AI2010_06_10

Former Green Beret Cedar Village wins Israelite’s commander urges national award ‘Wandering Jew’ support of Israel wins 38th award The only Holocaust survivor in U.S. military history to achieve the rank of general said Sunday he is troubled by many American Jews’ “somewhat detached” concern for Israel.

Speaking in Cincinnati, Ret. Major General Sidney Shachnow, former commander of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, also known as the “Green Berets,” urged the Jewish community to unite with a “passionate commitment” to Israel or to risk being “asleep at the switch.”

Shachnow, 76, made his remarks to a group of community leaders at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. The college honored him with its highest honor, the Presidential Medallion, during graduation

Cedar Village was presented with the national “Excellence in Programming” award by AJAS (the Association of Jewish Aging Services) at their national conference in Atlanta. The award was presented for the B’nai Mitzvah Mission which took place in October 2009.

Cedar Village took residents on a Mission to Israel in 2007 and with the B’nai Mitzvah Mission achieved the dual distinction of being the first long-term care facility to take a second Mission to Israel and the first to offer residents the opportunity to have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Nine residents took part in a very moving ceremony, written especially for the occasion

by Cedar Village board member and Mission volunteer, Rabbi Ruth Alpers.

The B’nai Mitzvah ceremony captured worldwide attention and had coverage in publications from The American Israelite and Cincinnati Enquirer to making the front page of The Jerusalem Post. Israel National Radio,

Janet Steinberg, Travel Editor of The American Israelite, Cincinnati Jewish Living, and American Express Destinations, has recently received her 18th Mark Twain Award in Midwest Travel Writers Association (MTWA) Travel Writers Competition. The Mark Twain Awards are given to MTWA members for excellence in travel writing and photography.

Steinberg’s award in the “Best Series in a Magazine or Newspaper” category was for her 4-part series of articles entitled: “Winter Retreats: Where Ice Is Seen Only in Drinks!” that appeared in The American Israelite.

The award-winning 4-part series took Steinberg’s readers on a 12-night Regent Seven Seas Navigator cruise to the Southern Caribbean and the Lesser Antilles. The engaging series transported her readers to a wide variety of sunny

COMMANDER on page 22

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Israel: Known terrorists on flotilla

by JTA Staff Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel said it identified several passengers on board a Turkish ship intercepted near Gaza who are known to be involved in terrorist activity.

The five passengers listed by the Israel Defense Forces spokesman, including American, French and Turkish citizens, are reportedly involved in Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaida, according to the IDF. The passengers were identified by the IDF as: Fatimah Mahmadi, 31, a U.S. resident of Iranian origin, who attempted to smuggle into Gaza forbidden electronic components; Ken O’Keefe, 41, an American and British citizen who is a Hamas operative planning to

train a commando unit in Gaza; Hassan Iynasi, 28, a Turkish citizen who has provided financial support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Terror organization; Hussein Urosh, a Turkish citizen and activist in the IHH organization, planning to smuggle Al-Qaeda operatives via Turkey into Gaza; and Ahmad Umimon, 51, a French citizen of Moroccan origin, and Hamas operative.

Meanwhile, the IDF said Sunday that Hamas continues to block the transfer of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s humanitarian aid into Gaza. The cargo of the six ships that were diverted to Israel’s Ashdod Port on May 31, including clothing, blankets, school bags, mattresses, baby safety seats, cupboards, and medical equipment such as motor-

ized carts, wheel chairs, x-ray glasses, bandages, hospital beds and medications, continues to sit in 30

trucks waiting near the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, according to the IDF.

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CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

DINING OUT

TRAVEL

Foreman gains respect even in losing title

Northern Hills Synagogue Jubilee Anniversary Dinner

Cincinnati is out of the Doldrums with the arrival of Aroma

Finnish fun: Talking trash bins and birch bead rams

Moti Milrod / Pool / Flash90 / JTA

The Israeli Navy, seen here approaching one of a flotilla of Gazabound ships, clashed with Turkish activists aboard one of the ships.

Medicine that was past its expiration date by more than a year and camouflage fabric was not placed on the trucks for transport into Gaza, according to the IDF. During the week that the flotilla arrived in Ashdod ports, following a confrontation on one of the ships between Israeli naval commandos and the activists which left nine activists dead, some 484 truckloads or more than 12,000 tons of aid were transferred from Israel into Gaza, including cooking oil, milk powder, baby food, rice, legumes, wheat, fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, chicken and fish products, flour, dairy products, animal feed, salt, sugar, hygiene products, medicine and medical equipment, cement, iron, clothing and footwear, according to the IDF.

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Wise Temple honors its babies On Friday, May 21, the Isaac M. Wise Temple held a special family service that honored all of the congregation’s babies that had been born in the past 12 months.

This particular Shabbat was chosen as it was closest to the Shavuot holiday.

For thousands of years, Shavuot has been celebrated as the festival of the year’s first, sweet fruit. Wise Temple believes that babies are the sweetest fruit of all, and therefore deserve their own special blessing.

The evening began with a unique reception, hosted by Wise Temple’s YoFI committee. YoFI stands for “Young Family Involvement,” and seeks to provide programming and resources for families with young children.

At the reception, the families were greeted by Rabbi Michael Shulman; Barbara Dragul, who is the Director of Education and Lifelong Learning; Dr. Amy Katz, Wise Temple’s first vice-president; and Amanda Rosenberg and Tammy Miller-Ploetz, the YoFI

co-chairs. Each baby received a Jewish board book from YoFI as a means to help establish a Jewish library at home.

Following the reception, the families joined other Wise Temple members for a “Wise Tykes” Shabbat service, which is the congregation’s version of a “Tot Shabbat” program. During the service, Rabbi Shulman invited the parents and babies to rise and join in a unique blessing which thanked God for the miracle of their recent births.

Hadassah to celebrate 100th anniversary Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, was founded by Henrietta Szold on Feb. 24, 1912. Like others of her generation, Henrietta’s existence was shaped—and framed—by war. Born in 1860, she entered the world on the eve of the Civil War. Eighty-five years later, in February 1945—in the waning days of World War II—she died.

Perhaps it was this shadow of history that colored her life—or perhaps it was simply her Godgiven nature. But either way, Henrietta Szold was born a fighter.

Her confidence, ability and drive landed her a position as the first female editor of the Jewish Publication Society—then the premiere publisher of Jewish liturgical and secular texts.

Some time after, Henrietta enrolled in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the training ground for the conservative rabbinate. Although women rabbis are commonplace today, in the early 1900s such a thing was unheard of.

In 1909, when Henrietta took a trip to pre-state Israel, then under Ottoman jurisdiction, she witnessed the starvation and disease that afflicted the people of the region. It was a seminal moment in Henrietta’s life. After returning to the United States, she founded Hadassah, a volunteer women’s organization with the biblical mission of Aruhat Bat Ami: the Healing of the Daughter of my People.

The new organization’s first mission was to send two nurses to Palestine to provide pasteurized milk to infants and new mothers, and to eradicate trachoma, an easily cured eye disease, that was robbing thousands of sight. By 1918, Hadassah had sent an entire medical unit, composed of 45 doctors, nurses, dentists and sanitary work-

Hadassah founded, owns and supports two world-class medical centers in greater Jerusalem and is currently completing a $210 million capital campaign for the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Tower at Hadassah Medical Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. ers, to bring American-style medical care to serve all, regardless of race, creed or ethnicity. From these early efforts developed the beginning of the Israeli healthcare system, which today includes some of the world’s leading research and treatment hospitals, and schools of medicine and nursing.

Today, with over 300,000 members, Hadassah is the largest Jewish organization in America and one of the largest women’s volunteer organizations in the world. Hadassah founded, owns and supports two world-class medical centers in greater Jerusalem and is currently completing a $210 million capital campaign for the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Tower at Hadassah Medical Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. The Tower, a 19-story structure with 500 beds, 20 operating rooms, a 50-bed ICU and the ultra-modern Heart Institute, will contain expanded Centers of Excellence for Invasive Angiography, Immune-mediated Disorders, Minimally Invasive Surgery and Computerized Assisted Surgery, Cell Therapy, and Molecular Medicine. It will also house trailblazing research facilities to realize the promise of

stem cell treatment and unlock the mysteries of heart disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

Over the years, Hadassah has expanded its Israeli projects to include Hadassah College Jerusalem, one of Israel’s topranked smaller colleges; three Hadassah Youth Aliyah villages, which houses, feeds, educates and nurtures young immigrants and Israel’s underprivileged youth; and Young Judaea, Israel’s largest touring and residency program for American Jewish youth.

To celebrate Henrietta Szold’s legacy of commitment and caring, Hadassah is offering the “Centennial Key” necklace, a sterling silver and crystal key on a sterling silver 18” chain. For a $100 donation to Hadassah, fully deductible under Internal Revenue Service guidelines, this strikingly beautiful pendant makes a meaningful gift for Bat Mitzvah, graduation or any special occasion.

Show future generations that you were there when Hadassah celebrated a century of empowered women who make a difference! To learn more, contact the Cincinnati Chapter of Hadassah.

The Workum Summer Intern Program seeks a part-time Program Director to begin Fall 2010.

Application and job description available at www.workum.org The Workum Fund is partially funded by the Jewish Federation.

The American Israelite is currently seeking a

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World premiere of ‘We Are Here!’ expresses children’s experience of genocide On Sunday, May 2, nearly 300 people gathered at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to witness the world premiere of “We Are Here!” a multimedia composition by Phil Koplow, composer-in-residence and professor emeritus of Northern Kentucky University. Performed by the Northern Kentucky Concert Strings, the extraordinary composition reflects on the Holocaust while confronting the current genocide in Darfur.

The composition emphasizes the experience of children enduring genocide. The 30 minute concert featured 14 movements illustrating the progression of events culminating in the Holocaust. When Koplow wrote the piece, he incorporated children’s diaries, poetry, and testimony of Holocaust survivors with period music, as well as testimony regarding the genocide in Darfur. To honor the survivors in

our local community, he wove the experiences of Henry Fenichel, Werner Coppel, and the late Henry Meyer, into the composition.

Professor Henry Fenichel, a child survivor of Bergen Belson Concentration Camp, was among the audience members stirred by the performance. “I was especially impressed and moved by the sensitivity with which the composer, Phil Koplow, honored Holocaust survivors by adopting their memories and recollections to an extremely moving musical composition,” he reflected.

Koplow is no stranger to speaking out on historical and contemporary issues. “Composers have a critical role to play in speaking to and representing their own times. If we want to understand where we are, we have got to understand how we got there. That involves exploring our past.”

Following the performance,

students from Xavier University, Mason High School, North College Hill High School, Roger Bacon High School and St. Xavier High School were honored for their participation in Darfur aid and awareness projects.

The middle school aged orchestra was led by Ellen Stephens, artistic director of the Northern Kentucky University Music Preparatory department.

Clyde Gray, WCPO newscaster, was the master of ceremonies for the event.

In his introduction, Gray said, “We recall the words of Rabbi Joachim Prinz who came to the podium in 1963 March on Washington, just before Martin Luther King delivered his famous ‘I have a dream speech.’ Dr. Prinz’ address is remembered for its contention that in the face of injustice, ‘the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shame-

ful and the most tragic problem is silence.’ As a community, there is much more we can do to help stop and prevent atrocities around the world. As you hear the voice of the voiceless speak through music expressing the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, we hope the cries of the past will help you hear the cries of people today in Darfur.

We hope it inspires you in finding the courage to become their voice.”

Community partners also included the Bruggeman Center for Dialogue at Xavier University, Northern Interfaith Commission, and Greater Cincinnati Advocates for Darfur.

“I was very fulfilled by watching the event, the organizations that came together, the music and work of musicians. I was humbled by it because I knew it was something bigger than me, it was of a larger community,” Koplow reflected.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden defended Israel’s handling of the raid on a Gaza aid flotilla, departing from the Obama administration’s approach.

Biden said Israel has an “absolute right” to defend its security interests, according to a transcript Politico obtained of an interview that was to be broadcast Wednesday evening on the “Charlie Rose” show on Bloomberg TV. “It’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship.

These guys are dropping eight — 3,000 rockets on my people,” Biden said.

The flotilla of six ships, loaded with assistance for the Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million residents and aimed at breaching Israel’s blockade of the strip, was organized in part by a Turkish group that has ties to Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza.

Israel’s raid before dawn last Monday on the largest ship ended in bloodshed when passengers clashed with Israeli commandos. Nine passengers were killed, reportedly all Turks, and seven Israeli soldiers were injured. Israeli troops boarded and commandeered the five smaller ships without incident.

Biden repeated the Obama administration’s position that Israel should ease the Gaza blockade for humanitarian reasons, and should investigate the incident. He

also emphasized that he understood Israeli concerns.

“As we put pressure, and the world put pressure on Israel to let material go into Gaza to help those people who are suffering, the ordinary Palestinians there, what happened?” he asked. “Hamas would confiscate it, put it in a warehouse, sell it.”

Biden’s defense of Israel differed in tone from other Obama administration statements, which reserved comment until an investigation uncovers the facts.

Some pro-Israel groups had said they have appreciated the Obama administration’s efforts to protect Israel from condemnation in international forums but were also seeking a specific defense of Israel’s actions of the kind Biden delivered.

President Obama’s wait-andsee posture was reflected in a short statement issued by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives: “I regret the loss of life and look forward to learning the facts from a credible and transparent investigation. This event underscores the urgent need for negotiations designed to achieve an enduring and comprehensive regional peace.”

In earlier remarks on a conference call with bloggers, Pelosi refused to condemn Israel’s blockade, and reaffirmed America’s “close friendship” with Israel.

“We all — many of us here — are striving for a two-state solution,” she told bloggers in a call

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Biden defends Israel on flotilla raid

by Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Vice President Joe Biden came to Israel’s defense over the flotilla incident.

reported by The Huffington Post.

