AI2010_01_07

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010 21 TEVET, 5770 SHABBAT: FRI 5:14 – SAT 6:14 CINCINNATI, OHIO VOL. 156 • NO. 24 SINGLE ISSUE PRICE $2.00

NATIONAL New Jewish food movement steps up focus on social justice Page 8

Chicken Soup Cook-Off at Wise, Jan. 31 On Jan. 31, Wise Temple will host its sixth annual fundraiser, the Chicken Soup Cook-off, a soup cooking contest that has delivered more than 300 gallons of chicken soup to the Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen since the event began.

Last year, 132 gallons of soup were delivered — nearly 2,000 servings, according to the event organizers.

Awards include “Most Original,” “Best Matzo Ball” and “People’s Choice.” Organizers like to think the event pushes “the definition of ‘chicken soup’to the limits.”

“The sheer inventiveness of our amateur participants amazes me every year,” said Dr. Jay Rissover, chairman of the event. “I love sampling the ways in which the amateurs transform the basic concept into so many exciting creations.”

Shawn McCoy (and son) of Brown Dog Cafe were awarded “Best Professional Matzo Ball Soup in 2009” at last year’s event.

The team of judges is assembled from the Wise Temple and the

larger Cincinnati communities.

“Having our friends and fami-

lies participate turns this into a real community event,” explained Rissover. “The chefs really rise to the opportunity to share their gifts with others and discover how truly talented they are.”

The event will also include live entertainment from Shir Chadash and a silent auction.

Included in the auction this year will be jewelry from Finer Jewelry, paintings and sketches by noted artist Irving Amen, tickets to the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Reds, the Cincinnati Symphony and to a New York Show.

In addition there will be an item from the Bengals that is still under wraps.

Last year, over 800 people attended the event.

“We encourage everyone to enter,” said Rissover.

Talk on senior scams at Temple Sholom ISRAEL Israeli women fight relegation to back of bus Page 10

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE Jewish Federation’s Major Gifts Dinner Page 12

DINING OUT Mecklenburg Gardens ready for fans of basketball, bier and mustard Page 14

A representative from the Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray’s office will speak at Temple Sholom on Jan. 14.

The talk will cover the latest scams targeting consumers and provide advice on how consumers can protect themselves.

The Ohio Attorney General’s office serves as an advocate for consumers who are victimized by unfair and deceptive business practices. Consumer protection efforts at the state, multi-state and federal levels have achieved landmark settlements and millions of

dollars in civil penalties and restitution for Ohioans.

The office also provides consumer and business education, as well as a complaint resolution process to resolve disputes between consumers and businesses. In 2008, the office received

more than 25,000 consumer complaints and returned $3.7 million to consumers who had filed complaints.

The talk is billed as a “Brown Bag Lunch.” Contact Temple Sholom for information and reservations.

After Pius move, Pope Benedict practices delicate Jewish dance

by Ruth Ellen Gruber Jewish Telegraphic Agency ROME (JTA) — For at least the third time in his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI is doing the Jewish dance that takes him one step back, one step forward.

The step back came when Benedict made a move in midDecember to bring Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII a bit closer to sainthood. The step forward will come in mid-January, when Benedict visits Rome’s main synagogue — a trip planned long before Benedict’s move on Pius.

The question is what impact the visit will have on ruffled CatholicJewish relations.

“It is an important event, a milestone in the dialogue,” Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, told Vatican Radio about the planned

synagogue visit. “We have great expectations for what it can mean in terms of the general climate.”

“If we stop at the things that divide us deeply, we won’t get anywhere,” he said. “The differences are important to move forward.”

Benedict’s visit — set to take place Jan. 17, the Catholic Church’s annual Day of Dialogue with Judaism — will come a month after he recognized the religiously defined “heroic virtues” of both John Paul II and Pius XII, putting them one step away from beatification.

The Polish-born John Paul made fostering Catholic-Jewish relations a hallmark of his papacy.

But critics have long accused Pius of having turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. The Vatican and other supporters say Pius acted behind

the scenes to help Jews. Gary Krupp, a Jew and the head of Pave the Way, a nonsectarian foundation that promotes interfaith dialogue, suggested in a recent Op-Ed in The New York Post that criticism of Pius XII began in the 1960s as part of a Soviet smear campaign against the Catholic Church, which at the time was profoundly antiCommunist. The Anti-Defamation League responded with a call on the pope to disregard Krupp’s “flawed” evidence.

Scholars and Jewish organizations for years have called on the Vatican to fully open its secret archives in order to clarify the issue before Pius is moved any further toward sainthood. Benedict’s decision to green-light Pius’s advance drew widespread criticism from Jewish bodies. While many Jewish organizational leaders said it was

up to the Vatican to decide whom to honor with sainthood, they renewed calls for the archives to be opened.

“As long as the archives of Pope Pius about the crucial period 1939 to 1945 remain closed, and until a consensus on his actions — or inaction — concerning the persecution of millions of Jews in the Holocaust is established, a beatification is inopportune and premature,” the World Jewish Congress’ president, Ronald Lauder, said in a statement.

The Vatican responded with a conciliatory statement saying Benedict’s move was in no way “a hostile act towards the Jewish people” and should not be considered “an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church.”

POPE on page 20

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LOCAL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

The 92nd Street Y is back!

Wise Temple’s next 92nd Street Y program via live satellite will be Tuesday, Jan. 12.

The program is called “Gail Collins and Nora Ephron: Women Come of Age.” New York Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins and author/screenwriter Nora Ephron discuss the cataclysmic changes that have overhauled American women’s lives during the past five decades. Collins’ new book is “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.”

(In 1960, American women needed their husbands’ permission to apply for a credit card.)

Nora Ephron is the author of “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and the screenwriter of numerous films, including “When Harry Met Sally,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Julie and Julia.”

Later in the month, Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be the featured speaker, live via satellite, for the 92nd Street Y program on Thursday, Jan. 28. She will be interviewed by Nina Totenberg of

National Public Radio.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nominated by President Clinton as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in June 1993, and took the oath of office in August 1993.

Prior to her appointment, she served on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was a professor of law at Columbia University and earlier served on the law faculty at Rutgers as well as at many other law schools in the U.S. and abroad.

In 1971, she was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. Ginsburg has written widely in the areas of civil procedure, conflict laws, constitutional law and comparative law.

The 92nd Street Y series originates and is fed live from New York’s prestigious Jewish cultural center, the 92nd Street Y. The broadcast is fed into Wise Temple’s Wohl Chapel, equipped with a large screen and digital

video technology capable of simulcasting. The Cincinnati audience at Wise Temple will be able to ask questions directly to the guest speakers.

“Sponsoring ‘Live from New York’ is part of Wise Temple’s vision of life long learning,” said the temple’s senior rabbi, Lewis Kamrass. “We believe that you don’t have to live in the major Jewish cultural center of New York to have the finest of Jewish culture at the center of your life.

We believe that our lives are enriched by joining with others in conversation about ideas and ideals. The ‘Live’ Series provides us with opportunities to share and ‘talk’ to the finest teachers and best known experts about matters that bring meaning and nourishment to our minds and our souls.

Our congregation enjoys sharing these unique and entertaining conversations with the Greater Cincinnati community.”

The event is open to the Greater Cincinnati public.

Call the Wise Center for more information.

JCC Early Childhood School open house, Feb. 10 The JCC’s early childhood school for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years will hold an open house on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

The full day JCC curriculum offers sensory, language activities, math, science, art, dramatic play and music.

As part of the program, full day preschoolers (ages 3 and older) can participate in free year-round swim lessons in the JCC indoor waterpark as well as enjoy a variety of fitness activities in the JCC gym.

Parents also have the option of registering their preschoolers in JCC dance, drama, art and sports classes (most of which start at 1:15 p.m.). The children are escorted to and from these afternoon activities

by JCC staff.

In addition, a new session of afternoon preschool enrichment classes just started.

Programs include ice-skating for preschoolers, ballet and tap dance, Taekwondo, Soccer Shots, Quickstart Tennis, a Young Rembrandts children’s drawing program, preschool cooking, basketball and more.

“The JCC Early Childhood School programs and staff are incredibly accommodating,” said Sharon Bramy. “I chose to enroll my children because the curriculum, schedule and meal options meet the needs of my family. My kids love the teachers and the

teachers love them, too!”

The JCC Early Childhood School in Amberley Village also features a unique tzedakah (charity) garden built by Cincinnati State Landscaping and Design students.

In addition to learning how to care for and grow vegetables in this garden, JCC Early Childhood School students donate the crops they grow to less fortunate families.

In 2009, JCC students grew and donated close to 100 lbs. of vegetables to the food pantries run

by Jewish Family Service and Kennedy Heights.

Jewish Culture and understanding and sharing between families of many traditions is taught as well through fitness, music, and other enrichment activities with specialty teachers, as well as intergenerational programs with senior adults.

The JCC Early Childhood School full day program (for ages 6 weeks – 5 years) operates yearround, 7 a.m. - 6 p.m., Monday Friday.

There is also a half-day program (for ages 18 months – 5 years), 9:15 - 11:45 a.m., with extended-day options until 1 p.m. or 3 p.m.

In addition to the Amberley Village location, the JCC Early Childhood School operates full day and half-day preschool programs in Mason at Cedar Village.

For more information call the J.

THE JEWISH OVERNIGHT CAMPING PROGRAM For the Jewish Children of Cincinnati The Jewish Overnight Camping Program provides grants for Jewish children from the greater Cincinnati area to encourage them to attend a Jewish Overnight camp.

Children who have never attended a Jewish overnight camp can apply for a grant.

For the summer of 2010 the value of the grants will be up to $1,000 for camp sessions of three weeks or more and up to $500 for camp sessions of two weeks.

A grant from the Jewish Overnight Camping Program is a gift. It is not need-based or contingent on other scholarship or financial aid dollars. To qualify under the Program, the overnight camp must be sponsored by a non-profit Jewish organization.

Application forms for the summer of 2010 are available online on the Jewish Federation website, www.jewishcincinnati.org on the “Community Resources” page.

Application deadline is April 15, 2010 For further information please consult your congregational rabbi or Jeff Baden at jbaden@mayersonjcc.org or 722-7243 or Prof. Getzel Cohen at getzel.cohen@uc.edu or 556-1951

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LOCAL/NATIONAL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

‘Dietary Supplements: Potential for Harm,’ at NHS, Jan. 13 A talk on dietary supplements will be the topic for January’s HaZaK Program for seniors sponsored by Northern Hills Synagogue - Congregation B’nai Avraham on Wednesday, Jan. 13.

Dr. Warren Shapiro will be the featured speaker. In 1998 he founded Warren Shapiro &

Associates, specializing in research and development strategies for the drug and cosmetic industries.

Dr. Shapiro has over 40 years of experience in the drug and cosmetic industries, including positions as senior vice-president for research and development for

leading research and development organizations. He has authored numerous patents and scientific journal articles, and made presentations at scientific seminars.

Lunch will be served.

“HaZaK” is an acronym, with the letters standing for the Hebrew words: “Hakhma” (wisdom),

LET THERE BE LIGHT

“Ziknah” (maturity), and “Kadima” (forward). The HaZaK programs are for adults 55 and older, and are open to the entire community There is no charge for the program and lunch.

Call the synagogue for more information and reservations.

Jewish leaders firm on broad Iran sanctions

by Nathan Guttman The Jewish Daily Forward WASHINGTON — As antigovernment protests — and government repression — flare in Iran, Jewish groups remain focused on the issue of nuclear proliferation there, prioritizing this problem over concern for the country’s opposition movement.

In interviews, Jewish leaders voiced sympathy for the cause of democracy backed by the protesters. But even as the administration is reportedly considering a shift to a strategy of narrow, targeted sanctions toward Iran — in part to take account of the surging protest movement — the Jewish community remains committed to more sweeping sanctions that Iran’s democracy activists decry as harmful to their cause.

Bloody but Unbowed: An injured Iranian opposition supporter flashes a V-sign during clashes with security forces in Tehran on Dec. 27. Thirteen people were reported killed during recent demonstrations.

The proliferation issue, Jewish activists say, should come first.

“For us, this was always the primary concern, because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” said Meagan Buren, director of research and training at The Israel Project, a pro-Israel group active on the Iranian issue.

When it reconvenes in January, Congress is poised to quickly put tough sanctions against Iran in place that would target its oil sector with the aim of destabilizing the Iranian economy.

But leading backers of the Iranian opposition have voiced concern that broad sanctions of this sort will strengthen the regime and hurt the credibility of the “Green Movement,” as the protesters have dubbed their cause.

Now, the Obama administration is reportedly reconsidering its support for those congressional sanctions. According to news reports, administration officials are moving instead toward the idea of narrower sanctions that would aim at the interests of Iranian govern-

ment leaders and of such groups as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a hard-line bulwark of support for the regime.

