September 8, 2017 17 Elul 5777 Volume 73, Issue 17
S O U T H E R N A R I Z O N A ’ S A WA R D - W I N N I N G J E W I S H N E W S PA P E R
Section B Tikkun olam: To repair the world
High Holiday Community Greetings A-19 — A-24 Arts & Culture ............ A-5, 8, 9 Classifieds ......................... A-31 Commentary ..................... A-6 Community Calendar.......A-32 First Person..................A-10, 12 High Holiday features ......................................A-15, 16 Local ......... A-3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12 National ......................A-25, 27 Obituaries .........................A-34 Our Town ..........................A-35 P.S. ....................................A-28 Rabbi’s Corner .................. A-31 Synagogue Directory....... A-31
Tucson emergency doc to be on ‘20/20’ KAYE PATCHETT Special to the AJP
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edical dramas are among TV’s most popular entertainment shows. But how realistic are those life-saving scenarios? ABC’s news program “20/20” will turn that question over to a group of medical experts to explore “The Good Doctor,” a series starting Sept. 25 from David Shore, the creator of “House.” The new show stars Freddie Highmore as a brilliant, autistic emergency physician. The “20/20” episode will air on Sept. 13 at 9 p.m. on KGUN9. It features four prominent physicians — including Tucson emergency physician Kenneth Iserson, M.D., MBA, FACEP, who will demonstrate improvisational emergency techniques he’s used in real-life situations. Iserson, a 1975 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is professor emeritus of emergency medicine at the University of Arizona and former medical director of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association. He is a supervisory physician with Arizona’s section of the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team, and has authored countless articles and 12 books, including “Improvised Medicine: Providing Care in Extreme Environments.” Can writing textbooks save lives? “I’m told anecdotally that it has,” says Iserson. “In one instance, an emergency physician working on a volunteer mission in Southern Africa had my book open to how to do a lifesaving procedure as she was doing it.” A self-described Type A+ personality, Iserson says his fascination with emergency medicine ignited when he worked on a volunteer ambulance service and rescue squad from 1967 to 1972, dealing with a wide spectrum of illness and injury. Each case offers a unique challenge, he says. “Not knowing what is coming through the door next is exciting.” Retired from the UA since 2008, he practices global and disaster medicine and has prac-
Illustration: Anne Lowe
INSIDE
azjewishpost.com
Happy New Year 5778 ticed or taught on every continent, including Antarctica. He also runs the REEME.arizona. edu project, which distributes free Spanishlanguage PowerPoint presentations on emergency medicine. He worked on disaster relief following hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and is providing emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Harvey. Medical dramas don’t reflect real-life medicine, he says. “Even those of us who advocate
CANDLELIGHTING TIMES:
improvisation use it only when necessary. It is not typical behavior for any emergency physician or paramedic.” But it is necessary “in major disasters, such as Katrina, Ike and Harvey.” Some of his improvised methods, such as a way to quickly warm blood from blood bank temperature of 4 degrees C to body temperature, have become standard medical practices. Though dazzlingly life-saving, they may not See Iserson, page A-4
September 8 ... 6:21 p.m. • September 15 ... 6:12 p.m.
September 20 Erev Rosh Hashanah ... 6:05 p.m. • September 21 Rosh Hashanah ... 6:58 p.m. • September 22 ... 6:02 p.m.
S´LICHOT
SHABBAT SHUVAH
EREV YOM KIPPUR (KOL NIDREI)
Saturday, September 16.................. 8:30pm
Friday, September 22 .......................6:30pm
Friday, September 29.......................... 7:30pm
• Dessert Reception • Discussion—Truth or Consequences: Telling Lies, White Lies, & Half-Truths • Changing of the Mantles • Service
EREV ROSH HASHANAH Wednesday, September 20 ............ 7:30pm
ROSH HASHANAH Thursday, September 21
• Tot Service..................................... 9:00am • Youth Congregation ..................... 10:30am • Main Service ................................ 10:30am
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
• Or Chadash
Saturday, September 23 ................ 10:00am • Or Chadash
TASHLICH AND PICNIC Sunday, September 24 ................... 11:15am • Ft. Lowell Park, Ramada #3
KEVER AVOT Sunday, September 24 .....................2:00pm • Evergreen Cemetery
YOM KIPPUR Saturday, September 30 • • • • •
Tot Service............................................. 9:00am Youth Congregation ........................... 10:30am Main Service ....................................... 10:30am Walk with the Rabbi ......................1:15-1:30pm Mincha Moments: Arguing with each other for the sake of heaven ........1:30-3:45pm • Afternoon Service ................................. 4:00pm • Yizkor and Neilah .................................. 5:00pm • Break Fast following Neilah
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L’Shana Tova from our family to yours
Tucson J cooking classes accent healthy eating
Debra & Jim Michael Jacobs, Scott Tobin, Brenda Tobin, Amanda, Landon & Presley Hall
Jim Jacobs
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Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA
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Participants learn to make caponata as part of the Tucson Jewish Community Center's 'Around The World: Adult Summer Camp' spotlight on Italy on June 14.
KORENE CHARNOFSKY COHEN Special to the AJP
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ooking and culture will blend together in a variety of classes at the Tucson Jewish Community Center starting this month. The classes will emphasize healthy eating and the importance of cooking together as a family, as well as sharing food and culture from around the world. All dishes will be kosher and vegetarian. “By offering these classes we are trying to showcase our amazing cooking demonstration area while creating a place for families to work together,” says Barbara Fenig, director of arts and culture at the Tucson J. “I also have been energized by teaching kosher laws to the instructors so they can tailor their dishes to be appropriate for our classes.” “We include food from different cultures because sharing a meal is important everywhere in the world,” adds Fenig.“We want people to learn about other cultures in ways that promote our Jewish values of welcoming the stranger, making new friends and respecting the differences between people.” The J has hosted Somali and Syrian cooking classes this year and plans to offer an Ethiopian cooking class next spring. Fenig worked with Piri Lanes, an employment specialist at the International Rescue Committee, to come up with cooking classes designed to give refugees a chance to introduce their cultures to the community and also to earn some mon-
ey. In 2016 the IRC helped more than 26 million people around the world whose lives and livelihoods were shattered by war and natural disasters. In Tucson, the IRC helps refugees with food, housing, jobs, medical needs, legal issues, and integrating into the local community. Chef Shahd, a Syrian refugee who came to Tucson last spring, will teach people how to make Syrian delicacies on Sundays from Sept. 17 through Oct. 8. Fenig says Chef Shahd is a 26-yearold mother of four who is just as excited to share her culture as her food. Her classes hosted by the J this spring were sold out. Another refugee, Chef Samiro Elmi, taught a class on Somali food in August at the J. Elmi is originally from Somalia, but lived in Kenya before coming with her three children to Tucson in March. “Taking these cooking classes gives you a cultural window on the world,” says Susan Ridgway, who took Elmi’s class in August along with her 11-year-old son, Rohan. “Samiro gave us a good sense of the people as well as the food,” she says. “Rohan has been interested in cooking for a few years and he enjoys using the cookbooks we have at home and learning about the ingredients.” Ridgway’s husband, Jayadev, is from India, and she says that Somali cooking is similar to the food of India. Her 7-year-old daughter, Leela, is just beginning to take an interest in cooking. See Cooking, page A-4
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Free, Rosh Hashanah second day service at the Temple Free Childcare At All Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Services
Begin your New Year as the guest* of Arizona’s First Congregation Photos donated by Jon Wolf Photography
Cantor Marjorie Hochberg
Samuel M. Cohon, Senior Rabbi
Rabbi Batsheva Appel
Wednesday, September 20th - EREV ROSH HASHANAH Evening Service • 7:30 pm • Childcare ages 5 & under • 7-10 pm • Youth Programming Ages 6 -11 • 7-10 pm • JCTEY Service • 7:30 pm Thursday, September 21st - ROSH HASHANAH Family Service • 8:30 am – Tot Service • 8:30 am • Childcare ages 5 & under • 8 am -1 pm • Youth Programming Ages 6 -11 • 10 am-1 pm Main Service • 10 am • Tashlich and Picnic at Reid Park near Rose Garden • 5 pm Friday, September 22nd - 2ND DAY ROSH HASHANAH • At Temple Emanu-El • 9:30 am Friday, September 29th - KOL NIDRE EVE Evening Service • 7:30 pm • Childcare ages 5 & under • 7-10 pm • Youth Programming Ages 6 -11 • 7-10 pm Saturday, September 30th - YOM KIPPUR DAY Family Service • 8:30 am – Tot Service • 8:30 am • Childcare ages 5 & under • 8 am-6 pm • Youth Programming Ages 6 -11 • 10 am-6 pm Main Service • 10 am • Study Session (Schlanger Chapel) • 1pm and 2 pm • JCTEY Service Afternoon, Yizkor, and Neilah Service • 3 pm • Break Fast • 6:15 No charge for first time attendees, but all are welcome. Call for information.
Please call 327. 4501 225 N. Country Club Rd. • 520.327.4501
furnish the kind of tension called for by a fast-moving TV drama, he points out. Other times, real-life emergencies may exceed the scope of a hospital show — such as when Iserson worked at a medical facility in Guyana in 2014, and intervened to help save the life of a child mauled by a jaguar in the remote jungle. TV shows can create misconceptions about emergency medicine, he says. For
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“We gave a dinner party and Rohan made the rice dish we learned about in the class,” says Ridgway. “He was very careful to make the dish like the one from the class. Everyone who came to the party loved it and took some home.” The dish is made with Basmati rice, vegetables, cilantro, garlic, and cumin, and is often served with raisins and a chile pepper sauce. The season’s first class is Family Cooking on Sunday, Sept. 10 from 1-3 p.m., and Fenig says people can call as of Sept. 8 to see if there are any spots available. The other scheduled classes include Learn to Bake Bagels (Oct. 15); Farm to
instance, “That every intervention saves a life, every improvisation is successful, and our lives are continuous drama. None of this is true. This show … will rely as much on fantasy, Kenneth Iserson relationships and unusual situations as any medical reality.”
Kaye Patchett is a freelance writer and editor in Tucson.
Table Cooking (Oct. 29); Cookies, Pies & Cake Baking (Nov. 12); Kimchi & Korean Cuisine (Dec. 3); and Breakfast Pastries (Dec. 17). “I would love to hear what topics members of the community are curious about so we can plan for future classes,” Fenig says. She recently attended Hazon, a Jewish food conference in Connecticut, where she got ideas about cooking for holidays, using seasonal produce and creating healthier versions of traditional Jewish recipes. Some of these ideas might appear as classes at the J. For more information on cooking class schedules, fees and to register, visit tucsonjcc.org/cooking or call 299-3000. Korene Charnofsky Cohen is a freelance writer and editor in Tucson.
BS”D
SHANA TOVA 5778! We welcome you to inspirational and traditional High Holiday services at Congregation Young Israel of Tucson.
Erev Rosh Hashanah Wednesday, Sept. 20, 6:00 p.m.
Rosh Hashanah Thursday, Sept. 21, 8:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 22, 8:30 a.m.
Kol Nidre Friday, Sept. 29, 5:45 p.m.
Yom Kippur Shabbos, Sept. 30, 8:30 a.m., Neilah 5:30 p.m. • Children’s Programming • • Insights Provided •
WISHING YOU A SWEET NEW YEAR Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, Senior Rabbi Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin, Associate Rabbi Dr. David R. Siegel, President
2443 E. 4th St. (520) 326-8362 YoungIsraelTucson.com
All are welcome and your support is greatly appreciated.
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ARTS & CULTURE / LOCAL UA professor’s new classical album views human experience via a Jewish lens DAVID J. DEL GRANDE AJP Staff Writer
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ucson composer Daniel Asia’s latest CD attempts to contextualize the human experience via a Jewish sacred text, plus the poems of a New York Jewish poet and an Israeli Jewish poet. “To Open in Praise” contains 12 tracks in three sections, written over a 25-year period. The opening composition, “Psalm 30,” was written for Jack Chomsky, baritone, and first performed by him, Daniel Heifetz, violin, and J. Randal Hawkins, piano, on April 13, 1986. The following selection, “Breath in a Ram’s Horn,” offers a range of musical moods “from the sublime to the mundane, from the sacred to the profane,” says Asia. It includes texts written by Paul Pines, a New York-based author who has published 14 books of poetry and has lectured for the National Endowment for the Humanities. The third piece, “Amichai Songs,” comprises poems by Yehuda Amichai, who is regarded as one of Israel’s finest poets. His work has been translated into 40 languages. Asia’s work gets richer with every listen, says Sid Lissner, a founding member of Avitecture, an audiovisual engineering company based in the Washington, D.C. area, who retired to Tucson almost three years ago. Lissner befriended Asia when he relocated and is honored to be a project benefactor. Not only is Asia a well respected modern American composer, there are very few people creating pieces via a Jewish lens, says Lissner. Lissner describes Asia as a “thinker and an artist” of noteworthy stature. “He’s a respected professor and he’s notable for writing Jewish music in a classical mode,” says Lissner. “There aren’t too
Daniel Asia
many people doing this, and Dan does it so well — it’s art.” Asia hails from Seattle, Washington, and began studying music at the Lakeside School. He went on to study at the Yale School of Music, working with composer Jacob Druckman and conductor Arthur Weisberg. He later moved to New York City, where he served as music director at Musical Elements from 1977 to 1995. Currently, Asia is head of the composition department at the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox School of Music. His body of work includes five symphonies, piano and cello concerti, two song cycles, several single movement works, and multiple chamber ensembles, voice, and solo performers. His latest operas, “The Tin Angel” and “Divine Madness: The Oratorio” also feature librettos penned by Pines. Throughout his career, Asia has received multiple grants and fellowships including a Meet The Composer/Reader’s Digest Consortium Commission, United Kingdom Fulbright Arts Award Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Support for Asia’s new album was also provided by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. The CD was released by Summit Records on July 7.
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September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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COMMENTARY Billy Joel wore a yellow Jewish star. Thanks, but the trend should stop there. ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL JTA
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ew artifacts of the Holocaust move me like the yellow star. Homely and seemingly innocuous, they sit in museum cases either by themselves or still attached to a jacket or blouse, the stitching rough and the lettering surprisingly crude. They are almost comically, cartoonishly blunt, a child’s idea of how to single out and shame an enemy. And in their bluntness and homeliness they make vivid the obscenity that was Nazism, the way a single bloodstained feather on the sidewalk conjures a vision of the violence that produced it. So it was more than a little shocking to see Billy Joel wear a yellow star on his jacket during a concert a week after the
Photo: Myrna M. Suarez/Getty Images
NEW YORK
Billy Joel performs at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Aug. 21, 2017.
violent white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville. After all, Joel is not the first artist who comes to mind when you think of bold or provocative political gestures. It’s been his luck and his curse to be wildly popular while rarely courting controversy or inspiring deep critical analysis
or respect. The critic Chuck Klosterman wrote famously that Joel “has no extrinsic coolness. If cool were a color, it would be black — and Joel would be kind of a burnt orange.” His wearing the star should have been the wrong thing to do in so many ways.
Jewish groups are always worried about appropriations of the Holocaust and carefully designate the boundaries of acceptable Holocaust analogies (that is, none). The same week that Joel wore his yellow star during the encore at one of his regular Madison Square Garden gigs, the fashion house Miu Miu discontinued a clothing line that featured a yellow star that was only reminiscent of what the Jews were forced to wear (the World Jewish Congress had complained). Earlier this month, the Donald Trump mouthpiece Jeffrey Lord lost his commentary job on CNN essentially for calling one of Trump’s liberal critics a Nazi (and presumably casting Trump’s defenders in the role of the Nazis’ victims). But if any Jewish group had a complaint about Joel’s gesture, I haven’t heard See Star, page A-7
From Rome to Charlottesville, remember that a statue is never just a statue STEVEN FINE JTA
NEW YORK
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rench historian Pierre Nora spent his life describing and explaining “places of memory,” sites commemorating significant moments in the history of a community that continue to resonate and transform from generation to generation. For the French Republic, the Arc de Triomphe is one such “place of memory.” Begun by Napoleon and completed in 1836, the Arc is a place of French pride
and memory, where war dead from the Revolution to the present are recalled and military triumph exalted. Part of the power of this central place of memory resides in the architecture itself. The Arc de Triomphe is a larger version of another triumphal arch, the Arch of Titus. This arch, located on the Sacred Way in the ancient center of Imperial Rome, commemorates the victory of the Roman general Titus in the Jewish War of 66-74 C.E. Built circa 82 C.E., its deeply carved reliefs show the general, soon emperor, parading through Rome in a triumphal
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
procession. The spoils of the Jerusalem Temple, including its menorah, are borne aloft by Roman soldiers. Napoleon and those who came after him borrowed the design of this Roman triumphal arch, transferring the glory of Rome to the French nation. Subsequent events have complicated the meaning of the arch, which was intended to commemorate French military prowess. French victory in World War II, for example, was hardly unequivocal. Hitler did, after all, celebrate his own victory there, and France did not exactly emerge victorious by its own power. One of the more enduring photographs of the liberation shows American troops marching under the arch. The Arch of Titus, too, is a complex monument whose meaning shifted over time. Titus had not defeated a foreign power but put down a pesky rebellion by a small province. For Christians, the Arch became a place to celebrate Christian triumph over Judaism and the imperial power of the Catholic Church. For Jews, the arch was a symbol for their own defeat and exile, even as some took solace by claiming that its magnificence was proof that Israel had once been a “powerful nation” and formidable foe. In modern times, the Arch of Titus became a symbol both of newfound Jewish rootedness in Europe and a place of pilgrimage where Jews, religious and not, could proclaim, “Titus you are gone, but we’re still here. Am Yisrael Chai.” Or as Freud put it, “The Jew survives it!” Where once Mussolini had celebrated the Arch
as part of the heritage of fascism, Jews after the war assembled there to demand a Jewish state. Others imagined exploding the Arch and thus taking final retribution against Titus for his destruction of Jerusalem. Instead, the State of Israel took the Arch back unto itself, basing the design for its state symbol on the menorah carved into its surface. I tell these stories of Paris, Rome and Jerusalem as parallels to debate that has been intensified following the horrible events in Charlottesville. The sculptural tributes to the Civil War, North and South, are still living places of memory. Whether in the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Brooklyn, also modeled on the Arch of Titus, or in the thousands of statues across America, the Civil War is very much with us. Each place and time since then has thought about and reimagined the war — “The War of the Rebellion,” to many Northerners, “The War of Northern Aggression” to some in the South — in complex and differing ways. The meanings of these places of memory are not stable. They shift and transform as essential elements of our social fabric and civil religion from generation to generation. Conflicting visions often inhere in the same sculpture, much as Jews and Classicists often “see” very different messages in the Arch of Titus. In a pre-civil rights era, a statue of a Confederate general was seen by many as a tribute to military bravery and regional loyalty. Today the tide has shifted, and a See Statue, page A-7
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it. The singer’s gesture came across as sincere and pointed, not tasteless. Although he didn’t say why he wore the star, his ex-wife, model Christie Brinkley, took to social media to write that the star symbolized the “painful, no excruciating, memories of loved ones who wore that star to their death.” “Thank you, Billy for reminding people what was ... so it may never ever be again,” she added. Although Joel has never made much of his Jewish background, he has talked of his father, a German-born Jew who, according to Joel’s biographer, had vivid memories of the Hitler Youth and SS training near his childhood home in Bavaria, and who lost relatives in the Shoah. Joel’s gesture might have been especially meaningful because his Jewishness, as he once put it, stopped at his bris. The star seemed to be saying to the neo-Nazis who gathered in Charlottesville — and the political figures, ahem, who seemed unable to fully condemn them — that even he, a secular celebrity and multimillionaire, would still have been a victim of their perverse ideology. The Nazis made the Jews wear the yellow star so they couldn’t hide. The stars on Joel’s lapel and back seemed to say “I’m not hiding. I can’t hide. Come and get me.” Contrast that with another celebrity’s decision to wear the star this week. When Nev Schulman, star of MTV’s sort-of reality show “Catfish,” wore a yellow Star of David at MTV’s video awards show on Sunday, the gesture, while well meaning, seemed forced. I don’t think anybody wants the yellow star to become this year’s AIDS ribbon or Livestrong bracelet. The wearing of the yellow star seems the kind of gesture that can be made once, or sparingly, lest you diminish its shock value or begin to insult the experiences and memory of the people you are purporting to identify with and honor. But at least Schulman, like Joel, is Jewish. I can’t think
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consensus regards them as reminders of a racist past and an ignoble cause. Tearing down a place of memory is a serious matter. The act of iconoclasm, of tearing down or transforming a place of memory, is never neutral. The list of such events is long and includes the Maccabees’ destruction of idols in the second century BCE; the midrashic account of Abraham breaking the idols; late antique Christians and Muslims smashing Roman religious images (and burning synagogues); Orthodox Christian iconophobes destroying sacred icons during the eighth century; Protestants ravaging Church art during the Reformation; Nazis torching synagogues during Kristallnacht; the Taliban destroying giant sculptures of the Buddha; or Eastern Europeans tearing down sculptures of Lenin and Stalin after the fall of communism. Such transformations of our visual cultures mark major transitions and often culture wars. They are attempts to change our memory by obliterating or shifting what we see and expect on our social landscapes, to change how we relate to our places of memory. The ceremonial — the liminal — moment of removing a place of memory is always laden and significant. It is a shorthand, a summary statement and dramatic enactment of the ways that those present understand the place and encode its memory.