“But it has to be a solution where there is security for both sides.

And hopefully President Obama will be able to use his good offices to achieve such a goal that has been bipartisan in support in Congress. But again, I believe that the specialness of our relationship with Israel has as much to do with our own national security as it does with theirs.”

Pelosi’s deputy, House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), defended Israel in his statement and said the administration and Congress would protect Israel from condemnation by the U.N. Security Council.

Republican leaders also defended Israel. “The United States stands with Jerusalem in its effort

to ensure the safety and security of its citizenry,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the minority whip in the House. “We can’t forget why the blockade exists in the first place: to deny Hamas the weaponry and raw materials it needs to continue its rocket attacks in Israel, killing innocent people.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee welcomed the statements from Biden, Hoyer and Cantor.

“Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and GOP Whip Eric Cantor have it right,” AIPAC spokesman Josh Block said in a statement. “The United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel and simply will not allow Israel to be isolated and falsely accused.”

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Helen Thomas quits WASHINGTON (JTA) — Helen Thomas quit her job with Hearst in the wake of mounting outrage over her assertion that Jews in Israel should “return” to Poland, Germany and the United States.

“Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately,” said a statement issued Monday by the Hearst Corp. “Her decision came after her controversial comments about

Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet.”

Thomas, 89, often referred to as the dean of the White House press corps, has been a White House correspondent since the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Her place in the front row during White House press briefings has been sacrosanct for years, complete with a plaque on it bearing her name — the only such reserved seat in the room. A

correspondent for United Press International since 1943, she joined Hearst about a decade ago where she became a columnist.

On May 27, Thomas was asked

by Rabbi David Nesenoff, a blogger with RabbiLive, if she had “any comments on Israel.”

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she said. Nesenoff, who was attending the first Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House, asked where

Jews should go.

“Go home,” Thomas said.

Asked to elaborate, she said, “Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else.”

Nesenoff did not post his video to his Web site until last week.

Subsequent to its release a number of Jewish groups and figures asked for Thomas’ removal, if not from Hearst as a columnist then from her front-row center perch in the White House press room.

Thomas has since apologized for the comment, but some critics said the apology was evasive.

“I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians,” said the apology posted on her Web site. “They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

Groups want stronger U.S. defense of Israel, Obama not obliging

by Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration appears to be rebuffing calls from some Jewish groups for the United States to be more assertive and public in defending Israel regarding the flotilla incident.

The bluntest appeal for a more pronounced pro-Israel posture came from Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, who is in Israel meeting with the Israeli leadership.

“The U.S. should reiterate its support and understanding for Israel, that as a sovereign and democratic nation it has the right to act on behalf of its national security and express its confidence that Israel can conduct its own investigation into the matter without the intrusion of international bodies,” Foxman told JTA. Israeli commandos seizing control of the main boat in a Gaza aid flotilla clashed last Monday before dawn with some of its passengers, and killed nine, among them at least four Turkish nationals. Six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the melee. Commandos seized control of five smaller boats without incident.

The United States has beaten back the sharpest condemnations.

It watered down a U.N. Security Council statement so that it condemned the “acts” that led to the

deaths, making ambiguous whether the Israelis or the passengers escalated the conflict into violence, and joined the Netherlands on Wednesday in voting against a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution condemning Israel.

In its statements supporting an inquiry into the matter, the U.S. has said that Israel should conduct the probe, implicitly rebuffing demands elsewhere for an international inquiry.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee acknowledged the Obama administration’s bulwark against the tougher demands for Israel’s isolation, but made clear it wanted more.

“It would have been preferable if the U.N. and Obama administration had blocked any action implying criticism of Israel for defending itself,” AIPAC said in a memo. “Nonetheless, intervention by the United States prevented passage of a Security Council resolution condemning Israel. The administration continues to express its confidence in Israel’s ability to conduct its own investigation of the incident despite calls for an international inquiry.”

AIPAC also insisted that “the United States must now maintain its longstanding position not to allow the Security Council and other U.N. organs such as the U.N. Human Rights Council to exploit unfortunate incidents by passing biased, anti-Israel resolutions that

obscure the truth and accomplish nothing.”

Had AIPAC been certain that the United States was committed to blocking such resolutions down the line, the pro-Israel lobby likely would not have made the recommendation.

No such certainty appears in the offing: Statements from Obama administration officials suggest that they are withholding judgment until the facts become clearer, and that meanwhile, the White House wants to see an easing of the blockade that triggered the aid flotilla.

A White House statement describing Obama’s call with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan said the U.S. president “affirmed the United States position in support of a credible, impartial and transparent investigation of the facts surrounding this tragedy. The president affirmed the importance of finding better ways to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza without undermining Israel’s security.”

Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip partly to keep the Hamas terrorist organization, which controls the strip, from receiving arms — an effort Hamas has junked by running weapons through tunnels into Egypt. But another aim was to weaken Hamas politically among Palestinians.

Top White House officials met for hours last Tuesday with Uzi Arad, Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu’s top security adviser, and Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, and made clear to them that the United States sees the blockade as unsustainable.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration was in wait-and-see mode.

“The Security Council, the statement that I read, calls for an investigation that is prompt, impartial, credible and transparent, conforming to international standards of exactly what happened,” he said after several prompts at the briefing. “And we’re obviously supportive of that.”

Foxman told JTA that considerations of an investigation and of the wisdom of using commandos to carry out a police action — keeping the flotilla from docking in Gaza — were beside the point.

“Was there a better way to do this? That’s all interesting, but that’s not what this is about,” he said. “There is bloodshed all over the world, there are people killing people all over the world in deliberate hatred, and nobody is calling for investigations. At the very least the USA should stand with Israel.”

Such statements of solidarity have been pouring out of Congress, from Republicans and Democrats.

GOP figures already are firing at Obama for not pronouncing himself more firmly on Israel’s side.

“Would the U.S. in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s memorable phrase

‘join the jackals?’” at the United Nations, Elliott Abrams wrote on the Weekly Standard’s Web site, referring to the steadfastly proIsrael Reagan-era ambassador to the United Nations.

“This week the Obama administration answered the question: Yes we would, and Israel would stand alone,” continued Abrams, who as deputy national security adviser helped lead the second Bush administration’s failed efforts to arrive at a peace agreement. “It is simple to block the kind of attack issued as a ‘President’s Statement’ on behalf of the Council, for such a statement requires unanimity. The United States can just say ‘No,’ and make it clear that orders have come from the White House and will not be changed.”

Hadar Susskind, the policy and strategy director for J Street, which has called for an independent Israeli inquiry into the incident, said such a posture would be counterproductive.

“It’s the same question, ‘How can you make the Israelis the bad guys or say that the people on the ship were good guys?’” he said.

“It’s not a comic book. They were not good guys, they attacked Israeli soldiers with a pipe and tried to killed them. But that doesn’t mean the Israeli government made good decisions. It’s not our role to decide each time the good guys and bad guys.”

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Mapendo and Freedom Now founders win Bronfman Prize

by Jacob Berkman Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) — The founders of two human rights organizations have been named the winners of the 2010 Charles Bronfman Prize, an annual $100,000 award presented to an individual (or team) age 50 or younger engaged in humanitarian work.

The prize committee has announced that this year’s winners are Sasha Chanoff, the founder and executive director of Mapendo International, an international relief agency that helps relocate African refugees, and Jared Genser, the founder and president of Freedom Now, a group that provides legal help to international prisoners of conscience. Each will receive $100,000 for their organizations.

Named for the Jewish philanthropist Charles Bronfman, the prize was established in 2004 by his children to honor his 70th birthday. An internationally recognized committee of panelists engaged in philanthropy and human rights work —that includes a Canadian Supreme Court Justice and a former head of the World Bank — awards the prize following a nomination and voting process.

It marked the first time the committee has named two winners in the same year.

“It was a very interesting debate by our board of judges because we were very divided,” said Bronfman’s son, Stephen. “But they were both in the same field.

So my sister Ellen said, ‘What about doing two prizes this year?’ I said, ‘Why not?’ We run this prize and there is no set [rule]. We had two great candidates here, and it does a lot for them and does a lot for us.”

Stephen Bronfman and his wife, Claudine Blondin Bronfman; his sister, Ellen Bronfman Hauptman; and her husband, Andrew Hauptman, established a founda-

tion to fund the award.

The prize is aimed at bringing public recognition to young, dynamic humanitarians whose Jewish values infuse their humanitarian accomplishments and provide inspiration to future generations, as well as exemplifying Charles Bronfman’s ideals as a

ment programs of other governments, primarily in the United States.

Genser’s organization, Freedom Now, has a team of volunteer lawyers, including himself, that defends those who have been imprisoned by oppressive governments because of their political

Working with those immigrants led Chanoff to move to Kenya, where he worked at the Akume refugee camp and saw firsthand the danger that some — especially women and children — face living in such supposedly safe havens from war.

He started Mapendo in 2004 by setting up a medical clinic with a Kenyan doctor to help refugees in Nairobi. The group now has a staff of 30 — five in Boston where it is headquartered, and 25 stationed around Africa — and has helped

some 10,000 refugees resettle in safer countries over the past six years.

Chanoff recalls the stories his great-aunt used to tell him about marauders who would attack her Jewish village in Kiev, Ukraine, and the story of their escape to the United States.

“There is something very visceral about seeing people who have lost their homes, their families and sometimes everything that means anything to them in their lives,” Chanoff said. “This just struck me as something I was supposed to be doing. It connected me to my past and to my great-grandparents and my grandmother and my family.”

With the help of 10 law firms, Genser has helped free 10 prisoners of conscience since founding Freedom Now. While also managing to hold down a day job, he has lobbied the United Nations Human Rights Council, created public relations events, defended prisoners and ultimately tried to get the authoritarian governments to reform.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Noble Peace Prize winner, sits on Freedom Now’s board, as do two rabbis — Jamie Cowland and Danny Schonbuch — who Genser describes as close advisers and mentors.

Genser said that he did not have Jewish values in mind when he started Freedom Now, but Cowland, a British rabbi who now lives in Israel, and Schonbuch, who Genser met in Israel but now lives in New York, have helped him understand the Jewish values inherent in the work that he is doing.

“When I first got into this, we started talking about this from a Jewish perspective,” he said. “To my surprise I found, from a Jewish perspective, this is called ‘pidyun shivuim,’ the redemption of captives. It is one of the categories of work that can even be performed in violation of the Sabbath.”

can raise a charity’s profile and drive traffic to its Web site,” the Chronicle reported. “But the company, which based its findings on an analysis of an unnamed charity’s experience in a contest, also found a slew of negatives: The charity dropped everything else and became consumed with the contest. It lost track of the message it had hoped to communicate to donors in its crazed bid for more votes. And it blew a chance to land long-term donors by failing to follow up with the voters who supported the charity. Some donors, according to the company, got so fed up with the constant messages they

received from the charity that they canceled their subscriptions to the charity’s e-mail messages.”

Those involved in the Bronfman prize, though, saw nothing but positives, especially from the public relations standpoint.

“The idea of the prize is just elevating the project,” said Stephen Bronfman, who helped establish the prize to honor his father. “There are great prizes out there in the world — the Goldman Prize, all these wonderful prizes.

Instead of just getting a grant, a prize is a testament to the strength of the project. You are a star.”

affiliate of HIAS-the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society. The JVS helped a number of refugees from places like Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq resettle in Boston through the U.S. resettlement program, which allows as many as 80,000 refugees to move to the United States each year.

JTA

Jared Genser, left, the founder of Freedom Now, and Sasha Chanoff, the founder of Mapendo, each won $100,000 for sharing the 2010 Charles Bronfman Prize.

philanthropist.

“We look for people who are making a difference in the world, who are doing things, who are passionate about something,” Stephen Bronfman said. “We can help them with the contacts the Bronfman family has, and they can help us by elevating the idea.”

Through Mapendo, Chanoff has established a network of volunteers and professionals who scout Africa looking for at-risk refugees of war and tribal conflict and then helps get them into the refugee resettle-

views. Among those Freedom Now has supported is Nyi Nyi Aung, who was sentenced to three years of hard labor in a Burmese prison for promoting democracy.

Chanoff and Genser both do their work far from the mainstream of Jewish life. Still, both say that their Jewish ideals play heavily into their nonsectarian humanitarian work.

Chanoff first became involved in working with refugees in the late 1990s while with the Jewish Vocational Service in Boston, an

Questioning prize philanthropy

by Jacob Berkman Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) Prize philanthropy has become en vogue of late, as major corporations have offered large sums of cash in highprofile contests designed to engage consumers by highlighting nonprofit work.

Chase bank’s Chase Giving Challenge and Pepsi’s monthly Pepsi Refresh campaign have given away millions of dollars to nonprofits by engaging them in contests to see which can get the most online votes from their supporters.

Google, through its Lunar X challenge, is offering the most significant cash prize — $20 million to the team that can successfully land a robot on the moon, have it travel 500 meters and send photos back to earth. The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published a story with a list and description of some of the more interesting prizes now up for grabs.

The Jewish world certainly has caught onto the act, be it the longrunning Covenant Award for innovative Jewish education, to the Jewish Federations of North America’s recent online Jewish Community Heroes Award, to the

Charles Bronfman Prize. Plus there is the still unsubstantiated talk that the Genesis Philanthropy Group and the Jewish Agency are discussing the creation of a $1 million Nobel-type prize.

While the prizes seem to be great for nonprofits seeking a quick infusion of cash, some have debated whether the contests — especially those based on soliciting online votes — can become distractions, as the Chronicle wrote in another recent story.

