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Saturday, July 03, 2021

07/03 Links: Wounded Boston rabbi says stabbing attack was ‘unequivocally’ antisemitic; ‘Squad’ Falls Silent on Rabbi Stabbing in Boston

From Ian:

Wounded Boston rabbi says stabbing attack was ‘unequivocally’ antisemitic
A Boston rabbi who was stabbed multiple times on Thursday in a suspected hate crime said he believes “unequivocally” that the attack was antisemitic in nature and that the perpetrator meant to kill him.

Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was speaking on the phone on the steps outside a Jewish day school in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood at around 1 p.m. on Thursday, when he was approached by a suspect brandishing a gun and knife. The perpetrator drew the gun and told Noginski to take him to his car. When he tried to force him inside, Noginski started to flee and the suspect chased him and stabbed him several times.

Noginski was taken to the hospital for treatment and was released on Friday. Police arrested Khaled Awad, 24, for the attack and charged him with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

“It hurts. I was stabbed eight times, mainly in the arm, some in the stomach [area],” Noginski told Channel 12 news on Friday from his home where he was recovering from his injuries. The attacker, he said, “tried to hurt me dozens of times. I thank God for this big miracle, thank God it ended this way.”

Police said the motive for the stabbing was unclear as the investigation is underway. District Attorney Rachael Rollins said at a vigil in support of Noginksi on Friday that her office has opened a civil rights investigation to determine whether the stabbing is a hate crime.

“We have to recognize that antisemitism is on the rise, and we need to hold people accountable when they do this, so that they are made an example of,” Rollins said at the vigil not far from the stabbing site, attended by several hundred people.

“Unequivocally, it was an antisemitic incident,” Noginski told Channel 12 on Friday. “This is how I feel, I felt in that moment that he was trying to kill me, not [trying] to steal my car. He wanted to capture me and kill me.”




College Roommates Of Khaled Awad, Suspect In Brighton Rabbi Stabbing, Say He Was ‘Very Much Anti-Semitic’
College roommates of Khaled Awad, the man accused of stabbing Rabbi Shlomo Noginski eight times outside a Jewish school in Brighton Thursday, say he was “violent” and “very much anti-Semitic”.

Investigators say Awad approached Rabbi Noginski outside the Shaloh House Thursday afternoon, and tried to steal his car. When the rabbi ran, Awad chased him and stabbed him. When officers found the suspect, they say he pointed a gun at them before surrendering.

Noginski was released from the hospital on Friday and returned home to recover with his wife and 12 children, while Awad was arraigned in Brighton District Court.

Prosecutors said Awad has no record in Massachusetts, but has faced charges of battery and theft in Florida and was sent to a mental health facility there. He’ll be held without bail until a dangerousness hearing on July 8.

His former college roommates and friends at the University of Southern Florida, where he studied chemical engineering until very recently, say Awad had showed a propensity for violence.

“He started becoming violent,” said Eric Valiente, a friend of Awad’s.

His roommate Aidan says he and Awad were friends until Awad attacked him in their shared kitchen on day, prompting Aidan to move out and get a restraining order.

“We were friends, to be honest with you. I’m Jewish. And he knew that since I moved in,” said Aidan Anderson, the suspect’s former roommate.

Aidan and Eric say Awad’s beliefs towards certain cultures became evident early on.

“He was very much anti-Semitic. He would say like all types of Jewish jokes. I thought he was joking at first and then I started to see seriousness in his comments,” said Eric.

After the assault in fall of 2020, the friend distanced themselves from Khaled, but still say they’re shocked he would go so far as to assault a stranger with a weapon.
‘Squad’ Falls Silent on Rabbi Stabbing in Boston
The far-left members of the Democratic "Squad" have fallen largely silent on the Boston rabbi who was stabbed eight times outside of a Jewish school.

Aside from Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), who represents the district where 24-year-old Khaled Awad nearly murdered Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, none of the Squad members have condemned the anti-Semitic attack. The Washington Free Beacon contacted each of the House Democrats associated with the Squad–Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), Cori Bush (D., Mo.), and Pressley—none of whom responded to requests for comment about the attack.