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, saw no reason that the administration could pursue both approaches to sanctions.

“We need to look at all available means, all available levers, and not try to become too smart,” he said. “We need to find ways to zero in on those in power, but at the same time, Iran’s Achilles’ heel is its dependency on refined oil, and that is an issue too big to simply set aside out of concern it could maybe weaken the protest movement.”

An Israeli official said that his government had “no preference” on what sanctions track the United States pursues, as long as it pressures Iran to stop producing enriched uranium, as demanded by the international community. Israel and other countries fear that Iran is using enriched uranium to develop nuclear weaponry.

The sanctions legislation that would target Iran’s import of refined petroleum products was passed overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives Dec. 15.

Senate leaders have pledged to bring the bill to a vote after they return from the New Year’s recess.

In a parallel track, the United States is expected to begin intense discussions in January with members of the United Nations Security Council to reach a decision on a new round of international sanctions. Administration officials describe the international sanctions as their preferred route, if they are sufficiently tough, with the congressional measure as a fallback.

The renewal of demonstrations in Iran comes after several quiet months, which follow, in turn, a summer of mass protests against the results of the country’s June 2009 presidential elections.

Protesters — supported by many independent analysts — denounced the election result as a fraud. The declared winner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, backed by Iran’s

supreme leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, cracked down hard on the protesters.

The reignited protest movement in Iran has received more support in Washington than did the June unrest. President Obama, in his strongest statement so far on this issue, expressed sympathy for the aspirations of the protesters, and warned that “the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.”

When the opposition protests initially broke out in June, the United States was getting ready to begin diplomatic talks with Iran.

These talks were in line with Obama’s pledge to seek engagement with Tehran as his first option for dealing with the country’s nuclear program.

Since then, the diplomatic initiative has foundered, with Iran rejecting a nuclear deal presented to it by the International Atomic Energy Agency with backing from the United States, and with the West, so far, rejecting Iran’s counterproposals.

Ironically, Ahmadinejad was initially receptive to the IAEA proposal. But his electoral rivals, who now lead the green protest movement, rejected the proposal and attacked him for giving in to foreign pressure. A number of analysts viewed this in the context of domestic politics. The opposition’s rebuff, it was said, allowed its leaders to burnish their nationalist credentials in the face of the government’s attacks on them as foreign pawns.

Opposition activists and supporters also criticize the drive for increased fuel sanctions against Iran as a step that could undermine their movement. Both Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, leaders of the Iranian green movement, have spoken out against sanctions, arguing that they will hurt the people of Iran, not the regime.

An unofficial spokesman for the movement, filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, visited Washington in November and urged the United States to take on the issue of human

rights and democracy in Iran, and not focus solely on the nuclear problem. He did not rule out the use of sanctions altogether, but called for a form of sanctions that would target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — the regime’s hard-line pillar of support in the military — and not the entire public.

“We need certain sanctions that hurt the regime, not the people,” Makhmalbaf said at a Nov. 20 event in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which was attended by administration officials.

Opposition activists point to several flaws they see in the American fuel sanctions initiative: imposing hardship on the Iranian people, strengthening the government and the Revolutionary Guard that would be in control of fuel rationing and the black market, and damaging the legitimacy of the opposition because it could be seen as siding with the West.

“We need to reassess the decision to put the nuclear clock front and center,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a nonpartisan group that opposes sanctions. “We need to focus on the democracy clock and adjust the nuclear clock accordingly.”

Administration officials and lawmakers largely dismissed these concerns. Opposition leaders in Iran, they maintained, were obliged to take a critical approach toward Western sanctions in order to maintain their nationalistic credentials at home.

For Jewish and pro-Israel groups, the focus has almost always been on the nuclear clock.

Citing concerns of an Iranian threat to Israel, and the steady advance of Tehran’s nuclear program, Jewish groups argue that sanctions are an essential step needed to pressure the Iranian government. Proponents of the legislation say that creating a fuel shortage in Iran would increase pressure on the regime and force Ahmadinejad to back off of his plans for obtaining nuclear capability.

SANCTIONS on page 19

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

NATIONAL

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Bar mitzvahs without God: Secular Judaism keeps next generation in the fold

by Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency FOSTER CITY, Calif. (JTA) — When Mark Neuman celebrated his bar mitzvah seven years ago at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture in Vancouver, B.C., he didn’t read from Torah, wear a yarmulke or pronounce Hebrew blessings.

He gave a talk on the psychology of Jewish humor.

His brother Ben’s bar mitzvah “portion” was a report on their grandfather’s escape from Nazioccupied Poland.

That’s typical in the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, a loose-knit group of some two dozen North American communities that emphasize Jewish history and culture while eschewing Jewish ritual, faith and anything that smacks of a deity. In contrast to the better known Society for Humanistic Judaism, founded in 1963 by the late Rabbi Sherwin Wine, Secular Jewish communities are lay led and emphasize Yiddish rather than Hebrew. But the philosophy and beliefs of both groups are quite similar.

“I feel Jewish,” said Mark, now 20 and a teacher at the Peretz school. “To me that means upholding the culture. It’s about the history, the Holocaust, the holidays, the language — all these are very important to me. But I don’t believe in the religious aspects.”

Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, the secular congress is tiny compared to larger synagogue movements. But it has demonstrated an ability to attract and hold its next generation in a world where most Jewish organizations wrack their brains trying to figure out what young people want. At a recent West Coast regional conference of Secular Jewish communities, two, three, even four generations showed up in family units, and the conference chairs themselves were two young women who had grown up in the movement.

“Our generation was all born into it,” said Neuman, who came to the conference with half a dozen other 20-something secular Jews from Vancouver.

Fine, but why do they stick around?

For 36-year-old Jamie Ireland of Castro Valley, Calif., who grew up in a Secular Jewish community in Southern California, it’s about seeking her comfort zone. She explored Hillel at college, but found it “too religious.”

By contrast, national confer-

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Children at the Sholem Community, a Secular Jewish Sunday school in Los Angeles, celebrating Sukkot.

ences of the secular congress were filled with the secular Jews she’d known since childhood. “It’s where my friends were,” she said. “I feel this is where I belong.”

Other longtime members of Secular Jewish communities say kids stay involved because parents do. Instead of dropping off their children for religious school, parents in most Secular Jewish communities come inside for their own adult classes, modeling the concept of lifelong Jewish learning.

“It’s very clear to us that our parents and grandparents are very committed to this,” said 22-yearold Shoshana Seid-Green of San Mateo, Calif., who co-chaired this year’s West Coast Regional Conference with her 20-year-old sister Ya’el.

There is a conscious effort to bring the next generation into the movement’s leadership. Young people sit on the national board, teenage representatives elected by teenagers who attend national conferences join in, and at those gatherings, teenagers, parents and grandparents lead and attend many of the same sessions.

“The young people are really involved; they are not just window dressing,” says the executive director of the secular congress, Rifke Feinstein.

Jewish secularism, which engaged a large number of American Jews in the early 20th century, seems to be making a comeback.

Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, has posited that as the Holocaust and Israel cease to resonate with young American Jews, they look to Jewish culture, history and ethical values as the basis for their identity.

Jews are more secular than Americans in general, and their

numbers are growing fast: 37 percent of Jews claim to have “no religion,” according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, versus 20 percent in 1990.

Among Americans in general, those figures were 8 percent in 1990, rising to 15 percent in 2008.

Younger Jews are more secular than their elders, according to the same study, and they are overwhelmingly the ones flocking to the new cultural expressions of Jewish identity: film festivals, music concerts, Yiddish classes.

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Jewish groups still angling for health care bill fixes

by Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — Repair the world? Jewish groups would be happy just to fix health care legislation.

For months, Jewish groups have been at the forefront of lobbying the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives for health care reform, framing their support within the Talmudic mandate of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. The National Jewish Democratic Council even earned a special thank you from Sen. Max Baucus (DMont.) when the bill finally passed the Senate on Dec. 24.

Now that the House and Senate versions of the legislation are on the verge of converging into a single bill acceptable to both houses of Congress, the Jewish groups that focus on health care lobbying have correspondingly sent out the usual statements praising its advance.

Each of these statements, however, is peppered with a plethora of qualifications – most having to do with the absence of an option for government-run health plans that would compete with the private sector, although there are other aspects that irk Jewish groups, including language on abortions and pricing for seniors.

The statement from the Reform movement’s Religion Action Center was typical of the Jewish responses.

“The time is long past due to repair our broken system that leaves over 47 million people

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seen here at the Center for American Progress Action Fund on March 27, 2009, led the effort to pass health care reform legislation.

uninsured and millions more underinsured each year,” it begins.

“We commend our nation’s senators who have been working tirelessly to bring us to this historic moment.”

Then comes the “while”: “While we are pleased to see a commitment to increased access to health insurance, we remain disappointed with key pieces of the legislation. The bill lacks a government-run public insurance option, which would control costs to further improve affordability and accessibility of care. We

are also concerned about severe limitations to women’s access to reproductive health services.”

Rachel Goldberg, the director of aging policy for B’nai B’rith International, said health care reform advocates hoped to salvage some elements of the public option in the final version of the bill, once it emerges from a conference of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“The important thing is to make sure there’s a mechanism to ensure competition,” she said, even if such

an option is not government run; one possibility is the creation of nonprofit cooperatives. Health care reform advocates want a public option to crack insurance monopolies and duopolies that prevail in many states.

Like many other health care reform advocates, the Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella body for federations, focused on urging Congress to preserve the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, a voluntary insurance buy-in that covers long-term care for the elderly and disabled; both Senate and House bills include versions of the CLASS Act. “This is the largest step forward in long-term care reform since the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid program nearly 45 years ago,” said William Daroff, the federation umbrella’s Washington director. “We believe the CLASS Act would create a fiscally responsible program that will strengthen our ability to deliver vital services to those most in need of them in our community.”

Critics contend that the proposed insurance plan is not self-sustainable and will require massive taxpayer funding.

“The real danger comes after 10 years, when the long-term care program will increase deficits and create even greater pressure for government rationing of medical care,” Scott Harrington, a professor of health care management at the Wharton School, wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal.

Jewish groups, representing one of the most rapidly aging demographics in the United States, also want to see aging removed as an insurance pricing factor, just as the legislation does with pre-existing

conditions. They also want to remove the “doughnut hole” from Medicare, the government-run insurance program for Americans over 65. Currently, medicines are subsidized up until $3,000; recipients must then cover a “hole” of about $3,600 until they are again eligible for government subsidies.

For some groups, a critical issue is abortion. Both versions of the bill would introduce bureaucratic restrictions that abortion rights advocates believe eventually could end any government funding for insurers who provide abortions.

The House version bans insurers from paying for abortions for clients eligible for any public funding; the Senate bill introduces a process for paying for abortion insurance that critics say is cumbersome and could lead to insurers simply not offering the coverage.

“On the one hand this should be a great moment,” said Sammie Moshenberg, the Washington director for the National Council of Jewish Women. “On the other, the extension of coverage to many people comes on the back of women’s access to reproductive rights.”

The intense, heated and often personal nature of the debate did not leave the Jewish community unscathed.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who had backed versions of the public option in the past, withdrew his support recently, saying he no longer believed the government could afford them.

That led to at least two petitions from American Jews urging Lieberman, the best-known Orthodox Jewish lawmaker, not to turn his back on the helpless.

“In our eyes, this is not the behavior of an ‘observant’ Jew,” said one petition, organized by Philadelphia’s Shalom Center and signed by 2,000 people, including 126 Jewish clergy. “‘Tzedek tzedek tirdof, justice justice shall you seek,’ is among the Torah’s most important commandments. And in pursuit of justice, no autonomous Jewish community has ever allowed the poor to go without healing.”

That in turn led to a blast from Agudath Israel of America, which said that impugning belief was out of place in the public square.

“People should not appropriate the mantle of Judaism to promote their own personal or political convictions,” said Rabbi David Zweibel, the executive vice president of the organization, which is fervently Orthodox. “The Torah has much to say about caring for the sick. But turning it into a tool to promote a particular provision of a health care plan — or into a bat with which to pummel an outstanding public servant who happens to think that provision is objectionable — dishonors the Torah.”

NATIONAL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Karp / ADL

Percy Sutton, left, accepts the Anti-Defamation League’s American Heritage Award from Barbara Balser, ADL’s national chairwoman, and Abraham Foxman, ADL’s national director, on Nov. 4, 2005.

Remembrance: Percy Sutton, champion of the Soviet Jewry cause

by Malcolm Hoenlein Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) — The sad news of the passing of Percy Sutton at the age of 89 brought back a flood of memories.

In the 1970s and early 80s, I worked closely with the thenManhattan borough president and a key power broker in New York politics when I served as executive director of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry and later of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Sutton attended countless Jewish events. He spoke up when Israel was in danger, especially during the Yom Kippur War and on many other occasions. He often spoke of his visit to Israel and publicly called on others to stand up for Israel. He brought me before black audiences and opened many doors, including to the 100 Black Men, enabling us to work with important groups that otherwise would have been less accessible.