of a non-Jewish celebrity who could get away with wearing the star. They’d be accused, rightly, of appropriation, the way the artist Dana Schutz was excoriated by black folk after her painting of the mutilated face of Emmett Till — a 14-year-old who was lynched by white men in Mississippi in 1955 — was shown at the Whitney Biennial in March. Critics of Schutz’s painting said the circumstances and symbolism of the black teenager’s death are still too raw to be translated by a white woman into art. That’s not to say (or at least I wouldn’t say) that only members of a particular ethnic group or religion can depict their own suffering. (What is widely considered the most powerful anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit,” was written by a Jew, Abel Meeropol, although it was Billie Holiday who sang it most famously.) But certain gestures of interethnic solidarity — “Anne Frank, c’est moi” — are landmines. Writers from William Styron to Yann Martel have been accused of cheapening the Holocaust through allegory or by universalizing the Jews’ suffering. Jewish artists like Art Spiegelman or Agnieszka Holland are given the latitude to depict the Holocaust in ways that might seem misguided or offensive if done similarly by a non-Jew. Authenticity can be earned, although it’s a lot easier to be born with it. History’s most famous appropriation of the yellow star, meanwhile, turns out to be a myth. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum states flatly that “there is no truth” to the story that Denmark’s King Christian X wore a yellow star in solidarity with the Jews. Instead, the museum tells us, the king was heard to say to his finance minister, “Perhaps we should all wear it.” If this were 1941, the answer would be yes — everyone should wear it. In 2017, everyone should at least imagine what it would be like to be persecuted because of their race, religion or nationality, and what it might feel like to be literally marked for death. I think that’s the kind of empathy Joel tried to inspire. Very cool.
the high holy days at Congregation anshei israel
2017 Please share these days of awe with us ... • Special Services for families and children (babysitting available) • FRee Membership program includes High Holy Days tickets • all Military personnel, college students, and unaffiliated Jews 35-years-old and younger attend for free • aGaiN THiS YeaR! For Second Day Rosh Hashanah, Friday, Sept. 22, cai will open its doors with free admission to all to showcase the warmth and tradition that have been its hallmark for 87 years.
For admission information / tickets, call Debra at 745-5550, ext. 242.
Affiliated with The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Andrew Silow-Carroll is JTA’s editor-in-chief.
The march of the neo-Nazis, the texts they recited, the torches and flags they carried, and the violence they instigated are essential to understanding who these people are and what values they see in the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville. Reading this event, one can tease out their entire worldview — and it is horrifying. In the meantime, each community and locale will act and respond as we play out this distressing drama and rehearse the repercussions of this tragedy in our lives. Some Confederate statues will come down — as in Baltimore and at the University of Texas, Austin. Some will be contextualized or moved. Others, alas, will be left undisturbed and continue looking down on us contemptuously. These once mostly forgotten monuments are again potent and complex places of memory. Faced with similar provocations, Talmudic rabbis would avert their eyes from Roman imperial sculpture, placed in the cities of ancient Israel as tools of control. Some would spit in their imperial faces. When they could, others would tear down the statues of the hated emperors and their colonial regime. In modern times, Jews avoided walking beneath the Arch of the Evil Titus. Charlottesville is now a place of bloodshed. Perhaps it will begin to heal once the statue of Lee comes down. Nevertheless, the statue will continue to cast a shadow for decades, perhaps centuries, to come. Steven Fine is the Churgin professor of Jewish history and director of the Center for Israel Studies at Yeshiva University. He is director of the Arch of Titus Project.
September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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ARTS & CULTURE / LOCAL
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JHM puts out call for Jewish (vinyl) records The Jewish History Musion. Visitors to the museum seum is asking the public to are encouraged to sample the donate their Jewish music handful of vinyl records, and collections — vinyl records plans are underway to provide only, please. In the summer digital access to the Smithsoof 2016, the museum received nian Folkways collection of two dozen vinyl records of These records are part of a col- Jewish music. Jewish music, and now they lection recently donated to the Contact Nika Kaiser, want to pump up the volume. Jewish History Museum. JHM collections manager, The museum wants to bolster for more information at its fledgling selection of music in order to collections@jewishhistorymuseum.org show the range of Jewish cultural expres- or 670-9073.
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SELICHOT 2017
“Arrogance and Inadvertent Errors” Saturday • September 16 7:30 pm – Havdallah, "Norman,” discussion and dessert with Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon and Rabbi Batsheva Appel.
ALL INVITED AT NO CHARGE 10:30 pm – Beautifully haunting Selichot Services with High Holy Day Choir & Shofar.
520.327.4501
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
7:30pm – Watch the movie followed by an interactive discussion (and dessert) with Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon and Rabbi Batsheva Appel. The modern rise and tragic fall of a New York fixer who
knows the right people and gets things done.
10:30pm – Selichot Services (focusing on repentance and redemption) led by our rabbis and Cantorial Soloist Marjorie Hochberg…with the High Holy Day Choir adding a haunting note to an unforgettable evening that ends with a Shofar blast.
ARTS & CULTURE / LOCAL Jonas to bring percussive rhythms to Sukkot concert at the J
Photo courtesy Tucson Jewish Community Center
Renowned Jewish singer came one big, glorious, harBilly Jonas will present a Sukmonizing being. I rememkot concert at the Tucson ber thinking: wouldn’t it be Jewish Community Center, great to carry this ecstatic cosponsored by PJ Library, on connectedness, and musical Sunday, Oct. 8 from 4-6 p.m. magic out into the world?” in the Sculpture Garden. Jonas developed his craft The event will include a in the late 1980s as a foundstory from PJ Library and a ing member of the Oberlin light, breakfast-themed dinCollege Big Bang Theory ner. performance art collective. For 25 years, Jonas — perHe refined his style in Chiformer, singer-songwriter, cago during monthly “Bancomposer, multi-instrumengalong with Billy” shows talist, and educator — has at the No Exit Cafe, and perfected what has been desubsequently in the 1990s scribed as a “neo-tribal hooas a co-founder (with Bill tenanny” with audiences Melanson) of the funky folk around the globe, combining duo The Billys. He currently voice, guitar, and “industrial tours with the Billy Jonas re-percussion.” Band, which was honored “It began around an evewith an invitation to perning campfire in the sumform at the White House in mer of 1972 — ‘Leaving on a 2010. Jet Plane’ and ‘Blowing in the Tickets are $18 per imBilly Jonas Wind’ rising with the sparks mediate family with reginto the darkness,” recalls Jonas, “communal singing, istration by Wednesday, Oct. 4; $25 per immediguitars strumming, and a bucket thumping the back ate family thereafter. Tickets may be purchased at beat. Forty summer campers and eight counselors be- tucsonjcc.org/billyjonas or by calling 299-3000.
September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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TRACY SALKOWITZ Special to the AJP
Remember “Where’s Waldo?” It’s a fun time looking at maps and pictures and finding funny looking Waldo. Well, I do my own version whenever I travel and I call it “Seeking Seymour.” My default is to always look out for links to Jewish history, culture and people. When we see or meet something Jewish, my husband, Rick, and I mumble or shout , “Seeking Seymour!” Seymour was my Dad and it seemed appropriate to bring him into one of my favorite activities. I thought traveling to Ireland would not provide many opportunities for connecting with anything Jewish, but you just never know! Our very first stop in Dublin we found Jewish stars on our hotel pillars. I was so excited. Unfortunately, the hotel manager couldn’t tell us anything about them. When we were tooling around Waterford and Rick was climbing what would turn out to be the first of many castles, I chatted with one of the tour guides. “Oh, of course there were Jews back here in
the Viking era, they’d be needed for commerce, wouldn’t they?” In Kinsale, I wandered into an antique store and found a copy of Chagall’s “Rabbi with Torah Scroll.” The shop owner told me she liked having it there as her first husband was Jewish and it made her kids feel good when they saw it. It made me feel good too. Arriving in Dublin was very exciting. It is an incredibly vibrant and international city. Trinity is an old and respected university, affiliated with Oxford. I was pleased to hear that they started the Hebrew studies program back when the university was founded, in 1592. On July 23, we visited the Irish Jewish Museum. The building is old and damp and from my first step inside I felt as if I were being hugged by centuries of family. Yvonne Altman O’Connor is a Jewish historian, and I had arranged for her to meet with us and give us a tour. The first Jews came to Ireland in 1166 at which time they were told, “Thank you for coming, you can go away now.” The Jews persisted and the first synagogue was created in 1666. The first Jewish com-
Photos courtesy Tracy Salkowitz
FIRST PERSON / LOCAL On visit to Ireland, ‘Seeking Seymour’
Tucsonan Tracy Salkowitz points to mysterious Jewish stars adorning a hotel in Dublin, Ireland, she visited in July.
munity lived in Cork and was Sephardic, but they died off and were replaced by Ashkenazi Jews in the late 1700s. There have never been many Jews in Ireland,
not exceeding 5,500 since at least 1891. One genealogist, though, has a data base of some 50,000 Jews who have lived in Ireland at some point.
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The Jewish community in Dublin really began to grow at the end of the 1800s with Jews fleeing persecution elsewhere. The community stuck together and created synagogues, a Jewish school, and kosher shops. Two families that had begun to do well purchased two homes side by side. Upstairs were the family bedrooms and downstairs they broke through the wall to create a space large enough to hold a synagogue congregation. At its height 150 congregants crowded into the very small space. The first chief rabbi of Ireland was Isaac Herzog, father of Chaim Herzog. It was Chaim Herzog, during his tenure as president, who opened the doors of the Irish Jewish Museum in 1985. The museum is housed in the former two-home synagogue, which had later merged with another, more modern synagogue. It is funny thinking of an Israeli president with an Irish accent. The Jewish community in Cork continued intermittently. Some say that Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe left the ship when they thought they heard “New York, New York,” but what they had actually heard had been “Cork Cork!” Whatever the reason, they stayed in Cork and created a community. The Cork synagogue just closed last year. Today, there are approximately 2,500 Jews in Ireland, about 1,500 of them affiliated. There is a congregation in Belfast of about 80 and three synagogues in Dublin. The kosher butcher and stores are gone, but the Jewish bakery is still here. Not finding a table, we bought a bagel, said Motzi and shared it. And a very Jewish bagel it was. Seeking Seymour actually enriches my experience wherever I travel. It gives me a touchstone if you will. I love seeing the architectural beauty of ancient churches and the extraordinary art inspired by dif-
This Jewish bakery in Dublin serves excellent bagels.
ferent religions through the centuries. I so appreciated Rick and his family coming with me to the Jewish Museum. I’m sure they felt like they were visiting Mars, as everything is so different from what they know. I wonder if they realize that is how I feel every time I walk into a church or religious art exhibit. Yvonne, the historian, got it in one. She asked me what my favorite part of the trip was. I told her that every day had been so special I couldn’t pick one moment or experience. I had to admit though, that walking through the doors of the museum was — and at the same time we both said, “home.” We are a wandering people, connected through close to 6,000 years of history, tradition, food, music, art, and religion. And yet, connecting, in one moment, even Seeking Seymour if you will, we are home. Tracy Salkowitz is the executive director of the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona. This article is excerpted from her blog, tracystreks.com.
September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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FIRST PERSON / LOCAL German heritage kindles journey of healing CAROLIN HAASE ATCHISON Special to the AJP
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or more than three years, I have been researching my family’s history — and I’m still at it. When I received the results of my DNA test a couple of years ago, I was surprised, like the actors in the Ancestry TV ads. Instead of being of mainly German heritage, I am actually 50 percent Swedish, 24 percent Eastern European, 13 percent British, 5 percent Jewish Diaspora, 4 percent Southern European, and 3 percent Middle Eastern. I called back and asked, “Are these really my genes?” The answer, “Yes.” The 13 percent British came as a real surprise. Might that be the mysterious father of my grandfather? The irony is that I spent much of my life running away from my German heritage. And for good reasons. I was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1961, at a time when people were more busy with rebuilding their lives than confronting the past. Forgetting seemed the key word. No one talked about the war years. But I wish someone had. I first learned about the Holocaust through a documentary on German TV. It was the late 1960s and I was waiting for Star Trek to come on. Instead, I learned about the unimaginable. Concentration camps. Black and white images of starving human beings, looking at me with sad eyes from behind barbed wire fences. Mass graves. Gas chambers. Six million Jews murdered at Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Treblinka, Dachau … I went into shock. How could people do this to other people? Why did no one shed a tear or even apologize? How could people just go on living as if nothing had happened? How could people become such monsters? I started my ancestry research even then. My parents had to swear to me that
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Carolin Haase Atchison
there were no Nazis in our family. Every night before going to bed, our dedicated — and tired — parents would read my brother and me a bedtime story or tell us of a childhood prank they pulled. Like the time dad shot down the Hitler flag “with the evil spider on it.” Naturally, there also had to be heroes in the Haase-Bussmann tribe. And luckily there were. There was Tante Thea, who hid Jewish friends in her apartment in Berlin and helped them escape to Shanghai. There was General von Hase, who, like Darth Vader, had enough of the “evil empire” and chose to participate in the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, only to end up hanging from the gallows himself. In the late 1970s, after our parents’ divorce, our mother packed our belongings and, in a defiant move, settled us in sunny Southern California. The sun, the surf, and trail rides on big, old Barney in Huntington Beach put a brake on all that darkness. At least for a while. College was good, as was my move to New York City, where, through a colleague at work, I met Dr. Hertha Einstein Nathorff. Once a week I would go and visit “Tante Hertha” in her modest apartment on the Upper West Side to help her with the publication of her diary about her
life in Germany, only to find myself, over saltines with cream cheese, captivated by her stories of life in prewar Berlin, her difficult new beginnings with her family in New York City, and her visits with her cousin “Albertle” in Princeton. Even at 91 she did not miss a beat. She was after all an Einstein, who, at 28, had been the youngest director of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Berlin, and later had fallen in love with the eminent Dr. Eric Nathorff, a senior physician at the Moabit Hospital. Both were forced out of their jobs with the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws and in 1938 immigrated to the United States. Like many refugees, they had lost everything, and were lucky to be alive. With my move to Los Angeles, my visits with “Tante Hertha” ended. On occasion, I would attempt to visit a Holocaust museum, only to get so choked up, I could barely make it through the exhibit. Unlike my friends back in Germany, who worked through the subject in high school, I never had. Deep in my psyche, the shame and guilt over Germany’s past never left me. Life in L.A. was good, though. I went on long beach walks with my dog Max, fell in love with a park ranger named Sky and worked to protect beautiful open spaces and wildlife corridors in the Santa Monica Mountains. One of my happiest days was when I became a U.S. citizen, because I thought I wasn’t a German anymore. But my marriage did not last. And meanwhile my unease with my heritage continued to grow. I still feel sorry for the people who detected a slight accent and innocently asked me where I was from. Or the blind date who took me out to a nice restaurant and naively suggested he would like to visit Germany someday. It was not until I struggled with a precarious financial situation that I thought, “How did my grandmother survive the war, with two little children?” Until then, I had never really thought about what they went through. But still, it was all there. Haunting me. I knew I really needed to do something about the guilt when I looked at an Excel spread sheet I’d created for work and all I could think of were the forms on which the Nazis had recorded the possessions they took from the Jews on their arrival at the concentration camps. And so my journey toward healing began. In honor of the victims, I started it with a visit to L.A.’s Museum of
the Holocaust and listened to the moving testimony of a survivor. I read survivors’ biographies and slowly inched my way toward Germany’s efforts at reparations and its culture of remembrance. So much has happened since we left. The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was built, along with the Jewish Museum and the Topography of Terror. The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research was established, as was the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility and Future. German school children are required to visit a concentration camp as part of their Holocaust educational program. German artist Gunter Demnig creates “Stolpersteine” (stumbling stones) to commemorate victims of Nazi persecution. In May, Sybille Steinbacher became the first professor of Holocaust studies in Germany, at the Goethe University Frankfurt. When the U.S. TV miniseries “Holocaust” aired in Germany in the late 1970s, helplines had to be set up to help people cope. About 10 years ago, a new field of study emerged that focuses on the “children of war” and the “grandchildren of war,” to help Germans heal from the effects of that traumatic time. I can relate. I am one of those grandchildren. About three years ago, I moved to Tucson for personal reasons and, after discovering the Family History Center, began my family research in earnest. I wanted to know whether it was true that our great-grandfather, Opi Laub, had been born Jewish, but later converted to Catholicism, or whether our great-great-grandmother really did come from Sicily. I have yet to find Opi’s conversion papers or the birth certificate of my great-great-grandmother, but I did learn that my maiden name, “Haase,” is actually a Jewish surname, as are other names in my family tree, such as Laub, Wegmann, Schipper, Sontheim, and Herz. What are their stories? When I looked at Yad Vashem’s database of the victims of the Holocaust, Haase, Laub, and Herz have pages of entries. Might one, or some, of them be a relative of mine? The dark clouds of my German past are beginning to dissipate amidst the rays of truth — and my journey of remembrance and healing continues.