“Achieve, a fund-raising consulting company in Indianapolis, noted in its May newsletter that contests

NATIONAL

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

7

Foreman gains respect even in losing title

by Marc Brodsky Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) — Yuri Foreman may have lost his first title defense, but the Orthodox Jewish boxer apparently gained plenty of respect on a balmy evening in Yankee Stadium.

Foreman continued to fight through what he called “sharp pain” in his knee in the last three rounds of his World Boxing Association super-welterweight championship bout against three-time champion Miguel Cotto late Saturday night in the Bronx.

The 29-year-old rabbinical student, now living in Brooklyn via Haifa, Israel, and his native Belarus, slipped several times during the bout, wrenching his right knee in the seventh round.

Foreman fought on before referee Arthur Mercante Jr. stopped the match 42 seconds into the ninth round following a hard Cotto right to Foreman’s midsection. Mercante a round earlier had refused to halt the proceedings even though Foreman’s corner had thrown in the towel.

The defeat could have potentially served as a blow to the growing number of fans who rallied behind Foreman and the chance to hail a Jewish boxing champ for the first time in more than half a century. But judging from comments from Foreman loyalists after the fight, his appeal may grow thanks to his willingness to keep on fighting despite the injury.

Even Cotto’s fans were impressed.

“I respect him because he tried to fight Cotto — key word tried,” said Hector Aponte, a Hispanic man from the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, who despite the loss took home an Israeli flag out of respect for the effort. “The thing you got to respect is even when his leg went out, he still fought.”

Speaking of the Israeli flag he was carrying, Aponte added, “I’ll go and hang it on my wall next to my Puerto Rican boxing gloves.”

Jerry Kahn, a comedian and an Orthodox Jew, echoed Aponte.

“He makes all of us proud,” Kahn said. “He’s a very classy guy.”

Though he was mostly stripped of his trademark ability to move from side to side and is not known for his power — the formerly

NG SPRI ING AIL DET IALS SPEC

Chamber of Fear/Flickr

Yuri Foreman, left, ended up losing his title fight to Miguel Cotto, but picked up some hard-earned respect along the way.

unbeaten Foreman only had eight knockdowns among his 28 victories — he tried to persevere against the stalking Cotto.

“I’m a world champion — now a former world champion — and you don’t just quit,” Foreman said in the ring after the fight. “A world champion needs to keep on fighting.”

Foreman entered the canopied ring to the sound of the shofar and a recording of the late Lubavitcher rebbe singing — and as a 2-1 underdog. He also was the second choice of the crowd of 20,273. Puerto Rican flags for Cotto prevailed over the Israeli pennants for Foreman, and chants of “Cotto, Cotto” were offered several times.

“Obviously you’re going to have 75 percent Puerto Rican fans,” said David Locshin, an Orthodox Jew. “But we’re louder in essence.”

Cotto, now 35-2 with 28 knockouts, was the aggressor throughout the fight and was well ahead on all three scorecards when the bout was stopped. Foreman prevailed only in the fourth round, winning 10-9 on each card, notably with a solid leftright combination. But he also slipped for the first time in that three-minute session.

His face cut and bruised, Foreman told JTA prior to the postfight news conference that he was “emotionally upset” and that he had “a lot of supporters” in the crowd.

Well-wishers speaking Hebrew offered their consolation.

At the news conference, he said the leg injury could be traced back to when he was 15 years old and living in Israel, when he fell off his bike. Foreman wears a brace to protect the knee and had one on for the

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Cotto fight.

The extent of the injury was not known early in the week. The doctor at ringside did not evaluate the knee during the bout.

Foreman said the knee problem made it problematic “to sit on my punches. I could not use all of my power.”

Grier said he tossed in the towel because he feared for his fighter’s safety.

“You can’t put him in front of a puncher like Cotto without legs,” the trainer said at the news conference.

Mercante said he refused the stoppage because the fighters were in the middle of a good exchange and did not believe it was necessary.

Asked by the ref if he wanted to continue, Foreman said he did.

“That kid would die in there

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Fighting at Yankee Stadium, which was having its first boxing card since Muhammad Ali fought Ken Norton in 1976, was “awesome,” Foreman said.

Along with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthems of Puerto Rico and Israel were sung prior to the bout.

“There were so many Israeli flags, and the Puerto Rican flags were great,” Foreman said, adding that the scene offered “great adrenaline.”

After the bout, one man may have summed up what many were thinking.

“I’ll say this for Foreman: He’s got balls.”

(JTA Managing Editor Uriel Heilman contributed to this report.)

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Welcome to Obama’s Jewish America

by Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) The athletes, the astronauts, the alternative music, the black rabbi, the white dress uniforms and, above all, the left-handed baseball immortal: Welcome to Barack Obama’s Jewish America.

The inaugural Jewish America Heritage Month celebration at the White House, held May 27, underscored the Obama administration’s determination not to be locked into Washington’s conventional notions of Jewish leadership.

President Obama did not exactly snub the usual suspects who have peopled similar events for decades. Lee Rosenberg, the president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Alan Solow, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, were on hand. Both also happen to have been major fund raisers for Obama’s campaign, as were several others among the 250 or so in attendance.

But the image that the White House sought to convey was of a Jewish America not necessarily bound to the alphabet soup of the Jewish organizational world and of pro-Israelism. Instead, Obama presented an array of Jewish heroes and celebrities who pronouncedly defied Jewish stereotypes. In addition to the major givers, the entrepreneurs and the communal leaders, guests included sports heroes such as Sandy Koufax, veterans,

The Jewish Channel

Baseball legend Sandy Koufax attracts plenty of attention at the Jewish American Heritage Month celebration at the White House, May 27, 2010.

nonprofit innovators, journalists, actors and organizers.

Obama referred also to “the countless names that we don’t know — the teachers, the smallbusiness owners, the doctors and nurses, the people who seek only to live honestly and faithfully and to give their children more than they had.”

The reception was in the works for months, and planning predated the tensions between Israel and the United States precipitated in early March when Israel announced a major housing start in eastern Jerusalem during an official visit

there by Vice President Joe Biden, who also was at the reception.

Still, the White House’s proJewish and pro-Israel messages were timely — coming in the wake of a weeks-long “charm offensive” launched by the White House to help allay anxieties over the recent tensions with Jerusalem. And luckily for those seeking an unadulterated feel-good moment, the event took place days before the international furor over Israel’s raid on the flotilla headed toward Gaza.

The reception included a traditional reference to the “unbreakable” Israel-U.S. alliance dating

back to within minutes of Israel’s establishment.

Jewish values, Obama said, “helped lead America to recognize and support Israel as a Jewish homeland and a beacon for democratic values — beginning mere minutes after its independence was declared. In fact, we have the original statement by President Harry Truman on display here today.”

Obama also made it clear, however, that he sees the alliance as part of America’s strategy of global outreach.

“My administration is renewing American leadership around the

world — strengthening old alliances and forging new ones, defending universal values while ensuring that we uphold our values here at home,” he said. “In fact, it’s our common values that leads us to stand with allies and friends, including the State of Israel.”

Overall, the festivities amounted to a bald emotional appeal to Jewish soft spots: The National Archives ran a session on stereotype-defying Jews in the military during the Civil War. The Library of Congress celebrated Jewish comediennes.

Nowhere were the emotions more in evident — yet more controlled — than at the White House reception.

The Heritage Month was established after legislation passed in 2006 by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), then a freshman in Congress. In subsequent years, Jewish Democrats fumed that President George W. Bush did nothing more to mark the month than issue a proclamation.

After such griping, it raised eyebrows last year when Obama did not mark the month, so the May 27 reception was seen as inevitable.

When Obama pronounced this the “first-ever” such reception, Wasserman Schultz leaned back in her chair and beamed at her congressional colleagues.

Rabbi Alyssa Stanton of Greenville, N.C., the first black female rabbi, read the poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. When she smiled WELCOME on page 22

Shamai Leibowitz sentenced for leaking FBI secret

by Adam Kredo Washington Jewish Week WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — Those who know Shamai Leibowitz of Silver Spring, Md. describe him as a doting father, enchanting Torah reader and, above all, a trusted member of the community.

But a recently revealed other side to Leibowitz’s life has some reacting with disbelief and shock.

Last week, Leibowitz, 39, the Shabbat Torah reader at Har TzeonAgudath Achim, a Conservative synagogue in Silver Spring, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for leaking classified government documents to a blogger last year while serving as a linguist for the FBI. The episode has sent the family into a Kafkaesque nightmare full of legal, financial and familial hardships, according to Leibowitz’s wife, Hagit, who penned a missive last month to U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr., asking for a lenient jail sentence.

“There are no words to describe the trials and tribulations that I went through in the past year,” wrote the Judaics and Hebrew teacher at the Hebrew Day Institute in Rockville. “Since the investigation began, my life has been turned upside down and my family has been in constant upheaval.”

While most of those contacted were reticent to speak publicly, citing the sensitive nature of the case, the synagogue’s rabbi, Reuben Landman, said he was surprised by how the court proceedings played out.

Details surrounding the case are murky, as federal prosecutors have refused to reveal exactly what information was contained in the leaked documents or the identity of the blogger who received them.

The judge, in a peculiar twist, revealed in court last week that even he hadn’t been privy to many details, including the nature of the disclosed information and its national security impact.

“The court is in the dark,”

Williams, who declined comment for this article, said at the sentencing hearing last week, according to an article by Politico. “I’m not a part and parcel of the intricacies of [the alleged national security threat] ... I don’t know what was divulged, other than some documents.”

Observers say they find this admission slightly odd, if not flatout disturbing.

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the Orthodox Ohev Shalom-The National Synagogue in Washington described Leibowitz, a native Israeli who moved to the area in 2004, as “a person of deep integrity.”

Herzfeld went on to lament the manner in which both the prosecution and court handled the case.

“I don’t think we have anywhere near the whole story in this case,” Herzfeld said, pointing to what he sees as “troubling trend” in the way Jews have been treated by the American justice system. “Just because [Leibowitz] pled guilty doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be concerned about in this matter.”

Others expressed concern about whether the punishment fits the crime.

According to Politico, Leibowitz’s 20-month sentence is among the harshest ever doled out to a government employee accused of leaking classified information to a reporter.

“I’m shocked,” said Rabbi Herzel Kranz of the Orthodox Silver Spring Jewish Center, explaining that the news reports he has read leave “very serious questions to be asked.”

“This is not the America I know,” Kranz said. “How can you be sentenced for a crime when the judge doesn’t know what the crime is?”

In January, Landman wrote to Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Dunne, a prosecutor in the case, to ask for compassion. He argued that Leibowitz already has suffered much “public humiliation” and that his family has been “ruined financially” by soaring legal fees.

The rabbi’s plea as well as those of some 10 community members

who wrote the court on Leibowitz’s behalf seem to have helped somewhat, as Williams decided to defer Leibowitz’s sentence for slightly more than 60 days so that the family can prepare for his departure, according to Landman. He noted that both the judge and government decided to waive all financial penalties that could have been leveled in the case.

Members of Leibowitz’s synagogue and the wider Jewish community have on several occasions provided the Leibowitz family with financial assistance for mounting legal bills. In addition, the shul has allowed the family temporarily to live free of charge in a shul-owned guest house located near the synagogue, according to a source familiar with the synagogue’s inner workings.

For his part, Leibowitz is remaining mum about the genesis of his crimes, according to Landman, who described his congregant as “a very caring person, [and] a person of conscience.”

INTERNATIONAL

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

9

In Europe, flotilla protests smaller than against Gaza war

by Dinah Spritzer Jewish Telegraphic Agency PRAGUE (JTA) — As thousands of protesters condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza in cities across Europe, reactions within Jewish communities ranged from mild concern to alarm.

On Saturday, 6,000 protesters marched in Germany, 20,000 in France and 2,000 in London against Israel’s actions in the May 31 confrontation with a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine Turkish proPalestinian activists dead.

In Brussels, protesters in front of the Israeli Embassy shouted their support for Hezbollah, jihad and Hamas, with some calling witnesses who tried to take pictures “dirty Jews,” according to Dan Levy, vice president of the Union of Jewish Students from Belgium.

European Jewish community representatives said the protests were mild and much smaller than the massive demonstrations in January 2009 that greeted Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

“There were only a few thousand people protesting in London, not 50,000 as the organizers, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, predicted,” said Alan Aziz, executive director of the London-based Zionist Federation.

The federation, like the Brussels student group, held a pro-Israel rally last week with about 800 participants. Belgians carried signs saying “Two people, two states, one peace.” In Britain, pro-Israel demonstrators sang the British and Israeli national anthems, holding banners with slogans such as “End Hamas rockets = End Blockade.”

Adrian Korsner

More than 700 people reportedly attended a rally outside the Israeli Embassy of London supporting Israel in the wake of the flotilla incident, June 2, 2010.

Other pro-Israel rallies of modest size were staged in or scheduled for several Western European cities.

Chaim Musicant, director of the CRIF French Jewish umbrella organization, described the protests in Paris against Israel’s actions as very quiet.

“There was no shouting-down of Jews,” he said.

In some countries with large numbers of ethnic Turks, Jews expressed concern that the tensions between Turkey and Israel would translate into tensions between local ethnic Turks and Jews.

In Vienna, Raimund Fastenbauer,

the Austrian Jewish community’s general secretary for Jewish affairs, said four ultra-Orthodox Jews, or haredim, in the city reported either being pushed or verbally slurred by ethnic Turks since the flotilla incident.

“This is a very bad sign,” Fastenbauer said. “We have had good relations for a long time with Turkish institutions. We always said we didn’t have problems with Muslims here. But I think the mood has changed with the policy of the current Turkish government, which has been very vocal against Israel.”

There are some 400,000 Muslims, mostly with Turkish roots,

in Austria and about 10,000 Jews.

Fastenbauer said he was alarmed as well that the Vienna assembly unanimously signed a resolution against Israel initiated by a Muslim representative of the Social Democrat Party.

