AI2010_12_30

How to secure the An evening to Mercaz Hebrew future of Rockwern remember Rabbi High School offers Academy Dr. David I. Indich painting class

By LeeAnne Galioto Assistant Editor The board of Rockwern Academy and the parents of its current sixth graders are debating whether to have a seventh grade class for the 2011–2012 school year. Rockwern is Cincinnati’s only community/pluralistic Jewish day school for preschool through middle school.

Parents send their children to Rockwern for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the large amount of statistical evidence on the value of a Jewish day school education. A number of studies, like those on the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education’s website (PEJE), have revealed that Jewish day school students score in the top percentiles on all the various national standardized exams, are still a part of American culture, and are more likely to be

Rabbi Dr. David I. Indich z”l, spiritual leader of the Golf Manor Synagogue for 37 years, whose active role in all aspects of the Cincinnati community endeared him to individuals of all walks of life, will be remembered on the occasion of his 20th yahrzeit on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011, at 6 p.m.

Rabbi Indich came to the congregation as a young man from the famed Telshe Yeshiva and immediately revealed his unique ability to connect with people, no matter their background or social station, through his keen sense of humor, concern for the plight of every person, and Torah wisdom.

Through Rabbi Indich’s dedicated rabbinic leadership, Golf Manor Synagogue became a leading Orthodox congregation in the Midwest. His influence upon the lives of countless individuals, many of whom he inspired to live an

Mercaz Conservative Hebrew High School will offer another “Experiencing Jewish Education through the Arts” course beginning in January. The class, “Paint Your Jewish World,” will be led by local artist Stewart Goldman. The class will teach acrylic painting techniques, and no previous experience is required. Open to grades 8–12, the class meets Sundays from 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Goldman has agreed to develop and teach the art portion of this class. He is a highly respected artist who has had much success as a painter including many solo exhibitions and a countless number of group exhibitions. Goldman taught at the Cincinnati Art Institute for over 30 years.

The students’ work will be a part of an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum, beginning some time in June and continuing for several months. “This is an amazing opportunity for our students to be able to have work that they have

ROCKWERN on page 19

INDICH on page 19

MERCAZ on page 20

Israeli population in U.S. surges, but exact figures hard to determine

Siddur going digital, but not for Shabbat

By Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency

study in 2003 reported that 500,000 Israelis were living in the United States, according to the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot.

“Estimates of Israeli emigrants in the U.S. are difficult to make and often subject to controversy,” said Professor Steven Gold of Michigan State University, author of the 2002 book “The Israeli Diaspora.”

The numbers suggest that migration to America from Israel exceeds American immigration to Israel, or aliyah. From 2000 through 2009, 23,640 U.S. citizens made aliyah, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel.

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — A major publisher of Jewish books is moving into the digital age while trying to strike a balance between technology and Jewish observance.

ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, which calls itself the world’s largest Jewish publishing house, has begun digitizing the first batch of some of its 1,500 titles.

But ArtScroll’s most popular books — its Shabbat and High Holidays prayerbooks — will not be coming out for e-readers like the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle. The reason?

The Shabbat prohibition against using electronic devices is a major barrier.

POPULATION on page 20

DIGITAL on page 20

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — The number of Israelis living in the United States grew by about 30 percent over the past decade, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Some 140,323 people living in the United States today were born in Israel, up from 109,720 in 2000. Of the Israelis living here, 90,179 have U.S. citizenship and 50,144 do not.

But Israeli expatriates and Israeli government sources say the true figure is actually much higher. An Israeli Foreign Ministry

By Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Courtesy of ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications

ArtScroll is launching digital versions of many of its popular Jewish books, but not the Sabbath or High Holidays prayer books.

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Gabe Carimi: Star in shul and on the football field

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Palestinians gain ground in PR, diplomatic war

By Uriel Heilman Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) — In the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict, score some recent victories for the Palestinians.

It’s not that Israel has given an inch in the territorial dispute over the West Bank, or that the Palestinians in Gaza have achieved new military victories against the Israelis, despite increased rocket and mortar fire from the coastal strip in recent weeks.

Rather, the Palestinians have scored a series of diplomatic and public-relations successes against a Jewish state weakened by fraying relationships and a declining reputation internationally.

On the diplomatic front, Palestinian leaders announced this week that 10 European Union countries were upgrading their ties with the PLO. Earlier this month, three Latin American countries — Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia — issued formal recognitions of the state of Palestine.

On Sunday was the much-publicized lunch hosted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for Israeli politicians and activists in Ramallah.

Numerous Op-Eds followed in the Israeli media and overseas noting that there is a Palestinian partner for peace even if there isn’t an Israeli one.

Then there was the early December decision by the Obama administration to drop its effort to persuade Israel to agree to an additional 90-day freeze of Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Commentators cited Israeli intransigence as the primary reason.

“Israel,” columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in a Dec. 11 OpEd in The New York Times, “when America, a country that has lavished billions on you over the last 50 years and taken up your defense in countless international forums, asks you to halt settlements for three months to get peace talks going, there is only one right answer, and it is not ‘How much?’ It is: ‘Yes, whatever you want, because you’re our only true friend in the world.’”

Over the last few months, Israel’s declining international reputation has given the Palestinians and their allies an opening they have exploited by effectively casting Israel as the bully and the unyielding party in the IsraeliPalestinian dispute.

It is a message that is promoted relentlessly by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to make Israel an international pariah, and it is reinforced by negative assessments of Israeli actions such as the IsraelHamas war in Gaza two years ago,

Courtesy of Issam Rimawi/FLASH90/JTA

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, center, hosting a luncheon for Israelis in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Dec. 19, 2010.

the deadly Turkish flotilla incident of May 31 and Israel’s daily treatment of West Bank Palestinians.

If the goal is to increase pressure on Israel to accede to the creation of a Palestinian state, a strategy that focuses on diplomacy and PR appears to have a greater chance of success right now than the Palestinians’ decades-long strategy of terrorism and war.

That strategy — call it the violent one — was snuffed out in recent years by Israeli military operations, Israel’s erection of the West Bank security fence and a recognition by leading Palestinian figures that the violence was doing more harm to the Palestinian national cause than good.

“We tried the intifada, and it caused us a lot of damage,” Abbas told an interviewer with the London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat in September.

Abbas said the Palestinian Authority would not revert to violent uprising even if peace talks collapsed.

With relative moderates like Abbas in charge of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — the primary public face of the Palestinians — there is a greater understanding that to achieve statehood the Palestinians must win the world to their side. That, after all, paved the way for the creation of the State of Israel, after the United Nations voted in November 1947 to recognize a Jewish state in Palestine.

Now the Palestinians are setting their sights on this same goal.

U.N. recognition would shift the conflict from one over “occupied Palestinian territories” to a conflict over an “occupied state with defined borders,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. “We urge the international community to

salvage the two-state solution by recognizing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.”

While U.N. recognition of Palestine might make a diplomatic end run around Israel, it hardly would result in an immediate Palestinian state. The United Nations would have no way of enforcing its decision, and Israeli troops and settlers would remain in the West Bank.

What it would do, however, is significantly ratchet up the pressure on Israel to deal with the Palestinians.

“Widespread international recognition of Palestine’s legitimacy and existence has very significant consequences,” Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, wrote on his blog earlier this month.

That pressure isn’t just coming from outside Israel.

“The Palestinians will declare a state. Virtually the whole world

will recognize it. And we will be left without security arrangements,” Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer warned in October.

There is pressure even from inside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own Likud Party.

Likud veteran and Cabinet minister Michael Eitan has proposed moving settlers willing to accept compensation and relocation out of the West Bank and into Israel proper to signal to the world that Israel is serious about wanting peace with the Palestinians.

This week, Haaretz columnist Akiva Eldar wrote that Israel needs to be saved from itself.

“Almost no day goes by without some other country recognizing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders,” Eldar wrote.

“According to the WikiLeaks documents, even the Germans, Israel’s steadfast supporters in Europe, have lost their faith in the

peaceful intentions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.”

Whatever criticism there is inside Israel about the Israeli government’s approach toward the Palestinians, the criticism outside Israel is sharper.

The main holdout is the United States, where recent polls show that the American people overwhelmingly favor Israel over the Palestinians, and Congress remains steadfastly pro-Israel.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is aiming to change that. Using everything from campus activism to boycotts of stores that sell Israeli food products to bus ads promoting pro-Palestinian messages, the movement is hoping to sway public opinion.

Starting Dec. 27, the two-year anniversary of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, a group called the Seattle Midwest Awareness Campaign will be running ads on the sides of Seattle buses featuring photos of children looking at a demolished building under the heading “Israeli War Crimes: Your tax dollars at work.”

At Princeton University in New Jersey, DePaul University in Chicago and on the streets of Philadelphia, pro-Palestinian activists have campaigned to have Israeli brands of hummus removed from campus cafeterias or store shelves. In New York, boycott supporters demonstrated outside a store belonging to the Israeli chocolatier Max Brenner.

“The relics of the past boycotts — from Nuremberg to Damascus — are back,” Ethan Felson, vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, wrote in a JTA OpEd. “Its proponents seek to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into every sphere of American life.”

In the zero-sum game that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that’s good news for the Palestinians.

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For deaf Jews, Jewish community only slowly opening up

By Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (JTA) — Alexis Kashar was listening intently to the speaker at a recent Jewish federation event in this New York City suburb.

A closer look revealed that her eyes were trained not on the podium but on Naomi Brunnlehrman, who was seated in front of the speaker translating the lecture into American Sign Language.

Kashar, 43, a longtime civil rights lawyer, has been deaf since birth. Five years ago she and Brunnlehrman, co-founder of the Jewish Deaf Resource Center, asked the UJA-Federation of New York to subsidize ASL interpreters, so Kashar and other deaf Jews in the New York area could take part in Jewish communal events.

In 2009, the federation began granting $5,000 a year to the center.

“I was ready to quit the Jewish community when I met Naomi,” said Kashar, who lip reads and speaks but works with an interpreter.

Kashar is involved with the Jewish federation, she says, in an effort to increase services for the Jewish deaf and hard of hearing.

Kashar has three hearing children and was concerned about their Jewish future.

“I realized if I don’t have access, my children won’t either,” she said. “Why would I take them to synagogue when I have to sit there and have no idea what’s going on?”

An estimated 50,000 deaf Jews live in the United States, according to advocacy groups for the Jewish deaf. Insiders say most are not involved in Jewish life, mainly because it’s just too difficult. There are a handful of synagogues for the deaf and half a dozen deaf rabbis, and several national and local social and cultural organizations serve the Jewish deaf.

In the past decade, however, mainstream Jewish institutions and synagogues have begun providing ASL interpreters and/or assistive listening devices, allowing deaf and hard-of-hearing Jews to take part in mainstream Jewish life instead of being segregated. The numbers of such pioneering institutions, however, remain quite small, experts say.

“You can count them on one hand,” said Jeffrey Lichtman, director of Yachad, the National Jewish Council for Disabilities, which operates under the auspices of the Orthodox Union.

Traditionally, the Jewish deaf were not treated as full members of

Courtesy of Ava Kashar

ASL interpreter Naomi Brunnlehrman, left, and Alexis Kashar are co-founders of the Jewish Deaf Resource Center.

the community. Their testimony was not accepted in religious courts, and they were exempt from commandments that involve listening, which means they were not called to the Torah or even taught Hebrew.

That is changing, experts say, but very slowly.

“We don’t expect all synagogues to have all their services interpreted, but maybe once a month or for the holidays,” Lichtman told JTA. “It’s no different from making accommodations for the physically challenged or the blind. If you don’t, you are effectively saying these people are not welcome.”

nity,” he said. “Today, people who were not interested in inclusion in the past are now much more interested, especially for their children.”

Avi Jacob, 21, wears hearing aids and does not sign.

“We wanted to get him to speak, so he could be included in the typical Jewish world,” said his mother, Batya Jacob, program director at Our Way, Yachad’s department for the Jewish deaf.

Avi Jacob attended Jewish day school and is now a senior at Yeshiva University, where a notetaker takes notes for him in secular classes. In his Jewish courses, Batya says, public funding is not

“Why would I take them to synagogue when I have to sit there and have no idea what’s going on?”

Alexis Kashar Funding for inclusion is increasing mainly because the Jewish deaf community, like the American deaf community in general, is in transition. There is a growing divide between those who are more comfortable in deaf-only settings — usually older people who grew up signing and comprise the bulk of membership in deaf congregations — and younger deaf Jews who are more at ease in hearing society.

The change is largely due to technology, especially the prevalence of cochlear implants that permit limited hearing, according to Lichtman.

“Ten years ago the deaf community had a strong component that did not want inclusion. They wanted their own separate commu-

available, so he borrows friends’ notes.

“He does not consider himself disabled,” she said.

Congregation Bene Shalom in Skokie, Ill., is among a handful of synagogues founded to serve deaf Jews and their families. Rabbi Douglas Goldhamer says that services, meetings and his counseling sessions are voiced and signed.

When the cantor sings in Hebrew, a choir “translates” the prayers into ASL. Clergy don’t face the ark during prayers when it is customary to do so because deaf congregants would be unable to see what they are saying. Some liberal synagogues flash lights on and off to signal certain parts of the service, but Bene Shalom does not use electricity on Shabbat.

Goldhamer says that more young deaf Jews attend hearing synagogues than their parents did.

If there is no interpreter, they may go with hearing friends; young deaf people today tend to have more hearing friends. Or they might get together with a few other deaf Jews and hire their own interpreter.

