Film Festival features awardwinning movies
The American Israelite launches new website
The 2011 Cincinnati Jewish & Israeli Film Festival starts this Saturday night, Jan. 29, and runs through Thursday evening, Feb. 3 at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center. The festival includes seven outstanding films featuring Jewish and/or Israeli characters and content, and many of them have won a variety of awards. Screenings are at 7 p.m. each evening, and there are also two matinee showings: on Sunday, Jan. 30, and Wednesday, Feb. 2. Attendees are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance because shows have sold out in the past. A Festival Pass is available that provides seating for all the films, as well as a discount. Advance tickets may be purchased by calling the JCC or visiting their website. Opening night on Saturday, Jan. 29, features a feel-good sports comedy and a fun pre-film reception with popular ballpark snacks, beer, wine and Reds raffle prizes. “The Yankles”
Also, Phyllis Singer, Iris Pastor and Zell Schulman return to paper
Hadassah celebrates centennial, offers membership special
The American Israelite’s new website is live! You can now get free, easy access to stories that matter to you. At American Israelite Online, you can find Cincinnati’s Jewish community news as well as national and international news stories on a daily basis. The American Israelite is also excited to announce the return of three much loved columnists: Phyllis Singer, Iris Pastor and Zell Schulman. Singer, editor/general manager of The American Israelite from 1985-1999, joined the paper as a reporter/copy editor in 1977. She became managing editor/general manager in 1983 and after Henry Segal’s death in 1985, was named editor/gen-
In celebration of Hadassah’s upcoming 100th anniversary in 2012, all Life Memberships, including Child and Associate Memberships, are now available for a special price, valid as of Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2011. A Centennial Celebration Life Membership offers a tremendous value to both Annual Members and those interested in joining for the first time. Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, is a volunteer women’s organization whose members are motivated and inspired to strengthen their partnership with Israel, ensure Jewish continuity and realize their potential as a dynamic force in American society. Hadassah members and associates make a difference every day as Hadassah researches cures, protects children in need, promotes worldwide humanitarian relief and stands in solidarity with Israel. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center currently has a collaboration in the areas of clinical care, medical education
WEBSITE on page 21
HADASSAH on page 21
FESTIVAL on page 19
Ehud Barak quits Labor: Amid crisis and violence, Tunisian Jews safe but guarded Political betrayal or precursor to something bigger?
By Larry Luxner Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The violence roiling Tunisia hasn’t put the country’s 1,500 or so Jews in serious jeopardy, but Jewish organizations are increasingly concerned about their fate as massive anti-government protests continue. No Jews have been targeted by the protesters, according to Roger Bismuth, a Jewish businessman and member of Tunisia’s Chamber of Deputies. President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled Tunisia with an iron fist for 23 years, fled to Saudi Arabia over the weekend following violent protests by mostly unemployed young men venting their anger at Ben TUNISIAN on page 21
By Leslie Susser Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Courtesy of Larry Luxner
Crowds of Jews celebrating the annual hillulah at La Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, May 2007.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Was it an act of political self-preservation, a feat of political destruction or a bid to stabilize Israel’s government ahead of some dramatic move? And for Israel’s Labor Party, was it another sign of the once-leading party’s demise, or a precursor to a revival and the ideals for which it stands? What’s certain is that Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s decision this week to quit Labor, which he had headed until Monday, has sent shock waves throughout the Israeli political establishment. BARAK on page 21
Courtesy of Abir Sultan/Flash90
Defense Minister Ehud Barak announcing his intention to quit the Labor Party he heads to form a new faction, called Independence, Jan. 17, 2011.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011 22 SHEVAT, 5771 CINCINNATI, OHIO LIGHT CANDLES AT 5:34 SHABBAT ENDS 6:33 VOL. 157 • NO. 27 $2.00
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Growth spurt: More farms at Jewish buildings seeding food awareness
The vote in South Sudan for 'the Jews of our time'
Int’l president of the Orthodox Union visits Congregation Ohr Chadash
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PARTY PLANNING
SHOW CASE 11 SUNDAY, MARCH 6 11-4 @ THE NEW JCC 8485 RIDGE ROAD, CINCINNATI, OHIO 45236
From Caterers to DJs, the Party Planning Showcase has everything you need to make your event something to celebrate! Come join us for this FREE extravaganza and learn what’s new and what’s hot. Don’t miss out on the Booths, Raffle Prizes and FREE Food plus everything you’ll need to throw the best party ever, no matter the occasion.