“This is the first time in many years I can recall all of the parities — extreme left to extreme right — agreeing on a single issue,” Fastenbauer said.

Aaron Buck, a member of the Jewish community in Munich, said he believed it was a “dangerous time,” as he saw Germans critical of Israel not making a distinction

between Israeli policies and Jews.

Buck acknowledged that the current outrage over Israel’s actions had specific ramifications in Germany.

“For those with a migrant background, the biggest difference is that unlike native Germans, they have little education about the Holocaust and have a very different attitude towards Jews,” he said.

In Western Europe, Germany has the largest number of residents with Turkish roots.

In Stockholm, a city where both extreme leftists and Muslims have protested frequently against Israel, the leader of the Swedish Jewish community said the community’s headquarters had received bomb and murder threats.

“We’re accustomed at this point to the bashing and the hatred,” said Lena Posner, who noted that the presence of about a dozen Swedes in the six-ship, Gaza-bound flotilla made the reaction in Sweden against Israel all the more severe.

Meanwhile, Swedish dockworkers have announced a plan to launch a blockade of Israeli ships and goods in protest of the Israeli crackdown on the flotilla.

Like other Jewish figures interviewed by JTA, Posner emphasized that while some Swedish Jews thought Israel’s handling of the flotilla incident could have been better, they supported Israel’s right to defend itself and understood its reasons for the blockade of Gaza.

At the same time, Posner said Swedish Jews “should not get involved.”

“I don’t see the point in us doing anything,” Posner said. “It is an Israeli political issue. The embassy is handling it.”

With flotilla deaths, Turkey may be near tipping point on Israel

by Yigal Schleifer Jewish Telegraphic Agency ISTANBUL (JTA) — While Turkey and Israel have seen their once-close relationship deteriorate steadily for the past few years, the Israeli commando raid of a Turkishled flotilla heading for Gaza, in which several Turks were killed, marks a dangerous new low in the two countries’ relations.

“Turkey is now involved in a way it’s never been before: Blood has been spilled,” said Hugh Pope, a Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based policy and advocacy organization.

Following Monday’s raid, massive street protests broke out in Turkey, and the country recalled its ambassador from Israel and summoned Israel’s ambassador to Ankara.

Addressing parliament Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep

Tayyip Erdogan spoke in harsh terms that seemed to leave little room for an easy rapprochement with Israel.

“This bloody massacre by Israel on ships that were taking humanitarian aid to Gaza deserves every kind of curse,” Erdogan said. “This attack is on international law, the conscience of humanity and world peace.

“No one should test Turkey’s patience,” he added. “Turkey’s hostility is as strong as its friendship is valuable.”

Four Turks were killed by Israeli commandos in Monday’s raid, which left five others dead. Dozens of others suffered wounds, including several Israeli soldiers. Before the flotilla set sail, Israel reportedly asked Turkish authorities to stop the ships from their Gaza-bound mission, but Turkish authorities demurred, saying they were civilian ships and could do nothing about them.

The deterioration in the TurkishIsraeli relationship, much of it connected to the fallout from Israel’s 2009 Gaza invasion, has been mirrored by an equally precipitous rise in Turkey’s visibility and involvement in the Middle East — an area that it had kept at arm’s length for decades because of historical enmity and mutual suspicion.

Until recently, Turkey’s growing regional role included a desire to parlay its good relations with both Israel and the Arab states into a role as a regional mediator. Ankara, for example, hosted Israel and Syria for a round of secret peace talks in 2008 that ultimately failed. All along Turkey has continued its close military cooperation with the Jewish state.

But for now, analysts say, Turkey appears to have abandoned its mediation efforts in the region in return for a more pronounced leadership role in the Muslim world. On Monday, Turkey canceled plans to

hold joint a military exercise with the Israel Defense Forces.

“For the time being I don’t see any kind of opening for the peace process,” said Gencer Ozcan, an expert on Turkey-Israel relations at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. “So if there isn’t any peace process, there isn’t any need for the good offices of a mediator.”

Pope said, “It’s going to be very hard for Turkey to portray itself as a neutral mediator with Israel anymore.”

Andrew Finkel, a columnist with the English-language daily Today’s Zaman, said that Turkey’s declared policy of “zero problems with neighbors” has come to a “juddering halt” in the case of Israel.

“Instead, Ankara appears to have given its tacit consent to another policy of sharpening contradictions, of trying to lance the boil instead of putting soothing ointment on the blister,” he said.

While Turkey may earn short-

term gains from distancing itself from Israel, there are concerns about the long-term effect a serious breach between the two countries might have on an already conflictridden region.

“Turkey has gradually been losing one of the most significant leverages that it was using in the Arab world,” Ozcan said. “Even the Palestinians were telling Ankara over the years to keep talking to the Israelis.”

Turkey’s harsh response to Israel’s action is yet another signal of an important shift in Turkish foreign policy, analysts here say, with Turkey taking a more assertive role both regionally and globally. The government of the liberal Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), which first came into office in 2002, has worked to forge close relations with neighbors such as Syria and Iran.

TURKEY on page 19

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Israel facing tough choices on Gaza as criticism of blockade mounts

by Leslie Susser Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — Despite the international outcry following last week’s lethal confrontation between Israeli commandos and militant pro-Palestinian activists aboard a Turkish vessel carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel insists its naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory is justified and will continue.

But even Israel’s closest allies backing the blockade as a legitimate means of cutting off weapons supplies to the Hamas regime, with which Israel is in an official state of belligerency, have been critical of the wider siege, which they say is hurting the people of Gaza far more than their fundamentalist rulers.

The new international predicament in which Israel finds itself raises a number of fundamental questions: How necessary is the blockade and how effective has it been? Why was it imposed in the first place? Why was it accompanied by a wider siege blocking civilian goods and movement? And what should Israel do in the face of the storm of international protest?

The blockade-siege in its present form was imposed in June 2007 after Hamas violently expelled the secular Fatah leadership from Gaza and seized power from President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority. Israel and Egypt responded by closing land crossings into Gaza, and Israel reinstituted a naval blockade on the Gaza coast.

Israel’s rationale was that after hundreds of Hamas-inspired rocket attacks, it needed to do whatever it could to keep weapons, weapons’ manufacturing parts and bunkerbuilding materials out of Gaza. The siege, which also limited civilian supplies, was intended to put pressure on Hamas to release captured Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit and possibly even to induce popular rebellion against Hamas.

In September 2007, following dozens more rocket attacks, Israel officially declared Gaza “a hostile territory,” buttressing legal justification for its hostile moves against it.

Moreover, by stifling economic development and living standards in Gaza while promoting them in the West Bank, Israel was signaling to the Palestinians that Abbas-style coexistence would get them further than Hamas’ blanket rejectionism.

The Egyptians, concerned that Hamas radicalism could spill over into their territory, argued that opening their border with Gaza would imply recognition of the Hamas government and further undermine the legitimacy of the PA. Formally Egypt insisted on faithfully carrying out the provi-

Moti Milrod/Pool/Flash90

Following the Israeli Navy’s take over of the Gaza-bound flotilla, Jerusalem is facing tough questions about its blockade of the Palestinian area.

sions of a November 2005 agreement that provided for supervision of its Rafah crossing point with Gaza by PA and European monitors, a provision rejected by Hamas.

The 2005 “Agreement on Movement and Access” was meant to put the finishing touches on Israel’s unilateral pullout from Gaza two months earlier. Brokered by the United States, the aim was to ease the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza and thus enhance Palestinian productivity.

Under its terms, the mainland crossing points at Rafah, Kerem Shalom and Karni would be fully opened. There was no thought at the time of a naval blockade. On the contrary, work on a feasibility study for an independent Palestinian deepwater port in Gaza was under way.

Dov Weissglas, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s right-hand man, says that with Israel out of Gaza, the Palestinians promised an economic miracle, arguing that without the occupation to hold them back, they would show the world what Palestinians could do if given a chance and turn Gaza into a new Singapore.

According to Weissglas, plans for five-star hotels along the coast and an airport at Dahaniya were far advanced, with former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, then the international Quartet’s special representative, playing a leading role. The idea was to underpin peace between Gaza and Israel through economic progress, much like in the West Bank today. The Hamas takeover, however, put an end to the Singapore dream.

Stepped-up Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians eventually led to Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli land invasion of Gaza in December 2008.

After the war ended a month later, Israel’s main concern was to prevent Hamas from rearming.

Talk at the time had German, French and British ships patrolling the Gaza coast to prevent arms smuggling. But when the idea fell through, mainly at Egypt’s insistence, Israel was left on its own to monitor maritime traffic for weapons. Last November, Israeli Navy vessels intercepted the Francop, an Antigua and Barbudaflagged ship that was carrying hundreds of tons of Iran-supplied weapons for Hezbollah in Lebanon and possibly also Hamas.

Hamas has been able to continue smuggling weapons through tunnels along the border between Gaza and Egypt. The Israeli fear, though, is that large ships could bring in much bigger rockets and missiles, possibly even game-changing weapons such as the accurate medium range GPSdirected M-600s Hezbollah has received from Syria. Israel sees Gaza and Lebanon as two Iranian forward positions and part of a much wider regional threat.

Many of Israel’s friends recognize its need to check ships approaching the Gaza area for weapons. But there is far less understanding for the limited inflow and often arbitrary exclusion of civilian goods — for example, keeping out unsupervised cement and steel that could be used for building bunkers or making weapons makes sense.

And critics ask why thyme, corian-

der, chocolate and macaroni are on the exclusion list?

Some critics say the limited inflow of goods is causing a humanitarian crisis. Others argue that even if it isn’t, the restrictions constitute a form of collective punishment, which is illegal, even between warring parties.

Israel maintains that no humanitarian crisis exists in Gaza and that it is doing more than enough to prevent one. According to the Israel Defense Forces, which coordinates aid to Gaza, Israel in the first three months of 2010 sent in more than 3,600 trucks with approximately 100,000 tons of fruit, vegetables, meat, chicken, fish, dairy products, animal feed, hygiene products, clothing and shoes, as well as 1,000 tons of medical equipment.

Moreover, 10,544 Gaza residents were treated last year in Israeli hospitals. According to Western figures, the average life expectancy in Gaza is 73.68 years, compared to about 40 in some African countries, and there is as little malnutrition as in the West.

Israel also supplies 60 percent of Gaza’s electricity, its fuel needs, hypochlorite for water purification, electricity grid repair parts and glass to fix windows, as well as cement and iron for building under strict supervision. According to U.N. figures, updated to Jan. 30 of this year, 78 percent of homes lightly damaged in the 2008-09 Gaza war have been repaired. Other observers go even further, pointing to the wellstocked markets in Gaza, the emergence of gourmet restaurants and the recent launching of a new Olympicsize swimming pool.

Israel Briefs Israel peacefully intercepts Gaza-bound ship JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel peacefully intercepted a seventh Gaza-bound ship and brought it to Ashdod port.

Israeli Navy forces boarded the Irish-owned ship named the Rachel Corrie, in memory of an American pro-Palestinian activist who was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, on Saturday 22 miles off the coast of Gaza. They boarded the ship from the sea rather than by helicopters, as six flotilla ships were last week when nine activists on a Turkishowned ship were killed during clashes with Navy commandos.

The 19 activists on the boat, including Irish Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and a Malaysian lawmaker, all agreed to be deported and were set to leave the country by Sunday evening, according to the Israeli Interior Ministry.

The ship was carrying hundreds of tons of concrete, as well as tons of paper and wheelchairs.

Israel began calling to the ship last Friday asking that it go to the Ashdod port and allow a nongovernmental agency to inspect its contacts and take its cargo, including the cement, to Gaza.

Cement has been barred from Gaza by Israel’s blockade out of fear that it would be used to build bunkers for Hamas terrorists.

“It has been brought to my attention that should it result in the way I proposed, of you coming into Ashdod under escort and offloading the cargo in Ashdod Port, the cement that you said is the bulk of your cargo will be transferred to Gaza,” a Navy officer said during a radio exchange on Saturday. “That’s the assurance I have just been given by my superiors. To the best of my knowledge that would be precedent setting. It would be something you could take back to your supporters, to your fellow passengers, to the people you say you want to support, and to the government you say you are rebuking for not doing more for Gaza,” The Rachel Corrie suggested to the officer that his boat “stop, have a cup of tea and we’ll continue on to Gaza.”

“Yesterday, the entire world saw the difference between a humanitarian flotilla and a hate flotilla by violent, terrorism-supporting extremists,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday at the start of the regular Cabinet meeting.

SOCIAL LIFE

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

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Northern Hills Synagogue Jubilee Anniversary Dinner PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PG.12

Northern Hills Synagogue - Congregation B’nai Avraham began the celebration of its 50th anniversary with a gala dinner on January 23, 2010 featuring entertainment by the Amazing Portable Circus Game Show. The jubilee continued with a ‘50s sock hop in March. The congregation will commemorate the anniversary of its founding with a special service and dinner on Friday evening, June 25. The year of celebration will conclude with a scholar-inresidence weekend featuring Rabbi Brad Artson of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University November 19-21, 2010.

The American Israelite is currently seeking a

WRITER Knowledge of AP Style preferred, but not required.

This position is part-time, flexible hours.

