Talk about JEW-bilation - The Jewish Standard

My father used to tell a story about two men, Yankel and Yossel, who met once a week on a bench in Tel Aviv.

One day, when Yankel arrived at the bench, Yossel was reading an Arabic newspaper. Yankel was aghast: “Why are you reading that Arabic paper?” he asked. Yossel looked up and smiled. “When I read HaAretz, it says that inflation is up 67 percent, taxes are going to be raised, and there’s crime in Yaffo, but the Arabic papers say that the Jews control the media, are living like kings, and have all the money. It makes me feel good!”

I stood on the bimah, looked out at our congregants in the pews and asked if anyone could spell jubilation.

When the laughter subsided, and they realized that I wasn’t going to say anything, a few spelled it out: j-u-b-i-l-a-t-i-o-n.

I still didn’t move, so they spelled it again.

A huge smile came across my lips: WRONG, I said, it’s Jew-bilation!

It’s the feeling we get when we find out that a Jewish person achieved greatness: won the Nobel Prize, wrote a best-selling book, was a great athlete, a great actor, or anything along those lines.

We feel the opposite when a Jew is singled out in infamy, as it sheds a horrible light on the rest of us, and makes me, for one, very fearful.

We, as a people, have made contributions to every walk of society, in numbers greatly disproportionate to our population. Jews have won 22 percent of all the Nobel Prizes ever awarded (almost 20 since 1950). In education, it is difficult to name an academic discipline in which we have not played a leading role. Also in literature, the arts, economics, philanthropic causes, the garment industry, film, and TV. We’ve started chains of major retail stores and are leaders in publishing, politics and technology; Jews have been founders, leaders and visionaries.

In sports we can still rave about Sandy Koufax, or Hank Greenberg, two of the greatest baseball players of all time

It is those accomplishments that we see and smile about. It is those accomplishments that make our chests swell with pride. It is why we can look our kids right in the eye and tell them that nothing is impossible anymore. “Anything you really want is in your reach,” we say. We mean it, and why shouldn’t we? This isn’t Europe pre-1950, where Jews were forbidden from engaging in all but limited activities, limited professions. No, it’s 2026 America, and the sky’s the limit.

The winter Olympics did just that:

Skiing: Mikaela Shiffrin claims slalom gold in storybook conclusion to her 2026 Winter Olympic journey.

Snowboarding: For Jake Canter, an Olympic bronze medal is the prize after a near-death journey.

Aerin Frankel is the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team’s goalie. She had a .985 save percentage at the 2026 Winter Olympics as of the gold medal game, allowing only one goal on 68 shots through four games, leading the tournament and setting an Olympic record for shutouts. Her remarkable performance includes three shutouts in those four games, showcasing elite goaltending for Team USA.

And the Hughes brothers, Quinn and Jack, who are Jewish, were pivotal for Team USA in men’s hockey. Quinn Hughes scored the game-winning overtime goal against Sweden in the quarterfinals, and Jack scored the overtime goal in the gold medal game to win it for the U.S.A.

With the events taking place in the word today, it’s wonderful that we can experience the joy of JEW-bilation!!

Cantor/Rabbi Lenny Mandel, who left the wilds of Manhattan almost 50 years ago and lives in West Orange, has been the hazan at Congregation B’nai Israel in Emerson for the past quarter century.

Opinion

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