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CELEBRATE ROSH HASHANAH ON MT. LEMMON IN FRIENDSHIP AND WARMTH INSPIRATION, SPIRITUALITY AND COMMUNITY Celebrate under the pine trees with an inclusive Reform Congregation
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Cantorial Soloist Diana Povolotskaya
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Rabbi Stephanie Aaron
HIGH HOLIDAYS Holiday menu is rich with flavor and color MEGAN WOLF JTA
Photo: Megan Wolf
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wo things are especially important to my holiday dishes: ease of preparation ahead of time and, of course, appeal to crowds. When time is short — and really when is it not short? — let’s make things as simple as possible. This menu fits the bill while offering a combination of flavors, textures and colors. The grilled challah Caprese salad is one of my favorite dishes and is elevated with a super flavorful — and incredibly easy to make — balsamic glaze. The challah can be grilled ahead of time and set aside in a covered container for up to two days. Israeli couscous cooks very quickly and has a simple flavor profile allowing the grain to take on bolder flavors like the toasted sesame oil and dried fruit. The salmon dish is perfect roasted, pan seared or grilled. The spinach and walnut chimichurri sauce is versatile; try it on chicken or other varieties of fish. It also lasts a few days in the fridge, so can be made ahead of time. For those who don’t care for spicy flavors, skip the red pepper flakes. GRILLED CHALLAH CAPRESE SALAD Ingredients: 2 cups diced challah 2 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes 1 1/2 cups mozzarella balls 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 3 tablespoons olive oil plus more for grilling kosher salt to taste Directions: 1. Heat a cast-iron grill pan or traditional
Grilled Challah Caprese Salad
grill until very hot. 2. Toss challah with olive oil and place on grill pan, cook until all sides are grilled or slightly charred, set aside. 3. In a large bowl, combine tomatoes and mozzarella and set aside. 4. Immediately before serving, heat a small saucepan over medium heat and reduce balsamic vinegar until thick. 5. Add grilled challah to tomato mixture and drizzle with reduced balsamic vinegar, olive oil and top with kosher salt to taste. 6. Serve immediately. Note: The balsamic glaze can harden if it is overcooked or taken off the heat and left to rest. Reduce immediately before you are ready to serve. ISRAELI COUSCOUS WITH DRIED FRUIT Ingredients: 1 cup water 1 cup vegetable stock 1 cup Israeli couscous 1/4 cup each: golden raisins, traditional raisins and cranberries 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil salt to taste See Recipe, page A-26
September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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HIGH HOLIDAYS Five new kids’ books perfect for the holidays PENNY SCHWARTZ JTA
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challah-baking Jewish giant, a young baseball champ and an endearing boy in a pumpkin patch are among the stars of five delightful new books for kids published just in time for the High Holidays. This year’s crop includes new stories by two of the country’s most prominent children’s book writers, David A. Adler and Eric A. Kimmel, who have entertained and informed decades of young readers. Three of the books are set during the holidays — Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; and Sukkot, the seven-day fall harvest festival. Two others are uplifting, kid-centered stories about good deeds and repairing the world — themes that reflect the spirit of the holidays as a time for reflection as well as renewing commitments to do better in the year ahead. Big Sam: A Rosh Hashanah Tall Tale By Eric A. Kimmel; illustrated by Jim Starr; Apples & Honey Press; ages 3-8 Samson the Giant, known as “Big Sam” to his friends, sets out to make a giant round challah in preparation for Rosh Hashanah. Big Sam begins by digging a big hole — the Grand Canyon — to use as a mixing bowl. Step by massive step, Big Sam crisscrosses the U.S., filling his bowl with a mountain of flour, a lake of oil, thousands of eggs and more. For water, he dams up the Colorado River and then whittles a giant California redwood into a spoon for stirring. But before he can celebrate the holiday, two bald eagles caution the giant that he’s caused an awful lot of damage to the environment — flattening hills and threat-
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ening habitats. In the spirit of the holiday, Big Sam considers his misdeeds and sets about to make things right. When he’s finally ready to dig in to the huge challah, Big Sam welcomes in Rosh Hashanah with his American tall-tale pals — Paul Bunyan and Slue Foot Sue among them. Yom Kippur Shortstop By David A. Adler; illustrated by Andre Ceolin; Apples & Honey Press; ages 4-8 The story opens as a young boy named Jacob makes the winning catch in the last inning of his Little League game. If they win the next game, they’ll be the champions — but the final game is on Yom Kippur. After reminding Jacob that Yom Kippur is an important holiday, Jacob’s father says, “Think about what you want to do.” Over the course of the next few days, Jacob does just that. Will he go to the game or spend the day at synagogue with friends and family, observing the holy Jewish day? No spoilers here, but Jacob eventually realizes that he’s part of many teams: his family, friends, his people and Little League. This relatable, deftly told story taps into the reality facing many American Jewish families today — the conflicts between Jewish holidays and the secular calendar of school, sports, recitals and other activities. The story is, of course, inspired by the Jewish baseball legend Sandy Koufax, who sat out the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it was Yom Kippur. In his author’s note, Adler introduces the Hall of Fame pitcher to his young readers. The Best Sukkot Pumpkin Ever By Laya Steinberg; illustrations by Colleen Madden; Kar-
Ben; ages 4-9 Micah can hardly contain his enthusiasm for picking pumpkins at Farmer Jared’s pumpkin patch. He and his family join others from their synagogue who are helping the farmer pick the last of the season’s pumpkins to donate to a soup kitchen. Micah, however, thinks he’s searching for the perfect pumpkin to decorate his family’s sukkah, the temporary hut Jewish families build to celebrate the fall harvest festival of Sukkot. In this warm tale, Micah learns about generosity — he picks many more “perfect” pumpkins, turning them over to Farmer Jared to use to help feed the hungry. But what about Micah’s own sukkah? As the day at the farm comes to an end, Micah is unexpectedly delighted when he discovers that a pumpkin headed to the compost pile offer up seeds he can plant for next year’s “perfect” Sukkot pumpkin. Moti the Mitzvah Mouse By Vivian Newman; illustrated by Inga Knopp-Kilpert; KarBen; ages 2-5 Moti, a busy little mouse with a big heart, lives under the sink at the Bermans’ house. When the Berman kids — and
the family cat — are asleep, Moti secretly wanders the house finding ways to be helpful. Each page finds Moti doing a mitzvah: He feeds the fish, he puts away misplaced toys, he collects loose coins left around and puts them in the tzedakah box. Lively illustrations make this an engaging, interactive read that kids will want to read again and again. It Only Takes a Minute By Bracha Goetz; illustrated by Bill Bolton; Hachai Publishing; ages 2-5 A young boy in a haredi Orthodox family discovers that small acts of kindness can make a big difference — when he remembers to do them, of course. Throughout the book, the boy learns “it only takes a minute” to do good deeds, such as saying “thank you” or to thoughtfully say a bracha — a blessing — even when he is rushing for the school bus. At a soccer game, he takes a minute to appreciate the nature around him. While aimed at traditional religious families, the narrative touches a universal chord: that even young kids can, and should, make the effort to do what is right.
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L’SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU 5778 High Holidays
Rosh Hashanah Jewish New Year
Sukkot Festival of Booths
Simchat Torah Rejoicing in the Torah
Festive celebration during which individuals contemplate past, present and future actions. Traditional foods include round challah and apples with honey, symbolizing wholeness and sweetness for the new year. Commences the Ten Days of Awe, which culminate on Yom Kippur. 1-2 Tishrei
Commemorates the fulfillment of God’s promise to bring the Israelites to the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering. Many people build a sukkah (booth), a temporary structure with a roof made of branches. Also celebrated with the shaking of the lulav (assemblage of palm, willow and myrtle branches) and etrog (citron, a lemon-like fruit). 15-21 Tishrei
Celebrates the completion of the annual Torah-reading cycle. After finishing the last sentence of the book Devarim (Deuteronomy), the Torah is joyously paraded seven times around the synagogue. The new cycle begins immediately with a reading from Bereshit (Genesis). 23 Tishrei
Yom Kippur Day of Atonement Holiest day of the Jewish year. Through fasting and prayer, Jews reflect upon their relationships with other people and with God, atoning for wrongdoings and failures to take the right action. Ends at sunset with a blast of the shofar (ram’s horn). 10 Tishrei
Shemini Atzeret Eighth Day of Assembly Celebrated the day after Sukkot and thus sometimes considered an extension of that holiday. Marks the first time the teffilat geshem (prayer for rain) is recited during services, a practice that continues until Pesach. 22 Tishrei
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu
Kevin, Tsipi, Yoel, Itai & Avin Goeta-Kreisler
Marcia, Todd & Bonnie Abelson
May this be a year of peace for all
We wish everyone in the Jewish community a very Happy & Healthy New Year
May this be a year of peace for all
We wish everyone in the Jewish community a very Happy & Healthy New Year
Bev & Ken Sandock
Betty & Bernie Orman
Korene Charnofsky Cohen
Al and Becky Zehngut
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Bernie & Shirley Läubli
May this be a year of peace for all
May this be a year of peace for all
Bob Kovitz
Sally & Ralph Duchin
May this New Year be filled with health and happiness, and sweet moments for you and your family. Nothing else you will ever own, no worldly thing you will ever acquire will be worth so much as the love of your family. Happy Rosh Hashanah Don & Leah Cotton and Family
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Phyllis & Steven Braun
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Bertí S. Brodsky & David Rosenstein September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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L’SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU 5778 May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year Dr. Stephen & Janet Seltzer Ruth & Ron Kolker and Family
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Ron & Irene Saffer
May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Davya & Stan Cohen
Barbara & Larry Subrin & Family
May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year
Linda & Gerry Tumarkin
Diane & Ron Weintraub
May you be inscribed for a good and sweet year Irene & Ellis Friedman
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Greetings and best wishes for a happy new year. Donna & Bruce Beyer
Dr. Edward & Mary Ellen Loebl
L’SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU 5778 L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Billie & Boris Kozolchyk & Family
May this be a year of peace for all
May this be a year of peace for all
Renee Weintraub
Michelle Shapiro & Wil Thomas
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu Sarah & Leonard Schultz Donna & Hans Moser & Family
We wish everyone in the Jewish community a very Happy & Healthy New Year Gail M. Barnhill
Marcelle & Leonard Joffe Deanna Evenchik-Brav & Garry Brav
May this be a year of peace for all Ruth & Jerry Vegodsky
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu April, Bill, Rebecca & Kacie Bauer
May the New Year Be Ever Joyous for You and Your Family
May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year Stuart & Nancy Mellan
Ken & Mary Lou Iserson
Dr. Elka Eisen Leonard Rosenblum • Alex Stephen Rosenblum Mia Rose Rosenblum September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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L’SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU 5778
Henry & Mya El Kaim
Let’s schmooze about your news. Keep me posted at the Post. L’shalom, Sharon Klein, P.S. Columnist
Matt & Melissa Landau
We wish everyone in the Jewish community a very Happy & Healthy New Year. May this be a year of peace for all Sandi & Larry Adler & our family in Tucson, Boulder, Milwaukee and Israel
May the New Year Be Ever Joyous for You and Your Family Michael & Gloria Goldman
Fran, Jeff, Aimee and Adam Katz
May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year Bertie Levkowitz & Tom Herz A-22
ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
May the New Year Be Ever Joyous for You and Your Family The Ben-Asher, Hirshfeld & Ozeri families
L’Shana Tovah Wishing you a Sweet, Healthy and Peaceful New Year. Honey & Murray Manson
L’SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU 5778 B’nai B’rith Sahuaro Lodge #763 wishes the entire Tucson community and all of Israel a New Year filled with peace, health and happiness.
Congregation Kol Simchah May you and yours have a joyous and wonder-filled 5778
L’Shanah Tova U’Metukah Wishing you a Good and Sweet New Year! From the Board and Staff of the
Hadassah Southern Arizona wishes our community and all of Israel a New Year bright with hope and filled with peace, good health and happiness! The Board, Staff and Congregation of Temple Emanu-El wish you a New Year filled with good health, happiness, peace and a spirit of community.
Tucson J Congregation Chaverim
The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies’
wishes you a healthy and prosperous New Year filled with friendship, warmth, inspiration and spirituality. Rabbi Stephanie Aaron Staff and Congregants
staff, faculty and students wish you and your family a happy, prosperous and sweet New Year, Shana Tova!
Jewishtucson.org and the
Jewish Community Concierge wish you a healthy, happy and peaceful year filled with wonderful connections within
Jewish Tucson The B’nai B’rith Covenant House
The Clergy, Board Members and Staff of
Congregation Or Chadash Secular Humanist Jewish Circle May common sense and civility prevail as we all work toward a year of Harmony and Peace!!
wishes the entire Tucson community and all of Israel a New Year filled with peace, health and happiness!
L’Shana Tova! Wishing you a year of health, happiness and special memories. Directors and Staff of
The Women’s League of Congregation Anshei Israel
Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging
wishes the entire community a sweet New Year filled with peace, health and happiness.
The Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center May 5778 be a year of peace and justice.
Beth Shalom Temple Center of Green Valley We wish you a New Year filled with happiness, good health and peace.
The Board, Volunteers and Staff of
The Weintraub Israel Center wish you a Shana Tova, a happy, festive year with Israel at heart.
wish you a New Year of health, happiness and hope. L’Shana Tova Um’tukah!
The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation wishes the entire community a healthy and joyous New Year. May the coming year bring blessings of peace to the world.
Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona Our Board of Directors and staff wish the whole community a sweet, healthy and peaceful New Year.
The Men’s Club of Congregation Anshei Israel wishes you L’Shana Tova: A year filled with health, happiness and peace. September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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L’SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU 5778 Congregation Bet Shalom
Congregation Anshei Israel
Your home for “Positive Jewish Experiences” wishes you sweetness and the best of health for 5778.
May the sound of the shofar issue in a year of peace, happiness and health.
sincerely wishes a happy and healthy New Year to all our friends and peace to Israel.
Tucson Hebrew Academy wishes you and yours a sweet New Year filled with happiness and good health. Shana Tova U’metuka!
“Thou shalt not exact interest from the needy amongst thee.” - (Exodus: 22-24) “And the result of Tzedakah is peace.” - (Isaiah: 32-17)
The Jewish Education Tax Credit Organization (jetco)
May we always be blessed with the mitzvah of tzedakah to grant us a peaceful New Year. Hebrew Free Loan Association of Tucson
wishes the entire community health and happiness in the New Year! L’Shana Tova!
L’Shana Tova Tikatevu New Year greetings from the
Women of Reform Judaism and the
Men’s Club of
Temple Emanu-El
Friedman-Paul Post 201 of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA
Congregation M’kor Hayim wishes you a joyful New Year filled with happiness and peace.
The Men and Women of Tucson Chapter Brandeis National Committee wish a very happy New Year to the Brandeis members and their friends. L’Shana Tova Um’tuka
The Arizona Jewish Post and the
Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona wish everyone
a happy & healthy New Year. A-24
ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
NATIONAL Rabbi leads spiritual responders in storm-tossed Texas ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL JTA
Photo courtesy Shira Stern
I
t was a day before Hurricane Harvey was due to make landfall, and Rabbi Shira Stern knew she was headed for Texas. As a director of Disaster Spiritual Care for the American Red Cross, she knew there would be people who would have other needs beyond shelter, beyond medical care, beyond a hot meal and a place to dry out. She met people just like them after floods devastated part of West Virginia in 2016, and when Superstorm Sandy pounded her own state, New Jersey, in 2012. So after a circuitous two days of travel she found herself in Dallas, overseeing a team of chaplains in the shelters set up for families chased out of Houston by flooding that so far has claimed 46 lives and destroyed tens of thousands of homes and businesses. She and her team of six volunteer chaplains are helping evacuees “access their own spiritual resources,” Stern said, speaking from the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, which has beds for as many as 5,000 people displaced by the storm. “We don’t impose [our faith] on anybody. We meet people who are very religious or not religious at all or just atheist. We listen to their stories and affirm what they have gone through.” The clergy of all faiths are spiritual first responders, working with families as they arrive at shelters in Dallas and Fort Worth and partnering with local churches and faith-based organizations to do what Stern calls a “seamless carryover for continual care.” “We are a crisis team, and during the long haul of rebuilding, Houston and Davenport and Beaumont and all these other places are going to need long-term care,” she said. “In the process we are creating relationships with all of these faith-based groups.” Spiritual care is perhaps a lesser-known facet of relief provided by the American Red Cross and other organizations on hand, including the Salvation Army and the National Guard. And it can discomfit some people who worry that clergy are there to make converts among distraught people. But Stern insists the work they do has nothing to do with proselytizing and everything to do with giving people only the tools and comfort they ask for. All the chaplains sign the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster guidelines, which means no proselytizing, no missionizing and no pushing their own faiths. “Suppose someone says, as many do, ‘I am so distraught I want to die,’” Stern said. “The natural response is, ‘You don’t really mean that.’ Instead, we listen to that and we say, ‘Tell me more.’ And by listening to the nar-
Rabbi Shira Stern
rative we allow them to make sense of it and put it in its place, and at the same time we open the doors if they are inclined to open those doors and are inclined to enter the spiritual. We never say, ‘I will pray with you or pray for you.’ We say, ‘How can I be helpful?’” Some 1,500 people have arrived at the convention center, most telling similar stories of wrecked homes, flooded highways and uncertainty about friends and loved ones. Around the state, about 42,000 people were housed overnight at shelters in Texas, the American Red Cross said Sept. 1. Some can’t get in touch with family members, and some know people who have died. “There are families that have been separated, not just husbands and wives and mothers and grandparents, but sometimes children and parents,” Stern said. “And we hear stories of agony, and when we get them together the potential tragedy turns into something wonderful. An 8-year-old was brought to a shelter an hour away and it took 36 hours for her parents to find her.” Stern’s Disaster Spiritual Care team is part of a small army of spiritual and mental health professionals who have mobilized for Harvey and its aftermath, as they have done in previous disasters. On the Jewish side alone, the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies and the Jewish Family Service in Houston are launching an emergency support line to provide free telephonebased counseling. The Jewish Federations of North America sent a team of professionals to Houston to help its local federation and Jewish agencies locate community members, provide cash assistance and work with displaced families. Groups like Chabad and the NCSY Orthodox youth group are dispatching volunteers. But Stern knows from experience that communities See Texas, page A-26
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RECIPE continued from page A-15
Directions: 1. In a large saucepan, boil water and vegetable stock, then add couscous and reduce heat to low. 2. Cook couscous until the liquid has almost fully absorbed, about 8 minutes, then add dried fruit and continue cooking until all liquid is absorbed. 3. Toss couscous mixture with sesame oil, season to taste with salt and serve immediately. Note: The couscous can clump if it is cooked and left untouched. Serve as soon as possible after cooking, or toss with a touch of olive oil to help loosen the clumps. SPICY SPINACH AND WALNUT CHIMICHURRI SALMON Ingredients: 2 cups raw baby spinach 1/4 cup parsley
TEXAS continued from page A-25
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must also prepare for the long haul, that the trauma of surviving a disaster is “like a scar and remains in your soul.” When she is not volunteering with the Red Cross, Stern is the rabbinic associate at Temple Rodeph Torah in Marlboro, New Jersey, and director of the Center for Pastoral Care and Counseling there. She plans on staying in Texas another week before heading back and preparing for the High Holidays. “I can’t get out of the sermon just because I am here in Dallas,” she joked. When Stern does head back, she will hand over her duties to another team of spiritual caregivers — they are already bracing for another storm, Hurricane Irma,
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that is gathering force over the Atlantic. She had nothing but the highest praise for her colleagues, who dropped everything and headed to Texas and for their troubles receive only a food allowance and a place to sleep. But Stern, who has performed bereavement counseling for 38 years, says she understands the spiritual rewards of this kind of work as well as the spiritual challenges. “When people ask, ‘Where is God in this?’ I tell them I try to find God in the people around me who are trying to help,” she said. “I never call these disasters ‘acts of God.’ I think that creates an immediate barrier between people and the divine. “I see God in — I don’t know why terrible things happen — but I do see God in the hands of the compassionate, giving individuals who up and leave their families and their work and whatever it is in order to come here and help people at the most critical crossroads of life.”