The attack comes as liberals like Bowman call for members to be more outspoken about "hateful" rhetoric. The New York representative shared footage of a group of Israelis participating in an anti-Arab chant and challenged his colleagues to "disavow" racism wherever it exists. "I represent many within the Jewish community who disavow and condemn this hateful language," Bowman wrote on Twitter. "So why does only a small portion of our Congress?"

The Squad members are largely silent as Democrats face yet another reckoning on anti-Semitism in their ranks. Omar was criticized by a dozen of her Jewish colleagues after she compared America and Israel to terrorist groups. Omar on CNN this week lambasted her Jewish colleagues for criticizing her, saying they were not "partners in justice."

The group of far-left Democrats rarely issues statements when Jews are victims of crime in America, even though FBI statistics routinely rank Jews as a top victim of hate crimes in America. They are far more likely to take to social media when victims appear to be from different targeted groups. Hours after reports emerged that actor Jussie Smollett was allegedly attacked on the streets of Chicago, for example, Ocasio-Cortez labeled it a "racist and homophobic attack."

"If you don’t like what is happening to our country, then work to change it," Ocasio-Cortez wrote. "It is no one’s job to water down or sugar-coat the rise of hate crimes."

Chicago police later found that Smollett had staged the attack.


Melanie Phillips: Donald Rumsfeld’s legacy: a warning against American retreat
With ironic timing, the death of Donald Rumsfeld this week has occurred when American foreign policy is lurching in precisely the opposite direction to everything he stood for.

His passing has provoked a renewed chorus of bilious disdain from those for whom he was a lightning rod for the failures of the 2003 Iraq war in which, as America’s defense secretary, he played a key role.

He certainly made mistakes over that war, having grossly underestimated the strength of the subsequent insurgency.

But the real damage has been inflicted not by Rumsfeld but by his critics. For the war has been grossly mischaracterized, resulting in the world becoming a far more dangerous place.

The real reason that America went to war in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein was that, after 9/11, the calibration of risk suddenly changed.

No longer could America muddle along against its Islamist enemies. And over Saddam Hussein, until then America’s most active such enemy, U.S. policy had been adrift.

In his memoir Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld pointed out that between January 2000 and September 2002, Iraq attacked the U.S. military more than 2,000 times.

In the summer of 2001, Rumsfeld argued that America should develop a policy towards Iraq well ahead of any unforeseen events that might overtake the U.S., which could suddenly find Saddam posing an even greater threat.

Such an event happened on 9/11. Although intelligence didn’t suggest Saddam’s involvement in those attacks, Iraq was a principal state supporter of terrorism. The CIA said senior Iraqis had credible links with Al-Qaeda, which was seeking Iraqi contacts to help it acquire capabilities for weapons of mass destruction. And previous attempts to keep Saddam in check had all failed.

All these sound reasons for destroying his regime were ignored by Rumsfeld’s critics. The great cry went up instead that the West was taken to war on a lie that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
House Appropriations Committee approves $3.3 billion to Israel security
The House Appropriations Committee approved on Thursday the 2022 State and Foreign Operation fiscal bill, including $3.3 billion in US security assistance to Israel, as agreed to in the 2016 memorandum of understanding (MOU).

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), tweeted that “the committee’s appropriation, with no added political conditions, reflects the strong bipartisan commitment for Israel’s security in Congress and the Biden administration.”

The committee also approved $50 million under the Economic Support Fund for the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, “to continue critically needed people-to-people programming and joint economic partnerships between Israelis and Palestinians.”

An additional amount of $2m. would assist USAID-Israel international development cooperation “to support local solutions to address sustainability challenges relating to water resources, agriculture, and energy storage.”

The bill also restores funds for the United Nations Human Rights Council, “unless the secretary of state determines and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that participation in the council does not serve the national interest of the United States and that the council is not taking significant steps to remove Israel as a permanent agenda item nor taking actions to ensure integrity in the election of members to such council as directed under reports in this section.”