“They’re asserting their rights more,” Goldhamer said.

In Columbus, Ohio, the local Jewish federation gives $3,000 a year for deaf services, with interpreted High Holidays services rotating to different synagogues each year. The federations in New York, Boston and Washington also give money for interpreters.

At Temple Israel in Columbus, which has eight or nine deaf regulars, a deaf member in his 80s celebrated his bar mitzvah seven years ago. The ceremony was interpreted into ASL. “He told me that when he was growing up, there wasn’t a place for him in the Jewish world,” said the synagogue’s executive director, Elaine Tenenbuam. “There are deaf people in every Jewish community, but they don’t participate. They’ve stepped away from the community because it doesn’t provide for them.”

It’s not always a young vs. old scenario. In many cases, older deaf Jews had parents who insisted on mainstreaming them.

Sharon Ann Dror, the founder and president of the Jewish Deaf Community Center in Los Angeles, “grew up oral” with hearing parents who didn’t want her or her hard-of-hearing sister segregated.

But when she went to college and learned ASL, Dror suddenly realized how much she’d been missing, she told JTA via online chat.

“Instead of getting a few sentences in the hearing world from my friends, I can have a real meaningful dialogue with my deaf community,” she wrote.

Dror reads lips and speaks well, but her three deaf children don’t speak at all, relying instead on signing. Her oldest, 19-year-old Joshua Soudakoff, is a Lubavitcher who teaches Torah to other deaf Jews using ASL. Videos of his weekly Torah lessons, conducted in sign, are on the website Jewishdeafmm.

Soudakoff writes that he feels more comfortable within the deaf community, and that hearing people often don’t understand what he’s trying to say and just nod along.

“They don’t understand that deafness is a physical condition, not a mental issue,” he said.

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The Texas Christians of Texas Christian University: Jewish students

Courtesy of TCU Hillel

Each year, Texas Christian University Hillel students set up a Holocaust exhibit on campus.

By Edmon J. Rodman Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Texas Christian University may seem out of place at this season’s Rose Bowl — but not as much as a few of its fans.

The notion of Jewish students at Texas Christian may seem like a mismatch, but don’t tell that to the several dozen Jewish students at TCU who will be cheering as loudly as anyone when the team takes the field in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year’s Day. Who says the Horned Frog, TCU’s mascot, can’t wear a kippah?

The team’s dominant, undefeated season and top-flight performances in recent years have proved that it belongs among the NCAA’s elite teams, playing on the most storied stage in college football.

The school, located in Fort Worth, has about 60 Jewish students, out of more than 8,000 at the university, which is associated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainstream Protestant denomination.

To serve them, TCU has a thriving Hillel, reports the organization’s adviser, Arnold Barkman, an associate professor of accounting and transplanted New Yorker who has lived in Texas since 1974.

Many students can be seen sporting the purple, white and blue Star of David Hillel T-shirts, and Jewish students, professors and staff can be found hanging out and enjoying a nosh at the bagel place across the street from the campus.

Barkman notes that the TCU Hillel sponsors a lecture series that has brought prominent Jewish writers and thinkers to campus, including Nobel laureate Elie

Wiesel, author Rabbi Harold Kushner and scholar Susannah Heschel.

The Hillel program, which does not hold regular Shabbat services, arranges home Shabbat dinners with area families and provides tickets for students interested in attending High Holiday services.

Not that the situation at TCU will be confused with the Jewish life of its Rose Bowl opponent, the University of Wisconsin. On that school’s Madison campus, there are an estimated 5,000 Jewish undergrads, a gleaming new multistory Hillel building, kosher meal plans, and even an Orthodox student organization, JEM, that also fills its dining hall on Fridays. The school’s football team even boasts a Jewish star lineman and NFL prospect, Gabe Carimi.

So how does that tiny Jewish squad deep in the heart of Texas even field a team? “We are scattered across the campus, but we show everyone there is a Jewish presence on campus,” says sophomore Kyle Orth, a music major and noted concert pianist who is serving as the TCU Hillel president.

Hillel’s (almost) monthly meetings on campus attract from five to 15 students to the new Hillel Conference Room in TCU’s Student Union and feature screenings of Israeli films and the construction and presentation of a yearly on-campus Holocaust exhibit.

“Going to a Christian college makes you aware of who you are as a Jew,” Orth says. It also “makes me aware of what I can bring to the world as a Jew.” It is not a phenomenon limited to TCU. A number of Jewish students attend other schools across

the country associated with Christian denominations, including Jewish “fighting Irish” at Notre Dame University in Indiana and Jews at the Jesuits’ Boston College.

At Boston College, about 2 percent of the school’s 9,000 students are Jewish, according to the director of Jewish life there, Elissa Klein. Tzvi Novick, the Jordan Kapson Chair in Jewish Studies at Notre Dame, serves as adviser to the Jewish Club there. Novick notes that Notre Dame has no Hillel and only a few Jewish students on campus.

Some of the students who attend Jewish on-campus groups at these Christian schools are simply curious. For example, according to Novick, at Notre Dame, nonJewish students are active in the Jewish Club.

At TCU, Barkman says, students who are converting to Judaism attend Hillel meetings.

At Boston College, Klein has learned that “the millennial students want cultural exchanges.”

“One of our most active members is not Jewish,” Klein says. “We even get non-Jewish students who might miss their hometown Jewish neighborhoods and friends.”

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Brouhaha in Texas House a Jewish test case for Tea Party

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — In Texas, the Tea Party passed its first Jewish test even before its legislators had been sworn in.

Deeply conservative forces in the Lone Star State firmly repudiated the effort by evangelical Christians to unseat the powerful Jewish speaker of the Texas House of Representatives because he wasn’t a “true Christian conservative.”

Speaker Joe Straus still faces opposition from his right flank because of his relatively moderate views, but his opponents have made clear that Straus’ Judaism is not a factor in the Jan. 11 race to be speaker.

“There is absolutely no place for religious bigotry in the race for Texas speaker, and I categorically condemn such action,” Rep. Ken Paxton, one of Straus’ two challengers in the race, said in a statement to the Houston-area Jewish Herald Voice. “Furthermore, it is just as shameful for anyone to imply that I would ever condone this type of behavior.”

State Rep. Warren Chisum, Straus’ other challenger, wrote him directly.

“I assure you that those sorts of attacks on a man’s religion have absolutely no place in the race for speaker,” he said. “I absolutely reject all such attacks or insinuations.”

The controversy in Texas was important because Jews nationally had been watching it as a test case to see whether the Tea Party’s deeply conservative base was receptive to anti-Jewish ferment.

The considerable Christian rhetoric in the Tea Party movement has stoked some concern among Jews, particularly as candidates from the movement cited Scripture in explaining their opposition to abortion, church-state separation and the teaching of evolution.

As it turned out, the strong response against statements singling out Straus for being Jewish were a relief, said Fred Zeidman, the most prominent Jewish Republican in Texas after Straus.

Straus had turned to Zeidman to manage the crisis as soon as it emerged in e-mails from a small cadre of grass-roots conservatives.

Straus’ office did not respond to interview requests for this story.

“The big fear was, what are the elected guys going to do knowing this is their base,” Zeidman told JTA. “But they didn’t take the bait — everybody either spoke up or stood down. Nobody followed the lead of this guy in Lumberton.”

“This guy in Lumberton,” a small town in east Texas, was Peter Morrison, who in a newsletter that reaches much of the state‘s GOP leadership noted that Chisum and Paxton “are Christians and true conservatives.”

Morrison wasn’t the only Straus opponent calling attention to his religion.

Courtesy of Office of Rep. Joe Straus

Texas state Rep. Joe Straus looks set to stay in the powerful speaker’s role after a broad coalition repudiated challenges based on his Judaism.

“Straus is going down in Jesus’ name,” the Dallas Morning News quoted one Republican e-mailer as saying.

Ken Myers, the chairman of the Tea Party in Kaufman County, in sending a mass e-mail in support of a prominent state House critic of Straus, Rep. Bryan Hughes, wrote that “We finally found a Christian conservative who decided not to be pushed around by the Joe Straus thugs.”

Kaufman County, in suburban Dallas, coincidentally is named for David Kaufman, the first Jewish speaker of the Texas House — in the 1840s, when it was a republic.

On Nov. 30, The Texas Observer published an e-mail exchange among members of the state’s Republican Executive Committee in which committee member John Cook launched a salvo against Straus’ faith.

“We elected a House with Christian, conservative values," he wrote, referring to the supermajority that Tea Party conservatives had helped win for Republicans in the state House. “We now want a true Christian conservative running it.”

But other executive committee members repudiated Cook, and Straus now claims the support of 79 Republican members of the 150-member House, as well as 49 Democrats.

Some Tea Party members said the issue wasn’t that Straus was Jewish, but that the term Christian was being misapplied or misunderstood.

“I think people have been intellectually lazy in using ‘Christian’ and ‘conservative’ interchangeably,” Felicia Cravens, a Houston Tea Party founder, told Fox News.

“And there’s a lot of that in Texas.”

Straus, whose wife and children are Christian but who is active in San Antonio’s Jewish community, seemed unfazed by the flare-up.

“Our country was founded on the rock of religious freedom and the Judeo-Christian values of the dignity and worth of every individual,” he told the Jewish HeraldVoice. “At its core, America believes in the freedom of every individual to worship as his or her conscience dictates, and it would be most unfortunate for anyone to suggest someone is more or less qualified for public office based on his or her faith.”

Straus faces a strong challenge from his right flank precisely because he has proven able to work with Democrats. The House was almost evenly divided in 2009 when he was elected speaker — the second most powerful position in the state because of the power to shape the legislative agenda.

Straus angered conservatives with his successful challenge of longtime speaker Tom Craddick.

Straus’ moderation — and the challenge he is brooking from his right flank — reflects the other challenge facing the Jewish community as Tea Party conservatives assert their strength both in state Legislatures and in Congress.

Straus has voted against restricting late-term abortions or gay adoption rights.

The bottom line, said Marlene Gorin, director of the Dallas-area Jewish Community Relations Council, was that the outbursts of anti-Semitism disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.

“It came out of the blue — we have excellent relationships with all the legislators,” she said. “Even to bring it up was disgusting, but I think now it is behind us.”

National Briefs Jewish filmmakers do well in Golden Globe nominations LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Jewish actors, directors and screenwriters have garnered prominent nominations for the 2011 Golden Globe Awards — a promising augury for the upcoming Oscar picks.

Two top favorites for best motion picture honors, “The King’s Speech” and “The Social Network,” announced earlier this month, led the field with seven and six Golden Globe nods, respectively.

Named in the best actor/actress categories were Jesse Eisenberg, who portrays Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” and Israeli native Natalie Portman as a ballet dancer in “Black Swan.”

Also picked were two actors with Jewish mothers, James Franco as a trapped hiker in “127 Hours,” and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Love & Other Drugs.”

Tapped for best supporting actors were Andrew Garfield as Facebook co-founder in “The Social Network” and Mila Kunis in “Black Swan.”

Jewish writers took three of five nominations for best screenplay: David Seidler for “The King’s Speech,” Aaron Sorkin for “The Social Network” and Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for “The Kids Are All Right.”

Seidler, 73, like England’s George VI in “The King’s Speech,” grew up as a severe stutterer. His paternal grandparents perished in the Holocaust, and he lived through the London Blitz as a baby. He started researching the British monarch’s life as far back as the 1970s.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which sponsors the Golden Globe Awards, two years ago picked Israel’s “Waltz with Bashir” as the top foreign-language movie, but this time Israel drew a blank.

Winners of the Golden Globe Awards will be named on Jan. 16.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will name its nominees on Jan. 25 and hand out Oscars to the winners on Feb. 27.

U.S. military aid to Israel delayed (JTA) — United States military aid to Israel for 2011 has been delayed for three months.

The more than $3 billion in military aid, one of the largest amounts ever earmarked for Israel, includes grants to upgrade the Iron

Dome and Arrow anti-ballistic missile systems.

The delay is a result of the Obama administration’s difficulty in passing the 2011 U.S. budget, which forced the president to sign a presidential order extending the current budget through March.

Until then, funding for the budget will be disbursed on a month-tomonth basis.

Israel usually receives its aid in a lump sum, 30 days after the U.S. annual budget is signed by the president. Because of this year’s delay, the Israeli business daily Globes reported, Israel stands to lose millions of dollars in interest payments.

Israel received $2.4 billion in the 2010 U.S. fiscal budget. The 2011 budget is set to include, among other things, an additional $415 million to build and operate anti-missile systems, $25 million for immigrant absorption and $2 million for the U.S. Department of Energy’s energy research cooperation program, according to Globes.

The new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives includes many opponents of foreign aid.

Schindler’s List can be sold, judge rules (JTA) — A Manhattan judge has ruled that an original copy of Schindler's List can be sold.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Louis York ruled last week that dealer Gary Zimet may auction off what is believed to be the only privately held original copy of Oskar Schindler’s list of Jews, which saved more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Zimet, a historic document sales specialist in upstate New York, announced in March that he would sell the document on behalf of an anonymous seller, offered on a “first-come, firstserved” basis on his website, MomentsInTime.

Marta Rosenberg, an Argentine woman who wrote a biography of Schindler and his widow, Emilie, contends that the will of Schindler’s widow gives her the exclusive rights to anything that belonged to the couple. She also alleged that the list held by Zimet is a fake.

