Whaley to lead U.S. mayor’s project for in yearly Israel David Moss designs Grace After Meals comictours bookofform p. p. 222
THE DAYTON Published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton
March 2019 Adar I/Adar II 5779 Vol. 23, No. 7
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Sarna leads off Beth Abraham 125th events
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Whaley to lead U.S. mayors’ project for yearly tours of Israel The U.S. Conference of Mayors
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Signing the agreement on Jan. 24 between the American Jewish Committee and The U.S. Conference of Mayors for AJC to host annual trips to Israel for U.S. mayors (L to R): Conference of Mayors Pres. Steve Benjamin, mayor of Columbia, S.C.; AJC CEO David Harris; Conference of Mayors CEO/Exec. Dir. Tom Cochran; and Conference of Mayors International Committee Chair Nan Whaley, mayor of Dayton.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has entered into an agreement for the American Jewish Committee to host a delegation of U.S. mayors on a structured tour of Israel each year. Leading the initiative for the Mayors Conference is Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, chair of the conference’s international committee. She and AJC CEO David Harris participated in the signing ceremony on Jan. 24 at the Mayors Conference winter meeting in Washington, D.C. Whaley said the Mayors Conference tested the project with two trips over the last year and a half. She chaired the second trip, in May 2018. “These kind of trips, that are really well done and full of content, help mayors understand the world more,” she says. “Cities are places with really diverse populations. And having contacts with those populations is important.” AJC will fund and present the bipartisan trips through its Project Interchange program. Melanie Maron Pell, assistant executive director and managing director of AJC’s regional offices, says the project sends thought leaders from around the word in small delegations to Israel for firsthand experiences. It aims to present leaders with “a wide range of viewpoints and expressions of what it means to know Israel,” including hightech, education, culture, and the conflict that surrounds Israel. “With a couple of those trips going really well — the mayors being really impressed with just the thoughtfulness of the content and how strong the week
was, how much they learned — the conference then said we should really offer this in partnership with AJC every year,” Whaley says. She anticipates eight to 12 U.S. mayors will join the week-long trip each year. “I will help encourage other mayors to go,” Whaley says of her role. “I’m putting together the delegation for this May.” Whaley gives much credit to Pell, who began engaging with the Mayors Conference in 2015. Pell says AJC is looking for diverse “leaders among leaders” to join the mayors trips to Israel. “The timing of the formal arrangement worked out because we’re seeing a renewal of interest in international relationships on state and local levels,” Pell says. “The lines between local and global are blurred. The mayors understand the local impact of international connections. And people who live in their cities are interested in what’s going on in Israel. We’re going to connect them to Israeli technology and how Israeli cities handle challenges.” Whaley adds that the AJC partnership marks the only formal annual international trip for the Mayors Conference. “The relationship between America and Israel is an important part of the political conservation, especially right now,” Whaley says, “and so, making sure they (U.S. mayors) get a fair assessment of the area by visiting it, I don’t think you can replace that.” — Marshall Weiss
IN THIS ISSUE Arts............................................28
N o s h e r. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 5
Calendar of Events.......................23
Opinion...............................21
Family Education............................27
Obituaries.............................30
Mr. Mazel.................................................22
Re l i g i o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
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Beth Abraham kicks off 125th with U.S. Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna By Marshall Weiss he adds. “Even in my years, The Observer they had a youth choir and that The scholar who wrote the was nationally known, and rebook on American Jewish hisally put this congregation on the tory will officially kick off Beth map for a lot of people.” Abraham Synagogue’s 125th He’ll also talk about how anniversary celebration year, Beth Abraham’s movement March 29 and 30. from Orthodox to Conservative Dr. Jonathan Sarna, professor Judaism matched what went on of American Jewish History at at numerous Jewish congregaBrandeis University, director tions across the United States. of the Schusterman Center for “It was the desire to be tradiIsrael Studies at Brandeis, and tional while at the same time acauthor of the seminal book, commodate American religious American Judaism: A History, will norms,” he says. “It’s what the lead Beth Abraham’s American Conservative movement called Jewish Experience Shabbat with tradition and change. And that three lectures over the weekend. especially played out often in According to JTA, which has synagogue seating or as they described Sarna as JTA might have called it a “rock star Jewish family seating.” historian,” students at the Reform moveThe Litvishe ment’s Hebrew shul Union College-Jewish Beth Abraham’s Institute of Religion, founders — essentialthe Conservative ly peddlers who were movement’s Jewish fairly new to Dayton Theological Seminary, — established the and Orthodoxy’s synagogue on July Yeshiva University all 25, 1894 as a Litvak study Sarna’s Ameri- Dr. Jonathan Sarna (Lithuanian) Orthocan Judaism. dox Jewish congrega“I hope to put some of the tion, distinct from Beth Jacob history of the congregation into Synagogue, Dayton’s Orthodox the context of American JudaRussishe (Russian) Jewish conism,” says Sarna, who is also gregation, and the Reform B’nai chief historian of the National Yeshurun (now Temple Israel), Museum of American Jewish which catered to German Jews. History in Philadelphia. Two months later, Beth Abra“I’d like to say something ham’s founders purchased an about what made Beth Abraeighth of an acre of land in Van ham special for so many years,” Buren Township (now in Ketter-
The Adventures of
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Bark Mitzvah Boy So pour ‘em on Purim. No schnorrin’: decorum! And nosh on the ‘tash from Shelach not Ziploch. c O 2019 Menachem
Brandeis University Prof. of American Jewish History Dr. Jonathan Sarna says the nationally-known Beth Abraham Youth Chorale, led by Cantor Jerome Kopmar — shown here in 1982 with tenor Jan Peerce in the final concert of his career — put the congregation ‘on the map for a lot of people’
ing), immediately to the west of B’nai Yeshurun’s cemetery, for its own cemetery. Sarna explains why Lithuanian Jews would want to establish their own synagogue. “There were a couple of things. First of all, there was a matter of rite,” he says. “The Lithuanians very much followed in the footsteps of Elijah of Vilna (1720-1797). They were tremendously proud of the man known as the Genius, the Vilna Gaon, and they studied him. They emulated him. If he said to do something, they did it.” Sarna emphasizes that for an immigrant, religion is an anchor in a sea of change. “You wanted a synagogue that reminded you of the way Continued on next page
From the editor’s desk Committee members organizing Beth Abraham Synagogue’s 125th birthday celebration will present several events over the year, with the theme of Recall, Rejoice, Renew. Marshall A priority of the 125th commitWeiss tee is also to repay: to give back to the general community through a social justice project. Mindful that Beth Abraham Synagogue was established by and for newly-arrived immigrants who often started out in poverty, the congregation is collecting items to donate to House of the People, a non-profit that aids Rwandan families in Dayton who seek asylum in the United States. Through March 30, Beth Abraham is collecting housewares, appliances large and small, kitchenware, non-perishable foods, winter clothes for children and adults, and children’s toys and books. For details, check with the synagogue.
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Beth Abraham
Beth Abraham Synagogue Jewish community, with moved a few blocks Hillel Academy Jewish south on Wayne Avenue Continued from previous page day school on the third to a wood-frame buildthings were done back home,” floor of Beth Abraham, ing which was washed he says. “And if you came from away in the Great Flood the Miami Valley Mikvah Lithuania, those home customs also at Sugar Camp, and of 1913. Five years later, were different than if you came congregants dedicated Chabad to the south, on from other places within the Far Hills Ave. a brick building, the Russian Empire.” And Conservative Wayne Avenue SynaThe next generation after Judaism here continues gogue, at the site. these immigrants couldn’t begin to navigate pronounced However, Jewish mito understand those differences, gration from the East End challenges of tradition Sarna adds. and change, just as it — and among German “When I tell my students does across the country. Jews who lived downAt the dedication of Beth Abraham United that it was once considered an A generation ago, town — had already Synagogue’s cornerstone, 1948 intermarriage for a Litvak to women were accepted begun. Those who could marry a Galitzianer — first of all, afford to, began moving to DayWhen it became apparent the as worship leaders and clergy. you can’t find a map of where new organization would not Today, the movement welcomes ton View, which was on higher Galicia was,” he says. “They maintain Orthodoxy, Beth Jacob those in intermarriages and ground and welcomed Jews. think it’s in Spain. Today it’s all changed course and opened its those in the LGBTQ community. But Dayton View’s Jews had divided: part of it’s in Ukraine own synagogue on Kumler AvLGBTQ people can be clergy, a substantially farther walk and part is in the Czech Repub- across the river and back to the enue in Dayton View in 1945. and Conservative clergy can oflic. Agus joined the Conservaficiate at LGBTQ weddings. East End to worship at their “It was intractable, insurtive movement’s Rabbinical The movement still stands Orthodox shuls on the Sabbath mountable, almost genetic. Assembly in 1945 (he would firm against allowing Conservaand holy days, when driving When blood donations began, was prohibited. Children had a become an important theologian tive clergy to officiate at interthere were debates: should I be in the movement) and led Beth marriages, even though as of much farther walk to Hebrew giving or getting blood from a Abraham United Synagogue, October 2018, they can attend school as well. Galitzianer if I’m a Litvak? And the merger of Beth Abraham interfaith weddings. In 1922, the Dayton View today, who remembers such and Dayton View synagogues, In 2013, the Pew Research Synagogue Center, Dayton’s things? We roar with laughter which dedicated its building Center reported that 18 perfirst Conservative Jewish inthat once upon a time that was at Salem Avenue and Cornell cent of U.S. Jews identified stitution, opened its doors on (considered) an intermarriage.” Cambridge Avenue. Unlike at Drive in Dayton View in 1949. with Conservative Judaism; its He sees this example as a sign Beth Jacob and Beth Abraham, An accommodation to Beth estimated peak was 41 percent of hope about other divisions in men and women could sit toAbraham’s Orthodox members in 1971. Judaism today and what Jews After kiddush lunch on gether in this setting, which still in the early years of the merger will think a century from now. March 30, Sarna will discuss used an Orthodox prayer book. appears to have been that Or“History reminds you that thodox services were available future trends in American JudaBy then, Conservative Judasmall matters take on signifiism — which adheres to halacha in the synagogue’s small chapel. ism, at Beth Abraham’s request. cance. They become huge symHe’ll present a cyclical rather (Jewish law) in light of historibolic issues.” than linear view of history. cal developments — occupied Across the river again “I think too many American a centrist position in American Following the migration of From the East End Judaism, to the religious left of the area’s Jewish community to Jews imagine that the history is somehow predetermined and to Dayton View Orthodoxy and to the religious the suburbs south of Dayton, Beth Abraham’s first known right of Reform Judaism. Beth Abraham moved in 2008 to all they need is some smart professor to come and tell you what location is listed in the 1895 It was in 1941 when Beth what had been NCR’s internawill happen,” he says. “And I Williams’ Dayton City Directory Abraham, Beth Jacob, and Day- tional training facility, Sugar always give the message that as in the building at the southton View Synagogue entered Camp, in Oakwood. east corner of Fifth Street and talks about merging the three For much of the 20th century, we shape our history. We make history. That’s a very important Wayne Avenue, in the heart of congregations. A year later, the Jews were generally not welmessage, especially for younger the East End, Dayton’s Eastern nascent entity hired Rabbi Jacob come to live in Oakwood. European Jewish neighborhood Agus, who was ordained at Now, with approximately 150 people to hear. And in my view, of the time. Yeshiva University (Orthodox), Jewish households, Oakwood is we’ve made our history time and time again in our country.” After 1902, Beth Abraham to lead it. an anchor of the Dayton area’s
Beth Abraham’s American Jewish Experience Shabbat with Prof. Jonathan Sarna Friday, March 29: Kabalat Shabbat Service with Dayton Jewish Chorale at 5:30 p.m. Shabbat dinner at 6:30 p.m. followed by talk, Old Faith New World. Dinner is $18 per adult, payable by March 22. No charge for ages 12 and under; babysitting available.
Key Beth Abraham clergy over the years
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Contributors Scott Halasz Rabbi Cary Kozberg Candace R. Kwiatek Advertising Sales Executive Patty Caruso, plhc69@gmail.com Proofreader Rachel Haug Gilbert Billing Jeri Kay Eldeen, JEldeen@jfgd.net 937-853-0372 Observer Advisor Martin Gottlieb Published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton Bruce Feldman President David Pierce Immediate Past Pres. Todd Bettman President Elect Joel Frydman Foundation Chair Dr. Heath Gilbert Treasurer Beverly Louis Secretary Dan Sweeny VP, Resource Dev. Mary Rita Weissman VP, Personnel Cathy Gardner CEO The Dayton Jewish Observer, Vol. 23, No. 7. The Dayton Jewish Observer is published monthly by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, a nonprofit corporation, 525 Versailles Dr., Dayton, OH 45459. Views expressed by guest columnists, in readers’ letters and in reprinted opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Dayton Jewish Observer, The Dayton Jewish Observer Policy Committee, the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton or the underwriters of any columns. Acceptance of advertising neither endorses advertisers nor guarantees kashrut. The Dayton Jewish Observer Mission Statement To support, strengthen and champion the Dayton Jewish community by providing a forum and resource for Jewish community interests. Goals • To encourage affiliation, involvement and communication. • To provide announcements, news, opinions and analysis of local, national and international activities and issues affecting Jews and the Jewish community. • To build community across institutional, organizational and denominational lines.
Rabbi Samuel Burick
Rabbi Jacob Agus
Rabbi Joseph Sternstein
Cantor Abraham Lubin
Rabbi Jack Riemer
Saturday, March 30: Shabbat services at 9 a.m. with the sermon, Revitalization Successes and Challenges. Kiddush lunch at noon followed by talk, What’s Next? R.S.V.P. for Friday dinner and/ or Saturday kiddush lunch by March 22 to 293-9520.
Editor and Publisher Marshall Weiss MWeiss@jfgd.net 937-853-0372
• To advance causes important to the strength of our Jewish community including support of Federation agencies, its annual campaign, synagogue affiliation, Jewish education and participation in Jewish and general community affairs. • To provide an historic record of Dayton Jewish life.
Cantor Jerome Kopmar
Rabbi Samuel Press
Rabbi Bernard Barsky
Cantor Andrea Raizen
Rabbi Joshua Ginsberg
Please recycle this newspaper.
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
We are thrilled to be
Opening Soon DAYTON
Lecture on Irish Why is this challah bake different & Jews at UD Sandwiched between St. Patrick’s Day and Purim, the University of Dayton will present the lecture, How the Irish Taught the Jews to Become American, with New York University Prof. of American Jewish History and Hebrew Dr. Hasia R. Diner at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 19 in the Jesse Philips Building’s Sears Hall. Diner is the author of several books about American Jewish history, with focuses on the Holocaust, race Dr. Hasia R. Diner relations, gender, and Jewish eating and culinary practices. She’ll talk about the intertwined history of Irish and Jewish immigrants in the United States and how stories of their interactions illustrate life in a multi-ethnic society. Visitor parking for the lecture is available at Lot C.
Re-Imagined
from all others?
Chabad Women’s Circle’s Mega Challah Bake will include a fashion show, Jewish Women Through the Ages, featuring local women modeling as Jewish heroines, along with narrations and music. The community-wide workshop for women — which includes desserts — will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 14 at Chabad, 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. “As we knead and bake our challah, we link ourselves in the chain of powerful women in our history,” said Devorah Mangel, co-director of Dayton’s Chabad. Participants in the Challah Bake workshop will learn braiding techniques and will take two to three challahs to bake at home, along with an apron and challah cover. The cost is $18 by March 7, $25 at the door. R.S.V.P. to Mangel at 974-8648 or chabaddayton.com.