Showcasing only the best Balloons, Cakes, Caterers, DJs, Flowers, Photographers & More! Whether you are planning a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Wedding, Sweet 16, Prom or Graduation Party, the Party Planning Showcase will be the only place to be. FREE ADMISSION. Sponsored by The American Israelite & Artrageous Desserts
To reserve booth space or for more information, contact Teri Scheff at 793-6627 / dezert@aol.com or Ted Deutsch at 621-3145 / publisher@americanisraelite.com
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‘Tea Time’ at Northern Hills On Sunday, Feb. 6, Northern Hills Synagogue Sisterhood will hold their monthly meeting in the Zorndorf Social Hall at Northern Hills Synagogue. A brief meeting will take place at 2:30 p.m., followed at 3 p.m. by the program, “Tea Time.” The community is invited to an exciting, change-of-pace
event. Come explore the world of tea. A universal symbol of hospitality, friendship and warmth, tea is an effective bridge across cultures. Learn about where teas come from, their history and proper brewing techniques. Sample assorted kosher teas, presented by the experienced staff from Essencha Tea House in
Oakley. NHS Sisterhood culinary specialists will prepare “delectable delights” to accompany the teas. There is no charge, but donations are welcome. The Sisterhood Gift Shop will be open before and after the program. Contact Sheila Wagner in the Northern Hills office by Feb. 2 to attend.
Seventh annual ‘Chicken Soup Cook-off’ at Wise Temple Members of the Cincinnati Jewish Community and anyone who wants to attend will have the opportunity to share culinary gifts during this year’s seventh annual Chicken Soup Cook-off. The cookoff will be on held on Sunday, Jan. 30, from 12:15–2:15 p.m. at Wise Center. This event is to benefit the Wise Temple Brotherhood and the Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen. More than 350 gallons of chicken soup have been supplied to the Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen since the event began to help feed those in need of a hot meal. There will be
ample parking at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center and Wise Temple, with a shuttle bus. The Chicken Soup Cook-off is a fun competition of both restaurants and amateurs in the Cincinnati community that strive to win awards for their soup recipes. Categories include: Best Matzo Ball, Most Original and Best Chicken Noodle. There are awards for both the pro and amateur divisions in each category, including the always popular People’s Choice Award. From Best Matzo Ball Soup to
the People’s Choice Award, the definition of “chicken soup” is pushed to the limits. Consistently, the Most Original category has been one of the most creative and most popular with attendees. Selecting winners is a very difficult task. A team of judges is assembled from the Wise Temple community and from around Cincinnati. Each of the entrants brings something unique to the table.The event will also include live entertainment from Shir Chadash, Wise Temple’s band, and a silent auction.
Rockwern, International Academies work together for tolerance On Jan. 13, a fourth-grader named Amun clutched half of a colored paper teacup as he entered the cafeteria at Rockwern Academy, his first visit to the school. Amun and the other students from the International Academy in West Chester were seeking the students who had halfteacups that matched their own. Finally, Amun found Asher, a Rockwern fifth grader, holding the match, and the two, who had met through writing pen-pal letters to each other, found a new friend. It was one of many special moments of a project the two schools have been working on for months. In a program believed to be unique in the United States, every student, from preschool to the sixth grade, at Rockwern Academy, Cincinnati’s community Jewish Day School, and the International Academy, the area’s community Islamic school, joined to do schoolwide readings of a single book: “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson. This collaborative program was initiated by Rockwern teacher Elaine Kaplan, librarian Julia Weinstein and Umama Alam, principal of the International
...an opportunity for Muslim and Jewish students to learn and understand each other’s cultures and religions. Academy, who saw the schoolwide reading as an opportunity for Muslim and Jewish students to learn and understand each other’s cultures and religions. The idea was endorsed by Rabbi Sigma Faye Coran, president of The Greater Cincinnati Board of Rabbis, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the leadership of the International Academy. The most enthusiastic response came from teachers at both schools, who incorporated the program into the curriculums, integrating it throughout the grades and subject areas. The idea then grew to put the upper grade students from both
schools in touch with each other as pen pals. Students were excited to write and receive each letter from their pen pals, and they were delighted to discover many common interests. Finally, the students met with non-stop enthusiasm. They shared cups of tea and snacks and sang songs composed around the book’s theme of tolerance and peace. The International Academy students were given a tour of the school and were intrigued by the many commonalities in the Hebrew and Arabic languages. On Martin Luther King Day, the two schools, along with four Cincinnati public schools, were invited to join the Ad Hoc Interfaith Youth Choir for the program at Music Hall. The audience and honorees at the gathering were visibly moved as they heard Jewish and Muslim students sing together, in a show of mutual tolerance and understanding that comes naturally to children. Donations to Greg Mortensen’s Pennies for Peace program were combined as a single donation from the children of both schools — a statement of both communities’ shared values of giving.