The list, dated April 18, 1945, records 801 names on 13 pages. It was compiled by Schindler and his accountant, Itzak Stern, and made famous decades later in the Oscarwinning film “Schindler’s List.”

Several copies of the list were written; the four surviving original lists are in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, in the German federal archives in Koblenz and at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

NATIONAL

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

7

Jewish football teams want a bowl of their own

By Edmon J. Rodman Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Better polish up a trophy, Jewish football fans.

Across the country, there are enough Jewish high school football teams currently playing 11man full-tackle football to hold a playoff and a bowl game.

Back in September, JTA ran a story about one such team: the Jewish Academy Lions at the San Diego Jewish Academy High School in California. Since then, JTA has learned of two additional teams that play in an independent Florida league: the Ben Lipson Hillel Community High School of North Miami Beach and the high school of the David Posnack Hebrew Day School in Plantation.

According to Hurricanes outside linebacker Judah Makover, who is a senior at Ben Lipson Hillel this year, his team has finished its third season of full-tackle play.

“Our team also sings ‘Hatikvah’ at home games and does not play on Friday nights or Saturdays,” Makover reported in an e-mail.

“Before every game, the rabbinic dean at our school, Rabbi Chaim Albert, gives us a dvar Torah to pump us up,” Makover wrote. “We play the Posnack Rams once a year. The winner receives the ‘Kiddush Cup,’ a trophy, which has resided within Hillel’s halls for the past three years.”

Makover, perhaps pumped from this year’s victory over Posnack, also suggested a postseason game pitting the best Jewish football team on the East Coast against the best Jewish football team on the West Coast.

Yes, he did say that.

A J-Bowl.

Ilan Sredni, the father of a Hurricanes player, also thought a game would be a good idea. “It would be wonderful to see them play each other and form a bond,” he wrote in an e-mail to JTA. “Maybe it could be like a round robin,” suggested Makover in a phone interview from his home in

Boca Raton. “There are already Jewish basketball tournaments.

Why not football?” he asked.

The game already has a potential media sponsor — JTA. “We could get behind that,” said Ami Eden, JTA’s editor in chief, when told of the idea.

“We could certainly supply the coverage, the trophy — and the name. It needs to be something better than J-Bowl or Nose Bowl.

Maybe The JTA News Bowl,” Eden wrote in an e-mail. “We would need some person or organization to come forward to help with the travel expenses. Maybe it could be played on the opening Sunday of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America – that way, it would rotate cities each year, like the Super Bowl.”

The athletic directors at the three high schools are open to the idea.

“Let’s pursue it,” said Mike Quigley, athletic director at the San Diego Jewish Academy High School, whose team this year played a home game against a squad from Vancouver. “Perhaps we could also put together a Shabbaton. Can you put us in touch?”

Cindy Lyon, the athletic director at the Ben Lipson Hillel Community High School, who supervises a program covering 25 different sports, was more tempered in her response to the idea of a tournament. Though supportive of the idea, she wanted to “see how we are going to pay for it.”

The athletic director at David Posnack Hebrew Day School, Mitch Evron, who has a degree in sports medicine, likes the discipline and the respect for teamwork that football brings to his players and relishes the friendly rivalry his squad already has with Ben Lipson Hillel.

And he also likes the idea of a bicoastal Jewish bowl game. “If we could work something out, maybe something like a jamboree, the networking especially would be fun,” Evron said.

Makover agrees. “It would be awesome,” the Hurricanes linebacker said. “Football — it’s the American game, and we’re excelling at it.”

Courtesy of Hillel Community High School

The Hillel Community High School Hurricanes, one of two Jewish football teams in the country, pose for a group photo.

Courtesy of Sanford Carimi

Gabe Carimi is a star football player for the University of Wisconsin football team, as well as an active member at his local Reform temple in Madison.

Gabe Carimi: Star in shul and on the football field

By Deborah Hirsch Jewish Telegraphic Agency PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Gabe Carimi already knows that Yom Kippur won’t fall on a Sunday for at least the next 20 years.

The star left tackle at the University of Wisconsin looked up the dates in anticipation of being a potential first-round pick in this spring’s NFL draft. But first, Carimi will end his college career by leading the Badgers against the Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs in the 97th Rose Bowl.

Carimi, co-captain of the Big Ten championship team, was recently named the conference Lineman of the Year and awarded the Outland Trophy, a national honor given to the best interior lineman. The civil and environmental engineering major has also been named Academic All-Big Ten four years in a row.

For Carimi, at 6 feet, 7 inches and 327 pounds, playing football and practicing Judaism both come naturally.

“It’s always just who I’ve been,” he told JTA. Speaking by phone before an intensive series of Rose Bowl practices, Carimi recalled how his childhood baseball coach had sized him up and suggested giving football a try.

Of course, Carimi said, his mom always worried about him, but there wasn’t much danger of serious injury in peewee football.

And even though sports practices dominated his schedule, he always reserved time to attend Temple Beth El, a Reform synagogue in Madison.

“He grew up at temple,” said Larry Kohn, the congregation’s education director.

Kohn chuckled at the memory of blessing Carimi during his bar mitzvah service, which he led in the rabbi’s absence. The teenager was already so tall, Kohn said, that he had to put his hands on Carimi’s shoulders instead of his head – even with the future football star bending down.

After becoming a bar mitzvah, Carimi continued his religious studies, celebrating his Confirmation and working as an assistant to a fifth-grade Sunday school teacher. For Chanukah one year, he asked his parents for a shofar and joined the men who share the honor of blowing the ram’s horn on the High Holidays.

While football has become more time consuming lately, Carimi still joins his parents and older sister for Friday night services whenever he can.

“Our lives have been busy and Friday evening was the time to stop, take a deep breath, inhale, exhale, just kind of get back in touch with what’s important,” his dad, Sanford Carimi, said.

“It always felt like home there,” Gabe Carimi said. Plus, he added, after nine hours a day at Camp Randall Stadium during football season, there wasn’t time to get involved with the campus Hillel.

To Kohn, the fact that Carimi continues to prioritize Shabbat and take on a leadership role at his synagogue, on top of commitments to football and academics, speaks volumes about his “spiritual strength and devotion.”

“A lot of kids, when they hit college, sort of take a break and return after they have kids,” Kohn said. “He’s a model of a long-term commitment to a task and to a value.”

Carimi has also made a point of maintaining some observance of the High Holidays, even when football interferes. When Yom Kippur fell on a Saturday during his freshman year, he fasted until an hour before the night game.

This past September, the holiday coincided with an afternoon face-off against Arizona State University. Carimi wrestled with whether he should play at all, even going to his rabbi for advice.

“I’ve always fasted, even when I was young,” he explained. “It’s a moment of clarity to kind of take the focus off the whole world and everything you have to do — just focus on trying to make yourself a better person.”

Ultimately, he came up with his own compromise: Instead of fasting from sundown to sundown, he started the fast early enough to give himself a few hours to recover before the game.

“Religion is a part of me and I don’t want to just say I’m Jewish,” Carimi said. “I actually do make sacrifices that I know are hard choices.”

8

INTERNATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Could Hungarian antiSemitism get out of control?

By Ruth Ellen Gruber Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Courtesy of Jasmina Kelemen

Venezuelan Jews celebrate the opening of a new synagogue in Caracas, December 2010.

Venezuelan Jews report shift in tone from Chavez government

By Jasmina Kelemen Jewish Telegraphic Agency CARACAS, Venezuela (JTA) — On a balmy tropical evening in early December, a few hundred families, mostly of Moroccan descent, gathered to inaugurate the first phase of what eventually will be a grand, two-story marble shul located in a wealthy Caracas neighborhood.

Among them, Claudio Benaim’s family beamed as Benaim stood with Rabbi Isaac Cohen as he recited a prayer into a microphone and affixed a mezuzah on the synagogue’s doorpost. Others admired the new flatscreen TVs listing daily prayer times.

Outside, young men in khakis bearing walkie-talkies scrutinized everyone entering the new shul, called Tiferet Israel del Este. After another synagogue was attacked in early 2009, a police van was stationed there around the clock, monitoring those entering the building’s usable areas. But the police van was canceled months ago – one tangible sign that this community is breathing easier after a nadir for the Venezuelan Jewish community following Israel’s war in Gaza two years ago.

“We feel OK as Jews,” said Benaim, a father of three. “As can be seen throughout the diasporas, the community remains and endures.”

Whether the Venezuelan Jewish community will endure is still an open question in a country where the population is dwindling rapidly due to aging and emigration. But the main challenge to the community in the last couple of years – a notably hostile tone from the government of President Hugo Chavez – appears to have subsided.

During and immediately after the Gaza war of two years ago, local Jews felt in the crosshairs as government denunciations of Israeli military actions grew virulent. Chavez demanded that the community rebuke Israel for its conduct in Gaza, expelled Israeli diplomats from the country, and reached out to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Against that backdrop, vandals attacked the largest and oldest synagogue in Caracas, Tiferet Israel Mariperez, and defaced it with antiSemitic graffiti. Jews here were shocked by the attack, unusual for a country not known for antiSemitism. The sophistication of the attack, coupled with two police raids on the community’s hub, Club Hebraica, ostensibly in search of a weapons cache, prompted many Jews here and elsewhere to point their fingers at the government.

Observers also blamed Chavez for unleashing a surge in antiSemitic expression among his supporters on state-sponsored media.

The president repeatedly called Israel a genocidal state, darkly warning in one speech that Israel was supporting the Venezuelan opposition and sending Mossad agents to assassinate him.

Government-sponsored media equated Zionism with Nazism and called on local Jews to publicly denounce Israeli actions or risk boycotts.

Over the last few months, however, Chavez has shifted his tone, recently saying that anti-Semitism has no place in Venezuela.

“Revolutionaries cannot be anti-Semites,” Chavez said during a rally for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela just prior to legislative elections in late September.

VENEZUELEAN on page 22

BUDAPEST (JTA) — The rise of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party has ratcheted up debate about antiSemitism in this country and focused attention on the seeming paradoxes of Jewish life here.

On the one hand, a recent article in Germany’s Der Spiegel described Budapest as Europe’s capital of anti-Semitism, where Jews are “being openly intimidated” and making plans to leave the country.

On the other, Hungary is home to a flourishing and multifaceted Jewish life that finds vigorous public expression in religious, cultural and even culinary ways, and also enjoys high-profile government recognition.

I saw this myself at Chanukah when I munched on latkes at a Friday night oneg Shabbat, sampled doughnuts at a sit-down dinner for Holocaust survivors, joined 20somethings at a riotous klezmer/hip-hop gig, and just missed witnessing the foreign minister, Budapest’s mayor and other VIPs help light a big menorah set up in the center of town.

While anti-Semitism remains a serious concern in this central European country, Budapest-based Jewish writer Adam LeBor wrote in the Economist, the Der Spiegel article was a one-sided screed that portrayed the Jewish experience in Hungary “solely through the warped prism of anti-Semitism rather than its much more complex, and healthy, reality.”

A timely and important new book puts contemporary Hungarian anti-Semitism into perspective. Based on studies carried out since the early 1990s, “The Stranger at Hand: Antisemitic Prejudices in Post-Communist Hungary” is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the scope and impact of the phenomenon.

It’s just too bad that its $131 price tag will put it out of reach of many potential readers.

Written by Andras Kovacs, a sociologist at Budapest’s Central European University who has devoted decades to tracking both the development of anti-Semitism and the development of Jewish life and identity here, the book presents a highly complex and sometimes contradictory picture.

A large part of Hungarian society, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is convinced that anti-Semitism has increased in Hungary since the fall of communism, Kovacs writes.

“What is said on the street, written in newspapers, and heard

Courtesy of Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Jewish culture festival in Budapest, in 2009, shows the flourishing side of Jewish life in the Hungarian capital, but the city also has been called “Europe’s capital of anti-Semitism.”

on the radio can and does give rise to concern,” he writes. “Are the fears legitimate?”

The answer, he told JTA in an interview, is a mix of yes, no and maybe.

Jobbik, with its anti-Semitic rhetoric and virulently anti-Roma, or Gypsy, political platform, won nearly 17 percent of the vote in April elections and entered Parliament as Hungary’s thirdlargest party. But recent evidence shows that it has been losing support amid divisive internal squabbles, and newly imposed legal measures have clamped down hard on its once-feared paramilitary wing, the Hungarian Guard.

Still, Jobbik did not emerge from thin air, and Kovacs’s book traces the evolution of several anti-Semitic trends against a shifting background of political and social change.

He identifies three main types of anti-Semitism in Hungary. The first is “classic” anti-Jewish prejudice, based on social and religious stereotypes that date back centuries and were kept alive, if suppressed, under communism. The second occurs when anti-Semitism becomes a sort of “language and culture” that fosters a general anti-

Semitic worldview. The third is political anti-Semitism, “where political activists discover that they can mobilize certain social groups by using anti-Semitic slogans to achieve their own goals.”

Kovacs’ research shows the recent growth in anti-Semitism to be qualitative rather than quantitative. Surveys show that 10 to 15 percent of Hungarians are hardcore anti-Semites, while another 25 percent nurtures anti-Jewish prejudices to some degree.

Contrary to popular perception, Kovacs said, these figures “have increased to some extent but not dramatically over the past 17 years.”

What is different and much more alarming, according to Kovacs, is how the type and expression of anti-Semitism is changing within that proportion.

For one thing, the percentage of political anti-Semites has grown.

These political anti-Semites, he said, are “more urban, better educated and relatively younger” than they tended to be in the past.