Temple Beth Or’s Temple Israel Purim corned beef lunch sale Day of Learning Temple Beth Or will present a corned beef lunch sale from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12. Boxed lunches will be available for $15 and include a corned beef sandwich on rye, cole slaw, a pickle, brownie, and a bottle of water. Corned beef will also be available for purchase at $18 per pound. Temple Beth Or is located at 5275 Marshall Rd., Washington Township. To order in advance, go to templebethor.com.
Assisted Living
Temple Israel will host a Purim Day of Learning from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 17. Sessions will be available for all ages, from preschoolers to adults, and will include text study, discussions, arts and crafts, dancing, music, and lunch. The day of learning is free and open to the community. Childcare will be available. Temple Israel is located at 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. For more information, call 496-0050.
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Annual Women’s Freedom Seder April 4 Women from the Jewish and general community will come together at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 4 for the annual Women’s Freedom Seder, a collaboration of women from Beth Abraham and Beth Jacob synagogues, Hadassah, Temple Beth Or, Temple Israel, and the JCC. The model Passover Seder, which
sells out every year, will be held at the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. Participants are asked to bring spices, peanut butter, rice, pasta, coffee and tea for donation to House of Bread. The cost of the model Seder is $36 per person. R.S.V.P. by March 21 to 610-1555.
Call to arrange your tour today!
(937) 433-2110 BethanyAssistedLiving.org
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We’re Worth The Schlep.
THE COMPASSIONATE CARE AND
Opening of Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati Left: Ribbon cutting for the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at Cincinnati’s Union Terminal, Jan. 27 (L to R): Exec. Dir./ CEO Sarah Weiss, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, lead donors Nancy & David Wolf, Board Chair Dr. John Cohen. Right: Dayton’s Renate Frydman talks about her book, Anshel’s Story, after the ceremony.
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While on a congregational trip to Israel in February, members of Temple Israel visited celebrated Judaica artist David Moss (Center) at his studio in Jerusalem’s Chutzot HaYotzer artist colony. Moss grew up in Dayton as a member of Temple Israel. (L to R): Jerry Kuhr, Tiffany Lobertini, Linda Novak, Suzanne Shaw, Suzanne Patricia Corle, Teresa Wyman, Wanda Lane, Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz, Moss, Dianne Schreer, Peggy Weller, Adriane Miller, Richard Broock, and Gerald Broock.
THE COMPASSIONATE CARE AND CLINICAL COMPETENCE YOU DESERVE Independent Living • Assisted Living • Rehabilitation Skilled Nursing • Short Term Stays
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Jewish Agency Israel Fellow Lior Bezalel (R) listens as Galit Peleg — head of public diplomacy and academic affairs at Israel’s Consulate General in New York — speaks with Hillel at Miami University students and staff about working more closely to educate Jewish and nonJewish students at the Oxford campus about Israel.
Ira Segalewitz shares his story with students at the University of Dayton on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 28. Segalewitz survived Russian-occupied Poland and then fled the Nazi invasion of Russia, hiding in the Ural mountains with his mother.
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Trombonist Rich Begel, founder of the Miami Valley Klezmer Ensemble, leads a klezmer jam as part of the JCC’s new program, The Beat: Making Music, a series of interactive musical sessions open to all musicians and listeners. Here with Begel are (L to R): Joe Beringer, Irvin Moscowitz, Irwin Dumtschin, Joel Guggenheimer, Steve Makofka, Kristina Langer, Robbie Langer, and Charlie Pochet. Not pictured: Sammy Langer on saxophone, Jenna Greenberg on keyboard.
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
THE REGION
Lima temple vandalized by BB projectiles Police, rabbi concur: no evidence damage was an act of antisemitism
noticed about 30 marks in the temple’s windows when he arrived for a Shabbat dinner and potluck on Feb. 8. A Lima resident since 1956, he said he was surprised to see police at Temple By Jane Kaufman Beth Israel-Shaare Zedek when he arCleveland Jewish News rived. Police with Shawnee Township and “They were all around the synagogue, the city of Lima are presenting two but they were up high,” he said of the persons of interest to a Grand Jury for marks. “They weren’t down low. They potential charges following multiple looked like they were BB shots rather criminal incidents in mid-February inthan bullets because they didn’t leave volving vehicles and property shot with any holes. They left those marks in the BB projectiles — including Temple Beth window.” Israel-Shaare Zedek in Lima. Stein, a past president and member Investigators for the Shawnee Townof the synagogue’s board of trustees, ship and Lima police departments isestimated the synagogue’s membership sued a statement Feb. 15 that they deteris about 40 families. mined these incidents were connected. “We have a very good relationship In Shawnee Township, according to here in Lima,” he said. Temple Beth Israel-Shaare Zedek in Lima the statement, two vehicles, a residence, Rabbi Howie Stein — who lives in and Shawnee High School sustained BB north of Dayton. initial police report; she was dispatched Pittsburgh and commutes to the temple damage. to the synagogue on Feb. 8. “I checked twice a month and for High Holy Days Temple Beth Israel-Shaare Zedek “What can be relayed at this point is with LPD dispatch for any shots fired — said in a public Facebook post that released a statement through Dayton’s that there is no evidence that the synahas been deleted according to JTA, that Jewish Community Relations Council on in the area the night before and they gogue was targeted,” the statement indi- Feb. 17. advised there was none. I spoke with the synagogue was hit at least a dozen cated. “The synagogue was on the way the president of the temple, Constance times. “As the investigation into the acts of to a location they were traveling to.” “Friday night (Feb. 8), we prayed in vandalism against our synagogue is still Hornung, who asked for extra patrol for According to the Lima News on Feb. the business. Constance is concerned a sanctuary with three bullet holes in ongoing, the Temple Beth Israel-Shaare 15, Shawnee Township Police Chief its windows,” Stein wrote, according Zedek community would like to express that this type of action towards the Michael Keith said it appeared the syna- its most sincere gratitude to the Lima temple and the people who attend it will to JTA. “Services followed a potluck gogue and its windows were a random Police Department and Shawnee Town- continue. It is unclear if this offense was supper, in a social hall with a minyan target for the suspects. a hate crime.” of holes in its windows, brought out ship Police Department,” the statement “They would have gone right past the reads. “They have taken investigating The damage was discovered by a from a kitchen with twice as many holes temple on their way to one of the other temple worker on Feb. 8 and reported to in its window. Shabbat morning we this incident very seriously and have locations, and I’m guessing all that glass been incredibly sensitive to our needs police that night, Sgt. Jason Warren said found three more holes in the upstairs was just too tempting of a target to pass in this trying time. The support we have Feb. 11. “Juveniles with BB guns is fairly classrooms, no longer used because of up,” Keith told the Lima News. common in our area,” Warren said. the shrinking and aging nature of the received from all quarters — friends In an email on Feb. 17, the synaHe added that he couldn’t say how congregation. Thankfully, nobody was and neighbors, those near and far — has gogue’s rabbi, Howie Stein, wrote, “I many marks were shot into the southin the building at the time, and the damhelped us to begin healing from this have full confidence that the police have unfortunate experience.” facing windows. age, while emotionally and physically investigated this matter thoroughly and “It doesn’t say exactly how many,” extensive, was not significant.” The temple is a merged Conservative that this is an act of vandalism and not he said, referring to the police report. and Reform congregation. of antisemitism.” “It appeared to be damage caused by “There’s several spread across different Lima is in Allen County, about 70 windows.” The Dayton Jewish Observer’s Marshall a strong pellet gun or a BB gun,” wrote miles southwest of Toledo and 75 miles Congregant William Stein said he Weiss contributed to this report. Lima Police Officer Rachel Scott in the Facebook
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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
PAGE 7
THE WORLD
Another fight over Holocaust memory threatens warming ties between Israel and Poland By Sam Sokol, JTA JERUSALEM — It was meant to be a diplomatic triumph for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: a muchtouted diplomatic summit in Jerusalem on Feb. 18 with four Central European states. Instead, harsh words from Israel’s acting foreign minister opened a diplomatic rift threatening to severely damage Israeli-Polish relations, and the summit was cancelled. Warsaw pulled out of the meeting after Yisrael Katz, citing the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, told Israel’s Channel 13 that Poles “suckle antisemitism with their mother’s milk,” causing a national furor in both countries. Netanyahu has been promoting the meeting of the so-called Visegrad Group — an alliance of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia that represents the nationalist and conservative wing of the European Union — as heralding a nationalist bloc within the E.U. that supports Israeli policies more strongly than many in the west. However, he has also come under harsh criticism from domestic critics on both the right and the left, who have alleged that he has shown an overly
Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP/Getty Images
but nobody will change the solicitous attitude toward historical truth to do someIsrael’s Eastern and Central thing like that,” Katz conEuropean allies. According tinued. “Poles collaborated to this view, Jerusalem has with the Nazis, definitely. downplayed concerns over As Yitzhak Shamir said, they antisemitism and Holocaust suckle antisemitism with memory in favor of closer their mother’s milk.” engagement. Poland’s ambassador to Poland’s decision to pull Israel, Marek Magierowski, out, which effectively cantweeted that he was astoncelled the summit and caused ished that Katz, who is the the other Visegrad, or V4, child of Holocaust survivors, nations to downgrade their had uttered “such a shameful diplomatic visits to bilateral and racist remark.” The Polones, came after several days ish Foreign Ministry repriof furious denunciations manded Israeli Ambassador and diplomatic scrambling. to Poland Anna Azari and is Controversy began Feb. Last year, Poland adopted a controversial law that made it a crime to reported to be considering 15 when The Jerusalem Post hold Poland responsible for Nazi crimes. Holocaust survivors protested withdrawing Magierowski reported that Netanyahu, the law in front of the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv, Feb. 8, 2018. from Tel Aviv in protest. in Warsaw for a conference Katz was unapologetic, telling i24 Holocaust survivors and I was even born on the Middle East, accused “the Polish and grew up in a community made up of News that “no one will tell us how to exnation” of collaborating with the Nazis. press ourselves, or how to remember our Holocaust survivors,” Katz, a senior LiNetanyahu later clarified that he had fallen.” By early afternoon in Jerusalem not implicated the Poles collectively. The kud minister just tapped by Netanyahu the summit had been cancelled, a stunPost subsequently amended its story and as acting foreign minister, said Feb. 17. ning reversal of last year when Netan“The memory of the Holocaust is someit initially appeared that the crisis had thing we cannot compromise about; it is yahu had appeared to endorse a Polish been averted. narrative of the war years and released clear and we won’t forget or forgive. Katz’s comments, however, revived a joint statement with his Polish coun“In diplomacy you try not to offend, the diplomatic crisis. “I am a son of
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THE WORLD including greed, revenge, terror terpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, defending Poland’s wartime re- and more. We must remember to describe the Holocaust and cord. That statement was itself Polish Jewish relations in the an effort to repair ruptured ties Holocaust in a much more comafter Jerusalem condemned Poland for a controversial law that plicated manner.” Addressing the controversy made it a crime to hold Poland at a gathering of American Jewresponsible for Nazi crimes. ish leaders in Jerusalem on Feb. The release of the joint state18, Diaspora Affairs Minister ment led to an unprecedented Naftali Bennett said Jerusalem rebuke of the prime minister “deeply value(s its) friendship from the usually apolitical Yad with the Polish government Vashem Holocaust memorial. and people but we cannot in It termed the joint statement any way allow anyone to revise “an offense not only to the history. That’s not the way to historical truth, but also to the build a good relationship.” memory of the heroism of the While the Polish people were Righteous Among the Nations.” also victims of the Nazis, “they Yad Vashem has recognized also had many Poles who were over 6,800 Poles as Righteous involved in antisemiAmong the Nations tism,” Bennett told for having risked their members of the Conlives to save Jews — ference of Presidents far more than in any of Major American other country. Jewish Organizations. Netanyahu’s He went on to describe joint statement with how his wife’s grandMorawiecki last year father’s mother and also seemed to equate brothers were murantisemitism with dered near the end of animus toward Poles, Israeli Acting Foreign Minister the war by a gang of stating immediately Yisrael Katz Polish teens. after a condemnaAccording to Rafal Pankowstion of antisemitism that “both ki, a Polish academic and the governments also express founder of the Never Again Astheir rejection of anti-Polonism sociation, recent days have seen and other negative national an uptick in antisemitic sentistereotypes.” It was later rement in Poland that appears ported in the Polish press that to mirror the atmosphere that Morawiecki had emphasized prevailed last year during the that the declaration was the first to put anti-Polonism on the previous diplomatic crisis. During that period, local media enbooks as a recognized form of gaged in rhetoric seen by many discrimination. “One should read the current as antisemitic. Pankowski cited recent statements by journalist Polish reactions to Israeli exRafał A. Ziemkiewicz, a host on pressions in this context. Polish state television, who tweeted to officials stated it is racism since his 166,000 followers that “the for them Israel confirmed that worst of it is that a man cannot anti-Polonism and antisemieven hate Jews in response” tism are similar fundamental because this is what they want. hatreds. This is just one probAnother state TV personality, lematic practical consequences Jakub Pacan, announced that he of the joint declaration,” noted Havi Dreifuss, a historian of the believed that recent Israeli comments were the moral equivaHolocaust in Eastern Europe at lent of Pearl Harbor. Tel Aviv University. “We saw the dynamics last “Yet, one should also note year so we know how it works that much of what was said more of less,” Pankowski told lately in the Israeli media is JTA. “It’s a kind of spark that far from being accurate,” she activates the kind of prejucontinued. “The fact that many Poles took part in harming Jews dice and rhetoric that is ready made.” doesn’t mean that all Poles Pankowski rejected the killed Jews. And the Holoequivalence of antisemitism caust was first and foremost and anti-Polonism, saying that the product of Nazi Germany he had “never heard about anyand its murderous ideology. one in Israel believing there is Moreover, antisemitism was a Polish global plot against the one important motive for PolJewish people but I’ve heard ish readiness to harm Jews, many times in Poland people but was definitely not the only (stating) that there is a global one. Updated research and the Jewish plot against the Polish vast documentation available people.” exposed how alongside PolWhile acknowledging the ish antisemitism, Jews were complicity of “a number of harmed for various reasons,
Schudrich told JTA. “What do you want?” he replied when asked about the uproar in Poland. Katz “functionally said that all Poles are antisemites. So how do you expect the Poles to react? There are irresponsible people on both sides and when an irresponsible statement is made it empowers other irresponsible people to react. This in no way justifies antisemitism in Poland, just as it does not justify distortion of the truth by Israeli leaders.” The diplomatic spat between
Poles” in the Holocaust, the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland responded harshly to Katz’s words, saying in a statement that “accusing all Poles of antisemitism offends the Righteous; it also offends all those who today want to see in them the true representation of Polish society. And it also offends us, Polish Jews, who are a part of that society.” “One does not clarify lies by another set of lies. It is not honest (and) it is not moral to fight lies with another set of lies,” Polish Chief Rabbi Michael
Jerusalem and Warsaw also coincided with the conflict over Holocaust restitution. On Feb. 17, Prime Minister Morawiecki rejected U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s call “to move forward with comprehensive private property restitution legislation for those who lost property during the Holocaust era,” stating that the issue had been “definitely resolved.” According to the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Poland is the only European Union member without such legislation. vwwc
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THE WORLD
Veteran Israeli lawmaker Livni to exit politics 80 French Jewish gravestones By Marcy Oster, JTA JERUSALEM — Israeli lawmaker Tzipi Livni announced that she would exit politics at the end of the current Knesset term, and pulled her HaTnua party out of the upcoming national elections. The party’s recent poll numbers showed it would not make the electoral threshold to enter the next Knesset. Livni said in a news conference Feb. 18 that “We do not have enough political power to realize our principles, I will not forgive myself if votes are wasted, and today I halt the battle knowing that I did everything for my beloved country.” Feb. 21 was the deadline for parties to present their candidates list for the April 9 election. She choked back tears as Tzipi Livni she addressed her supporters. “Today I apologize to you, to every woman and man who wrote, texted, phoned, hugged me on the street and told me to be strong. I’m still strong, I still believe our way is the right way for Israel, but for now, this decision is the right one,” she said. She called for the left and the center to unite in order to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Netanyahu is attacking the media, law enforcement and the judicial system. If he is not stopped, it would be the end of democracy in Israel,” she said. “The last years have been tough, peace has become a dirty word, democracy is under attack, and having a different political position has become a curse, annexation has received more and more support, and now the one in charge is trying to take over the justice system while he attacks the media and law enforcement,” she said. Livni’s HaTnua party has six members in the current Knesset, including her. Her party merged for the last elections with the Labor Party under the name Zionist Union. On January 1, Labor head Avi Gabbay unceremoniously dissolved the partnership, blindsiding Livni with the announcement. Livni, 60, was formerly a leader in the Likud Party, later joining the centrist Kadima party upon its formation in 2005, and then heading it. She has served in Knesset since 1999, and has held several ministerial positions including Justice and Foreign Affairs. She currently serves as Leader of the Opposition.