But it was my experiences with him on the issue of Soviet Jewry that I recall most vividly. Sutton was one of the first and most consistently outspoken leaders on behalf of the struggle for freedom for Soviet Jews. He led the Black Coalition for Soviet Jews, which we established in the early 70s, and was a delegate to the World Conference on Soviet Jewry held in Brussels in 1976. He earned that recognition by virtue of his oft-demonstrated commitment standing with us in the rain, snow and sleet at demonstrations, marching with us annually down Fifth Avenue, and traveling to

Russia to visit Soviet Jewish refuseniks. He did not do this for political expediency, but rather out of a deep commitment to the struggle for the fight for the human and civil rights of the Jews of the Soviet Union.

I recall in particular one headline-making event we staged on a little outcropping in the middle of the East River, opposite the United Nations. Soviet Premier Brezhnev was due to address the opening session of the General Assembly along with other world leaders. In the months before, I had arranged with New York State officials and legislators to provide us the deed to the island, which we dubbed “Soviet Jewry Freedom Island.” Percy, as Manhattan borough president, was joined by Robert Abrams, who was then Bronx borough president, and several other officials including Rabbi Gil Klapperman, the chairman of the Soviet Jewry Conference, and Sister Rose Thering of Seton Hall University, whose memory we all cherish.

We proceeded to the island on a small boat provided by the late philanthropist Sam Hausman. A large tugboat we rented filled to capacity with camera crews, reporters and members of press to cover this unique demonstration followed us. We approached the little outcropping, which some say was made from rubble left when they built the subways or the Queens tunnel; others said it dated to a much earlier period. Whatever the true history, this very small area, strewn with litter collected over the years, was our target.

SUTTON on page 20

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8

NATIONAL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

New Jewish food movement steps up focus on social justice

by Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. (JTA) — Karyn Moskowitz runs the Fresh Stop Project, a food co-op program at a historic black Baptist church in West Louisville, Ky., a low-income, largely African American neighborhood.

One day she and some women at the church were talking about how they cooked fresh greens. One woman said she used bacon fat, like her friends. Moskowitz said she used olive oil, thinking she’d use the conversation as a teaching moment about the health benefits of avoiding saturated fats.

The woman responded: “Olive oil? Where do you get that?”

Moskowitz’s project brought fresh, organic fruits and vegetables to this community at an affordable price, but there were no real supermarkets in the neighborhood, no place for the residents to purchase other healthy foods. That’s something young Jewish food activists often forget, Moskowitz says.

“We think nothing of driving to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. They do not have that option.”

Moskowitz was speaking at the fourth annual Hazon Food Conference, held Dec. 24-27 in this coastal California town. Nearly 650 rabbis, Jewish educators, farmers and food activists spent four days learning about the connection between Jewish values and sustain-

David Gartner / Hazon

Two Hazon Food Conference attendees role-play a marketing scenario as part of a workshop for leaders of Jewish community-supported agriculture, Dec. 24, 2009.

able food systems, hearing from young pioneers in the fledgling new Jewish food movement spearheaded by Hazon, and sharing resources from organic farming tips to how to lobby Congress more effectively.

The new Jewish food movement, like the organics movement in general, has been criticized as somewhat elitist. Organic food, especial-

ly processed food and grass-fed, humanely-raised meat and poultry, is often more expensive than the conventional alternative — great for those who can afford it, but what of Jewish social justice values, such as feeding the poor?

This year, the food conference created a “food justice” track, providing speakers and workshops

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focusing on issues including workers’ rights, food access in lowincome neighborhoods, Fair Trade operations, and community gardens as a tool for empowerment.

Hazon founder and executive director Nigel Savage says this focus always existed, but over the past year the new Jewish food movement has grown to a level

National Briefs

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We are currently looking for volunteers to model the latest Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Sweet 16, Prom and Graduation party fashions from Kotsovos Furs & Fine Apparel during the 2010 Party Planning Showcase at the JCC on March 7th.

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Teacher can’t be fired for Holocaust denial (JTA) — A Nevada teacher who reportedly denied the Holocaust in front of her students will not lose her job.

Lori Sublette, a gym teacher at the Northwest Career and Technical Academy, has been reassigned from work in the classroom to working at home, and continues to receive salary and benefits during a continuing school district investigation. A Nevada statute from 1967 prohibits Sublette, or any teacher, from being fired for “unprofessional conduct” unless they have previously been cited for a similar offense, according to the Las Vegas Sun. In November, Sublette denied the Holocaust during a discussion in an advocacy class that prepares students for life after high school.

where it can begin to put all the pieces of the social justice puzzle together. And that’s happening in local communities all over the country, he says.

“When we shechted the goats two years ago at our conference, that was before Postville, before the new ethical kosher meat businesses, before Magen Tzedek,” he said, referring to last year’s collapse of the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant and the increased Jewish interest in the social justice aspects of food manufacturing. “We did it as a way to raise communal awareness. Now there’s a huge amount happening on the ground.”

Previous food conferences featured a handful of newly minted experts teaching large groups of their peers about sustainable agriculture and Jewish environmental values. At this year’s gathering, dozens of new, on-the-ground projects initiated by people influenced by past conferences, or by the new Jewish food movement in general, were given center stage.

At one session, four women discussed kosher meat and poultry businesses, the newest of which was launched just six months ago.

All their animals are sustainably raised — a term encompassing a range of issues regarding health, the environment and treatment of workers — and compassionately slaughtered.

MOVEMENT on page 20 She said the Nazis did not have the technology to enable them to kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Students reportedly told their parents about the comments.

The students also quoted Sublette as saying that information on the Holocaust in history books was doctored or distorted.

Sublette apologized to one parent, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but only for conveying her opinion in class and not for denying the Holocaust.

District officials would not comment on whether Sublette, who has taught in the county for eight years, has any admonitions for unprofessional conduct in her file; personnel files are confidential.

N.J. man allegedly scammed Orthodox Jews NEW YORK (JTA) — A New Jersey man is suspected of swindling more than $200 million from Orthodox Jewish investors in a real estate scam.

Police are investigating Eliyahu Weinstein of Lakewood, N.J., on suspicion that he bilked millions from members of Orthodox Jewish communities in BRIEFS on page 21

INTERNATIONAL/ISRAEL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

International Briefs

Anti-Semitism hotline reinstated in Russia (JTA) — The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia is reinstating an anti-Semitism hotline.

The hotline, based in Moscow, helps connect victims of antiSemitism with lawyers who can advise them of their rights, the AEN news agency reported Wednesday, according to UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union.

Earlier this month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared that anti-Semitism in Russia is “much less prevalent” than in the past. He made his remarks during a meeting with the head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Russian Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar, according to UCSJ. Indonesian leader who reached out to Jews dies (JTA) — Abdurrahman Wahid, the former Indonesian president who reached out to Jews and to Israel, has died.

Wahid, 69, died in a hospital on Wednesday in Jakarta, news media reported.

Best known as the president who shifted Indonesia to democracy from 1999 to 2001, Wahid was forced out due to a combination of financial scandals, allegations of incompetence and hard-liners who opposed his attempts to liberalize restrictions on political groups and the country’s Chinese minority.

He also faced rancor in some quarters for peddling his vision of moderate Islam, and for slamming Islamist extremists as straying from the faith’s tenets.

As an opposition leader, Wahid broke new ground by visiting Israel in 1994.

The apex of his effort to bring Jews and Muslims closer, conducted jointly with the LibForAll Foundation, a group that promotes moderate Islam, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was the Holocaust conference in 2007 in Bali, Indonesia. At the conference, which was attended by survivors and Jewish and Muslim clergy, Wahid called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a liar for denying the Holocaust.

Wahid told JTA in a 2008 interview that he was moved by the plight of the Jews when, as a student in Iraq in 1969, he saw Jewish friends suffering from persecution.

He recalled telling a close friend

during an anti-Jewish crackdown: “This is not only your fate, it is my fate.”

Kindertransport survivor is knighted (JTA) — A Jewish refugee from the Nazis who arrived in England on the Kindertransport was knighted.

Erich Reich, 74, has raised millions of dollars for local charities through his company, Classic Tours, which organizes overseas fundraising challenges.

Reich, chairman of the Kindertransport Group of the Association of Jewish Refugees, organized the celebration last year of the 70th anniversary of the decision by Britain’s parliament to accept the children escaping Nazioccupied Europe on the eve of World War II. “I want to thank the people of Britain for allowing the Kinder to come to the UK and for this amazing honor,” he said.

Reich arrived in Britain at the age of 4 and never saw his parents again.

New Year’s Honors recognize mostly unknown Britons for a lifetime of good work.

‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign found in three pieces (JTA) — The “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign stolen from the memorial at the Auschwitz death camp was recovered.

The metal sign from the front gate of the concentration camp, which means “work makes you free,” was recovered early Monday morning, about 72 hours after it was stolen, according to reports.

The 16-foot-long sign, which was forged by prisoners at the camp, was found across the country in northern Poland and was cut into three pieces, according to reports.

Five men, aged 20 to 39, were arrested in the theft. The men are not thought to be neo-Nazis, Krakow Police Chief Andrzej Rokita told reporters during a news conference Monday.

Police and anonymous donors had offered a reward of nearly $40,000 for information leading to the sign’s return.

The theft occurred one day after Germany announced that it would contribute $87 million to the new Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which earlier this year launched a campaign to raise $172 million to preserve the remains of the death camp as a memorial and museum.

There are about 450 buildings and remains of buildings at the site, including the ruins of gas chambers, as well as 80,000 pairs of shoes of victims and 3,800 suitcases, according to a report by the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Some 1.1 million people, including about 1 million Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz.

9

Fight against Adelson’s Israeli paper gets political

by Leslie Susser Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — Should a billionaire tycoon who lives abroad be entitled to use his money to influence Israeli political life?

This question came to the fore in early December when a group of Knesset members moved to bar American Jewish casino mogul Sheldon Adelson from owning a free Israeli daily newspaper that supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Knesset bill, which is being promoted by a collection of interested parties ranging from owners of competing newspapers to rival politicians, stipulates that, as is the case with the electronic media in Israel, only Israeli citizens or residents should be eligible for licenses to own Hebrew-language newspapers in Israel.

“Imagine if a Saudi businessman were to own a newspaper in Israel,” Kadima legislator Yoel Hasson declared somewhat disingenuously, since the bill clearly was directed at Adelson.

It’s far from clear that the antiAdelson campaign will succeed even if the bill is passed. Adelson easily could appoint a straw-man owner, or even hand over the paper to his wife Miriam, who is Israeliborn.

Hovev Shira / Creative Commons

Copies of the free daily Hebrew newspaper Yisrael Hayom being distributed in Jerusalem.

The arguments for and against, however, go far beyond the Adelsons, and touch on the very essence of democracy and free speech in Israel.

The newspaper, Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today), was launched two and half years ago, and has been so uncritical in its support of Netanyahu that it has been dubbed the “Bibiton,” a play on Netanyahu’s nickname and the Hebrew word for newspaper, iton.

Its opponents argue strongly against it. First, they say it provides

a venue for foreign money to shape the Israeli agenda. Additionally, they complain, Yisrael Hayom is nothing more than a propaganda sheet for Netanyahu posing as a genuine newspaper and taking in masses of gullible readers. For Netanyahu to buy that kind of publicity would have cost millions; the free newspaper with nationwide distribution could be seen as campaign funding from a foreign source, which might run afoul of FIGHT on page 21

10

ISRAEL

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Israel Briefs

Two Grads hit Netivot (JTA) — Two rockets launched from the Gaza Strip exploded in a southern Israeli town.

The two Grad type rockets, which have a range of about 13 miles, hit the Israeli town of Netivot late Thursday. No one was hurt.

Rahel Sharon / Creative Commons

Demonstrators gathering near the Israeli Supreme Court on Oct. 27, 2009 to protest against genderbased segregation on buses.

Israeli women fight relegation to back of bus

by Gil Shefler Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) — Three years ago, a 57year-old grandmother got on a bus in Israel departing Rechovot for Givat Shmuel and sat in a vacant seat in the front.

Shortly after taking her seat, the woman was approached by a fervently Orthodox man who demanded she move to the back of the bus with the rest of the women.

Unbeknownst to the woman, who asked JTA to be identified only as H., she had boarded one of the so-called mehadrin (super kosher) bus lines, on which the predominantly ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, ridership imposes sex-segregated seating. The man told H. that segregated seating had been sanctioned by the rabbis and by Egged, the state-owned bus company that operates the line.

H., who is herself religious, refused, prompting a barrage of verbal abuse from the man.