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1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 cup olive oil plus more for fish 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons honey 1/2 teaspoon red pepper plus more to taste 1/4 cup toasted walnuts salt to taste 4 5-ounce salmon filets Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 425 F. 2. To make the chimichurri sauce: In a blender or food processor, combine spinach, parsley and oregano until finely chopped. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then blend to combine. Add honey, red pepper and walnuts, pulse until combined then season to taste with salt and set aside. 3. Pat dry each salmon filet and lightly brush salmon with olive oil and roast 6-8 minutes, or until the fish is cooked to your liking. 4. Top with chimichurri sauce and additional red pepper flakes and serve hot.
NATIONAL Jewish groups attack Trump’s call to end DACA immigration program
RON KAMPEAS JTA
WASHINGTON n array of Jewish groups and lawmakers attacked as immoral President Donald Trump’s decision to end an Obama-era program granting protections to illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. The Trump administration said Monday that it would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program in six months. President Barack Obama had launched DACA in 2011 after multiple attempts failed in Congress to pass an immigration bill that would settle the status of 11 million undocumented immigrants. The program protected those who arrived as children from deportation and granted them limited legal status. In statements, Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the principal objection to Obama’s so-called Dreamers program was that it was unconstitutional because it was established by an executive order, and indicated that Trump was ready to sign any congressional legislation
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
A
‘Dreamers’ at a rally in Manhattan watch Attorney General Jeff Sessions speak on ending the DACA program, Sept. 5.
that would accommodate the “dreamers.” It was unclear what would happen in the meantime or, should Congress not pass legislation, what would happen to the 800,000 people who have sought and received DACA’s protections. Trump in a statement said his hand was forced as well by plans by attorneys general from conservative states to sue to kill DACA.
“The attorney general of the United States, the attorneys general of many states and virtually all other top legal experts have advised that the program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court,” he said. Republican leaders in Congress have expressed a willingness to pass the legislation necessary to protect the affected immigrants, but Jewish groups and law-
makers said ending the program presented immoral perils, given the failures of Congress in the past to agree on comprehensive immigration reform. “DACA recognized these individuals for who they are: Americans in everything but paperwork,” Melanie Nezer, the vice president for public affairs of HIAS, the lead Jewish immigrant advocacy group. “Their hopes and dreams are no different from kids who are born here, and there is no legitimate reason for inflicting this needless suffering on them and their families.” The Reform movement called the action “morally misguided” and demanded that Congress act to redress the rescission. “It is imperative that Congress step up in support of these young people who grew up in the United States and who want to give back to the only country they know as home,” said Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center. “We call on Congress to protect DACA recipients from deportation by immediately passing a clean bipartisan Dream Act of 2017 — and on the president to support it.” See DACA, page 30
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P.S. Tucsonans share Israel summer experiences Gila (Gail) Ben-Jamin credits her many years on the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Partnership2Gether committee for having made lifelong friends in Israel. She has hosted people from the P2G region at her home in Tucson and has been hosted by those folks in Israel. She stays in touch with them and travels to Israel every three to four years. From April 15-May 15, Gila spent a jampacked month with these Israeli friends who arranged many of her excursions. In 1964, at age 20, our traveler had lived on Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael where she attended an ulpan for five months and learned her fluent Hebrew. On her recent sojourn, for the first time, Gila experienced ceremonies for Yom Hashoah, Yom Haatzmaut, and Yom Hazikaron, and was present for Lag BaOmer, celebrated by lighting bonfires throughout Israel. Many of the highlights included museums and memorials: the Yitzhak Rabin Center, Latrun Tank Museum, National Maritime Museum, Knesset and Supreme Court tours, Bible Lands Museum, recently excavated Kishle tour (a compound dating back to the time of King Herod), 9/11 Living Memorial Plaza, and memorial to the victims of the 2010 Carmel Fire. Other high points: Gila hiked in the North along the Lebanese border and slept in a Druze village in Peki’in. In a bunker on the Golan, she saw, felt, and heard rockets landing in Syria just three miles away. Accompanying P2G friends, she attended milestone events – a brit milah and a wedding. On Yom Haatzmaut, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in attendance, Gila watched the finals of the International Bible Contest, won by an Israeli boy. She also dined with former Tucson shaliach Guy Gelbart and his wife, Inbal. Finally, Gila re-connected with Israeli reporter Alon Velan, who, five years prior, had interviewed her for a threeminute segment on Israeli TV. One can google this short video (“Alon Velan interviews Gila Benjamin”) about our “Hebrew-speaking, motorcycle-riding, scuba-diving Tucsonan.” ..... From May 29-June 6, Rachel Rivera took her sons, Sam, 18, a University of Arizona freshman, and Ben, 16, a Catalina Foothills High School junior, to Israel. Rachel had lived in Israel for six months in 1993, following her graduation from California State University, Sacramento. She returned to Israel in 2010 on the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Young Women’s Mission. Every trip to our homeland is special; however, this
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year’s trip hit close to the heart, as Rachel had made a promise to her mother before her passing in 2015 that she would bring her sons to Israel. Connectivity with the land and its people permeated their itinerary. Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, the threesome met Amit Greenfield, their “amazing” guide who was recommended by Yoram Levy. Amit was an IDF officer, is still in the reserves and carries a glock handgun. On Mount Bental on the Golan Heights, Rachel re-connected with a former boyfriend, Greg Raich, who had made aliyah and now works for the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force. Her boys engaged him about the reasons he made aliyah and his work for UNDOF helping to maintain the ceasefire between the Israeli and Syrian forces and supervise the implementation of the disengagement agreement. At the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, they shared Shabbat dinner with two “lone soldiers,” one from Alaska, the other from Ohio. Oshrat Barel, director of Tucson’s Weintraub Israel Center, had given them the contact information. This was an opportunity to talk with IDF soldiers who have no family in Israel, showing support for them as they help defend the State of Israel and its citizens. The itinerary included so much more – the Latrun Tank Museum, a jeep tour, Masada, the Dead Sea, Yad Vashem, Beit She’an, kibbutzim… the traditional tour but zeroing in on the boys’ interests. Upon their return, Rachel claimed, “I have successfully launched two Zionists!” Her mother, she believes, would have said, “Well done!” ..... From May 18-28, Hillel filled a Birthright Israel bus with students mostly from the University of Arizona, plus others representing Arizona State University, Bentley College, Berklee College of Music, Duke University, Emory University, Indiana University, Pima Community College, and the University of Southern California. Elyse Pincus, former UA Hillel Israel engagement coordinator, and Michael Walden, UA Hillel director of Jewish student life, co-staffed the trip. Tucsonans traveling on this free 10-day journey included Cameron Busby, Caleb Groff, Alyssa Montgomery, Ben Offerman, and Manny Rosen. Six Israeli soldiers (a mifgash, or “encounter” group) joined the tour for the entire 10 days, instead of the usual five, to have the same experience as their American peers. The 40 travelers learned about the roots of the Jewish people and explored what being Jewish means in contempo-
ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
Gila Ben-Jamin with Netzach Israel elementary school students holding Purim greeting signs received from Badsha Naicker’s fourth grade Tucson Hebrew Academy class through the school twinning program
(L-R) Ben, Rachel, and Sam Rivera at the Jonah’s whale statue in Jaffa
rary life. In Hof Ashkelon, part of our Partnership2Gether region, the residents brought in a local musician who led an interactive jam session with the students. Another new experience was a tour of Tayibe, an Arab city in the center of Israel. The tour group members listened to a talk followed by questions and answers with an Arab Israeli who is pursuing her Ph.D. in Israel. This dialogue was sponsored by the Sikkuy Partnership, which is a shared organization of Jewish and Arab citizens working to implement full equality on all levels between the Arab Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. Afterward, the group visited a mosque to learn about Islam and its traditions. ..... Mallory Hulsey, Amalia (Emily) Jones, Nathan Rix, and Max Silverman spent from June 21 - Aug. 2 at the Alexan-
der Muss High School in Israel. Mallory received a subsidy from the Beth Weintraub Schoenfeld Memorial Israel Experience Program of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. Amalia, Nathan, and Max traveled all expenses paid as Jewish National Fund Schwartz-Hammer Impact Fellows. Through this six-week academic and fun adventure, the land of Israel became their living classroom. Here are excerpts from their blogs and other writings: Mallory, a Marana High School junior: “Over the summer, I learned 4,000 years of Jewish history. While learning about what happened, we would visit the sites where they occurred. For example, before we went to the Western Wall on Tisha B’Av, we learned the significance of that date in Jewish history, making the experience that much more emotional. In the nearby town of Hod HaSharon, I
Alexander Muss High School in Israel Arizona contingent: Front row (L-R): Hailey Fischer, Rachel Falk, Jordan Brooks, Jessica Zucker, Amy Shugar, Emily Jones (Tucson), Sophie Setton; Back row: Mallory Hulsey (Tucson), Nathan Rix (Tucson), Sam Zahn, Max Silverman (Tucson), Josh Sidi, Ayden Raphael
Birthright participants (L-R) Alyssa Montgomery, Ben Offerman, Cameron Busby, Manny Rosen, and Caleb Groff in Hof Ashkelon, part of Tucson’s Partnership2Gether region
was immersed in the Israeli culture, shopping at the local grocery store, eating at the local restaurants, and enjoying the local ice cream. We attended the Opening Ceremony of the Maccabiah Games, meeting people from across America and the world. This experience was unlike any other. Last summer, I had the awesome opportunity to visit Israel with my family, but there is something about being able to experience this with teens your own age that is amazing and special.” Amalia, a Mountain View High School senior: “If you’d asked me before I left for Israel if I was a complete person, I would have said, “Of course!” As it turns out, I wasn’t. It’s like there was a piece of me missing… That piece was Israel. This past week, we met a man who lives on a kibbutz and had left everything behind in America to join the IDF, knowing that
Israel needed him and he needed Israel. Later that day, somebody asked my teacher why he chose to make aliyah, leaving his family behind in America. He answered that it would be better for his children to be raised with the community in Israel. It’s not easy to leave behind everything you ever knew and come to a new place. But sometimes there’s just something missing, something you don’t even know is missing. You can live a complete and happy life without it, but you’ll be happier and more complete with it. It’s the reason I’ll be coming back here one day. It’s the missing piece I found, just like the man on the kibbutz, my teacher and a lot of other people. It’s home.” Nathan, a University High School senior: “Being chosen for this fellowship, while not only an honor, is an exciting chance to widen my point of view about
(L-R): Ben, Sophie, and Kris Silverman at the Western Wall
Israel. The idea of being surrounded by people passionate about this country we all love, but full of different experiences, relationships with Judaism and Israel, and overall opinions is very exciting. I am excited to learn directly in Israel … and learn how to advocate for Israel from a point of knowledge. As I begin this year serving as NFTY (Reform Jewish youth movement) Southwest president, I want to build connections with people across the United States and those outside the Reform community. I am excited to meet other leaders in the Jewish community so we can learn from each other and share ideas, bringing what I learn back to my region. I am honored to have been chosen to be a part of the team that represents Arizona and a legacy of teens passionate about Israel who can advocate for our Jewish home.” Max, a University High School senior: “After our trip to the replica of ancient Jerusalem and the Dead Sea Scrolls, the next day, we were headed to a sunrise on Masada and a gorgeous hike down. After the hike, we cooled off a bit, because even a Tucson kid can appreciate a break from the desert. Then we floated in the Dead Sea before taking a cold shower and enjoying a much awaited lunch. Later we enjoyed a barbecue and Fourth of July party back on campus to wrap up an eventful tiyul (“trip”). Although the atmosphere here is different on Independence Day, the friends that I got to spend time with made the day particularly special. We even had a spur of the moment idea to start a Coke and Pepsi game to celebrate the 4th. This took us back to our middle school days when we would play Coke and Pepsi at all of the b’nai mitzvah parties.” ..... From July 1-Aug. 1, Max’s parents, Ben and Kris Silverman, and sister, Sophie, toured Israel. The Silvermans had hosted Shinshin Bar Alkaher, one of two teen
emissaries from Israel, during the second part of this past academic year. This gratifying experience was part of their motivation for this trip. Ben, Kris, and Sophie spent their first three days in our Partnership region, thanks to arrangements made through the Weintraub Israel Center. They stayed in the home of South Africans who made aliyah and live on Moshav Netiv HaAsara in Hof Ashkelon near Gaza. They visited the border wall, Peace Wall, and youth center called “Puzzle,” named for the student-led program where the city’s youth come together like pieces of a puzzle. They met with many residents and connected with Tucsonan Aimee Katz who was teaching English to third and fourth graders in Kiryat Malachi this summer. The threesome enjoyed dinner with Aimee at Chef Maya Klein’s house. Maya and other Israeli chefs from our Partnership region traveled to Tucson two years ago to showcase their culinary skills. Overall, Ben appreciated seeing firsthand where our overseas dollars are spent, having served on the JFSA planning and allocations committee and now as JFSA treasurer. For the next 12 days, Ben, Kris, and Sophie were joined by Ben’s brother and family from California and mother from Florida. The group traversed the country with Ayelet Tours. On Monday, July 23, Sophie, who became a bat mitzvah in Tucson last January, had a “second bat mitzvah” at Robinson’s Arch in Jerusalem. Max joined his family in Jerusalem for their first Shabbat, and they met him on his AMHSI campus in Hod HaSharon for the second Shabbat of their journey. Time to share With Rosh Hashanah approaching, keep me posted in this New Year — 319-1112. A happy, healthy one for all. L’shalom.
September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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Richard Foltin, the American Jewish Committee’s director of government affairs, called the decision “devastating,” and the Anti-Defamation League said it was one of “a long list of actions and policies by this administration that have deeply hurt immigrants and their families.” The ADL noted the pardoning last month of Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff who had been convicted of discriminatory practices against Hispanics, and the threat to withdraw funding from cities offering sanctuary to illegal immigrants. Other Jewish organizations condemning the decision included Bend the Arc, J Street, the National Council of Jewish Women, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, the Shalom Center and the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. Bend the Arc listed rallies across the country it would join to oppose the decision. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body for public policy, said it “strongly opposed” the decision and called on Congress to act to protect the “dreamers.” “The Jewish community has a long history of active engagement in the struggles of new immigrants and in development of our nation’s immigration policy,” it said. “We believe that Congress must enact a permanent solution and we call on lawmakers to act immediately to protect immigrant youth by passing the ‘Dream Act of 2017,’ bipartisan legislation that would replace fear and uncertainty with permanent protection.” Jewish Democrats also slammed the decision. “Terminating #DACA now puts 800,000 talented young #DREAMers who love, contribute to, and live in America officially at risk of deportation,” Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Twitter. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Engel’s counterpart on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the decision was “clearly written with little thought of the human consequences.” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the decision “cruel and arbitrary.” Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., one of two Republicans in Congress, in a long and anguished statement said he supported Trump’s decision but added that he would work to pass legislation to protect the undocumented immigrants. “I am very much willing to work with any of my colleagues on either side of the aisle on this issue and others to find common ground however possible,” he said. “Working together productively and substantively, I am hugely confident that long overdue progress can absolutely be achieved at least in part to move the needle more in the right direction.” Dreamers and their supporters on Monday night held a candlelight vigil outside the home of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the daughter and son-in-law of the president. The couple, who both serve as advisers to the president, reportedly advocated for continuing DACA.
PUBLICITY CHAIRPERSONS Closing dates for AJP publicity releases are listed below. E-mail releases to PUBLICATION localnews@azjewishpost.com, mail to Arizona Jewish Post Oct. 6 3718 E. River Rd., Suite 272 Oct. 20 Tucson, 85718 or fax to 319-1118.
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
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RABBI’S CORNER Tzedakah saves from death RABBI HELEN COHN
CONGREGATION M’KOR HAYIM
T
ucked away in two places in the Book of Proverbs is a brief, cryptic statement: “tzedakah saves from death” (tzedakah tatzel mimavet) (Proverbs 10:2 and 11:4). Surely this can’t mean if we give tzedakah (that is, charitable contributions) we will be immortal! After all, those who give generous amounts of tzedakah and those who give none will ultimately meet the same fate as all human beings. So giving tzedakah certainly doesn’t save us from our own eventual death. But it’s easy to see that our tzedakah can literally save the life of recipients we may never know. This is the understanding I’ve had for many years of this statement from Proverbs. I read an interpretation of this proverb in a short story called “Charity,” by Hugh Nissenson. The narrator is a 12-year-old boy living with his parents in great poverty in 1912 on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. The family goes hungry six days of the week and only splurges on food for Friday night’s Shabbat dinner. The father would always bring home a poor stranger to share their Shabbat meal, and invite him to spend the night. “They were almost always old men smelling of snuff, who wore ragged beards, earlocks, and had dirty fingernails.” When the young narrator would complain about the old men’s snoring the father would shush him and say, “Remember. ‘Charity saves from death.’” That December the boy’s mother takes ill and is taken to the hospital on a Friday afternoon. The boy, believing his acts would save his mother’s life, shops and prepares a Shabbat meal. The father, as usual, has brought home a guest, this time an old, emaciated Hebrew teacher. Later, the old man’s snoring keeps the boy awake. In the middle of the night he tells his father he is feeling much better because he now knows his mother will get well. “How can you be so sure?” “You said so yourself…You said that charity saves from death.” His father responds with anger: “Is that what you think a mitzvah is? A bribe offered the Almighty?” “But you said so. You said that charity saves from death.” The old man groans in his sleep, and the father says, “No, not Mama. Him.” I have remembered this ending, and its message, vividly although I first read it years ago. It is a message that has guided my own tzedakah giving. This year I realized another dimension of “tzedakah saves from death” — giving tzedakah on the anniversary of a loved one’s death, and also at Yizkor. Although we remember our loved ones throughout the year, the formal act of making a charitable contribution in their memory at these times does save them, in a spiritual sense, from the oblivion of death. Whether attending High Holy Day services or not, this is a time in the Jewish year for us to give tzedakah in honor and memory of loved ones. They may no longer walk the earth, but as long as they are remembered, they are saved from the finality of death.