vandalized with swastikas on day of marches against antisemitism By Marcy Oster, JTA a wave of antisemitic incidents centered About 80 gravestones at a Jewish on Paris has swept the country in recent cemetery in France were discovered weeks, spurring 14 political parties to vandalized with swastikas hours before urge a protest rally in response. The the start of marches Feb. 19 against the parties, including Macron’s La Répubrecent rise in antisemitic attacks in the lique En Marche!, and the CRIF Jewish country. umbrella group called on French citizens French President Emmanuel Mato rally Feb. 19 in Paris and several other cron visited the cemetery in the eastern French cities in demonstrations under French village of Quatzenheim, near the the banner “No to antisemitism.” border with Germany, that afternoon In response to the cemetery vandaland promised that his government ism, Israel’s immigration minister, Yoav would take action. Galant, in a tweet called on French Jews Local Jewish community representato “come home” and immigrate to Israel. tives joined Macron “The desecration of Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images as he stood in front the graves in the Jewish of the graves vandalcemetery in France is ized with blue sprayreminiscent of dark days painted swastikas in the history of the Jewand observed several ish people,” he wrote. moments of silence, Israeli Prime Minister The Associated Press Benjamin Netanyahu reported. in a statement called French police rethe vandalism “shockported the week before ing” and said French that antisemitic acts and European leaders Some of the 80 gravestones in France rose by 74 must take a strong stand vandalized in a Jewish cemetery percent in 2018 over against the “plague” of in the eastern French village of the previous year, and Quatzenheim, Feb. 19 antisemitism.
A Women’s Freedom Seder
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Thursday, April 4 6–9PM @ Boonshoft CJCE $36 per person RSVP at jewishdayton.org by March 21 for desired seating Let all who are hungry come and eat. We are helping feed the hungry in our community by collecting the following items for House of Bread: spices, peanut butter, rice, pasta, coffee, tea. Please bring these items the night of the Seder. This program is a collaboration of women from Beth Abraham Synagogue, Beth Jacob Synagogue, Hadassah, Temple Beth Or, Temple Israel and The Jewish Community Center of Greater Dayton. PAGE 10
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THE WORLD
Ilhan Omar’s antisemitism controversy explained By Emily Burack, JTA An antisemitism scandal surrounding Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., erupted mid-February. There are seemingly 10,000 hot takes and think pieces on the matter (we at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency have published our fair share), but let’s break down the “scandal” in simple terms. What actually happened? Is Omar antisemitic? Why does it seem like everyone — from Donald Trump to your grandma — is freaking out over this? Why is Israel involved?
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he wants to take. Omar then retweeted journalist Glenn Greenwald, a frequent critic of Israel who shared an article about McCarthy, adding the comment, “It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means Rep. Ilhan Omar trope. They need to be conattacking free speech rights of Who is Ilhan Omar? demned by all in our party.” Americans.” Omar, a refugee from SoDemocratic House Speaker Omar wrote six words that malia, is the newly elected Nancy Pelosi called on Omar would ignite debate: “It’s all representative for Minnesota’s to apologize, as did the whole 5th Congressional District. Her about the Benjamins baby,” Democratic caucus. Even Chelelection in November represent- adding a music note emoji to sea Clinton chimed in. the end of her tweet. ed a lot of firsts: She was the However, on the other side first Somali-American elected of the argument, many started This just could’ve been a to Congress, one of the first arguing that Omar was just reference to the Puff Daddy two Muslim women elected, pointing out the influence of song It’s All About The and the first woman of color lobbyists, that it has nothing to Benjamins. Why is it so to represent Minnesota. She’s do with the Jews. problematic? part of a wave of progressive Omar notably retweeted JewBecause that wasn’t the end women legislators elected in the ish journalist Ashley Feinberg, of the Twitter drama. midterms. who wrote, “accurately describThe Forward’s opinion ediHer views on Israel are ing how the Israel lobby works tor, Batya Ungar-Sargon, then relevant to the antisemitism is not antisemitism.” quote-tweeted Omar’s “Bendebate: Omar, more than most of her other freshman congress- jamins” tweet, writing, “Would Is calling out AIPAC love to know who @IlhanMN woman peers, has come under thinks is paying American poli- antisemitic? scrutiny for her positions on Not in theory, no. You can Israel, which include support of ticians to be pro-Israel, though criticize AIPAC without being I think I can the boycott Israel guess. Bad form, antisemitic. movement, or However, when you focus Congresswoman. BDS. That’s the second on AIPAC as the example of In 2012, antisemitic trope money in politics, or link Jewish she tweeted you’ve tweeted.” influence to deep pockets, that’s that Israel had when it becomes a problem. Omar then “hypnotized” As JTA Editor-in-Chief quote tweeted the world, which Andrew Silow-Carroll pointed Ungar-Sargon’s many thought out, “Invoking ‘AIPAC!’ as a tweet (you bought into metonym for the influence of still with us?), simply writing age-old antisemitic motifs. money in politics was a mine“AIPAC!” Omar disavowed the tweet in field, and the idea that she And so the controversy January, writing on Twitter, doesn’t know that by now — began. “It’s now apparent to me that I coming only a week after she spent lots of energy putting my apologized for her 7-year-old Why? 2012 tweet in context and little AIPAC is the American Israel ‘hypnotized’ tweet — is imenergy in disavowing the antiplausible.” Public Affairs Committee, the semitic trope I unknowingly The tweet was also techniused, which is unfortunate and most influential pro-Israel lobcally incorrect: AIPAC is not bying group. offensive.” a political action committee Many people began to call and does not endorse or give out Omar for repeating the It seems like she’s disavowed money directly to politicians antisemitic trope that Jews her antisemitic statements. influence governments through or campaigns. It does signal What’s the big deal? to supporters who might be money. Less than a month after that worthy of a donation, but its Dan Shapiro, former U.S. apology, controversy reignited self-described role is to “engage ambassador to Israel, tweeted: on Twitter. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., called for “action” “@IlhanMN’s outrageous com- lawmakers directly on the merits and substance of policy.” ments equating politicians’ against her and her fellow As Brent Sasley pointed out support for Israel with being Muslim congresswoman, Rep. bought off by American Jewish in The Washington Post, “Interest Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., while Continued on Page 13 money are a vile antisemitic being vague on what “action”
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THE WORLD
Ilhan Omar Continued from Page 11 groups have always been an important part of the policymaking process in the United States. It is normal, not nefarious, that interest groups lobby Congress, the executive and the bureaucracy to get their priorities on the agenda. Interest groups play such a role on almost every issue, and many of them are highly effective at shaping agendas and votes.” So, perhaps it was an issue that Omar singled out AIPAC — and for what it’s worth, she apologized, tweeting, “Antisemitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of antisemitic tropes.” She apologized. What’s the problem now? There are many issues, but let’s break it down into three main ones: 1. Antisemitism only seems to be a problem when the other side does it. That’s become a frequent complaint about people on both sides of the political divide. The left says the right only cares about antisemitism if a liberal or Israel critic is involved. The right says the left loves to beat up on right-wing antisemites but ignores the Jew haters in their midst. In this case, the left is calling Republicans hypocritical for focusing on Omar. Who is Kevin McCarthy to call out Omar on antisemitism, say his critics, when he once accused Jewish billionaires George Soros and Michael Bloomberg of trying to “BUY” the midterm elections? And don’t get them started on Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who got away with racially charged anti-immigrant rhetoric for years. As David Schraub wrote in JTA, “Republicans seem similarly inclined to cast stones at liberals while ignoring the literal Nazi apologists in their midst.” 2. The Democrats may, or may not, have an Israel problem. Many of the #hottakes coming out of this whole thing have focused on the Democratic Party and the 2020 elections. As Max Fisher and Amanda Taub wrote in The Interpreter newsletter for The New York Times, “A serious debate over
whether the party should recalibrate its position on Israel is all but inevitable. The infighting over Ms. Omar’s tweets, while less about Israel per se than tangential issues of lobbying and antisemitism, showed how much anger and distrust this issue can bring out.” Polls show that younger Democrats are more likely to be critical of Israel’s current government, and even Zionism in general, than the Democratic establishment. Centrist Democrats insist that the party is still solidly pro-Israel, but both Republicans and Israel’s harshest critics insist that Omar represents the “new normal” for Democratic voters and politicians. Many Democrats assert that you can still be pro-Israel and criticize the Israeli government, but they increasingly feel caught in the middle. 3. What about the American Jewish community? That’s the eternal question. For many American Jews, it feels like you have to choose between what manifestation of antisemitism you fear the most. Is it the newly empowered “alt-right,” rising white supremacy and the increasing number of hate crimes? Or do you fear the growing anti-Israel left, which wants to delegitimize the only Jewish state? Partisan politics makes it feel like American Jews have to choose, when in reality, American Jews can — and do — feel impacted by both. We can be heartbroken over Pittsburgh and frustrated by the leadership of the Women’s March. And then, there’s the internal politics of being an American Jew, aka the widening split within the liberal American Jewish community regarding Israel, which centers on one question: Is being supportive of Israel still a central tenet of American Jewish identity? Or is being “pro-Israel” — however you choose to define that — becoming a less important part of voting as an American Jew? If it’s the former, Omar’s comments are deeply upsetting and reinforce the idea that the Democratic Party’s views on Israel are drifting too far left. If it’s the latter (the “Israel isn’t important to me” camp), then Omar is simply representing the progressive view of the pro-Israel movement and being unfairly criticized for it.
Jewish Council for Public Affairs says community relations in crisis By Ron Kampeas, JTA WASHINGTON — An increase in antisemitism, an intensification of anti-Israel activity, and decades of neglect have created a crisis in the Jewish community relations field, according to the umbrella group for Jewish public policy organizations, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. In reports published at its annual Washington meeting in February, JCPA urged a radical shift among its constituent Jewish community relations councils, which advocate for Jewish issues on behalf of the Jewish community at the local level. The shift would mean engaging with other ethnic and civic groups and more assertively including Jewish voices in broader conversations about bias, Israel and a range of other issues where Jewish communities have led in the past. JCPA wants constituents to contribute toward nearly doubling its existing budget with hopes of training a new cadre of Jewish outreach officials across the country. “The Jewish community does not have the network of relationships it did with other communities and leaders it did 30
safety net, and the boycott Israel movement. The report undergirding Brown’s remarks, and a panel after he delivered them, painted a dire picture of the decline of the prominence of the Jewish voice in such issues. Factors it blamed included the widening divide between Israel and the Diaspora, the disenchantment of millennials with the norms of their elders, and the difficulties inherent in an essentially liberal U.S. Jewish community grappling with the emergence of antisemitism on the left as well as the right. The reports identified the decline of the Jewish community relations council. Such councils flourished in the years following World War II when the devastation an ocean away spurred American Jewish leaders to create a system that sought to include Jews at the forefront of framing public policy. Its success can be seen in the preeminence of Jews in the civil rights movement, the proliferation of Jewish lawmakers, and that Americans remain overwhelmingly pro-Israel. That success ate its own, one of the several reports released Continued on Page 31
David Brown co-chaired a committee examining the Jewish community relations field.
or 40 years ago,” David Brown, the co-chairman of a JCPA task force that spent a year presenting the report, said Feb. 10. “We absolutely need them.” Brown also referred to reports of a rise in antisemitic attacks and an increase in antiIsrael activity on campuses. “It’s become politically OK to say things that were certainly amped down for a generation or two,” he said. The four-day conference drew 250 professionals and volunteers. The sessions reflected the range of policy issues dealt with at the local level by CRCs, often in coalitions, including criminal justice reform, immigration, #MeToo, the social
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THE WORLD Jewish Standard
In NJ, Orthodox rabbis vote to bar colleague for training female clergy internships that are part of ordination By Larry Yudelson, Jewish Standard programs. TEANECK, N.J. — Pushing back “Roughly three quarters voted for it,” against efforts by liberal Orthodox Jews said Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz, the RCBC’s to allow women to serve as clergy, an president. Schiowitz leads Congregation Orthodox rabbinical council in northShaare Tefillah in this New York suburb ern New Jersey is preparing to oust a member for allowing a woman training and heads the Talmud department at for ordination to serve as an intern in his the Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan. He said he was among the minority that congregation. voted not to sanction Helfgot. The member is Rabbi Nathaniel “People were concerned that Rabbi Helfgot, leader of Congregation Netivot Helfgot’s association as Shalom in Teaneck. part of the RCBC gave After the Jewish Stan- In 2017, the his hiring of a female dard reported in NoOrthodox rabbinic intern some sort vember that Netivot had Union banned of endorsement from the hired Marianne Novak RCBC, which was conto be a rabbinic intern, its affiliated cerning,” Schiowitz said. the Rabbinical Council of The bylaw change Bergen County amended Modern Orthodox its bylaws to push synagogues from does not take effect until September. Netivot and Helfgot hiring women “We didn’t want to outside of its communal do anything drastic like tent. Novak is studying clergy. have somebody termifor ordination at Yeshivat Maharat. When she is ordained, she nate an agreement that was already made,” Schiowitz said. will take the title either of rabbah or of Ordaining women as clergy, chamrabbi. pioned by Yeshivat Maharat, Orthodox The new RCBC bylaws do not allow as members rabbis of congregations that feminists and the small but growing number of synagogues who have hired let women hold rabbinic positions or
the ordainees, has divided a movement whose leaders hew to a strict interpretation of gender roles under their interpretation of halacha, or Jewish law. In 2017, the Orthodox Union (L to R) Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot, Marianne Novak, banned its affiliated Modern Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz Orthodox synagogues from Writing in a blog post in The Times of hiring women clergy. The non-Orthodox Israel, Gross said that singling out HelfJewish denominations have ordained got for exclusion “seems like the bullywomen as rabbis and cantors for deing excesses of a mindless mob.” cades. Gross’s blog post brought into the The Bergen County rabbis’ council light a story that Netivot leadership had met twice to debate its response to the hoped to keep quiet. rabbinic intern. Helfgot spoke at both “The piece was not written with input meetings, Schiowitz said. Helfgot and other Netivot leaders de- from anyone in Netivot,” Gross told the Jewish Standard. “But the issues that are clined to discuss the issue with the Jewat stake here transcend the interests of ish Standard. Helfgot issued a statement both praising the RCBC as an institution one shul and women rabbis. They pale in comparison to the larger communal and expressing his “disagreement and issue, which is how our rabbinic leaders disappointment” with its decision. treat their positions and treat our comBut the decision brought sharp critimunity. cism from Yigal Gross, an attorney who “It’s absolutely out of step with the lives in Teaneck and is a member of values of our community. They basically four Orthodox congregations, among them Netivot. Last year he and his wife, took the tactics of communal ostracism Tamar Warburg, sponsored Novak’s pre- and isolation that you reserve for get decessor, Dina Brawer, who also studied (Jewish divorce) refusers and sexual at Yeshivat Maharat. Continued on Page 19
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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
Highlights JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES
CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: Avi Gilbert JCC early and Samantha Studebaker tango as Gomez childhood
and Morticia Addams at The Addams Family: Young@Part. | Community members join in for the Community Klezmer Concert. | JFS Director Tara Feiner joins Winter Camp Shalom to discuss social justice. PHOTO CREDITS: Peter Wine | Bonding over Bagels! Matilda Wagar and Scott Wagar are all smiles during JCC Early Childhood's annual Bagels and Blocks breakfast for the Mitzvah, Tzedakah and Mishpacha classes. PHOTO CREDIT: Shawna Balog
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
PAGE 15
March events JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES FRIDAY 1
SATURDAY 2
SUNDAY 3 MEN'S EVENT A Taste of History: Bourbon & Jewish Dayton 3–5PM @ MudLick Tap House (135 East 2nd Street, 45402) Schmooze and nosh as we enjoy a guided bourbon flight and learn about Dayton Jewish history from speaker Marshall Weiss. RSVP by February 25 online or to Juliet Glaser at 937-401-1558. $20/per person.