“The committee notes with disappointment the ascension to UNHRC of countries with poor human rights records, and therefore urges the secretary of state and the United States ambassador to the United Nations to exercise the renewed influence of the United States in the Council to vigorously press other countries to uphold human rights, respect the rule of law, and treat their citizens with dignity,” the accompanying report reads. “The committee is also concerned with the continued, disproportionate focus of UNHRC on Israel and its anti-Israel bias.”
Cyprus seeks aid from EU and Israel as huge forest fire rages
Cyprus appealed for aid from its EU partners and Israel on Saturday as a huge forest fire raged north of the cities of Limassol and Larnaca, forcing the evacuation of villages.

The fire, fanned by strong winds, affected at least six communities in the foothills of the Troodos mountain range, an area of pine forest and densely vegetated shrubland.

Dozens of properties were damaged, but no injuries were reported. There were widespread power cuts in the area. Plumes of smoke were visible in the capital Nicosia, some 75 km (45 miles) away.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed on Saturday night that Israel will send aid tomorrow to help Cyprus put out the fires. Greece pledged to assist with two aircrafts.

"This is a very difficult day for Cyprus. All of the state's mechanisms are in gear, and the priority is for no loss of life," Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades tweeted.

The cause of the fire, which started around midday, was unclear. Cyprus has experienced a heatwave this week, with temperatures exceeding 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Biden kneels before Rivlin's haredi advisor after learning she has 12 kids
President Joe Biden has had four children of his own, but he is clearly impressed by mothers who raise more. In a meeting with Israel’s outgoing president Reuven Rivlin at the White House on Monday, Biden knelt before Rivlin’s bureau chief, a haredi Orthodox woman named Rivka Ravitz, in deference to the fact that she has 12 children.

The news site Kipa.co.il reported on the moment, based on photos taken of the encounter by reporters accompanying the Israeli presidential delegation.

Rivlin had mentioned to Biden that Ravitz, 45, a key adviser for years, runs a household of 13 in addition to her demanding job when the president knelt before her to express his admiration. Rivlin clasped his hands in apparent surprise as he and Ravitz looked down on Biden, who lowered one knee to the floor and bowed his head.
Nine ways the Evyatar outpost impacts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Hard to imagine that an isolated hilltop where mothers wheeled baby carriages and teenagers learned macramé and studied religious texts would impact the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But the settlement movement’s 53-year history is measured by the small victories that move the bar forward by centimeters and not kilometers. The events of the last two months on the Evyatar hilltop – which were overshadowed by the May Gaza war, Jerusalem unrest and Jewish-Arab riots – mark one such turning point.

In rapid succession, 53 families and scores of teens moved onto the hilltop. Then they struck a deal to leave, in exchange for a pledge by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that he would move to legalize a community there. In the interim, an army base will be placed there and then a yeshiva.

Here are nine ways the Evyatar outpost and comprise impact the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

1. Underscores status quo myth
The idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can remain in some form of deep freeze otherwise known as the "status-quo" is a myth that persists among the Right and the Left, from Jerusalem to Washington.

US President Joe Biden's decision not to pursue a peace process relies on that concept.

The current coalition of Right, Center and Left parties is built on the premise that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is on the back-burner for the moment, and thus it would not have to worry about the its deep political divide on this topic.

Out of all the arena in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is played out, the West Bank bank is often viewed as the most static.

The creation of the Evyatar outpost is a reminder, for those that are paying attention, that there is no such thing as the status quo on this issue.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an ocean of ever-changing tides, with deep undertows, that continuously shift the contours of the physical map and the political debate.
Palestinians declare victory after settlers leave outpost
Palestinians celebrated over the weekend the departure of settlers from the Evyatar outpost south of Nablus by calling it a victory and pledging to continue the fight against all settlements.

The settlers voluntarily left the hilltop outpost on Friday, some two months after they first arrived. The move came in accordance with an agreement they reached with the government.

The deputy mayor of the nearby village of Beita, Musa Hamayel, pointed out that five Palestinians were killed and many others injured during protests against the outpost.

“Today, the residents of Beita feel victorious,” he said. “But this is just the beginning, and not the end of our activities.”

