Taxidermy and Ancient Artifacts on Display at Brooklyn’s Living Torah Museum

In the ḥasidic enclave of Borough Park, Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch presides over Torah Animal World, part of his Living Torah Museum, which was named “Best Museum in New York” by the Village Voice. The exhibits, all of which are interactive, include displays created from stuffed animals and ancient artifacts with varying degrees of connection to the Bible. Jamie Manelis writes:

[Deutsch’s] interest in using taxidermy animals . . . began with his innate need to teach. On realizing the important roles specific animals played in the Torah, [he] wanted to create a multi-sensory approach to teach children about them. Opening a zoo in Borough Park would be complicated at best. He found a loophole. “We did the next best thing using taxidermy animals. We’ve never killed an animal—I don’t believe in killing animals [other than for food]. I do believe that if they’re already dead and available, let’s use them for education.”

Rabbi Deutsch balances his creative needs with philanthropic endeavors. On top of maintaining [the museum] he runs Oneg Shabbos, a food program for the hungry and homeless. The largest food pantry in Brooklyn, [it] helps feed over 1,100 families on a weekly basis, [r]egardless of . . . religious affiliation. . . . He also runs a burial program for people who can’t afford proper funerals. . . .

Most museums are cold, bright, and almost sterile due to the fragility of art, handled with delicate hands and admired in silence. The Living Torah Museum feels just the opposite. It’s like walking inside of your eccentric grandfather’s living room. Deutsch’s hands-on approach doesn’t only satisfy a historical curiosity; it forces a new connection to items lost in the vacuum of time. Cradling a perfume bottle excavated from King Tut’s tomb cultivates a new sense of understanding—something you could never experience by simply peering through a glass barrier. “Perfume bottle.” Rabbi Deutsch inspects a brown withered object and shakes it. “You hear that? Dried perfume! Here, hold it,” he says, shoving it into my hands.

Read more at Observer

More about: Arts & Culture, Brooklyn, Hebrew Bible, Jewish education, Jewish museums

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF