Hillel Academy's 3rd-5th grade Destination Imagination Team took 1st place in the instant challenge at the Ohio DI state finals, March 29. (L to R): Eliana Lader, Ethan Halasz, Zoey Lader, Moshe
Hillel Academy
Right:
Simon, Adi Atzmon, Zeke Gilbert, and Cole Elder
Below: Hillel's team receives medals at the state finals, March 29 at Barberton High School.
Jewish War Vets brunch & talk
In honor of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Memorial Day, Jewish War Veterans Post #587 will host a brunch, 10 a.m., Sunday, May 18 at Temple Beth Or with a speaker from the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce.
Buffalo Soldiers served in African American U.S. Army regiments formed after the Civil War and until the army's integration in 1948. Buffalo Soldiers were among the first caretakers of the national parks; Brig. Gen. Charles Young served as the first African American National Park superintendent.
JWV Post #587 Vice Commander Alex Pearl noted the talk will focus on the causes and consequences of prejudice and injustice, and how a person's response reveals his or her true character.
Brig. Gen. Charles Young
Temple Beth Or is located at 5275 Marshall Rd., Washington Township. The cost is $10, free for JWV members and their partners. RSVP to JWVPost587@gmail.com.
Teens draw swastikas, antisemitic message in chalk at Kettering's Indian Riffle Park
A jogger at Indian Riffle Park in Kettering called the Kettering Police Department when she saw chalk drawings of swastikas and the phrase, "KILL YOURSELF, JEWS," on the trail near the park's playground at 10:40 a.m., Sunday, March 30.
According to Kettering Police Department notes, the caller said she saw "three young teen boys" —approximately 13 or 14 years old — in the area. One asked her if she liked their artwork.
The police notes also indicated that 23 minutes later, three youths — two males and one female — attempted to cover up the hate language and swastikas with chalk.
That afternoon, Kettering resident Melissa Groveman emailed The Observer images of three swastikas drawn in chalk that she and her daughter saw at that location.
Groveman said it appeared someone had altered the swastikas, closing off the open areas in different colors of chalk.
"I think it’s great that someone took the time to change it," she said.
All that remained of the phrase "KILL YOURSELF, JEWS," she said, was the word, 'YOURSELF."
The word "KILL" had been crossed out in chalk and the word "JEWS' was gone.
Groveman said someone had written the letter L in chalk above where the word "KILL" had been crossed out, and that her daughter turned it into the word "LOVE."
— Marshall Weiss
Presidents Dinner May 18 to open Jewish Federation 2025 Annual Campaign
Los Angeles-based Jewish activist Mandana Dayani's keynote address at the Presidents Dinner on May 18 marks the official opening of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton's 116th Annual Campaign.
Those attending the Presidents Dinner on May 18 will be asked to make their pledges to the 2025 Annual Campaign.
For more than a century, the Jewish Federation Annual Campaign has continually raised the funds to support social services and educational/cultural programs for Jews in the Dayton area, as well as the rescue and relief of Jews in need around the world.
Community Relations Council, The Dayton Jewish Observer, programs for teens and seniors, initiatives to combat antisemitism, Holocaust educational programming, learning opportunities about Israel, local Innovation Grants, Western Galilee Partnership programs, Miami Valley Jewish Genealogy & History, and Hillel Academy Jewish day school.
Campaign also supports ORT, which provides high-level science, technology, and Jewish education to more than 350,000 Jews a year in more than 40 countries.
Locally, the Annual Campaign supports Federation agencies and programs including Jewish Family Services, the Jewish Community Center and its preschool, the Jewish
Overseas beneficiaries of the Federation's Annual Campaign include the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which provides aid to vulnerable Jews in 70 countries including Israel; and the Jewish Agency for Israel, which oversees the integration of Jews who make aliyah (immigrate) to Israel, and since Oct. 7, 2023, assists Israelis through its Fund for Victims of Terror.
The Federation's Annual
Last year, the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton's Annual Campaign raised $1.22 million. The Presidents Dinner will be held at 5 p.m., Sunday, May 18 at the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. Tickets are $125 and kashrut will be observed. RSVP by May 12 to jewishdayton.org/events.
Jojo Korsh Photography
Mandana Dayani
Melissa Groveman's March 30 photo at Indian Riffle Park in Kettering of one of three swastikas in chalk that had been altered.
Groveman's March 30 photo in Indian Riffle Park near the swastikas. The word 'KILL' had been drawn over and her daughter added 'OVE' to the already present letter L.
Hillel Academy Destination Imagination Team heads to Global Finals in May
Jewish day school first-year
team takes first place for instant challenges at regional and state competitions
By Marshall Weiss The Observer
Not only did Hillel Academy Jewish day school field its first Destination Imagination teams this year, its third through fifth grade team earned the top spot for its instant challenge at the regional competition, March 16.
And not only did the team receive the highest instant challenge score at the state finals March 29, it now heads to the DI Global Finals with the top teams from around the world, May 22-25 in Kansas City, Mo.
"It's huge. We really got our name out there," says Hillel DI Team Manager Keri Sauer, a veteran teacher, in her first year as the school's pre-K and kindergarten instructor.
Amy Sera, who teaches third and fourth grade secular studies and third through sixth grade science at Hillel, manages the DI team with Sauer.
Sauer's DI experience goes back 15 years, first as a parent, then as a coach with her husband for Dayton Regional STEM
School's team, and ultimately as a judge.
Sauer and Sera asked Hillel Principal Anna Smith if she would be interested in bringing DI to Hillel.
"We did a couple of meetings with parents, and here we are," Sauer says. According to destinationimagination. org, DI brings students together in teams to solve openended STEAM challenges designed to teach the creative process.
DI defines the creative process as "a step-by-step approach that helps students better understand problems and ask better questions, come up with solutions, learn from failure, and celebrate their achievements."
Its best-known team program is its science, technology, engineering, arts and math-based Challenge Experience competition for grades three to 12 and undergraduate students.
presented its solution to a team challenge as well as an instant challenge.
The Hillel students began training after Thanksgiving for the March 16 regional competition, held at Sinclair Community College.
Sauer was in the room with the Hillel team when it received its regional instant challenge.
"Only one coach can go in the room with them," she says. "The way they answered it, as soon as they started doing it, I was like, OK, this is pretty great. After they had done it, I wasn't surprised that they had won, but being a first-year team, instant challenge is notoriously difficult, so I was surprised how well they did."
'We really got our name out there.'
Sauer says DI teams and their managers are unable to discuss instant challenges with anyone outside of their team until after the global finals.
At the regional and state DI competitions, the Hillel team
Bark Mitzvah Boy
Yiddishe LLama, what’s your favorite gift for Mother’s Day?
I’ve got it already.
"But I can give you an idea of challenges," she says. "You go into a room with one coach and four to six appraisers, which are the judges. They put a challenge
Continued on Page Four
The seven members of Hillel Academy's third to fifth grade Destination Imagination team squeal "yay!" They jump up and down in Principal Anna Smith's office. "We've officially been invited to Globals," she just told them. "And in our first year!" a student says. Another starts clapping, two others hold their hands on their heads in amazement, another puts her hands over her mouth. "The instant challenge is what made the difference," Smith tells the team. The state trophy reads, "Top Instant Challenge Score." It's right in front of the team on the principal's desk when she shares the news. Mazel tov to Hillel Academy, the little Jewish day school that could, and to the members and managers of its intrepid third to fifth grade DI competitive team. Know that we send every bit of positive energy your way for the 2025 DI Global Finals, May 22-25 in Kansas City, Mo.
Marshall Weiss
Hillel DI Team Mgr. Keri Sauer Hillel DI Team Mgr. Amy Sera
Hillel Academy
Hillel Academy's Destination Imagination 3rd-5th Grade Team at the DI regional competition, March 16 at Sinclair Community College. The team took 1st place in the instant challenge and 6th in its team challenge. (L to R): Cole Elder, Ethan Halasz, Zeke Gilbert holding a photo of Moshe Simon, Eliana Lader, Zoey Lader, and Adi Atzmon.
Hillel
Continued from Page Three
in front of you that usually must be done in eight minutes. Sometimes you'll have five minutes to plan and three minutes to perform, or six minutes to plan and two minutes to perform.
DAYTON
"Sometimes it's an impromptu challenge with no materials at all. Other times you'll go in and there will be everyday items like labels, paper clips, newspapers, straws, laid out on the table, and they'll give you a problem to solve or something to act out."
Each DI team also competes in a team challenge, which it prepares in advance and performs at the competitions. Teams select from five challenges, each with a specific educational focus.
Hillel's competitive team chose the scientific challenge, which has a space-based theme this year.
"Our challenge was, someone shows up on a real planet and thinks they're alone, only to find out they're not alone, and then you have to teach them science and have techno-babble in your performance," Sauer says."It's eight minutes long from beginning to end, all made by the kids, costumes by the kids, script by the kids.
"We're not allowed to help them at all. They have to look at the rules, interpret the rules, and create an answer to the problem all on their own."
Teams receive scores that indicate what they did well and what they could improve, so members can make changes if they go on to the next levels.
"They can scrap everything and completely start over — most teams do not do that," Sauer says. "They can make any changes they choose to. The only thing they can't change is team members."
"When we heard we were going to state, we started preparing immediately," says third grader Cole Elder, one of the younger students on Hillel's DI competition team. "We fixed what we thought was wrong, and we had to switch something we did wrong that could have taken off a lot of points, because we realized we didn't need it, and fixed our script."
At both regional and state, Hillel Academy placed sixth in its age category for team challenges. DI teams often come up with their own team names. The official name of Hillel's third to fifth grade team is Moshe's Cosmic Burritos.
"We voted on it," Cole says. "It's because Moshe Simon couldn't make it to regionals or state because it was on a Saturday, so we named the team after him."
Because Hillel Academy is a Jewish day school — with some students whose families are Shabbat-observant
— Sauer requested that Ohio DI allow Hillel to perform at the regional and state competitions on a day other than Saturday.
"Unfortunately, Saturday was the only day it was offered for the two performances so far. With globals, we have put in a request again. They have said it shouldn't be a problem because it's several days."
DI doesn't penalize a team if members aren't able to make the competition; they're still part of the team.
"You'll see a lot of teams that will carry around a student's picture because someone doesn't end up there, generally because they're sick."
True to form, Moshe's Cosmic Burritos carried a photo of its namesake. When the team went into their instant challenges, judges asked Sauer whose photo they were holding.
"I'd say, 'This is Moshe.' And then they'd ask, 'Is he sick today?' And I told them why he wasn't here."
Moshe's teammates made sure his presence was felt. His face was on several props.
"They talk about him being the owner of this company that sends this astronaut to space," Sauer says. "They also put in the skit why Moshe wasn't there. Someone said, 'Why isn't Moshe working' at whatever company 'that's sending me off?' 'He can't be here today because it's Saturday,' and they gave a little bit of knowledge to the audience, as well, about why he couldn't be there."
DI also hosts Early Learning, a noncompetitive program for pre-K to second grade students. Hillel's kindergarten through second grade team presented at regionals and received recognition for its ability to navigate disagreements, its whole team discussions, and its thinking outside the box.
Yisroel Simon, Moshe's younger brother, was on this team. His image and voice were present in its skit.
The 2025 global finals in May mark Sauer's first time bringing in a team at that top level.
"These kids are out there being creative and scientific, and learning all these new things in the DI community. They're a huge asset to the community."
The Dayton Jewish Observer, Vol. 29, No. 8. 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 columnists, in readers’ letters, and in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of staff or layleaders of The Dayton Jewish Observer or the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton. 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.
• 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.
Hillel Academy
Hillel's 3rd-5th grade DI Team performs its team challenge at state, March 29.
Women's Passover celebrations
Above: Chabad Women's Circle hosted a tambourine-making workshop on the theme of Miriam's message in the Exodus narrative, along with dancing and a wine tasting, March 30.
Left: Women from several faith communities dance together at the 11th Annual Women's Freedom Seder, hosted by the JCC and women from Beth Abraham Synagogue, Beth Jacob Congregation, Hadassah, Temple Beth Or, and Temple Israel, March 27 at Beth Abraham. Participants donated new children's books for the Brunner Literary Center.
Chabad
Peter Wine
Contact Patty Caruso at plhc69@gmail.com to advertise in The Observer.
THE REGION
Registration open for int'l. Jewish genealogy conference in Ft. Wayne, Ind., Aug. 10-14
Fort Wayne, Ind. — site of one of the largest family history research centers in the world — will host the 45th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference, Aug. 10-14.
Only a two-hour, 15-minute drive from Dayton, Fort Wayne was chosen as the location for this year's IAJGS conference because of the expansive genealogical resources housed at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
Its collection of more than 1.2 million physical items is fully open and available to visitors, who can also access several genealogical databases on site.
Jewish resources at the center are:
• Holocaust-related materials, including a large collection of Yizkor books
• Temple and synagogue histories
• Jewish genealogy research guidebooks
• Jewish periodicals
• Jewish diaries and personal memoirs
• The Jewish Life in America, c16541954 database from the American Jewish Historical Society
The genealogy center, which will serve as the conference's resource center, is led by Curt Witcher, former president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Genealogical Society.
The Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Ind. is one of the largest family history research centers in the world.
Miami Valley Jewish Genealogy & History, a project of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton led by The Dayton Jewish Observer's Marshall Weiss, is a member of IAJGS.
Conference tracks are available for those new to Jewish genealogy, as well as intermediatelevel and advanced researchers.
• An exhibit hall with vendors from genealogy companies and local societies
An estimated 1,000 people from around the world are expected to attend the conference, which will include:
• Programs and workshops on DNA analysis, historical migration, records available worldwide, and Holocaust research
• Special events with research divisions focused on a particular country or region of research
• Networking opportunities with hundreds of genealogists
The keynote speaker for the conference will be American genetic genealogist CeCe Moore, most recently known for her work on Finding Your Roots. Moore has assisted law enforcement in more than 300 cold cases of high-profile human identification using DNA and genetic genealogy.
The IAJGS Conference will be held at the Grand Wayne Convention Center, adjacent to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
The conference's film festival will feature more than 30 rare, historically significant Jewishthemed films, shorts, and television programs spanning the first films of the early 20th century to the present, across major themes of immigration, the Holocaust, and North American westward expansion.
A highlight of the festival will be a screening of the 4K restoration of Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 Hester Street, to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
The festival is curated by Steve Carr, director of the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Purdue University, Fort Wayne.
For more information and to register for the conference, go to IAJGS2025.org.
Want to receive your own copy of The Dayton Jewish Observer each month by mail? Email us at
Keynote speaker CeCe Moore
Six Israeli Arab students and their chaperone from the village of Kaokab and the surrounding Galilee region volunteered at the Dayton Foodbank during their 13-day visit to Dayton, April 12-24. The trip marked the culmination of a summer English language program for Israeli Arab students in the Galilee that Daytonarea volunteers lead on alternating years. Dr. Marti Moody Jacobs (front, R) has facilitated nine Israeli Arab student trips to Dayton for this project since 2007. The program is funded through private donations. Their packed schedule included Temple Beth
Does your teenager graduate
Or's Second Seder, Magnolia Theatre Company's allfemale production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the Glen Helen Raptor Center, Clifton Gorge, John Bryan State Park, Young's Dairy, a day at Sinclair Community College, a session at the Dayton Mediation Center about conflict resolution, a boxing session at SG Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Carillon Park, El Meson, glass crafts at Busy Beaver, a day at UD and its Hub at The Arcade, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, and the Air Force Museum including Prejudice & Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit
high school this year?
The Observer is happy to offer you a FREE announcement, including a photo, in our June graduation issue.To receive a form for this free announcement, contact Marshall Weiss at mweiss@jfgd.net. Forms received after May 8 will be held for the July issue of The Observer
King’s Coin Exchange, LLC
Protesters disrupt pro-Israel program at Kent State
By Kristen Beard Cleveland Jewish News
Mia Effron, a first-year nursing student at Kent State University, was one of five students to attend a March 31 event that drew over 200 protesters.
The event, Triggered: From Combat to Campus, hosted about 50 attendees.
It was organized by Students Supporting Israel, a student-led organization at Kent State whose mission is to be a clear, confident pro-Israel voice on college campuses and to support students in grassroots pro-Israel advocacy, in partnership with Olami, a Jewish outreach organization.
SSI and Olami brought three Israel Defense Forces soldiers to speak with college students across the U.S., Effron said.
The goal of the event was to shed light on the soldiers’ personal experiences before, during, and after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas surprise terrorist attack on Israel, as well as to address the rise in antisemitism.
Only those who registered were allowed inside the building, separating most protesters from the event. However, she said some protesters registered to attend, which led to disruptions.
Around the time of the event, Students for Justice in Palestine, a student-led, antiZionist group, held a protest outside the Kent State Student Center called Day of Action: No IDF War Criminals on Our Campus .
The protest began 30 minutes before the event, according to a March 25 Instagram post. Effron estimated over 200 protesters were present, with most wearing masks.
“It became pretty clear that there were people who were in the room whose goal was to disrupt the event,” Felber said. “I would say about every five to 10 minutes, a different individual would stand up with some disruptive speech and then were quickly escorted out of the room by police and other administrators.”
Protesters said phrases including: “You should be hung with your prime minister,” “Free Palestine,” “Baby killers,” and “From the river to the sea,” Effron said. Some accused the IDF soldiers of being war criminals.
She added that security from JewishAkron was also present at the event.
Effron said the IDF soldiers were taken out separately under heavier police presence due to specific threats.
She and other students were escorted out a back entrance and she was later driven to her dorm because of safety concerns.
Even after the event ended, the protest continued, Effron said.
Rachel Felber, executive director of Hillel at Kent State and The University of Akron, said that while Hillel was not involved in organizing the event, she attended as a representative of the Jewish student community.
Once she became aware of the protest and the “tensions that were arising,” she brought university administrators and police together to ensure student safety, Felber said.
Effron said some attendees responded with “From Hamas” and singing “Am Yisrael Chai.”
'That a Jewish student could be yelled at by an adult that doesn't even go to Kent State and be told to be hung in their student center — I was angry that this was allowed to happen.'
According to Effron, one protester who entered the room got physically close to one of the soldiers before police intervened. Felber said she collaborated with university administrators and police to ensure that there was a safe exit, “which would allow for those in attendance to leave without having to have a confrontation with anyone who was in protest to the event.”
“I had a lot of emotions,” she said. “I felt very disappointed. The police did a great job removing the people, but that a Jewish student could be yelled at by an adult that doesn’t even go to Kent State and be told to be hung in their student center — I was angry that this was allowed to happen. I was angry that I had to be escorted to the bathroom with a faculty member because it wasn’t safe for me to go to the bathroom in my own student center.”
Kent State sent a statement to the Cleveland Jewish News regarding the event and protest.
“The speakers were brought in by a registered student organization. As with any speaker invited to our campus, Kent State University does not endorse or condone an opinion or point of view represented by the speakers, nor does the university advocate for any topic the speakers might discuss during their visit to campus. Kent State upholds the First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceful assembly
Kent State student Mia Effron
Kent State & Univ. of Akron Hillel Exec. Dir. Rachel Felber
KSU
Kent State University Student Center
THE REGION
for all. As a state university, we permit groups and individuals to speak and share their views on or about topics they feel are important.
“Kent State has a long history of allowing peaceful dialogue from all points of view, including those whom some may feel are offering different or sometimes controversial opinions. We continue to support and encourage freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas. Consistent with our core values, we encourage open dialogue and respectful civil discourse in an inclusive environment.”
ported and safe.”
Felber said Hillel also has a great relationship with the police, as well.
Sophia Witt, executive vice president of SSI's national movement and a Shaker Heights resident, said she attended the event and arrived early when she saw the group of protesters outside the building.
Witt said the first thing she was told when entering the event was that she was a “genocidal baby killer.” Witt, an alumna of KSU, founded KSU’s chapter of SSI in 2015, she said.
Despite the tension, Rabbi Berel Sasonkin, codirector of the Chabad at Kent State, who arrived near the end of the event, said he came to focus on community strength and pride.
“My focus was promoting the positive elements and trying to show that we’re proud to be Jewish, and we won’t be pushed down,” Sasonkin said.
He said the police response was swift and supportive, as usual, while noting a good relationship between law enforcement and the Jewish community.
“Whenever the Jewish community requests support and security, the law enforcement is always there, and it’s very responsive and helpful, and makes sure things happen in the most orderly way possible,” Sasonkin said. “We’re very thankful for the law enforcement. It helps the entire Jewish community feel sup-
She added SSI students and leaders “don’t shy away from wearing our Magen Davids and showing our Zionist perspectives.”
“We’re the ones who brought this tour because we don’t shy away from the people that hate Israel,” she said. “We want to encourage free speech, and we also want to encourage our perspective in this, and this idea of being afraid to be a Jew — Those days are over. We’re not in the Holocaust anymore.”
Campus police, admin. helpful
She said the students on her team were organized throughout the event and that the campus police and administration were also helpful and supportive throughout the event.
“They weren’t taking sides or perspectives on the matter, but they were absolutely for free speech and I think that that’s commendable,” she said. “We think so often that ad-
ministration is always against us in this and I think that they handled it really well at Kent.”
Felber and Sasonkin also said they feel the organizations have a good relationship with the university administration.
The following day, April 1, as Effron was walking to class, she said she noticed graffiti on the large brick letter K in front of the student center, with phrases such as, “From the river to the sea” and “Free Palestine,” along with profanities aimed at Kent State President Todd Diacon and accusations that the university harbors war criminals.
But lack of response from Kent leadership
Effron said she contacted Kent Hillel for support, but was disappointed by what she described as a lack of response from university leadership.
“I’m surprised Todd Diacon didn’t say anything, especially since they were writing such rude things about him, but there was no response,” Effron said. “Hillel and SSI were the only ones that supported the students through it.”
Felber said she assumed this was a part of the protest, as “that’s a typical student behavior at a protest.”
In the past, Students for Justice in Palestine has “engaged in some antagonizing interactions over social media with Hillel, but not this academic year,” Felber said.
“While I’ve been in my role
at Kent, there has never been a question about students’ physical safety,” Felber said. “And we continue to work with the university to ensure that their safety is protected while working on ensuring that we can continue to build other opportunities to support our emotional safety and vulnerability during these times.”
Sasonkin said Chabad has never had issues at Kent.
Effron said Students Supporting Israel’s leadership met with Josh Perkins, KSU’s dean of students, following the event to discuss their safety as Jews on campus and were told “because they were not physically
assaulted, that their safety is not a concern, despite the violent threats from protesters.”
Effron said she remains concerned about the fear many Jewish students feel on campus.
“We are scared to put a Jewish star on,” she said. “We are scared to hold a Jewish flag or have it in our dorm. And (we are) even scared to put a mezuzah up on our door because we’ve had students who have had antisemitic attacks because of that.”
Felber said students were encouraged to report experiences through the university and via ReportHate.org, a joint effort by Hillel International, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Secure Community Network.
SSI National Exec. VP Sophia Witt
Kent State Chabad Codirector Rabbi Berel Sasonkin
Groove to the Rhythms of Israeli Jazz Fusion!
Experience the dynamic fusion of jazz and Israeli sounds with renowned international artist Daphna Levy on Sunday, June 8, at 1:00 p.m.
ADL: antisemitic incidents rose over 80% on college campuses last year
By Grace Gilson, JTA
Antisemitic incidents in the United States increased once again in 2024, the Anti-Defamation League reported, reaching a new all-time high and providing the latest indicator of a continued surge in antisemitism following Oct. 7, 2023.
The report, released April 22, recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the country, marking a 5% increase from the previous year. That's almost 10 times the number recorded a decade ago, in 2014. ADL's report found that antisemitic assaults, vandalism and harassment all rose year over year, while the use of antisemitic propaganda fell.
For the first time since the ADL began publishing the audits, in 1979, a majority of all incidents were related to Israel or Zionism. Half took place at anti-Israel rallies.
And the report found that the increase was driven by an 84% spike in campus antisemitism in a year when the pro-Palestinian encampment movement swept campuses nationwide and, many Jewish students said, created a hostile atmosphere.
“This horrifying level of antisemitism should never be accepted and yet, as our data shows, it has become a persistent and grim reality for American Jewish communities,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in a press release. “Jewish Americans continue to be harassed, assaulted and targeted for who they are on a daily basis and everywhere they go. But let’s be clear: we will remain proud of our Jewish culture, religion and identities, and we will not be intimidated by bigots.”
The audit appears to give statistical heft to widespread American Jewish anxiety over rising antisemitism — particularly on campus — since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the outbreak of the war in Gaza. For years, the ADL’s audit has been seen as an authoritative survey of antisemitism in the United States, trusted by groups across the political spectrum.
But in tallying thousands of instances in which it says criticism of Israel constituted antisemitism, the report touches on contentious territory. ProPalestinian groups have criticized the ADL for equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and what they say is an outsize focus on their movement.
The findings also come as the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus antisemitism has reached a fever pitch: The White House is seeking to deport a string of student activists in the encampment movement and has frozen billions of dollars of funding to a growing number of elite schools. Some Jewish groups on the right hope to aid
that effort and have criticized legacy organizations like the ADL for being too timid.
In its count of 5,452 incidents related to Israel or Zionism, the ADL says it focused on sentiments it said “crossed the line into antisemitism through a range of concerning expressions.” Actions taken by anti-Israel protesters that the ADL counted as antisemitic included glorification of Hamas or celebration of the anniversary of Oct. 7.
The tally also includes slogans such as “death to Israel” and tropes about the blood libel or “Zionist media.” It also counted symbols such as Hamas armbands, Hezbollah flags and signage equating swastikas with Stars of David.
The group also tallied the common slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Many Jewish groups say the slogan is a call for Israel’s destruction, while activists have countered that it is a call for freedom.
Campus incidents accounted for 18% of the total, the largest proportion in the audit’s history.
A month-by-month graph of the incidents tracks the school year: incidents peak in the spring, dip sharply in the summer and rise again in the fall, when classes resume.
The audit highlighted some specific campus incidents. At DePaul University’s encampment, the ADL noted that a person was told to “go back to Poland,” and another person was told they would be beheaded and that “(you) and the Jewish people like (you) should leave America.”
Broadly, the report documented an increase of around 20% in both assaults and vandalism since 2023. The ADL recorded 196 assaults in 2024 compared to 161 in 2023, and 2,606 incidents of vandalism in 2024 compared to 2,177 in 2023. There was a slight increase in antisemitic harassment.
In public areas writ large, antisemitic activity rose by 19%. And Jewish organizations received a total of 627 bomb threats, 89% of which targeted synagogues.
Anti-Israel students and activists protest at an encampment in the campus of California State University, Los Angeles, May 6, 2024.
Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images
Shapiro doesn't back Schumer’s call
federal hate crime investigation into gov. mansion arson
By Philissa Cramer, JTA
Pennsylvania Gov.
Josh Sha
burned in the space they had just vacated.
District Attorney Fran Chardo to handle the case.
piro said April 17 that investigators had managed to retrieve ritual Passover items from the dining room that was heavily damaged by an arsonist’s fire shortly after his family’s Seder on Saturday night, April 12.
“Some just required a dusting and a cleaning,” he said outside a Harrisburg firehouse where he and his wife Lori were serving lunch to first responders who rescued his family and doused the flames early April 13. “Others are destroyed.”
Police say Cory Balmer started the blaze in part because of his opposition to “what Shapiro wants to do to the Palestinian people.” The revelation of his motive on April 16 confirmed for some that the attack was antisemitic in nature.
Pa.
Gov. Josh Shapiro
Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jews in politics, said he and his family had concluded the public Seder around 10 p.m. and had retired to their private quarters before heading to bed around 1 a.m. It was less than an hour later that State Police officers roused them abruptly to evacuate the building, as a raging fire
Shapiro’s comments came shortly after Sen. Chuck Schumer called for a federal hate crime investigation.
“While the local district attorney has not yet filed hate-crime charges, he acknowledged that Governor Shapiro’s religion appears to have factored into the suspect’s decisions,” Schumer wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Our federal authorities must bring the full weight of our civil-rights laws to bear in examining this matter.”
Shapiro declined to back Schumer’s call, saying he was confident in Dauphin County
“As to Senator Schumer or anybody else, I don’t think it’s helpful for people on the outside who haven’t seen the evidence, who don’t know what occurred, who are applying their own viewpoints to the situation, to weigh in that manner,” he said. “My trust is with the prosecutor to make the decision. He’ll make the right decisions and I will be fully supportive of whatever decision he makes.”
Shapiro said his return to the dining room for the first time was jarring — and had redoubled his commitment to making Pennsylvania safe for people of all backgrounds.
“At one point today when we stopped to see the chandelier that had come down from the ceiling and was kind of partly melted and partly covered, you know, in soot, what have you, from the fire — it was resting on a place on the floor where just the night before, we had celebrated our Passover Seder,
where two or three weeks earlier, we had celebrated an Iftar dinner at the conclusion of Ramadan, and about a year before that, where kids danced and played at our son Ruben’s bar mitzvah, and right where the Christmas tree stands every December in the governor’s residence,” he recounted, standing with his wife Lori.
“We really believe that Pennsylvania and this residence should be a place where people of all faiths are welcome and all faiths are comforted and feel as though they can celebrate openly and proudly who they are,” he said. “And we’re going to get that room back to being a place that’s warm and welcoming for all.”
Rabbi Ben Azriel
Scott Beckerman
Deb Char
Rabbi Judy Chessin
Rachel Dillon
Lena Elder
Avi Gilbert
Aven Kirtland
Alicia Ostrow
Renee Perry
Mary Rogers
Eliana Wasserman
Esther Weiss
Evan Weiss
Jay Weiss
Sarah White
THE NATION Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across U.S.
By Grace Gilson, JTA
Dozens of rabbis and cantors who graduated from Brown University have a message for their alma mater’s president: “Do not cede control to those who weaponize antisemitism.”
Their message came in an open letter to President Christina Paxson as she weighs how to respond to a $500 million funding cut threatened by the Trump administration, ostensibly over Brown’s handling of antisemitism on campus.
Brown is one of a growing number of universities, many of them in the Ivy League, to be threatened with similar cuts by the Trump administration. As the list expands, and as the Trump administration moves to retaliate against Harvard for resisting its pressure, Jewish students, alumni, and groups openly reject moves that the White House says are meant to protect them.
In mid-April, a chorus of dissent came from Jewish community members at Harvard, Emerson College, Georgetown University and more.
At Harvard, over 100 Jewish students signed a letter decrying the Trump administration’s announcement that it would review $9 billion in federal funding to the school. The letter was written before the administration froze $2.2 billion in funding.
“We are compelled to speak out because these actions are being taken in the name of protecting us — Harvard Jewish students — from antisemitism,” the students wrote, according to The Harvard Crimson. “But this crackdown will not protect us. On the contrary, we know that funding cuts will harm the campus community we are part of and care about deeply.”
Harvard Hillel said in a statement April 18 that the Trump administration’s actions harm Jews on its campus.
“The current, escalating federal assault against Harvard — shuttering apolitical, life-saving research; targeting the university’s tax-exempt status; and threatening all student visas, including those of Israeli students who are proud veterans of the Israel Defense Forces and forceful advocates for Israel on campus — is neither focused nor measured, and stands to substantially harm the very Jewish students and scholars it purports to protect,” the statement said.
More than a dozen Jewish faculty members at Emerson signed a letter published in the Berkeley Beacon April 16 that expressed concern over the “weaponization of antisemitism” to further the Trump administration’s agenda.
“This is a transparent move by the Trump administration to concentrate power and erode university independence under the offensive pretext of ‘protect(ing) Jewish students,’” the letter
read. At Georgetown, over 170 Jewish students, faculty, staff and alumni signed a letter condemning the detainment of Georgetown researcher Badar Khan Suri in March. His detainment was a part of a string of arrests of proPalestinian activists on campuses by the Trump administration to curtail campus antisemitism.
Dozens of Jewish groups recently joined an amicus brief in support of a Tufts University student who was detained over an op-ed she wrote in a student newspaper criticizing Israel.
The criticism comes from Israel, too. On April 17, over 170 Israeli academics denounced the Trump administration’s detainments in an open letter, writing that “such draconian moves do not protect us” and lambasting the “cynical use of ‘combating antisemitism’” as an impetus for the administration’s actions. And it’s not just people affiliated with universities who are pushing back on the Trump administration’s campaign against higher education.
Ten major Jewish organizations comprising leaders in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements made a joint statement April 15 rejecting what they called the “false choice” between Jewish safety on campuses and democracy.
“We reject any policies or actions that foment or take advantage of antisemitism and pit communities against one another; and we unequivocally condemn the exploitation of our community’s real concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights, including the rule of law, the right of due process, and/or the freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful protest,” the statement read.
The Trump administration’s higher education moves have Jewish supporters, particularly when it comes to canceling the visas of students who have engaged in anti-Israel activism. Multiple activist groups have taken on the task of identifying students and reporting on them to the White House. The funding pressure has Jewish defenders, too.
But there are signs that the funding cuts — billions of dollars are so far on the line — may have overshot the ambitions of even the most demanding critics of antisemitism on college campuses.
On April 18, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, sharpened earlier criticism of the Trump administration’s higher education agenda. While saying Harvard and other schools have real challenges when it comes to antisemitism, he said they were more likely to improve with support than with steep punishments and that penalties, if applied in rare instances, should be narrowly targeted.
UPCOMING
THURSDAY, MAY 1, 6 - 8:30PM Yom Ha'atzmaut Celebration
SUNDAY, MAY 18, 5 - 8PM Presidents Dinner
Register today for a summer of fun!
JUNE 4 - JULY 25
Where Jewish spirit & summer joy grow together
Register online at campshalomdayton.campmanagement.com/enroll
Questions? Contact Jennifer Holman at jholman@jfgd.net
DINE OUT
Sunday, June 22, 5:00 – 6:30PM
Jimmie's Ladder 11 936 Brown St., Dayton, 45409
JCC Boomers Dine Out before attending the JCC Film Festival Movie Bad Shabbos featuring Kyra Sedgwick and David Paymer Movie starts at 7:15PM. Meet up with the JCC Boomers for a Fun Night Out! Must purchase JCC Film Festival movie tickets separately in advance. Cost: Dinner on your own.
RSVP by June 18 for dinner and the movie at jewishdayton.org/events or contact Stacy Emo at semo @jfgd.net or 937-610-5513.
BEGINNERS MAH JONGG LESSONS
Tuesday, July 1, 8, & 15, 5:30 - 6:30PM at the Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Drive, Centerville, 45459
The JCC is o ering Beginners Mah Jongg Lessons for people who have never played or think they are beginners! Taught by our very own Cathy Gardner, the classes will run for three consecutive weeks.
Cost: $36 - Includes a 2025 Mah Jongg card set and the book: A Beginner’s Guide to American Mah Jongg: How to Play the Game & Win. Please Register by June 1 at jewishdayton.org/events.
Questions? Contact Stacy Emo at semo @jfgd.net or call 937-610-5513
May 2025
JEWISH
The Roger Glass Center for the Arts
29 Creative Way, Dayton, 45479
$18 for an individual ticket
$110 for a season pass
Opening Night
Thursday, June 5, 7:15PM Matchmaking
(Israel, 2022, 96 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles) Comedy
Like a modern-day Romeo, Moti (Amit Rahav) falls head over heels for his sister’s friend Nechama (Liana Ayoun), but isn’t allowed to date the charming, beautiful young woman because she comes from a Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) family, not an Ashkenazi (European) family like his own. To the great despair of both his parents and an exasperated matchmaker, he goes to comical lengths to pursue his one true love.
TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 7:15PM AT THE NEON Running on Sand also available online June 10
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 7:15PM AT THE NEON Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop
SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 7:15PM AT THE NEON The Blond Boy from the Casbah
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 10AM AT THE NEON Simone – Woman of the Century
reception hosted by Hadassah before movie at 9:30AM
TICKETS
$12 individual film unless otherwise noted
$110 Festival pass includes all films both in-person and online.
To purchase tickets or a festival pass, visit jewishdayton.org.
For more information or assistance, contact 937-610-1555.
2025 LINEUP
NIGHT OF Short Films
THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 7:15PM AT THE NEON
The President's Tailor, Fiddler on the Moon, How to Make Challah, Periphery, Mahjong and Mahashas
SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 3:15PM AT THE NEON Troll Storm
SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 7:15PM AT THE NEON Bad Shabbos
TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 7:15PM AT THE NEON Come Closer
THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 7:15PM AT THE NEON Shoshana
Film Fest's 25th Anniversary Celebration Night
SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 6:30PM AT THE PLAZA THEATRE 33 S. Main St., Miamisburg, 45342 Midas Man
$18 for an individual ticket
SUNDAY, JULY 13, 3:15PM AT THE NEON Bee Movie
No charge for tickets
May 2025
JEWISH FEDERATION
Legacies, Tributes, & Memorials
ANNUAL CAMPAIGN
In memory of Jeanne Betty Weiner
JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER DAYTON ENDOWMENT FUND
In memory of Jeanne Betty Weiner
JEWISH CEMETERIES FUND
In memory of Julie Bloom’s mother
LINDA RUCHMAN MEMORIAL FUND
In memory of Shirley Quinn
Did you know you can honor a friend or family member through a Legacy, Tribute or Memorial?
A donation to one of the Jewish Foundation's many endowment funds benefit our Jewish community while honoring a loved one. For more information, please contact Janese R. Sweeny, Esq. CFRE, at 937-401-1542.
Join us for the 2025 Summer Series Virtual Workshops! The series is sponsored by Jewish Family Services of Greater Dayton, Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley, Family Services Association, and Graceworks Lutheran Services. Each session provides licensed social workers and
Strategies
for Supporting the Sexuality of Seniors
August 8 • 8:45AM – NOON • 3.0 CEUs
Clinical Supervision & Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknowns September 12, • 8:45AM – NOON • 3.0 CEUs
Jewish Federations CEO privately opposed Jewish open letter criticizing Trump’s campus actions
By Andrew Lapin, JTA
A coalition of 10 large Jewish groups released an open letter April 15 decrying the Trump administration’s approach to antisemitism.
Hours later, Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, released his own letter. Writing privately to leaders of local Jewish Federations, he said the anti-Trump letter did not adequately “reference the diverse views we hold” in the Jewish community.
The text of Fingerhut’s email was shared with JTA. It was first reported by Ron Kampeas, a political reporter who retired in December from JTA and now publishes independently.
The dispute points to ongoing anxiety within the Jewish world over how or whether to respond to Trump’s attempted deportations of foreign student activists and cuts to higher education funding in the name of fighting antisemitism.
some Jews, particularly in Orthodox communities, take the entire holiday off from work.
A JFNA spokesperson defended Fingerhut’s objections in a statement. “The North American Jewish community holds a wide diversity of views, especially on politically controversial topics, including those referenced in the open letter,” the spokesperson said. “If we are to stay united in politically fraught times such as these, it is critical that statements claiming to represent the broad mainstream of our community acknowledge and include the diversity of views we hold.”
Signatories to the first letter — spearheaded by the Jewish Council on Public Affairs and including leaders of the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements — join a broad range of Jewish organizations that have critiqued or condemned Trump’s campus crackdown. But JFNA, an umbrella for nearly 150 local Jewish Federations that often act as their community’s main address, is standing by its CEO’s insistence on reflecting a broader range of perspectives.
The anti-Trump letter rejected “any policies or actions that foment or take advantage of antisemitism and pit communities against one another” and condemned “the exploitation of our community’s real concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms,” due process and First Amendment rights.
It added, “It is both possible and necessary to fight antisemitism — on campus, in our communities, and across the country — without abandoning the democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many other vulnerable minorities, to thrive.”
In his email, Fingerhut objected to the letter’s claim to represent “a broad swath of mainstream American Jewry.” He pointed to several Jewish groups — including the Anti-Defamation League, the Orthodox Union and the Conference of Presidents — that had not signed it, and also expressed disappointment over not being consulted about the letter.
Fingerhut also criticized the open letter for being circulated during Passover, which he said proved it could not speak for the entire Jewish community since
The disagreement has echoes of another recent split between JCPA, which led the letter, and JFNA, which is criticizing it.
JCPA used to set its policies via consensus across a network of local Jewish Community Relations Councils, which are often affiliated with Jewish Federations. But in 2022, JCPA loosened those ties, allowing it to make statements such as the open letter without being beholden to federations.
JCPA’s CEO, Amy Spitalnick, declined to comment on Fingerhut’s letter. Her group has in the past criticized government efforts to detain immigrants without charge, including under the Obama administration.
The signatories of the open letter also included the Jewish immigrant-rights group HIAS and the National Council of Jewish Women.
Fingerhut’s email expressed its own stance on the campus crackdown. He defended civil liberties, opposed campus antisemitism and urged Jewish Federations to let the deportation cases play out in court.
“Our community has never sought to restrict free speech rights on campus or elsewhere, but we have and will continue to seek action by universities and government against those who incite against Jewish students,” he wrote. “Whether the cases that are currently before the courts are examples of such incitement will be determined in due course.”
He also disputed the open letter’s contention that students were being deprived of their rights, writing that “we do not support the curtailment of due process rights” but that the targeted students “are receiving due process and are represented by able legal counsel.”
Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, and Hillel International have all sounded notes of concern about the deportations and the defunding of university research in recent weeks, though none signed onto the JCPA-led letter.
JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut
OPINION
The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You
should too.
By Rob Eshman
The Forward
Jonathan Greenblatt, the leader of the Anti-Defamation League, walked back his organization’s previous support for President Donald Trump’s Trump campaign to detain and deport pro-Palestinian activists — thank God.
“No one should minimize the hateful, violent acts committed against Jewish students,” he wrote in an April 3 essay in eJewishPhilanthropy “But if we sacrifice our constitutional freedoms in the pursuit of security, we undermine the very foundation of the diverse, pluralistic society we seek to defend.”
Now that the largest and most influential Jewish civil rights organization has reconsidered its unjustifiable initial support for the detentions, it’s time for others who may also have been seduced into believing such draconian measures are “good for the Jews” to speak out against them.
Because they are definitely not good for the Jews.
Look, I get why Greenblatt and the ADL were initially enthusiastic. After a year of campus protests that sometimes led to physical harassment of Jewish students, vandalized university property and prevented Jewish and other students from attending class, I can imagine finding it satisfying to see actual perpetrators held accountable.
And so the ADL did.“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism,” ADL posted to its X account on Mar. 9, after ICE agents took Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil into custody, “and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions.”
That post went on to throw in one sentence calling for due process. But as Greenblatt now acknowledges, the organization should have known better.
“We were glad to see the administration taking action,” he said in an interview with Jewish
Insider. “But the pattern of behavior since then has raised concerns that would be easy to address by being transparent about the charges.”
Khalil has not been charged with any crimes; nor have any of the students or other university staff so far arrested, detained and deported as part of the Trump administration’s push.
The administration’s approach in this, as in deportations of alleged gang members, has been to imprison first and ask questions later, going after anyone whose opinions somebody somewhere found objectionable — all under the guise of protecting the Jews.
I, like many liberal-leaning Jews, found it difficult to understand how the ADL and other Jewish organizations and leaders could have failed to immediately see the slippery Constitutional slope Khalil’s arrest put us on — and where it would inevitably lead.
Even worse is the fact that reporters have found that two Jewish groups, Canary Mission and Betar, have targeted pro-Palestinian activists for arrest and fed their names to authorities. These are shadowy groups — the ADL labeled Betar “extremist” — that represent a right-wing fringe of American Jewry.
peared as she left her home in Somerville, Mass.
Her crime? The 30-year-old Turkish national co-authored an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper calling for the university to divest from Israel.
“You cannot arrest people or eject people from the country because they are bigoted or racist,” he told Jewish Insider “That’s not a crime. That has never been an offense.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Associated Press that Ozturk’s visa was terminated at the end of March, after the agency found that she engaged in activities in support of Hamas.
Of course the agency provided no evidence. Her friends said she did not organize protests, and Tufts confirmed that her op-ed did not violate school policies.
“We can hold perpetrators of unlawful antisemitism accountable while maintaining a commitment to the Constitution,” wrote Greenblatt in eJewishPhilanthropy. “We can protect the civil liberties of Jewish students even as we preserve the civil liberties of those who protest, harass or attack them because they are innocent until proven guilty.”
Such draconian measures are not good for the Jews.
Of course, starting with Khalil’s arrest there was good reason to oppose the administration’s shotgun approach to antisemitism.
They have a manual. We need a movement.
Hamas, Hezbollah and those working on their behalf are not supporters of free speech; they are carrying out the will of foreign terrorist organizations. By Michael Masters
Free speech is a right enshrined in the fabric of our country. Just as we must be vigilant in protecting it, we must also be clear-eyed about what it is and what it is not. Where speech is motivated by hate or is intended to support or encourage fear or violence or terrorism, the right of free speech is not absolute. Free-speech protections have never extended to terrorist activity.
Pro-Hamas documents found recently on college campuses and the Internet told people to:
“Build your cell.”
“Pick your target.”
“…remember that your action is to disrupt, damage or destroy your target.”
“With an efficient sledgehammer in your hand, you can cause quite a bit of damage!”
“…make sure you have your routes planned for a perfect getaway.”
“Do not have your face on show at any point during the action.”
third parties who are not students, seem explicitly designed to turn educational spaces into battlegrounds for hatred instead of what they should be — safe spaces for students to learn and grow.
We should not be naïve or gullible enough to believe that the tactics some advocate — from using burner phones to recommending not wearing shoes that could identify you — will be limited to mere vandalism and destruction of property.
The discovery of these documents comes in the wake of warnings by the former director of national intelligence that Iran was playing a role in stoking protests on U.S. campuses in the spring of 2024.
It takes only the barest acquaintance with Jewish history to understand that when free speech and civil liberties erode for any group, Jews inevitably become a target.
In this case, we are doubly endangered — by government actions attacking free speech, and also by groups blaming the Jews as a whole for instigating these attacks.
Good on the ADL for eventually recognizing that, and being able to admit they made a mistake. Greenblatt said his awakening came after the March 25 detention of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, whom masked ICE agents swooped down on and disap-
So, what do you think?
Threatening to cut off all federal funding to a university — including critical medical research, and grants to Jewish students and professors — doesn’t help Jews.
Eviscerating the offices at the Department of Education, including those that investigate campus antisemitism, doesn’t help Jews.
What these measures help are people who want to undermine liberal education, elite institutions, and government bureaucracies. Which, you know, might just be the point.