“With the exception of being physically harmed, I was hurt in every manner,” H. told JTA. “He called me every name imaginable. I was shocked, and I didn’t know how to respond to him.”

The man harassed her for the entire ride. Nobody, including the driver, came to her aid.

H. is among a group of women who filed affidavits as part of a petition to Israel’s Supreme Court to ban gender-based segregation on Israeli public buses. The petition was filed by the Israel Religious Action Center, which is associated with the Reform movement.

Before issuing any ruling, the court referred the matter to Israel’s

Transportation Ministry. In January, more than three years since the IRAC petition was filed, Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz is expected to issue the government’s official position.

Some haredi passengers defend sex segregation, saying it upholds Jewish rules concerning sexual modesty. On mehadrin lines, women sit in the back and men in the front in order to avoid physical contact. Drivers do not enforce this code, but the IRAC considers such practices on public buses to be a fundamental violation of women’s rights. It also says the practice has no basis in Jewish law, or halachah.

The IRAC isn’t alone. As esteemed a rabbinical authority as the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the preeminent Orthodox sages of the 20th century, permitted co-ed seating on public transportation.

Sex segregation on public buses in Israel is a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s growing. It first appeared 10 years ago on a line connecting Jerusalem with the nearby town of Beit Shemesh.

Today, IRAC estimates there are 100 such lines currently in operation across the country.

A spokesperson for Egged said the government-owned company had no agenda of its own and would cooperate fully with whatever decision the transportation minister makes.

A spokesman for Katz, Avner Ovadia, said the minister is reviewing a committee’s recommendations on the matter and has not yet reached a decision.

“We’re listening to everybody and will make our decision soon,” Ovadia said.

Anat Hoffman, the executive director of IRAC, said her group’s problem is not with haredi mores, but with the way men sometimes compel women to go to the back of the bus.

Five years ago, the novelist Naomi Ragen, who lives in Israel but writes in English, had an experience much like that of H. aboard a bus bound for her home in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem.

“One guy got on the bus sweating bullets and started shouting at me, ‘What are you doing?! It’s against the law!’” Ragen recalls of her decision to sit up front. “The way he was speaking to me I really did feel like Rosa Parks. Had he said ‘Excuse me,’ I may have been more willing to consider his request. But since he turned it into such an issue there was no way I could lose my dignity as a human being and move to the back.”

Ragen later penned a column about her experience in the Jerusalem Post, comparing her experience with violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

When IRAC contacted her and asked her to submit an affidavit to the High Court, she willingly obliged.

She said she believes Katz “really doesn’t want to become the minister that will allow Israel to become Iran.”

“Whatever the decision is, the end result is that women will not be abused on buses,” Ragen said.

“Nobody knew about this case before we filed. If we find the abuses are continuing we’re going straight back to court. It’s a long struggle, but there’s no way to reconcile democracy and this kind of antiquated thinking.”

Hamas reportedly turns down prisoner swap J E R U S A L E M ( J TA ) — Hamas has not accepted Israel’s counter-offer for a prisoner swap but indirect negotiations will continue, a senior Hamas official said.

A Hamas delegation from Gaza returned from Damascus after twodays of marathon talks on the deal.

The delegation will likely give its official answer to the German mediator in coming days.

“Hamas didn’t close the door for Shalit’s deal,” Mahmoud Zahar, a member of the Hamas politburo told reporters Thursday, Haaretz reported. “Debates and discussions are still going on in Hamas although we have some reservations on the recent Israeli offer.”

The deal would see hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Israel has reportedly refused to release a number of senior leaders of Hamas who were involved in the killing of Israelis, and it would not allow more than 100 of the prisoners return to the West Bank, exile them to Gaza or abroad.

Meanwhile, Hamas said Wednesday that it uncovered a plot

by Israel to find the location where Shalit is being held using Palestinian “collaborators.”

Turkey: Not insisting on mediator role J E R U S A L E M ( J TA ) — Turkey said it does not have to return as mediator between Syria and Israel, a Turkish newspaper reported.

“We are not insisting on being a mediator no matter what. After all, this is something which matters to our region and we always say that we will do our best,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Burak Özügergin said during a press briefing, the Zaman newspaper reported Thursday.

The comments come after Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday that he opposed Turkish mediation in light of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an’s harsh criticism of Israel

in the wake of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and that he would not allow Turkey to resume mediation efforts as long as he served in his Cabinet position. Özügergin said during the briefing that everybody knew why the talks between Syria and Israel stalled last year — an apparent reference to the Gaza war, the newspaper said. Özügergin also said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak would soon visit Turkey.

Activists protest Gaza blockade JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Arabs and pro-Palestinian activists from Israel and around the world protested Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

The protesters gathered Thursday on the Israeli side of the Erez crossing, on the Israel-Gaza border.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Palestinian prime minister, addressed the protesters via cell phone from Gaza. Israeli Arab lawmaker Talab El-Sana amplified the conversation with a speaker system, according to reports.

“We are proud of the Palestinian citizens of the 1948 territories who have come to identify with us,” Haniyeh reportedly said. “We will surely meet at the al-Aksa Mosque and in Jerusalem, which will remain Arab and Islamic.”

The march was organized by the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, an independent political organization that works to coordinate the political actions of various Israeli Arab bodies.

On the Gaza side of the crossing, 86 members of the Gaza Freedom March who entered the strip Wednesday evening were joined by a few hundred Palestinians, according to the news agency AFP. The other 1,200 or so activists from more than 40 countries remained in Cairo, where Egyptian authorities have prohibited them from entering Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

Outpost set up in memory of slain motorist JERUSALEM (JTA) — Settlers set up a new West Bank outpost near the site where Palestinian attackers shot an Israeli motorist to death.

Residents of the northern West Bank settlements of Shavei Shomron and Einav established the outpost Thursday on a hill overlooking the site where Avshalom Meir Hai had been murdered one week earlier, Ynet reported.

A memorial ceremony for Hai was also held.

The settlers want the outpost to be a “regional Torah center” in Hai’s memory, according to Ynet.

Hai, a 45-year-old father of seven was shot as he drove near Shavei Shomron, where he lived with his family.

SOCIAL LIFE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

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Nancy and the late Bruce Lee Kranz of Louisville, and Stanley and Evelyn Ignatow of Cincinnati. She is the great-granddaughter of Karl and Hanna Lewin and Goldie and the late Kurt Heilbrunn of Cincinnati. Blake is lovingly named after her grandfather Bruce “BruBru” Kranz.

harley Ava Ignatow, along with her parents, Andrew and Ali of Cincinnati, announce the arrival of her little sister, Blake Leigh Ignatow on December 22, 2009. Blake is the granddaughter of

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R E F UA H S H L E M A H Daniel Eliyahu Daniel ben Tikvah

Stan Schwartzberg Simcha Leib ben Devorah

Mel Fisher Moshe ben Hinda

Ravid Sulam Ravid Chaya bat Ayelet

Murray Kirschner Meir ben Basha

Edward Ziv Raphael Eliezer Aharon ben Esther Enya

Announcements are 100% FREE Place any of these announcements in The American Israelite: BIRTHS BIRTHDAYS BAR/BAT MITZVAHS ENGAGEMENTS WEDDINGS ANNIVERSARIES Send an e-mail including announcement copy and photo (optional) to:

articles@americanisraelite.com with “Announcement” in the Subject Line

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12

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Jewish Federation’s Major Gifts Dinner The Major Gifts Event, held Oct. 14 at the Mayerson JCC, kicked off the 2010 Annual Community Campaign and raised close to $300,000! Mazel Tov and thank you to our Major Gifts Event co-chairs, Linda and Andy Berger and to our Campaign co-chairs,Tedd Friedman and Nina Paul for a great start to our campaign year and “Coming Out Stronger”; and to our event hosts and hostesses who helped in achieving great attendance. Arna Poupko Fisher, the keynote speaker, gave a remarkable speech of shared values with a focus on the distinct role we play as a Jewish community.

Linda and Andy Berger, Major Gifts Dinner Co-chairs

Tedd Friedman and Nina Paul, Annual Campaign Co-chairs

Tedd Friedman, Dr. Marc Levitt, Ross Vigran, Bret Caller

Morry and Elaine Guttman, Sally and Marty Hiudt

Gary and Linda Greenberg, Jody Brant

Beth Schwartz, Pam and Bernie Barbash

Sue and Jerry Teller, Roberta Fisher

Gloria and Alvin Lipson, Marilyn Zemboch

14

DINING OUT

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Mecklenburg Gardens ready for fans of basketball, bier and mustard

by Bob Wilhelmy Restaurant Reporter In the coming few months, Mecklenburg Gardens will continue several traditions established over the years at the restaurant.

First, there is the restaurant’s commitment to the men’s basketball program at the University of Cincinnati (football too, when in season). For years now, those who dine at the restaurant on a basketball game day are welcomed aboard a shuttle bus that drops its riders off near 5/3 Arena prior to the games, and picks them up again after the contest.

Having used the shuttle service several times, this writer can attest to the convenience. It’s a great way to get to and from the games, saving both a parking fee and the frustration of the UC parking experience.

For the rest of January, UC men’s home games are: the 6th, 7:30 p.m. vs. Cal StateBakersfield; the 16th at 4 p.m. vs.

Notre Dame; the 20th at 7 p.m. vs.

USF; and the 30th at 8 p.m. vs.

Providence.

The second tradition centers on the Bier Dinners, which have become popular, according to Annamarie Harten, proprietress.

“We have three of them planned at the present, and our guests really enjoy the evening, the buffet, the music, and the reps from the various breweries,” she said.

The first Bier Dinner this year is Friday, Jan. 15, beginning at 7 p.m., with dinner served a halfhour later. Other Bier Dinners are planned for Feb. 13 and March 20, both Saturday evenings.

The Bier Dinner buffet features two entrees (of a German variety such as schnitzel), potatoes, veggies, salad and dessert, for $20 per adult, and half that for kids 6-12 (kids under 6 eat free). The beer part of the dinner (beer is not included in the buffet price) involves a featured beer brand and a representative from the brewery to speak about the beer and the process used to make fine beers.

One of the dinners will feature the Spaten brewery representative, though which one of the three planned events had not been established at this writing. All dinners feature the music and fun antics of the Alpine Echos, and their German heritage music.

Next in the line of planned events are the mustard-tasting lunches. These are held the second Saturday of each month, this

Behind the bar on a UC Bearcat men’s basketball game day are: Annamarie and Tom Harten (the latter, resplendent in a UC-Bearcat tie), proprietor/owners of Cincinnati’s oldest restaurant, Mecklenburg Gardens.

month’s on Jan. 9, and are both fun and interesting. There is a wide range of mustards for tasting, and the condiments complement the German sausages, soft pretzels and other buffet items. The all-youcare-to-eat buffet begins at 11 a.m., and continues to 1 p.m., and the cost is $10 per person. The tasting is arranged by Handelmeyer Früde, which is devoted to promoting the craft of fine mustard-making.

Another on the list of events to plan for at Mecklenburg Gardens is the Pre-Bock Keg Tapping Party scheduled for Saturday evening, Feb. 6. The doors to the keg-tap party open at 5 p.m., with the actual tapping planned for 7:30 p.m.

This event is the traditional beginning in Germanic beer-brewing regions of the stüke bier season, or strong beer season, when bock is enjoyed across the land. The tapping at Mecklenburg Gardens is an annual event and always draws a crowd of fun-loving beer-drinkers.

There will be sausages and kraut and more, as well as the Spaten rep to help the festivities along.

Of course, the added benefit to all that cold beer is the food at Mecklenburg Gardens. Personally, the sauerbraten is a general favorite of mine ($19), the soured beef served with gingersnap sauce and all the trimmings, in true German fashion. Delicious!

Another dish done the German way is the wiener schnitzel, with a tender escallop of veal breaded, and then fried just so, topped with your choice of dunkelweizen or hunter’s sauce, and served with potato of the day or spraetzle, and red cabbage with apples. The schnitzel is $19.50, or if you wish, it can be served ala Holstein style for $2.50 more. Mecklenburg Gardens also features an eggplant schnitzel for $17, and a chicken schnitzel for $18.50.

Other entrees you may want to consider are: Bavarian goulash (German stew) for $18.50; the

horseradish-encrusted salmon, served over rice with seasonal vegetables and a horseradish sauce, for $18.50; and the grilled eggplant and spraetzle, served with seasonal veggies for $18.

For beer fans such as me, Mecklenburg Gardens features a list of some 25 imports from Germany. Among them are several well-known labels, such as Beck’s lager and dark, St. Pauli Girl lager and dark, Spaten and Dortmunder.

Other labels may be more obscure, but the beers behind them will leave a tasty impression for beer-lovers. Labels such as: DinkelAcker and Monchshof Schwarzgier, both pilsners; along with Franziskaneer, Schneider Weiss, Hofbrau and Franziskaner dunkel, in the hefeweizen category. Stone-brewed Rauchenfels and smoked Hecht Schlenkerla are in the specialty beer category.

Of course, food generally is the focus of dining out, and

Mecklenburg’s has obtained high praise for that offering. The New York Times has listed it as “the place to eat in Cincinnati.” Similar kudos can be found among Cincinnati Magazine’s “Best Places” surveys of area eateries.

Mecklenburg Gardens offers an array of appetizers ranging in price from $4 to $7. Classic German soups include the bier cheese, and mock turtle, at $3.50 a cup and $4.50 a bowl. Salads include a side and hot slaw, for $4.25 each, and a variety of dinner-sized options from $4.50 to $12.

For families with small children, there is an inexpensive children’s menu. And for diners wanting less than a complete entrée, there are sandwiches and small plate entrees beginning at $7.50.

Mecklenburg Gardens 302 East University Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45219 513-221-5353 513-221-5383 (Fax)

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

DINING OUT

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OPINION

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Defining death down Ironically, or maybe not, as one scientific establishment raises alarms about what it perceives to be dire threats to the planet, another is posing demonstrable threats to individual human lives.

The trove of e-mails written by climate scientists at East Anglia University in England that was made public last month seems to implicate some of those professionals as having sought to alter data and suppress evidence about global warming. The e-mails certainly show that scientists can be as spiteful, conniving and deceptive as anyone else. Global warming skeptics have seized upon the e-mails’ revelations to promote their skepticism; whether it is warranted or not remains an open question.

But another idea, this one promoted by much of the medical establishment, presents a clear and present danger.

“Decisions are made every day in this country to withdraw and remove people from life support,” says a doctor quoted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta in his book “Cheating Death,” “without really giving them a chance.” And, as was recently reported in the New York Times, “terminal sedation” — administering drugs to alleviate pain but thereby hastening death — has been embraced by many medical professionals. Life, quite literally, isn’t what it used to be.

Then there are the patients who are in what is called a “vegetative state” — showing no responses to stimuli beyond muscle reflexes. In several highly publicized cases, some have awoken, even after many years, from their seeming obliviousness. Most, though, do not; and many are removed from life support and deprived of water and nutrition. But calculating percentages begs the larger question — whether such people are, whatever their physical limitations, in their “vegetative” states, in fact alive.

“Many doctors harbor a therapeutic nihilism about such patients,” writes Dr. Ford Vox, a resident physician at Washington University in St. Louis, in the Washington Post, “but this research should give us good reason to keep our minds open.”

The research to which he refers includes that of neuroscientist Dr. Adrian Owen of Cambridge, who analyzed the real-time brain activity of a young woman in a vegetative state five months after a car accident. Utilizing digital processing of EEG readings that reveal unique, reproducible signals, he reported in 2006 in Science that the patient, whose only visible

response to the external world was occasionally fixating on an object, was able to follow complex commands with her mind, imagining playing tennis and walking through the rooms of her home.

Owen found similarly remarkable results in at least three other patients.

There is, moreover, also a “minimally conscious state” (MCS), estimated to be 10 times as prevalent as the more recognized vegetative one. And, Dr. Vox maintains, “about one-third of the time, ‘vegetative’ patients are minimally conscious or even better.”

In November 2008, using EEG readings, Dr. Steven Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liege in Belgium demonstrated that some low-level MCS patients were able to follow basic instructions — counting familiar and unfamiliar names played randomly into headphones.

And, at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Dr. John Whyte is studying the seemingly paradoxical fact that the sedative Ambien apparently causes some vegetative patients to perk up to MCS or higher states.

All that should be sufficient to give pause to would-be plugpullers. But a variety of factors — most notably, perhaps, the shortage of organs for transplantation — is pushing some physicians to call a life a life, even if it hasn’t yet been fully lived.

Writing recently in the New York Times Magazine, Dr. Darshak Sanghavi, chief of pediatric cardiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, asserts that medical professionals “have handled [the] paradoxical situation” that an organ donor must be dead but the needed organ alive “by fashioning a category of people with beating hearts” to be regarded “as if they had rigor mortis.”

Such “dead” people with pulses — sometimes brain-damaged but not necessarily meeting the criteria of “brain death” — who are assisted in their breathing by a machine are candidates for “donation after cardiac death” (DCD).

Where that procedure is chosen, the patient’s breathing tube is removed in an operating room. If breathing ceases naturally and the heart stops within an hour, five minutes are counted off. The interval is not based on any research; it was the best-guess decision of a panel of experts in 1997. If the heart does not resume beating by the five-minute buzzer, the patient is declared legally dead and his organs harvested – despite demonstrable brain activity.

DEFINING on page 21

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Do you have something to say? E-mail your letter to editor@americanisraelite.com

Dear Editor, Whatever happened to the American Israelite?

I have subscribed to the AI for the past 57 years, since my arrival in Cincinnati. During the past year I have read inflammatory letters to the editor attempting to instill fear and hate—the latest being a letter from Mr. Glassman (12/24/09), comparing President Obama to Hitler. He intimates that Obama was nationalizing banks and industry just as Hitler

did. Also, he addressed the “Death Panel” issue.

This really hits home because I am on Medicare and he scared me to death that the government will euthenize me by depriving me of care.

I may be wrong, but didn’t Bush and his administration start the “bailing out” process with hundreds of millions of dollars? I didn’t hear from Mr. G and his friends that Bush was like Hitler.

Why do they criticize this administration at every turn?

This administration is trying to prevent a severe depression. I am not sure that these attempts will work. I have plenty of questions and doubts. However, Mr. G and his friends are so sure they are right.

I am 88 years old. Some people say that I am old and confused. Despite this Mr. G has not convinced me that Obama is like Hitler.

Murray Abramowitz Blue Ash

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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE of this week’s Torah portion This Week’s Portion: Shmot (Shmot 1:1—6:1) 1. What material did Moshe's mother make the ark to place him in the Nile? a.) Shittim wood b.) Reeds c.) Fish skin 2. Who saved Moshe from the Nile? a.) His sister b.) Egyptian taskmaster c.) Daughter of Pharaoh 3. Where did Moshe meet Yitro's daughters? a.) At a well b.) In the field

c.) At their place of worship 4. Did Moshe look directly at the burning bush? a.) Yes b.) NO 5. Who took lashes from the Egyptians? a.) Moses and Aaron b.) The Jewish midwives c.) The leaders of the Jewish people appointed

by Pharaoh d.) All Jews who refused to work for the Egyptians?

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

1. B 2:3 Reeds are soft and can withstand contact with soft and hard surfaces. Rashi 2. C 2:5 She sent a servant to save Moshe or her arm extended to catch Moshe. Rashi 3. A 2:15,16 Moshe learned from Jacob, who met his future wife by a well. Rashi 4. B 3:6 5. C 5:14 The Jewish taskmasters were beaten by the Egyptians, when the Children of Israel did not reach their goals of service. Because of their act of self sacrifice for the people they were rewarded to sit on the Sanhedrin and to receive prophecy from Hashem. Rashi

by Rabbi Avi Shafran Contributing Columnist

Answers

16

JEWISH LIFE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

MODERN ORTHODOX SERVICE

17

Daily Minyan for Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv, Shabbat Morning Service and Shalosh Seudas.

Sedra of the Week

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Kiddush follows Shabbat Morning Services

RABBI HANAN BALK & ASSISTANT RABBI STUART LAVENDA

6442 Stover Ave • 531-6654 • golfmanorsynagogue.org

Parshat Shmot Exodus 1:1 — 6:1

From Genesis to Exodus: Why Moses?

Efrat, Israel: “And there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8).

Reading the Biblical Book of Genesis, we explored and analyzed what made each of our ancestors worthy of the birthright and leadership of the Jewish people. Turning to the Book of Exodus, we now ask whether these conditions applied to the greatest prophet and leader of the Jewish people, our teacher Moses.

The first and most essential condition of leadership is the characteristic of tzedek, or more correctly tzedakah: as G-d says explaining the election of Abraham to be the bearer of the covenant; “Since I have known (loved, chosen) him in order that he may command his progeny and his household after him to guard the way of the Lord and to act in compassionate justice and morality…” (Gen. 18:19).

Tzedek is justice; tzedakah is compassionate justice i.e. justice commingled with love (Deut. 24:13).

The second condition for birthright eligibility is a sense of responsibility to the Abrahamic family. The bearer of the birthright must have a profound sense of loyalty to past generations, loving concern for the entire family and a deep commitment to transmitting our covenantal values and lifestyle to succeeding generations, “in order that he may command his progeny and his household after him.” Preserving the family physically and spiritually against attack and assimilation also requires securing the homeland for succeeding generations.

When we analyze the towering personalities of the Bible through the prism of these criteria, we can recognize the outstanding qualities of Moses which enabled him to be elevated to become the master prophet of the Lord, the supreme transmitter of the content of the birthright in the form of G-d’s Torah to His firstborn child, Israel.

Joseph, although brilliant and charismatic, creates tension when he brings evil reports about his siblings to his father (Gen. 37:2).

Furthermore, he does not “reach out” to his brothers with sensitive concern when he acts as “the shepherd towards his brothers among the sheep” (ibid), and seeks to lord over them through his dreams of majesty and cosmic subjugation.

Finally, although we can under-

stand his lack of communication with his father and family when he is a slave and prisoner in Egypt, when as the Grand Vizier of Egypt he confronts his siblings seeking food, his harshness is more troublesome.

The other major contender for the birthright was Judah. When Tamar misleads him by playing harlot, he still has no problem in declaring that, “She is more righteous than I” (Gen. 38:26); in so saying, he emerges the model of consummate righteous compassion!

Judah also unifies the entire family by taking responsibility for the fate of his younger brother, first before his father, “I myself will be a responsible co-signer for him; you can demand him from my own hand… if I don’t bring him back I shall have sinned before you for all eternity” (Gen. 43:9), then before the Grand Vizier, when he asks to be a substitute slave for Benjamin (Gen. 44:33) and finally in leading the Grand Vizier to reveal himself, so that Joseph accepts responsibility for his father and brothers (Gen. 44:18-34).

Unlike Joseph, who is born in the ancestral home of Israel and dreams of Egypt, the foreign land to which he devotes all of his energies, Moses is born in Egypt, but expends all of his energies in taking the Israelites out of that country to bring them home to their familial land. Moses is the consummate fighter for justice (tzedek) and morality (mishpat), risking his life to struggle against injustice wherever it rears its ugly head.

The Bible introduces Moses by recording three incidents from his early life before telling us of his Divine election to lead the Jewish people (Ex. 3). First, he sees an Egyptian taskmaster smiting a Hebrew, and he slays the Egyptian; then he sees two Hebrews fighting, and he breaks up the fight, chastising the instigator; and finally he rescues the daughters of the Priest of Midian from assault by the Midianite shepherds (Ex. 2:11-17). Moses is chosen to break the Egyptian tyranny because he fights against injustice perpetrated by Egyptian against Hebrew, by Hebrew against Hebrew, and by Midianite against Midianite.

Whereas young Joseph tried to lord over his brothers, and they responded by rejecting him and even attempting to kill him, Moses reacts very differently to his family. Although he was brought up in

the palace of Pharaoh away from his people, Moses disregards the loss of status and ultimate exile that will result from his brotherly concern and shows consummate concern for his people. “It happened in those days, that Moses grew up, and he went out to his brothers when he saw their suffering; he saw an Egyptian taskmaster slaying a Hebrew person from among his brothers…. and he slew the Egyptian” (Ex. 2:11,12).

Our final contrast: Joseph as Grand Vizier in Egypt, tries mightily to forget his father and his siblings, naming his first son Menashe, “because G-d has made me forget (nasheh) all my troubles and my father’s household” (Gen. 41:51). Even Judah “left his brothers…” and married the daughter of a Canaanite (Gen. 38:1, 2), rejecting of accepted family and the paternal, ancestral tradition.

The very name Moses, however, means “son” in Egyptian (Ra Mses, son of the sun-god); despite personal discomfiture, and derision by his Hebrew brothers for having assumed a leadership position — “Who made you our prince and judge? … Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian” (Ex. 2:14)? Moses remains dedicated to his family, risking life and limb in order to rescue his enslaved brothers from their murderous Egyptian captors. His heart was never in Egypt: “And she (Moses’ wife Zipporah) gave birth to a son, and he (Moses) called his name Gershom, because he said I was a stranger in a strange land” (Ex. 2:22).

Moses shows his beleaguered family unconditional compassion and love despite their ongoing ingratitude and abuse. “Isn’t it enough that you brought us out of a land flowing with milk and honey (Egypt) just to kill us in the desert; will you also rule, yes, rule over us?” (Num. 16:13), which is reminiscent of the charge of Joseph’s brothers, “Do you want to be king, yes king, over us, to rule, yes rule, against us?” (Gen. 37:8).

Moses is introduced to us at the beginning of our Biblical portion as a proud son of Levi and he never falters in this identity (Ex. 1:1). He keeps his eye on his goal of transmitting G-d’s message of compassionate righteousness and morality, to the progeny of Israel for all eternity in the form of our Holy Bible.

Shabbat Shalom Shlomo Riskin Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone Chief Rabbi — Efrat Israel

Celebrating 125 years in Cincinnati and 10 years at Cornell.

8100 Cornell Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45249 (513) 489-3399 • www.ohavshalom.org

3100 LONGMEADOW LANE • CINCINNATI, OH 45236 791-1330 • www.templesholom.net Richard Shapiro, Interim Rabbi Marcy Ziek, President Gerry H. Walter, Rabbi Emeritus Friday January 8 6:00 pm Shabbat Nosh 6:30 pm Shabbat Evening Service

Friday January 15 8:00 pm Shabbat Evening Service

Saturday January 9 10:30 am Shabbat Morning Service

Saturday January 16 10:30 am Shabbat Morning Service

18

JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

Jewz in the Newz

by Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist

known for famous person caricatures in the NY Review of Books.

A MUSICAL MOTHER RACHEL BILSON, 28, guest stars on the CBS sitcom, “How I Met Your Mother,” in the episode airing Monday, Jan. 11, at 10 PM. The series’ lead character, Ted (JOSH RADNOR, 35), is now a college professor. Bilson plays a student of his who turns into his love interest. Meanwhile, Ted’s buddy, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), has also found a new love.

Monday’s episode is the series’ 100th and it’s being done in the form of a musical comedy. There are “clues” that Bilson may be the woman who ultimately becomes the mother of Ted’s children.

I have seen Harris nicely carry a tune as he did comic songs as the host of the Tonys and Emmys.

“Mother” cast member JASON SEGAL (Marshall) showed-off a pleasant, if certainly not spectacular set of pipes when he sang in the hit comedy film, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (a film that Segal wrote and starred-in). But I am curious about the musical abilities of the other cast members — Radnor, Cobie Smulders (Robin), and ALYSON HANNIGAN, (Lily).

Hannigan’s mother is Jewish.

ORSZAG TO MARRY — MAY THE FORCE BE WITH HIM On Dec. 28, the NY Times politics blog had a charming account of the engagement of PETER R. ORSZAG, 41, the White House Budget Director, to ABC News business and financial news correspondent BIANNA GOLODRYGA, 31. The couple met last May at the White House correspondent’s dinner. Orszag sat as a guest at the ABC news table. Since then, the pair have been a hot Washington item and practically inseparable.

Orszag, a very organized workaholic, told the Times the source of his attraction: “She’s a Russian Jew who gets up even earlier than I do.”

(I suspect that Ms. Golodryga’s stunning looks and smarts didn’t hurt either.)

Orszag proposed by putting a “very nice ring” on the table when the couple dined at a Central Park restaurant. Orszag told the Times that he “got clearance [to propose] this month from his two young children by his first marriage when the three of them vacationed in Florida.”

Orszag’s first wife, CAMERON HAMILL, a brainy beauty who used to work for the Treasury department, is the daughter of a Jewish lawyer mother and a physician father who isn’t Jewish.

(Orszag wed her before a rabbi.) A friend of mine “dug out” the fact that Orszag’s first wife’s father is the brother of actor Mark Hamill, 58, best known for playing Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars.” So, “Luke Skywalker” is the great uncle of Orszag’s kids and, I guess, “the force” is with them — and maybe even a little with Peter Orszag. Lord knows anyone trying to fix the country’s economy needs all the help he can get.

SHALOM The following is a list of Jews famous in the secular world who died in 2009. It’s compiled from various media lists of “notable deaths.” Actors/actresses: BEA ARTHUR, 86; GENE BARRY, 90; CARL BALLANTINE, 92; RON SILVER, 62; ARNOLD STANG, 91. Film directors: CLAUDE BERRI, 74, French, (“Manon of the Spring”); HOWARD ZIEFF, 81, (“Private Benjamin”); Journalists: ARMY ARCHERD, 87, “Variety” columnist; DON HEWITT, 86, creator of “60 Minutes”; IRVING R. LEVINE, 86, NBC news reporter; Musical: LUKAS FOSS, 86, avant-garde composer and conductor, whose posts included the Jerusalem Symphony; ELLIE GREENWICH, 68., rock songwriter (“Be My Baby”); JACK LAWRENCE, 95, lyricist (“All or Nothing at All”); VIC MIZZY, songwriter (“Addams Family” theme); Writers: AMOS ELON, 82, Israeli (“The Israelis: Founders and Sons”); AMOS KENAN, 82.

Israeli, helped modernize the Hebrew language; LARRY GELBART, 81, comedy writer (“Tootsie,” “MASH”); CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS, 100, French, considered the father of anthropology; BUDD SCHULBERG, 95, novelist/screenwriter (“What Makes Sammy Run?” and “On the Waterfront”).

Art: DAVID LEVINE, 83, illustrator, best

JOHN MAYER—TWEETING HIS BACKGROUND Singer/songwriter JOHN MAYER, now 32, broke big in late 2002 as his first album, “Room for Squares,” climbed the charts. On the CD were several big hits that are still signature songs for Mayer, like “Your Body is a Wonderland.”

He has maintained his popularity since and has also been in the headlines for dating other celebs, like Jennifer Aniston.

“Mayer” is often a Jewish surname, so for quite some time I checked reliable sources on the singer. But he never would talk to the media about his religious background. However, on Dec. 5, Mayer posted two “Jewish-related” Twitter “tweets” on his official Web site. He described himself as “half Jewish” without providing any more meaningful details.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

FROM THE PAGES 100 Years Ago Dr. Grossmann married Mr. Morris Levy, of Chicago, Ill. to Miss Clara Safdi, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. Safdi, at the residence of the bride, on Marion Street, Sunday evening.

The Jewish Hospital received a $500 bequest under the will of the late John H. Frey, the late secretary of the United States Printing Co. This is rather noteworthy as Mr. Frey was a member of the Lutheran Church, and donations or bequests of Christians to Jewish Institutions are very uncommon. About twenty institutions are similarly remembered.

A special committee of three, Rev. Charles Frederic Goss, Rev. Henry Melville Curtis and Ralph R. Caldwell, of the Associated Charities, sent to the City Council, through President Galvin, a letter suggesting the manner in which the city may take care of homeless men this winter at the Hammond Street Police Station. Of course, it is the duty of the city or county to take care of the destitute poor, unless otherwise provided for, but the Israelite suggests that this would be a good opportunity for “Christian

Charity,” of which we hear so much, to prove that it is as good as we are told, by caring for these people. “Jewish charity” manages to care for the Jewish poor without outside aid of any kind, and it seems as though our Christian neighbors, who have so much money to spend for foreign missions, traveling revivalists and missionaries for the conversion of the Jews, should be able to at least find food enough to keep their coreligionists, living in the same city, from actual starvation. — January 6, 1910

75 Years Ago Mrs. Felix M. Warburg will speak at Cincinnati Hadassah’s sixth annual donor luncheon in the Hotel Gibson ballroom, Jan. 21. While in Cincinnati, she will be the guest of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Friedlander.

Mrs. Warburg is a daughter of the late Jacob Schiff, philanthropist.

She is honorary chairman of the New York Federated Charities, of the New York American Joint Distribution Committee Campaign and of Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital.

Bulwarked with enthusiastic

participation by Board and council, the Cincinnati Jewish Center is launching a comprehensive campaign Jan. 20.

Not yet three years old, the Center has already 2,982 members.

The sum of $10,000 is sought in the drive.

Mrs. Clarence D. Lauer, Center president, issued the following statement in announcing the campaign: “The center was a promise three years ago. The community accepted the Center on good faith.

Today the Center is the fulfillment of that promise — by service to the community through a diverse, specific, needed program of wholesome and inspiring activity.”

Charles S. Spritz, 77, passed away Jan. 8, after a long illness.

He is survived by his son, David; three daughters, Mrs. Ruth Greenfield, Mrs. Sylvia Latz, Mrs. Ben Singerman, and another son, Irvine Spritz; two sisters, Mrs. Sol Kohn, and Mrs. C.C. Winders; two brothers, David Spritz, and Sig Spritz. — January 10, 1935

50 Years Ago Mr. and Mrs. Herman Godfried announce the engagement of their daughter, Joan Carol, to Mr. John L. Wyler, son of Dr. and Mrs. Carl I. Wyler.

Miss Godfried graduated from Walnut Hills High School, attended Chatham College and is a student at the University of Cincinnati.

Mr. Wyler graduated from Country Day School, attended Johns Hopkins University and attends the U.C. College of Applied Arts.

Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Coleman

(Adell Schaengold), announce the birth of their son, Craig Farber, Sunday, Dec. 20.

The grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Schaengold of Cincinnati and Mr. William Coleman of Eminence, Ky. Mr. and Mrs. Justin Friedman, announce the forthcoming bar mitzvah of their son, James Justin, Jan. 9, at Wise Center.

James is a grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Huttenbauer and Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Friedman, all of

Cincinnati.

Mr. and Mrs. Irving D. Goldman, announce the engagement of their daugther, Miss Linda Seasongood Aloe, to Dr. Ira Abrahamson, Jr., son of Dr. and Mrs. Ira Abrahamson.

Miss Aloe, a graduate of Walnut Hills High School, will graduate this June from Washington University, St. Louis.

Dr. Abrahamson graduated from the University of North Carolina and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. — January 7, 1960

25 Years Ago Nahum Marmet of Los Angeles, formerly of Cincinnati, passed away Nov. 18.

He is survived by two sons, Joseph and Reuben; and five grandchildren, all of Los Angeles.

He was brother-in-law of Dr. and Mrs. M.S. Schulzinger and the uncle of Penina Frankel and Judith Lucas.

Dr. Anna Ornstein will present

the topic of “Self-Esteem: Problems of Everyday Life” at the annual Wise Temple Sisterhood evening meeting, Jan. 16, at Wise Center.

Dr. Ornstein’s presentation will deal with self-esteem and how it alters mood in daily situations. She will examine common fluctuations in self-esteem such as those which occur in intimate relationships and in relationships at work and recreations. The

presentation will also focus on the influence of home and school on the development of personal self-worth.

Dr. Ornstein was born in Hungary and received her medical degree at the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 1952. She is currently professor of child psychiatry at UC with a private practice in psychoanalysis and child and adult psychotherapy. — January 3, 1985

10 Years Ago Mary and George Croog announce the engagement of their son, Charles Frederick to Nina Margaret Perlove, daughter of Shelley and Warren Perlove of Ann Arbor, Mich.

Charlie is the grandson of the late Dr. Charles and Elizabeth Siegel and the late John and Rose Croog. Nina is the granddaughter of Jerry and Evelyn Millman and Louis and the late Gertrude Perlove.

Meyer M. (Mike) Shavzin, affectionately known to all as “POPPY Mike,” died January 1, 2000. He was 87 years old. He was the husband of the late Bess Shavzin. He is survived by his children, Mary Lee and Louie Sirkin, and Julie and John Cohen; his grandchildren, Tami Sirkin and Jeff Luchs, Jennifer and Elizabeth Sirkin, Howard and Bradley Cohen; his great granddaughter, Eleanor

Hill, his sister, Ida Tankel; and his brothers, Bernard and Arthur Shavzin. He was preceded in death by a brother, Ted Shavzin, and sisters, Rosetta Shelby, Shirley Ehrlich, and Blanche Karabensh.

One of his greatest joys was to play the violin and entertain youngsters at Children’s Hospital on the holidays as part of the citywide Reform Brotherhood Mitzvah Program. — January 6, 2000

CLASSIFIEDS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS Big Brothers/Big Sisters Assoc.

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Beth Tevilah Mikveh Society (513) 821-6679 Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7226 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 • camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 336-3183 • cedar-village.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Community Center (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org Jewish Community Relations Council (513) 985-1501 Jewish Family Service (513) 469-1188 • jfscinti.org Jewish Federation of Cincinnati (513) 985-1500 • shalomcincy.org Jewish Foundation (513) 792-2715 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 Jewish Vocational Service (513) 985-0515 • jvscinti.org Kesher (513) 766-3348 Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 The Center for Holocaust & Humanity Education (513) 487-3055 • holocaustandhumanity.org Vaad Hoier (513) 731-4671 Workum Summer Intern Program (513) 683-6670 • workum.org CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 335-5812 Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tikvah (513) 759-5356 • bnai-tikvah.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • bnaitzedek.us Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org Golf Manor Synagogue (513) 531-6654 • golfmanorsynagogue.org

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SANCTIONS from page 4 Almost all Jewish groups strongly support the fuel sanctions bill going through Congress and have urged its immediate passing. This legislation is the key item on the agenda of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The few voices opposing sanctions come mostly — but not only — from the left wing of the MITZVAHS from page 5 the country’s small but committed core of Jewish secularists. Their ranks aren’t growing, but neither are they shrinking — both the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations and the Society for Humanistic Judaism boast about the same number of affiliated communities as they did a decade ago.