If interested, contact Ted at 621-3145 or send your resume to publisher@americanisraelite.com

R E F UA H S H L E M A H Frieda Berger Fraida bat Raizel

Pepa Kaufman Perel Tova bat Sima Sora

Rozlyn Bleznick

Mina Kamkha Malka bat Baila

Rachel Boymel Rochel bat Pesia Fruma

Lois Pornoy, Sandy Schram and Candy Gellen

Daniel Eliyahu Daniel ben Tikvah

Murray Kirschner Chaim Meir ben Basha Andrea Lavine Chana Sara bat Esther Enya

Mel Fisher Moshe ben Hinda

Alan Schwartzberg Avraham Pesach ben Mindel

Edith Kaffeman Yehudit bat B’racha

Ravid Sulam Ravid Chaya bat Ayelet

Roma Kaltman Ruchama bat Perl

Edward Ziv Raphael Eliezer Aharon ben Esther Enya

ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE 100% FREE PLACE YOUR ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE. E-MAIL: articles@americanisraelite.com with “Announcement” in the Subject Line Herb Brass, Steve Selss and Allen Rau

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CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

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Northern Hills Synagogue Jubilee Anniversary Dinner

Jane Karlsberg and Sandy Richards

Rabbi Gershom Barnard and Sarah Barnard

Newly installed Northern Hills President Karroll Miller and Judy Miller

Jeff and Gayna Bassin

Rick and Debbie Kaplan

Tracy and Mitch Weisberger

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

Don Hordes, Arnie Horowitz, Ron Richards and Marty Ackerman play the synagogue history game

Renee Roth, the winner

A fire eater provided entertainment

Guests enjoyed a sumptuous dessert buffet

Brett and Alisa Handmaker

Oded Zmora and Laurel Wolfson

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DINING OUT

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Cincinnati is out of the doldrums with the arrival of Aroma

by Marilyn Gale Dining Editor A trendy, upscale restaurant has arrived, four months ago, at the Kenwood Mall, nestled adjacent to daunting Nordstrom. Gold lettered Aroma, with its undulating concrete waves and slanting patio is exceptionally nice on the eyes, especially on a cool, summer afternoon where women of all ages, shopping bags tucked under their chairs, eat interesting lunches and sip deep pink drinks dotted with sliced fruits from triangle shaped glasses. It is reminiscent of a 1930s party, minus the cigarettes—what a fun lunch!

Inside the restaurant the décor is just as dazzling, almost magical.

Bold reds, shades of purple and big, yellow squares are the first sights that catch your eye. A three-dimensional mural by local artist Frank Stanton hangs prominently on the back wall. The well-stocked bar, glittery with liquors, wines and beers, intrigues even the most major teetotaler.

“It’s like a Miami night spot,” said Ted Parobek, general manager with over 10 years experience working in the hospitality and restaurant business. The advantage, though, is that Aroma is open during the day, too, with a lunch menu that will make a knowledgeable foodie happy.

“What attracted you to this line of work?” I asked. His impeccable demeanor and conservative dress reminded me of maitre d’s I had encountered in quality restaurants while traveling through Europe during my younger days.

“I love food, I love people.

People go to restaurants to celebrate life, and otherwise they could just go the refrigerator. I want dining here to be an experience so I believe in the importance of service in addition to quality food,” answered Parobek.

“It’s the little things that makes us feel special and cared for, servers who fold napkins when you stand up, and provide clean silverware and glasses for each course. They wipe up the crumbs on the table.

Basically, anticipating the guests’ needs before they realize them,” he continued.

And the food, I asked, how would he describe it?

Attractive bar and friendly staff make Aroma a fun place to enjoy your happy hour.

“Ecletic miso soup to macaroni and cheese, food for the kids such as hot dogs and chicken fingers, any type of pasta, and our freshly made sushi,” he answered.

A word about the freshness of the sushi — Aroma gets its fish directly from Miami, it is picked up every three days at CVG and brought directly to the restaurant where it is transformed into a variety of unique sushi creations, especially designed for the Cincinnati area. Try the refreshing Kenwood Roll, a combination of tuna, mango and cucumber. Or the American roll, a mixture of green apple, salmon and cream cheese.

Travis Maier, head chef, emerged from the kitchen and joined us. Although originally from Cincinnati, he brings a background in European cooking, having spent time in Spain.

“The food is Fusion, Asian with an American flair,” he told me and then explained his creative nutritional goal is to elevate the fifth taste

receptor. “Most of the food we eat now goes to the well-known four tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty. The fifth is “Umani” which is earthy and savory. Mushrooms, fish sauce and nuts are examples of food that sparks the little know flavor area.

The Aroma menu pairs whole grains with nuts, mushrooms and sauces to tickle the Umani taste receptor, giving increased satisfaction and fullness to the meal.

Parobek suggested a first-time patron start with the Salmon Sliders, fish seared in a flat iron skillet and pressed into a patty, served on a small bun with avocado, cilantro and remoulade, which is a mustard sauce. If you can pass up the butternut squash soup, a squash and shallot puree topped with almonds and cream, than the soba salad comes next. An eyepleasing whole grain combination

of buckwheat noodles, romaine, cucumber and tomato, drizzled with sesame-honey vinaigrette.

A growing favorite are the braised beef short ribs, simmered for five hours, paired with a truffle potato puree. The marinade boasts a special technique, a combination of red wine, garlic, ginger, onion and carrots. The meat is promised to be as tender and reminiscent of the most delicious brisket made by mother. Parobek described this menu item as brisket with a kick.

Aroma also has seafood selections. The recommendation is for sea bass, cooked quickly at high temperature, skin side down, to ensure a crispy coating and to keep the juices inside. A chicken entrée has a sesame-sake glaze which sounded very interesting.

But the restaurant is not only about food and service, there are specials. The lunch menu offers a Pick 2 option at $9.99 from Monday through Thursday, 11 am to 3 pm.

Start with the soba salad and then order the salmon sushi roll. Or have the butternut squash soup with the Portobello sandwich, a vibrant combination of caramelized onion, mushroom, aioli sauce, roasted tomato, basil and blue cheese. If you don’t have to go back to work, check out the martini menu.

You can always come back for Happy Hour from 4 - 6:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Halfpriced sushi, half-priced martinis and half-priced beers cater to the professional crowd ending their work day.

Aroma is owned by Jacob Kobey, a native Israeli businessman. Parobek said the owner’s philosophy is to make people happy, give them good experiences, good service and a good environment.

Indeed this new restaurant with its bright décor and feng shui touches seems well on its way to accomplishing Kobey’s goal.

Live music plays in the evenings on Wednesday through Saturday.

From Earth Wind and Fire to Frank Sinatra, diners will surely find something to please their ears and soothe their spirits.

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DINING OUT

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

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Aroma Restaurant & Sushi 7875 Montgomery Rd Kenwood 791-0950

K.T.’s Barbecue & Deli 8501 Reading Rd Reading 761-0200

Slatt’s Pub 4858 Cooper Rd Blue Ash 791-2223 • 791-1381 (fax)

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Apsara 4785 Lake Forest Dr Blue Ash 554-1040

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Local 127 127 W. 4th St Cincinnati 721-1345

Sugar n’ Spice 4381 Reading Rd Cincinnati 242-3521

Bella Luna Cafe 4632 Eastern Ave Cincinnati 871-5862

Marx Hot Bagels 9701 Kenwood Rd Blue Ash 891-5542

Sukhothai Thai Cuisine 8102 Market Place Ln Cincinnati 794-0057

Carlo & Johnny 9769 Montgomery Rd Cincinnati 936-8600

MEI Japanese Restaurant 8608 Market Place Ln Montgomery 891-6880

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OPINION

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Hate crime At a bus stop the other day a woman wearing a large button proclaiming “A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs Tefillin” looked me over and asked me if I thought women can be Orthodox rabbis.

When I politely answered no, she proceeded to stomp on my toes with her heavy boots and then tried to asphyxiate me with her purse-strap.

Just kidding. Never happened.

I’ve been on the receiving end of some sneers here and there but the attack described above didn’t take place.

What would have happened, though, had I taken my “account” to the media?

Surely I would have likely been asked if I could produce any witnesses to the alleged assault, any record of medical treatment for my injuries and trauma, any corroboration at all for my claim. And if I couldn’t, the press, understandably, would have wished me a good day and moved on.

Consider, then, what in fact transpired a few weeks ago when an Israeli woman, Noa Raz, claimed that she had been viciously attacked on a weekday morning in a public place, Beersheba’s Central Bus Station, by an Orthodox man who asked her if the marks on her arm were from leather straps of tefillin, the ritual item traditionally donned by observant Jewish men each morning.

When she responded in the affirmative, she told police when she decided to file a report the next day, the man screamed “women are an abomination” and “began to kick and strangle” her.

Ms. Raz, a social activist who is a director of a group called Israel Gay Youth and a member of the feminist group Women of the Wall, may have been telling the truth. There are certainly crazies in Israel, as elsewhere, and violent acts have been perpetrated on both sides of the haredi/feminist divide.

Still, considering the dearth of any corroboration, one might be forgiven for wondering if Ms. Raz’s account is entirely factual or perhaps exaggerated, maybe even fabricated.

Not that it makes any real difference. What is outrageous here is the reportage. No responsible journalist outside the Arab world and North Korea would ever dare report an unsupported allegation as fact. Yet the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s headline read “Woman attacked for tefillin imprint.” And although a careful reading of the report eventually yielded the fact that the sole source of the story was Ms. Raz herself, not only did the headline omit that fact but the story itself opened with the words: “A Jewish woman was attacked in Beersheba…” Eventually (almost three weeks later), the news service corrected the headline and first sentence on its Web site, but of course by then the original version

had long been published far and wide.

Over at the Forward’s Web site, a blog called “The Sisterhood” continues to report the allegation as fact, and includes the alleged victim’s urging of Jews to “keep supporting… the Conservative movement and the Reform movement, all the hard work we do to try to create a better society [in Israel].”

Whether that hard work includes making less than truthful claims is nothing anyone but Ms. Raz can really know. But, again, the veracity of the story, while an intriguing question, is not the main one. That would be the Jewish media’s attitude toward haredim.

The JTA story in its original form and Reform movement press releases reporting Ms. Raz’s claim as fact were reproduced as news stories in scores of Jewish newspapers and on countless Web sites and blogs, with predictable results. One social activist’s unsupported claim, in other words, was nonchalantly presented as truth to countless readers, fanning the flames of hatred for haredim far and wide.

Leave aside that the claimant has a record of pre-existing animus for Orthodox Jews and in her account referred to her alleged attacker as a “black” – a pejorative for haredim.

Leave aside her assertion that as he moved in close she could “smell him.” Note only the aroma of the reportage itself. Were a Journalism 101 student to present a less than disinterested individual’s claim as fact, a failing grade would quickly follow.

Precisely the grade deserved by many Jewish media here.

Their greatest sin, though, is not abject journalism; it’s assuming the worst about other Jews and fomenting hatred for them. “The disrespect shown by the haredim to women… is intolerable,” pronounced an ARZA press release, reproduced in temple newsletters nationwide. “We must… insist that the Government of Israel not be held hostage by those who claim to be the only ‘legitimate Jews’...”

And a Conservative rabbi, Gerald Skolnik, writing in the New York Jewish Week about how Ms. Raz “was physically assaulted” (“This really happened” he sagely adds), characterizes haredim as “feeling that violence against Jews who are different from them is… warranted.” The spiritual leader goes on to juxtapose a comment allegedly made by an unnamed haredi Jew to words of Adolf Hitler.

Recent days have shown us how malignant the world media can be when their biases show. But our own Jewish media, too, harbor ugly prejudices of their own.

Whether or not some unbalanced haredi in Beersheba is guilty of a hate crime remains an open question. But that the crime of spreading hatred was recently committed in the Jewish world seems painfully clear.

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

Dear Editor, Israel and the Flotilla From Hell There are two take away messages from the recent Israeli intercepton of the six boat flotilla that sought to penetrate the Israeli embargo on Hamas ruled Gaza.

First, Israel is at war with Hamas. Hamas has fired 7,000 rockets into Israel, has vowed not to recognize Israel, and more importantly is ideologically wed to creating a Muslim caliphate in all Palestine (which is why it cannot even make peace with the PLO).

Due to these facts Israel has an embargo on what goes into Gaza.

Any contraband that can contribute to the military buildup of Hamas cannot enter. This includes cement and steel that can be used to create reinforced bunkers for Hamas, as well as supplies that can be used for bombs. Humanitarian aide such as food, petrol, water, medicines, and hospital equipment all pass through Israeli checkpoints.

Indeed, no one is starving and mortality rates have not increased.

Although life may not be a picnic, this is the choice of none other than the Palestinians. By having open borders and allowing free passage will enable Gaza, through its sponsor Iran, to create a Western front against Israel. Israel regrettably agreed to enable the UN to monitor South Lebanon after it pulled out and after the last

Lebanese War. Under the UN’s watchful and impotent eyes Hezbollah is now the de facto ruler and has acquired Iranian missiles capable of reaching every population center in Israel. Israel will not nor should it allow itself to be triangulated by Iran on its northern and western borders, and further to the east by a nuclear and biological armed Iran.

The second take away message is that the flotilla from the beginning represented a win-win for Hamas and regardless of what Israel would have done, a loselose for Israel. If the boats went through it would represent a victory for Hamas and a new route for arms entry. If the boats did not go through it would be a Hamas PR victory. Indeed, if there was violence, all the better. It is important to note that of the six ships, five surrendered peacefully with some degree of civil disobedience.

These relatively small five ships were disabled by the Israelis. The sixth ship was an entirely different matter. In addition to its cache, there were about 600 passengers on this large Turkish ferry.

Disabling its rudder ran the risk of capsizing (Hamas would have loved). The passengers included members of the IHH and Intl Solidarity Movement, both having ties to terrorist and Communist agencies. Indeed, it was these individuals that spoiled the party.

They would not allow Israelis to board, throwing projectiles and stun grenades on the Israeli boats

below. With helicopters hovering and tethers being dropped to enable Israeli commandos to board the ship, these radicals attempted to tie the tethers to the ship to destabilize and destroy the helicopters. When Israelis did manage to board the ship (carrying paintball guns and backup guns) they were immediately assaulted with bullet proof vested radicals hailing pipes, knives, guns, and slingshots (the pipes had been cut off the boat railings with diamond saws). One Israeli was dragged unconscious to a lower level and one was thrown overboard. Under this life-threatening situation the Israelis were forced into violent retaliation that left nine people dead. What were the alternatives?

