Award.” What is the “Lulav Of The Year Award? (With thanks to Rabbi Jack Reimer for the thought.) And why does it have that name?

It is the award that I will give to that person who has shown the most courage during the past year or so. Why do I call it “The Lulav Of The Year Award”? Because while a Shofar you can hide in your pocket, if you want to, and a tallis, you can carry in a bag, even a plain brown paper bag... and no one will know what you have inside…but a lulav you can’t hide. A lulav sticks out, and stands tall.

The Jerusalem Talmud tells us that in ancient times, the residents of Jerusalem would take a lulav with them wherever they went on Sukkot. It was a strong affirmation of who they were, for a lulav can’t be hidden. The Midrash teaches us that a lulav is symbolic of the spine. And therefore it is an appropriate symbol to give to a person who has the spine to stand up tall, for what he believes is right.

And now the envelope, please. It’s a tie. In fact, the award is split 3 ways this year. The 1st share goes to actor Jon Voight who spoke out against what he called, an “evil, destructive force,” in taking on his former co-star Jane Fonda and other high-profile protesters like Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte condemning the Toronto International Film Festival in a controversy involving Israel last month.

63 actors, directors, and writers including some well-known celebrities from around the world launched a protest against the organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival because one of the evenings showcased Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary as a “young dynamic city that—like Toronto—celebrates its diversity.”

The protesters said that the Festival ignores the “fact” that, “Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population,”...and that the festival is ignoring, “the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip.”

It’s all lies and distortions. Anyone who has seen pictures of the land Tel Aviv was built on before it was built will tell you it was nothing but a bunch of sand dunes. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Weisenthal Center said: As a filmmaker and member of the Academy, I can tell you that this is nothing less than a call for the complete destruction of the Jewish State. There can be no other interpretation when the legitimacy of Tel Aviv is called into question. If every city in the Middle East would have the cultural diversity, the freedom of expression, and treat its citizens, Jews and Arabs, the way Tel Aviv does, peace would have come to the Middle East long ago.
Israel is accused of being an apartheid state because it did what every other country in the world would do—defend its citizens against an 8-month rocket barrage launched by Hamas terrorists. Let’s be honest, the signatories to this protest may have been filmmakers, authors, directors and actors, but it is clear that the script they are reading from might as well have been written by Hamas.

Now you would expect such a statement from a rabbi—especially one who fights discrimination and anti-Semitism every day like Marvin Hier. But Jon Voight? What is his interest in all this? It’s purely from his heart. He said: “What's going on is they’re taking over the festival with this agenda that they have…I’m not interested in their answers to things because it’s all going to be a bunch of poison…I know the situation that exists on the left, because I was there in the late ‘60s, I was one of them and I know Jane…” Voight, now 70, in the past appeared with Jane Fonda at such leftist events.
   
Jon Voight, in a letter in the National Post, blasted Jane Fonda: and all those who signed the letter with her, of aiding and abetting those who seek the destruction of Israel. How do you not respond to a very dangerous lie against a democratic country, Israel, who for years tries to defend themselves against constant wars and aggression?...I’m seeing a very dangerous precedent beginning to catch hold now in the United States. If our movie stars start protecting the enemy against Israel, we can be sure the beginning of a very evil destructive force is showing its face.
   
And so the “Lulav of the Year Award” goes to Jon Voight for his courage to stand up to his fellow celebrities on behalf of Israel. He has done this many times in the past few years, but none as dramatic as this. Who knows if this has cost him a starring role here and there? Have you seen him on the screen much? Yasher koach to him!

The 2nd share of the “Lulav of the Year Award” goes posthumously to Harry Bingham IV. For over 50 years, the State Department resisted any attempt to honor Bingham. For them he was an insubordinate member of the US diplomatic service—a dangerous maverick who was eventually demoted. Now, after his death, he has finally been officially recognized as a hero.

Bingham came from an illustrious family. His father—upon whom the fictional character Indiana Jones was based—was the archeologist who unearthed the Inca City of Machu Picchu, Peru, in 1911. Harry entered the US diplomatic service and, in 1939, was posted to Marseilles, France, as American Vice-Consul. America was then neutral and, not wishing to annoy Marshal Petain’s puppet Vichy regime, President Roosevelt’s government ordered its representatives in Marseilles not to grant visas to any Jews. Bingham thought this was so immoral and—risking his career—did all in his power to undermine it.

In defiance of his bosses in Washington, he granted over 2,500 US visas to Jewish refugees, including the artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst and the family of the writer Thomas Mann. He also sheltered Jews in his home, and obtained forged identity papers to help Jews in their dangerous journeys across Europe…He worked with the French underground to smuggle Jews out of France into Franco’s Spain or across the Mediterranean and even contributed to their expenses out of his own pocket. In 1941, Washington lost patience with him. He was sent to Argentina, where later he continued to annoy his superiors by reporting on the movements of Nazi war criminals.

Eventually, he was forced out of the American diplomatic service completely. Bingham died almost penniless in 1988. Little was known of his extraordinary activities until his son recently found some letters in his belongings. He has now been honored by many groups and organizations including the United Nations, the State of Israel and now Congregation Shaarei Shamayim.

The final share of the “Lulav of the Year Award” goes to Nicholas Winton. In 1939 this English stockbroker was responsible for establishing the Kindertransport that rescued 669 Czech children from their doomed fate in the Nazi death camps…yet he went unrecognized for over ½ a century. For 50 years most of the rescued children did not know to whom they owed their lives. The story of Nicholas Winton only emerged when his wife Greta came across an old leather briefcase in an attic and found lists of the children and letters from their parents. He hadn’t even told her what he did.

In late 1938, Nicholas Winton, then a 30-year-old clerk at the London stock exchange, was about to fly to Switzerland for a ski vacation when he answered a call for help from a friend at the British Embassy in Prague who was working in the newly erected refugee camps.

After a couple of months he was alarmed by the influx of refugees and worried what would happen to them—and especially their children—after the coming Nazi invasion. He set up office on a dining room table in his hotel in Wenceslas Square in Prague. Word got out of the “Englishman of Wenceslas Square” and parents flocked to the hotel to try to persuade him to put their children on the list—desperate to get them out before the Nazis invaded. He formed an organization for the Czech Kindertransport before he had to return to London.

Back in London, working day and night, Winton persuaded the Home Office to let the children in, but for each child, he had to find a foster parent and a 50 pound guarantee—in those days a small fortune—and raise money to help pay for the transports when the children’s parents couldn’t afford all the costs.

Nicholas Winton—now known as the Schindler of Britain—is revered as the father who saved scores of his “children” from Nazi death camps. Winton insists he wasn’t anything special. He said: “I just saw what was going on and did what I could to help.”

But survivor Vera Gissing said: “I owe him my life and those of my children and grandchildren. I was lucky to get out when I did and having the chance to thank Nicky was the most precious moment in my life.” The survivors, though many are grandparents, now call themselves “Winton's children.”

Nicholas Winton resides in Maidenhead, Great Britain. Gd has blessed him with long life as he celebrated his 100th birthday last May.

And so I am so very proud to present to Jon Voight, Harry Bingham IV and Nicholas Winton Congregation Shaarei Shamayim’s annual “Lulav of the Year Award” because they had the spine to stand up for right and truth at great personal risk. Amen!

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