Seid-Green attended this fall’s West Coast conference with her sister Ya’el, mother Debby Seid, grandmother Ethel Seid, and aunts Ruthy Seid and Rabbi Judith Seid, all of whom are secular Jewish activists.

“I don’t think I was ever uninvolved,” said Shoshana, who, like other young people at this conference, founded a secular Jewish organization on her college campus.

Grandma Ethel, like most firstgeneration secular Jews in this country, grew up with Labor Zionist parents, and went to Yiddish-speaking, socialist-oriented schools and summer camps. She brought up Judy, Ruthy and Debby as secular Jews, with a strong attachment to Jewish culture, history and ethical values, but no ritual or religion. She never held Seders, she recalls, “just a dinner on the first night.”

As the years passed, the family grew less stridently opposed to Jewish rituals, at least those with a cultural or historical connection.

Judith, one of 10 non-theistic rabbis

Jewish community, among them Keith Weissman, the former top Iran analyst for AIPAC. “Sanctions are a waste of time,” Weissman said. “It will make us, the Jews, feel good, but will have zero effect.” Weissman argued that sanctions would “help those we want to harm and harm those we want to help.”

Reprinted with permission of The Forward. ordained by the Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, said when she got married, she and her husband bought a menorah. Her grandmother’s response upon seeing it: “What’s the matter; you getting religious?’”

“I grew up with a Judaism that was a family, ethical, historical thing,” said Shoshana, who admits she finds religion strange, but isn’t hostile toward it. “I didn’t meet religious Jews until college, and by then I was comfortable with who I was.”

Wendy Berenson Garcia sends her 11-year-old daughter to monthly classes run by the Secular Humanistic Jews of the Tri-Valley, in Pleasanton, Calif.

Berenson Garcia grew up in a secular household — her mother, an avowed atheist, wrote a secular Passover Hagadda, which eliminated all reference to God. But she inherited a strong Jewish identity from that same mother, who fled Nazi Germany and bristles at the Christmas tree in Berenson Garcia’s home.

If she hadn’t married a Catholic, Berenson Garcia doubts she would have sent her daughter to the Tri-Valley Sunday school. “I want her to have a knowledge of the Jewish religion, so she knows what people are talking about,” Berenson Garcia says. “If she ends up believing in God, that’s fine.

But I don’t think she will, if she listens to her dad and me.”

20

NEWS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

POPE from page 1 The uproar over Pius XII is not the first episode where the Vatican had to backpedal, clarify or explain a Pope Benedict decision that angered Jews.

In 2008, Jewish protests over the reinstatement of a Good Friday Latin prayer that appeared to call for the conversion of the Jews led the Vatican to change some of the prayer’s wording. Still, Italian rabbis were so angry over the issue that they boycotted participation in last year’s January 17 Day of Dialogue with Judaism.

One year ago, the pope’s lifting of a 1988 excommunication order against Richard Williamson, a renegade Bishop who turned out to be a Holocaust denier, sparked outrage among political figures and mainstream Catholics as well as Jews. Williamson was one of four bishops rehabilitated as part of the pope’s effort to bring their ultra-conservative movement, the Society of St. Pius X, back within the mainstream Catholic fold.

The Vatican ordered Williamson to recant and admitted that the pope had not been aware of his views — despite a video of Williamson that was widely circulated on YouTube.

The pope himself issued a strong message of support to a visiting delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations SUTTON from page 7 As we approached the tiny island, the rudder got caught in seaweed. When the captain couldn’t get it restarted, Sutton pulled up his well-coiffed sleeve and put his arm over the side of the boat. As he was reaching into the polluted water of the East River, a reporter — Carl Stokes as I recall — yelled at him, “Mr. Borough President, is there anything you won’t do for Soviet Jews?" Sutton looked up and said, MOVEMENT from page 8 At least four people in the audience were planning to launch their own similar operations in the near future.

Last year, a handful of Jewish farming schools presented model curricula for teaching children and adults the importance of connecting with the land through community or home gardens. This year, dozens of attendees spoke about gardening programs at their own Jewish community centers or synagogues. And Vicky Kelman, known nationally for her cuttingedge work in Jewish family education, presented a new initiative to get Jewish farm education into more religious schools.

The food justice sessions, however, seemed particularly well

Flash90 / JTA

Pope Benedict XVI, seen on a visit to Israel on May 11, 2009, is facing the challenge of repairing Catholic-Jewish ties following his decision to move the Holocaust-era pope closer to sainthood.

Bretton-Granatoor said that the visit to the synagogue in Rome is “far more telling about the state of Catholic-Jewish relations” than the move to elevate Pius.

His visit to the shul in two weeks will mark only the second time that a pope has crossed the Tiber River from the Vatican to visit the synagogue in Rome. As pope, Benedict has visited synagogues in his native Germany and in the United States, and he made the trip to Israel last May. But the Rome synagogue has particular significance. Rome is said to have the oldest continuous Jewish community in the Diaspora. The visit to the synagogue in 1986 by Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was the first time any pope had set foot in any shul since the time of St. Peter.

Bretton-Granatoor put some of Benedict’s apparent gaffes down to differences in style and substance that set this pope apart from his predecessor.

John Paul “was an actor and a pastor — he understood that every gesture had meaning,” BrettonGranatoor said. Benedict, on the other hand, “was an academic and was never a pastor — he doesn’t seem to get it in the same way as his predecessor.”

He added, “This pope is vastly different from his predecessor. He is a German and, therefore, cannot speak about the Shoah in the way that [John Paul], a Pole, could.”

and announced to the group the plans for his May 2009 visit to Israel, his first to the Jewish state as pontiff.

Analysts said Benedict’s move on Pius is part of the pope’s effort to shore up conservative forces within the church.

“The pope apparently has chosen to balance his unquestionable

commitment to the Catholic Church’s good relations with world Judaism with his commitment to recuperating the religious right wing of Catholicism,” said Lisa Palmieri Billig, the American Jewish Committee’s liaison to the Vatican. “Obviously his path is strewn with warring obstacles.”

Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor,

an expert in interfaith relations and the vice president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, said, “The great struggle of this moment is shoring up the most traditional elements of his church as he fights the growing secularization and Islamification of the European stage, which is right before his eyes.”

simply, “nothing.”

He proceeded to disentangle the rudder, which enabled us to proceed to the island. There, the dignitaries disembarked and we collectively unfurled a 20-foot wide, 6foot high banner reading “Soviet Jewry Freedom Island.”

After the members of delegation made brief statements, we were approached by a police launch that came to remove us from the island following a protest by U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim,

who was, in turn, acting on a complaint by the Soviet ambassador.

We looked at the all-glass back of the U.N. building, and every inch of window was filled with diplomats and envoys watching the spectacle.

The police, seeing that the two borough presidents were there, radioed back, asking, “What are we to do? The borough presidents are here!” They were obviously not about to act rashly and were relieved to hear that we were not planning a permanent settlement. It

was all very congenial. After continuing with the demonstration for a while, the delegation departed, leaving the sign in place, which remained there during the opening of the General Assembly.

We returned to shore, where the media was waiting anxiously. The next day, it was front-page news from New York to Hong Kong, but not in Moscow. Sutton’s quote led NBC news.

I often have had the opportunity over the years to recall with Sutton

some of our past adventures. They were a source of pride and inspiration to him, as they were to many others. With his passing, his friendship and his devotion to causes we shared should be remembered.

attended. “How many people in the world can take off time from work and pay to come to a conference like this?” asked Rabbi Noah Farkas of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Calif., who presented at three such workshops. “That’s our power and privilege, and we need to find a way to harness it.”

“Access to fresh, local food is a privilege, but it should be a right,” said Elizabeth Schwartz, a garden mentor who helps low-income residents of Portland, Ore., plant, winterize and harvest their home gardens. “I grow my own food, and there’s nothing more satisfying than teaching someone else how to do it.”

Moskowitz launched her project in Kentucky after returning home from last year’s Hazon conference. She and her 10-year-old

daughter drive 100 miles every week to an Amish produce market to buy fresh, inexpensive organic fruits and vegetables, which they drive back to the church for volunteers to divide into $12 baskets.Some of the baskets are subsidized. Some of the families can’t afford to participate every week. But this is not a charity project, Moskowitz said. “It’s not me saying to them, let me serve you. It’s them calling me up and saying, I hear you know how to get food, let’s work together.”

That two-way relationship is critical, say activists involved in this work. Adam Edell of Oakland, Calif., teaches gardenbased nutrition and coordinates communal nutrition events at an elementary school populated largely by the children of Latino

migrant fieldworkers.

Once the children got excited about growing and eating their own produce, they wanted that same food at home. Edell invited a local farmer, also Latino, to set up a regular farmers’ market in the school parking lot so the kids’ parents could buy fresh organic produce at cut-rate prices. The project evolved into a successful Community Supported Agriculture program, where consumers pre-pay a farmer for a regular basket of fresh produce, helping the farmer as well as the families.

Joti Levy runs a garden program for fourth- to eighth-graders in San Francisco’s low-income Bayview/ Hunter’s Point neighborhood. The garden she helped them grow is now the largest

school garden in the city, and the students sell the produce in local farmers markets.

Levy, like Edell, Moskowitz and the other young Jewish food activists doing this work, said her Jewish identity is at the heart of what she does. “The Holocaust is not so far away,” Levy mused.

“An entire nation was being oppressed, and no one stood up to help.” Today, she said, other ethnic and national groups in this country are facing systemic oppression, and it’s her responsibility as a Jew to lend a hand.

“If we’re not taking care of the lowest rungs on the ladder, the ladder will fall. That comes from deep, deep Jewish values of, don’t turn a blind eye. Let me use the privilege I have and do good work with it.”

(The author is the executive vicechairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the former executive director of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry.)

NEWS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

BRIEFS from page 8 New York, Miami and London through bogus real estate deals, according to court papers obtained by the New York Jewish Week.

The Jewish Week reported that 14 investors, almost all Orthodox Jews, have filed complaints with the New Jersey Federal Court against Weinstein alleging that he misappropriated their money.

According to one of the complainants, the 35-year-old entrepreneur used his background as a yeshiva student to gain their trust FIGHT from page 9 Israel’s very strict campaign financing laws. Worse, say critics, the newspaper’s free distribution — some even get home delivery for free — and super-low advertising rates create an uneven playing field that threatens to destroy the competition.

The loudest complaints come from journalists at the daily Maariv, which is already tottering.

Maariv columnist Ben Dror Yamini said Adelson is ready to spend as much as it takes to wipe out all the existing Hebrew dailies.

He predicts that Maariv will be the first to go, followed by Yediot Achronot. Within a few years, Yamini says, Israel will be left with a monopolistic party political pamphlet and no free press. His Maariv colleague Ben Caspit calls it a hostile takeover of democracy and free speech.

Their dire predictions, though, appear somewhat exaggerated.

Besides Yisrael Hayom, Israel has only three other Hebrew dailies: Maariv, Yediot and Haaretz. And although Maariv is not expected to survive much longer, Yediot remains a powerful economic empire. For Haaretz, the emergence of Yisrael Hayom has DEFINING from page 16 Dr. Sanghavi reports further that, in 2004, Dr. Mark Boucek, a pediatric cardiologist at Denver Children's Hospital, decided to write a “far more aggressive DCD protocol,” revising the fiveminute rule down to three minutes. Then, when that didn't yield the desired results, he re- revised it to just over a minute.

“Doctors have created a new class of potential organ donors who are not dead but dying,” writes Dr. Sanghavi. “By arbitrarily drawing a line between death and life — five minutes after the heart stops — they [doctors] have raised difficult ethical questions.

Are they merely acknowledging death or hastening it in their zeal to save others’ lives?” He leaves the question hanging in the air.

Federal judge closes down kosher slaughterhouse (JTA) — A kosher poultry slaughterhouse has been shut down due to unsanitary conditions.

Federal Judge Stephen C. Robinson of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday

ordered the New Square kosher poultry slaughterhouse closed after years of attempts by the USDA to force the plant to comply with the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Journal News reported.

The slaughterhouse’s attorney asked the judge to allow the plant to operate for an additional two weeks to give its kosher-consuming customers time to find another source for kosher poultry. The judge refused the request after government lawyers said it was too great a risk, according to the Journal News.

During an April inspection, federal inspectors found there was no soap or hand sanitizers in the employee bathrooms, and found poultry residue on walls, light fixtures and in the manager’s office.

The slaughterhouse has been planning to build a state-of-the-art facility in the Chasidic Jewish community of Ramapo, a town bordered by New Jersey, a move being resisted by the county.