TUESDAY 5 JFS Lifting the Weight of the World Off your Shoulders 12–1PM @ Beth Abraham (305 Sugar Camp Cir, 45409) Mindfulness and chair stretches to reduce stress with Joanna White, Director, Womanline and Chief Richard Biehl. Lunch provided. RSVP by March 1. Part of our Head Shoulders Knees & Toes series.
WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY 7 6 8
SUNDAY 10 CCJ ylrae doohdlihc
SATURDAY 9 PJ LIBRARY Shabbat on the Road 10AM @ Temple Israel (130 Riverside Dr., 45405 ) All PJ Library and PJ Our Way families are invited to join us for a casual, fun service as we take Shabbat on the Road to get ready for Purim! Enjoy Kiddush lunch following at noon.
JCC EARLY CHILDHOOD BOOK FAIR @ Boonshoft CJCE Or shop online at scholastic.com/bf/djccearlychildhood now–March 17!
RSVPs due at least 1 week before event. Events with no price listed are free. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO RSVP (unless noted): 937-610-1555 www.jewishdayton.org
FRI 15
THURSDAY 14 JFS Purim Program 2:30–3:30 PM @ One Lincoln Park (590 Isaac Prugh Way, 45429) Purim celebration with Cantor Andrea Raizen.
WEDNESDAY 20 YAD & CHABAD Purim Party 7:45–10PM @ Therapy Café (452 E 3rd St., 45402) Purim Party for ages 21–35. Come join us for the Megillah, drinks, and a party to remember! In partnership with Chabad Young Jewish Professionals.
PAGE 16
TUESDAY 5 JCC Basic CPR Information Class 6–7:30PM @ Boonshoft CJCE Learn basic CPR for infants, children and adults. CPR certification not provided. RSVP by March 4.
MONDAY 11
THURSDAY 14 ACTIVE ADULTS Dine Around 12–1:30PM @ Carillon Brewing Co. (1000 Carillon Blvd, 45409) Lunch cost on your own.
MONDAY 4 JCC Maccabi Informational Meeting 6–7PM @ Boonshoft CJCE Learn about the Games and ArtsFest in Detroit this summer. Informational meeting for athletes (ages 12-16) and artists (ages 12–17.) Bring a parent. Please RSVP by Friday, March 1.
THU 21
FRI 22
C•L•A•S•S•E•S @ the J Krav Maga Tuesdays, 6:15–7:15PM March 19, 26 and April 2, 9 Instructor Ehud Borovoy teaches this form of self defense first developed by the Israeli Army. Learn these techniques to help you feel safer and more confident. Ages 14 and older. $10/per session. Registration required at least 24 hours prior to class.
SAT 23
TUESDAY 5 PJ LIBRARY & HILLEL Bedtime Yoga 6:30–7:30PM @ Boonshoft CJCE Kids and grownups come in your pajamas and wind down with a story, a calming yoga routine, and a bedtime snack. SATURDAY 9 JCC A Night in Vegas 7:30–11:30PM @ Boonshoft CJCE What happens at the JCC, stays at the JCC at our annual fundraiser. There's something for everyone, ages 21 and up! See page 32 for more information.
TUESDAY 12 JCC The Beat: Making Music @ the J 6:30–8PM @ Boonshoft CJCE Listen and/or play at our monthly series for anyone who loves music. This month's focus is Folk Music facilitated by Irv Moscowitz. RSVP by March 11.
SAT 16
SUN 17
MON 18
TUESDAY 19 JFS Purim Program 1:45–2:45PM @ Spring Hills Singing Woods (140 E Woodbury Dr, 45415) Purim celebration with Courtney Cummings.
SUNDAY 24 JCRC From Civil Discourse to Critical Conversations 2–5PM @ Boonshoft CJCE Afternoon colloquium on conducting more civil, productive conversations on divisive issues. $10.
THU 28
FRI 29
SAT 30
SEE YOU IN APRIL!
WEDNESDAY 13
MON 25
TUE 26
WED 27
SUNDAY 31 GRADES 6–12 J-Serve 2019 A day of service for Jewish youth. This program can be used as volunteer hours for National Honor Society or other school requirements. Contact Meryl Hattenbach for more information.
APRIL 1 INNOVATION GRANT APPLICATIONS DUE Applications for the 2019–2020 Innovation Grant cycle are now being accepted. Please contact Jodi Phares at 937-610-5513 or jphares@jfgd.net to request an application. Award announcements made in May. THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
Announcements JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES
Did YOU know?
SCHOLARSHIP & INTEREST FREE STUDENT LOANS Applications are available for the following scholarships: COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP: Since its creation in 2006, the Vicky & Robert Heuman Scholarship has been awarded annually to an undergraduate or graduate student who demonstrates both academic achievement and financial need. The scholarship is open to Jewish Dayton area residents. Deadline for application materials is March 22. Award will be announced on April 12. INTEREST FREE STUDENT LOANS: Student loans are available courtesy of the Lillian E. Finn Memorial Student Loan Fund and the Cantor Student Loan Fund for undergraduate or graduate students who are Jewish Dayton area residents. Deadline for application materials is March 22. Loans will be announced on April 12.
$78,550 scholarships awarded for residential summer camp, travel to Israel, and college scholarships through Jewish Foundation
If you have any questions, or would like to request an application, please contact Alisa Thomas athomas@jfgd.net or at 610-1796. Applications for Residential Camp and Travel to Israel Scholarships are due February 28. Awards will be announced on March 22. Are you caring for a loved one who is not in the Greater Dayton area? Please do not hesitate to contact JFS to find services and supports provided by Jewish agencies nationwide.
of Greater Dayton funds since 2013
A Biss'l Mamaloshen Helfn
Don’t know what to donate in the Food Barrels? How about... non-perishable, non-expired meat and protein sources?
| HELF-en | verb: To help, aid, assist, remedy;
further; do good. Expressions with Helfn : 1 Ribboynoy shel Oylem, helf mir zikh oyftsuheybn; arunterfaln ken ikh
› canned meats or fish › nuts and seeds › rice and beans Need Assistance Finding a Food Pantry Near You? Call the United Way Information & Referral Line, (937) 225-3000 or Dial 2-1-1.
aleyn. Master of the Universe, help me to get up; I can fall down all by myself. 2 Az men ken nisht helfn a fraynd mit gelt, zol men im khotsh helfn mit a krekhts. If you can't help your friend with money, at least utter a sympathetic sigh. 3 Es vet helfn vi a toytn bankes. It will help like suction cups for a corpse (i.e., not at all; the guy is dead, so letting blood from him won't save him). 4 Keyn dokter zol im nisht helfn! May no doctor (be able to) help him!
Legacies, Tributes, & Memorials FEDERATION
THE RESILIENCE SCHOLARSHIP FUND IN MEMORY OF › Dan Weckstein Bella Freeman HOLOCAUST PROGRAMMING FUND IN HONOR OF › Renate Frydman as the keynote speaker at the Opening of the Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati Cathy Gardner IN MEMORY OF › David Hochstein Bernice Bomstein Jan Maharam Dr. Jeffrey Kleinman DOROTHY B. MOYER YOUNG LEADERSHIP FUND IN MEMORY OF › In memory of Robert Moyer › In Yarzeit memory of Sheila D. Moyer Marcia and Richard Moyer and Family
OBSERVER ENDOWMENT FUND IN MEMORY OF › David Hochstein, father of Dr. Gary Hochstein Harriet and Don Klass JCC
JOAN AND PETER WELLS AND REBECCA LINVILLE FAMILY, CHILDREN AND YOUTH FUND IN MEMORY OF › Eugene Rose, father of Stuart Rose › Fred Scheuer, father of Elaine Arnovitz Joan and Peter Wells CANTOR JCC FUND IN MEMORY OF › David Hochstein Elaine and Joe Bettman Ruth Meadow HERTA G. & EGON F. WELLS CHILDREN’S FUND IN MEMORY OF › Linda Boonshoft Joan and Peter Wells
JFS
JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES IN MEMORY OF › Millie Simon Kotler, mother of Alan Berman › David Hochstein, father of Dr. Gary Hochstein › Edith Recht Aberte, mother of Sandy Schoemann › Marlene Carne, mother of Richard Carne Judy Lipton › David Hochstein, father of Dr. Gary Hochstein Beverly and Jeffrey Kantor › Eugene Rose, father of Stuart Rose Susan and Joe Gruenberg Mimi Stewart › Fred Scheuer, father of Elaine Arnovitz › Alice Saidel’s sister Susan and Joe Gruenberg › Lora Krongold, mother of Helen Markman Harriet and Don Klass
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE DISCRETIONARY FUND IN MEMORY OF › Eugene Rose, father of Stuart Rose › Fred Scheuer, father of Elaine Arnovitz Cathy Gardner ACTIVE ADULTS IN MEMORY OF › Eugene Rose, father of Stuart Rose Barbara Hollander and Joe Hollander *Of Blessed Memory FOUNDATION
JEREMY BETTMAN B’NAI TZEDEK FUND IN MEMORY OF › Eugene Rose, father of Stuart Rose › Irwin Roberts › Fred Scheuer, father of Elaine Arnovitz Jean and Todd Bettman
PAGE 17
Upcoming events JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON & ITS AGENCIES
PURIM WITH JFS Celebrate Purim with a musical program and noshes!
CRITICAL
conversations
Thursday, March 14 2:30-3:30 PM @ One Lincoln Park (590 Isaac Prugh Way, 45429) Purim celebration with Cantor Andrea Raizen from Beth Abraham Synagogue.
Handling the Emotional Burden of Rising Antisemitism
Tuesday, March 19 1:45-2:45PM @ Spring Hills Singing Woods (140 E Woodbury Dr, 45415) Purim celebration with Courtney Cummings, Music and Program Director at Temple Israel.
February 27 7–8:30PM
@ Boonshoft CJCE
RSVP TO KAREN STEIGER @ (937) 610-1555 BY MARCH 7.
Bedtime Yoga
JEWISH COMMUNITY
Relations Council
Take part inofaGreater community-wide discussion of how we Dayton
Tuesday, March 5, 6:30–7:30PM @ Boonshoft CJCE Kids and grownups come in your pajamas and wind down with a PJ Library story, a calming yoga routine, and a
handle the emotional toll of rising antisemitism in our JEWISH COMMUNITY country, featuring a panel of local experts. No cost.
Relations Council
of Greater Dayton RSVP at jewishdayton.org or to 937-610-1555.
JEWISH COMMUNITY
Relations Council of Greater Dayton
JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES of GREATER DAYTON
bedtime snack. Yoga led by our own PJ Library mom and yoga instructor, Elissa Dinsmore!
Early Childhood is now enrolling for the 2019-2020 school year! Registration open now to currently enrolled families. New family registration will begin on
RSVP by February 26 at jewishdayton.org or 937-610-1555.
February 26. Contact Audrey MacKenzie, Early Childhood Director, at (937) 853-0373 or amackenzie@jfgd.net
& PAGE 18
for more information or to schedule a tour. THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
JCC ear chi
THE WORLD
Orthodox female clergy
with the normative Orthodox institutions like the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union. The RCBC is Continued from Page 14 saying we want to be a traditional, normative, consensusdeviants and have employed type Orthodox organization. If it against people who disagree with their views,” he said. Men you want to be a trailblazer and who refuse their wives a get are do things that are not normative, that is your choice, but that often ostracized by local rabwould be outside of the RCBC.” binic authorities. What would Schiowitz say to “Never did I imagine that the teenage girls who look to Yeshireaction to the Maharat interns vat Maharat and its students as would be this,” Gross said. “I role models? expected scholarship arguing “Why would you want to against it. Instead of scholargo into the field of being an ship, what our community got Orthodox clergy member when was cowardice and bully tacthe O.U. and the RCA are optics. The community shouldn’t posed to it?” he said. “There accept it. This is something we are a lot of places for women to see in haredi communities, not take important leadership roles in the Modern Orthodox. in the Orthodox community. In “This is not about members the normative Orthodox comof the RCBC having to accept munity, it will be framed as an or support the idea of woman educator, scholar-in-residence rabbis. Nobody ever asked or or yoetzet halacha,” a woman should ask them to do that. who answers questions from “Netivot was on the receivother women, mainly about ing end of what happened this intimate matters. time. Next time it could be a Schiowitz took pains to say different shul. Once our comthat none of this was personal. munity accepts that our rabbis “There’s a lot of warmth can use our communal instituand respect for Rabbi Helfgot tions this way, everyone is fair personally,” he said. “The hope game.” Schiowitz said the RCBC was would be that he would stay in the RCBC. The question is not trying to tell Netivot what going to be what they will do to do. next year.” “Netivot is an independent While Helfgot’s statement organization and its members did not explicitly say what have the right to make their own decisions for themselves,” the synagogue will do when it comes to choosing next he said. “In the same way, the year’s intern, it did say that RCBC is an independent orgathe congregation “has always nization and its members have been a leader and pioneer in the right to define itself and its expanding the opportunities for bylaws. I believe that our deciwomen” and gave no indication sion was the result of thoughtout, transparent and democratic that he wants to change that. In his statement, Helfgot process in which all members praised members of the rabhad a voice. binical council and Schiowitz in “It’s not the same as sayparticular as “devoted spiritual ing you’re not Orthodox. The leaders.” RCBC sets its own standards,” “It is thus, with pain and Schiowitz said. “The majority sadness, that I must express of the RCBC members identify
Rachel Booth & Jeff Peterson my strong disagreement and disappointment at the RCBC’s recent vote to adopt a bylaw that would restrict the rabbinic authority and autonomy of its members, beginning in Sept. 2019, on learned and committed women serving in spiritual leadership roles or being trained for those roles in the synagogue context,” he wrote. “This is an issue that has been and continues to be in vigorous debate in the ModernOrthodox community. In the last decade a range of views has been articulated by various rabbis and scholars, both here and in Israel on the fundamental issue. As such different communal models have emerged as to the practical implementation of including learned women in spiritual and Torah leadership. For many decades, the informal policy of the RCBC has been to allow each member to reach the best halachic and public policy decisions for that rabbi’s individual shul and its members on matters of dispute within the Modern Orthodox community and this decision is a shift away from that norm.” Helfgot added: “I was hired by the members of Congregation Netivot Shalom to be its rabbi, religious leader and spiritual guide in matters of halacha and public policy. I have attempted to fill this role, to the best of my ability, in accordance with Torah and halachic principles as applied in the context of my individual community. Netivot Shalom has always been a leader and pioneer in expanding the opportunities for women to enhance their avodat Hashem (service to God), explore their educational, intellectual and religious heritage and take on meaningful communal and spiritual leadership roles, within the guidelines of halacha in all its majesty and breadth.”