Jobbik’s key leaders, for example, are youthful, clean cut, and media and Internet-savvy — factors that helped enhance their appeal ahead of the April vote.

INTERNATIONAL

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

International Briefs Former Yukos CEO Khodorkovsky found guilty of embezzlement (JTA) — Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been found guilty of embezzlement and theft.

The conviction against the former head of the Yukos oil company was handed down by a judge in Moscow in a closed court room on Monday, the New York Times reported. He faces up to 14 years in prison, with credit for time served on a previous conviction.

Khodorkovsky’s business partner, Platon Lebedev, was also found guilty on the charges.

The trial began in March 2009.

The men were accused of stealing billions of dollars’ worth of oil from Yukos production subsidiaries from 1998 to 2003.

Khodorkovsky, who is Jewish, was formerly the richest man in Russia.

He was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison on charges of tax evasion and fraud. The trial stifled one of the most prominent anti-Kremlin voices at the time, and resulted in Yukos being dismantled and sold off in state auctions.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that Khodorkovsky “should sit in jail” — a comment that has been seen by some as interference in the trial. Putin was president during the first trial. Khodorkovsky, a major opponent of the Kremlin, had plans to run for the presidency himself, according to reports. Putin has expressed an interest in running for president again in 2012.

Charges ranging from tax fraud to murder are facing other former Yukos officials, including Leonid Nevzlin, who fled to Israel to avoid the charges.

In a statement released Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the verdict, adding that the United States would monitor the appeals process.

“Today’s conviction in the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev on charges of embezzlement and money laundering raises serious questions about selective prosecution — and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations,” said Clinton. “This and similar cases have a negative impact on Russia’s reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations and improving its investment climate.”

9

In saving Jewish remnants in Galicia, an effort to enlist Ukrainians

By Dina Kraft Jewish Telegraphic Agency SOLOTVYN, Ukraine (JTA) — On a sloping green hill tucked between small farmsteads, the mottled graves of Jews buried here since the 1600s rise up like a forgotten forest.

Trudging through the mud between the tilted stones, their chiseled Hebrew lettering and renderings of menorahs sometimes barely visible, Vladimer Levin, an animated young historian who specializes in Jewish art, wants to save the gravestones.

“When we talk about preserving Jewish history, it’s not just about the spiritual life, thought and books but the material culture Jews produced for themselves.

And that is what remains in this place,” he said, looking at the tombstones. “They are the artistic remnants of this small Jewish community.”

Levin, a 39-year-old immigrant to Israel from St. Petersburg, Russia, is part of a team of Israeli historians attempting to document what remains of a once populous and vibrant Jewish life in the regions of Galicia and Bukovina, most of which is in the western edge of present-day Ukraine.

As part of efforts to recover the world that once was in these towns and shtetls, where some 1 million Jews lived before the Holocaust, the researchers are partnering with Ukrainian academics. The idea is not only to boost the level of scholarship but to highlight to Ukrainian locals a Jewish past that spanned centuries but is rarely remembered publicly in the country.

“Jewish history is not part of the agenda” in Ukraine, said Yaroslav Hrystak, director of graduate studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University, which has partnered with the Israeli researchers. “It’s like a whole subject that disappeared.”

The project aims to collect oral testimony and document cemeteries and synagogues left derelict or used for such purposes as canning factories to storage space, and enlist young Ukrainian historians to do Jewish-related scholarship.

An online database has been established on the project’s website to make the research widely accessible. The project also has set up a scholarship for Ukrainian graduate students to spend a year at Hebrew University to learn Jewish history, Hebrew and Yiddish.

“Records are being lost in front of us, and so the goal is collection and preservation,” said David

Courtesy of Dina Kraft

The remains of a Jewish cemetery dating to the 16th century in the Ukranian village of Solotyvn.

Wallach, a professor of molecular biology at Israel’s Weizmann Institute who is among the group of families that helped establish a fund called the Ludmer Project to help pay for the research.

Academics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and BenGurion University of the Negev are overseeing the project with the hope of including other universities.

Wallach, 64, became intrigued by the region’s history after his father’s death. He found among his father’s belongings a black suitcase crammed with photographs and documents he had taken with him from Bukovina before immigrating to prestate Palestine in 1932.

“There is an urgent need for this research,” said Wallach, a tall man with a graying beard.

His relatives came from various parts of Galicia, including a former shtetl called Nardvirna where Gestapo units assisted by local Ukrainians rounded up most of the town’s Jews on Sukkot of 1941. With whips and dogs, the 3,500 or so Jews were herded into a nearby forest and shot, their bodies dropping into ditches.

Here the complete destruction of the country’s Jewish communities is marked with little commemoration or public knowledge.

No haunting edifices of concentration camps like Auschwitz, in neighboring Poland, stand as testimony.

The collection of oral testimonies from Ukrainians who were old enough to bear witness to this period and prewar Jewish life is part of the project’s mission.

Among the grimmer tales collected in Solotyvin was information on the approximate location of a communal grave of Jewish doctors and pharmacists and their families who were killed after most of the village’s Jews were rounded up. The grave was dug near the cemetery’s entrance, locals recalled, although no one could be sure if it was to the left or the right of the path that divides

the hundreds of tombstones.

They also told of a doctor’s young son who was found hiding and brought to the cemetery to be shot and buried.

“My parents did not speak.

These were not things you told children about,” Wallach said, adding that his mother only warned him of her birthplace, “Don’t go there; the land is soaked in blood.”

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Chelm Awards reveal the quirkier side of Israel

By Daniella Ashkenazy Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Turkish flotilla to Gaza?

Disagreement over a settlement freeze? Severe drought? Wildfire on the Carmel?

Those aren’t all the stories that preoccupied Israelis in 2010.

The following is a roundup of some of the best odd news stories from Chelm-on-the-Med Online, an Israeli Internet news outlet in English that features snippets of daily life gleaned from the Hebrew press, revealing the lighter side of Israeli life.

Take Israeli innovation. Blueand-white advances ran the gamut from a gadget jury-rigged by army engineers that enables a religiously observant amputee to put on tefillin, single-handed, to naturally dehydrated tomatoes for spreading on bread like avocado that plant geneticists designed to end the bane of packing sandwiches garnished with lip-smacking tomatoes for lunch-soggy bread.

One of this year’s most promising gizmos may finally convince 70,000 pelicans to stop feeding at kibbutz fish ponds when migrating between Europe and Africa: a lifelike motorized plastic Nile crocodile, a predator with a predilection for pelican meat. It works on the principle that even pelicans probably know it’s better to miss lunch than to become lunch.

At the other end of the food chain, an Israeli in New York has debuted hummus in a plastic squeeze-it condiment bottle for the local market after his Americanborn wife told him “wiping up” hummus with a pita was disgusting.

The Chelm Prize for weirdest behavior by an Israeli politician goes to two Russian-born parliamentarians.

Think you have trouble juggling work and domestic duties?

Floored maintenance personnel found Knesset member Anastassia Michaeli of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party (Israel Our Home), who has a brood of eight children ranging in age from 12 years to 18 months, fast asleep in her PJs under a homey comforter before hours, having crashed on the floor of her office suite. Michaeli said it was the one place where she could get some peace and quiet.

Knesset member Marina Slodkin of the middle-of-the-road Kadima Party authored one of the strangest private bills in 2010: a failed bid to make it a crime “to

publish a national daily and give it away for free for more than one year.” Slodkin argued that free papers were unfair competition that would undermine a free press.

The Chelm Prize for out-of-thebox pedagogy is a tie between the Technion and the University of Hard Knocks.

Technion alumnus Moshe Yanai charged that his alma mater’s uncompromising drive for excellence had turned Israel’s MIT into a gauntlet lined by exceptionally smart but exceedingly inhospitable faculty that took the fun out of learning, leaving a trail of suffering students in their wake.

So Yanai, now a senior vice president at IBM, is donating a total of $10.5 million in grants over 20 years to the faculty’s 15 most outstanding lecturers, with the annual $26,000 award to each recipient based not only on knowledge and didactic skills. Yanai expects the recipients, who are chosen by the student body, first of all to be empathetic and supportive — in short, a mensch. Maybe they should call the program “Honorable Menschen.”

Equally praiseworthy is the Shaarei Mishpat Law College in Ramat Hasharon, which decided to provide students with some handson experience in the real world by inviting Ali Jo’arish to speak to them as part of a lecture series to enrich students’ skills in mediation and conflict management. Jo’arish, a 45-year-old Ramle Arab, is one of the underworld’s most outstanding arbitrators and mediators (and purported to be the head of one of the most illustrious organized crime families in Israel).

Israeli students are notoriously disrespectful of any sage on the stage, but in the case of this dude, not one dared disrupt the judge’s lecture by walking about, talking or toying with their cell phones.

Only-in-Israel stories? They abounded.

In the adult division, the Chelm Prize did not go to Ikea, whose new branch in Rishon Lezion heralds falafel, not just hot dogs and Swedish meatballs.

It does go to a 34-year-old unmasked assailant who held up a gas station in Ashkelon at knifepoint and was captured on a security cameras duly kissing the mezuzah on the door (perhaps out of habit) before demanding the meager contents of the cash register. The robber then fled on foot — perhaps because it was Friday night.

Israel under the radar: Long green, grass, and a ‘Glee’ showcase

By Marcy Oster Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — Here are some recent stories out of Israel that you may have missed.

Costly storm recovery A winter storm that brought much-needed rain to Israel will cost the Tel Aviv municipality more than $2 million.

The city’s finance committee last week approved a budget of $2.3 million to recover from the storm, which damaged many businesses along the waterfront, destroyed lifeguard stations, and damaged the boardwalk and other beach facilities. Port damages alone have risen to at least $280,000.

Heavy rains and winds of up to 75 miles per hour caused huge waves to wash up on Tel Aviv beaches, breaking restaurant windows, tossing cafe furniture and scattering a thick layer of sand along the Promenade in Tel Aviv.

The storm also damaged antiquities in Caesarea and along the Mediterranean coast, and brought snow a month early to Mount Hermon in Israel’s North.

Immediately following the storm, the municipality began repairing Tel Aviv’s famous boardwalk, as well as fixing the sewer system and rooftops.

Agam’s brush with greatness A painting by Yaacov Agam set a record for the highest sale price for any Israeli artist in history.

“Growth,” an oil painting on wood panels in 12 parts, was sold for $698,000 during an auction last week in New York organized by Sotheby’s.

Agam was in the auction hall during the sale, Haaretz reported, where he received a round of applause. The sale was 179 percent higher than estimates had predicted.

Works by Marc Chagall and Reuven Rubin were sold during the same auction.

The previous record for a work by an Israeli artist, living or dead, was set by Mordecai Ardon for “Timepecker,” which was sold during a Christie’s auction in Tel Aviv for $643,200.

Make mine marijuana Israeli police raided and shut down a nonprofit organization that grows and distributes medical marijuana.

The Tikun Olam organization, which provides medical marijuana to the majority of patients permitted by the Health Ministry to use the drug, is accused of selling more than the prescribed amount of cannabis after a three-month sting

Courtesy of Deborah Sinai/Flash90/JTA

Stormy weather causes major damage to the beaches of Tel Aviv, Dec. 12, 2010.

operation, according to reports.

The Tel Aviv-based organization is the official grower and supplier of medical marijuana in Israel.

As part of the sting, an undercover agent posed as a patient with a valid prescription and repeatedly asked for more than the prescribed amount, saying it was not helping her. A saleswoman eventually gave her extra cannibas.

“Only someone who knows the need for the drug understands someone else’s need,” a Tikun Olam employee told the Israeli daily Haaretz. “The people working here are sick and only they know what it means to suffer. The policewoman took advantage of that.”

Thirty grams a month is the maximum allowed by law for the clinic to dispense. The clinic serves about 2,000 patients annually.

“The association distributes four tons of cannabis annually, and if after an undercover police investigation all the agent managed to steal was 10 grams, then we must be the world’s most secure drug company,” Tikun Olam attorney Ronen Schein told Haaretz.

‘Glee’ sings praise of Israeli innovation An Israeli invention got its 15 minutes of fame on the popular American drama “Glee.”

A robotic exoskeleton that helps wheelchair users to experience walking and was created by Israel’s Yokneam-based Argo Medical Technologies was featured on a recent episode titled “A very Glee Christmas.”

In the episode, paraplegic West McKinley High School student Artie Abrams walks for the first time using the device, called ReWalk.

“It was invented by some guy in Israel,” Artie explains of the anonymous gift found under his girlfriend’s tree — but we all know it was from the school’s football

coach, nicknamed “Beast.”

The ReWalk device is expected to go on sale in January and cost about $100,000, Israel 21c reported.

Dr. Amit Goffer, an Israeli electrical engineer who was left a quadriplegic after an accident, invented the device. Goffer cannot use his own device, however, because he does not have enough use of his hands to control it.

Let’s (not) do the Time Warp again “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will end its 15-year weekly midnight showing in Israel at the end of the year.

The 200-plus costumed moviegoers that the cult film used to attract has dwindled to a few dozen, which is not enough for the Kochav Cinema in Ramat HaSharon to continue the screenings.

The film was released in 1975 and soon became a cult favorite. It did not hit Israel until the 1990s, Haaretz reported.

The last screening will feature the best local audience participants of all time, as well as Israeli actor Dudu Zar, the host of the classic Israeli children’s television program “Parpar Nechmad,” or “Nice Butterly.”