Could the Israelis have used tear gas? In close quarters, the canisters could easily have killed people. There was another alternative. President Obama could have intervened before this affair and demanded that the Turkish government not allow the ship to proceed. He could have demanded that if Turkey wanted U.S. assistance for EU entry, it act as a responsible EU member. It is now more clear than ever that with an entrenched Islamist party in control of the government, Turkey is looking to establish closer ties with the East than with the West.

Sadly, after this affair, PM Netanyahu asked Obama to veto any Security Council resolution LETTERS on page 22

T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: KORACH (BAMIDBAR 16:1—18:32) 1. Did Korach make peace with Moshe? a.) Yes b.) No 2. Was On the son of Pelet swallowed up in the opening of the earth? a.) Yes b.) No 3. What was Dathan & Aviram's complaint? a.) The manna was not enough b.) They wanted to be the High Priest c.) They were still stuck in the desert d.) They wanted to return to Egypt a leader of the nation. Rashi 3. C 16:13,14 According to several commentators the story of Korach happens after the story of the Spies. Dathan and Aviram complained that they were doomed to die in the desert after the incident of the Spies. Rashi 4. B 16:30 5. B 17:7

by Rabbi Avi Shafran Contributing Columnist

4. Moshe said he would prove his position by... a.) Proving Korach's position was unsound and illogical b.) Hashem would cause Korach to die in an new way unseen as of yet c.) The sun stood still d.) Winning over Korach's supporters 5. Was Korach's rebellion followed by quiet in the camp? a.) Yes b.) No ANSWERS 1. B Chapter 16 Korach foresaw the greatness that would come out from him (the prophet Samuel and and other prophets). Therefore he felt he would survive the ordeal with Moshe. Rashi 2. B 16:1 On is only mentioned once in the story. He abandoned Korach's cause at the last moment. His wife reasoned with him that whoever won he would still not be

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Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

JEWISH LIFE

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

17

Sedra of the Week

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARASHAT KORAH

“And Korah, the son of Yitzhar, the son of Kehat, the son of Levi took Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eliav… and they rose up in confrontation before Moses…”

(Numbers 16:1, 2).

Why didn’t the Israelites rise up against the rebels who dared defy Moses, the selfless man of Gd who gave up a luxurious and carefree life as Prince of Egypt in order to liberate a slave people from tyranny?

Reading between the lines of this amazing story, we discern two distinct ideological positions and political platforms, which between them represented the majority of Hebrews. Both these positions were antithetical to everything that Moses stood for and the adumbrations of the Korah Wars are still to be heard today, thousands of years later, festering at the very heart of Israeli society.

Before we analyze the exact nature of Korah’s rebellion, two factors should be kept in mind.

First, the commandment to wear ritual fringes on four-cornered garments (tzitzit), which closed last week’s portion of Shelah, serves as an excellent introduction to and eventual rebuttal of the movements that Korah, and Datan and Aviram, represent.

Secondly, Moses’ announcement that the entire generation, with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, was condemned to die in the desert (Numbers 14:26-39) made the Hebrews ripe for rebellion.

Moses attempts to deal with Korah, and then with Datan and Aviram separately. This is not only to “divide and conquer,” but rather the Torah’s way to emphasize how they represent different approaches in their opposition, different “political parties” as it were.

Korah, called by the Kotzker Rebbe “the holy grandfather,” uses the democratic argument of “equality in holiness” against Moses and Aaron: “It has been enough leadership for you, all the people in the witness-community are holy with the Lord in their midst. Why must you set yourselves up to be on a higher plane than the congregation of the Lord?” (Numbers 16:3) And if Korah sees no differences in holiness between different people, and rejects the unique status of Aaron and his sons as Kohanim, it stands to reason that he would also deny any distinction in holiness between different lands, refusing to

recognize the special sanctity of the Land of Israel. After all, the Revelation at Sinai took place in the desert, outside the geographic boundaries of the land of Israel. If G-d is within all of us and the entire nation heard the Revelation — then the Lord of the cosmos is certainly within the desert, the very place where that Revelation took place.

Korah’s position rejects the Aaronic priesthood as well as the idea that the entire “desert-generation” must be punished for their refusal to conquer the Land of Israel. From Korah’s point of view, these are false claims instituted by Moses rather than reflections of the true will and word of G-d (see Moses’ defense of himself: 16:28).

Moreover, Korah justifies the Israelites’ desire to remain in the desert precisely because of the desert’s holiness, an ideal and idyllic setting for living their lives. For Korah and his sympathizers, the desert is not the place of punishment, but a perfect and perennial Kollel institute of higher learning.

G-d is their Rosh Yeshiva, communicating the “shiur” material to Moses. G-d also provides the daily portions of manna sufficient for their nutritional needs, He determines when the camp will travel and protects the people from the physical elements with His special “clouds of glory.”

Why leave this ethereal, spiritual haven for the wars, political arguments, economic crises and social challenges necessary to establish a nation state? For reasons of “frumkeit” (religiosity) alone, Korah argues that the Israelites are better off remaining in the desertKollel, freed from all decisionmaking and responsibility.

Moses is willing to call Korah’s bluff. He instructs him to take his entire party of 250 men the next day and to provide each of them with a fire-pan and incense for a special “priestly” offering to see whose offering would be acceptable to Gd. The Divine decision was not long in coming: “A fire came down from G-d and it consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense” including Korah himself! (16:25, Ibn Ezra ad loc) Even if Korah’s quest for “desert- Kollel sanctity” had been sincere, it did not reflect G-d’s mission for Israel. G-d wants us to establish a nation-state and to take responsibility to perfect an imperfect world, with all of the challenges that entails. This is the message of the ritual fringes: the white strings represent the white wool of the sheep, the animalistic aspect of our

NUMBERS 16:1 – 18:32

lives and our world. These must be sanctified by the sky-blue color of t’chelet, the symbol of the Divine seen by the elders at the time of the Revelation at Sinai (Exodus 24:10).

When we gaze upon the ritual fringes, we must remember our true mission: to enter history, to risk impurity by taking up the challenges of the real world, and to assume our responsibility to become a “sacred nation and kingdom of Priest-Teachers” to the world (Exodus 19:6 S’forno ad loc).

Datan and Aviram had a different political agenda. They refused to attend a meeting with the greatest prophet and the most successful liberator in history, claiming: “Isn’t it enough that you brought us out of Egypt, a land flowing with milk and honey only to kill us off in the desert? With what right do you rule, yes rule, over us?!” (Numbers 16:13) The Midrash identifies them with the old enemies of Moses from the beginning of the Book of Exodus, the “fighting Israelites” who questioned Moses’ right to kill the Egyptian taskmaster. They never wanted to leave Egypt in the first place, but unlike Korah, the last thing they want is to remain behind in the desert. They hanker after the “flesh pots” of Egypt.

They would love to assimilate into the “Big Apple.” They remember the “… fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic” of Egypt and they believe that this desert fiasco justifies their earlier opposition. They are certain that if they could only return to Egypt and forget their Biblical traditions and values; they would be accepted as Egyptians and benefit from the material advantages of the most powerful country in the world.

They too are punished by G-d, who causes the earth for which their materialistic spirits yearned so mightily, to swallow them up alive (Numbers 16:35 Ibn Ezra ad loc).

Because of their passion for physical pleasures, they never learn to look properly upon the t’chelet of the ritual fringes. They saw neither the royal blue of their majestic ancestry – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, passionate followers of G-d and lovers of the Land of Israel— nor the sapphire blue of the Divine presence in the world summoning us to His service.

Israel – the modern state–has yet to learn the lessons.

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

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

Kiddush follows Shabbat Morning Services

RABBI HANAN BALK & ASSISTANT RABBI STUART LAVENDA

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3100 LONGMEADOW LANE • CINCINNATI, OH 45236 791-1330 • www.templesholom.net Richard Shapiro, Interim Rabbi Marcy Ziek, President Gerry H. Walter, Rabbi Emeritus June 11 6:00 pm Shabbat Nosh 6:30 pm Shabbat service to honor Emily Dunn and Scott Segal

June 18 6:00 pm Shabbat Nosh 6:30 pm Shabbat Evening Service to honor Rabbi Rick and Lynn Shapiro

June 12 10:30 am Shabbat Morning Service

June 19 10:30 am Shabbat Morning Service

Mazel Tov To: Sam and Rita Postolski on the marriage of their daughter Lauren to Zach Cane

18

JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

Jewz in the Newz

by Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist TONY TIME The Tony awards, for excellence in the Broadway theater, are being presented live on TV on Sunday, June 13 (CBS, 8PM).

LIEV SCHREIBER, 42, is nominated for best leading actor in a play (a revival of ARTHUR MILLER’s “A View from the Bridge”). Schreiber’s co-stars in “Bridge,” SCARLETT JOHANSSON, 25, and JESSICA HECHT, 44, vie for the Tony for best featured actress in a play.

Also nominated is LINDA LAVIN, 72, for best leading actress in a play (a revival of “Collected Stories,” written by DONALD MARGULIES).

Lavin plays a feisty Jewish writer who gradually forms almost a mother-daughter bond with her young assistant. The relationship ends on a sour note when the assistant appropriates the writer’s long-ago romance with poet DELMORE SCHWARZ as the basis of her own novel.

(Donald Margulies’ new play, “Time Stands Still,” about the Iraq war, is Tony-nominated for best original play.)

Nominated for best original score is the musical “Memphis.” It centers on the romance between a white DJ and a black singer in 1950s Memphis.

DAVID BRYAN, 48, the keyboardist for the rock band Bon Jovi, wrote the show’s music and is up for a Tony.

A lifelong member of a New Jersey synagogue, he often blows the shofar on the High Holidays.

MARIAN SELDES, who is still working at 81, will receive a lifetime achievement Tony. An aristocratic looking woman, Seldes is the daughter of a Jewish father and a WASP mother.

Mostly a top stage actress, she has appeared in a handful of films (she played the college president in “Mona Lisa Smile” and a Julliard professor in “August Rush”). Her first husband, and the father of her only child, was Jewish. Her second husband was famous writer GARSON KANIN, whom she wed in 1990.

She’s his widow.

LIVES CAREFULLY EXAMINED Director/screenwriter NICOLE HOLOFCENER’s new film “Please Give” opens in Cincinnati on Friday, June18. This film, like her prior flicks (“Friends with Money,” “Walking and Talking,” and “Lovely and Amazing”), focuses on the lives of a group of fairly ordinary women.

The delights of Holofcener’s

movies are their well-written scenes, realistic dialogue, and acutely draw characters. She doesn’t feel the need to write a film story which neatly ties-up everything in a thematic/emotional package.

In “Please,” Kate (Catherine Keener) is married to Alex (Oliver Platt). They have a teenage daughter and think of themselves as “nice liberals.” Kate and Alex buy the apartment next door in order to expand their Manhattan apartment. The apartment purchase has a catch — they cannot occupy the unit until Audra (Ann Guilbert), the cranky old lady living in it, dies. Audra has two granddaughters: Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), a sweet young woman who takes care of Audra, and the highly cynical Mary (AMANDA PEET, 38).

Complications ensue when the two families, including the teenage daughter, interact and everybody’s feelings about Audra are exposed.

OUTDOOR AND INDOOR SPORTS The month-long Soccer World Cup tournament begins in South Africa this Friday. The United States National Team, ranked 14th in the world, is one of 32 countries that played well enough in preliminary rounds to make it to the Cup. The United States is in a group of four countries that play their first three games against each other.

The two teams in the group that have the most points after the three games advance to the next round (a team gets three points for a win; one point for a tie). The U.S. plays #9 ranked England in its first match on June 12 (ABC, 2PM). It plays Slovenia on June 18 (ESPN, 9:30 AM), and Algeria on June 23 (ESPN, 9:30AM).

The American squad includes JONATHAN BORNSTEIN, 25, a defender, and BENNY FEILHABER, 25, a mid-fielder.

“Real Housewife of New York” BETHENNY FRANKEL, 39, has pulled off a reality show “triple crown,” which might have pleased her late father, ROBERT FRANKEL, a famous trainer of race horses. On March 28, she wed her boyfriend of a year, businessman Jason Poppy (I think he is Jewish); on May 8, she gave birth to their daughter; and, tonight, June 10, her new spin-off show, “Bethenny Getting Married?” premieres on Bravo at 10PM. The first show features footage of her nuptials, which one source described as a “traditional Jewish wedding” (although lobster was served). Subsequent episodes will be about her family life with her husband and child.

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FROM THE PAGES 100 Years Ago Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Ransohoff and their daughter sail July 9 for a trip abroad. They will tour England and Germany and will see the Passion Play before returning home.

Miss Ida, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Israel Auer, was united in marriage to Mr. Jack H. Le Montree, Wednesday evening June 8, at 6 p.m., in the parlors of the Alms Hotel. Rabbi Mielziner officiated.

On Wednesday evening, June

8th, Miss Alma, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. Miller, of 1354 Burdette Avenue, Walnut Hills, and Dr. Morris Gruenbaum were united in marriage, Dr. Grossmann officiating.

They will be at home after July 1st, at 2815 Highland Avenue, Mt. Auburn.

Sir Moses Ezekiel, the sculptor, is the guest of his brother at his home on Forest and Wilson Avenues, Avondale. Mr. Ezekiel’s stay is

being made very pleasant by his friends. Aside from the rest and recreation from his labors at Rome he is here to attend the unveiling of his statues of Stonewall Jackson at Charleston, W.V., and that of Jefferson at the University of Virginia. He will also attend the ceremonies at the monument for the confederate prisoners who died at Johnson’s Island, in Lake Erie. — June 9, 1910

75 Years Ago Ghresh Youkilis passed away Thursday, May 30th, at his residence 821 Mann Place, at the age of 69. He was born in Romania and came to Cincinnati with his family six years ago. Funeral services were at the Weil Funeral Home, Friday, May 31st, at 2:30. Rabbi Feinberg and Cantor Emil Rosen officiated.