AJP
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A reA C ongregAtions CONSERVATIVE
Congregation anshei israel
5550 E. Fifth St., Tucson, AZ 85711 • (520) 745-5550 Rabbi Robert Eisen, Cantorial Soloist Nichole Chorny • www.caiaz.org Daily minyan: Mon.-Thurs., 7:30 a.m. & 5:30 p.m.; Fri., 7:30 a.m.; Sun. & legal holidays, 8 a.m. & 5:30 p.m. / Mincha: Fri., 5:45 p.m. / Shabbat services: Sat., 9 a.m., followed by Kiddush; Tot Shabbat, 1st Fri., 5:45 p.m.; Family Service, 3rd Friday, 5:45 p.m.; Holiday services may differ, call or visit website. / Torah study: every Shabbat one hour before Mincha (call or visit website for times) / Talmud on Tuesday, 6 p.m. / Weekday Torah study group, Wed., 11 a.m. beverages and dessert provided.
Congregation Bet shalom 3881 E. River Road, Tucson, AZ 85718 • (520) 577-1171 Rabbi Hazzan Avraham Alpert • www.cbsaz.org Shabbat services: Fri., 5:30 p.m. (followed by monthly dinners — call for info); Sat. 9:30 a.m.-noon, Camp Shabbat (ages 6-10) 11 a.m.-noon, followed by Kiddush lunch and weekly Teen Talk lunch with shinshinim, 12:30 p.m.-2 p.m. CBS Think Tank discussion led by Rabbi Dr. Howard Schwartz and Dr. Howard Graizbord / Weekday services: Wed. 8:15 a.m. / Hagim 9:30 a.m.
ORTHODOX
Congregation ChoFetz Chayim/southwest torah institute 5150 E. Fifth St., Tucson, AZ 85711 • (520) 747-7780 Rabbi Israel Becker • www.tucsontorah.org Shabbat services: Fri., Kabbalat Shabbat 15 minutes before sunset; Sat. 9 a.m. followed by Kiddush. / Mincha: Fri., 1 p.m.; Sat., 25 minutes before sunset, followed by Shalosh Seudas, Maariv and Havdallah. Services: Sun., 8 a.m.; Mon. & Thurs., 6:50 a.m.; Tues., Wed., Fri., 7 a.m.; daily, 15 minutes before sunset. / Weekday Rosh Chodesh services: 6:45 a.m.
Congregation young israel/ChaBad oF tuCson 2443 E. Fourth St., Tucson, AZ 85719 • (520) 881-7956 Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, Rabbi Yudi Ceitlin • www.chabadoftucson.com Daily minyan: Sun. & legal holidays, 8:30 a.m.; Mon. & Thurs., 6:30 p.m.; Tues., Wed., Fri., 6:45 a.m. / Mincha & Maariv, 5:15 p.m. / Shabbat services: Fri. at candlelighting; Sat. 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush. Mincha, Maariv and Havdallah TBA.
ChaBad on river 3916 E. Ft. Lowell Road • (520) 661-9350 Rabbi Ram Bigelman • www.chabadonriver.com Shabbat services: Fri., Mincha at candlelighting time, followed by Maariv. / Sat., Shacharit service, 9:30 a.m. / Torah study: women, Tues., 10 a.m.; men, Thurs., 7 p.m.
ChaBad oro valley 1217 W. Faldo Drive, Oro Valley, AZ 85755 • (520) 477-8672 Rabbi Ephraim Zimmerman • www.jewishorovalley.com Shabbat services: 3rd Fri., 5 p.m., Oct.-Feb., 6 p.m. March-Sept., all followed by dinner / Sat. Torah study followed by services, 10 a.m. Shabbat morning minyan, 1st Sat., 10 a.m., followed by Kiddush.
ChaBad sierra vista 401 Suffolk Drive, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635 • (520) 820-6256 Rabbi Benzion Shemtov • www.jewishsierravista.com Shabbat services: Sat., 10:30 a.m., bimonthly, followed by class explaining prayers. Visit website or call for dates.
REFORM CONGREGATION CHAVERIM 5901 E. Second St., Tucson, AZ 85711 • (520) 320-1015 Rabbi Stephanie Aaron • www.chaverim.net Shabbat services: Fri., 7 p.m. (no service on 5th Fri.); Family Shabbat, 1st Fri., 6 p.m. / Torah study: 2nd Sat., 9 a.m., followed by contemplative service,10 a.m.
REFORM
Congregation Kol simChah
(Renewal) 4625 E. River Road, Tucson, AZ 85718 Mailing Address: 2732 S. Gwain Place, Tucson, AZ 85713 • (520) 296-0818 Shabbat services: 1st and 3rd Fri., 7:15 p.m.
Congregation m’Kor hayim 3888 E. River Road, Tucson, AZ 85718 (Tucson Hebrew Academy) Mailing Address: P.O. Box 31806, Tucson, AZ 85751 • (520) 904-1881 Rabbi Helen Cohn • www.mkorhayim.org Shabbat services: 2nd and 4th Fri., 7 p.m. / Torah study, 2nd and 4th Sat., 9:30 a.m.
Congregation or Chadash 3939 N. Alvernon, Tucson, AZ 85718 • (520) 512-8500 Rabbi Thomas Louchheim, Cantor Janece Cohen www.orchadash-tucson.org Shabbat services: Fri., 6:30 p.m.; 1st Fri., Friday Night LIVE (Oct.-May); 2nd Friday, Tot Shabbat (Oct.-June), 6 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. / Torah study: Sat.,8:30 a.m.
the institute For JudaiC serviCes and studies Mailing Address: 36789 S. Golf Course Drive, Saddlebrooke, AZ 85739 (520) 825-8175 • Rabbi Sanford Seltzer Shabbat services: Oct.-April, one Friday per month at 7 p.m. — call for details.
temple emanu-el 225 N. Country Club Road, Tucson, AZ 85716 • (520) 327-4501 Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Rabbi Batsheva Appel • www.tetucson.org Shabbat services: Fri., 5:45 p.m., with 5 p.m. pre-oneg, through August; Sat., 10 a.m. / Torah study: Sat., 8:30 a.m. except when there is a Rabbi’s Tish.
temple Kol hamidBar 228 N. Canyon Drive, Sierra Vista • (520) 458-8637 http://kolhamidbar.tripod.com Mailing address: P.O. Box 908, Sierra Vista, AZ 85636 Shabbat services: Fri., 7:30 p.m.
OTHER
Beth shalom temple Center
1751 N. Rio Mayo (P.O. Box 884), Green Valley, AZ 85622 (520) 648-6690 • www.bstc.us Shabbat services: 1st and 3rd Fri., 7 p.m. / Torah study: Sat., 10 a.m.
Congregation etz Chaim (Modern Orthodox) 686 Harshaw Road, Patagonia, AZ 85624 • (520) 394-2520 www.etzchaimcongregation.org • Rabbi Gabriel Cousens Shabbat services: Fri., 18 minutes before sunset / Torah study: Sat., 9:30 a.m. handmaKer resident synagogue
2221 N. Rosemont Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85712 • (520) 881-2323 www.handmaker.com Shabbat services: Fri., 4:30 p.m., led by Lindsey O’Shea, followed by Shabbat dinner; Sat., 9:30 a.m., led by Mel Cohen and Dan Asia, followed by light Kiddush lunch.
seCular humanist Jewish CirCle www.secularhumanistjewishcircle.org Call Cathleen at 730-0401 for meeting or other information.
university oF arizona hillel Foundation 1245 E. 2nd St. Tucson, AZ 85719 • 624-6561 • www.arizona.hillel.org Shabbat services: Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and alternative services two Fridays each month when school is in session. Dinner follows (guests, $8; RSVP by preceding Thurs.). Call for dates/times.
September 8, 2017 ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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COMMUNITY CALENDAR The calendar deadline is Tuesday, 10 days before the issue date. Our next issue will be published September 22, 2017. Events may be emailed to localnews@azjewishpost.com, faxed to 319-1118, or mailed to the AJP at 3718 E. River Road, #272, Tucson, AZ 85718. For more information, call 319-1112. See Area Congregations on page A-31 for additional synagogue events.
ONGOING
Men’s Mishnah club with Rabbi Israel Becker at Cong. Chofetz Chayim. Sundays, 7:15 a.m.; Monday-Friday, 6:15 a.m.; Saturdays, 8:15 a.m. 747-7780 or yzbecker@ me.com.
Jewish Federation-Northwest chair yoga with a Jewish flair taught by Bonnie Golden. Mondays, 10-11 a.m., except for Sept. 4 and Dec. 25. $7 per class or $25 for four. 5054161 or northwestjewish@jfsa.org.
Chabad of Sierra Vista men’s tefillin club with Rabbi Benzion Shemtov, first Sundays, 9 a.m., at 401 Suffolk Drive. 820-6256 or jewishsierravista.com.
Cong. Anshei Israel mah jongg, Mondays, 10a.m.-noon All levels, men and women. Contact Evelyn at 885-4102 or esigafus@aol.com.
“Too Jewish” radio show with Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon on KVOI 1030 AM (also KAPR and KJAA), Sundays at 9 a.m.
Tucson J current events discussion, Mondays, noon-1:30 p.m. Members, $1; nonmembers, $2. Lunch, bring or buy, 11:30 a.m. 299-3000, ext. 147.
Beth Shalom Temple Center of Green Valley bagel breakfast and Yiddish club, first Sundays, 9:30 a.m. Members, $7; nonmembers, $10. 648-6690 or 399-3474.
Jewish sobriety support group meets Mondays, 6:30-8 p.m. at Cong. Bet Shalom. dcmack1952@gmail.com.
Southern Arizona Jewish Genealogy Society, second Sundays, 1-3 p.m. at the Tucson J. Contact Barbara Stern Mannlein at 731-0300 or the J at 299-3000.
“Along the Talmudic Trail” for men (18-40), with Rabbi Israel Becker of Cong. Chofetz Chayim. Includes free dinner. Mondays, 7 p.m. Call for address. 747-7780 or yzbecker@ me.com.
Cong. Or Chadash Tots Program in the Northwest, for ages 3-5, with Jewish storytelling, music, crafts and more. Sundays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. at Jewish Federation Northwest, 190 W. Magee Road. Call Rina Liebeskind at 900-7030.
Spouse Bereavement Group, cosponsored by Widowed to Widowed, Inc. at the Tucson J, Tuesdays, 10 a.m. Contact Marvin at 8852005 or Tanya at 299-3000, ext. 147.
Cong. Bet Shalom yoga. Mondays, 9 a.m. and 4:30-5:30 p.m. Also Wednesdays, 9 a.m. $5. 577-1171.
JFCS Holocaust Survivors group meets Tuesdays, 10 a.m.-noon. Contact Raisa Moroz at 795-0300.
Temple Emanu-El mah jongg, Mondays at 10 a.m. 327-4501.
Tucson J social bridge. Tuesdays and Thursdays, noon-3 p.m., year round. Drop-
Friday / September 8 6 PM: Cong. Or Chadash Tot Shabbat potluck, with Rabbi Thomas Louchheim, for families with preschool-aged children. RSVP to Rina at 9007030 or rina@octucson.org. 9:30 PM: Temple Emanu-El Downtown Shabbat at Jewish History Museum, 564 S. Stone Ave., with the Armon Bizman band and Rabbi Samuel Cohon; oneg follows. 327-4501.
Saturday / September 9 10:30-11 AM: Cong. Anshei Israel K'Ton Time. A 20-minute service geared to families with children ages 1-6. Includes songs, prayers, stories and games. 745-5550. NOON: Temple Emanu-El Rabbi’s Tish. Interactive Torah study. Bring dairy or vegetarian dish for potluck lunch. 327-4501. 5 PM: Temple Emanu-El Babies & Bagels family Selichot Havdallah and pj party. RSVP at 327-4501.
Sunday / September 10 8:30 AM: Arizona Center for Judaic Studies cohosts video conference: “Looking Back, Looking Forward: 100 Years of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” livestreamed from Brandeis
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University, at the Tucson J. Free. Light refreshments. For more information, visit judaic.arizona. edu/2017Conference. 10 AM: Cong. Anshei Israel Lynne FalkowStrauss Courtyard and Foyer dedication and welcome back from summer party. Includes refreshments and kids' entertainment, brunch and schmoozing. Free. Call Debra at 745-5550 for space availability. 10:45 AM: Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies summer reading and brunch with Esther Becker, at Cong. Chofetz Chayim, $36 includes copy of “Cracks in the Wall,” a novel by Uri Raskin. Call Becker at 747-7780 to arrange to pick up book. 11 AM: Cong. Or Chadash adult Hebrew class starts, with Cantor Janece Cohen. $36, members; $50, nonmembers. To register, contact Sarah at 900-7027 or sarah@octucson.org. NOON-1:30 PM: Cong. Or Chadash Introduction to Judaism classes starts, with Rabbi Thomas Louchheim. $36, members; $50, nonmembers. To register, contact Sarah at 900-7027 or sarah@octucson.org. 1-3 PM: Tucson J Family Cooking Class. Kids and grandparents will celebrate International Grandparents' Day and prepare for Rosh Hashanah, in the J's demonstration kitchen, second
ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
ins welcome. Meets in library on second floor. 299-3000. Northwest Knitters create hand-stitched items for donation in the Jewish community. Meets at Jewish Federation Northwest Tuesdays, 1-3 p.m. RSVP to judithgfeldman@ gmail.com or 505-4161. Jewish Federation-Northwest mah jongg, Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m., except for Sept. 12, Oct. 24 and Nov. 14, and Wednesdays, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., 505-4161. Cong. Anshei Israel Talmud on Tuesday with Rabbi Robert Eisen, Tuesdays, 6 p.m. 745-5550. Tucson J Israeli folk dance classes. Tuesdays. Beginners, 7:30 p.m.; intermediate, 8:15 p.m.; advanced, 9 p.m. Taught by Lisa Goldberg. Members, $5; nonmembers, $6. 299-3000. Weintraub Israel Center Shirat HaShirim Hebrew choir meets Wednesdays, 7 p.m., at the Tucson J. Learn to sing in Hebrew. Contact Rina Paz at 304-7943 or ericashem@ cox.net. Shalom Tucson business networking group, second Wednesday of month, 7:309 a.m., at the Tucson J. Contact Ori Parnaby at 299-3000, ext. 241, or concierge@ jewishtucson.org.
floor. All dishes are kosher and vegetarian. $20 per youth/adult pair for members; $30 per youth/ adult pair for non-members. RSVP at tucsonjcc. org/cooking or 299-3000. For more information, contact Barbara Fenig at bfenig@tucsonjcc.org or 299-3000.
Monday / September 11 6:30 PM: Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework meeting, at Jewish Federation-Northwest. Contact Barbara Esmond at 299-1197 or brealjs@ gmail.com. 7 PM: Temple Emanu-El adult education class, “Seeking Everyday Holiness: Mussar Va'ad” with Rabbi Batsheva Appel. An advanced group open to students who have completed “Seeking Everyday Holiness: A Community Mussar Program” or another Mussar program. Continues Sept. 25, Oct. 9 and 23, Nov. 13 and 27, and Dec. 11. $90 members; $120 nonmembers. Call 327-4501 or visit tetucson.org.
Tuesday / September 12 7 PM: Jewish Federation-Northwest Rosh Chodesh Women's Group presents "Jewish Life in Cuba Today," with Sandra Reino and Doris Senor Woltman, at 190 W. Magee Road, Suite 162. Free. Call 505-4161.
Cong. Anshei Israel gentle chair yoga with Lois Graham, Wednesdays, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Members of Women’s League, $6 per class; nonmembers, $8 per class. Contact Evelyn at 885-4102 or esigafus@aol.com. Chabad of Sierra Vista women’s class with Rabbi Benzion Shemtov, last Wednesdays, noon-2 p.m., 401 Suffolk Drive. 820-6256 or jewishsierravista.com. Chabad Tucson lunch and learn with Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin, Wednesdays, 12:15 p.m. at Eli’s Deli. info@ChabadTucson.com. Jewish mothers/grandmothers special needs support group for those with children/ grandchildren, young or adult, with special needs, third Wednesdays, 7-8:30 p.m. at Tucson J. Contact Joyce Stuehringer at 299-5920. Tucson J canasta group. Players wanted. Thursdays, noon. Instruction available and a beginners’ table every week. Call Debbie Wiener at 440-5515. “Biblical Breakthroughs with Rabbi Becker” at the Southwest Torah Institute. Fridays, noon, for men and women. 747-7780 or yzbecker@me.com. Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Center art exhibit: “Invisibility and Resistance: Violence Against LGBTQIA+ People,” at 564 S. Stone Ave., through May 31, 2018. Wed., Thur., Sat. and Sun., 1-5 p.m.; Fridays, noon-3 p.m. 670-9073 or jewishhistorymuseum.org.
Friday / September 15 11:30 AM: Jewish History Museum gallery chat. 670-9073 or jewishhistorymuseum.org 11:30 AM-1 PM: Tucson J Senior Shabbat Luncheon. Includes featured program with THA 8th grade students. Suggested cost, $15. RSVP at 299-3000, the JCC welcome desk, or tucsonjcc. org. 5:45 PM: Cong. Anshei Israel Shabbat Under the Stars service and family Shabbat dinner. Dinner begins at 7 p.m., followed by open lounge with games and fun in the Linda Roy Youth Center. Dinner, $25 per family (2 adults & up to 4 children) Adults (ages 13+), $10 per person. RSVP by Sept. 11 to Kim at 745-5550, ext. 224, or visit caiaz.org. 6:30 PM: Cong. Or Chadash Family Shabbat, for families with children. 512-8500.