The American Israelite is currently hiring an
EDITOR and STAFF WRITERS Knowledge of AP Style preferred, but not required. These positions are part-time with flexible hours. If interested, please contact Ted at 621-3145 or send your resume to publisher@americanisraelite.com
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Rockdale welcomes Rabbi Gary Zola Rockdale Temple welcomed Rabbi Gary Zola as the 2011 scholar-in-residence, Friday, Jan. 14 through Sunday, Jan. 16. Congregants studied the evolution of religious freedom in America during the three-day program scheduled to coincide with the national Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. “We felt this was an appropriate way to learn more about Judaism’s involvement in social action while also recognizing 50 years of work performed by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism,” said Rabbi Sigma Coran, senior rabbi at Rockdale. The Washington based Religious Action Center — formed
during the height of the civil rights movement — has worked with Congress on issues ranging from Israel and Soviet Jewry to economic justice and religious liberty. Rabbi Zola, executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, shared examples of how the American Jewish community contributed to the modern concept of religious liberty. Rabbi Zola, a member of the Congressionally recognized Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, talked about Lincoln’s role in revoking a controversial order by General Ulysses Grant expelling all Jews from the
territories of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi during the height of the Civil War. A delegation of expelled Jewish leaders filed their first formal protest after arriving in Cincinnati. Lincoln revoked the order after meeting personally with a delegation of leaders from both Paducah, Ky., and Cincinnati. Using documents from the archive, Rabbi Zola led the group in a discussion of President Washington’s 1790 visit to Newport, R.I. The Jewish community’s letter to Washington and his response are both seen by historians as a precursor to the religious freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights.
In commemoration of Dr. King’s birthday, Rabbi Zola also shared audio and video from the archive including sermons by prominent American rabbis as well as speeches made by Dr. King in various American synagogues. Rabbi Zola has published articles about Jackson, Miss. Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, whose synagogue and home were both targets of Ku Klux Klan bombings in 1967. “Seeing and hearing the voices of leaders like Rabbi Perry Nussbaum is so much more powerful than simply reading their remarks,” commented Rabbi Coran.
National Jewish Book Award-winners now available at Wise library Many book awards are announced in January, and these include the National Jewish Book Awards. The Ralph and Julia Cohen Library at Isaac M. Wise Temple has the following newlyannounced winners on hand. The Jewish Book of the Year Award goes to “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry,” by Gal Beckerman. It is an astonishing and inspir-
ing account of the Exodus of modern times — the rescue of Soviet Jewry. Daring refuseniks in the Soviet Union galvanized the American Jewish community, giving it a renewed sense of spiritual purpose. A multigenerational saga about ordinary people standing up to a superpower, and winning. Other recognized books are: “The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time,” by Judith Shulevitz. The author
weaves together histories of the Jewish and Christian Sabbaths, speculations on the nature of time, and insights from religious texts as well as from poetry and neuropsychology. She examines Sabbath as a utopian idea and wonders what loss will be undergone if Sabbath disappears. “Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary,” by Isa Aron et al. This is the story of how
eight American synagogues became “visionary” congregations — entrepreneurial, experimental and committed to engaging members. “To the End of the Land” by David Grossman. In this novel, one of Israel’s most acclaimed writers tackles the reality and surreality of daily life in Israel, and the costs of war that burden each generation anew. “The Crown Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex,” by Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider. When the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, Syria was burned in the 1947 pogrom, it was assumed that the ancient and precious codex was lost forever. That is where the mystery surrounding the codex begins. “The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary,” by Robert Alter. This is a new translation, with page-by-page commentary, of three biblical books which test the ancient wisdom that the righteous thrive and the wicked suffer. “Yehuda Halevi,” by Hillel Halkin. This is a biography of the poet, philosopher and physician, which also evokes the world of 11th and 12th century Spain in which Halevi lived. In addition, the Jewish Book Council named Cynthia Ozick as winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award. A dozen of Ozick’s works are available in the temple library. The temple library is open to all in the community. Stop by during library hours: Mondays 1–7 p.m., Tuesdays 9 a.m.–3 p.m., Wednesdays Noon–6 p.m., Thursdays 9 a.m.–noon and Sunday mornings when religious school is in session.