Hamayel said the villagers do not care about the agreement reached between the settlers and the government.

“This is not a dispute over the rental of the land,” he added. “We are opposed to the presence of the settlers on our lands, whether through a religious school or an army base or a settlement. We will continue to resist until the restoration of our land.”

Ahmed al-Haj Ali, a senior Hamas official from Nablus, said the evacuation of the Evyatar outpost was a victory for the Beita residents and the Palestinian “resistance.” The settlers were forced to leave the outpost because of the “resistance,” he added.
Israel strikes Hamas sites in Gaza after renewed arson balloon attacks in south
Israeli warplanes struck a Hamas rocket launcher and a weapons factory in the Gaza Strip Saturday night in response to a wave of arson balloon attacks launched at Israel from the coastal enclave over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Amid the strikes, Gaza-based terror group members fired machine guns toward southern Israel, which did not set off alerts, according to the military. Palestinian media reports said the gunfire was aimed at Israeli aircraft. There were no reports of injuries or damage from the gunfire.

The army said in a statement that the targeted site in the airstrike was used by the terror organization to manufacture weapons, and released an infographic showing its location.

“The strikes were made in response to the arson balloons fired towards Israeli territory. The IDF will continue to respond firmly against terror attempts from the Gaza Strip,” the army said.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry said there were no casualties in the Israeli airstrikes.

The incendiary balloons launched from Gaza on Saturday sparked one fire near a town along the southern border, on the second day of such attacks since the military last struck targets in Gaza, in response to previous arson balloon attacks on southern Israel.

Between Thursday night and early Friday morning, Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas weapons factory in Gaza, in response to at least four fires caused by incendiary balloons on Thursday.
UAE-bound vessel, previously Israeli-owned, attacked in Indian Ocean
A fire broke out on Saturday aboard a cargo ship, previously owned by a company belonging to a prominent Israeli businessman, as it sailed in the northern Indian Ocean.

According to multiple reports on Saturday, the fire was a result of an attack from an unknown source. Israeli officials believe Iran is behind the attack, according to the Ynet news site.

The ship, identified as the Liberia-flagged CSAV Tyndall, departed from the port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and was headed toward the Jebel Ali port in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese TV station al-Mayadeen.

An earlier version of this report, citing Hebrew-language media, noted that the vessel was owned by Zodiac Maritime, a London-based company belonging to Israeli tycoon Eyal Ofer. The vessel was indeed previously owned by the company, but was sold several months ago.

“Following reports in the media, we can confirm that the vessel CSAV Tyndall is not owned or operated by Zodiac Maritime, which is a UK ship management company,” the firm said in a statement released Saturday.

There were no injuries reported aboard the ship, which suffered minor damage and continued on its journey after the incident.

Unnamed sources told al-Mayadeen that the fire broke out aboard the vessel after it was struck by an unknown weapon.
Hundreds of protesters call for Abbas to resign over death of PA critic
Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators called for an end to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s 16-year reign on Saturday in the latest demonstration sparked by the death of PA critic Nizar Banat.

“Abbas, dissolve the PA, and get out of our way!” protesters called as they wound their way through Ramallah’s downtown.

As the protest heated up, hundreds of demonstrators began calling “the people want the fall of the regime” and “leave,” slogans associated with the 2011 Arab revolutions.

“We’re caught between the Palestinian Authority and the [Israeli] army,” demonstrators said.

The rally was part of a series of protests ignited by the death of Banat, a prominent opponent of the PA, while in the custody of Palestinian security forces last month. The demonstrations had paused following a harsh crackdown by PA security forces early last week.

The United Nations and Palestinian rights groups have charged that Palestinian Authority forces attacked demonstrators at previous rallies. Saturday’s protest, however, dispersed peacefully, with no reports of violence.


HAMAS: You Did This



'Faculty of Color for an Anti-Racist NYU' Singles Out Jewish Nation, Calls to Cut Ties with Tel Aviv Campus
An open letter signed by hundreds of New York University (NYU) affiliates calls for “non-cooperation” with the NYU Tel Aviv campus, an effort rejected by a school spokesperson as “at odds with the tenets of academic freedom.”