Saturday / September 16 7:30 PM: Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging and Congregation Eshel Avraham Selichot program at Handmaker, 2221 N. Rosemont Blvd. For more information, call 322-3622. 7:30 PM: Temple Emanu-El Selichot program of Havdallah; film, “Norman”; study session;
discussion and desserts with Rabbis Samuel M. Cohon and Batsheva Appel; followed at 10:30 p.m. by service with choir and cantorial soloist Marjorie Hochberg. Free. 327-4501. 8 PM: Cong. Anshei Israel Selichot program and service. Includes wine, cheese and dessert reception, Havdallah program: “Our Who? Our What? Avinu Malkeinu … How/Can We Make this Prayer Our Own,” the changing of the Torah covers and volunteer recognition, followed by Selichot service at 10 p.m. Free. RSVP by Sept 11 to Kim at 745-5550, ext. 224 or visit caiaz.org. 8:30 PM: Cong. Or Chadash Selichot program, “Truth or Consequences: Telling Lies, White Lies, and Half-truths,” with Marcia Louchheim and Amy Lederman. Study session followed by changing of the Torah mantles and Selichot service. RSVP to Sarah at 900-7027 or sarah@ octucson.org. MIDNIGHT: Cong. Chofetz Chayim Selichot service. 747-7780.
Sunday / September 17 10 AM: Temple Emanu-El High Holy Days preparation class, “On Wings of Awe,” with Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon. Continues Sept. 24. $35, members; $45, nonmembers. RSVP at 327-4501 or visit tetucson.org. 10:30-11 AM: Cong. Anshei Israel Kever Avot Memorial Service at Evergreen Cemetery, Anshei Israel section. Includes special prayer booklet. For more information, call 745-5550. NOON-2 PM: Tucson J “Welcome the New Year” visual arts workshop for Rosh Hashanah, with Carolyn King, in the Perlman Art Studio. Create a mixed-media project focusing on the seven sefirot with which G-d created the world. All ages welcome. $10, member family; $15, guest family. RSVP at 299-3000. NOON-3 PM: Tucson J/International Rescue Committee Syrian Cooking Class, with Chef Shahd. Continues Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and 8. Single class, $65 members, $70 nonmembers. Four classes: $200, members, $220 nonmembers. Register at 299-3000, at the J welcome desk or tucsonjcc.org. 2-4 PM: Tucson J presents Tucson Symphony Orchestra Just for Kids free concert. Call 2993000 or visit tucsonjcc.org. 2-4 PM: Temple Emanu-El Sunday Salon: “Mishkan HaNefesh: Changes and Innovations — New Prayer Book for the Holy Days.” Free. RSVP at 327-4501.
Monday / September 18 7-8:30 PM: Temple Emanu-El adult education class, “Introducing the Mussar Path” with Rabbi Batsheva Appel. Free; also offered Oct. 2 or Oct. 30. RSVP at 327-4501.
Wednesday / September 20 Synagogues may charge for High Holy Days tickets; call synagogue offices or visit websites for information. 5:45 PM: Cong. Anshei Israel Erev Rosh Hashanah service. Call 745-5550 or visit caiaz.com
for complete holiday schedule. 6:10 PM: Cong. Chofetz Chayim Erev Rosh Hashanah service. Call 747-7780 or visit tucsontorah.org for complete holiday schedule. 6:30 PM: Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging and Congregation Eshel Avraham Erev Rosh Hashanah service at Handmaker, 2221 N. Rosemont Blvd. Call 322-3622 for complete holiday schedule. 7 PM: Beth Shalom Temple Center, Green Valley Erev Rosh Hashanah service. Nonmembers must RSVP by Sept. 13 for free tickets. Call 6486690, or visit bstc.us for complete holiday schedule. 7 PM: Cong. Kol Simchah Erev Rosh Hashanah service at St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, 4625 E. River Road. Call 7498262 for more information. 7:30 PM: Cong. Chaverim Erev Rosh Hashanah service. Call 320-1015 or visit chaverim.net for complete holiday schedule. 7:30 PM: Temple Emanu-El Erev Rosh Hashanah service. For complete holiday schedule, call 327-4501 or visit tetucson.org. 7:30 PM: Cong. Or Chadash Erev Rosh Hashanah service at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Call 512-8500 or visit orchadash-tucson. org for complete holiday schedule.
Sunday / September 24 10 AM: Beth Shalom Temple Center, Green Valley, Kever Avot service at Green Valley Cemetery. Call 648-6690 or visit bstc.us. 10 AM: Cong. Chaverim Tashlich and picnic at Ft. Lowell Park, Ramada #5. Call 320-1015 or visit chaverim.net. 11:15 AM: Cong. Or Chadash Tashlich and picnic at Ft. Lowell Park, Ramada #3. Call 5128500 or visit orchadash-tucson.org. 4 PM: Cong. Anshei Israel Tashlich, at Reid Park, Ramada #1. Symbolically cast away your sins as the Jewish New Year begins. Families welcome; refreshments provided. Free. RSVP by Sept. 18 to Kim at 745-5550, ext. 224.
Monday / September 25 1 PM: Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging lecture, “Repentance and Return,” with Ben Zion Kogen. RSVP to Nanci Levy at 322-3632 or nlevy@handmaker.org. 1:30-3 PM: Hadassah Southern Arizona book club east discusses “The Dovekeepers” by Alice Hoffman, at the River/Craycroft Pima County Library. Contact Maxine Murray at 885-5800. 5-6:30 PM: Jewish Federation-Northwest and Hadassah Southern Arizona book club dis-
cusses “Marriage of Opposites” by Alice Hoffman. Contact Sandra Reino at 742-3522. 7-9 PM: Tucson Tikkun Community presents “Arizona Welcomes Refugees: Creating Community and Public Safety Through Love and Generosity,” with Steve Farley and Khalid Al Jasharme, Tucson City Council Ward 6 office, 3202 E. 1st Street/Anderson Street. Contact Michael Zaccaria at zaccarim@comcast.net.
Friday / September 29 6:30-9:30 PM: Interfaith Community Services/ Arizona Youth Partnership/GAP Ministries “Eat, Drink & Be Giving” event supports antipoverty initiatives in the local community. Includes food and drink samples from local restaurants and breweries, live music, CEOs Grape Stomp and silent auction. $35, single; $60, double; VIP single, $50; VIP double, $90. Register at edbg2017.auction-bid.org/microsite.
Sunday / October 8 4-6 PM: Tucson J and PJ Library present a Sukkot concert with Billy Jonas, singer-songwriter, percussionist and mult-instrumentalist. Event includes PJ library story and light, breakfast-theme dinner. Tickets $18 per immediate family with registration by Oct. 4; $25 per immediate family thereafter. Visit tucsonjcc.org/ billyjonas or call 299-3000.
Thursday / September 21 9 AM: Chabad of Oro Valley Rosh Hashanah service at Oro Valley Community and Recreation Center, 10555 N. La Canada Drive. Call 477TORA or visit jewishorovalley.com for complete holiday schedule. 9:30 AM: Cong. Chaverim Rosh Hashanah service on Mt. Lemmon. Call 320-1015 or visit chaverim.net. 9:30 AM: Cong. Kol Simchah Rosh Hashanah service at home of Bob Shatz. Call 749-8262 for more information. 10 AM: Cong. Chaverim Rosh Hashanah service (at the synagogue). Call 320-1015 or visit chaverim.net. 4 PM: Beth Shalom Temple Center, Green Valley, Tashlich service at Lake Sahuarita. Call 6486690 or visit bstc.us. 5 PM: Temple Emanu-El Tashlich picnic at Reid Park, by the rose garden, with jumping castle, games, football, edible shofars and throwing sins into the water. Bring something to sit on and a picnic dinner. 327-4501.
UPCOMING Saturday / September 23
10 AM- 2 PM: Secular Humanist Jewish Circle High Holiday observance and lunch, with Rabbi Jack Silver, at St. Francis in the Foothills, 4625 E. River Rd. $25, members; $40, nonmembers. RSVP to Becky at 296-3762 or schulmb@aol.com. For more information, visit SHJCaz.org. September 8, 2017 ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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ArizonA Jewish Post At this holiday season, the Arizona Jewish Post thanks all our patron contributors for 2017. Your support helps us provide our readers with a wealth of local Jewish news and features, as well as coverage of the Jewish scene across the United States, Israel and around the world. A special thanks to those who contributed $54 or more, and gave us permission to recognize their generosity: PLATINUM ($150 & up) Phillip & Vicki Pepper Joan Kaye-Cauthorn Cindy Schiesel Susan Simon Steve Weintraub & Dr. Leslie Weintraub Dr. Jack Aaron & Rabbi Stephanie Aaron George & Marjorie Cunningham Dr. Harvey Goodman & Judith Goodman Dr. Jules Harris & Josephine Harris
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Dr. Herschel Rosenzweig & Dr. Jill Rosenzweig Dr. Kenneth Sandock & Dr. Beverly Sandock Marilyn Speert Dr. Howard Toff & Cheryl Toff Dr. Kenny Wortzel & Sandra Wortzel Foster & Carol Kivel Dr. Frederick Klein & Sharon Klein
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OBITUARIES Richard Eisen Richard “Rickey” H. Eisen, 28, died suddenly and unexpectedly on Aug. 23, 2017. Survivors include his parents, Rabbi Robert and Debby Eisen; and brother, Alex Eisen. A private service was held. Arrangements were made by Evergreen Mortuary and Cemetery.
Ann Stein Ann Annette (Annie) Stein, 90, died Aug. 25, 2017. Mrs. Stein was born in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School. In 1946 she married Leo Stein and they moved to Tucson. In addition to raising three sons, Mrs. Stein served as a volunteer at Tucson Medical Center, the Beacon Foundation, and Handmaker. In 1971, she began work as a cashier at the Associated Students of the University of Arizona Bookstore, where she was an employee for over 35 years, retiring at age 80. Mrs. Stein was predeceased by her husband, Leo; daughter-in-law Linda Manuel Stein; and her brothers and sister. Survivors include her sons, Alan (Terry Holpert) of Cardiff-by-the Sea, California, and William and Kenneth (Nancy Russert), both of Redondo Beach, California; four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Graveside services were held at Evergreen Cemetery in the Congregation Anshei Israel section, with cantorial soloist Nichele Chorny officiating. Memorial contributions may be made to the Ann Stein Scholarship for UA Bookstore Employees at the UA Foundation, 1111 N. Cherry Ave. P.O. Box 210109, Tucson, AZ 85721-0109, or Congregation Anshei Israel, 5550 E. Fifth St., Tucson, AZ 85711.
OUR TOWN Bar mitzvah
Business briefs
Marrek Pearce Parker, son of Pamela Workman-Parker and Charles Parker Jr., will celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Sept. 16 at Temple EmanuEl. He is the grandson of Vivian Workman of Denver and Sandy Parker and Lt. Col. Charles Parker (retired) of Henderson, Nevada. Marrek attends Tortolita Middle School, where he is an honors student and his favorite subject is math. He enjoys flag football and Minecraft. For his mitzvah project, Marrek has been baking and selling pet cookies to raise money for the Humane Society of Southern Arizona and the Israeli Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Birth A daughter, MARIELLE, was born July 14 to Daniel and Lisa Blaney-Koen of Chicago. Marielle joins her brothers, Brach William and Gray Oliver. Grandparents are Mike and Gerri Koen of Oracle, Arizona, and Howard and Marie Blaney of Colorado.
People in the news “Til I Am: A Lyric Memoir” by JEN MAIDENBERG was chosen as a finalist for the Autumn House Press full-length book prize for the second year in a row. Maidenberg, a former assistant editor at the Arizona Jewish Post, currently lives in New Jersey. V E T E R A N S
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C ONGREGATION CHAVERIM has named ITAL IRONSTONE as education director. Ironstone has a bachelor’s degree in Judaic Studies from the University of Arizona. She attended Hebrew school at Chaverim, was president of Tucson’s Kadimah BBYO chapter and studied at Tucson Hebrew Academy. JULIA H. LEVINE has been named operations manager at CONGREGATION CHAVERIM. She has nine years of operations management experience across multiple industries including film production, nonprofit, and business. She was operations coordinator at the Tucson Jewish Community Center for three years while earning her MBA at the University of Arizona Eller College of Management in management information systems and marketing. For the last five years she has been an advisor for Tucson’s Kadimah BBYO chapter. TRACI RICCITELLO has joined FARHANG & MEDCOFF, bringing nearly two decades of experience in commercial real estate transactions to the firm. She has been a staff attorney at an Arizona law firm and has also had her own practice during a career that began in 1999. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing communications from Bowling Green State University, and a master’s degree in exercise physiology from the University of Arizona. She also earned her law degree at the UA.
The TUCSON MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORIC BLOCK has named CHRISTOPHER GORDON as chief financial officer, replacing Alan Hershowitz, who has retired after serving the museum for four years. Gordon had been vice president of finance at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California, since 2008. Prior to that, he was a vice priesdent at the Robert Gumbiner Foundation in Long Beach, California, which founded MOLAA in 1996. He also held positions at the Ethnic Art Institute of Micronesia on the island of Yap, Micronesia, and was a union stage manager for theatre companies in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Phone: 1-520-299-9191 or 1-800-545-2185 Fax: 520-299-1381 www.degrazia.org Open Seven Days a Week from 10:00am - 4:00pm.
DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun 6300 North Swan Tucson, Arizona 85718
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
ARIZONA JEWISH POST — SECTION B September 8, 2017 17 Elul 5777
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
Tikkun olam: To repair the world Social action, community service, acts of loving kindness, humanitarianism … no matter what you call it, engaging in tikkun olam (repairing or healing the world) is an expression of a core Jewish value. One idea behind the concept of tikkun olam is that we must act as partners with God to mend a broken or imperfect world. Repairs on a personal level can also be considered part of tikkun olam. “It is not your responsibility to finish the task [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either,” Rabbi Tarfon says in the Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 2:21. As the High Holidays approach, beckoning us all to take time for reflection, prayer and reconnection, the AJP turns a spotlight on eight
men and women who have made tikkun olam central to their lives – some as a guiding vocational principle and others through volunteer service. Their work covers a wide range of causes, from helping refugees at home and abroad, to assisting children who are economically or medically disadvantaged, to helping create a welcoming oasis for homeless women. Our Southern Arizona Jewish community, of course, is blessed with far more practitioners of tikkun olam than we have space to write about in a single issue (over the years, many others have appeared in our “Volunteer Salute” sections). We hope these eight profiles will enlighten and inspire you, and may we all enjoy a shanah tova – a good and peaceful new year.