‘LET THERE BE LIGHT ’ THE OLDEST ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN AMERICA FOUNDED JULY 15, 1854 BY ISAAC M. WISE
VOL. 157 • NO. 27 THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2010 22 SHEVAT 5771 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 5:34 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 6:33 PM THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE CO., PUBLISHERS 18 WEST NINTH STREET, SUITE 2 CINCINNATI, OHIO 45202-2037 PHONE: (513) 621-3145 FAX: (513) 621-3744 publisher@americanisraelite.com editor@americanisraelite.com articles@americanisraelite.com production@americanisraelite.com RABBI ISSAC M. WISE Editor & Publisher, 1854-1900 LEO WISE Editor & Publisher, 1900-1928 RABBI JONAH B. WISE Editor & Publisher, 1928-1930 HENRY C. SEGAL Editor & Publisher, 1930-1985 PHYLLIS R. SINGER Editor & General Manager, 1985-1999 MILLARD H. MACK Publisher Emeritus NETANEL (TED) DEUTSCH Editor & Publisher BARBARA L. MORGENSTERN Senior Writer LEEANNE GALIOTO NICOLE SIMON Assistant Editors ALEXIA KADISH Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor STEPHANIE DAVIS-NOVAK Fashion Editor MARILYN GALE Dining Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN ZELL SCHULMAN RABBI AVI SHAFRAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists LEV LOKSHIN JANE KARLSBERG Staff Photographers JOSEPH D. STANGE Production Manager ALLISON CHANDLER Office Manager
THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE (USPS 019-320) is published weekly for $44 per year and $2.00 per single copy in Cincinnati and $49 per year and $3.00 per single copy elsewhere in U.S. by The American Israelite Co. 18 West Ninth Street, Suite 2, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2037. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, OH. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE, 18 West Ninth Street, Suite 2, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2037.
The views and opinions expressed by The American Israelite columnists do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the newspaper.
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Wise Temple hosts ‘Sports Night’ with UC football coach, Butch Jones, Feb. 7 Wise Temple Brotherhood is pleased to announce that Butch Jones, head football coach of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, will be the featured speaker at the Brotherhood’s Sports Night on Monday, Feb. 7, at Wise Center. Jones will speak on “Leadership in Sports and How it Relates to the Everyday World.” Men’s Sport’s Night will begin at 6 p.m., with dinner at 6:30 p.m. Coach Jones will begin speaking at 7 p.m. followed by a question and answer forum. Reservations are available
online through the Wise Temple website and will be limited to the first 200 people who register. Cost includes dinner and program. Since arriving in Cincinnati, Jones has made an immediate impact, building an atmosphere of competition and family, while also overseeing an academic quarter of great success. The team achieved a GPA of 2.7 during the winter 2010 quarter, its best ever. Central Michigan University was 22-3 against Mid-American Conference opponents during Jones’ tenure, including victories
in the 2007 and 2009 MAC Championship Games. In 2007, Jones became only the ninth firstyear head coach to lead his team to a Mid-American Conference Championship. A 1990 graduate of Ferris State University, where he was a twoyear letterman on the football team, Jones broke into the coaching ranks while still an undergraduate by serving as intern for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1987-89. Jones, 41, and his wife Barb are the parents of three children: Alex, Adam and Andrew.
Northern Hills Synagogue shows and discusses ‘The Tribe’ As Jewish immigrants became Americans, they remade American culture. Now the trend is reversed, young Jews are reclaiming Jewish tradition in their own way. On Sunday evening, Jan. 9, around 65 people gathered at Northern Hills Synagogue – Congregation B’nai Avraham to watch and discuss “The Tribe,” a 2006, award-winning, short documentary on contemporary American Jewish identity. Most but not all attendees were NHSCBA members. Before Tracy Weisberger, NHSCBA education and programming director, introduced the film, a Mi Shebeirach (a traditional Jewish prayer for healing) was sung in memory of the late Jewish folk singer Debbie Friedman and hoping to benefit Representative Gabrielle Giffords and all of those wounded in the Tucson shooting. The film, less than 18 minutes long, was produced by Tiffany Shlain. It posed many questions: What is a tribe? What is our tribe? What did it used to mean to be a member of our tribe? What does it mean today to be a member of our tribe? The documentary’s structure is built around Ruth Handler’s 1959 invention of the Barbie Doll. It points out many things: Jews are a very tiny minority with a tradition-
al perspective as outsiders looking in. Barbie doesn’t look Jewish, even though she bore the name Barbara Millicent Roberts and is named after Ruth’s daughter, Barbara, and her boyfriend Ken is named after Ruth’s son, Kenneth! Barbie Dolls are ubiquitous today and so is Jewish culture. When the Barbie doll was born, Jews were trying to fit in, assimilating and also with a survival instinct. As Jewish immigrants became Americans, they remade American culture. Now the trend is reversed, young Jews are reclaiming Jewish tradition in their own way. Attendees watched the film, discussed it, watched it again and discussed it again. Some questions and topics raised include: How religiously observant was Ruth Handler? Why doesn’t the Barbie Doll look Jewish? How do American Jews see Judaism? Does it look the same to every generation? Is there a difference between Jews and Judaism and what could that be? NHS-CBA past president Sonia Milrod referred to the evening as a “wonderful program!”