Louis Farrakhan accuses ‘wicked Jews’ of using him to ‘break up the women’s movement’ Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan blamed “the wicked Jews” for the crisis over antisemitism and the Women’s March. “The most beautiful sight that I could lay eyes on (was) when I saw, the day after Trump was elected, women from all over the world were standing in solidarity, and a black woman is the initiator of it,” said Farrakhan, referring to Tamika Mallory, a leader of the Women’s March who has lionized Farrakhan and refused to condemn his pervasive antisemitism. “The wicked Jews want to use me to break up the women’s movement,” Farrakhan continued on Feb. 17 during his address at the Nation of Islam’s Savior’s Day conference in Chicago. He also praised Mallory’s co-organizers Linda
Sarsour, a Palestinian American who has been highly critical of Israel, and Carmen Perez, who reportedly made antisemitic comments at Women’s March planning meetings. Activists and community leaders, Jewish and non-Jewish, have distanced themselves from the march and called on the national organizers to step down over claims that they have not done enough to disavow antisemitism. During his address, Farrakhan returned to antisemitic tropes and bashed Israel. Several thousand people attended the speech. Farrakhan was preceded by Holocaust denier Michael A. Hoffman II, who suggested that ancient Jewish texts are equivalent to teachings “from the church of Satan,” according to the ADL. — JTA
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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
PAGE 19
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Informative session prepareDr., your 525to Versailles Centerville preschooler for kindergarten. Dinner Kids and grownups — come in your pajamas served 5:30–6. Concurrent programming and wind down with a PJ Library story, a for children. No charge. RSVP required calming yoga routine, and a bedtime snack. for children Wednesday, 10, at Yoga isby led by instructorOctober Elissa Dinsmore. jewishdayton.org or 937-610-1555. in partnership with in partnership with PAGE 20
daytonhillel.org 937.277.8966 dkmecoli@daytonhillel.org THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
OPINION
When right & left fight over antisemitism, Jews caught in middle By David Schraub I lived in Minnesota for five years. My wife is from there. When we return to visit, we have to reckon with a frightening reality: My in-laws’ newly elected congressional representative is deeply implicated in antisemitism. We are not dealing with minor missteps that can be overlooked. We’re dealing with a person who, when asked what motivated Sen. Joe Lieberman’s vote for the Iraq war, boiled it down to a simple question: “Jew or Arab?” A person who ran campaign ads stating that the opponent was “owned” by wealthy Jewish financial backers. When the representative was elected in November, we could no longer avoid confronting antisemitism from our representatives in Congress. I’m referring to Rep. Jim Hagedorn — a Republican representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District. Was that not the lawmaker you thought I was talking about? You thought I was talking about Rep. Ilhan Omar, who recently came under fire for claiming that attacks on her by GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy regarding anti-Israel statements that allegedly crossed into antisemitism were actually motivated by “the Benjamins” (that is, big money) and “AIPAC!” (She has since apologized.) Like any elected official, Omar deserves to be held accountable for her statements. We must call out politicians on the left and the right who twist ancient antisemitic tropes to win votes and vilify our own. But it’s important to notice the hypocrisy in allowing those with a terrible track record on antisemitism or any form of bigotry to co-opt the conversation. We can’t allow the loudest voices on both sides of the political spectrum to shout over the vast majority of Jews. For Jews who are Democrats (the vast majority of Jewish Americans), it’s been hard to keep track of where Omar stands on Israel and antisemitism. In August, she went to a synagogue and expressed her opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — only to flip-flop after the election and endorse BDS. An old tweet accusing Israel of “hypnotizing” the world was dug up, and for a while Omar dug in. But then she apologized with one of the single best responses to antisemitism allegations that I’ve ever seen from a non-Jewish politician. And yet, too soon after that, she was “chuckling” at how we can call Israel a democracy when we attack Iran for being a theocracy. And then came the “Benjamins” comment. She asserted that McCarthy, who has threatened to take action against her and Rep. Rashida Tlaib because of their positions on Israel, was only making a fuss because “AIPAC!” is paying him to do so. Others have explained how the last comment raises antisemitic tropes (and misrepresents how AIPAC operates). But that’s only half the story. Even those who have been sharply critical of Ilhan Omar see that many of her critics are not exactly equal opportunity in their attentions. Few politicians implicated in antisemitism receive the torrent of scrutiny and the ceaseless pile-ons that Omar endures from the right. Examples of mainstream right-wing antisemitism abound. Central to the 2016 Republican campaign playbook was to cast the Democratic Party as in the pocket of Jewish financiers pushing an agenda of “globalism,” open borders, and foreign invasion. President Donald Trump pointed out the neo-Nazi marchers included some “very fine people” in Charlottesville and used “sheriff’s stars” that looked like Jewish stars to vilify Hillary Clinton on his campaign literature. Indeed, a bevy of Republican politicians — includ-
So, what do you think? Send your letters (350 words max., thanks) to The Dayton Jewish Observer, 525 Versailles Dr. Dayton, OH 45459 • MWeiss@jfgd.net
ing Rep. Matt Gaetz, Sen. Chuck Grassley, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rudy Giuliani, and Hagedorn — have promoted Soros-centered antisemitic dog whistles and have received nowhere near the attention that Omar gets. Gaetz even brought a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union. There’s not a lot of mystery as to what makes Omar stand out in the crowd. There is a familiarity to Omar’s case — needing to acknowledge genuine wrongs worthy of critique, but also needing to acknowledge that obsessive focus on these wrongs stems from baser instincts. The real parallel of how we talk about Muslim women like Omar is to how we talk about Israel itself — where real misdeeds and wrongdoings nonetheless cannot explain or justify the never-ending torrent of abuse, opprobrium and conspiracy theorizing. McCarthy may not be scrutinizing Omar’s behavior for financial reward, but what right has he to accuse anyone of antisemitism after tweeting that George Soros was trying to “buy” the 2018 elections just days after a bomb was planted at Soros’ house? Other Republicans seem similarly inclined to cast stones at liberals while ignoring the literal Nazi apologists in their midst. Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is Jewish, has been almost singlemindedly harassing Omar, demanding she condemn antisemitic conduct with which she had absolutely no association, including asking if she “disagreed” with a hate-filled antisemitic voicemail that lamented the failure of the Nazis to finish their extermination of the Jews. Omar’s never said anything that could be remotely construed as expressing sympathy for Hitler. Yet in Zeldin’s own party, from Trump’s praise of “alt-right” protesters to Rep. Steve King’s endorsement of a farright nationalist party founded by a former SS member to Candace Owens’ declaration that Hitler would’ve been fine if he’d contained himself to Germany, Nazi sympathizing remains a decidedly Republican phenomenon. The entitled demand Omar must nonetheless answer for literal Nazi apologists smacked of Islamophobia and racism. Omar’s graceful reply to Zeldin’s unreasonable haranguing was more impressive when you remember Zeldin was a public backer of Trump’s Islamophobic Muslim ban. Those in bigoted glass houses should not throw stones. The bigotry and antisemitism of these conservative politicians doesn’t excuse Omar’s. But we excuse a lot of antisemitism and bigotry; who gets a pass or a day’s worth of bad press versus who remains forever under the microscope is neither random nor innocent. Some have been calling out the double standard. Rep. Max Rose, a Jewish Democrat among the first to condemn Omar’s antisemitism, lit into the media for gobbling up the Omar story while displaying no interest in covering antisemitism by McCarthy and other Republicans. Omar apologized and has been responsive to Jewish concerns. McCarthy and his ilk remain unrepentant. Who really deserves more ire? There is frustration in the Jewish community over how little our efforts on this score seem to matter. Our public discourse about antisemitism seems almost immune to being influenced by what the actual Jewish community wants to talk about. Most Jews are politically left of center. We welcome a more robust, nuanced conversation about Israel entering American politics — including the need to mobilize to counteract Israel’s increasingly right-wing drift. But we don’t endorse those who wish to wipe Israel off the map, and we see the trap when Jewish participation in American politics is cast as “proof” we exert a nefarious sway over the polity. When liberal members of Congress evoke antisemitic tropes, we have no desire to let them go unchallenged.
Neither do we have any interest in having our criticisms lumped with cynical, hypocritical denunciations from the political right. We understand the most tangible threats to Jewish lives and livelihoods in America — the antisemitism that sheds actual blood in America — emerges from the political right, including (especially via Soros conspiracies) the mainstream Republican Party. But we also claim special pain at antisemitism coming from inside our political community — an antisemitism that hurts us directly because it comes from those we are in coalition with. There is no conceptual difficulty in holding these positions together. But to the extent these distinctions are impossible to maintain in practice, the net effect is that most Jews are silenced. We may speak the words, but they go unheard. For all the talk about the Israel Lobby, the clearest takeaway is the striking disempowerment of the Jewish community. Spoken about and spoken over, the Jewish community is being systematically stripped of our ability to contribute to the dialogue happening over our own lives. We are “represented,” if you can call it that, by Glenn Greenwald on the one side and Lee Zeldin on the other, both of whose elevated stature in public discourse about Jews is almost exclusively a feature of gentile, not Jewish, interests. In a real way, Omar’s conservative critics and progressive defenders stand in a symbiotic relationship: They are united in their desire to silence the message most Jews want to send. The right insists on condemning the Democratic Party and any progressive conversation about Israel as institutionally antisemitic, never mind that most Jews are committed Democrats and often share the progressive critique of Israel’s rightward drift that Republicans are so eager to tar. Many of Omar’s progressive defenders, for their part, are happy to simply dismiss all talk of left-wing antisemitism as conservative agitprop. It makes for a crushing feeling of powerlessness. The nation is having a conversation about Jews virtually impervious to the input of Jews themselves. This, above all else, is what makes so many Jews want to scream in frustration. The right loudly proclaims it’s standing up to antisemitism — but Jews know their 24/7 Omar coverage does us no favors, and that in any event, conservative solidarity with Jews runs out precisely at the point it requires challenging the sort of antisemitic conspiracy mongering that gets Jews shot. The left self-righteously insists that it is saving its ammunition for combating the “real antisemitism” — but Jews have long seen that for too much of the left, cases of “real antisemitism” beyond the most obvious murderous varieties seem almost as elusive as O.J.’s “real killer.” Both sides silence Jews in the guise of allyship. Both sides need to step back and knock it off. We need to break this pattern at its root. That means taking Jewish testimony seriously and resisting the impulse to dismiss efforts to combat antisemitism — including antisemitism related to Israel — as hasbara. And it equally means calling out those who purport to be allies in the fight against antisemitism, but in reality use antisemitism for political purposes while further marginalizing the Jewish community the moment we’re inconvenient to the ideological narrative. In short, we need to have a conversation about antisemitism. But we also need to have a conversation about how, when we talk about antisemitism, we seem to always talk about Ilhan Omar and never about Jim Hagedorn. David Schraub is a lecturer in law and senior research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He blogs regularly at The Debate Link.
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
PAGE 21
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THE MARVELOUS MR. MAZEL Unintended coincidences helped make for a pretty good book written by Samuel Dorf, associate professor of musicology at UD. Performing Antiquity: Ancient Greek Music and Dance from Paris to Delphi, 1890-1930, released
Scott Halasz
the music, dance, and classics nerds, Sam says. He’ll give a public talk about the book at the Downtown Dayton Metro Library from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 30. “This is the best book ever written and everyone should buy 10 copies,” Sam says with a laugh.
Danielle Rastetter was Dayton Ballet dancer & Dayton Dance Initiative founder Jocelyn Green named All Ohio 2018 female champion of Saturday, May 18. According to in 2018, tells the captivating sprint aquabike and a series Jocelyn, this will mark the first story about some of the most champion tritop by HFP racing. time dancers of Dayton Ballet intriguing characters involved Aquabike is a swim and bike and Dayton Contemporary in ancient Greek music and combination race. Dance Company come together dance in the late 1800s and to collaborate on a program of early 1900s. Sam is also a Coolidge Wall law firm new dance works. dance historian. Ironically dedicated the Jonas J. enough, Sam’s research for Gruenberg Board Room in Rabbi Tina Sobo, assistant the book led to Dayton and a January to honor Joe’s 49 years rabbi and educator at Temple Jewish connection. One of the of service, mentorship, and Israel, added a few more letters book’s central subjects, Natalie leadership to the firm. to her name. She recently Clifford Barney — part of the received her certification as family that owned the Barney Dayton Ballet dancer Jocelyn Reform Jewish Educator. & Smith Car Company — was Green has founded a new The Reform Jewish Educator a Daytonian expatriate living in performing arts group, the Title-Granting Commission Paris. Her maternal Dayton Dance comprises representatives from grandfather was Initiative, to the American Conference of Samuel Pike, who extend Dayton’s Cantors, the Association of operated Pike’s professional dance Reform Jewish Educators, the Opera House in season. “I have Central Conference of American Cincinnati before been an active part Rabbis, Hebrew Union Collegemoving to New of Dayton’s dance Jewish Institute of Religion, and York, where he community for the the Union for Reform Judaism. opened the Grand past five years as a Opera House in member of Dayton They’re creepy and they’re 1868. That opera Ballet,” she explains. kooky, mysterious and spooky... house was around “Our mission is to The cast of the JCC Children’s Sam Dorf and his new the corner from provide Dayton Theatre’s The Addams Family book where Sam’s artists a platform put on a pair of shows at Stivers brother, Ben, lives. Barney’s to collaborate and create, while School for the Arts and did a maternal great-grandfather broadening Dayton’s interaction phenomenal job. Mazel tov to was a Jew of German descent. with dance.” Now in its early Alexis, Brianna, and Caitlyn “It’s a completely happy fundraising stage, Dayton Becker, Emily Burns, Eleanor accident,” Sam says of all the Dance Initiative will present Claggett, Eli Dowlar, Savannah related moving parts. The book Making Moves at the PNC Arts Earich, Zain Gaber, Liam is an easy read for all, not just Annex at 2 and 7:30 p.m. on Garrett, Avi and Chava Gilbert, Elior and Ranon Ginsberg, Lior and Ruth Glaser, Jonah Halasz, Michael Hunter, Shoshana Krummel-Adkins, Yiyi Li Kudera, Andreas Meira, Ellison Peace, Emma Rife, Eleanor Scarbro, Bethany Scearce, Cooper Schairbaum, William Staley, Samantha Studebaker, and Jerry Matthew (JM) Ward. Mazel tov also to the show’s creative team: Director Richard Lee Waldeck, Music Director Brett Greenwood, Choreographer Tamar Fishbein, and Production Assistants Jamie Pavlofsky and Eleanor Beringer. Send your mazel tov items to Scott Halasz at scotthalasz1@gmail.com or to The Dayton Jewish Observer, 525 Versailles Dr., Dayton, OH 45459
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
CALENDAR OF EVENTS Classes
Temple Beth Or Classes: Sun., March 10, 11:15 a.m.: Makor Adult Ed. w. Rabbi Ballaban. Thurs., March 14, 1:30-3:30 p.m.: Chai Mitzvah class. Sun., March 17, 11 a.m.: Tanakh w. Rabbi Chessin. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 435-3400. Temple Israel Classes: Sun., March 17, noon: Antisemitism Then & Now. Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m.: Musar. Wednesdays, noon: Talmud. Saturdays, 9:30 a.m.: Torah Study. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 496-0050. Tuesdays @ the J: March 12, 6:30 p.m.: The Beat: Making Music. Folk Music w. Irv Moscowitz. Free. March 19 & 26: 6:15 p.m.: Krav Maga w. Ehud Borovoy. Ages 14+. $10 per session. 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. R.S.V.P. to 610-1555.