He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Ida Youkilis; eight sons, Morris, Paul, Joseph, Jack, Ben, Alvin, Rudolph and Victor; three-

daughters, Mrs. Ester Shore, Misses Sonja and Jean Youkilis; and eight grandchildren.

Messrs. Emil and Philip Goldsmith, of the P. Goldsmith Sons Col., returned this week from Pittsburgh, where Miss Mildred (Babe) Didrikson, famous allAmerican Women’s track athlete, played in the Oakmont National Women’s Open Tournament. Miss Didrikson has been the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Emil Goldsmith while in

Cincinnati this week, her visit here being for the purpose of giving example and explanation to women golfers for health standards in playing golf.

Miss Martha Alice Fechheimer, a daughter of Mrs. Marcus Fechheimer, is recovering from an appendicitis operation at Jewish Hospital.

Miss Flora Lehman has moved to the Flora Villa Annex. — June 13, 1935

50 Years Ago Mrs. Robert E. Gugenheim was elected president of the Auxiliary of Jewish Hospital at the 14th annual luncheon meeting Friday, June 3, at Losantiville Country Club.

Others elected are: Mrs. B. H. Schaeffer, first vice president; Mrs. James S. Auer, second vice president; Mrs. Ben Moskowitz, third vice president; Mrs. Alan Rosenberg, fourth vice president; Mrs. Joseph S. Stern, Jr., recording secretary; Mrs. Robert A.

Bowman, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Lewis A. Bernard, financial secretary; Mrs. Bernard Friedman, assistant secretary; Mrs. Frederic N. Silverman, treasurer; Mrs. Berton Rosenberg, assistant treasurer; Mrs J. Louis Warm, auditor.

Albert J. Mayer, Jr., passed away Saturday, June 4, at Jewish Hospital. His age was 54. His home was at 1020 Springfield Pike, Wyoming.

He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Angel Bramkamp Mayer;

their daughter, Mrs. Hamid Khosrobi, Washington, D.C.; their son, Albert III, a student at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.; a brother, Carl; and a granddaughter.

Miss Nancy C. Lauer and Mr. Morris G. Oscherwitz were married Saturday eveing, June 4, at a candlelight ceremony in the garden of the home of the bride’s mother, Mrs. George Sturm.

The bridegroom is a son of Mr. and Mrs. William Oscherwitz.

— June 9, 1960

25 Years Ago Rabbi Benjamin A. Kamin, formerly of Cincinnati, has been appointed associate rabbi of The Temple Tifereth Israel in Cleveland.

Rabbi Kamin has served as North American director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism in New York City since 1982.

He has previously served congregations in Toronto and Long Island. He is married to Cathy (Rosen), formerly of Columbus.

Their two daughters are Sari and Debra.

United Order True Sisters

Sycamore #60 installation luncheon took place recently at Losantiville Country Club.

Officers installed were: president, Sue Rae Fleishcer; vice president, fundraising, Michelle Wiener; vice president, philanthropy, Sherry Kaplan; vice president, programming, Marlene Wolf; vice president, interest groups, Marcy Peerless; vice president, membership, Colleen Korelitz; recording secretary, Barb Pordy; corresponding secretary, Marlene Swillinger; treasurer, Marlin Marshall; finan-

cial secretary, Linda Sacks; monitor, Lynn Warm.

William Goldberg of 6467 Elbrook Avenue passed away May 30.

He is survived by his wife, Frieda; a daughter, Mrs. William (Barbara) Klein; a son, Robert Goldberg of Columbus; a sister, Mrs. Rubin (Sylvia) Slovin; two brothers, Fred and A. Allan Goldberg; and three grandchildren, Brandon Goldberg of Columbus and Marc and Rebecca Klein of Cincinnati. — June 6, 1985

10 Years Ago President Bill Clinton has announced his appointment of Cincinnati attorney Stanley M. Chesley to a second five-year term on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. The Council operates The Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and conducts an annual observance of Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust.

“It’s quite an honor,” said Mr.

Chesley, “and I’m greatly pleased.

The Museum has been a great success and has exposed millions of people to understanding the Holocaust.”

Joy Silverman Tessel, 65, passed away on May 27, 2000.

Mrs. Tessel was born in Cincinnati.

She is survived by her husband, Edwin Tessel of Cincinnati; and her children: Kenny Tessel of Los

Angeles, Ca.; Karen and Charlie Blum of Chicago, Ill.; Marc and Shelly Tessel of Cincinnati, O.; and Bobby and Terza Tessel of Los Angeles, Ca. Mrs. Tessel was the grandmother of Lucie Max Tessel of Cincinnati. Mrs. Tessel is also survived by two sisters: Beverly Lipman and Lois Silverman, both of Cincinnati, as well as extended family. — June 8, 2000

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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 Isaac M. Wise Temple (513) 793-2556 • wisetemple.org Isaac Nathan Congregation (513) 841-9005 Kehilas B’nai Israel (513) 761-0769 Northern Hills Synagogue (513) 931-6038 • nhs-cba.org Rockdale Temple (513) 891-9900 • rockdaletemple.org Temple Beth Shalom (513) 422-8313 • tbsohio.org Temple Sholom (513) 791-1330 • templesholom.net The Valley Temple (513) 761-3555 • valleytemple.com

HOME IMPROVEMENT

RICHEY CONSTRUCTION Carpentry, Remodeling Repairs, Gutters, Siding, Windows, Roofing, Decks, Tile, Drywall, Painting, Kitchen, Baths

ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati-hadassah.org Jewish National Fund (513) 794-1300 • jnf.org NA’AMAT (513) 984-3805 • naamat.org National Council of Jewish Women (513) 891-9583 • ncjw.org State of Israel Bonds (513) 793-4440 • israelbonds.com Women’s American ORT (513) 985-1512 • ortamerica.org.org

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EDUCATION Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Community Kollel (513) 631-1118 • kollel.shul.net Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Reform Jewish High School (513) 469-6406 • crjhs.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org

19

CEDAR from page 1 ABC News, AP, and JTA were also in attendance and provided coverage. In fact, the oldest participant, Helen Kaplan, who was 96 at the time, was featured both in The Jerusalem Post photo and on ABC World News Tonight.

Overall, the Mission received media placement in close to 100 venues, across Israel, the United States, and even in other countries including Taiwan.

The rest of the ten day Mission was also filled with activity including a climb of Masada, floating in the Dead Sea, visiting the Western Wall and Western AWARD from page 1 ports such as Aruba, Curacao, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Croix, Puerto Rico and Grand Turk.

In judging the competing articles in the contest, the judge said: “The series was very comprehensive and very well written. I very much enjoyed Janet Steinberg’s work.”

Steinberg has won a total of 38 national travel-writing awards.

Those include: 3 Lowell Thomas Awards; 14 Society of American TURKEY from page 9 “The AKP’s project is positioning Turkey,” said Anat LapidotFirilla, a senior research fellow at Jerusalem’s Van Leer Institute. “It’s a project whose goal is to set up Turkey as an international player, on the one hand, and to get recognition of Turkey as a moderate, market-friendly leader in the Muslim world and be treated as such in international bodies.”

Wall tunnels, touring the caves at Rosh Hanikra and visiting our sister city Netanya. Cedar Village residents also made blankets for the orphanage in Netanya and brought more than 60 blankets, made with love, to the children.

“It is a great honor to receive this recognition but the greatest honor, and privilege, was to be a part of this incredible achievement.

Being a part of the B’nai Mitzvah Mission was transformative for staff and residents alike and we appreciate the help of so many who believed in our goal and helped make it possible,” Cedar Village CEO/president Carol Silver Elliot said of the award.

Travel Writers Awards; 18 Mark Twain Awards; State of Ohio’s Buckeye Travel Award; Henry E. Bradshaw Best of Show Award; and the Cipriani Best Overall Writer of the Year Award.

Janet Steinberg has explored all seven continents, visited 130 countries, and sailed on 120 cruises. A Travel Consultant with The Travel Authority (an American Express Representative), Janet Steinberg resides in Cincinnati but calls the world her home.

Sami Kohen, a veteran Turkish political analyst and columnist who writes for the Milliyet daily, says Turkey’s hand in the region is strengthened now.

“There is now more reason for Turkey to take a more active part in the events of the Middle East, since it has suffered personally from this attack,” Kohen said. “Now it can justify its anti-Israeli positions, which get a good deal of sympathy in the Arab and Islamic world.”

20

TRAVEL

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Finnish fun: Talking trash bins and birch bead rams Wandering Jew

by Janet Steinberg Travel Editor PART 4 OF A SERIES Looks can be deceiving. Finns that you meet on a visit to Helsinki might appear to be reserved but, take it from me, they like to have fun. Finland has a reputation for its rather wacky events. Wife carrying contests, mobile phone throwing competitions, mosquito swatting events, table drumming, and team berry picking, are just a few of the most distinguishing ones.

This past summer, Helsinki created a wacky, welcoming “buzz” with its talking trash bins. Not only will the trash bins introduce you to the Finnish language, they will also play a musical thank you when you deposit your trash in them. Talking trash bins could be found near four of the most visited attractions in Helsinki: Sibelius Monument, Temppeliaukio Church, Senate Square, and the Esplanade. Let’s begin with a look at those four popular attractions: Eila Hiltunen’s Sibelius Monument, honoring Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, was unveiled in 1967. It is composed of 527 silver steel pipes. A bust of the composer sits on a nearby wall. To some viewers, it is reminiscent of organ pipes and Sibelius’s beloved birch trees. To others, its silvery pipes “reflect the change of season and light, echoing birds’ song, sighing in the sea breeze and resonating furiously during a storm.” Located in Sibelius Park, the monument site is a place for strolling, resting on

nearby benches, or posing for pictures beneath the tubes.

Temppeliaukio Church (“The Rock Church”). This architectural gem was carved from solid Finnish granite and was completed in 1969.

The architects chose a rocky outcrop rising about 40 feet above street level, and blasted out the walls from the inside. A copper dome, the only part of the structure that is visible from the street, looks as if a flying saucer has landed in the midst of a quiet residential neighborhood. The interior ceiling of the dome, woven of copper strips, is connected to the raw rock wall by 180 vertical windows. The Rock Church is a popular venue for concerts.

The heart of Helsinki beats around Senate Square with its Government Palace, National Library of Finland, main building of the University of Helsinki, and the elegant Lutheran Cathedral.

The Hebrew name for God is chiseled over the western entrance, and on the eastern wall, of the Cathedral.

The buildings were designed by Carl Ludwig Engel between 1822 and 1852. Nearby is the colorful Market Square.

Pohjoisesplanadi is translated into the easily pronounceable Esplanade or Espa. This tree-lined boulevard stretches from the colorful Market Square (with its famous bronze Havis Amanda Fountain) to the Swedish Theater on Mannerheimintie Street. This showcase of Finnish design serves as a promenade and a place to relax.

Finnish Birch Bead Rams reside on the Esplanade on the shelves of the Aarikka shop.

Finland is a land with millions of forests, with billions of trees. In Finland they carve the wood with their hands and create a form with original Finnish spirit. That form is said to sing the song of Finnish wood design. In Finland, they call that form Aarikka. For over 40 years, Aarikka has done fascinating things with wood. The delicious smell of Finnish pine and birch

Unique Finnish Birch Bead Rams graze on the shelves of the Aarikka shop.

The spectacular steel Sibelius Monument is located in Sibelius Park.

assaults the senses of shoppers as they enter the shop renowned for wooden rams...adorable creatures covered with Finnish pine balls.

The potpourri of shops on the Esplanade assures you of fine merchandise known for its elegant simplicity, functionality and quality.

Finnish design reflects the characteristics of its people. Like the Finns themselves, their products reveal a closeness to nature. Check out the following shops: Marimekko: A way of dressing…timelessly unique, simple and elegant. Marimekko, which means ‘Mary’s simple dress’, is for people who associate quality of design with quality of life.

Founded in 1951, it pioneered for—and bore the banner of—Finnish design all over the world. iittala: Yes, iittala is spelled with a lower case ‘i’. A small white ‘i’, in a tiny red dot, marks the sign of faultless glassware designed by renowned Finnish designers such as Tapio Wirkkala and Alvar Aalto.

Alvar Aalto’s 1936 creation of his now famous Savoy Vase was the beginning of what has become known as “original Finnish glass design.” Today, that same Aalto vase, which can be seen in museums around the world, is still one of the most characteristic designs of iittala glasswork.

Designers Gallery: The merchandise in this shop represents the work of some of Finland’s most renowned designers. My own personal favorite is Tarja Niskanen who has been designing furs, hats and garments over the past three decades. I try not to ever leave Helsinki without a Tarja Niskanen label on something in

my shopping bag. When you’ve shopped ‘til you’ve dropped, drop yourself at Salutorget for lunch.

Start with some Toast Skagen or Tarragon Carrot soup. If you are adventurous, you can go for Roasted Fillet of Reindeer.

Time to get back to touring!

Make a brief stop at the Holocaust Memorial in Observatory Park.

This simple memorial is in honor of eight Jewish refugees extradited to Germany in 1942. At the unveiling ceremony on November 6, 2000, Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen apologized to the Jewish community on behalf of the Government and the Finnish people.

The Helsinki Synagogue, built in 1906, is registered as a National Heritage site. The architect gave a Moorish flavor to the facade, but a modernist renovation of the interior in 1961 had covered the Jugendstil motives in white paint. It was restored to its original stage by 2006. According to the former Cantor Andre Zweig (retired 2009), the Helsinki Synagogue has the only Jewish choir in all of Scandinavia.