Our job is not to be suckered into supporting it.
Rob Eshman is a senior columnist for the Forward.
These are just some of the recommendations made in materials that have been discovered, including propaganda allegedly from Hamas’ media office that surfaced at Barnard College and a digital manual that explicitly promotes violent tactics. These are not handbooks for people on how to exercise their voice. These are guides for how to create a cell, avoid detection, engage in reconnaissance, and then how to carry out an attack. The details are frightening to read.
The presence and distribution of these materials on American college campuses underscore a chilling reality: Terror groups are becoming increasingly organized, strategic and emboldened in their attempts to foment outrage and attack Jews.
These materials and their dissemination, at times by
This reality must galvanize us into action. Shame on us if we fail to act decisively in this critical moment. History will judge our response.
We have seen the impact in the United States when intelligence and information are not acted on as aggressively as they should be — on Sept. 11, 2001. We must learn by leveraging our lawful tools to counter the forces of terrorism and hate that seek to normalize themselves in our society and undermine our country.
We have Hamas’ playbook in our hands. We need to counter their manual with our own movement.
First, the difference between lawful, protected speech and First Amendment activity and support for designated terrorist organizations must be recognized. Under the law, 8 U.S.C. 2339B(a)(1), anyone who “knowingly provides material
support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, or attempts or conspires to do so” commits a federal crime.
This includes “speech to, under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations,” as ruled in Holder v. Humanitarian L. Project, which also says that our First Amendment and other freedoms do not protect persons who provide material support to these “particularly dangerous and lawless foreign organizations.”
Second, where individuals violate the law regarding support for terrorist organizations, they should be charged and prosecuted. Beyond that, we must pursue entities that are propagating this material and those who fund them, whether they are nongovernmental organizations or foreign state actors. We have seen strong action from law enforcement and prosecutors in this regard; they must be lauded.
Where institutions, including college campuses and universities, fail to support and undermine the enforcement of the law, they must be held accountable. Hamas, Hezbollah, and those working on their behalf are not supporters of free speech, they are carrying out the will of foreign terrorist organizations and undermining free speech in the process.
Lastly, none of us must be deluded as to what is going on. The manuals that have been propagated are not designed to advocate for the oppressed or seek justice.
They are, in their own words, designed and intended to “disrupt, damage, (and) destroy” their targets. Individuals and organizations have been targeted. Their other target — our democracy and the values upon which it was established.
We know our enemy’s tactical war plan. Having this in our possession gives us the responsibility and advantage to act strategically and decisively.
This isn’t about free speech, which must be protected. It is about stopping terrorist organizations from spreading hate and violence against the Jewish community and undermining our country.
Michael Masters serves as the national director and CEO of the Secure Community Network. Distributed by JNS.org.
OPINION
Scholars have told important Jewish stories with NEH’s support. What happens now?
By Pamela S. Nadell
As a historian focused on Jewish history for more than four decades, I was aware when I applied to the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Public Scholars program for support for my new book that the odds were not great.
After all, I had in the past reviewed applications to the NEH from scholars, curators and filmmakers seeking funding for their projects, and I knew how many worthy endeavors were vying for a limited pot of federal funding.
But I was lucky: I got a grant, and my book, Antisemitism, an American Tradition comes out this fall.
My grant ended last August, which means I was narrowly not among the scholars told in April that NEH grants they had received had been canceled — by a federal government that has made fighting antisemitism its signature issue.
Indeed, this administration is defunding universities’ cancer research expecting this will resolve antisemitism — a laughable prospect.
But if it cares so much about antisemitism, it should not go after the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The NEH not only subsidized my book on the long history of antisemitism in the United States, it has a significant record of backing books, documentaries, and museum exhibitions about Jewish history and culture that counter antisemitic lies.
who had uncovered a plot to kidnap and hang 20 prominent Jews and their allies, including Charlie Chaplin. They expected this to launch a nationwide pogrom.
An NEH grant helped Washington, D.C.’s Capital Jewish Museum plan its new exhibition which is built around the city’s oldest synagogue building.
When that congregation, Adas Israel, dedicated its new house of worship in 1876, just in time to celebrate this nation’s centennial, Ulysses S. Grant became the first president to attend a synagogue service. He even donated $10, the equivalent of about $200 today.
Why would an administration battling antisemitism cripple an organization with a tiny budget — just $207 million last year — whose projects add to our knowledge about Jewish history and culture?
This history is more essential than ever today to counter the rising tide of antisemitism in this nation.
Support for projects about Jewish history and culture are, of course, a small part of the funds the NEH has dispensed in the 60 years since it was established.
This history is more essential than ever today to counter the rising tide of antisemitism in this nation.
In recent years, the NEH funded translating Luis de Carvajal’s diaries. Traveling throughout 16th-century colonial Mexico, a land that barred Jews, de Carvajal secretly practiced Judaism until, arrested by the Inquisition, he died in its jail.
The NEH supported translating the Yiddish stories written by Rokhl Brokhes (1880-1945) before the Nazis murdered her. Another award went to a book about spies in 1930s Hollywood
So, what do you think?
It has funded book projects about New York’s Archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman, the poet Robert Frost, and Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Its grants have enabled millions to view the Ken Burns films The Civil War and The Vietnam War, as well as a film about the history of comics.
The NEH has supported museums on the Underground Railroad and San Francisco’s Angel Island, the largest immigration station on the West Coast, as well as an exhibition about toys.
It even provided funding to develop a smartphone app for visitors to the new World War I Memorial and a virtual reality game about the construction of the Hoover Dam, one of the
great triumphs of American ingenuity.
Just as the NEH has funded projects to support Jewish history and culture, it has also backed projects spotlighting the array of cultures and heritages that make up America. Its funds helped develop an exhibition exploring Indigenous peoples’ heritage in Deerfield, Massachusetts; restoring damaged statues of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass in Buffalo, N.Y.; developing a digital history of Cuban Americans; constructing new space at Chicago’s Korean Cultural Center; and recording audio about humanities collections for the blind.
These may be precisely the stories this administration wishes to erase in its effort to recast the complicated, messy history of our nation’s past into a seamless narrative celebrating the accomplishments of great White men. But collectively, these projects narrate powerful, positive stories about this nation and its people.
So many of our ancestors came to these shores seeking refuge. They made America their home, becoming staunch patriots, titans of industry and business, government officials, soldiers, wives, and homemakers.
In time, some of their descendants turned to the NEH to help them tell stories about these brave men and women of the past, their hopes, their dreams, their legacies.
They are the men and women who made this nation great. We will lose their stories and this history if this administration succeeds in its plans to eviscerate the NEH.
Those whose grant contracts have been canceled now join the ranks of the federal workers who have been summarily let go, without reason, without cause.
Like them, these creators are left stranded. As scholars, we realize that our experiences are just a tiny window into the chasm of this great calamity. Individual creators are hurt and devastated. But the loss of the stories they would have told, including those that could have shorn up the struggle to stem the tide of antisemitism, will reverberate far into the future.
Pamela S. Nadell is a professor of history at American University. Her book America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today won the National Jewish Book Award’s 2019 Jewish Book of the Year. Distributed by JTA.
The restored interior of Washington, D.C.'s oldest synagogue building (1876), incorporated into the new Capital Jewish Museum through NEH funding.
Imagine Photography
Classes
Beth Jacob Classes: w. Rabbi Agar on Zoom. Tuesdays, 7 p.m.: Torah Tuesdays. Thursdays, 7 p.m.: Thursdays of Thought. Register, 937-2742149. bethjacobcong.org/bethjacob-happenings.
Chabad Classes: Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.: Talmud Class in person & Zoom. Call for Zoom link. Mondays, April 28-May 19, 7 p.m.: JLI Colorful Profiles - Short Stories of Extraordinary & Unexpected Characters from Jewish History. Online & in person. $54.
Weekly podcast
chabaddayton.com. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 937-6430770.
Temple Anshe Emeth Judaism 101 - History of Judaism: Sat., May 3, 1 p.m. W. Rabbinic Intern Jonathan Benzion. 320 Caldwell St., Piqua. RSVP to ansheemeth@gmail.com.
Temple Beth Or Classes: Sundays, 10 a.m.: Adult Hebrew. Sat., May 3, 17, 10 a.m.: Apocryphal Study in person & Zoom. templebethor.com/ events. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400.
The Jewish News Hour
with The Dayton Jewish Observer’s Marshall Weiss
Search for The Dayton Jewish Observer in Spotify podcasts and subscribe
CALENDAR
Temple Israel Classes: Tuesdays, noon: Talmud Study in person & Zoom. Wednesdays, 10 a.m.: Weekly Torah Commentary w. Rabbi BodneyHalasz in person & Zoom. Saturdays, 9:15 a.m.: Virtual Torah Study on Zoom. For Torah Study Zoom info., email Fran Rickenbach, franwr@ gmail.com. Sat., May 10, 9:15 a.m.: Virtual Torah Study in person & Zoom. Fri., May 16, 11 a.m.: Living w. Loss. tidayton.org/calendar. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. RSVP to 937-4960050.
Children/Youths
Chabad CKids' In My Jewish Home: Sun., May 4, 4 p.m. Free. RSVP at chabaddayton. com/events. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 937-643-0770.
Family
Beth Abraham Rhythm ‘N’ Ruach: Fri., May 9, 5:30-6:15 p.m. 305 Sugar Camp Cir., Oakwood. 937-293-9520.
Temple Israel Prayer & Play: Sat., May 10, 10 a.m. Infants–
Temple Israel Sacred Stitching: Tues., May 13, 27, 11 a.m. Make items for donation w. JCRC’s Upstander initiative. For info., email Alexandria King, garyuzzking@hotmail. com. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 937-496-0050.
JWV Post #587 Brunch Program: Sun., May 18, 10 a.m. Speaker on the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce. $10. Free for JWV members & their partners. Temple Beth Or, 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. RSVP to JWVPost587@gmail. com.
Presidents Dinner: Sun., May 18, 5 p.m. $125 person. RSVP by May 12 at jewishdayton.org/ events. Boonshoft CJCE, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. 937610-1555.
Temple Israel’s So a Rabbi Walks into a Bar: Thurs., May
29, 6 p.m. First round on Rabbi Bodney-Halasz. BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, 2715 Fairfield Commons, Beavercreek.
Women
Chabad Women’s Circle End of Year BBQ: Sun., May 4, 6 p.m. $36. RSVP at chabaddayton.com/events. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 937-643-0770.
Men
Chabad Bagels, Lox & Tefillin: Sun., May 4, 9:30 a.m. 13+. 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. 937-643-0770.
Community
Beth Jacob Jewish Women Inspiring Jewish Women Luncheon: Sun., May 4, 11 a.m. $26. Call 937-274-2149 to RSVP. 7020 N. Main St., Harrison Twp.
Beth Jacob Cemetery Mitzvah Project: Sun., May 18, 10 a.m. Clean headstones. For more info. & to RSVP, call Tammy Evans, 937-274-2149. House of Jacob Cemetery, 4001 Old Troy Pike, Dayton.
Enrolling pre-Kthrough 7th for the 25-26 school year
MAZEL TOV!
Ed Leventhal has received the Richard L. Kuss Lifetime Community Achievement Award given by the Greater Springfield Partnership, the city's chamber of commerce. A Springfield resident for 54 years, Ed has served on three different school boards and the boards of several nonprofits. He's worked for the betterment of Springfield through his civic and charitable volunteer projects. Ed and his wife, Laurie, are longtime members of Temple Sholom.