Discussions
Temple Israel Ryterband Brunch Series: Sundays, 9:45 a.m. $7. March 3: Rabbi Sam Joseph, HUC-JIR, The American Synagogue 2019: Will it Survive? March 10: Sam Lauber, Je M’appelle Dede (My Name is Sam). 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 496-0050.
Family
PJ Library & Hillel Bedtime Yoga: Tues., March 5, 6:30 p.m. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. R.S.V.P. to 6101555. PJ Library Prayer & Play: Sat., March 9, 10 a.m. Temple Israel, 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 4960050. Pizza lunch to follow.
Children & Youths
JCC Maccabi Informational Meeting: Mon., March 4, 6 p.m. Learn about the Games & ArtsFest to be held in Detroit this summer. Bring a parent. R.S.V.P. by March 1 to 610-1555. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville.
Young Adults
YAD & Chabad Young Jewish Professionals Purim Party: Wed., March 20, 7:45-10 p.m. At Therapy Café, 452 E. 3rd St., Dayton. For ages 21-35. Pay your own way. R.S.V.P. to Cheryl Carne, 610-1778.
Women
Chabad Women’s Circle Mega Challah Bake: w. Jewish Women Through the Ages fashion show. Thurs., March 14, 7 p.m. Chabad, 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. $18 by March 7, $25 at door. Includes dessert, apron, challah cover & challah to take
& bake at home. R.S.V.P. to Devorah Mangel, 974-8648.
Men
Chabad Men’s Club Bagels, Lox & Tefillin: Sun., March 3, 9:30 a.m. Learn how to wear Tefillin. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 643-0770. Jewish Federation’s Bourbon & Jewish Dayton: Sun., March 3, 3-5 p.m. Guided bourbon flight, appetizers & Marshall Weiss on Jews & Booze. Mudlick Tap House, 135 E. 2nd St., Dayton. Presented by Men’s Philanthropy. $20. R.S.V.P. to Juliet Glaser, 401-1558.
Seniors
JFS Weight of the World off your Shoulders: Tues., March 5, noon. W. Womanline’s Joanna White & Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl. Includes lunch. Beth Abraham Synagogue, 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. R.S.V.P. to JFS, 610-1555. JFS Active Adults Dine Around: Thurs., March 14, noon: Carillon Brewing Co., 1000 Carillon Blvd., Dayton. Pay your own way. R.S.V.P. to 610-1555. JFS Purim Programs: Thurs., March 14, 2:30 p.m.: One Lincoln Park, 590 Isaac Prugh Way, Kettering. W. Cantor Raizen. Tues., March 19, 1:45 p.m.: Spring Hills, 140 E. Woodbury Dr., Harrison Twp. W. Courtney Cummings. For info., call JFS, 610-1555.
Purim
Temple Israel Purim Day of Learning: Sun., March 17, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. All ages, includes lunch & childcare. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 496-0050. Chabad Kids Club Epic Purim Rap Battle: Sun., March 17, 3-4 p.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 643-0770. Temple Israel Pirate Purim Carnival: Wed., March 20, 6 p.m. Games, silent auction, dinner $6 adults, $3 ages 3 to 12, free ages 2 and under. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 496-0050. Beth Abraham Megillah Reading/Shpiel: My Fair Esther, Wed., March 20, 7 p.m. Hamantashen for dessert. Bring boxes of Mac & Cheese for groggers, to be donated to the Foodbank. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. 293-9520. Temple Beth Or Megillah Reading: Wed., March 20, 7 p.m. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 435-3400.
Beth Jacob Megillah Readings: W. Visiting Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin. Wed., March 20, 8 p.m. & Thurs., March 21, 8 a.m. Hamantashen & light refreshments. 7020 N. Main St., Harrison Twp. R.S.V.P. to 2742149. Chabad Purim in India: Thurs., March 21, 5:30 p.m. Megillah reading & Kosher Indian dinner catered by Amma’s Kitchen, Cincinnati. Soormay Bhangra dancers from Michigan. $15 adult, $5 child 4-12. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. R.S.V.P. to 643-0770. Temple Beth Or Purim Shpiel & Dinner: Fri., March 22, 6:30 p.m. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 435-3400.
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Community Events
JCC’s A Night in Vegas: Sat., March 9, 7:30-11:30 p.m. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. Ages 21+. $30 in advance, $40 at door. 610-1555. Temple Beth Or Corned Beef Lunch Sale: Tues., March 12, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Boxed lunches $15. Corned beef for $18 per pound. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 435-3400. Order in advance to templebethor.com. How the Irish Taught the Jews to Become American: w. NYU Prof. Dr. Hasia R. Diner. Tues., March 19, 5 p.m. Sears Hall, Jesse Philips Bldg., University of Dayton. Visitor parking at Lot C. Temple Sholom Annual Wine Tasting Evening: Sat., March 23, 5-7 p.m. Sample six Israelikosher wines w. appetizers. $30 per person, $50 per couple. 2424 N. Limestone St., Springfield. R.S.V.P. to Diane at 399-1231 or Mary Jo & Adam Leventhal at 284-8027.
5531 Far Hills Ave. Dayton, OH | MeadowlarkRestaurant.com
From Civil Discourse to Critical Conversations: Sun., March 24, 2-5 p.m. JCRC colloquium. $10. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. 610-1555. Beth Abraham Synagogue American Jewish Experience Shabbat: W. Prof. Jonathan Sarna. Fri., March 29, 5:30 p.m.: Kabalat Shabbat Service w. Dayton Jewish Chorale. 6:30 p.m.: Dinner, Old Faith - New World. Sat., March 30, 9 a.m.: Shabbat services, Revitalization - Successes & Challenges. Noon: Kiddush lunch, What’s Next? Dinner $18 per adult, free 12 and under. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. R.S.V.P. for Friday dinner and/or Saturday lunch by March 22 to 293-9520.
515 WAYNE AVE. DAYTON, OH | WHEATPENNYDAYTON.COM
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
PAGE 23
RELIGION
CONGREGATIONS Beth Abraham Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Joshua Ginsberg Cantor/Dir. of Ed. & Programming Andrea Raizen Mornings, Mon. & Thurs., 7:15 a.m.; Tues., Wed., Fri., 7:30 a.m. Evenings, Mon.-Fri., 5:30 p.m. Sun., 8:30 a.m. Sat. , 9 a.m.; Youth Service, 10:30 a.m. 305 Sugar Camp Circle, Oakwood. 293-9520. BethAbrahamDayton.org Beth Jacob Congregation Traditional Saturdays 9:30 a.m., Sundays 8 a.m., Sunday through Friday, 7 p.m. 7020 N. Main St., Dayton. 274-2149. BethJacobCong.org Temple Anshe Emeth Reform Fri., March 22, 7:30 p.m. with Rabbinic Intern Eliza McCarroll 320 Caldwell St., Piqua. Contact Steve Shuchat, 937-7262116, AnsheEmeth@gmail.com. ansheemeth.org Temple Beth Or Reform Rabbi Judy Chessin Educator/Rabbi Ari Ballaban Fridays 7 p.m. Saturdays 10 a.m. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 435-3400. templebethor.com Temple Beth Sholom Reform Rabbi Haviva Horvitz See Web site for schedule. 610 Gladys Dr., Middletown. 513-422-8313. thetemplebethsholom.com Temple Israel Reform Senior Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz Rabbi/Educator Tina Sobo First Friday each month 6 p.m. All other Fridays 6:30 p.m. Saturdays 10:30 a.m. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 496-0050. tidayton.org Temple Sholom Reform Rabbi Cary Kozberg Fridays 6 p.m. 2424 N. Limestone St., Springfield. 399-1231. templesholomoh.com
ADDITIONAL SERVICES Chabad of Greater Dayton Rabbi Nochum Mangel Associate Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Youth & Prog. Dir. Rabbi Levi Simon, Teen & Young Adult Prog. Dir. Rabbi Elchonon Chaikin. Beginner educational service Saturdays 9 a.m. adults, 10 a.m children. Sundays 9 a.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave. 643-0770. www.chabaddayton.com Yellow Springs Havurah Independent Services 1st & 3rd Saturdays, 10-noon. Antioch College Rockford Chapel. Contact Cheryl Levine, 937-767-9293.
PAGE 24
It’s all in the kishkes By Rabbi Cary Kozberg Temple Sholom, Springfield “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you went out of Egypt, how he happened upon you on the way and cut off all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary, and he did not fear God…you shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!” — Deut. 25:17-19.
Perspectives These verses are read as the maftir for the Shabbat preceding Purim, and give that particular Shabbat its name: Shabbat Zakhor (Remember). The commandment to obliterate Amalek’s memory is the origin of drowning out the name of Haman, Amalek’s descendant, on Purim: The curious paradox of being commanded to remember what Amalek did, while also being commanded to obliterate Amalek’s memory has evoked many explanations over the centuries. But an additional curiosity is the seeming redundancy of the words that begin and end this section: “remember” and “you shall not forget.” At first glance, these two phrases seem to merely emphasize the need to ensure that Amalek’s treachery is perpetuated in our collective memory. But to our Sages of the Talmud, who affirmed that there are no redundancies in the Torah, these two phrases are
really two separate commands: it.” Apparently, Dr. Lipstadt remember — with one’s would agree that “remember… mouth, and do not forget — in do not forget” deserves but has one’s heart. not yet received our serious In other words, memories have staying power only if they consideration. So what would are paid more than a serious considerlip service. Authenation of “rememtic remembering ber/do not forget” requires that memoentail: not merely ries be assimilated as a mantra but as into our hearts and part of strategy to souls, in order to prevent or at least give us the courage prepare for possible to properly prepare (God forbid) reocfor possible repeat currences of Pittscatastrophes. burgh? Given recent Space does not events — PittsRabbi Cary Kozberg permit a full conburgh, the torching sideration. However, crafting of a yeshiva in upstate New a meaningful response to this York, a closer-to-home vandalizing of the synagogue in Lima, question might begin with reference to the Purim story itself. and despite the initial expresContrary to the perception sions of sympathy and moral of many, it doesn’t end with outrage following Pittsburgh, Haman’s execution. Getting rid a significant recent increase in unapologetic antisemitic rheto- of Haman did not rescind his annihilation decree. ric from high profile activists The only way the Jews could and government prevent their own exterminaleaders, as well tion was to defend themselves, as the disinclinawhich they received royal tion of many to permission to do. condemn it — it Anticipating the response of seems that we the Maccabees several cenas a community turies later, when things got would do well really dicey, the Jews had to to reflect on this resort to physical force in order teaching. Unfortunately, to protect themselves and preserve their way of life. we are not there yet. Emphasizing this point, the In a recent Times of Israel Book of Esther reports that the blog, Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt stated that, despite Jews’ use of physical force did not include plunder; only meathe events in Pittsburgh, this sures purely for self-defense “perfect storm of antisemiwere utilized. tism”— coming from the far Noteworthy is the fact that left, the far right and radical although the stories associated Islam — “is not just brewing with Chanukah and Purim but is upon us, and too many people in the Jewish communi- focus not on God’s intervention but on the responses of the ty are woefully unprepared or Jews themselves (the Book of unwilling to honestly address
We do not know what is in store for us, but we must prepare for all eventualities.
March • Adar I / Adar II A Jewish leap year On the Jewish calendar, months follow the cycle of the moon. However, there are approximately 12.4 lunar months in a solar year. The solution is a 19-year Jewish calendar cycle with a second month of Adar — Adar II — added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years.
Purim
The Feast of Lots March 21/14 Adar II Commemorates the rescue of the Jews in ancient Persia. The reading of the Book of Esther, costumes, grogers (noisemakers), and eating hamantashen are part of this festival.
Shabbat Candle Lightings
Esther never mentions God), nevertheless our Sages prescribed that the Al Hanissim prayer — expressing gratitude to God for fighting our battles and defeating our enemies — be recited on both of these holidays. For them there was/is no contradiction: Divine assistance is available when Jews not only remember the past with their mouths, but also assimilate those memories deep into their hearts — into their kishkes (guts) in order to appropriately respond to — and hopefully prevent — whatever challenges and tragedies may loom in the future. We do not know what is in store for us, but we must prepare for all eventualities. Unlike our ancestors in the Diaspora who were noncitizens in the lands in which they lived, living under many legal restrictions and having to depend on the goodwill of nonJewish authorities, we are full citizens in this country, with the right to respond in ways that our non-citizen ancestors could only imagine. As we American Jews respond to current challenges and prepare for whatever else may be in store, may we be blessed with the same discernment and courage which blessed the Jews of Shushan and the Maccabees. May we truly understand that it is easy to remember with our mouths, but more importantly, we must “never forget,” with a resolve that comes from deep within our hearts, from deep within our kishkes.
Torah Portions March 2, Vayakhel (Ex. 35:1-38:20, 30:11-16)
March 1, 6:11 p.m.
March 9 Pekudei (Ex. 38:21-40:38)
March 8, 6:18 p.m.
March 16, Vayikra (Lev. 1:1-5:26, Deut. 25:17-19)
March 15, 7:25 p.m.
March 23 Tzav (Lev. 6:1-8:36)
March 22, 7:33 p.m. March 29, 7:40 p.m.
March 30, Shemini (Lev. 9:1-11:47, Num. 19:1-22)
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
Guava & Cheese Hamantashen By Sandy Leibowitz The Nosher Guava, or guayaba in Spanish, is native to tropical areas such as Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Because of its proximity and availability, the fruit is a part of many Latino cuisines. Guavas have a strong tropical fragrance and floral taste notes similar to papaya and grape. They can be prepared a variety of ways (think smoothies, cocktails, glazed over grilled meats, and even fish), but are especially wonderful mixed with cheese, such as queso fresco, because it provides the sweet and salty element that is so irresistible. If you cannot find queso fresco in your area, you can also use a mild feta (try soaking it in water to remove some of the saltiness). Another option is ricotta cheese supplemented with a nice pinch of salt. Guavas can be found fresh from early spring through the winter, but in this recipe, I used a guava paste, which can be found year-round and is much easier to work with, as the many seeds have been removed. You can find guava paste in the international section of most large supermarkets, and there is even kosher-certified guava paste. Please note: In this particular recipe, you want to make sure to use paste and not jelly, as jelly can ooze out too much. 14 oz. guava paste 1 cup of water 1 roll store-bought phyllo dough, thawed 1/2 cup (1 stick), melted butter 1 cup (approximately) queso fresco (or feta cheese or ricotta, as noted above) 1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 2. In a saucepan over low heat, mix the guava paste and a half cup of water with a whisk until the mixture comes together and there are no lumps. Add the rest of the water if needed. Continue to add water and whisk thoroughly until you achieve the desired consistency. When it is the right consistency it should coat the back of a spoon, like a thick sauce. Set aside and allow to
Celebrating Our Beginnings
The American Jewish Experience Shabbat with Prof. Jonathan Sarna March 29 & 30 Brandeis University Professor cool. 3. When working with the phyllo dough, it’s very important to gently roll it out flat and immediately cover it with a damp towel. This ensures that it doesn’t dry out while you are working with it. 4. Take approximately three to four sheets at a time and use a cookie cutter or a cup with a diameter of approximately 21/2 inches and make circles as close together as you can (to maximize the amount you can make on one stack of sheets). I recommend scoring the dough around the cutter or cup with the tip of a sharp paring knife. 5. Work quickly to fold up the edges of the circles and pinch on three corners to create a triangle. Brush them with a generous amount of melted butter to hold the edges together. 6. After you have made all your triangles, fill each one with a little bit of crumbled queso fresco and top with approximately one to two teaspoons of the guava sauce. Take care not to fill too much or the guava will melt a bit and ooze out of the triangle. Bake on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper about 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. 7. When the hamantashen are done, allow them to cool on a rack a few minutes before eating them. Note: They are best enjoyed soon after they come out of the oven, but you can also reheat them in a 350-degree oven for a few minutes until warm and enjoy the next day. Makes two dozen hamantashen. Sandy Leibowitz is a trained chef, recipe developer and food blogger. Find more of her recipes at thekoshertomato.com.