The plant slaughters 1,500 to 1,600 chickens and turkeys a day, six days a week, and its’ products are sold at Oneg Poultry, a retail store in New Square, N.Y.

That’s all. It is not a ‘Bibiton.’”

In a long, often angry response to the charges against the paper, Yisrael Hayom’s editor, Amos Regev, echoed those arguments, accusing the owners of Maariv and Yediot of acting out of fear of losing their once prodigious influence.

Regev also argued that since electronic media use airwaves, which is state-owned space, the government is entitled to impose limitations on their ownership.

Print journalism makes no use of public resources, however, and therefore should not be subject to restriction. Regev cited numerous examples of major newspapers around the world run by overseas

owners, noting Australian-born Rupert Murdoch’s vast media empire.

Others on Regev’s side add that newspapers are entitled to have political agendas and to support politicians; for example, American newspapers regularly endorse candidates for political office. As for the claim that Adelson’s pockets are so deep that Yisrael Hayom competes unfairly by offering free distribution, Regev says this is necessary for print newspapers to compete with free internet news Web sites.

Dahlia Dorner, the president of Israel’s Press Council and a former Supreme Court justice with considerable moral authority in

Israel, calls the Knesset bill to outlaw foreign ownership of Israeli newspapers “inappropriate.”

Dorner supports Regev’s distinction between TV channels and newspapers and says it would be wrong to limit newspaper ownership. The more newspapers there are, the healthier the marketplace of ideas and Israeli democracy, she says.

This analysis, of course, makes two implicit assumptions: That all the other newspapers don’t fold because of the uneven playing field, and that at least some continue to carry out the fourth estate’s most important functions: democracy watchdog and fearless critic of the powers that be.

and then embezzled their money.

Weinstein “engaged in a criminal enterprise designed to steal sums of money... by offering knowingly false representations... relating to the identity of various alleged investment properties, property values, ownership, debt, mortgage positions, and development status of property,” the Jewish Week quoted one of the complainants as saying.

Weinstein has not been charged with any of the allegations, which are subject to an ongoing police probe.

Gary Ginsburg, an attorney

speaking on behalf of Weinstein, denied the complainants’ claims.

He told the Jewish Week that the losses to investors were the result of the downturn in the real estate market rather than malfeasance on Weinstein’s part.

actually provided a boost in the form of significant printing revenues: Adelson’s newspaper is printed on Haaretz’s press.

For his part, Adelson dismisses the agitation against him as a ploy for power and market share by his competitors, notably Arnon Mozes, the publisher of Yediot.

“Mozes, the publisher of Yediot, is the most powerful man in the State of Israel, and all he wants is to maintain his power, and he manipulates the government,” Adelson told JTA in an interview earlier this month.

“Mozes will make a deal with anybody to advance his own personal financial agenda, so he controls everything. He was able to make or break any politician, and he uses that as a lever to get whatever he wants from the political sphere. Why is he always thumping on Bibi? Because he can’t control Bibi.”

Adelson also said the notion that Yisrael Hayom is a vehicle for Netanyahu is nonsense.

“Everybody thinks I started the newspaper Israel HaYom purely to benefit Bibi. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Adelson said.

“I started the newspaper to give Israel, Israelis, a fair and balanced view of the news and the views.

In the eyes of Judaism, every moment of human life, even compromised human life, is beyond value, and Jewish law forbids hastening a person’s death to any degree. There is some controversy about whether halacha, or Jewish religious law, considers brain death to constitute death. But no halachic authority permits the withdrawal of life support from a patient whose brain is merely damaged.

The world’s human population is indeed at a turning point.

Because whether or not carbon emission-born catastrophe in fact looms, modern medicine's defining of death downward is clearly upon us.

(Rabbi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.)

21

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OBITUARIES

DEATH NOTICES KOENIGSBERG, Harry, age 95, died on December 29, 2009; 12 Tevet, 5770.

SHARE, Hannah, age 72, died on December 30, 2009; 13 Tevet, 5770.

STERN, JR., Joseph, age 91, died on January 2, 2010; 16 Tevet, 5770.

MEISEL, Elvin, age 82, died on January 3, 2010; 17 Tevet, 5770.

SHOCHAT, Joseph, age 74, died on January 3, 2010; 17 Tevet, 5770.

LEVINSON, Henry, age 61, died on January 4, 2010; 18 Tevet 5770.

OBITUARIES KOENIGSBERG, Harry Harry Koenigsberg, age 95, passed away on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 in Boca Raton, Fla. A son of the late Clara and Sam Koenigsberg, he was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was preceded in death by his brothers, Hyman and Leo, his sister, Helen, and his daughter, Marcy Koenigsberg Sahn.

Mr. Koenigsberg is survived by his loving wife, Eleanor, his two daughters, Joyce (Robert) Biederman and Carol (Fred) Seiden, and son-in-law, Victor Sahn, his six grandchildren, Jody Becker, Jason Brandon, Brandon Biederman, Hunter Biederman, Andrew Sahn and Evan Sahn; and four great-grandchildren, Jordan, Samara, Ethan and Mallory.

Mr. Koenigsberg attended Walnut Hills High School and graduated from Purdue University with a master’s degree in engineering. A World War II

veteran, he worked as a metallurgical and chemical engineer for the U.S. government at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

Mr. Koenigsberg devoted time to many organizations; he was a lifetime member of the Zionist Organization of America, the American Association of Metallurgy, a boardmember of the Engineers Club of Dayton, and he was Mason. He was an ardent supporter of the State of Israel Bonds Commission, helping to raise millions of dollars for this foundation.

Funeral services were held at Beth Jacob Synagogue, in Dayton, Ohio, on Thursday, December 31. Burial was in the family plot at Yad Chorutzim Cemetery in Cincinnati.

The family would appreciate memorial contributions to the Marcy Koenigsberg Sahn Memorial Library at Beth Jacob Synagogue, 7020 North Main Street, Dayton, Ohio 45415; (937)-274-2149.

STERN, JR., Joseph Joseph S. Stern, Jr., age 91, died on January 2, 2010, after a long illness. A fifth generation Cincinnatian, he always rooted for his hometown, whether it was for the Reds, the Bengals, the Bearcats, or its civic and cultural institutions, which he helped to shape through his leadership. He often remarked that Cincinnati is the best city in the country. And so it was natural for him to be appointed by the Mayor to serve as Chairman of the Cincinnati Bicentennial Commission whose charge was to arrange for the 200th birthday of Cincinnati in 1988. He was also chairman of the Greater Cincinnati Tall Stacks Commission that same year.

A constant reader and book enthusiast, he was a president of the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Library, and co-founder of the Friends of the Library.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

Joseph S. Stern, Jr.

Mr. Stern also held the position of president of the Isaac M. Wise Temple, the Friends of the Plum Street Temple (now known as the Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund), the Cincinnati Musical Festival Association (May Festival), the Convalescent Hospital for Children, and the Harvard Club of Cincinnati. In addition, he served as trustee of numerous organizations, including Family Service of Cincinnati, the Ohio Library Association, the Cincinnati Historical Society, Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and the Greater Cincinnati Scholarship Association.

Mr. Stern graduated from the Lawrenceville School, Harvard College, and Harvard Business School. He then served as a Lieutenant in the Navy during World War II. On his return to Cincinnati, he joined the U.S. Shoe Corporation as a salesman, eventually becoming president and chairman of the board of directors.When he turned 50, he changed careers and, as an adjunct professor, taught Business Administration at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Business. In 1992, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the U.C. College of Business. Following his retirement, he continued teaching at the Institute for Learning in Retirement (now the O.L.L.I.), where he taught Cincinnati history.

Mr. Stern was an avid fly fisherman, tennis and squash enthusiast and he liked nothing better than packing into the wilderness areas of Wyoming and Montana with his family.

Traveling was another of his many interests and he and his wife, Mary, traveled the world over.

Mr. Stern was the recipient of numerous awards, among them: the Award for Excellence from the University of Cincinnati, the Distinguished Community

Service Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now Bridges for a Just Community), an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Xavier University, an Honorary Doctorate of Commercial Science from the University of Cincinnati, and the Great Living Cincinnatian Award from the Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Stern was a member of the Literary Club, Queen City Optimists, Cincinnati Tennis Club, the Ridge Club, and the Grolier Club of New York.

He is survived by his wife Mary, of 67 years of devoted marriage, his sons Peter J. (Sandy) Stern, William F. Stern of Houston, Texas, and his daughter, Peggy (James) Graeter of Potomac, Md., and six grandchildren, Kimberly (Justin) Allen of Seattle, Wash., Joseph S. (Lisa) Stern, III of San Francisco, Calif., Lisa (Jon) Apprill of Denver, Colo., Mary (Tom) Cheng of Brooklyn, N.Y., John Graeter of Portland, Ore., and Jamie Graeter of Potomac, Md., and two great -grandchildren.

Funeral services were held on Wednesday, January 6, 2010, at Plum Street Temple. Memorial gifts may be made to the Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund, c/o Wise Temple, 8329 Ridge Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45236, or to the Mary and Joseph S. Stern, Jr. Hematology and Oncology Research Center at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229.

LEVINSON, Henry Henry Samuel Levinson, a philosopher and beloved professor, died at Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro, N.C., on Monday, January 4 from complications stemming from Multiple Sclerosis. He was 61.

Mr. Levinson was a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for over 25 years.

During his tenure at UNCG, he served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Head of the Department of Religious Studies, and Director of the Center for Critical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts. In 1998, UNCG established the Henry Samuel Levinson Program Fund in Jewish Studies, including the Levinson Lecture in Jewish Studies series, in his honor.

UNCG also honored Mr. Levinson at HENRYFEST in 2009, which featured a conference celebrating his contributions as a scholar and teacher.

Colleagues and former students from around the country spoke

Henry Samuel Levinson

about Mr. Levinson’s impact on the study of religion in a democratic society and his contributions to Jewish philosophy. They roasted him with brief and humorous anecdotes.

Mr. Levinson authored three books and numerous articles. His professional honors include serving as the Malcolm L. Diamond Memorial Lecturer at Princeton University in 2002, the William James Lecturer at Harvard University in 2001, and the Henry Samuel Levinson Lecturer in Jewish Studies in 2004.

Before joining the UNCG faculty in 1982, Levinson taught at Stanford and Harvard Universities. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford and earned a doctorate from Princeton, where he held the Danforth Graduate Fellowship from 1970-1975.

He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended Lotspeich and Cincinnati Country Day Schools.

Mr. Levinson is survived by his wife, Catherine Kaplan Levinson, daughters, Molly R. (Joshua Wachs) Levinson , and Sarah L. (Matthew) Rothman, father, Joseph E. Levinson, brother, Steven H. Levinson, and two grandchildren, Henry I. and Louisa K. Wachs. He was preceded in death by his mother, Mimi F. Levinson, brother, Peter Levinson, and sister-in-law, Lynn G. Levinson.

Services were held at Beth David Synagogue on Thursday, January 7, with Rabbi Eliezer Havivi officiating. Burial followed at the Greensboro Hebrew cemetery.

Memorials may be made to the Henry Samuel Levinson Fund for Religious Studies, UNC-G, 102 Foust Bldg., Greensboro, N.C. 27402-6170; Beth David Synagogue, 804 Winview Dr., Greensboro, N.C. 27410-4642; or N.C. Humanities Council, 122 N. Elm St., Greensboro, N.C. 27401.

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4

4

Cincinnati Jewish Living - Winter 2010

Wonderful Weddings

14

11

21

18

28 Mature Living/Senior Lifestyles

25

A PRIL

M AY

J UNE

1

6

3

Cincinnati Jewish Living - Spring 2010

Kids/Summer Camps

11 18 25

Purim

Bar/Bat Mitzvah Planning Issue

The Car Issue

8

13

10

15

20

17

22

27

29

Passover

24

Celebrations

Lag B’Omer

J ULY

AUGUST

S EPTEMBER

1

5

2

Cincinnati Jewish Living - Summer 2010

Back to School

8

12

9

15

19

16

22

26

23

29

Rosh Hashanah Jewish Year in Review

30

Mature Living/Senior Lifestyles

O CTOBER

N OVEMBER

D ECEMBER

7

4

2

Gift Guide

14

11

9

Gift Guide

21

18

16

28

25

23

Cincinnati Jewish Living - Fall 2010

30

Chanukah

Year in Review

1st week: Legal | 2nd week: Trav el | 3rd week: Ar ts & Enter tainment | 4th week: Business | 5th week: Varies DEADLINE

FOR

SPECIAL SECTIONS – 10

DAYS BEFORE PUBLICATION

Business: publisher@americanisraelite.com | Editor: editor@americanisraelite.com | Production: production@americanisraelite.com Phone: 513.621.3145 | Fax: 513.621.3744 Dates of Special Issues & Sections may change without formal notice.