Allyson Jacob has received a 2025 Highlights Foundation Whole Novel Scholarship for Jewish Writers. Highlights Foundation scholarships are given to aspiring and established authors and illustrators of children’s books. They include full tuition for inperson workshops, community retreats, and personal retreats at the Highlights Foundation Retreat Center in Milanville, Penn., as well as online courses. Cheering Allyson on is her husband, Marc
Temple Beth Or Associate Rabbi and Educator Ben Azriel has announced that he, his wife, Dr. Rachel Podell Azriel, and their daughter, Eliana, move to Chicago this summer. The rabbi has been with Temple Beth Or since
July 2020. "Watching our students grow in their knowledge and connection to Jewish life has been deeply fulfilling, and I am so proud of the vibrant learning community we have cultivated," he wrote in a message to the congregation.
Ehud Borovoy will lead a demonstration of Krav Maga, the Israeli selfdefense system, at the Dayton International Festival: A World A'Fair, 6 p.m., Saturday, May 3, at the Greene County Expo Center and Fairgrounds in Xenia.
Talia Doninger, a 2024 graduate of the University of Arizona School of Journalism, begins her work in May as the engagement coordinator with OC Hillel in Orange County, Calif. She'll build relationships with Jewish students at Chapman University, UC Irvine, and Cal State Fullerton, and will create opportunities for them to engage in Jewish life. Over the past year, she's sharpened her writing and editing skills curating digital content for Cottages & Gardens and writing freelance features for The Dayton Jewish Observer. Talia is the daughter of Sandra and Dr. Nick Doninger
Send your Mazel Tov announcements to mweiss@jfgd.net.
In 1948, as Israel fought for its independence, the medics of Magen David Adom were there, treating wounded soldiers and civilians alike. Today, as Israel celebrates Yom HaAtzma’ut, MDA is still treating the injured — even under fire.
But for MDA to continue being there for Israel, we need to be there for MDA. Make a donation at afmda.org/give.
Associate Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Youth & Prog. Dir. Rabbi Levi Simon. Beginner educational service Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave. 937-643-0770. chabaddayton.com
Yellow Springs Havurah Independent Antioch College Rockford Chapel. 1st & 3rd Saturday each month. Contact Len Kramer, 937-5724840 or len2654@gmail.com.
What I learned about American Jews while collecting Judaica for LA fire victims
By Rachel Steinhardt, JTA
LOS ANGELES — While the L.A. wildfires were still smoldering in January, I sat down to write a personal reflection on what Judaica means to the heart of Jewish homes like the ones that had been consumed in the inferno. Before I had written the last sentence, I knew I wanted to try to help those families replace what they had lost.
Judaica, and which items their peers around the city and the country are willing to part with.
Little did I know that I was about to embark on a journey that would put my life on hold and turn my home into
Perspectives
a makeshift distribution center, filled to the brim with boxes upon boxes of bubble-wrapped menorahs and Seder plates sent from all over.
I had managed to help start a Judaica collection and distribution team with some likeminded partners. A mere two months later, despite know ing next to nothing about organizing donation drives and mass volunteer efforts, our upstart team of volunteers succeeded in our mission: in March, we distributed over 5,000 used and new Judaica items to more than 400 Jews impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires. And we’re not quite finished yet.
We collected sizable donations of brand-new items from Judaica companies, but the bulk of donations came from hundreds of individual Jews and dozens of synagogue-run collection drives in Jewish communities from far-flung states.
We asked them for great-condition, displayworthy objects, used or new. What we got, however, was a breathtaking, kaleidoscopic array of relics spanning at least a century of American Jewry. Not all of it was in giftable condition, and we quickly developed discerning eyes for quality that paid off when we finally displayed our haul at distribution events.
Here’s a look at some of what we gathered, and how it was received, by the numbers: Roughly $6,000: The amount spent just on shipping costs to Los Angeles by donors across the U.S. and Israel who collected items on our behalf.
We received packages from places like Alaska, Montana, Maine and Texas, and a mother lode from the Washington, D.C. area.
American Jews have overinvested in decorating for the Festival of Lights and were eager to off-load. Interestingly, these items were not the most wished-for among our recipients.
19: Pieces of classic gold and cream floral ceramic Lenox Judaica received, including Seder plates, menorahs, Kiddush cups, candlesticks and mezuzahs. The style is iconic to many American Jews, and the Seder plate is a replica of a 19th-century plate in the Jewish Museum in New York.
long. Many donees dig the vintage verdigris Israeli style, and we received it by the hundreds in the form of wall hangings, Seder plates, Chanukah menorahs, and more.
224: Permanently stained challah covers we received and ultimately discarded (some were repurposed). These beautiful items are hard for Jews to throw away; we presumed our collection drive offered the satisfaction of imagining a possible future for them.
Six: Tissue boxes used by emotional recipients at our distribution events. Tears of joy, grief, nostalgia, astonishment and overwhelming gratitude.
One dozen: Precious silver Yeled Tov (Good Boy) and Yalda Tova (Good Girl) baby cups with tiny handles.
'I don't have
a front door yet,' one woman whispered to me at an event while she selected several mezuzahs.
'But I will.'
Four: Bottles of silver polish we used to bring dozens of tarnished heirloom-quality candlesticks, Kiddush cups, and other once-prized possessions back to dazzling glory.
Three: Priceless pure-silver mezuzahs made by Holocaust survivor and master silversmith Henryk Winograd (1917-2008), each donated from a family in a different state.
One pair: Of matching pink gossamer-silk tallitot, sourced from our collection in the nick of time for a set of b'not mitzvah twins who had lost their home.
I’ve had an up-close look at what fire-impacted L.A.-area Jews want, when it comes to
Shabbat Candle Lightings
May 2: 8:14 p.m.
May 9: 8:21 p.m.
May 16: 8:28 p.m.
May 23: 8:34 p.m.
May 30: 8:39 p.m.
Seven: The number of green brass mid-century “Made in Israel” oil jug-motif knickknacks collected, ranging from 3 inches to nearly 3 feet
20%: The proportion of donated items that consisted of Chanukah decor (platters, mugs, banners, cookie jars, etc.).
May • Iyar/Sivan
Yom Hazikaron • Israel Memorial Day • April 30 • 2 Iyar (Observed) Memorial Day for all who died serving Israel. Concludes with a siren blast as stars appear and Independence Day begins.
Yom Ha’atzmaut • Israel Independence Day • May 1 • 3 Iyar (Observed) Celebrated by Jews around the world. Israel celebrates with parades, singing, dancing, and fireworks.
Lag B’Omer • 33rd Day of Omer • May 16 • 18 Iyar The 33rd day of the Omer breaks up the seven weeks of semi-mourning between Passover and Shavuot. It marks the end of a plague among Rabbi Akiva’s students and a victory of Bar-Kokhba’s soldiers over the Romans 2,000 years ago. Celebrated with picnics and sports.
One: Bat mitzvah girl from Pennsylvania, who, as her mitzvah project, rallied her community to collect four boxes’ worth of items to ship to us. At least four: Synagogue gift shops, nearly liquidated of Continued on Page 27
Torah Portions
May 3: Tazria-Metzora (Lev. 12:1-13:59; 14:1-15:33)
May 10: Achare-Kedoshim (Lev. 16:1-20:27)
May 17: Emor (Lev. 21:1-24:23)
May 24: Behar-Bechukotai (Lev. 25:1-27:34) May 31: Bamidbar (Num. 1:1-4:20)
Rachel Steinhardt
Kehillat Israel's Ava and Addison Rich, who lost their home in the Palisades fire, wear matching tallitot received as part of a Judaica donation drive.
Contributed
One of myriad mezuzot the organizers received.
Rachel Steinhardt
JEWISH FAMILY EDUCATION
Sacred Speech Series Maledictions and mosquitoes
In the region of ancient Babylonia, the first Gulf War and subsequent looting of Iraq’s National Museum in 2003 resulted in thousands of stolen “incantation bowls” entering international trade markets, according to Israel Antiquities
Candace R. Kwiatek
Authority official Amir Ganor.
Twenty years later, as the IAA seized hundreds of illicitly acquired antiquities from a Jerusalem property, they discovered three 1,500-year-old earthenware incantation bowls, also known as “magic bowls” in Jewish circles.
Their geographic and cultural origins were immediately apparent from the distinctive epigraphs written in Jewish Aramaic, the unique language of the Babylonian Talmud.
Spiraling inside the bowls from rim to center, inscriptions included a writ of divorce from a house-invading demon, a quote from Psalms, and the image of a bound female demon labeled, “My brother, the son of Pearl,” Smithsonian magazine author Dieynaba Young reported.
“More than 3,000 bowls like these have been discovered to date,” Newsweek reporter Aristos Georgiou wrote, “the majority of which were created by Jewish people.”
Used primarily as protective amulets, these bowls feature biblical quotations, Mishnaic texts, blessings, Aramaic incan-
Literature to share
Red Sea Spies by Raffi Berg. Most Jews have heard of Operation Solomon, the 1991 covert Israeli military operation that airlifted more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in two days. Less well known is Operation Brothers, an earlier clandestine mission (19791984) involving a Mossadrun luxury diving resort on the Sudanese coast
tations and spells, references to angels, demon images, magical symbols, and even rabbinic legal formulas, all with the purpose of invoking divine help or warding off curses and other misfortunes.
“May an evil decree come upon him.” “Let him suffer and remember.” “May he find no rest even in the grave.”
“A curse is a verbal invocation pronounced to bring harm, evil, or detriment to another,”
Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis explains. “More than a threat or a wish, a curse is assumed to have the power to make the desired harm a reality.”
According to the Talmud, the act of cursing has power regardless of the speaker’s rationale, their level of authority or skills, or their intention — even when it’s uttered unintentionally.
“May his name and his memory be blotted out!”
Among the most wellknown biblical stories of curses are God’s transformation of the serpent in the Garden into a belly-crawling, dust-eating reptile after enticing Eve to disobey God, the failure of the foreign prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites on behalf of King Balak, and the divine promise that Amalek’s descendants will be annihilated and his memory erased for his unprovoked attack on the wilderness Israelites.
“In the Torah there are more curses than blessings.”
But it is the annual reading of Deuteronomy’s 98 curses, the ones Moses commanded to
and Israeli Navy Seals who ultimately smuggled about 8,000 people to Israel. This meticulously researched nonfiction thriller is the real story, gripping the reader in the first few sentences and never letting go.
Ping-Pong Shabbat: The True Story of Champion Ester Ackerman by Ann D. Koffsky. At 7, Estee began playing Ping-Pong in her family basement. She was soon
be recited upon entering the Promised Land, that elicits hints of their otherworldly energy and potent nature.
Belief in — or at least wariness about — the unusual power of curses, deliberate or unintended, has led to the modern custom of rapid, whispered reading of these verses.
“His intestines should be pulled out of his stomach and wrapped around his neck!”
The rabbis of the Talmud initially elaborated upon the biblical attitudes toward curses, continued to stress their efficacy, and even occasionally demonstrated their own power to curse.
Over the centuries, however, limitations on the use of curses were significantly expanded, and eventually curses were permissible only toward those guilty of disgraceful or sinful religious behavior.
Rav Yehuda wisely captured the sentiment of the times by recording a popular adage: “Be the one who is cursed and not the one who curses, as a curse eventually returns to the one who curses.”
“May you have a hundred houses, a hundred rooms in each house, 20 beds in each room, and may fever and chills toss you from one bed to the next!”
Today, Judaism continues to acknowledge the power of curses, although they’re no longer in the form of incantations or magic bowls.
Yiddish, the language of Eastern European Jews, has a vast treasury, in fact a whole genre, of formulaic curses called klole, journalist S.I. Rosenbaum reports.
While many have been passed along as jokes — "May
competing in tournaments. At 11, she made the finals of the U.S. National Table Tennis Championships. Winning the final match would give her the gold. But it was scheduled on the Sabbath. How could she, a Modern Orthodox Jewish girl, pursue her passion and still honor Shabbat? Dynamic illustrations enhance this engaging biography for elementary grades. A perfect family or classroom discussion starter about values.
he swallow an umbrella and may it open in his belly!” — others, at the very least, give one pause for thought.