Are you reading this? So is the entire Jewish community. Contact Patty Caruso at plhc69@gmail.com to advertise in The Observer.
Jonathan Sarna is a nationally acclaimed, award-winning scholar recognized as a leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion and life. His book American Judaism: A History is considered a leading source to understanding the American Jewish experience.
WE RECALL March 29, 5:30 pm: Kabbalat Shabbat Service with Dayton Jewish Chorale members 6:30 pm: Traditional Shabbat Dinner followed by Dr. Sarna’s presentation: Old Faith - New World
Beginning the Celebration
$18 per adult payable by March 22; 12 and under, no charge; babysitting available
12upper 5 sanctuary Please enter through level doors for these events
WE REJOICE March 30, 9 am: Shabbat Morning Service with Dr. Sarna’s presentation: Revitalization – Successes and Challenges
Saturday Kiddush Lunch by WE RECALL March 29, 5:30 pm: Kabbalat S March or Service with Dayton Jewish Ch 1 8 9 422 to 2937-293-9520 019 bas@bethabrahamdayton.orgmembers Recall • Rejoice • Renew 6:30 pm: Traditional Shabbat D
The American Shabbat with Sarna— Marc R.S.V.P. for Friday Dinner and/or
The Ruth
followed by Dr. Sarna’s presen
Old Faith - New World Scheuer LifeScheuer The Ruth $18 per adult payable by Marc Enrichment Life Enrichment Series 12 and under, no charge; Series sponsors sponsors babysitting available this Shabbatthis Shabbat experience experience as RSVP for Friday Shabbat Dinner its its inaugural as inaugural event.
WE RENEW March 30, Noon: Kiddush lunch with Dr. Sarna’s presentation: What’s Next?
event.
937-293-9520 or emailing bas@
Celebrate Purim with Beth Abraham March 2019 postcard_11x6 FINAL.indd 1
MY FAIR ESTHER
Wednesday, March 20, 7 p.m. Service featuring a combined Megillah Reading/Shpiel. Bring boxes of Mac & Cheese to use for groggers. These will be donated to the Foodbank. Wear a costume! • Hamentashen for dessert Beth Abraham, Dayton’s only Conservative synagogue, is enthusiastically egalitarian and is affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. For a complete schedule of our events and times, go to bethabrahamdayton.org. Service Schedule: Mornings, Mon. & Thurs., 7 a.m.; Tues., Wed., Fri., 7:15 a.m.; Sunday, 8:30 a.m. Evenings, Mon.-Fri., 5:30 p.m. Sat. Morning Service, 9 a.m.; Youth Service, 10:30 a.m.; Kiddush lunch following.
305 Sugar Camp Circle • Dayton, Ohio 45409 937-293-9520 • bethabrahamdayton.org
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
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PRE SI DEN TS
DINNER 2 019
N EW DATE :
Monday, June 17 AN EVENING WITH KEYNOTE SPEAKER
DR. RUTH
WORLD-RENOWNED PSYCHOSEXUAL THERAPIST, AUTHOR, AND LECTURER
Dr. Ruth Westheimer may best be known for having pioneered talking explicitly about sex on radio and television, but that is only a small part of her rich and diversified life. Born in Germany in 1928, Dr. Westheimer was sent to Switzerland at the age of ten to escape the Holocaust, which wiped out her entire immediate family. At seventeen she went to then-Palestine. She joined the Haganah, the Israeli freedom fighters, was trained to be a sniper, and was seriously wounded in a bomb blast. She later moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne and in 1956 went to the U.S. where she obtained her Masters Degree (M.A.) in Sociology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research and Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in the Interdisciplinary Study of the Family from Columbia University Teacher’s College. She is the author of 44 books, the latest of which are Stay or Go and Roller Coaster Grandma and the executive producer of five documentaries. A one-woman show about her life, Becoming Dr. Ruth has played in the Berkshires, Hartford and off-Broadway and continues to tour. A documentary about her life, Ask Dr. Ruth, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past January and will be shown in theaters and then on Hulu. Dr. Westheimer, a widow, has two children, four grandchildren and resides in New York City.
LIMITED SEATING. INVITATIONS TO FOLLOW. Contact Juliet Glaser at 937-401-1558 for more information. JEWISH FEDERATION of GREATER DAYTON PAGE 26
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
JEWISH FAMILY EDUCATION
E Pluribus Unum The Bible: Wisdom Literature The internet offers a birdseye view of a growing tribalism in America. Sports headlines from 2018 alone are a case in point. Fight breaks out in stands between Brewers, Cubs fans. Redskins and Jets Brawl…fans get in fight. Rams vs. Vikings Fans Brawl, Man Flung Over Bleachers. Cowboys Fan Pummels a Giants Fan.
Candace R. Kwiatek British television executive Peter Bazalgette has noted the same phenomenon in the digital world where we have evolved into a “you are either with us or against us” society, one in which we hate our enemies. Daily Times blogger Riaz Haq concurs. “Driven by users’ profiles to reinforce their preferences and prejudices,” social media and the internet exacerbate the problem. “News feeds are customized for each user. Any posts that don’t fit these profiles don’t get displayed. The result is increasing tribalism in the world.” Tribalism is notably rampant in the political and social spheres as well. In his Psychology Today essay Unfriending in the Time of Trump, poet Skipwith Coale notes that “friends
have cut off friends; couples have severed ties with in-laws; (and) parents have banished grandparents from their children’s lives” because of opposing political views. Relationships now face a tribal litmus test: How did you vote? Colonial America was not much different, note lawyers Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld in The Atlantic. “Americans were a multiethnic, polyglot mix” of religious denominations, dissenters, and non-believers who didn’t embrace tolerance and “who tended to identify far more strongly as Virginians or New Yorkers than as Americans,” they write. Rather than unite Americans around “the traditional ethnic, religious, and tribal loyalties of the Old World,” America’s founders forged a new kind of society around basic ideals codified in the Constitution, American historian Gordon Wood explains. Although imperfectly implemented and needing adjustment on occasion, “the core constitutional aspiration…has been to create a tribe-transcending national identity.” In a word, nationalism. Although the source of much recent controversy, nationalism by itself is neither good nor evil and has “much constructive potential,” argues political scientist Prerna Singh. “Nationalism fulfills a basic
psychological need to belong… and fulfills the essential function of consolidating the group and its identity above and beyond individual needs.” Furthermore, journalist John Judis points out the idea of a national group identity “is essential to democracies and to the modern welfare state,” because they depend on citizens of widely differing backgrounds aiding one another. From the very beginning, “American nationalists used to think of their nation in just this way,” notes Israeli political theorist Yoram Hazony, “as a diversity of tribes sharing a heritage and a mutual loyalty born of a joint history.” Why does this sound familiar? Because, Hazony explains, generations of Bible-literate Americans saw ancient Israel as the prototype of a nation. Much of the biblical narrative is the chronicle of a people who moved from tribalism to nationalism, and of a nation that has transcended time and place for over 3,000 years by means of a constitution known as the Covenant. The story begins with God promising
Covenant that has sustained the Jewish nation for millennia. America’s early colonists knew this story. They lived it. And they modeled themselves after it, creating a nation of diverse tribes, from Scots to Swedes; diverse backgrounds, from aristocracy to servants; and diverse religions, from Anglicans to Puritans. They, too, created a covenant — a Constitution of mutual loyalty and responsibility, one that respected individual diversity but outlined the common principles upon which society would be governed. In so doing, they also created a distinctly American culture. America’s de facto motto, E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one) aptly describes the biblical and early American experiments in nationalism. But renowned historian Victor Davis Hanson wonders about today. “America seemingly no longer believes in striving to achieve a gender-blind, racially and religiously mixed society, but instead is becoming a nation in which tribal identity trumps all other considerations,” he observes. It would be a shame if the positive notions of nationalism forged in the Bible and by the American founders were to simply be relegated to a meaningless slogan on the coins in our pockets.
Abraham, “I will make of thee a great nation.” But becoming a nation was a gradual process. It takes the entire book of Genesis for the Bible to say nation building is founded upon families, but families aren’t enough. Ultimately, the family of Jacob is small, fragmented, and dependent upon a foreign land and its leaders’ whims for sustenance and shelter. The book of Exodus begins with slavery, perhaps to emphasize that families, even tribes, are vulnerable. Or perhaps the point of Israelite slavery was to warn about the potential for nationalism to become evil, fostering wise leadership and personal empathy. “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” However, it wasn’t until Israel stood at Mt. Sinai and, with one voice, committed to the mission and obligations of the Covenant that they began their journey as a nation. They were still 12 distinct tribes — in origin, size, personality — and they would later take on distinct occupations. But they were united in the
Literature to share And There Was Evening and There Was Morning by Harriet Cohen Helfand and Ellen Kahan Zager. To express the notion that God created the universe with words, the whimsical images in this brilliant picture book are all designed out of Hebrew letters that spell the object’s name. Accompanying each day’s double-page scene is a simple rhyme that tells the story of that day. A delight for all ages. It’s About People Not Buildings: A Primer for the Merger of Religious and Other Nonprofits by Congregation Etz Chaim. Although mergers and acquisitions are commonplace, many nonprofits might better benefit from a marriage. That’s the message from leaders and congregants of two religious communities that joined together under a chupah (wedding canopy). Each chapter in this handbook focuses on a different aspect of the process, such as Leadership and Resources, Recognizing a Crisis, and The Passion of Volunteers. The main point is a universal one: people are the most important factor in any organization, and the sharing of values, transparency, respect, and compromise are essential when uniting two communities. A worthwhile read for anyone involved in the non-profit world.
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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
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Arts&Culture Dani Shapiro’s memoir Inheritance raises big questions about identity, nature & nurture
free kiddush lunch Saturday, March 9 after services
Dani Shapiro relates in her memoir that there was something she couldn’t quite articulate about feeling distant from the Shapiros
Purim Day of Learning Sunday, March 17
Temple Israel • www.tidayton.org • 937.496.0050 130 Riverside Drive, Dayton, OH 45405 A Reform Synagogue open to all who are interested in Judaism. Childcare provided during Friday services and Sunday school. PAGE 28
By Sandee Brawarsky New York Jewish Week Dani Shapiro’s Connecticut home has sepia portraits of her late father as a child and members of his distinguished Orthodox family on the walls, photographs she has known all of her life. These faces have, in silence, supported her, spoken to her, even comforted her. Her identity is stamped by theirs. Two years ago, after sending her DNA to a website for analysis, she learned news that shocked her, that at first she didn’t think possible: Her beloved father was not her biological father. His kinfolk weren’t blood relatives. And after 36 hours of detective work with her husband’s help on the internet, she learned that her biological father wasn’t Jewish. In Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love (Knopf) — which debuted on The New York Times Best Sellers list in January — Shapiro unfolds the story of her discovery and its intellectual and emotional impact. She is a writer who has mined her experience and inner landscape in four previous memoirs, Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion and Slow Motion, and she has written five novels that also touch on her history and identity. “This is the story that makes sense of all the others,” she says. “It’s not that those stories weren’t true. They all are true. They’re just not the whole truth.” “On the one hand,” she continues, “I have spent my entire life grappling with identity, trying to piece the puzzle
of my father together. I think there’s a reason why in my work, the fiction and memoirs, I kept gravitating to family secrets. I thought I knew why, that there were secrets in my house. I never dreamt that I was the secret. “My whole writing life has been about trying to understand,” she adds. She writes in the memoir, “I dug until my shovel hit rock.” Shapiro’s grandfather, Joseph Shapiro, was a founder of Lincoln Square Synagogue, a philanthropist, and leader of several Orthodox organizations. Her father, Paul Shapiro, a Wall Street stockbroker, was killed in a car crash when she was 23; her mother, Irene, was badly injured and survived. Her parents had an uneasy marriage, and Dani, their only child, felt more her father’s daughter than her mother’s, and she was proud of his lineage. Some of her clearest childhood memories involve her father — she would go with him to synagogue, where he seemed most at home, and prayer was a kind of secret language they shared. Through an older half-sister (her father had been previously married) who also had her DNA tested, she confirmed that the results of her own test were true, for she and her half-sister turned out not to be related, biologically. Shapiro, who is blonde and paleskinned with an easy elegance about her, has been told repeatedly, throughout her life, by Jews and non-Jews, that she doesn’t look Jewish. “Story of my life,” she would say
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
Photos: Knopf
with a shrug. In fact, as a little girl, Shapiro — who was once selected as the Kodak poster child for Christmas — was pulled aside by a friend of her parents, who it turns out is the grandmother of Jared Kushner, and told, “We could have used you in the ghetto, little Blondie. You could have gotten us bread from the Nazis.” That comment and others stayed with her. Even during Shapiro extended family occasions, she felt a sense of otherness, which she thought was because she was the daughter of her mother, who was not raised Orthodox and was always distant from the Shapiros. Dani now says there was someShapiro with her father, Paul thing she couldn’t quite articulate about all of this. While some writers can find a story in a For the reader, there’s a sense of susbrief encounter, Shapiro can find somepense in Shapiro’s unraveling of details, thing revelatory, authentic, and lyrical even as she is thrown by her discovery in a moment. and plagued by urgent questions about For her, writing is not catharsis, but why her parents didn’t tell her — and a way of containing, ordering, and unhow much they actually understood or derstanding the truth. She says that she how much they buried the truth in their doesn’t view a memoir as “the sweep own ways. Shapiro’s mother had told of life,” but rather as the telling of what her about traveling to a fertility clinic in she knew when she wrote it. Philadelphia, but not much more than Shapiro, who left Orthodoxy long that. ago, meditates every morning, first Dani learns that a practice in those thing, and says it is a ritual that grew days was to mix donor sperm with the out of being her father’s daughter, a diffather’s sperm, to keep alive the posferent take on his daily prayers. These sibility that the baby was biologically days, after all that she has learned, she his. Through dogged research, intersays that she feels, paradoxically, less views with older family friends and conflicted about her Jewish identity. relatives (most who knew her parents While she understands that halawere no longer alive), medical experts chically (according to Jewish law), her and others with some connection to Jewish identity is transmitted through that clinic (closed down long ago) and her Jewish mother, she always identigenealogists, Shapiro recreates events fied her Judaism with her father. In fact, surrounding her birth. she feels “more Jewish. I understand.” Rabbi Haskel “So much of this feels like Lookstein, who was a spiritual journey for me,” a friend of her father, she says. “The deepest kind. has a cameo in the This book is similar to Devonarrative, trying tion. I finished the book and to offer comfort. A the journey is ongoing and cherished aunt and always will be.” others reassure her Shapiro is also commitabout love, and that ted to discussing the issues no matter what, Paul she raises in the book about is still her father. secrecy; she wrote a recent Suddenly though, piece in Time magazine she has a different advocating for transparency medical history, and and regulation concerning her son has a different donor conception, and the grandfather. While rights of children to know she doesn’t look at their origins. all like her mother “I spent 54 years being or the Shapiros, she wrong about my identity,” discovers that she closely resembles her she says, noting that she will be thinkbiological father. She keeps a promise ing about “questions of nature and of guarding his privacy. About their culture, what makes a parent a parent, relationship going forward, she admits what secrets do, how we are formed there’s “no playbook.” by what we don’t know and what is A teacher of memoir writing who is unsaid” for a very long time. cofounder of a writer’s conference in On Feb. 14, Shapiro launched a new Positano, Italy, Shapiro skillfully crepodcast, Family Secrets, in which she ates a narrative that ties together the talks to others about family secrets mysteries and facts she assembles and they have discovered, and the power of the deeper levels of her emotional life. truth.