“The Tribe” was an official selection at the Sundance, Tribeca and Rotterdam Film Festivals, and won awards from LA Shorts, Nashville, San Francisco Women’s, Cleveland International, Florida, Ann Arbor, Warsaw Jewish, and Argentina International Jewish Film Festivals. Find out more about “The Tribe” and watch a trailer at the website dedicated to the film. The DVD can be borrowed from Wise Temple’s library.
Social Worker Case Manager P/T The Dayton Area Jewish Senior Service Agency (DAJSSA), an agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, is expanding to provide needed social work services for seniors in the community. This exciting new position joins a team of multi-disciplinary professionals dedicated to providing essential services to clients and families.
DAJSSA seeks an innovative social worker to meet the growing needs of seniors aging in the community. Responsibilities will include, but not be limited to: Comprehensive assessment; individualized service planning; and case coordination and linkage services. This individual will assist older adults in attaining their maximum functional potential while striving to respect their autonomy. Requirements: Bachelor’s in Social Work or related field, MSW/MSSA preferred, minimum of 2 years social work experience, experience with the aging population preferred, valid Ohio LSW, LISW, valid Ohio driver’s license. Benefits: Generous leave package, 401K eligibility. Send resume & cover letter to: Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton Attn: Maryann Bernstein 33 W. First St., Suite 100 Dayton, OH 45402 or MBernstein@jfgd.net No phone calls please. EOE. Smoke free, drug free environment.
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Film screening commemorates Columbia shuttle disaster Tuesday, Feb. 1, marks the eighth anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia disaster. In recognition of this anniversary, The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, in partnership with the Cincinnati Jewish & Israeli Film Festival, presents a screening of the documentary “An Article of Hope,” at 7 p.m. at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center.
“An Article of Hope” tells the true story of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, and a tiny Torah, the five books of Moses, that traveled from the depths of hell to the heights of space. The miniature Torah belonged to Ramon’s friend, Holocaust survivor and Israeli physicist Joachim Joseph, and was used for his bar mitzvah in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Ramon brought the Torah
with him on the space shuttle Columbia. The film reveals the significance this flight, and its ultimate crash, had for Israelis and many faiths and other nationalities. In a program following the film screening, local Holocaust survivor Henry Fenichel, a professor who is briefly featured in the film, will share his remarkable connection. His own little Torah traveled into space in 2006 at the request of
Ramon’s wife, Rona, in honor of Ramon and the entire crew of the Columbia. “The two Torahs represent the survival of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, and the ability to rise from the depth of despair and reach for the stars. It symbolizes a hopeful promise for new beginnings and a shining example of respect between cultures and religions,” said Fenichel.
“The powerful story of these two tiny Torah scrolls is the foundation for an educational program called Reach for the Stars that connects 100 kids from Cincinnati with their peers in Netanya, Israel each year,” said Sarah Weiss, executive director of The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. For tickets, trailer, and more, visit the JCC website.