Leo Tene, founding president of the local Rocky Horror fan club, told Haaretz that a new generation of “Rocky Horror” fans would last about 18 months before a new one came along. The current batch of supporters has been around longer and no one appears poised to take their place.

“I’m not giving up on Rocky,” Tene told Haaretz. “I hope he’ll be back soon.”

It takes green to go green Israel has discovered that it isn’t easy — and in fact is quite expensive — being green.

ISRAEL on page 22

SOCIAL LIFE

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

11

Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life™ Award honoring Mary Ellen and Tom Cody (PT. 2) PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PG.12

Stanley M. Chesley (JNF National President & previous Shalom Peace Award recipient) and John Barrett (Previous Tree of Life™ Award recipient)

Back: Randy Miller (Dinner Co-Chair, JNF Executive Board Member); Middle: Margie Adler (Dinner Co-Chair) and Diane Weber (Dinner Co-Chair); Front: Patti Schneider (Dinner Co-Chair, JNF Executive Board Member), and Mary Ellen and Tom Cody (2010-2011 Tree of Life™ Honorees)

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

Roma Kaltman Ruchama bat Perl

Ravid Sulam Ravid Chaya bat Ayelet

Daniel Eliyahu Daniel ben Tikvah

Pepa Kaufman Perel Tova bat Sima Sora

Edward Ziv Raphael Eliezer Aharon ben Esther Enya

Edith Kaffeman Yehudit bat B’racha

Murray Kirschner Chaim Meir ben Basha

Marty & Sally Hiudt

Suzette and Michael Fisher presenting the Tree of Life™ award to Tom and Mary Ellen Cody.

Announcements are free :) • BIRTHS • BAT/BAR MITZVAHS • ENGAGEMENTS • WEDDINGS • BIRTHDAYS • WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES • REFUAH SHLEMAHS Send your announcement to: articles@americanisraelite.com

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CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

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Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life™ Award honoring Mary Ellen & Tom Cody (PT. 2)

Thelma and Harvey Bergman

Louis and Beth Guttman

Sharon & Jeff (1st Annual Board Member of the Year recipient) Casper

Morry and Michele Wiener

Sam Knobler and Hirsch Wise

Iris Bellos and Marcie Bachrach

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

13

Rabbi Irv Wise, Cindy and Harold Guttman

Eddie Paul (Special Events Co-Chair; JNF National Board Member), Mary Ellen and Tom Cody, and Nina Paul (Special Events Co-Chair; JNF National Board Member)

Al and Janie Miller and Randy and Barb Miller

Michele Wiener, John Barrett (Previous Tree of Life™ Award recipient) and Pam Barnett

Louise Roselle (Southern Ohio Regional President), Patti Schneider (2010-2011 Board Member of the Year Award recipient), and Eddie Paul Margot Heubi, Jim Miller, and Shannon Carter

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DINING OUT

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Light Asian dining at Bangkok Terrace

By Marilyn Gale Dining Editor Little bistro In the town Cute and lovely, You won’t frown.

Ginger, garlic, Lots of spice Everything is very nice.

Light, friendly Sushi, too, A healthy lunch For me and you Dinner time, Bring the kids Teach them Through this fresh cuisine How to stay fit And very lean.

I am beginning to think that Thai food is perfect—a combination of nutritious spice and food, a largely vegetarian base served with rice. Ginger is a star in this cuisine and has multiple health properties to aid in digestion and circulation. That being said, the arrival of Bangkok Terrace, in existence for two years, is a gift to the Blue Ash area.

Jennifer Boonyakanist—owner and chef—makes everything from scratch and hand picks all of the ingredients from local produce stores. Growing up in Thailand, she learned cooking from her aunt.

Being one of the older siblings, it was expected that she had to help with meals. Often that meant going out in her family’s backyard and picking home-grown produce such as basil, another prominent ingredient in Thai cooking. Prior to arriving in Cincinnati, Boonyakanist worked in Boston and California.

The sauces at Bangkok Terrace are homemade, no monosodium glutamate is allowed near the culinary premises. Boonyakanist shops at Jungle Jim’s, grills the meat that goes into the dishes and works in her restaurant seven days a week.

I spoke with Nikkia King at Boonyakanist’s request. King is a server at Bangkok Terrace and also has a business degree. With a tight economy, King took the job because she wanted to understand how a small business operates.

King is quick to say she admires Boonyakanist and her partner’s, Tom Khlongnarong, persistence.

King credits the owners with infusing the restaurant with serving a customer in a mindful, respectful manner.

Dining patrons can bring their own wine and beer into the restaurant without being charged a corking fee.

King added, “There are always real flowers on the tables.” These gentle touches make eating a delightful experience at Bangkok Terrace.

For customers dining at

(Clockwise) Jennifer Boonyakanist and Tom Khlongnarong are your gracious hosts; Dine in peaceful surroundings; Always fresh sushi makes a heart healthy meal at Bangkok Terrace.

Bangkok Terrace for the first time, King suggests trying a rice or noodle dish. Noodles can be in a soup or stir fry. Rice can be curried or from a wok. There are lots of healthy options here, whether it is choice of meat, veggies or rice on the side. If counting calories, sauce can be ordered on the side and one can request “light oil.” Brown rice is also available. Seaweed salad marinated in sesame dressing offers good nutritional value. Bean thread noodle, which is the main ingredient in sukiyaki, is low in fat and low in carbohydrates. Potstickers, known as gyoza, can be steamed or fried. Edamame, lightly salted steamed soy beans. is a satisfying first course to whet your appetite without crashing the calorie bank.

For children, appetizers are kid friendly and the young ones will be

happy with spring rolls or chicken satay, delicious savory finger foods to be dipped into specially seasoned, tangy soy sauce.

Spicy Thai salads are on the menu. Som Tum, green papaya salad, consists of freshly shredded papaya and carrots with tomatoes, Thai chili, green bean, roasted peanuts in a spicy lime sauce, priced at $6. Yum Nua, spicy beef salad, has charbroiled top sirloin with tomatoes, cucumber, onions, scallions tossed in a seasoned lime sauce for $11. Nam Tok also has top sirloin and is mixed with red and green onions, cilantro, crushed roasted jasmine rice and lime sauce also for $11.

Sushi is pretty and plentiful at Bangkok Terrace. Khlongnarong is the sushi chef and recommends the Rainbow Roll which is topped with

tuna, salmon, white fish and avocado. Order two of these gifts from the sea and you have a full meal. If you go the vegetarian route, you can choose from asparagus, cucumber, avocado or the Thai roll which is cucumber, bean sprouts, basil leaves, lime and chili sauce. Each vegetarian roll has six pieces and prices start at $4. Or if you are daring, try “screaming roll 1,” yellow tail fish, cucumber, scallions and chili sauce or “screaming roll 2,” the same combination with tuna.

The lunch menu will change starting the first of the new year, and a mango curry will be added.

Bento boxes, a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine are available.

A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually

in a box-shaped container. At Bangkok Terrace, the bento boxes are served with miso soup, house salad and steamed rice for $11.95.

There are also sushi lunch specials where diners select their favorite combinations of this popular food.

Our national eating habits are evolving. Tri-state residents have more options to eat ethnic food packed with nutrients that in the past could only be obtained through health food vitamins. Treat yourself and your family and dine in this lovely bistro. It is never too soon to begin to educate the children in the ABCs of healthy eating.

Bangkok Terrace 4858 Hunt Road Blue Ash, 45242 (513) 891-8900 Fax (513) 834-8012

DINING OUT

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

15

DINING OUT

AUTHENTIC JAPANESE FOOD & HIBACHI GRILL

OPEN NEW YEAR’S EVE Ambar India Restaurant 350 Ludlow Ave Cincinnati 281-7000

Ferrari’s Little Italy & Bakery 7677 Goff Terrace Madeira 272-2220

Oriental Wok 2444 Madison Rd Hyde Park 871-6888

Andy’s Mediterranean Grille At Gilbert & Nassau 2 blocks North of Eden Park 281-9791

Gabby’s Cafe 515 Wyoming Ave Wyoming 821-6040

Parkers Blue Ash Grill 4200 Cooper Rd Blue Ash 891-8300

Aroma Restaurant & Sushi 7875 Montgomery Rd Kenwood 791-0950

Incahoots 4110 Hunt Rd Blue Ash 793-2600

Pomodori’s 121West McMillan • 861-0080 7880 Remington Rd Montgomery • 794-0080

Baba India Restaurant 3120 Madison Rd Cincinnati 321-1600

Izzy’s 800 Elm St • 721-4241 612 Main St • 241-6246 5098B Glencrossing Way 347-9699 1198 Smiley Ave • 825-3888 300 Madison Ave Covington • 859-292-0065

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

Bangkok Terrace 4858 Hunt Rd Blue Ash 891-8900 • 834-8012 (fx) Bella Luna Café 4632 Eastern Ave Cincinnati 871-5862 Blue Elephant 2912 Wasson Rd Cincinnati 351-0123 Carlo & Johnny 9769 Montgomery Rd Cincinnati 936-8600 CUMIN 3520 Erie Ave Hyde Park 871-8714 Dingle House 9102 Towne Centre Dr West Chester 874-PINT (7468) Embers 8120 Montgomery Rd Montgomery 984-8090

Johnny Chan 2 11296 Montgomery Rd The Shops at Harper’s Point 489-2388 • 489-3616 (fx) K.T.’s Barbecue & Deli 8501 Reading Rd Reading 761-0200 Kanak India Restaurant 10040B Montgomery Rd Montgomery 793-6800 Marx Hot Bagels 9701 Kenwood Rd Blue Ash 891-5542 Mecklenburg Gardens 302 E. University Ave Clifton 221-5353 MEI Japanese Restaurant 8608 Market Place Ln Montgomery 891-6880

Sonoma American & Med. Grill 3012 Madison Rd Cincinnati 376-9941 Stone Creek Dining Co. 9386 Montgomery Rd Montgomery 489-1444

& NEW YEAR’S DAY 8608 MARKET PLACE LANE

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Sukhothai Thai Cuisine 8102 Market Place Ln Cincinnati 794-0057 Sultan’s Med. Cuisine 7305 Tyler’s Corner Dr West Chester 847-1535 Tandoor 8702 Market Place Ln Montgomery 793-7484

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OPINION

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Point of View

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

By Rabbi James A. Rudin

Rabbi Rudin is the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser.

Dear Editor, AJC welcomes the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement that it is imposing fresh sanctions against the Iranian regime. It is targeting companies linked to the Revolutionary Guard, including the Ansar and Mehr banks and the Moallem insurance company.

The U.S. government is sending Iran a clear message: comply with legally-binding UN resolutions concerning your nuclear activities, or face the consequences.

The Treasury Department has worked tirelessly to penalize Iran for its nuclear-weapons ambitions.

The new measures begin just as

Iran announced it was cutting subsidies for fuel and vital food supplies. Police and security forces were stationed in Tehran and other cities in anticipation of popular unrest, showing that the Iranian regime fears its own people.

Barbara Glueck Director, AJC Cincinnati

Have something on your mind?

Write a letter to the editor. editor@americanisraelite.com

T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: VA'ERA (SHMOT 6:2—9:35) b.) Korach c.) Sons of Levi

1. What was the third plague? a.) Lice b.) Wild animals c.) Plague of pestilence 2. What was the extent of the plague of frogs? a.) Only Pharaoh and his palace b.) All of of Egypt c.) Even past its borders where Egyptians lived 3. Which member of the Children of Israel became a wicked person? a.) Dathan and Aviram prince and righteous man Rashi 5. C 6:25 Putiel was Yitro. Actually, she might have been descended from Yitro but not a daughter. Their son Pinchas is mentioned because he merited the kehuna through his deeds.

It used to be that Americans focused their religious lives around brick-and-mortar structures — churches, synagogues, mosques and temples — for worship, study and assembly.

Members of various faith communities considered those buildings the center of their spiritual lives as they gathered for religious rites of passage including baptisms, baby namings, bar/bat mitzvah ceremonies, confirmations, weddings and funerals.

Inside those sacred spaces with their steeples or domes or stainedglass windows, Americans followed the men — it was nearly always men — who donned colorful vestments as a visual validation of their religious authority.

Not any more.

There are enormous changes afoot, and failure to respond will mean clergy and their once dominant institutions will be pushed to the sidelines of American life. The fancy sociological term for such irrelevancy is “marginalization.”

The religious model that dominated American life is weakening, and even disappearing, in the face of irreversible spiritual and technological changes. America’s religious institutions can get ahead of this wave, or be swallowed under by it.

Not too long ago, it was difficult for laypeople to acquire and then study a sacred text on their own beyond the omnipresent family Bible. The writings of ancient church fathers, medieval theologians, or even contemporary religious leaders were generally confined to dusty shelves inside large public libraries or seminaries.

Within Judaism, for example, those who wanted to venture into the literature of post-biblical Judaism — especially the 5,894 pages of the Talmud — were stymied unless a nearby synagogue or rabbinical school offered such study.

The Internet has changed all that. Want to know how the Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas was influenced by the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides? It’s just a Google search away. Want to read different English translations of the

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

4. Does the Torah give the name of Aaron's wife along with their children? a.) Yes b.) No 5. What did Moshe and his nephew Elazar have in common? a.) They both went to Pharaoh to let Children of Israel go b.) Both had difficulty speaking c.) Married women from the same family

because of their inability to stop the plague. R B'chaya 2. B 8:28,29 3. B 6:24 4. A 6:23 When a man marries he check the brother of his wife. Elisheva's brother was Nachson a future

The coming marginalization

same scripture verses? There’s an app for that.

