It’s no secret that Natalie Portman is over and done with in the Jewish community. Her boycott of Israel’s “Nobel” Genesis Prize put the final nail in that casket. (Full Disclosure: She and her family were members of my congregation years ago on Long Island.)

BUT, Portman (nee Natalie Hershlag) and her very public divestment from Israel and her humiliation of the Jewish Land also rests in the tainted hands of the Israeli committee who selects these awardees. The committee’s self-proclaimed mandate is to give this award specifically to Jewish people who have attained recognition and excellence in their fields. The prize was founded with the objective of inspiring and developing a sense of pride and belonging among young unaffiliated Jews throughout the world.

QUESTION: Why did the Genesis award committee decide to give Portman this prize to begin with? Because she was in Star Wars and was born in Jerusalem? Actually according to Portman and her new-found friends of the same ilk, Jerusalem isn’t part of a Jewish homeland and never was. So let the Arabs give her an award. And now they probably will - as they are already rejoicing from her reneging on the award and her boycotting the event. Natalie, the Black Swan, claims that she won’t attend because the Prime Minister of Israel will be there. Well, sorry Natalie but in democracies the people get to decide on their leadership and Bibi won. Maybe Portman can go to events in those countries that are now hailing and extolling her - where, by the way, kings, dictators, tyrants and terrorists rule.

If they’re really stuck on Jewish stars then Scarlett Johansson’s got everyone’s vote for standing up to BDS.
AGAIN, what exactly has this mother of Princess Leia done for the Jewish people? Made an Amos Oz film? Named her baby Aleph? Married a French ballerina? Come to think of it, our own dear Biblical Matriarch Leah rests in Hevron, where Palestinian Arabs pelt rocks, boulders and ammo on Jews who travel there - injuring and killing them. Those deaths of babies, brides and parents are celebrated by those who cheer Portman’s very public dissing of her people’s homeland.

AND, where did Portman want the two-million dollar prize money to go? “Women’s Rights.”

Unless of course you are a woman who sits with her children in bomb shelters in Sderot waiting for the sirens to cease. Or the women who wear olive green IDF uniforms on the Gaza border inhaling the burning black plumes of rubber tire gas chambers blowing into these Jewish women’s lungs.

Portman, who is a proud vegan, screams from pulpits that “the carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse emissions and global human-induced emissions are caused from raising farm animals.” She cries that, “Pigs and chickens suffer horrendously and are subjected to extreme brutal, violent deaths.” Pigs should give Portman a two million dollar award, not Israel. Jewish children breathing Hamas toxic deadly emissions mean nothing to her, while swine are the ones suffering brutality in the world of Natalie.

Can we stop giving movie stars awards? She got the Oscar; she doesn’t need the Genesis. (Even our Oskar Schindler would be disgusted by the very thought of giving Portman an award.) Are there no other Jews worthy? And when she announced her boycott, Israel cancelled the award and the event for this year? They couldn’t find anyone else in the next couple of months?

Perhaps any one of the tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers who defend our precious homeland regardless of politics and vegetarianism. Maybe award a Jewish vendor who sells fruit or fish or sweaters in Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau qualifies as reaching the excellence in his field after being literally thrown into the flames of a concentration camp fire and then becoming the Chief Rabbi of Israel. If they’re really stuck on Jewish stars then Scarlett Johansson’s got everyone’s vote for standing up to BDS by supporting SodaStream while being thrown out of amfAR.

Or, toss away the has-been Star Wars Princess and honor today’s Queen Esther, Ivanka Trump. A woman who has converted to Judaism, keeps kosher, observes the Sabbath, raises her Jewish children in her Jewish home with her Jewish husband. And does so very openly (globally openly) as she walks to her Chabad synagogue on Shabbat, lights publicly the menorah on Hanukkah while applauding her father's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.  Yes, Ivanka Trump. While Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Natalie Portmans hide their Jewish Star and unfurl their Palestinian flag, Ivanka kindlles Sabbath candles in her home each week as a woman of valour for all to see.

The Portman putridity will rot and mold away. But the very choosing of her in the first place will exude a stench for quite some time until the Genesis committee wakes up and realizes who the true Jewish heroes are and which experts are worthy of exemplifying.

Rabbi Dr. David Nesenoff is an international speaker on topics of Israel, anti-Semitism, Judaism and the media. Dr. Nesenoff is globally known for his video exposing Helen Thomas at the White House during her anti-Jewish rant causing her expulsion from the Washington Press Corps after 60 years.