“May all your teeth fall out except one, to give you a toothache!”
“May he have a big store full of goods: May people not ask for what he has, and may he not have what they ask for.”
Rosenbaum continues, “Other Jewish languages also offer choice curses, including Ladino — ‘Who knows if you will finish a year?’— and Judeo-Arabic — ‘May your eyeball burst.’”
But while this long-standing
tradition of curses highlights Judaism’s recognition of the tremendous power of words, how does it comport with the Jewish worldview that speech is sacred?
Today’s cursing is not about incantations or magic, but rather profanity, swearing, insulting, and general irreverence.
Furthermore, unlike ancient curses that were targeted and infrequent, today’s cursing is widespread and constant.
This endless barrage is “a powerful force that shapes the way we think, perceive, and understand the world around us,” notes psychologist Mark Travers, a spiritual pollution that plays a pivotal role in forming our attitudes and beliefs.
Such indiscriminate cursing also arouses baseless hatred, ultimately bringing about great evil upon individuals, communities, and the world.
Rabbi Mordechai Becher concludes, “Although 'curse words' may be common, so are mosquitoes! (One) should avoid both. Speech should reflect the best of who we are and what type of person we want to become.”
After all, “If all curses actually materialized, the world would be done for.”
10:30 am-10 pm Fri-Sat: 10:30 am-10:30
An Angel Appears to Balaam, Gustave Doré, 1866
The best no-bake Israeli icebox cake
Ugat bisquivitim is easy to prepare.
By Sonya Sanford, The Nosher
One of Israel’s best-loved desserts is a nobake cake made with tea biscuits. You’ve likely seen Israeli tea biscuits in your local grocery store kosher aisle; they typically come in a colorful paper sleeve and inside the packets are golden, flat rectangles with ridged edges and a warm hint of vanilla. They are thin and crumbly, buttery and not too sweet.
Israeli biscuit cake, ugat bisquivitim in Hebrew, is Israel’s version of an icebox cake or tiramisu. It requires zero baking and is designed to be thrown together on a whim, with simple products found in most kitchens.
Recipes vary from family to family; aside from tea biscuits, ingredients typically include instant vanilla pudding, heavy cream, and milk.
Many recipes call for gvina levana, a white cheese we call quark in the States and Europe. Quark is a fresh dairy product that tastes like a cross between sour cream and Greek yogurt, and adds a delicious tanginess to the filling.
Instant vanilla pudding offers its unmistakable flavor and helps the cake set in the fridge. While it’s in the fridge, this cake transforms from a loose creamy consistency into a sliceable layered cake.
yogurt will work as a substitute.
Brands of vanilla pudding mix vary. Any packet that is around 2.8-3.1 ounces will work, or you can measure out 5 tablespoons from a larger packet of pudding mix.
3 sleeves (9 oz.) Kedem vanilla tea biscuits or 2 sleeves Osem petit beurre biscuits
1 cup cold coffee or milk chocolate, for garnish (optional)
In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or whisk, beat together the heavy cream, milk, instant vanilla pudding mix, sugar, and salt until the mixture starts to thicken and the mixer or whisk leaves ribbons in the batter, about two to three minutes. Be careful not to overbeat the mixture.
A decadent celebration of dairy from the land of milk and honey.
The biscuits soak up and expand with the custard filling, creating a decadent celebration of dairy from the land of milk and honey. It's the perfect treat for Israel's 77th birthday.
Notes:
Kedem brand biscuits are ideal for this recipe as they are thinner and more delicate, Osem brand biscuits may create a drier cake.
Dipping the biscuits in coffee adds subtle flavor, but you can use milk instead if desired.
If you can’t find quark, full fat 5% Greek
Add the quark or yogurt and vanilla extract, and beat until just combined.
To assemble, dip one tea biscuit at a time into the coffee or milk for two to three seconds (if using Osem tea biscuits, dip for a few seconds longer). Line the bottom of a 9-by-13 baking pan with the dipped tea biscuits. Cut any biscuits to fit the pan as needed. Top the layer of biscuits with a third of the filling. Repeat the process twice until you have three layers of tea biscuits and three of filling.
To garnish, top with milk or dark chocolate shavings; you can do this with a vegetable peeler and a bar of chocolate. Alternatively, you could also top with cocoa powder or sprinkles.
Cover the baking dish tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for at least six hours. Cut into slices and serve cold.
Arts& Culture
HBO Max's Reformed depicts French woman rabbi inspired by Delphine Horvilleur
One of France’s most prominent rabbis, Horvilleur says the show’s main character is 'very different from me' — but with some important overlap.
By Shira Li Bartov, JTA
A young woman rabbi attempts to guide others while grappling with her own questions and facing down a community’s utter bewilderment that she is in fact the rabbi.
The situation makes a premise ripe for comedy and drama in the new Max series Reformed, or Le Sens Des Choses in French.
It was also a real chapter in the life of Delphine Horvilleur, the third female rabbi in France and a public intellectual known for leading the country’s Liberal Jewish movement and advocating for Muslim-Jewish dialogue.
Reformed, which premiered March 28, took inspiration from Horvilleur’s internationally bestselling memoir, Living With Our Dead. The French dramedy was created by Noé Debré and Benjamin Charbit and produced by Fédération Studios.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a right-wing extremist in 1995 at the end of a rally that Horvilleur attended, where he promised IsraeliPalestinian peace.
Léa, the heroine of Reformed played by Elsa Guedj, lives in a world more sequestered from the political violence and war that encroach on modern Jewish life. The series opens in picturesque and peaceful Strasbourg, where she navigates emotional but comedic conflicts among her first visitors — an intermarried couple who can’t agree about the circumcision of their child, in the first episode, and a son who refuses a bar mitzvah because of his concern about climate change in the second.
The character incorporates her teachings about embracing uncertainty
The writers interviewed Horvilleur about her work and practice as a rabbi but decided to make a series that largely departed from her book.
Living With Our Dead, originally published in French in 2021 and English in 2024, comprises 11 essays about the dead who still live with Horvilleur. They range from private friends to more well-known figures, such as Elsa Cayat, a Jewish columnist killed in the 2015 terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, and
In April, Guedj was awarded best actress in a French series at Series Mania, an international TV competition.
Although Horvilleur called Léa “very different from me,” she said in an interview that the character incorporates her teachings about embracing uncertainty.
“They decided to create a character that is very full of doubt, which is nice as a way to remind people that actually, certainties are very often a threat in the religious realm,” said Horvilleur, who is now 50 and the mother of three teenagers.
She herself, as a young woman, Continued on Page 26
pictured:Julie Riley
Elsa Guedj plays a rabbi inspired by Delphine Horvilleur in Max's Reformed.
A DOUBLE MITZVAH.
• anks to a generous anonymous donor, your gi — or additional gi — to Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Dayton will be matched, dollar for dollar.
• It’s a double mitzvah: the cemeteries of Beth Abraham Synagogue, Beth Jacob Congregation, and Temple Israel will combine into a single nonpro t. is ensures their sanctity in perpetuity, and strengthens each congregation’s nancial security.
• Contact Kate Elder at kelder@jfgd.net now for details and to make your pledge.
Reformed
Continued on from Page 25
debated for years over her path. She questioned if she wanted to be a congregational rabbi or a Jewish writer, teacher or philosopher — and finally decided to build her rabbinate on refusing to choose among those commitments.
“The reason I can teach and speak in the media, and be present in intellectual French life, is because I accompany people on a daily basis,” Horvilleur said. “And vice versa — I feel that my congregational work as a rabbi is very nurtured by the fact that I have a commitment towards French society.”
While women rabbis have become commonplace in the United States, they are still a rarity in France, dominated by a more traditional and right-leaning Jewish world. As of 2023, there were only seven in a country of about 440,000 Jews.
When Horvilleur became a rabbi, women were not yet being ordained in France. Her path was unconventional in other ways: Born in Nancy to parents who preserved Jewish culture but were not significantly observant, she grew up without any ideas of becoming a rabbi. At 17, she went to study medicine at the Hebrew University in Israel, where she also became involved with the left-wing Meretz party pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian twostate solution.
After Rabin’s assassination, she returned to France and worked as a journalist. But she brought from Jerusalem a love of interpreting ancient Jewish texts, and studied with figures such as the philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin and France's former chief rabbi, Gilles Bernheim.
Finding it impossible to study Talmud as a woman in France, she went to Drisha Yeshiva in New York before enrolling at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College in 2008. Back in Paris, her profile grew as a leader of the Liberal Jewish Movement of France — affiliated with the World Union for Progressive Judaism — and as the rabbi of the Beaugrenelle synagogue, with more than 1,000 families. She also edits Tenou’a, a prestigious magazine on religion and art.
ties. She acknowledges that after Oct. 7, everything she embodies can look naïve — sometimes even obsolete. During wartime, she observed, “you always fire at the bridges.”
The Israel-Hamas war has reverberated sharply in France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, along with broader parts of the population outraged over the deaths of more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
A recent history of Islamic terrorist attacks on Jews and institutionalized discrimination against Muslims already complicated interfaith dialogue in France. But since Oct. 7, a new surge of antisemitic incidents has rocked the country. In one high-profile case last summer, two teenage boys were charged with raping a 12-year-old Jewish girl and hurling antisemitic epithets at her. More recently, the chief rabbi of Orléans was allegedly assaulted and called antisemitic slurs while leaving synagogue with his son.
In this climate, many French Jews don’t just want bridges, Horvilleur said. They want to feel protected by walls. She continues to advocate for dialogue with anyone, but said that she has added one seemingly unambitious — yet increasingly complicated — limitation.
“I don’t want to be in a conversation with someone
Early on, Horvilleur faced the challenge of proving her legitimacy as a young woman rabbi — a task shared by Léa in Reformed. But Horvilleur, a burgeoning public figure, also had to fend off attacks for her political stances. Early in her tenure, after saying in a television interview that Jerusalem should not be used as a political pawn by the United States and may become a Palestinian capital, in addition to the capital of Israel, Horvilleur was harassed by a vocal minority of ultraconservative French Jews.
Horvilleur — who experienced a breakout moment when she was the cover model for Elle France in early 2020 — is a longtime liberal. She's married to Ariel Weil, an economist and the Socialist Party mayor of Paris Centre, a portion of the city that includes historic Jewish neighborhoods.
Despite drawing criticism, she did not back down from questioning Jewish supremacy in Israel. Two weeks before Oct. 7, 2023, as masses of Israelis rallied against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to weaken the judiciary, Horvilleur gave a Yom Kippur sermon condemning Israel’s far-right government. In her 2025 book, How Isn’t it Going?, she wrote, “Their cult of the land and religious supremacy is, from my point of view, as far as possible from what Jewish wisdom has taught us.”
For years, Horvilleur has defined herself as a liberal, pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace rabbi who seeks to build bridges between Jews and other communi-
who denies the other’s right to exist,” she said. “It’s not only true for Jews or for Israelis, it’s also true for Palestinians. I believe that we have to strengthen conversations with people, even with people who disagree with us, as long as the core principle of the conversation is that the other has an absolute right to exist.”
In How Isn’t It Going?, penned in the aftermath of Oct. 7, Horvilleur recognizes that some perceive her as moving toward the right. She was accustomed to complaints from ultra-conservatives, but she is more hurt by left-wing groups that say she does not advocate enough for Palestinian life. While attempting to defend the rapidly vanishing position of the liberal Zionist, she has shifted away from calls to action. Asked repeatedly to join calls for a Gaza ceasefire, she has avoided doing so.
The Reformed series escapes thorny conversations about who can exist, and where, in favor of more universal dialogue about family relationships, marriage, and religion. Still, Horvilleur hopes the show will offer a bridge of its own.