Men and women no longer have to meet together in a designated building to share spiritual beliefs or study. Skype, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have shattered geographical borders and psychological barriers. Now you can pray in real time with someone half a world away.

Don’t like your local synagogue? You can log in to one on the other side of the country.

Don’t trust what your pastor said in church on Sunday? Log on to your favorite blog or website to find out for yourself.

In short, the neighborhood synagogue or church is being supplanted by the rapid globalization of all things religious.

Religious commitment has always been held in tension between public “externals” (clergy, buildings, institutions) and private “internals” (personal prayer, meditation or study). Increasingly, the line between the two is so blurred as to be invisible.

Recent surveys indicate that Americans, perhaps the world’s greatest consumers, are shopping around to find the “best and latest” elements to suit their religious needs. Call it “spiritual consumerism.”

It can mean many things to many people: joining a Protestant megachurch with custom-tailored niche ministries, or opting for a small living-room fellowship that offers intimate study and prayer, or a do-it-yourself private spirituality that has little to no connection to any group, large or small.

That’s not all. There’s the impact of feminism on religions that have been male-dominated; liberation theology that challenges a society’s religious and political order; and interfaith encounters — increasingly, within people’s own families — that do not require the approval or guidance of religious authorities.

Lay people are staking out moral and ethical positions on issues that were once the exclusive domain of an educated hierarchy. Clergy can either fight and trivialize this irreversible movement and be marginalized, or embrace it and find ways to meet the needs of wandering flocks while still preserving their eternal messages.

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. A 8:13 The sorcerers of Egypt could not duplicate the lice because they could not manipulate something smaller than a bean. Rashi. Also, from this plague on they are not referred to as the Ågwise men of EgyptÅh,

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JEWISH LIFE

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

Sedra of the Week

By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT VA’EIRA • EXODUS 6:2–9:35

Efrat, Israel - This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. (Exodus 7:17) What was the purpose of the plagues? If God’s intention was to redeem the Jews from slavery, wasn’t there a more efficient way?

In Genesis, we saw that when people behave badly, God gives them time to repent, but once punishment begins, it is swift and effective, leaving no further opportunities to repent.

Why should Egypt be different? When God decided to suspend the laws of nature, the Egyptians could have been eliminated in an explosion of fire and brimstone, liberating the Israelites instantly. Why do we need these 10 steps, turning the screw tighter and tighter until even the most resistant Egyptian could not maintain his stubbornness? To answer this, we need to determine the purpose of the plagues — were they just sent to free the Israelites, or was there more involved?

The liberation from Egypt represented the inauguration of a people brought together not by geography but by ideology — a holy kingdom. The most powerful nation on earth would be challenged by a group of slaves who, despite their long years of bondage, were chosen by God to stand at the center of history. They were to become the living expression of a way of life which stands in direct opposition to that of the pharaohs.

Ancient Egypt was the prototype of civilizations built on slaves. At the apex of the pyramid, we find the man-god Pharaoh, while at its base were the faceless slaves. Sandwiched in between were the priests, who held tremendous power and whose status was exceeded only by Pharaoh himself.

The Ten Plagues not only served to free our nation from the despotic Egyptians, but also demonstrated that the time had come when “Egypt shall know that I am God, when I stretch out my hand over Egypt and bring out the children from among them”

When God decided to suspend the laws of nature, the Egyptians could have been eliminated in an explosion of fire and brimstone, liberating the Israelites instantly.

(Exodus 7:5). Throughout the duration of the plagues, this idea is constantly repeated as God breaks the chains of bondage and establishes fundamental truths for all time.

The first principle of Judaism is the existence of one God, who takes a specific interest in His creation and has the ability to establish and destroy civilizations.

The second principle is that the world is not an arbitrary place, where those on top are entitled to treat their slaves however they wish while living off the fruit of their labors. There is a Divine system of reward and punishment, and people who act cruelly and cause pain to others will be held responsible.

The third principle is that there is a plan to history. Judaism promises a final Redemption with the arrival of the Messiah, the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

From a theological perspective, the Ten Plagues hammered away at the idolatrous beliefs of the Egyptians, demonstrating that they were based on foolish superstition. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile, attributing Egypt’s position at the helm of civilization to the divine powers of this mighty river. When its waters were turned to blood and then infested with frogs, the absurdity of this idea was exposed, forcing the Egyptians to rethink their ideas as they saw their fertility god transformed into a source of death and destruction.

Apart from the Nile, the Egyptians worshiped animals, birds and insects, but as the plagues progressed, these deities appeared to devastate the local agriculture and were then themselves destroyed. As the Egyptians witnessed the decimation of their livelihoods and the ruin of their country, the country’s idolatrous

infrastructure began to buckle, and the people realized that it was not a man-god in charge, but the Creator of the Universe.

So the plagues offered a profound lesson in theology, including an important message about social justice. Slavery is one of the great sins of the ancient world, and the perpetrators had to suffer in a manner so graphic that it would illustrate for all time the relationship between the crime and the punishment.

The Egyptian reign of terror against the Israelites began with the decree that all Hebrew male children be cast into the Nile. Pharaoh’s use of the river as a means to persecute Jewish families led God to appropriate it for the punishment of Egypt. With the plagues of blood and frogs, the source of Jewish suffering becomes the focus of Egyptian suffering. Then the plague of boils mimics the boils and blisters inflicted on the Israelite slaves when they were beaten by their taskmasters. Plagues on the animals show that it is forbidden to dehumanize a person. In this way, the plagues offer a measure-for-measure punishment for the persecution of an innocent slave population.

Through each plague, God teaches Pharaoh and his people basic lessons in theology, and informs him of the Divine concern for every human being.

Most importantly, the plagues form the backdrop for the liberation of the Israelites so that they can sacrifice the Paschal Lamb, showing that it’s not enough to end slavery; one must begin serving God in freedom. In this way, the plagues exchanged the Egyptian obsession with death to a life-enhancing focus on the God of freedom, redemption and hope.

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

17

18

JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

Jewz in the Newz

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist NEW YEAR’S EVE ON THE TUBE It’s almost worth subscribing to HBO just to see BETTE MIDLER’s New Year’s Eve special (starts 9PM). Entitled, “The Showgirl Must Go On,” it features her wonderful mix of comedy and music. Backing Midler are her showgirls, called the Harlettes, and a 13-piece-band. Most of the material comes from Midler’s Las Vegas nightclub show, which she recently decided to end after a very successful two-year run.

(Most subscribers now get “HBO East” and “HBO West”—so if you miss the first showing at 9PM on “East;” you can watch it on “West.” Also, many repeat showings in Jan.) If you get Showtime, you can watch comedian TOM ARNOLD (“Roseanne,” “True Lies”) on New Year’s Eve (9PM, EST). It’s his first one-hour stand-up special and the show’s publicity describes it thus: “Tom exposes himself, his four marriages, and his lifelong friendships developed while working on 72 films.”

Arnold, 50, grew-up in a large, working-class Iowa Methodist family. In 1983, he met alreadyfamous comedian ROSEANNE BARR. In 1988, she hired him to write for the new TV show (“Roseanne”) which quickly became a monster hit. They fell in love, wed in 1989, and re-married in a Jewish ceremony a couple of years later. Tom is an alcoholic, but quit drinking around 1990 and he’s remained sober. He and Roseanne bitterly split-up in 1994 and another failed marriage followed. In 2008, he met his current wife, designer ASHLEY GROUSSMAN, at a Passover seder.

Arnold converted to Judaism in 1990, after a year of study. His conversion was spurred by his discovery, in a family history library, of his maternal grandfather’s Jewish ancestors. He had a bar mitzvah in 1995 and he’s been a regular synagogue-goer. Arnold’s great friend and spiritual counselor is Rabbi MARK BORVITZ, the leader of a Los Angeles shul that is both a full service congregation and a residential substance abuse treatment center.

JEWISH BADGER VERSUS CHRISTIAN HORNED FROGS The Rose Bowl, like every year, takes place on New Year’s Day (televised on ESPN; 5PM EST). The “Big Ten” champs, the Univ. of Wisconsin Badgers, will

play the Texas Christian Univ.

Horned Frogs. Badgers’ offensive tackle GABE CARIMI emerged this season as a superstar—he’s a consensus first team All-American; the Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year; and he was the winner of the Outland Trophy—one of the top awards in college football, it is presented to the best interior lineman in the country. A civil engineering major, Carimi was also named to the Academic All-Big Ten team. He will graduate this spring and he’s almost certain to be picked early in the pro draft.

Carimi grew-up in Cottage Grove, Wis. I don’t believe his father, a doctor, is Jewish. His mother is Jewish and Gabe was raised Jewish and had a bar mitzvah. The local Wisconsin media has been particularly intrigued by the fact that he always fasts on Yom Kippur. This year, he had to play right after the holiday was over, so he had fluids injected intravenously to counteract the effect of not drinking/eating for a day. (This may be a first!)

THE SHERMAN BROTHERS If you haven’t heard of the Sherman brothers, you are not alone. But “everybody” has heard their songs. ROBERT B. SHERMAN, now 85, and his brother, RICHARD (“Dick”) M. SHERMAN, now 82, were the first and only songwriters to be on staff to Disney studios. They wrote the words and music for such classics as “Mary Poppins,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “The Jungle Book,” “The Aristocats,” “Winnie the Pooh,” and “Charlotte’s Web.” They won two Oscars and were nominated for seven more. Their most famous songs include “It’s a Small World After All” and “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”

The brothers are the subject of the 2009 documentary, “The Boys: the Sherman Brothers Story.” It is just out on DVD. Also, if you get Starz cable, you can see it on demand until Jan. 14 and check the station’s schedule for a few regular showings in January. Directed and produced by JEFFREY SHERMAN (Dick’s son and the husband of comedian WENDY LIEBMAN) and GREGORY SHERMAN (Robert’s son)—the documentary is surprising and fascinating and full of big names like Julie Andrews. The brothers have an extraordinary love/hate relationship with each other that seems to have spurred their creativity. Also, I was quite moved when Robert Sherman re-counted how, as a 19year-old American soldier, he was among those who liberated Dachau concentration camp.

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FROM THE PAGES 100 Years Ago Cincinnati relatives were called to New York because of the death of Charles J. Heinsheimer. Mr. Heinsheimer was formerly of Cincinnati, though he lived in New York. He was a member of the firm of P.J. Godhart & Co., from which he retired on May 1 1910. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. Lewis. L. Heinsheimer, and two sisters, Mrs. J. Walter Freiberg and Miss Daisy H. Heinsheimer, and two brothers, Edward L. and Walter H. Heinsheimer.

Mr. Heinsheimer was unmarried.

The undertaking and livery establishment of F.B. Maertz, on Plum Street, is to undergo a change the first of the year, when the third generation enters into identification with the firm. The establishment was started by B. Maertz in 1854. In 1870 it became B. Maertz & Son, the son soon introducing the undertaking branch of the business as well. In 1882 the firm name became F. B. Maertz, and with the opening of the new year it will be F. B. Maertz & Son. Three generations of the Maertz family will then have been in concern since its

inception, a very unusual record in this century. Mr. F.B. Maertz also says that for 20 years beginning with 1871 he was the only Jewish undertaker in the United States. This alteration of the firm has been observed externally by adding an auto livery department to the livery stable already in use. At the same time, the entire building was remolded and fireproofed. The new structure contains a mortuary chapel and show-room for caskets, so that all the essentials of a funeral may be observed within the establishment. — December 29, 1910

75 Years Ago Mr. and Mrs. Justin Rollman will leave for the South after the holiday season.

Mrs. Mark G. Feder has been enjoying a visit in New York City with her sister, Miss Karline Brown. Mr. Louis Feder is spending the holidays in Pittsburgh with relatives and friends.

Mr. and Mrs. Harry J. Klein (Marjorie Levine) of Louisville, Ky., have been the guests of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Levine, over

the holidays.

Epsilon of Sigma Delta Tau is entertaining with its annual winter formal at the Hotel Gibson Saturday, Jan. 4th, in honor of the pledge group, composed of the Misses Marjorie Levine, Henriette Liepold, Adele Dalman, Charlotte Stern, Gladys Nabe, Lillian Burgin, Ruth Hirshfeld, May Francis Shprintz and Betty Eichel.

Miss Margery Hirschfeld is in charge.

Mrs. Edith Wolf Marx, 61, of 550 Rose Hill Avenue, St. Bernard, passed away Saturday, Dec. 28th, after a long illness. Services were held Sunday.

Mrs. Marx is survived by three sons, Joe J. Marx, president of the Perfect Manufacturing Co., and David S. Marx, naturalist, both of Cincinnati; and Robert L. Marx, manufacturer, New York City.

Her husband, Herman Marx, died about 15 years ago. — January 2, 1935

50 Years Ago Vice Mayor Walton H. Bachrach will be elected mayor of Cincinnati at a meeting of City Council Thursday, Jan. 5, it was announced this week.

A graduate of Washington & Lee and of the University of Cincinnati Law School, Mr. Bachrach is a member of Rockdale Temple, Losantiville Country Club and Zeta Beta Tau. He is a former president of the Cincinnati Convention Bureau and is secretary of the Republican Club.

Mr. and Mrs. Bachrach (the former Miss Ida May Henley) have two

daughters, Mrs. Milton Pockros and Mrs. Robert Harris, and four grandchildren, all of Cincinnati. Mr. Bachrach is the son of Mrs. Fisher Bachrach and the late Mr. Bachrach.

Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, will give the benediction Friday, Jan. 20, at the ceremonies marking the inauguration of John. F. Kennedy as president of the United States, it was learned this week.

Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston will deliver the invocation.

Archbishop Iakovos, of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, and the Rev. Dr. John Barclay, of the Central Christian Church, of Austin, Tex., will give prayers.

Mrs. Ruth Joseph Lustberg, 187 Wedgewood Avenue, passed away Wednesday, Dec. 21. Survivors include her husband, Dr. Alfred Lustberg; a son, Thomas Joseph Lustberg; a sister, Mrs. Rosalind Rashleigh, and a brother, Sylvan Joseph. — December 29, 1960

25 Years Ago The Family-Teen Project of Jewish Family Service is sponsoring a series of seven workshops for parents of teens beginning next week.

The first workshop will take place Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center. The speaker will be Dr. Cynthia Dember on “The Tasks of Adolescence: Coming of Age in Cincinnati.”

Dr. Dember is a clinical psychologist who has worked extensively with children, adolescents, and their families. An adjunct professor of psychology at UC,

she is past president of the Cincinnati Society of Child Clinical Psychologists and of the Cincinnati Academy of Professional Psychology.

Jerome Russel Bremen of 7430 Elbrook Avenue passed away Dec. 23.

He is survived by his wife, Selma; and a daughter, Diane.

Mr. Bremen was the father of the late Marlene Bremen and the son of the late Morris and Hattie Bremen.

Mrs. Minnie Marcus of Glen Manor Home for the Aged passed away Dec. 25.

She is survived by her husband,

Maurice; a daughter, Mrs. Sam (Ruth) Chalfie; three sisters, Ida Klein of Fresno, Calif., Rose Pushkin of Hollywood, Fla., and Helen Wayne of Hollywood, Fla., two grandchildren and their spouses, Emily and Robert Bowman of Palm Beach, Fla., James and Eileen Chalfie of Cincinnati; and six great-grandchildren, Barbara Tobias, Susan and Nancy Bowman, John, Craig, and Michael Chalfie, all of Cincinnati.

Mrs. Marcus was a volunteer for the Jewish Hospital Auxiliary for more than 30 years. — January 2, 1985

10 Years Ago The wedding of Nina Perlove and Charles Croog took place September 3, 2000, at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor, Mich. Rabbi Robert Levi officiated. A reception followed at the Washtenaw Country Club. The bride is the daughter of Shelley and Warren Perlove of Ann Arbor. The groom is the son of Mary and George Croog of Cincinnati. Nina is the granddaughter of Jerry and Evelyn Millman and Louis Perlove and the late Gertrude Perlove. Charlie is the grandson of the late Dr. Charles and Elizabeth Siegel

and the late John and Rose Croog.

Dr. Arnold Peck, 68, passed away December 16, 2000. Dr. Peck was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Dr. Aaron and Rose (Shaw) Peck. He moved to Cincinnati with his family at age 4. Dr. Peck is survived by his wife, Sandy Peck, of Amberley Village, Ohio and his children: Drs. Fred and Lauren Peck of Blue Ash; and Laurie and Dr. Bruce Berwald of St. Louis, Mo. Dr. Peck is also survived by six grandchildren: Brandon, Joshua, Gabrielle, and Amanda Peck, and Rachel and Sara Berwald.

Barry Joffe will be installed as the new president of Congregation Ohav Shalom at an installation dinner Sunday, Jan. 14, at the synagogue.

Joffe is currently the senior vice president of the congregation.

His family was among the first wave of young families who helped spark the rejuvenation of the congregation in the mid-1990s. Since that time, the congregation has built a new home on Cornell Road and increased its membership by more than 50 percent. — December 30, 2000

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

CLASSIFIEDS

19

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) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.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 Fund (513) 899-1836 • workum.org CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 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 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 EDUCATION Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com 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 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 Jewish War Veterans (513) 204-5594 • jwv.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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ROCKWERN from page 1 Jewishly active and less likely to intermarry than Hebrew school graduates.

The challenging, integrated curriculum and small class sizes at Rockwern allow for individual attention from creative, knowledgeable teachers.

Students at Rockwern have more time for extra-curricular activities like sports and music, because their religious education is integrated into their schooling, rather than having to attend religious classes after school.

Furthermore, the religious education at a day school seems to “stick” more than after-school and weekend education. According to a report from the United Jewish Communities by Steven M. Cohen and Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, “In general, attendance at a day school seven years or more exerts the most powerful positive impact on Jewish identity.” This means that graduates from a Jewish day school are more likely to celebrate Jewish holidays, join Hillel in college, donate time and money to Jewish organizations as adults, visit Israel, and more likely to marry another Jew. How do we get the parents to make a commitment to their children to continue a Jewish education through eighth grade?

In 2008, Rockwern received a $4 million dollar endowment fund from the Rockwern Charitable Foundation, established by the late Dr. Samuel S. Rockwern, to secure the school’s future. The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati manages the fund on the school’s behalf.

INDICH from page 1 observant Torah lifestyle, continues to be felt by many until this day.

The evening will begin with an informal buffet dinner and gettogether, providing an opportunity for attendees to greet Rebbetzin Risa Indich Kaufman, who now resides in Montreal, Dr. Nachum Indich, their eldest son, along with other family members. At 7 p.m., the formal program will begin, featuring stories and memories from community members, a video presentation, and guest speaker Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh

• • • • •

Up to 24 hour care Meal Preparation Errands/Shopping Hygiene Assistance Light Housekeeping

(513) 531-9600 After a unanimous vote by the school’s trustees, the school’s name was changed to Rockwern Academy in 2008.

In addition to the fund, Rockwern will receive $329,000 from the federation for tuition scholarships in 2011.

Is the answer to Rockwern’s dilemma more fundraising or is it an unwavering commitment to offer all grades, preK–8, no matter how many students are enrolled?

A survey of Jewish community parents is currently being conducted with the support and cooperation of the federation, Mayerson Jewish Community Center, Rockwern and the Cincinnati Hebrew Day School. The purpose of the survey is to gain a better understanding of the attitudes of families with young children about kindergarten and primary school education. Hopefully, this survey will reveal current attitudes held about Jewish day school education, but is it enough to spur people to action?

How do we increase enrollment? How do we convince parents faced with a plethora of good education options that a Jewish day school education is in the best secular and religious interest of their children? How do we motivate the school’s board of directors and the Jewish Foundation and the federation to do more?

With all of the benefits of a Jewish day school in terms of academic excellence and Jewish identity, shouldn’t Rockwern be a greater priority for the whole Jewish community?

This topic will be more thoroughly addressed in future editions.

Weinreb, formerly the executive director of the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America and well-know Torah personality.

Family members will conduct a siyum (completion of Torah learning) in Rabbi Indich’s memory to conclude the program. A dessert reception will follow.

The dinner, program and reception are free and open to the entire community (adults only please), but reservations are requested. Contact the Golf Manor office for reservations or to share memories or pictures of Rabbi Indich to be presented at the program.

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FASHION

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Easy winter wardrobe updates Fashionably Late

By Stephanie Davis-Novak Fashion Editor It’s cold, it gets dark early, and there are no more work holidays for several months. Winter dreariness can lead even a normally stylish person to a dull routine of sweatpants. Snap out of the style rut this season with some low-fuss and easy to pull off key trends.

It is not often that “turtlenecks” and “fashionable” are used together in the same sentence. However, the turtleneck is officially stylish MERCAZ from page 1 created shown at the Museum!” said Dara Wood, director of Mercaz.

“I am so thrilled at the direction Mercaz is going with these handson courses that have real end projects. They are teaching our students skills they may not get POPULATION from page 1 The U.S. data on the Israeli population comes from the 2009 American Community Survey, an annual report produced by the U.S. Census Bureau that was released earlier this year and updated in recent weeks. The decennial census stopped collecting detailed information such as country of origin after 2000; that information is now collected and included in the bureau’s annual community surveys.

The survey also reported that 27 percent of Israelis in the United States arrived since 2000. Threequarters are between the ages of 25 and 65. Forty-five percent of the adults have at least an undergraduate degree, and more than 80 perDIGITAL from page 1 “The vision of people coming to shul on Shabbat with their e-siddur just doesn’t cut it,” Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, president of the Orthodox-run publishing house, told JTA. There are other reasons, too — notably a lag in technology.

Amazon’s Kindle is not yet equipped to present Hebrew and English texts on facing pages, which the prayerbooks require, and the iPad’s capability to do so is “quite limited,” according to Zlotowitz.

this winter, especially in luxe fibers such as cashmere. This is a look that works for everyone, at every age. It’s also an extremely versatile piece that can be worn to the office, out to dinner, or just a low-key night in. Quite a few designers have turtlenecks in their collections, from Juicy Couture’s chunky fringed turtleneck sweater, to Ralph Lauren’s refined silk and cashmere blend turtleneck.

The cape is another easy trend that will make you forget about your boring sweats. While capes are usually worn between seasons, they are ideal for a dramatic look, or when you are sporting bulky knits that don’t fit under a traditional coat.

Capes can range from lightweight, such as Alexander McQueen’s silk chiffon open-front cape, to heavy, such as Ann Demeulemeester’s wool-linen cape coat. To work this trend into the office or for a more casual daytime look, try a capelet.

Capelets are generally shorter in length and smaller in proportion.

Stella McCartney’s sequined cape cardigan offers the scaled-down silhouette of a cape but with the wearability of a cardigan sweater, and Mackage’s chic tailored wool cape coat would work well in place of a blazer.

The 1960s silhouette trend is still going strong, and a ladylike structured sheath dress can easily give your wardrobe a quick boost.

The key to making this look work without it looking like a costume is to throw in some modern twists.

Try an edgy but tailored leather jacket over the dress or an eyecatching pair of dress boots. This retro silhouette, such as the Max and Cleo sheath with its architectural details or the belted tweed David Meister dress, is a no-fuss one-piece outfit, can effortlessly go from day to evening, and looks great with a variety of accessories.

Sheath dress by Max and Cleo

This is truly a piece that should be in every woman’s closet.

Men can also add a style update with minimal effort. Chunky-knit sweaters have been a very popular look this winter, which is an easy way to add some texture to an outfit. An angora-blend shawl-collar cardigan by 7 For All Mankind looks great buttoned-up or open, over a t-shirt, or a collared shirt.

Another trendy sweater option is the Fair Isle sweater, which is a colorful patterned wool sweater.

The Fair Isle is very versatile; because it is known as a more traditional look, it can be worn with khakis or trousers, but it can also easily be worn with jeans for a more casual look. Ralph Lauren offers a rugged zip-front Fair Isle cardigan, and Rag and Bone has a dressier shawl-collar Fair Isle pullover in their collection. Any of these options will have you looking on-trend.

exposed to and giving them the chance to do so through a Jewish lens,” said Wood. “The first class, ‘Documentary Film Making,’ taught the students how to film and edit and they were able to produce a documentary about Jewish identity. I also love the mix of pairing teachers together. It isn’t

easy to find someone who has the Judaic knowledge and is a professional in the field, and this grant has allowed us to do this – to bring something new and innovative to Mercaz Hebrew High School.”

Sarah Wasniewski, a Mercaz student signed up for the art class said, “I have always loved art, and

combining painting and Judaism will be a lot of fun. I am very excited that I can take an art class at Mercaz! It would be so meaningful to have a finished piece of my work displayed at the Cincinnati Art Museum so others have the opportunity to look at what we’ve been working on.”

Another student, Shira Shturman said “I wanted to join the class because art is something I enjoy a lot and it helps me express myself. I hope to learn more techniques and think it would be a dream come true to have my artwork in a museum!”

See the Mercaz website for more information and to register.

cent hold white-collar jobs. And just to dispel a popular stereotype, only 4.6 percent work in the “production, transportation and material moving occupations.”

The Israeli Leadership Council in Los Angeles, an organization that promotes communal identity among local Israeli Jews, says that about 250,000 Israelis live in the greater L.A. region. The council’s figures are based on information from the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, said a spokesperson for the group. The consulate would not confirm the figures to JTA. A UJA-Federation of New York study published in February 2009 reported about 80,000 people living in households with at least one Israeli adult in New York City and

three suburban counties. Dave Matkowsky, director of the resource center for Jewish diversity at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, says his department uses that figure “with caveats,” suggesting that the real number may be higher.

Aside from New York and Los Angeles, the metropolitan areas of Boston, San Francisco and Miami also have significant Israeli populations.

So which numbers are more accurate, the census figures or the Jewish estimates?

Leonard Saxe, director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, notes that many Israelis in the United States are here temporarily and might not be counted as “resi-

dents.”

He also says that many people holding Israeli passports may not have been born in Israel but in the former Soviet Union or even the United States. They would not show up in the Census Bureau statistics but would be counted as Israeli citizens by most other estimates, including those of the Israeli government.

Another discrepancy could be in how Israelis are counted. Israel considers as Israelis children born to Israelis, even if they’ve never been to Israel, Gold noted. Those children would not show up as Israelis in the U.S. Census figures.

Then there are political sensitivities.

“Official estimates of Israelis

abroad, especially those released by the Jewish Agency or Ministry of Absorption (versus the more conservative Central Bureau of Statistics) are regarded as often exaggerated and inconsistent with data collected via systematic methods, perhaps because of an effort to draw attention to the issue of Israeli emigration,” Gold said.