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THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
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OBITUARIES Lenora S. Fahrer, age 94 of Dayton, passed away Feb. 9. She was preceded in death by her mother, Fannye Budnick Salman, and her husband, Morton Jack Fahrer. She is survived by her sons, Victor, Ted, and Ed; daughters, Sandra and Sharon; grandchildren, Adam, Jesse, Jeffrey, Kevin, Beth and Max; great-grandchildren, David and Allison. Interment was at Riverview Cemetery. Jack Jenefsky of Dayton, beloved father of Anna Jenefsky (Wynn Segall) and of the late Kathryn Mueller, grandfather of Jeremy Dean, Carly Sizemore (Vincent Alsept), Daniel Sizemore, Dora and Adin Segall, and great-grandfather of Elijah Alsept, passed away on Feb. 9 at the age of 99. He was predeceased by his wife of 54 years, Beverly (Webb). Mr. Jenefsky was born on Oct. 27, 1919 to David and Anna (Saeks) Jenefsky in Dayton, where he lived his entire life, proudly serving the Miami Valley community in countless ways. Mr. Jenefsky served as a logistics officer in the Army Air Forces during World War II in India and China and rose to the rank of colonel in the Air Force Reserve after the war. Between 1949 and 1956, Mr. Jenefsky was a sales representative for Remington Rand out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he sold the first commercial computer, the Univac-1. In 1963, Mr. Jenefsky bought the then ailing Bowman Supply Company, which he turned into a successful industrial cleaning supply company that
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thrived under his ownership and management for 50 years, until his retirement at the age of 94. Mr. Jenefsky served as president of many organizations over the years, including the Reserve Officers Association of Ohio, the Miami Valley Military Affairs Association, the Air Force Association of Ohio, The Ohio State University Alumni Association of Montgomery County, and the National Sojourners of Dayton. In 1984, Mr. Jenefsky founded the Washington, D.C. Fly-In of the Dayton Development Coalition, which he dutifully attended annually through 2009 at the age of 90, when the coalition awarded him the Dave Hobson Dayton Region Advocate Award. In addition to his many contributions to his country and community, Mr. Jenefsky will be remembered for his honesty and integrity, his intense sense of responsibility and role of caretaker toward his family, and his unwavering strength in the face of adversity. Even in his twilight years, despite being plagued by blindness, dementia and a hearing impairment, Mr. Jenefsky was positive and kind to all of those around him until the end. Interment was at Beth Abraham Cemetery. Donations may be made in Mr. Jenefsky’s memory to the Reserve Officers Association or Beth Abraham Synagogue. Stanley Karp, age 85 of Centerville, passed away Jan. 22. He served in the Korean War. Mr. Karp was preceded in death by his granddaughter Leah Karp and two sisters, Joanne Long and Roz Karp. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Thelma; children, Allan Karp, Esther (Jay) Weiss and Robert (Lynette) Karp; seven grandchildren, Tiffany, Sophia, Rachel, Evan, Sarah, Joshua and Matthew; two great-grandchildren, Addison and Hunter. Interment was at David's Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the charity of your choice. Sarah Pavlofsky, age 95 of Dayton, passed away Feb. 14. Mrs. Pavlofsky was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Raymond; daughter and sonin-law, Karen and Victor Jacobs; Pavlofsky family brothers and sisters-in-law Vernon and Carol, Albert (Buddy) and Mary, Allen and Shirley, and Ruth and Ervin Schriber, all of Dayton; Skurow family
brothers and sisters-in-law Abe and Ruth, Jack and Marion, Hy and Marilyn, and Sam, all of Cincinnati, and Joe and Louise of Las Vegas. She is survived by her daughter Phyllis Allen of Dayton, daughter and sonin-law Sue-Ellen and Opher Yeffet of Israel; grandchildren, Mitchell, Aron and Craig Jacobs, Rachel Allen (Ian Stewart), Adi Frankel (Maor), Ram Yeffet, Gilad Yeffet (Gil); great-grandchildren, Riley, Charlie, and Nina Jacobs, Stav and Agam Keren Frankel; sister-in-law, Natalie Skurow of Cincinnati; and beloved nephews and nieces, relatives, and dear friends. Mrs. Pavlofsky was a longtime member of Beth Jacob Synagogue and the Beth Jacob Sisterhood, where she served as the treasurer for over 30 years. She was a member of many Jewish charitable organizations including Hadassah, ORT, and B’nai B’rith, where she was a champion bowler. For many years Mrs. Pavlofsky was known as the heart and soul of the Beth Jacob rummage sale, which provided for both the synagogue and the North Dayton community. Interment was at Beth Jacob Cemetery. If desired, memorial contributions may be made to the Beth Jacob Synagogue Cemetery Fund or the charity of your choice in her memory. The family would like to express heartfelt thanks to the staff of Hospice of Dayton and Brookdale Oakwood.
like listening to a mother and a child describe a medical situation). While in medical school at Columbia University, he studied tropical medicine for several months in Surinam. He wanted to be able to speak directly with the indigenous people, so he learned their language, Sranan Tongo. While in Surinam, he conversed with local people and served as interpreter on a 10-day canoe trip into the jungle. Alcoa hired him to teach engineers Sranan Tongo. While teaching this course, he learned that the local laborers were greatly underpaid. He decided to help them organize a union, which resulted in his being ordered to leave the country within 24 hours (which he did). During his medical residency, Dr. Plaut was institutionalized for several months in a psychiatric hospital. During that time he continued to live out his commitment to selfdetermination by starting an inmates’ newsletter and agitating for patient rights. Shortly after being released, Dr. Plaut met Johanna Mautner in 1962 and they married in 1963. They moved to Whitesburg, Ky., a tiny coal mining town in Appalachia, because he wanted to practice medicine somewhere where he could make a real difference. Dr. Plaut reveled in providing medical care in Whitesburg and later wrote many stories about his time there. These and many other stories can be found on his blog, drtomsjournal.com.
Dr. Thomas Frederick Plaut died in South Hadley, Mass. on Jan. 30. The son of Hans and Eri Plaut, he was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1933. His family escaped Nazi Germany and arrived in the U.S. in 1935, settling in Mansfield, Ohio. He credited his Scoutmaster with helping him learn how to be an American. His family moved to Dayton when he was 17 and he graduated from Fairview High School. Due to a clerical error associated with the move, his transcript reported a 4.0 GPA and he was accepted to Yale University. Although he struggled with antisemitism at Yale, he found a home on the cross country team and made lifelong friends. He always said that studying history was the best preparation for being a pediatrician because he learned to piece together what was happening in a situation from synthesizing a variety of accounts (much
Patricia Dworken Saphire, age 72 of Dayton, died Feb. 2. Born June 27, 1946 to Morton and Bernice Dworken, she graduated from Orange High School in Pepper Pike and attended Wheelock College in Boston. Mrs. Saphire had a lifelong love of travel (especially taking long walks with her husband, Richard, on the beaches of San Diego) and made an early career in the travel industry. She later served as an executive assistant to the rabbi at Temple Israel. Mrs. Saphire was a woman of valor and hero to her husband of 47 years, Richard Saphire. She was enormously proud of her two sons, Daniel Saphire of Alexandria, Va. and Douglas
(Rabbi Rachel) Saphire of Needham, Mass. She adored and found great joy in her grandchildren, Ella and Oren Saphire. She cared deeply for her brother Morton (Anna) Dworken Jr. of Falls Church, Va. and their children, Ben and Jeremy (Maro) of New York, stepsister Leslie (Bruce) Forrest of Boca Raton, as well as brothers and sisters-in-law David (Sandy) Saphire of Centerville, and Marilyn (Carl) Weiss of St. Louis. In her quiet, unassuming manner and with a strong social conscience, Mrs. Saphire worked hard to make our world a better place. She moved to Dayton 42 years ago and quickly became involved in her new community. As an active congregant and former member of Temple Israel’s board of directors, she chaired the synagogue’s first two Mitzvah Days and co-chaired the organization’s involvement in the Interfaith Hospitality Network. Mrs. Saphire was an emerita member of the Jewish Federation’s Jewish Family Service Board, having actively served on numerous committees. She helped to revise the Federation’s transportation program, herself accompanying seniors to appointments. In the broader community, Mrs. Saphire worked with Homefull, served on the Family Service Association development committee, the Artemis Center’s gala committee, Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark’s membership/ development committee, and as its newsletter editor. As a member of the “Posie Patrol,” she planted and cared for flowers in the beautification efforts of the Downtown Dayton RiverScape. She was a strong supporter of music and the arts in the Dayton area. In 2018, the Beth Abraham Synagogue Sisterhood presented Mrs. Saphire with its Woman of Valor Award in recognition of her contributions to the community. In humility, Mrs. Saphire shied away from the spotlight but met life with enthusiasm and zeal in her own quiet way. She will continue to inspire her family and friends to care for each other and those in need. Interment was at Riverview Cemetery. Her family offers special thanks to her dear friends, Sandi Simmons, Beth Adelman, and Karin Hirschkatz, her Rabbis Karen Bodney-Halasz and Tina Sobo, and the nurses from Hospice of Dayton. Donations
THE DAYTON JEWISH OBSERVER • MARCH 2019
OBITUARIES may be made to Homefull, Temple Israel of Dayton, or Hospice of Dayton. May her memory be for a blessing. Reuben William Wasserman, age 83 of Dayton, passed away Jan. 29. He was preceded in death by his wife, Patricia Wasserman, and is survived by his daughters, Miriam Wasserman and Deborah Wasserman. Born in Israel, he moved to New York as a young child. He made his way to Dayton where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the University of Dayton. Upon graduation, he took a position with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where he met his wife, Patricia. After retiring from WPAFB, he became an active member of the MG Car Club Southwestern Ohio Centre, and continued to be an enthusiast of stamp and coin collecting. With a twinkle in his eye, Mr. Wasserman was a caring husband, father, and friend to many, and will be dearly missed. Interment was at Riverview Cemetery. Contributions can be made to The Myositis Association, Myositis.org. Barton Weprin (Z”L) age 71 of Dayton, died on Feb. 1. Mr. Weprin was born July 5, 1947 to legendary parents Charles (Z”L) and Corrine “Pookie” (Z”L) Weprin, whom he loved dearly. Mr. Weprin was followed by three less good-looking brothers, Stuart (Gail), Larry (Meryl), and Michael (Karen). Mr. Weprin and his lifelong best friend, Larry Pollock, graduated from Fairview High School in 1965. Mr. Weprin received his bachelor’s degree in business from Ohio State and earned a “master’s” in being an Ohio State football fan. He served six years in the Air Force National Guard. Mr. Weprin lived in Dayton, where he became owner of Main Auto Parts and later built a successful real estate brokerage business known as Weprin Realty. He is a past president of the Ohio Commercial Real Estate Exchanges Association. Mr. Weprin held Dayton Flyer basketball season tickets his entire adult life including a few seasons we would all rather forget. Mr. Weprin had deep pride in his three brilliant children: Ben Weprin (Mary Ann) of Chicago and their gorgeous daughters, Elodie (9), Dalton (7), and Pepper (2);
Andrew Weprin (Meredith) of Chicago, and their beautiful daughters, Sonia (8), Aleeza (6), and handsome, athletic son, Charles (2); and Becky Dausen (Mark) of Columbus and their amazing daughters, Naomi (5) and Eden (3). Mr. Weprin was married to his loving and devoted wife, Linda, of 22 years, and cared for her children Danny Paxton of Cincinnati, and Melissa Morris (Kirk) of Oakwood like they were his own. He had a close relationship with each of Melissa’s children, Aidan (15), Austin (13), Brody (11), and Kate (7). All of Mr. Weprin’s grandchildren and many nieces and nephews enjoyed his strong sense of family and humor including his iconic “Bart Man” dance move. He enjoyed playing tennis, fishing with his family, playing the piano, exercising, breakfast at the Golden Nugget Pancake House with his grandkids, and having lots of butter on his popcorn. Mr. Weprin gave his best effort every day and faced all challenges bravely. Mr. Weprin and his love of life will be deeply missed by all. Mr. Weprin was proud of his lifelong association with Dayton’s Temple Israel, where he was a co-founder of Temple Israel’s Annual Jewish Cultural Festival, proudly served as Temple Israel president, and spearheaded the Dayton Jewish Cemetery consolidation project. Interment was at Riverview Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Dayton or Hospice of Dayton.
Community relations
Continued from Page 13 at the conference posits: “Following the Oslo Process,” the peace talks Israel and the Palestinians launched in 1993, “and the resolution of the plight of Soviet Jewry, areas of the community relations field experienced a decline.” “The U.S. Jewish community shifted its focus to internal challenges of Jewish education and identity with the belief that peace could be achieved, antisemitism was declining, and oppressed Jewish communities were now free,” it continues. “Although some community relations organizations and initiatives in larger communities flourished, much of the field lost resources and attention from the U.S. Jewish community.” These and other trends “are limiting the effectiveness of community relations organizations and initiatives.” Community relations councils in major cities remain robust, JCPA officials said, but among the 125 affiliated with the umbrella, many are staffed by one person or by volunteers. That creates a vacuum, said Gidi Grinstein, founder of Reut, the Israel-based strategy think tank that issued one of the reports. When crises demand responses, like the controversy over the Woman’s March or a movement to counter perceived police discrimination, Jewish voices are lacking. “This country is so big, the communities are so diverse, the issues are so different, the only way to contain what we’re talking about here” — the rise of
There was much talk at the conference of the need to broaden the capacity for criticism of Israel while continuing to delegitimize calls to bring an end to Israel as a Jewish state. “Let’s be honest that when acting as advocates to engage liberals with Israel, the current government’s policies can make for a really bad client,” Jeremy Burton, the executive director of Boston’s JCRC, said during a panel. “Which requires moral clarity about our absolutes like delegitimization of Israel’s existence and nuance about criticism.” Melanie Gorelick, JCPA’s senior vice president, said the JCPA would have to make the case to the disaffected that the best arena to advance favored policies, in a Jewish setting, was the local JCRC. “We are the only organizations that come together and tackle day-to-day issues” with the right and the left at the table, she said.
antisemitism and of anti-Israel activism — “is a network of local organizations that have the talent, the methodology and the technology,” Grinstein said. At the annual meeting, and at a board meeting in January, the JCPA lay and professional leadership launched a pitch based on the Reut report to donors and constituent community relations councils to raise $1.6 million — almost doubling its existing $1.8 million budget — to hire officials to make up for the gap. Part of the plan would be to make the larger and more robust councils hubs that would assist the smaller ones in their regions. In the reports, and at the conference, JCPA officials acknowledged two additional obstacles to reviving a robust Jewish presence in community affairs: an Israeli government that has trended rightward, and with its actions has alienated liberals, and the disruptive politics of the moment.
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MARCH 9, 7:30–11:30PM @ Boonshoft CJCE 525 Versailles Dr., 45459
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