“In France, this week, is released a series about a rabbi — and Jewish life and Jewish humor and Jewish knowledge,” said Horvilleur. “It’s going to be interesting to see how people welcome it, and how it can fit this mission of telling about Jewish life, but also being a kind of bridge and gate to the larger world.”
During the pandemic, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur found a large audience online.
Contributed
Judaica for LA fire victims
Continued from Page 22
inventory for our cause.
11: Stories shared with us by fire-impacted recipients about the vintage objects they found in our collection that matched specific family heirlooms and gifts from loved ones they lost to the flames (and in some cases, had already sifted through ash to find remnants of).
Some were predictable: a standard-issue menorah, a popular Seder plate design. Others less so: an intricately beaded blue-and-white mezuzah case, a miniature ceramic house with Shalom over the door, an artisanal hand-glazed Havdalah set.
Six: Items that are likely over 100 years old, currently being examined by antiques experts because they should probably be in museum collections. These include an ornate Moroccan shofar, a patinated wrought iron etrog case, and the tzitzit of a German Jewish child who immigrated to the United States before World War I.
600+: Tote bags full of Judaica, filled and carried out of our distribution events by fireaffected families.
Some who lost their homes took an item or two; others loaded multiple bags in an attempt to bring a sense of Jewish normalcy to their environments.
“I don’t have a front door yet,” one woman whispered to me at an event while she selected several mezuzahs. “But I will.”
An elderly man and a young boy — unrelated to each other but united in their loss — browsed, touched and sorted objects for hours on end. It helped.
Many confessed they could’ve ordered new Judaica items for their mantels and display cabinets, but that there was something ineffable they could only get from the pre-owned objects we had laid out on dozens of tables in a synagogue social hall.
Based on the thick stack of notes on my desk that accompanied many of the donations inside their bubble-wrapped boxes, that quality is the personal touch emanating from a Jewish home.
It’s the little bit of hope and mazel imbued in each passedon Kiddush cup, from one Jewish family to another. It's the love and connection that keeps us bound as a people: usually gifting from one generation to the next, but sometimes from the next state, or even Zip code, over.
Mabel Lou Becker, age 89, passed away on April 3. Mabel was born in Chillicothe, next to the railroad tracks where her father, a railroad man and great storyteller, inspired in her a life of adventures where she could follow her dreams. Through hard work and determination, Mabel received her nursing degree from the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing. While training to be a nurse, she met the love of her life, Louis Becker, M.D. Mabel and Lou were married in 1957 in Cincinnati. They were married 55 years. They had four children, Wendy, Marc, David, and Julie, who gave Mabel seven amazing grandchildren, Miriam, Elyse, Cameron, Griffin, Reagan, Tucker, and Erica. Immediately after their wedding, Mabel and her husband drove to California where they settled in Glendale. In Glendale, Mabel was the assistant head nurse in the nursery at Los Angeles County General Hospital. They moved back to Cincinnati for a year. From there they moved to Bosier City, La. and eventually settled in Dayton. Mabel and Lou raised their children in Trotwood. The couple retired in New Albany, where she was able to be a part of her grandchildren’s lives. Throughout her life, Mabel loved traveling with her husband, and they were able to travel to most of the places on their bucket list, including Israel, Russia, Europe, Turkey, Peru, and Hawaii. Mabel had the honor of travelling with other women lawyers to China where she learned the meaning of the Prince Charles Rule, and came back with great stories to share with friends and family. Mabel began her volunteer career with B’nai Brith Women in Dayton, organizing many philanthropic activities and holding several leadership roles. She was also a Girl Scout leader. During the turbulent civil rights movement of the 1960s, Mabel’s intelligence and drive to help others led her to become a civil rights advocate where she participated in neighborhood canvassing for voter registration and led grade school lessons to combat racism. When her volunteer activities spread to fighting redlining and advocating for fair housing, she founded THROB (To Help Races Overcome Barriers), Inc. She was also a founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue group. During this time, she became interested in a law career. She attended University of Dayton Law School from 1977 to 1980, when only a few
women were practicing law in Dayton, and her class had less than 10% women. Based on the lack of female role models in the area, at the end of her first year of law school, Mabel organized a road trip to Atlanta to attend the First Annual Conference on Women in the Law with several classmates. She felt honored to meet one of the presenters, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, long before she became a Supreme Court Judge. Following RBG in Atlanta, Mabel attended the March for the ERA in Washington, D.C. in July 1978, along with 100,000 other women. Mabel was determined to live long enough to see the passage of the ERA but was comforted by convincing her granddaughters to take up the cause. After graduating from law school and passing the bar exam, Mabel cofounded the first all-women’s law firm in the area, Henley, Vaughn, Becker & Wald, focusing on juvenile and family law.
While working with families in turmoil, Mabel found her calling helping juveniles, which led to a position as a magistrate judge in Montgomery County Juvenile Court, where she presided until she retired. During her law career, in addition to founding the Miami Valley Association of Women Attorneys, she volunteered at numerous organizations including the Battered Women’s Shelter, the Montgomery County Citizens Review Board, the Dayton Women’s Network, Child Advocacy of Ohio, and Daybreak. She also developed and presented nursing and the
law seminars. Her lifetime of dedicated advocacy to make the world a better place for minorities, women, and children was recognized when she was honored by the Dayton Daily News in 1986 as one of the Ten Top Women of the year. Mabel died in her home surrounded by loved ones on April 3. She was preceded in death by her husband, Louis Becker, and her son, David Becker. Interment was at Greenlawn Cemetery, Columbus. In Mabel’s memory, please vote for Democrats. Please honor Mabel’s legacy with a donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center or the ACLU.
Delbert I. Footer passed away April 14 at the age of 95. He was a lifelong resident of Dayton, as he wanted to remain where most of his family resided. Family always came first for Del. He was a wonderful and devoted son, father, grandfather, and uncle. Del served in the Army during the Korean Conflict. He graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn with a degree in industrial design. He went on to establish, chair, and teach industrial design at the Dayton Art Institute before turning to industry as design director for Digitec. He consulted on many projects as well, including an artificial heart, orthoscopic instruments, and remote machinery for worker safety with nuclear materials at Los Alamos. Del established a scholarship at Pratt to help aspiring industrial design students. Del will be greatly missed by his family and many friends and will
be remembered for his kindness, humor, intelligence, and positivity. Del was preceded in death by his parents, Maurice and Katherine Footer, his sister Marilyn Footer Scher, and his son-in-law, Sam Yacovazzi. He is survived by his brother, Larry (Hope) Footer, his daughter, Jill Yacovazzi, grandchildren Taylor and Cole Yacovazzi, as well as beloved nieces, nephews, and cousins. Interment was at Beth Jacob Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton, Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Dayton, or the charity of your choice.
Lillian Ruth Ohlbaum, age 94 of Beavercreek, passed away April 5. The beloved wife of the late Dr. Morton Ohlbaum, she is survived by daughters and sons-inlaw Karen and Mitchell Rashkin, and Lori and John Westerkamp, and grandchildren Lee, Sara, Hannah, Rachel (Alex), and Jacob. Lillian created a warm and loving home, and she will always be remembered with love. Memorial contributions may be made to Ohio's Hospice of Dayton or the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, or an animal welfare organization of your choice.
We're here for you. Help us continue.
$18
Subscriber
One-year subscription to The Observer and acknowledgment in The Observer ($18 value)
$36
Double Chai
One-year subscription, acknowledgment in The Observer and one free one-column holiday greeting ($30 value)
Only The Dayton Jewish Observer brings you coverage of how the Israel-Hamas war and the global surge in antisemitism impact our Jewish community here in the Miami Valley.
We are your Jewish newspaper, covering the local stories most important to you.
Ad sales and Jewish Federation support only cover a portion of our expenses to bring you The Observer. Our printing costs have increased and postage expenses have more than doubled over the last three years.
Your help will ensure the depth of our coverage.
Please consider a Voluntary Subscription to The Observer.
$100 Angel
One-year subscription, acknowledgment in The Observer and one free three-column holiday greeting ($54 value)
$250
Guardian Angel
One-year subscription, one-year acknowledgment in The Observer and three free three-column holiday greetings ($126 value)
Make checks payable to The Dayton Jewish Observer. — OR — Subscribe Here Ü
Renewing Angels
Jeffrey Kantor
Katherine Sher & Jared Serota
New Angels
Mr. & Mrs. Matt Carper
Mr. Roger J. Gebhart
Linda Schoonover
Double Chai
Mel & Janice Berman
Harry Gerla
Susan (Fitterman)
& Alan Witte
Subscribers
Mr. & Mrs. Edward Neuman
Current Champions +
Howard Michaels
Andrea Scher Rabiner
Current Champions
Elaine & John Gaglione
William Marwil
Milton Nathan
$500
Sustainer
One-year subscription, one-year acknowledgment in The Observer and three free three-column holiday greetings ($126 value)
$1,000 Champion
All listed in Guardian Angel, plus the gratitude of knowing how much you help support Jewish journalism in the Miami Valley. ($126 value)
Current Sustainer
Laurence A. Lasky
Current Guardian Angels
Buck Run Commercial Doors & Hardware
Dr. Douglas & Mrs. Bethany
Einstein
Tara & Adam Feiner
Bruce & Debbie Feldman
Marni Flagel
Marc & Cindy Fox
Bella Freeman
Stephen Goldberg
Debby & Bob Goldenberg
Susan & Jonas Gruenberg
Robert & Vicky Heuman
Laurie & Eddie Leventhal
Judy Lipton
Drs. Perry & Renata Lubens
Marvin & Susan Mason
Gary Pacernick & Peggy Weller
Bernard Rabinowitz
Brenda Rinzler
Susan & Nathaniel Ritter
Lee and Patti Schear
Zerla Stayman
Ms. Louise Stein
Steve & Shara Taylor
Temple Anshe Emeth
Current Angels
Jeffrey Abrahams
Elaine Abramson
Beth Adelman
Steve Adler
Karen & Steve Arkin
Donald Arnett
Dr. Joshua & Julie Atkin
K.W. Baker & Assoc., LLC
The Barrett Family
Skip & Ann Becker
Frieda Blum
Lisa & Kenneth Blum
Sylvia Blum & Family
Tara & Dan Brodbeck
Judith & Steven Carne
Roger Chudde
Natalie R. Cohn
Thomas Cruse
Scot & Linda Denmark
Judge Susan Dlott
Phil & Louisa Dreety
Howard & Sue Ducker
Phyllis A. Finkelstein
Lynn Foster
Jeff Froelich, Cindy Pretekin & Families
Dr. Felix Garfunkel
Mrs. Jack Goldberg
Lynn & David Goldenberg
Kim & Shelley Goldenberg
Michael Goldstein
Judi & George Grampp
Art & Joan Greenfield
Sydney & Lois Gross
Harold & Melissa Guadalupe
Sharon & Izzy Guterman
Dr. & Mrs. Stephen Harlan
Ralph E. & Sylvia S. Heyman
Linda & Steve Horenstein
Rachel Jacobs
Michael Jaffe
David & Susan Joffe
Joseph & Marsha Johnston
Linda Ohlmann Kahn &
Dennis Kahn
Susan & Stanley Katz
Harriet Klass
Debbie & Norbert Klopsch
Beth Kolotkin
Cantor & Mrs. Jerome
Kopmar
Cory & Sharon Lemmon
Edye Leuin
Todd & Gabriele Leventhal
Iris Levi
Meredith Moss Levinson
Levy Family
Ellie Lewis
Beverly A. Louis
Helen Markman
Scott & Brenda Meadow
Suzi & Jeff Mikutis
Kristen Mitchem
Irvin & Gayle Moscowitz
William L. Moser
Bobbie & Jack Myers
Nora Newsock
In honor of Natalie M.
Davis RN, NICU Neonatal, Cedar Sinai Hospital, L.A., grandaughter of Martin