In the Helsinki Hietaniemi Cemetery, the first graves date back to 1815. Finnish Jewish history effectively began in the beginning of the 19th century when Jewish soldiers, serving in the Russian Army, were permitted to stay in Finland after discharge. To support themselves, they worked mainly as dealers in second-hand clothes. Jews were forbidden to attend fairs or perform activities outside their town of residence.

The struggle for equal rights for Jews was taken up in 1872. By the end of the 1880s there were about

1,000 Jewish residents in Finland. It was not until 1917, when Finland became independent, that the Jews received civil rights.

Between the two world wars the Jewish population increased to about 2,000. After the wars the integration of the Jewish population into Finnish society was completed.

In 1979, Ben Zyskowicz was the first Finnish Jew to be elected a Member of Parliament. The majority of Finland’s Jews live in Helsinki.

The 1919 granite Railway Station, considered the most important work of Eliel Saarinen, is one of the best known symbols of Helsinki. Its style represents the transition from National Romanticism to Functionalism.

The 1990s saw the addition of two architectural gems in Helsinki.

Kiasma, the contemporary art museum, aims at expanding and exploring an understanding of contemporary art. The Finnish National Opera offers a modern setting for opera and ballet. It is linked with the City Theatre and Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia Hall.

In front of the Olympic Stadium, a most significant example of Finnish functionalism, is a statue of Paavo Nurmi. Nurmi was Finland’s most successful Olympic runner.

In this Land of Light and Water, Helsinki lies very close to 60° North Latitude. This explains its abundance of light in summer months and the fact that around June 22, the night lasts about 1 hour 20 minutes.

Little wonder it is known as the lovely “White City of the North.”

(Janet Steinberg is an awardwinning travel writer.)

AUTOS

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010

21

Supercharged luxury The 2010, Audi A6 comes with a more powerful engine, an upgraded navigation system, and the latest in electronic controls. It compares well — and competes well — with similar models from other manufacturers.

As mentioned, the power plant in the 2010 model gains 10 extra horsepower, due to the Audi “valvelift” system, which improves fuel economy and acceleration. Two sport packages have been added, as well as updated MMI electronics and an easier-touse navigation system.

The exterior of the A6 is sleek and offers a unique look in the class. The interior features attractive, high-quality materials in pleasing Earth tones. The base 3.2 model comes at a reasonable price and offers good gas mileage.

The 2010 Audi A6 comes in sedan and wagon (Avant) body styles. The sedan is available in three trim levels, corresponding to the engine specification: 3.2 Premium, 3.0T Premium and 4.2 Prestige. The Avant is available in the 3.0T Premium.

Standard features on the 3.2 Premium include: 17-inch alloy wheels, a sunroof, front and rear foglights, automatic wipers, a tiltand-telescoping steering wheel, leather upholstery, eight-way power front seats and power lumbar adjustment Electronics include the MMI electronics interface, Bluetooth and a 10-speaker stereo with six-CD changer, satellite radio and iPod interface. With the 3.0 T Premium, the driver also gets a supercharged V6, all-wheel drive and heated front seats. The Avant model adds roof rails and a power tailgate.

Several option packages are also available. The Premium Plus package adds 18-inch wheels, automatic self-leveling xenon headlights, LED running lights, auto-dimming and heated exterior mirrors, driver memory functions, the upgraded third-generation MMI electronics interface and a hard-drive-based navigation system with voice recognition and real-time traffic updates.

With the 3.0T Prestige package, the driver gets different 18inch wheels, automatic transmission paddle shifters, adaptive headlights, keyless ignition/entry, a power tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel, a rearview camera and a 13-speaker Bose surroundsound stereo.

At the top of the line, the A6 4.2 Prestige adds a V8 engine, headlight washers and the S line exterior styling package.

The following options are available on all models: The Cold Weather package with heated rear seats, a heated steering wheel and heated front seats on the 3.2; the

2010 Audi A6

18-inch Sport package adds a sport-tuned suspension and a three-spoke sport steering wheel.

The Audi A6 3.2 features a 3.2liter V6 that produces 265 hp and 243 pound-feet of torque. Frontwheel drive and a continuously variable transmission (CVT) are standard. EPA estimates for this model are 18 mpg city/28 mpg highway, with a combined rating of 22 mpg.

The 3.0T sedan and Avant are equipped with a supercharged 3.0liter V6 that produces 300 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque. A six-speed automatic and Quattro all-wheel drive are standard. This model goes from from zero to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and has EPA mileage estimates of 18/26/21.

The 4.2 Prestige features a 4.2liter V8 that produces 350 hp and 325 lb-ft of torque, with a sixspeed automatic and Quattro standard. Estimated fuel economy is 16/23/18.

All 2010 Audi A6 models come with antilock disc brakes, stability control, front-seat side airbags and full-length side curtain airbags.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the A6 as “good” (the highest possible rating) for frontal-offset and sideimpact protection.

The 2010 Audi A6 offers an attractive dash layout with quality materials and impressive fit and finish. All A6 models come with the Multi Media Interface (MMI) vehicle management system. The MMI controls entertainment, communication and navigation functions via an LCD screen mounted on the dash and controls on the center console.

The A6 sedan offers a 16cubic-foot trunk. Storage space in the Avant wagon is a spacious 34 cubic feet behind the rear seats, expanding to 59 cubic feet when the seats are folded down.

The 2010 Audi A6 has an MSRP starting at $45,200.

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OBITUARIES

DEATH NOTICES COLE, Edward H., age 86, died on June 2, 2010; 20 Sivan, 5770.

SPRITZ, Jean, age 83, died on June 3, 2010; 21 Sivan, 5770.

ZUBER, Bette R., age 85, died on June 3, 2010; 21 Sivan, 5770.

GELLER, Lillian, age 80, died on June 4, 2010; 22 Sivan, 5770.

BARRON, Norman, age 74, died on June 5, 2010; 23 Sivan, 5770.

GRAFF, Jean, age 103, died on June 6, 2010; 24 Sivan, 5770.

COMMANDER from page 1 ceremonies Sunday at Isaac M. Wise Temple.

LETTERS from page 16 against Israel. Obama refused.

Despite Obama’s failure and continued overtures to a violent Muslim world, it is comforting that there are Congressmen (D and R) who see the fraud and stand with Israel (see AIPAC Web site for names).

What happens next? If you are a supporter of J Street you are thrilled with this outcome and will continue to demand the embargo end and just maybe, have us trust the UN to handle contraband as well as they are doing in South Lebanon (yeah, right!). Or, we can hope that the “Peace Process” will handle this. But to be clear,

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Shachnow retired from the Special Forces after 32 years, having served two tours in Vietnam and earning two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars with V for Valor. He also is the recipient of numerous other awards and honors, including a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster.

The major general’s autobiography, “Hope and Honor,” is the stuff of movies, including dramas that include being smuggled out of a Kovno, Lithuanian concentration camp under a coat; the heroism of the Christian family who hid him after his escape; and falling in love and marrying a 17year-old Catholic girl who has been his wife for 55 years.

“To me, it is very difficult to separate Israel from Jewishness,” he explained in an interview.

“When Israel is hurting, I would like to see every Jew also in pain.

That doesn’t stop you from being

an American. My number one loyalty is to the United States.”

He urged American Jews to give Israel the benefit of the doubt in regard to the recent Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, which was trying to breach the country’s blockade.

And he warned to be vigilant in responding to anti-semitic threats abroad, recalling the 1930s when troubling signs from Europe were not taken seriously.

Jews here “don’t have to deal with fear,” because of assimilation, he explained, while Israel is “fighting for its survival.” For example, in his U.S. military career, he said he experienced no anti-semitism.

Events can happen so quickly, he said, recalling his Holocaust experience. The city of Kovno where he lived had a population of 160,000 with 40,000 Jews, all living harmoniously with a “rich cul-

tural life,” he said. “No one would have dreamed how everything would turn out.”

However, within 30 days of the Nazi occupation, some 10,000 Jews were murdered and those who remained were forced to wear a Star of David front and back and had to walk in the street gutters.

Further, the murder of a Jew was not prosecuted and Jews were forbidden to have weapons without being told what constituted a weapon, such as a simple knife.

Held in a concentration camp in Kovno at age 9, he and his parents were among only 2,000 Jews from the city to survive. After the war they eventually found their way to Salem, Mass.

Shachnow also commented on other controversies: • Gays in the military— “It’s inevitable,” he said, and should happen. When African Americans and women were integrated into

the military it was feared that “the sky was going to fall and nothing happened.” Gay men and women are serving now—it’s not like we’re going to open up the gates.”

• Fighting two wars: He said the wars in Afganistan and Iraq are seriously depleting the United States’ military readiness with “no light in the tunnel.”

• Turkey is moving closer to Islamic identification, not necessarily because of Israel, but because the European Union is pushing the country in that direction.

• There is a concern about talented, successful Israelis leaving the country and this potential drain needs to be addressed.

Others honored with honorary doctorate degrees at HUC-JIR’s graduation were Presiding Prelate Bishop E. Lynn Brown, author Judy Chicago and MIT Professor Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus.

Hamas is not a party to any peace process and is ideologically driven to destroy Israel (as is its patron Iran). Against all norms of human behavior, Hamas will not allow the Intl Red Cross to visit the captured Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

Hamas is closing down NGOs and UN schools that teach girls and promote Western education.

Recall, there was no peace process until the PLO was willing to recognize Israel. How about Egypt opening its borders and taking over Gaza jurisdiction?

Dear Editor,

incendiary remarks on Israel by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez declared in a speech broadcast live on Venezuelan national television: “Israel finances the Venezuelan opposition, the counter-revolution. There are groups, even Israeli terrorists, the Mossad, that are after me, trying to kill me.” He accused Israel of committing “a massacre” against “a group of pacifists that were taking a humanitarian load to the Palestinian people who are in Gaza surrounded from every side by Israel. They don’t even allow them water!”

Chavez’s accusations are dangerous. He obviously doesn’t know that Egypt also borders Gaza, and that Israel consistently has delivered to the people of Gaza basic humanitarian aid, including food, clothing and medicine Chavez frequently demonizes Israel. More than a year ago, Venezuela expelled Israel’s ambassador and severed diplomatic relations.

At the same time, Chavez has developed increasingly close ties with Iran, which funds Hamas and other Middle East terror organizations that violently oppose any efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.

President Chavez’s remarks also raise concerns about the security of his country’s Jewish community. In January 2009, a synagogue in Caracas was desecrated in an overnight attack. In December 2007, and earlier in 2004, Venezuela police raided the Hebraica, the Caracas complex housing the Jewish community center and school. No one has been apprehended in connection with any of these attacks.

AJC monitors developments closely in an effort to help ensure the well-being of Venezuela’s longestablished Jewish community.

WELCOME from page 8

Sincerely, Raphael Warren Amberley Village

The unveiling of the monument for

Harry “Cookie” Cohen will be held Monday, June 14, 2010 at 12 p.m.

Rabbi Irvin Wise will be officiating. It will be held at Schachnus Cemetery, 1711 Sunset Ave. Family and friends are welcome.

I fully understand why the rest of the world attacks Israel when the only thing it is guilty of is defending itself. Attacking Israel is the new anti-Semitism. Further, there is the issue of oil. Arabs have it, Israel does not, at least so far. “After all, we do not want to risk being cut off from our oil supply do we,” so reasons much of Europe.

Netanyahu was in Canada during the “battle of the flotilla.”

He was on his way to Washington when, it turns out, Obama told him to leave because he didn’t want Netanyahu to use the White House as a stage on which to present Israel’s side of the story. So, instead, Netanyahu headed straight home. Then to add insult to injury The United States sided with Israel’s enemies in condemning Israel for its actions on the flotilla.

These actions are designed to prevent the smuggling of arms into Gaza. Which fool believes for an instant that Hamas would not take advantage of a broken blockade to bring in missiles and other armaments to bombard bordering Israeli settlements? In comparison, North Koreas in an unprovoked act of aggression sank a South Korean ship with a great loss of life and little is said and nothing is done.

Now is the time for the American Jewish Committee to speak up and express their disappointment with Obama’s actions here. I guess some Obama apologists would categorize these remarks as hate speech toward Obama.

Jerome C. Liner Montgomery, OH Dear Editor, All members of the Organization of American States should strongly condemn the latest

Sincerely, John M. Stein President, AJC Cincinnati

and raised her arm to pronounce, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free,” there was a gasp: A descendant of immigrants brought to America in chains was celebrating those who fled bondage and sought its freedom.

Regina Spektor, the “anti-folk” singer who performed on a grand piano, presented a similar contrast: An alternative music favorite of New York cosmopolitans who refuses to shake off her provincial roots as the little 9year-old refusenik who came here in 1989 and who famously told New York magazine when her career was taking off: “The Jewish question — it still exists.”

Spektor had to breathe deep before starting. Prodded by a nod and a grin from Michelle Obama, she attacked her first song, “Us,” with lyrics suggestive of Jewish frustration at coping with how others define Jews: “They made a statue of us and put it on a mountaintop/ Now tourists come and stare at us, blow bubbles with their gum, take photograph, have fun.”

The military veterans were guided to their seats by service personnel in white dress uniforms. Among the athletes was Dara Torres, the five-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer whose son snapped a photo of her with Obama. (“Can you beat your mom yet?” Obama shouted at the strapping teenager, who murmured “No.”) Jewish astronauts were invited, a White House official said, but none could make it — although one, Garrett Reisman, carried Obama’s proclamation into space aboard the last mission of space shuttle Atlantis, which returned to Earth last week.

2010 CALENDAR Special Issues & Sections J ANUARY

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