Originally issued on May 21 by the group Faculty of Color for an Anti-Racist NYU, the Statement of Solidarity with Palestine from NYU Community was circulated on Medium on June 17, and invited NYU faculty members, students and other community members to join.

The letter’s signatories now include over 100 faculty members; groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, the Black Student Union and the Graduate Student Organizing Committee; and several hundred students, including about 140 at the NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus who signed anonymously.

Said the letter, “We pledge non-cooperation with the Tel Aviv program until the Israeli state ceases its military campaign and takes action to end discriminatory policies that limit Palestinian student’s access to education.”

The signatories said they would refrain from faculty collaborations and stop engaging with NYU’s study abroad program in Israel.

In a May 25 statement, NYU’s chief spokesperson John Beckman said the school “thoroughly rejects” the boycott petition.

“Such a boycott is at odds with the tenets of academic freedom,” Beckman said. “Academic freedom rests, in large part, upon the principle of free exchange of ideas. Ostracizing colleagues or programs in this way flies in the face of that principle, and it suppresses free speech and debate, precisely the opposite of a university’s mission.”

He said the proposal discriminated against members of the NYU community due to their national setting, and said the school found “the effort to repudiate engagement regrettable and misguided.”


Are social media platforms banning Holocaust education along with hate speech?
In October, one day after Facebook announced that it would ban Holocaust denial, Izabella Tabarovsky received an unexpected message from the platform.

A 2019 post of hers promoting an article she had written on Holocaust remembrance was being removed for violating Facebook’s “Community Standards on hate speech.” No further information was provided, and Tabarovsky doesn’t recall being given a way to appeal the decision.

She reached out to a Facebook spokesperson she found on Twitter but got no response.

Facebook’s decision to ban Holocaust denial came only after scholars, activists and celebrities had pilloried the platform for allowing hate speech. But Tabarovsky is no Holocaust denier. She’s a Jewish journalist who writes about Soviet Jewry, including the Holocaust in Soviet territories.

The article in question was called “Most Jews Weren’t Murdered In Death Camps. It’s Time To Talk About The Other Holocaust.” It was about how efforts at Holocaust remembrance don’t focus enough on the millions of Jews who were killed outside the concentration camps, such as Tabarovsky’s own relatives, who were murdered at Babyn Yar.

It’s possible the headline tripped up an algorithm meant to detect Holocaust denial, which then blocked Tabarovsky’s post. She doesn’t know, as she never heard from Facebook.

“This message popped up, and obviously the first reaction is, what did I say that was hateful?” Tabarovsky told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We’ve seen so much antisemitic speech. They can’t battle it, they can’t take it down, and yet they remove Holocaust education posts from 2019. It’s truly incredible.”
AJC Says Twitter Called Cynthia McKinney’s 9/11 Tweet “Strong Political Commentary”
Twitter has referred to former Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s tweet accusing Zionists of being behind 9/11 as “strong political commentary,” according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

McKinney, who previously ran for president in the Green Party, tweeted on June 28, “The final piece of the puzzle” with a picture of a puzzle piece of the word “Zionists” being placed into a puzzle depicting the 9/11 terror attacks. Below the word “Zionists” were the words “did it.” AJC CEO David Harris tweeted on June 29, “Think about it. A blood libel against ‘Zionists,’ a toxic conspiracy theory & a boldfaced lie are nothing more than, um, strong political commentary. Appalling.”

According to the AJC’s website, Twitter temporarily removed McKinney’s tweet on Tuesday, only to later restore it; as of this writing, the tweet remains on the site.

“Blaming Jews, Israelis, or Zionists for the 9/11 terrorist attacks is one of countless conspiracy theories that have spread antisemitic beliefs that blame Jews for the world’s worst tragedies from medieval times until the present day,” the AJC wrote.
Polish rallygoer who led chants about hanging ‘Zionists’ sentenced to jail
Two ultranationalists in Poland were sentenced to prison in connection with a 2016 rally that featured chants about hanging “Zionists.”