Stanley Feldman ............... B-3
Steven Tofel ....................... B-7
Deborah Jacob .................. B-4
Bob Feinman .................... B-8
Sherrie Kay ....................... B-4
Gail Birin .......................... B-9
Jill Rich .............................. B-5
Roberta Elliott .................. B-11
STANLEY FELDMAN
DANIEL ASIA
KAYE PATCHETT Special to the AJP
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“…Asia is a major American talent.” – Fanfare
TO OPEN IN PRAISE: Psalm 30 (1986) Breath In a Ram’s Horn (2003) Amichai Songs (2012) featuring: Lontano Odaline de la Martinez, conductor Jeremy Huw Williams, Baritone Robert Swensen, Tenor Ellen Chamberlain, violin Paula Fan, Piano
Photo: Athol Cline
tanley G. Feldman, LL.B., has been a leading champion of civil rights in Arizona, and beyond, for 60 years and counting. He served as an Arizona Supreme Court justice for 21 years, from 1982 to 2002, including five years as chief justice. Born in the Bronx in 1933, and a Tucson resident since age 5, Feldman graduated first in his University of Arizona Law School class in 1956, shortly after the start of the civil rights movement. Raised in an observant Jewish family, he witnessed ongoing discrimination and injustice from an early age. “From first grade on, I saw discrimination,” he says. “We had segregated schools for black students up to high school. At Saturday morning kids’ movies at the Fox Theater, black and Mexican kids had to sit in the balcony. In many hotels and restaurants, blacks, Mexican Americans, even Jews, were not permitted. Some neighborhoods were segregated by restrictions ... just the Anglo-Saxon race and Christian religion. Growing up and watching this, you begin to think, ‘What’s wrong? What can we do to stop this?’” Discrimination also impacted his own family. “My wife, Norma, is Hispanic. Her family can be traced back in this area from the 1830s on, but she was required to go to a segregated school in what is now Gilbert, Arizona.” From the beginning of his legal career, Feldman felt a deep commitment to civil rights. In the late 1950s, he was involved in the Oyama case, in which a Japanese-American World War II veteran was denied the right to marry an Anglo woman. The case ultimately resulted in the termination of Arizona’s miscegenation law. He also served on an anti-discrimination committee for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. Acting on behalf of the Jewish community, he recalls, he was able to induce “a certain prominent club in Tucson to mend its ways and allow Jews as members.” In 1968, he formed the law firm of Miller, Pitt and Feldman, with Bob Miller and Don Pitt. He was a managing partner until 1981, also serving as president of the Pima County Bar Association and the State Bar of Arizona. From the get-go, the new law firm established itself as a bastion of civil rights. “One thing I’m proud of,” says Feldman, “when we formed our firm in Tucson, we were the first ones to hire women lawyers. There were very few women lawyers at all.” Women proved they were
NEW FROM
Justice Stanley Feldman
more than capable, he notes. “Rose Silver comes to mind, and the history of Sandra Day O’Connor.” Silver, the first woman graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law, in 1930, later represented gangster John Dillinger following his capture in Tucson. O’Connor became the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. And, says Feldman, “It was all in one lifetime — mine.” In 1982, Gov. Bruce Babbitt appointed Feldman, who assisted in Babbitt’s campaign for state attorney general, to the Arizona Supreme Court. Feldman served on the court during the impeachment trial of Gov. Evan Mecham in 1988 and the fraud case of Gov. John Fife Symington III in1997. Asked about his perspective today on those cases, he says: “No one is above the law. That’s a fundamental building block of liberty.” Feldman also wrote a landmark decision stating that bar owners who overserve alcohol to customers can be held liable for injury or death if the customer is allowed to drive and an accident ensues. In another influential decision, he ruled in favor of consumers’ rights to reasonable insurance coverage. As a justice, he become known for upholding individual rights, from indigent patients denied emergency hospital care to cases of sexual harassment and employees’ rights. Feldman recalls, “When I was on the Supreme Court, I wrote an opinion called Wagenseller. A nurse claimed she was fired because she refused to take down her clothes and moon her employer at a picnic. The case established the right of employees fired without just cause to sue.” After his retirement from the court in See Feldman, page B-6
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Many thanks to the following who helped support this project! Sidney L. Lissner Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Tom Warne Gary and Tandy Kippur James Wezelman and Denise Grusin Dr. Marilyn Orenstein Bobby Present and Deborah Oseran Rob Glaser, Neil Kleinman
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DEBORAH JACOB Special to the AJP
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eborah Howard Jacob keeps a relatively low profile. For someone so involved in the Tucson community, her name doesn’t ring a lot of bells with Google. But to the people she helps and to those who know her work, Jacob’s name looms large. “She is kindness and caring personified!,” says local author and columnist Amy Lederman. “She is so modest and would never even think of herself as being as generous of spirit as she truly is!” Shay Beider, executive director of local nonprofit Integrative Touch for Kids, describes her as an all-around blessing who does everything from spearheading major gifts campaigns to making snacks for 100 people attending a family retreat: “She is a true gift to our organization!” In addition to being secretary of the board of ITK, the unassuming Jacob is an active fundraising volunteer for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. She has been on the Arizona Foster Care Review Board, where she reviews 15 cases a month, for 20 years. At the same time, she has been serving meals once a
month to families right through living in the Priretirement. But mavera Foundaafter giving birth tion’s Five Points to her daughter transitional housat the age of 46, ing project. All Jacob stopped this is in addition working. At least to other projects for pay. she’s committed Devoting her to, like being a time to unpaid reading tutor at work was an arschools, along rangement that with spending made sense to time with her both Jacob and family. And she her husband, Deborah Jacob has her eye on Jeff. “It’s a value another, nascent that we hold very non-profit offering pro-bono legal ser- dear,” she explains, “We’re an interfaith vices. “I’m just starting to get involved,” family so it comes from a foundation she says. “I’m just helping raise money, from both of us. We always give back, and I’m having a house party and telling no matter what. Just to be of service is a them I’ll do whatever I can.” You could big piece of who we all are. And I’m the say that Jacob is a professional volunteer one who has the flexibility in life, so I get — or, as her LinkedIn profile puts it, an to take the lead on it, but everybody else independent philanthropy professional. has been a big part.” The description is apt. With a good “Everybody else” means her husband education and an impressive resume, Ja- and daughter, now a freshman in colcob could have continued pursuing her lege, whom the Jacobs have involved in successful paid career working for the their philanthropic activities from the state government or local non-profits beginning. Jacob’s emphasis on family Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA
JOHN CAFIERO
and children is reflected in much of her work, such as foster care. Seeing that a foster child you have interacted with is “finally at a place that is good for them is one of the best feelings in the whole wide world,” she says. In the last few years, much of Jacob’s time has been occupied by ITK, which supports families in a way that is often overlooked: by providing integrative healing therapies such as massage, sound healing, and meditation to families that have children with special health or medical needs. ITK is unique not only for its emphasis on integrative techniques but also for its “whole child, whole family, whole community” approach. The group brings community members together to care for children and their family members. “They have so much stress in their lives. They might have someone with cancer and someone with diabetes and, you know, cystic fibrosis, they might be terminal children . . . there’s so many issues that are facing these families and it’s how to help them move through life a little easier.” This holistic approach and the emphasis on compassionate support for See Jacob, page B-6
SHERRIE KAY Special to the AJP
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or Sherrie Kay, giving back to the community and helping those at risk is simply a way of life. “Growing up, my family was always involved in Jewish life and tikkun olam and all the different avenues that represents. Somehow that transferred to me. The more injustice I saw the more I wanted to try and change things. In some small way, I believe everybody can change somebody’s life. If I can be a part of that, then that’s what I want to do,” says Kay. Although she shrinks from the notion that what she does is anything above and beyond the ordinary, those who are fortunate to benefit from Kay’s work at Sister Jose Women’s Center — and the myriad other organizations she’s been involved with over the years — know otherwise. Kay’s volunteer work on the local scene started shortly after she and her husband, Gary, moved to Tucson to retire in 1991 — after living here briefly in the mid-’80s. “I happened to meet a woman named Jill Rich. She took me by the hand and introduced me to the American Red Cross, and then to homelessness and several other projects that
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017
she was involved of its projects, with, and the rest including Sister was history. We Jose Women’s worked together Center, John B. for a long time on Wright Elemenseveral things.” tary School, HabThe Kays beitat for Humanity came immersed and more. There’s in disaster relief now also a greatwith the Amerier emphasis on can Red Cross, working with orhelping dispense ganizations that aid to victims of support refugees Sherrie Kay more than 40 diand immigrants. sasters, including Or Chadash hosts hurricanes, floods and the September 11 forums and offers its facilities for trainterrorist attack on the World Trade Cen- ing, to “bring to light what the refugee ter in 2001. Kay says that Gary actively needs are here in Tucson,” she says. pursued a career as an international volKay recently took leave from her role unteer, providing assistance in India, Al- as social action chair and joined the Or bania, Kosovo, and other countries. Chadash Sisterhood board as a memWhen they joined Congregation Or ber-at-large focusing on social action Chadash, it was only natural for Kay to and social justice. Through Sisterhood’s get on board the temple’s social action affiliation with Women of Reform Judacommittee. “I’m not a big joiner of lunch ism, Kay says she is looking forward to groups and things like that,” she says. “I’d getting more involved in international rather do hands-on work in the com- social action programs. “Through Sismunity. Shortly after getting involved, terhood’s affiliation with the Women Kay found herself in a leadership role. of Reform Judaism, we hope to shine a When the position of social action chair brighter light on current social problems opened, Kay stepped up to the challenge. locally and internationally,” she says. Under her leadership, Kay says the Her main passion, however, is Sister committee grew and so did the scope Jose Women’s Center. She volunteers at Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA
NANCY BEN-ASHER OZERI
least once a week at the converted warehouse on 1050 S. Park Ave. that serves as a day center for homeless women. “I provide a bit of conversation, of dignity, of life that isn’t on the street,” says Kay. “You get to know the women you are helping and they are very appreciative. Sometimes it’s just the little things and the little kindnesses that start to draw out their personalities and allow them to believe and hope that there can be a different life for them.” Kay also helps sort, size, and hang donated clothing. “Homeless women are allowed to take outfits several times a week because often they don’t have clothing that’s appropriate for the weather. Last summer Women’s Philanthropy [of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona] did a bang up job collecting tennis shoes for the women. Because the women walk the streets in the monsoon season, they get so soaked and their shoes fall apart. So the shoes were very needed.” Finding the right clothes can make a big difference for a woman living on the streets. “I particularly remember one woman who was very large and fitting her in clothing was difficult. The majority of donations top out at size 14 or 16. She kind of just shrank into the walls. She was quiet, kind of shy,” says Kay. “We See Kay, page B-10
JILL RICH RENEE CLAIRE
Special to the AJP
Photos courtesy Jill Rich
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ow do you create a philanthropic heart? Make an early start. Jill Rich has been a volunteer for nearly all of her 69 years. Her first foray into raising money to help others began with her curiosity. At age 4 she wanted to understand what was meant by the term “Milk Fund” that she’d heard on the radio. “It puzzled me,” says Rich. “For me, milk could be found by just walking over to the refrigerator. So when I asked my parents to explain what ‘Milk Fund’ meant, that’s when they sat me down and gave me the poverty talk and told me what I could do to help in our community.” Rich, who grew up in Rock Island, Illinois, says that her parents were “total volunteers” who had her involved in philanthropy from the time she was 5 years old. One of her first forays into community service involved fundraising: Her father bought cases of Hershey’s chocolate bars at wholesale, and Rich went around her neighborhood carrying a basket of chocolate bars that she sold for 5 cents apiece, donating the profits to the Milk Fund. From that point on, explains Rich, she, her parents and her older brother engaged in a philanthropy project every year. “We organized a yearly neighborhood carnival in the street in front of our house where we offered rides and contests, food and fun. All the proceeds went to the Crippled Children’s Fund.” Rich notes the now politically-incorrect name of the organization with some humor. But another decades-old cause that continues to engage her is deadly serious. Back in the early 1980s, says Rich, when an AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence, she lost two beloved first cousins to the disease. Recognizing the example set for her by her mother, who became an AIDS hotline volunteer, Rich has remained engaged in activities in support of those with HIV/AIDS. She is a vice president on the board of Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network and an active volunteer, focusing on development and fundraising. She is encouraged by the significant improvements that have come to HIV and AIDS patients in recent years. “I
(Left) A newspaper article celebrates Jill Rich's first philanthropic effort at age 5. (Right)Jill Rich and her husband, Jim, serve dinner at the Primavera Shelter on July 30.
find it so moving to see those with HIV who come to TIHAN feeling horrible and alone, move to a place where they have hope, where they come to feel that they have a complete support system at their disposal.” Rich arrived in Tucson in 1965 to attend the University of Arizona. After graduating in 1970 with a degree in psychology and sociology, she decided that Tucson was home. She met her husband, Jim Rich, after graduating from the UA and they were soon engaged in more than just the traditional sense. “He has done a great deal of volunteer work with me,” Rich says. “In my early days in Tucson I did hands-on volunteer work for the American Red Cross in disaster relief as that sounded interesting to me. My husband and I did that together. Then after some years of volunteering with them, they asked me to join their board, which I did.” This pattern of engaging in volunteer activity and then helping to guide those philanthropic organizations has repeated often for Rich, who has been committed to helping others in our community for nearly 50 years. Her ongoing dedication to the Jewish community has been covered by the Arizona Jewish Post (see “For Woman Lost Boys of Sudan Call ‘Mom,’ Helping Others is Second Nature”(2.28.14) and “Temple to Celebrate Humanitarian Jill Rich” (3.11.11). Rich has been the social action
chair at Temple Emanu-El since 2003. She has spearheaded programs that feed and shelter the homeless in winter, such as Project Hospitality, which was formerly administered as Operation Deep Freeze. She continues (since 2006) to serve as the social action chair for the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and has been a meal provider at Primavera Foundation, a nonprofit organization that feeds the poor, for nearly 25 years. “What is closest to my heart, though,” admits Rich, “is helping refugee families that are newly arrived. It’s a wonderful experience; showing them Tucson and helping them navigate a new life.” Since 1988, Rich has been a continuing mentor and surrogate family connection for 54 young men from Sudan. This year she is actively assisting families with children from other politically perilous parts of the world, including one family from Africa and two from Europe. In the mid 1980s, she and her husband adopted and raised two Vietnamese children as their own. It’s a feat in and of itself to enumerate the organizations, causes and numbers of people that Rich has volunteered for and supported during her life. Her curriculum vitae features more than two pages dedicated to volunteer experience and resultant awards. Some of the highlights: The National Association of Fundraising Professionals of Southern
Arizona awarded her its Volunteer of the Year award in 2015, the National Association of Social Workers named her Public Citizen of the Year in 2001, and President George H.W. Bush named her a Point of Light in 1991. Despite the extent of Rich’s volunteer activity, her professional career as a full-time Tucson realtor is anything but a sideline. Her commitment and success as a realtor are reflected in the recognition and awards that she has garnered from her professional colleagues at Long Realty Company as well as the Tucson Association of Realtors and the Arizona Association of Realtors. Rich says, “I am always asked by people how I work a full time job and still have time for all my volunteer commitments. I tell them that it’s easy. The secret is to have a silent partner — for me it’s my husband, Jim. We have a unique relationship as volunteer partners; he does half the work and I get all the awards.” And those awards come from completely diverse sectors of the community where Rich gives of herself to make a difference. So Tucsonans should not be surprised if they see Jill Rich ringing a bell for Salvation Army this holiday season. It’s just another of her ways of helping those who are less fortunate in our community. “I have a good time,” she says. “That’s what I do, seriously.” Renee Claire is a freelance writer in Tucson.
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September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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2002, Feldman returned to his law firm, now Haralson, Miller, Pitt, Feldman and McAnally, where, as the sole remaining founding member, he continues to work on civil litigation in cases of personal injury, product liability, insurance coverage, medical and legal malpractice, border issues and more. “I’m proud of the results we get in this firm,” he says. “Wins in the right things — and even losses, in the right cause.” As an example of the latter, he mentions his pro bono work to get an initiative petition for raising sales tax to be used for education on the ballot. The initiative “got on the ballot, but was not passed.” Before accepting any case, Feldman says, “I must believe in what I am going to have to argue to represent the person, and must believe in the fairness of the case.” He takes pride in helping people who were badly injured obtain justice. Recently, he says, the firm was “successful in two cases with very significant damages, where the plaintiff was a terribly brain-injured person, who without that success would not have been destined for any reasonable kind of life.” A member of Congregation Anshei Israel (whose kindergarten is named after his mother, Esther Feldman) since his bar mitzvah, Feldman says he views his professional ethics as a reflection of “common Judeo-Christian moral principles — helping others, truthfulness, fairness, respect, civility.” No single person can heal the world, he points out: “People who think they alone can cure the world are very dangerous. We all need to have some humility and realize that we need to take the little steps that will hopefully be of some beneficial effect to our people and
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families chimes perfectly with Jacob’s concerns and values. “Working with those families that just come up afterwards and hug you and are so grateful for what they’ve received, and I feel so grateful because it changed my life. And that’s the biggest piece of why I do what I do. It changes my life every time I interact with someone. And makes me sad and joyful all at the same time.” Faith has always been a motivator for her voluntarism. “That’s the value system I grew up with: always giving back. And that’s the Judeo-Christian ethic.” Both her parents were Jewish, and although her mother’s Conservatism contrasted with her father’s more secular approach, both modeled service as a way of life when Jacob was growing up in Los Angeles, whether by working in a homeless shelter, volunteering in a hospital or by simple, personal acts. “They were always just helpful; they liked being part of a community and being of service, so I guess it got ingrained in me!” One memory stands out. Jacob’s father had a small business in the Watts area. He was among the first to hire African-Americans, and he felt responsible for his employees when they encountered hardship. “I used to work in the office and I was in there helping and all of a
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the country.” Feldman serves on the boards of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association and United Policyholders, a national consumer organization. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Arizona, and a member of the Pima County Bar Association. His daughter, Elizabeth, is also a lawyer, practicing in Arizona. At 84, Feldman has no plans to retire anytime soon. During his long career he has accumulated countless awards and honors — among them the Judge Learned Hand Award for Public Service from the American Jewish Committee, the National Center for Victims of Crime Partners in Justice award, and the State Bar of Arizona Outstanding Jurist award. A University of Arizona law school courtroom was also named in his honor. Protecting freedom and equality may be the responsibility of every citizen — but where’s the fulcrum that can create the greatest change? Feldman answers without hesitation. “The most important thing is voting rights.” He’s alarmed by what he describes as “the effort in some states to restrict the convenience of voting. In my view, people need to get together so these laws don’t pass — or we repeal these laws so everyone who wants to vote can vote.” He decries efforts to repeal the “motor voter” law, under which everyone who receives a driver’s license is registered to vote. “It’s a terrible thing to do,” says Feldman. “We need to fight all attempts to restrict the right to vote.” Asked how he feels the country is faring today, he says, “I think we’ve made a lot of progress. We haven’t reached perfection; we need to keep from going backward on every front. I think the pendulum is starting to swing backward a little, and we have to stop that.” Kaye Patchett is a freelance writer and editor in Tucson.
sudden there was a bed in there. And I said, ‘Dad, why’d you bring a bed into the office?’ ‘Oh, because Sandy’s pregnant and she doesn’t have any place to go.’ He was always taking care of those who were less fortunate. He just had a deep heart.” Service is just as important in Jacob’s own marriage, and she and her husband bolster each other’s commitments. “It’s interesting being in an interfaith marriage, because I have a husband [who] has a deep sense of value in his faith and in mine. Because he understands Judaism as the framework from which he lives.” Jeff ’s family are Lebanese Catholics, and the extended family includes Filipino and Hispanic members. Jacob takes positive pleasure from sharing her faith in this diverse context, saying it “makes for a very interesting conversation. They love the joy that I can bring into it. Ours is a family-based, home-based, Torah-based faith, so it’s kind of interesting to share all that.” But talking to Jacob, one gets the sense that the impulse to do good for others is simpler, more fundamental, than culture, tradition, or religion — it’s part of the structure of being human. “Recognizing that we’re all the same — because, take away all the color, religion, anything — and we are all human beings. Knowing that we have to take care of one another — that’s the motivator. We are not in this world alone; we cannot survive alone. A baby needs its milk.” John Cafiero is a freelance writer in Tucson.
PHYLLIS BRAUN
AJP Executive Editor
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elping Sister Jose Women’s Center renovate a 9,000 square foot warehouse on South Park Avenue took far more of Steven Tofel’s time than he’d anticipated. But he has no regrets. “I’m 100 percent glad I did it,” he says. Tofel, 75, the founder and president of Tofel Construction, ended up serving as the general contractor for the project, coordinating the work of more than 50 subcontractors. A day center for homeless women, Sister Jose provides its guests a place to rest, take a shower or have a meal, as well as outreach services from social service agencies, such as behavioral and medical health services, pre-employment training and veterans’ services. The center, which averaged just over 300 guest visits per month in 2014, had 900-plus guest visits every month in 2016, with close to 1300 in December. And that was before the new facility Tofel helped create opened in April. Tofel explains that he met Sister Jose’s executive director, Jean Fedigan, many years ago when they were both working at Tucson Realty. More recently, Tofel’s wife, Sallie, had been helping to provide meals at the old Sister Jose facility, “which was ridiculously small,” he says. Reconnecting with Fedigan, Tofel agreed to evaluate the proposed new site and attended several Sister Jose board meetings to offer advice. When the board approved the warehouse purchase, “after the meeting I was standing next to Jean and she says, ‘This is so exciting, Steve, but I have to tell you I have not a clue what to do next,’” he recalls. “Jean, I do,” he replied. “Steve spent the next eight months of his life with a major portion of his time working to have our building brought up to code and renewed so we could receive women,” says Fedigan, who calls him “absolutely instrumental” in the center’s success. Because of Tofel and his subcontractors, she adds, the building “is free and clear.” “He’s my hero,” she says, and “a miracle to the women, truly.” Tofel’s work on behalf of Sister Jose “is nothing short of phenomenal,” says Ori Parnaby, Tucson’s Jewish community
concierge and social action coordinator. The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona adopted Sister Jose as its 70th anniversary mitzvah project, helping out with everything from shoe and clothing drives to sprucing up the outdoor space with raised garden beds, seating and a mural. Numerous other organizations have also provided support. Tofel says the City of Tucson’s cooperation with permits and inspections was “spectacular.” And when the budget for the project was triple the $150,000 Fedigan had raised, he was able to get the subcontractors – including a few from Phoenix -- to donate time and/or supplies. “I had three, out of everybody I went to, that said they just were too busy, they couldn’t do it,” he says. “I have personally never been out raising that kind of money before, and I am snowed by the total response we got.” Tofel singles out two people for special recognition: Gardner Durkel, an independent contractor he’s known for more than 40 years, and Ron Dehn, who has done maintenance work for Sister Jose on a volunteer basis for years. “It would not have happened without those two guys, period,” he says. Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Tofel has lived in Tucson since 1950, when his father, Joseph Tofel, moved the family out here and built the city’s first drivethrough laundry. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 1964 with a B.S. in electrical engineering and spent 10 years as a sales engineer in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area and Denver. Then the East Coast sales position opened up. Tofel was already traveling more than two weeks per month, missing precious time with his wife and two small children. “I made a career decision that I was going to be a father first, and my work would come second. In the final analysis that’s worked out OK,” he says, but there were some tough times. By then his father, “a brilliant entrepreneur,” had built and was operating the Tucson Racquet Club, so Tofel came back and managed the club for five years. He started in the construction trade by refurbishing one old house by himself, and branched out into real estate for a time. He formed Tofel Construction in 1984
Photo courtesy Steven Tofel
STEVEN TOFEL
(L-R) Brad Tofel, Trinh Tofel, Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Sallie Tofel and Steven Tofel at the grand opening of the Sister Jose Women's Center on April 20.
with his twin brother, Richard. Specializing in multi-family units, the company has built apartments throughout California, New Mexico and Arizona, including many affordable housing projects. “We’ve probably built 25 percent of the tax-credit projects in Arizona,” he says, including B’nai B’rith Covenant House, a U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development project for low-income elderly residents, which opened in 1995. Recently, Tofel Construction expanded into the hospitality industry and returned to its roots with several commercial projects. Tofel’s twin is now the company’s CFO and his nephew, Jim, is the development officer. Tofel says his motto is “Always do the right thing.” If there’s a problem with a job, “we come back and fix it. Period.” One example, he says, is the Covenant House project. “I messed up, putting the windows in. They leaked.” Tofel went back and replaced windows over a 10-year period and says if one began leaking today, “I’d be back there fixing the doggone thing.” A staunch supporter of Temple Emanu-El and Tucson Hebrew Academy, which his grandson attends, Tofel says he didn’t have a strong Jewish background growing up. He went to religious school as a child but was so shy, he dropped out and never celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah. His wife, Sallie, had a much stronger Jewish background. When their children were young they joined Emanu-El, but Tofel didn’t go to services. About 20 years ago he began attending once every couple of months, “which for me was a very regular basis,” he says. He served on the synagogue board and do-
nated his time for various projects, such as remodeling the early childhood education classrooms. “When I retire, I’ll do probably more again. I’m very loyal to Temple EmanuEl and I love Rabbi Cohon, and my wife now serves on the board and she’s extremely active.” Tofel recently joined the Sister Jose board and has served on the boards of the Tucson Metropolitan Housing Commission, Arizona Housing Commission and Arizona Housing Alliance. He is full of admiration for Fedigan, who volunteered her time at Sister Jose for years, only recently beginning to receive a small salary. He became passionate about affordable housing – which puts the Sister Jose project, dealing with homelessness, “right in my wheelhouse,” he says – through the late Jack Wallick, founder of the Ohiobased Wallick Communities, which specializes in affordable and senior housing. A new tenant spoke at the grand opening of a project they’d worked on together, early in Tofel’s construction career. “She said, ‘I have three children, I was living out of my car, I was on drugs and I got through rehab and I’m now living in this facility and it the nicest – I never, ever dreamed I’d live in something this nice,’” says Tofel, his voice growing husky at the memory. “And it was right then that it really cemented to me that this is something that, even though I’m a relatively conservative Republican, I really feel that it is up to our society to give these people a hand up. … I want to put them into an environment where they can rejoin society and become productive members of society. That’s what’s driving me.”