Columbia University sociologist Yinon Cohen has come up with what Gold calls “the most careful estimates,” drawing upon the U.S. Census, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and American Jewish population surveys.

Cohen estimates that between 150,000 and 175,000 Jewish Israeli expats were living in the United States as of 2000.

None of the e-readers can do Hebrew-English hyperlinking, whereby a reader of the Hebrew text could touch a word or phrase and be taken to an English explanation. Nor can they cross-reference between the two languages.

Meanwhile, ArtScroll is moving ahead with plans to publish digitized versions of its weekday prayer book, as well as the Schottenstein Talmud, as soon as e-readers are able to handle the technology.

“We’re doing all the preparation now, so we’ll be ready as soon as they have the platforms,” Zlotowitz said.

The first of ArtScroll’s e-books are available now for downloading to iPads and iPhones through Apple’s iBookstore. They include self-help titles, novels and books by Orthodox writers such as Rabbi Abraham Twerski and Esther Jungreis. The first books of ArtScroll’s 14-volume “Daily Dose of Torah” series, which offer daily Jewish lessons taking 18 minutes, also have come out in e-format.

But for now, Zlotowitz says, no Shabbat or holiday siddurs.

ArtScroll’s decision puts it squarely in the middle of the conversation about Jewish observance

in the digital age, particularly when it comes to e-readers.

With some experts predicting the demise of printed books, what will observant Jews read on Shabbat, when they are forbidden to operate electronic devices, Uri Friedman asked in a recent article in The Atlantic.

“Some are thinking of ways to accommodate emerging technology within the structure of traditional Sabbath observance while others wrestle with the implications of the shifting media landscape for Jewish law and observance,” he wrote.

One blogger proposed a “Sabbath e-reader” that would turn pages automatically, much like a Sabbath elevator stops at each floor in a building so observant Jews aren’t technically operating it, Friedman said.

Then there is the larger question, which goes beyond the laws of Shabbat to the spirit of the day.

“A number stress that, regardless of legal considerations, the Sabbath’s rules and spirit have never been more important than they are today, when technology saturates our lives,” Friedman wrote.

AUTOS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010

21

2011 Porsche Panamera — a show on the road

2011 Porsche Panamera

The 2011 Porsche Panamera combines the functionality and comfort of a four-door hatchback sedan with Porsche performance and power. Thus the Panamera delivers the best of both worlds with a sports car that is also a sedan.

Characteristic of the new Panamera are the black double slats on the side air intakes in the front apron and a rear apron diffuser with black-grained finish.

The new Panamera is also identifiable by the titanium-colored double slats and a rear apron diffuser with fins.

Fitted as standard in the Panamera is the seven-speed dualclutch transmission, a.k.a.

Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK). PDK has both a manual gearshift and an automatic mode and enables smooth gear changes with no interruption in the flow of power.

With PDK, the rear-wheeldrive Panamera can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in only 6.0 seconds and has a top track speed of 160 mph.

In addition to PDK, the active all-wheel drive of Porsche Traction Management (PTM) of the Panamera 4 has a top track speed of 159 mph.

The V6 engine, which is based on the V8 engine, additionally features a balance shaft to minimize vibrations and ensure smooth running. The light-alloy engines have cast aluminum pistons or forged pistons, making the engine lightweight for reduced fuel consumption and giving the car a longer service life.

Also available is an automatic start/stop feature, something normally associated only with hybrid vehicles. The function reduces fuel consumption by shutting off the engine whenever the car comes to a stop and then restarting it when the light turns green.

The EPA estimates the Panamera’s fuel consumption at 18 miles per gallon city, 27 mpg highway and 21 mpg combined for the base Panamera, while the Panamera 4 makes 18 mpg city

and 26 highway. The Panamera S and 4S are both rated at 16 mpg city, 24 mpg highway, and the Panamera Turbo achieves 15 mpg city, 23 mpg on the highway.

Drivers can also select differing driving modes. In Normal mode, the Panamera feels as soft and leisurely as any European sedan.

Engaging full Sport mode sharpens nearly every aspect of the driving dynamics—throttle response, suspension firmness and ride height.

Steering is precise, and handling is comparable to much smaller sports cars. Power can be served up with muscle-car wallops or in measured increments. The PDK transmission fires off gear changes with urgency when pedaling the accelerator hard or with fluid transitions when cruising leisurely down the highway.

Every 2011 Porsche Panamera comes standard with antilock brakes (with brake assist), stability and traction control, front and rear side airbags, side curtain airbags and front knee airbags. Ceramiccomposite brakes and a rearview camera are optional. With the standard brakes, both the Panamera 4S and Turbo models stopped from 60 mph in incredibly short distances: 109 feet and 111 feet, respectively.

The Panamera’s interior offers all the luxury one would expect from the Porsche brand name, from leather bucket seats to a stateof-the-art audio system with available XM Satellite Radio and Bluetooth hands-free interface.

The optional Porsche Communication Management system is available on the Panamera and Panamera 4 models, and features a high-resolution touchscreen to allow control of multiple inputs including a USB interface for iPods and other MP3 players.

The trunk offers 15.7 cubic feet of storage space, and foldable rear seats offer additional room for up to 44.6 cubic feet of total cargo. An integrated roof rail system enables you to fit the optional roof transport system, which can hold up to 165 lbs.

The 2011 Porsche Panamera starts at $74,400.

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OBITUARIES

DEATH NOTICES WEILAND, Ruth, age 103, died on December 25, 2010; 18 Tevet 5771.

MUNICK, Wendy Beth, age 44, died on December 27, 2010; 20 Tevet, 5771.

OBITUARIES GREENLAND, Dorothy Korros Dorothy Korros Greenland, beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, passed away November 8, 2010 in

VENEZUELEAN from page 8 Community members ascribe the change to an interview that Fidel Castro, the one-time leader of Cuba and one of Chavez’s Communist heroes, gave to an American reporter in September in which he made statements rejecting antiSemitism. A few days after the interview was published, Chavez requested a meeting with the main Jewish community organization in the country, the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations.

Until then, Venezuela’s foreign minister had acted as a liaison with the Jewish community — stoking concerns that Jews were viewed as foreigners rather than as Venezuelan citizens.

At the meeting, held Sept. 16, the Jewish confederation presented the president with a detailed list of ISRAEL from page 10 The government will invest $610 million in reducing greenhouse gas emissions following recent Cabinet approval. The investment, to take place over the next decade, will put Israel more in line with its commitment at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in

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Chicago, Illinois at the age of 95.

Born in Middletown, Ohio to Tillie and Harry Korros, she attended the University of Cincinnati, receiving a scholarship to attend college in 1931. She graduated with a degree in child development from the University of Cincinnati and went on to teach nursery school and work as a nursery school administrator at the Jewish Community Center for many years.

She is survived by her husband of 69 years, Max Greenland; her children, Arnold (Shoshana), Philip (Aviva), and Harriet Greenland; her grandchildren, Dina, Elana, Shane and Brent, Micah, Shira, Talia and Eliza, Gabriel and Jacob; and her

seven great-grandchildren, Meira, Shimon, Mordechai, Noam, Daniel, Aaron, and Moshe.

Mrs. Greenland was a wonderful homemaker, wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. A true matriarch of her family, her life was blessed with numerous accomplishments and happy experiences. She was an accomplished seamstress, knitter, crocheter and needlepointer. She was a wonderful cook and baker and assisted her husband, Max, as an accountant for many years at the end of his career. She is laid to rest in Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington, Ill. Donations can be made to Hadassah or to the NCSY in Chicago, Illinois.

Edward Schulzinger, age 93, died December 18, 2010. He was the beloved husband of the late Carolyn Schulzinger; devoted father of Lynn (Jim) Furness of Versailles, Ky., Leon (Linda Pennell) Schulzinger of Los Angeles, Calif., and Rhoda (Rochelle Granat) Schulzinger of Silver Spring, Md.; loving grandfather of Geri, Scott, Elizabeth and Anne and greatgrandfather of Sam, Layah and Jay. Mr. Schulzinger graduated from Hughes High School and was active in the alumni club for the Class of 1935. He attended the

University of Cincinnati, receiving his BA as a Phi Beta Kappa and also a JD degree. He practiced law in Cincinnati for many years. A longtime member of Adath Israel Synagogue, Mr. Schulzinger was president of B’nai B’rith Lodge No. 4 from 1953-1954. During World War II, he served for 45 months as a medical corpsman in the South Pacific and received a Bronze Star for service under fire.

The family would appreciate memorial contributions to The Lexington Chapter of Hadassah, c/o Erin Gold, 4201 Evergreen Drive, Lexington, Ky., 40513 or the Berg Family Fund at Cedar Village, 5467 Cedar Village Drive, Mason, Ohio, 45040.

anti-Semitic statements made on state-sponsored TV channels in 2010 and requested that he make clear that his remarks criticizing Israel should not be interpreted as an attack against Jews. They also asked for a restoration of ties between Venezuela and Israel.

“For us, not having relations with Israel is a major problem, not a minor problem,” said Salomon Cohen, president of the Jewish confederation. “Israel is our spiritual center.”

Chavez said he would consider the requests, according to those present at the meeting, but he has yet to offer a formal response.

However, anti-Semitic expressions in state-sponsored media have subsided.

“Chavez himself publicly rejected anti-Semitic manifestations, and from this moment, the situation has

‘improved,’ with anti-Semitism remaining at a relatively lower level; in the written press and websites, we see a decrease in regards to the quantity,” said a recently published Jewish confederation report that tracked anti-Semitism in Venezuela from January to October 2010.

“I hope that this calm that we are experiencing now lasts,” Cohen said.

However, there remain concerns that events in the Middle East easily could cause anti-Semitism to resurface, the report said.

Aside from the political rumblings, daily Jewish life persists without discrimination. The community’s religious and social institutions operate freely and security is provided by the state when requested. Club Hebraica, the community’s most visible symbol of Jewish life,

runs a wide variety of educational, cultural, religious and social activities, offering K-12 education, athletics clubs for all ages and cultural events for the wider community.

But while Venezuelan Jews may not feel threatened by anti-Semitism, they are threatened by general violence in the country. The number of violent civilian deaths in Venezuela in 2009 was almost four times higher than in Iraq, according to the Venezuela Observatory of Violence.

That’s one of the main reasons that Venezuela — a country that once offered shelter to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler and beckoned others as a land of opportunity — has seen its Jewish community decline by half, to approximately 10,000, over the past 10 years. That time also coincides with Chavez’s presidency, when rising crime, a deteriorating economy and the

growing pitch of anti-Semitic statements in government-sponsored media convinced many it was time to leave.

Now, Jewish community leaders say that emigration and aging are proving to be this community’s real challenges.

“Our numbers are getting smaller, and we’re getting older,” Cohen said.

Violence is often cited as the primary reason for emigration.

“Anti-Semitism, as such, is not the community’s main problem,” said Max Sihman, a Jewish business owner who held economic posts in previous administrations. “The main reason for families in the community emigrating is insecurity.

Kidnappings are becoming more intense with each day. Many families have already sent their children abroad.”

December 2009, in which Israel pledged to adhere to a 20 percent emissions reduction target beginning in 2020, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Under the plan, nearly $333 million will be allocated to dispose of environmentally unfriendly air conditioners and refrigera-

tors. Another nearly $175 million allocated by the ministry will support investments targeted at the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial, commercial and public sectors. Some $11 million will be set aside to promote pioneer projects for new and existing green buildings.

Millions of dollars also will be set aside for education and information projects to increase awareness and promote electricity savings and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by the public, and to integrate Israeli technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming two years.

Also under the plan, the minister of finance will introduce taxes to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, especially for motor vehicles.

“For the first time, Israel’s government is promoting a multibillion-shekel plan based on concrete steps aimed at advancing Israel’s contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation,” said Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan.

“This is a practical plan which relates to the life of every citizen and to steps which will support

industry, technological innovation and a response to the universal problem of global warming.”

stores to have signs in Hebrew, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The law also could apply to western Jerusalem, where many signs in the downtown area, especially near the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall, have signs only in English, to appeal to tourists.

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Information, in Arabic, please Tel Aviv has invested more than $1.4 million in recent years to upgrade its website and launched its new Tel Aviv-Jaffa Hebrew website last week.

The new site is “to make City Hall more accessible and to expand Internet services such as dynamic maps, online payments, and some 30 [other] online services,” according to the city’s 2010 budget.

An updated Arabic site is expected to launch at the end of the month, a municipal official told Haaretz. The Arabic-language site has been neglected for years.

Arab speakers make up about 17,000, or 4.3 percent, of the city’s population. Some $5,000 was allocated in 2010 to translate and upgrade the Arabic site, according to Haaretz.

Meanwhile, Arab businesses in eastern Jerusalem may be required to add Hebrew signs, if the municipality’s Signage Committee decides to enforce a 5-year-old law that requires all of the city’s

Cell phone cold turkey What is being called the worst crash in the history of the Israeli cellular industry drove the call traffic on land lines up by 20 percent.

The crash of the Cellcom network earlier this month affected some 3.3 million cell phone users.

Customers had difficulty sending and receiving calls. Texting was not affected by the malfunction, but because many customers turned to texting as an alternative to phone conversations, the system overloaded, frequently disrupting the messages.

Israelis who had trouble going cold turkey on their cell phones flooded Cellcom call centers, which could not provide much information beyond the obvious.

The company has announced it will refund customers one week’s worth of calls and messages.

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