One of the participants at the rally in Bialystok was given a 12-month term — an unusually stiff punishment for such an offense in Poland — by the Criminal Tribunal in Warsaw on Wednesday, Onet reported Thursday. The court imposed a six-month suspended sentence on the other rallygoer. The defendants were not named in the Polish media.

The defendant who received the harsher sentence had led chants about how “Zionists will hang from the trees instead of leaves” at the rally, which also featured anti-Muslim chants, the court said. The chants were considered racist incitement to violence.

The court also acquitted five others charged in connection with the rally organized by the ultranationalist group ONR.

In recent years, disputes over World War II history and Holocaust restitution have soured relations between Israel and Poland, as well as Poland’s relations with Jewish groups and even the United States.

In 2018, Poland’s right-wing government passed controversial legislation that outlawed blaming the Polish nation for Nazi crimes, triggering a diplomatic crisis with Israel, which protested the law as limiting free speech and Holocaust research on Polish complicity.


Never Again Is Now
Never Again Is Now is a documentary about the troubling rise of global antisemitism, told through the eyes of Evelyn Markus, a Dutch Jewish woman, against the backdrop of Holocaust history. When Markus saw similar signs of antisemitism returning to the Netherlands, she and her lifelong partner, Rosa, left the land her family called home for centuries and moved to the US. Now she sees antisemitism rise there as well.


Hundreds Join Sderot Race Honoring Six-Year-Old Victim of Gaza War: ‘He Would Be Very Moved by the Caring of the People of Israel’
A race held in the memory of a six-year-old Israeli boy killed by Hamas rocket fire drew hundreds of participants on Thursday in his home-town of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip border.

Ido Avigal was killed on May 12, when his apartment building suffered a direct hit from a rocket fired from Gaza during the 11-day Operation Guardian of the Walls, and shrapnel pierced a window in the protected room where his family was sheltering.

Parents and children in Sderot celebrated his memory in the race on Thursday, Israeli news site Walla reported, including Ido’s parents Assaf and Shani, as well as their daughter and several cousins.

“Thank you to everyone who prayed for us. Thank you all for the support and the cover, it strengthens us very much,” said Ido’s mother Shani, who herself was hospitalized by the attack. “If ‘Dodka’ was alive he would be very moved by the caring of the people of Israel.”

She said her late son had left behind three “unwritten wills” — one to make sure people living in range of rockets fired from Gaza would be protected; one to teach his mother and father to be better parents; and a third to bring about his wish for solidarity among the people of Israel.

“I wish we could all spread unconditional love, and treat and love your neighbor as yourself, even if they are not like you,” she said.
Based on grandmother’s heroic tale, author shows 1930s Cuba as haven for Jews
In 1938, 12-year-old Esther Levin travels alone from Poland to the port of Havana to reunite with Abraham, the father she hasn’t seen for three years. Along the way, she compulsively writes letters to her younger sister Malka, whom she desperately misses. But not a single letter is sent.

Right from the start, there is something intriguing about the middle-grade book “Letters from Cuba.” As its title implies, it is an epistolary novel, inspired by author Ruth Behar‘s maternal grandmother’s story.

The real-life Esther Levin made the journey from Govorovo, Poland, to Cuba in the interwar period. Her father’s plan was to make enough money for passage for the rest of the family. The determined Esther managed to convince her parents to allow her, as the eldest child (but not son), to be the first to join her father.

In the novel, Behar fills in her family lore’s blanks as Esther writes Malka about everything that happens to her in her new home of Agramonte, a sugar-producing town in the Cuba’s rural, tropical interior where their father had moved three years earlier to try to make a living after losing his business in Poland.

Accustomed to living only among Yiddish-speaking Jews, Esther now finds herself among new neighbors of Spanish, African, and Chinese descent. They introduce her to their heritages, and she invites them to learn Jewish customs from her.

Esther excitedly tells Malka about discovering a talent she did not know she had. With the support of her father and kind Agramonte neighbors and Jewish merchants in Havana, she develops this talent (no spoilers!), thereby helping her father make more money — and more quickly — than he had as a peddler.







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