September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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BOB FEINMAN KORENE CHARNOFSKY COHEN Special to the AJP
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n 1967, Bob Feinman, an 18-yearold Jewish kid from New York City found himself in Tucson, enrolled in college, knowing no one. He could speak Spanish, but had never heard of a taco. He ended up with a 40-year career in Spanish language radio and became an advocate for the safety of people crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. “I grew up in New York, the biggest melting pot on Earth,” says Feinman. “Instead of staying within my own group, I took advantage of being part of other communities, and learning languages was always easy for me.” He grew up speaking German and Yiddish. He learned Spanish through a class and from kids in school and working in businesses where Spanish was spoken. When he came to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona, he understood Spanish as spoken by people from Cuba or Puerto Rico, but the Mexican Spanish he heard in Tucson was different. He learned to adapt. He didn’t finish college, but in the late 1960s, he got a job in radio. “I met the owner of a radio station in Tucson and he liked my deep voice,” says Feinman. “I made a tape to audition and the next thing I knew, I was an announcer for Tucson’s first rock radio station.” The owner also had a Spanish language station. When he found out that Feinman could speak Spanish, he realized that “this kid is two for the price of one,” and had him working both stations, sometimes on the same day. “When I came to Tucson I was scared and missed my home in New York,” Feinman recalls. “To me, Tucson was like a different planet.” The Spanish-speaking community in Tucson got to know Feinman through his work in radio. “I was the only non-Mexican, Spanishspeaking person on the radio, and the Mexican American community thought I was cool,” says Feinman. “They invited me into their homes for Christmas and other special occasions — they gave me my first feeling of home and family in Tucson.” Spanish language radio provided Feinman with a good career, and in 1983, he moved to Phoenix to pursue further opportunities. He eventually acquired his own station. In 1996, he sold the station and moved back to Tucson, where he spent the rest of his career in Spanish language radio. “I have lived in Arizona for 50 years and have grown to love the Hispanic culture here,” says Feinman. “I have become
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Bob Feinman
very involved in the Hispanic communities on both sides of the border, and have been to Mexico many times.” This connection with Hispanic culture, along with his Jewish heritage, led him to his volunteer work with Humane Borders, an organization that helps to prevent deaths among migrants crossing Southern Arizona deserts. Brought up in what Feinman describes as an “ultra-Reform Jewish home,” he didn’t have the influence of observed traditions, Hebrew school or a bar mitzvah. But every year, a major event took place in the home of his Orthodox grandparents. The Passover seder was a bigger celebration than any other holiday. “My parents would tell me that I had to go to the seder, but it was hard for a kid in grade school,” says Feinman. “There was no junk food, we had to sit through what seemed to me like five hours, and I would feel half-starved while smelling all that wonderful food cooking in the kitchen. “The story in the Hagaddah was drilled into me during this annual ritual, it was my ‘formal’ Jewish training. The thing is that the story of the Exodus, the hardships of the people wandering in the desert, made a lasting impact on my life.” When Feinman first read about migrants getting lost and dying in the Arizona desert, he says, “The light of the Hagaddah went on and these stories sounded like the story told during the seder.” He decided to volunteer for Humane Borders because being Jewish connects him with the plight of these people, and because he is grateful for all the warmth and love he has received from the Hispanic community. Humane Borders, founded in 2000, is a nonprofit dedicated to humanitarian aid through maintaining a system of water stations on routes used by migrants traveling from Mexico to the United States. Their mission is to “save desperate people See Feinman, page B-10
GAIL BIRIN DAVID J. DEL GRANDE AJP Staff Writer
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o matter where she’s lived, Gail Birin says being tapped into the Jewish community has always been an essential part of her life. “I feel I’m just continuing my life’s work, the work I grew up with and the culture I grew up with,” says Birin. “The ones who are very involved are making a commitment to the community.” “And if we didn’t do this, what would the future be for the younger generation,” she asks, rhetorically. Birin was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, which she describes as “a cultural center for Judaism.” She moved to the United States with her husband, Gerald, more than 31 years ago and they always had their eyes on Arizona, Birin explains. The couple relocated to Tucson about 14 years ago. She’s a registered nurse by profession, who got her penchant for community service as a volunteer at her daughter’s elementary school in Bedford, New Hampshire. Although she earned her reciprocity for nursing in Arizona, Birin chose to focus her time and energy on volunteering when she moved to the Old Pueblo. She spent nine years as a volunteer reading coach at Donaldson Elementary School through “Reading Seed,” a Pima County tutoring program for children in kindergarten through third grade who are reading below grade level. When the countywide program decid-
ed to start charging kids have worked local schools for with me and have the service, Donmade progress,” she aldson Elementary says. “It’s just very couldn’t afford to rewarding work. pay for the proIn fact, I bounce gram and Birin out of there twice a was left without a week.” volunteer position, On Aug. 30, she explains. the Flowing Wells About six School District months later, Binamed Birin the rin leapt at the opvolunteer of the portunity to join year at Homer Dathe Homer Davis vis Elementary. “I Project, a commulike to give gifts and Gail Birin nity partnership not receive them, launched by the Jewish Federation of but I have a huge smile upon my face,” BiSouthern Arizona and Homer Davis El- rin says, adding she was elated to call the ementary School, which provides after- AJP with the news. school homework help and free reading She also serves on the Jewish Comtutoring. munity Foundation of Southern Arizona The Federation also provides 80 stu- grants committee, which distributes mildents at Homer Davis Elementary with lions of dollars to local and global organutritional food packages every weekend nizations annually. For the last six years, and during holiday breaks. Birin says, making educated decisions “This program is truly remarkable,” about how to finance various community says Birin. “The reading specialists are un- projects has been a laborious but enjoybelievable. They’re great at their positions able process. and they’re so encouraging to the children “Charity is a huge part of the Jewish and students — and the students love be- culture and being part of the mission,” ing there.” says Birin, and determining “where chariBirin spends two days a week as a table funds go into is a great feeling.” reading tutor, helping children access the Although her dance card is pretty full, personalized computer-based lessons, she says she would like to become further and leads one-on-one reading sessions, involved with the Jewish History Museshe says. um/Holocaust History Center. “I just feel so good, and so happy these About two years ago, she and her
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husband founded the Birin Family Educational Outreach Program, a proceeds commitment that pays to bus students throughout Southern Arizona to the museum in order to learn about the role Jews play in the local community, race relations, and the impact of the Holocaust. The program focuses on educating middle school children, but the center also hosts student tours for high school and college students, says Lisa SchachterBrooks, JHM director of operations. Because of the Birins’ generous gift, Schachter-Brooks says, 52 tour groups comprised of 1,700 students visited the center last year alone. The museum hopes to host 60 tour groups and about 2,300 students this year, she says. “They really helped to accelerate the growth of the program,” says SchachterBrooks. During a tour of the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2009, Birin and her husband had noticed there were children in almost every section of the museum, she says, prompting them to ask a docent why. At the time, the city was encouraging students from every grade level to visit the museum to learn about World War II, anti-Semitism, and the Jewish community, Birin explains. Helping the local Jewish museum implement a similar educational outreach has been an incredible experience, she says. “We feel very proud of it,” says Birin. “Working with children is a very strong commitment with me, and my husband feels very strongly about it too.”
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obtained a donation of bras from Bravo Boutique, including some very large size bras. When I saw the bras, I wondered if one of them would work for this particular woman. When I took it in, I happened to see her and I asked if she wanted to try it on. She looked at it and wasn’t really sure. She went away and I started doing something else. Pretty soon there was a tap on my shoulder and she said, ‘Look at this. These babies haven’t stood up like this in years!’ That woman went on to trust the system and the process, gain friends and not be ashamed of the way she looks. She found housing for herself and now does part-time work. I think she owes it all to a bra.” In addition to helping women, Kay focuses on low-income and at risk children. Kay sits on a foster care review board, which reviews 10 to 14 cases of foster children each month. This is one of 30 volunteer boards in Southern Arizona that review the case of each child in
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from a horrible death by dehydration and exposure.” Nearly 3,000 deaths have been documented by the U. S. Border Patrol for the Tucson and Yuma sectors from 1998 through 2016. Teams of volunteers regularly check water stations placed on government and private land with permission from the landowners. They are very careful to stay within the law in their efforts to save lives, and have strict rules governing volunteers. They also carry first aid kits, blankets, clothing, and food, and notify the Border Patrol if they come across migrants in need of emergency medical care. The group acknowledges that undocumented border crossing is illegal, but believes it “shouldn’t carry a death sentence.” Feinman has served as a volunteer for Humane Borders checking the water stations and trying to educate people about the crisis. He is now on the board of directors. He also has talked to migrants in an effort to warn them of the dangers of crossing the desert. “I have tried to warn people that they are being lied to by smugglers who just want their money and won’t tell them about the dangers,” says Feinman. “Sometimes after explaining the dangers people will ask for the Border Patrol and are willing to go back.” He met one woman in her 20s from Mexico, who not
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the foster care system every six months. All stake holders in the child’s life report to the board. “It’s another venue for them to express what they feel is going on. We listen and relay it to the judge who oversees the case,” says Kay. She also serves as vice-chair of the Assistance League of Tucson’s Operation School Bell, which provides school clothes or uniforms to children at 40 elementary and middle schools. “A lot of kids get helped, and that’s the name of the game. Some of these kids have never had clothes of their own, only hand-medowns. They get to pick out what they want. Sometimes that can be critical to a child,” says Kay, who puts in two to three days a week at the Assistance League during the school year. When asked if she considers her work inspiring to others, Kay answers modestly, “People have said that they look at what I do and wish they could do that. But to me, anyone can do this. I don’t know if I’ve inspired anyone. But I hope so.” Nancy Ben-Asher Ozeri is a writer and editor in Tucson.
only wouldn’t pay attention to warnings about the desert, but said she was waiting to obtain an additional $1,000 because her smuggler said he would give her a rape insurance policy. She preferred to believe the smuggler rather than Feinman. He did not see her again and does not know what happened to her. “It is all you can do not to cry when they don’t listen to you,” he says. Sometimes people complain about what Humane Borders and other humanitarian groups do to help undocumented migrants because all they can see are people who are in the United States illegally. Feinman says it took a while for him to be able to respond to such complaints without getting too emotional. “If you were out for a hike in the desert and came across someone dying of thirst, wouldn’t you try to help, or would you just leave the person to die?” he asks. People make this dangerous journey because they are fleeing the misery of poverty and are trying to find a better life. Many are fleeing a situation where their lives have been threatened. He says that the Jewish community has generously responded to this crisis with volunteers and donations. “As long as I am healthy and strong I will not stop working for Humane Borders,” says Feinman. “I do this for love of the land and the culture and to be a good member of the community and to be a good Jew.” Korene Charnofsky Cohen is a freelance writer and editor in Tucson.
ROBERTA ELLIOTT KORENE CHARNOFSKY COHEN Special to the AJP
Photo: courrtesy Roberta Elliott
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oberta Elliott’s exploration of what it means to be a refugee started when she had her bat mitzvah at the age of 60. But it really started long before that. She helps refugees because she grew up with refugees in her own family. For many years she has been involved in helping refugees and other migrants in Tucson, New Jersey and across the world. “Being Jewish compels me to help refugees because all Jews, from Abraham on, started as refugees,” says Elliott. “At my New Jersey synagogue I had an adult bat mitzvah and my Torah portion (Chayei Sarah) was about Rivka, who showed kindness to strangers by giving water to Abraham’s servant and his camels.” Elliott’s compassion for the stranger also extends from her father’s family’s escape from the Nazi regime in Europe during World War II. Family members had lived in Vienna for almost 100 years, but in 1938 her father, Franz Engel (later Francis Elliott), then 29, learned he was on the SS deportation list. “My father was a remarkable man,” says Elliott. “He engineered the family’s escape from Vienna and they went to Italy, then Switzerland then to France. My grandmother, my father and my father’s sister got out of France by crossing over the Pyrenees mountains.” Her father worked for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Lisbon, Spain. The organization helped her father and his family emigrate to the United States, and they arrived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Dec. 7, 1941 — the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Over the past two decades, Elliott has made several trips to Europe retracing her family’s escape route. “I am an only child and I had a special relationship with my father, so I traced his family’s steps through Europe to try to put myself in his place.” Elliott retired four years ago after a career working for Jewish publications and organizations. She worked for HIAS, the same organization that helped her family come to America. Founded in 1881, HIAS now helps to resettle refugees of all
Roberta Elliott sorts donated shoes for refugees in Vienna in October 2015.
faiths and ethnicities. From 1989-1993, at the height of Russian immigration to the United States, she was the HIAS director of public affairs, and from 2008-2013 she served as the vice president of media and communications. She lived in Israel for nearly five years, working as a freelance journalist, and after returning to the United States in 1985 worked for The New York Jewish Week. She also served as the national public affairs director for Hadassah for 11 years. These days Elliott and her husband, Charles Wantman, divide their year between Tucson and New Jersey. They are members of M’kor Hayim in Tucson and Bnai Keshet in Montclair, New Jersey. Elliott serves on the advisory board of the Arizona Jewish Post and is a former cochair of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New Jersey. In what Elliott describes as a “mission of mercy,” she volunteers to help refugees and to bring their plight to the public’s attention. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that there are 65 million forcibly displaced people around the world. Elliott explains that the basic refugee story is that they need to leave in a hurry, leave under the cover of night to escape and can only take one or two suitcases with them. They are trying to preserve their lives. They want safety and a good place to raise a family. “It seems that a lot of people in the Western world are not that interested in refugees,” she says. “The refugee is invisible. The only time they are not invisible
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is when they are objects of contempt. Wherever they are, the refugees are ‘other,’ they are the strangers. “I have seen their struggle and each person has her own story. They need to feel they can be in charge of their lives, but they are at the mercy of governments and agencies that don’t care about them. They deserve self-determination and dignity.” Her first “real close up and personal experience” with refugees came in 1988 when she went to Vienna on assignment for The New York Jewish Week. She followed the path of refugees from the Soviet Union, taking a train with them from Vienna to Rome. They were locked inside the train overnight. She stayed in Rome for two weeks interviewing the refugees. Since that experience Elliott has been involved in many efforts to help refugees. In New Jersey she leads a team of volunteers who are responsible for the wellbeing of a newly arrived refugee family from Syria. She also started a visitation program for refugees at the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey. In Tucson she has volunteered with the Tucson Samaritans, which is dedicated to saving the lives of migrants traveling through the Arizona desert. Nearly 3,000 deaths have been documented by the U. S. Border Patrol for the Tucson and Yuma sectors from 1998 through 2016. The Samaritans provide food, water, and emergency medical assistance. Elliott currently volunteers with the Iskashitaa Refugee Network. This organization brings together members of
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the community and refugees who get to know each other through working to harvest fruits and vegetables to help needy families meet their nutritional needs. “When the Syrian [refugee] crisis erupted in the fall of 2015, I decided to go see what was happening,” says Elliott. In October 2015 she went to Vienna because it was a transportation hub for refugees. At two train stations she helped to provide food to the new arrivals. “It was good to work with an amazing group of volunteers,” she says. “I wish my father could have seen this compassion — it wasn’t this way in 1938.” Elliott has also made two trips to Greece, which has been flooded by tens of thousands of refugees, mainly from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. In 2016, she witnessed the dire conditions in one refugee camp where 800 people were living in 150 tents. She says there was no running water and, while the army delivered food twice a day, it often spoiled in the 110-degree heat. People had to contend with scorpions, poisonous snakes, and mosquito infestations. This year she went to Athens and discovered that an organization called “Tent to Home” is helping people move out of the tent camps and into apartments. “We kept people company and tried to make them feel human,” says Elliott. “These people have left everything they’ve known behind.” Elliott’s article, “In Vienna with Syrian Refugees” (Lilith, Winter 2015-16), won a Simon Rockower first place award for excellence in social justice reporting. Her article “Easing a Brutal Journey for Migrants in Arizona,” which appeared with articles by three other authors in a section called “Crossing Borders” (Hadassah Magazine, 2016 April/May) also won a Simon Rockower first place award for excellence. The awards are given by the American Jewish Press Association. She also had photographs in an exhibit called “X is for Xenophobia” at the Steinfeld Warehouse in Tucson and the Arizona Jewish Post published her article, “In Vienna, bearing witness on the frontlines of Europe’s refugee crisis” on Nov. 20, 2015. Korene Charnofsky Cohen is a freelance writer and editor in Tucson.
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September 8, 2017, ARIZONA JEWISH POST
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, September 8, 2017