A lawyer and quick study sets out to repair the world By Johanna Ginsberg New Jersey Jewish News VERONA, N.J. (New Jersey Jewish News) —When Repair the World’s board hired Jon Rosenberg of Montclair as its CEO 18 months ago, they tossed out the traditional idea of putting a rabbi or seasoned Jewish communal worker at the head of a Jewish not-for-profit organization. A public interest lawyer and education reform expert, Rosenberg has little formal Jewish background and never worked in the Jewish professional world. He hadn’t affil-
iated with a congregation or organization until a few years ago, when he and his wife joined the Jewish Cultural School and Society, a Jewish humanistic group, in order to give their two children some formal Jewish education. “Sure, I’m not the traditional candidate someone would meet for a job in Jewish social change,” Rosenberg, 43, told NJJN on a recent Sunday morning at a Verona diner. “We did a lot of mutual exploring through the interview process. But ultimately, we all took respective leaps of faith.” Repair the World, with headquarters in New York City, takes
over where its predecessor, the Jewish Coalition for Service, left off. That organization, which was founded about eight years ago, said Rosenberg was basically a clearinghouse for service projects that also marketed opportunities and did some best practices work. The new organization has a more ambitious agenda. RTW focuses on raising the bar for Jewish service learning by offering best practices from the field, funding research on what works, providing grants to service learning programs, creating partnerships with like-minded organizations and creating and pos-
sibly incubating new models. Its projects include a national Jewish Service Search Engine and placing service coordinators on college campuses. The organization’s mission is to make service a defining part of Jewish life. Rosenberg’s goal? “Every Jewish young adult will have a mandatory year of service — it will be considered normal, as a gap year, summer, post-college, or semester to take a deep dive into service as a kind of rite of passage,” he said. “Jews will meet and say, ‘Where did you do your service?’”
The intensity and passion Rosenberg brings to his work is almost immediately apparent. He seems to relish the challenge of learning something new — in fact, he has made a career of changing careers. He started in the criminal appeals bureau of the Legal Aid Society after earning a law degree from Columbia University, moved to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, then shifted out of law and into education, joining Edison Schools, now known as EdisonLearning, Inc., the for-profit education management organization for public schools.
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With Stuxnet delaying Iran's bomb, is the urgency gone? By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the wake of revelations that a computer virus may have set back Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Western groups and analysts that track the Islamic Republic are saying “More of the same, please.” The benefits of a nonviolent program that inhibits Iranian hegemony by keeping the country’s nuclear weapons program at bay are obvious: Better to stop Iran with cyber warfare — in this case, the Stuxnet computer virus, which reportedly caused Iran’s nuclear centrifuges to spin out of control — than actual warfare. For those who favor engagement, the cyber attack buys more time to coax the regime in Tehran into compliance. For those who favor the stick, it allows more time to exert pressure on Iran through sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Almost coincident with last weekend’s revelations — published in Sunday’s New York Times in a piece that detailed the extent of the damage caused by the virus — Meir Dagan, the outgoing head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, said that Iran likely would not have a bomb before 2015. Prior to that, Israeli assessments had predicted a weapon as early as this year. The Stuxnet revelations, if anything, reinforce the need for a tough stance, said Rep. Howard Berman
National Briefs Ban Ki-moon at N.Y. synagogue remembers Holocaust victims (JTA) — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Holocaust “the darkest chapter in history” at a synagogue service remembering the victims. Ban wore a kipah during the Jan. 20 service at Park East Synagogue in New York City. “We can never tolerate anybody who denies the Holocaust,” Ban said in his comments, calling the Holocaust “the darkest chapter in history,” according to the French news agency AFP. During the service, Rabbi Arthur Schneier called Ban “a mensch,” and said that he was a believer in “compassionate diplomacy, diplomacy from the heart,” according to AFP. Other top U.N. officials, including Israel’s U.N. ambassador and the consul general of Israel in New York, attended the ceremony. Two exhibitions on the
(D-Calif.), the ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. They underscore how committed Iran is to producing a bomb, he told JTA. “It’s a reason to push down on the pedal,” said Berman, who crafted the most recent Iran sanctions law in the Congress. “Iran is still enriching uranium. It is absolutely critical we bear down with a comprehensive strategy of which sanctions is a critical part.” Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the delay was welcome but that the prospect of new complacency in the wake of its announcement makes it more urgent than ever to maintain a posture that includes the threat of a military strike on Iran. “No individual measure is a silver bullet,” he said. Stuxnet “set back the program but hasn’t stopped it. If you’re going to target a hard-line regime, you’ve got to have a military option on the table.” Such a concern was behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s furious backpedaling in the wake of Dagan’s pronouncement about 2015. The Israeli leader dismissed the prediction as one of several “intelligence estimates.” Dagan, reportedly under pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office, recast the deadline this week as 2014 and noted carefully that Iran is capable of surprises. Champions of engagement also Holocaust will open at the United Nations in the main gallery of the visitors’ lobby on Jan. 25 as part of a weeklong series of Holocaust remembrance activities at the United Nations. The official International Memorial Day is Jan. 27. Disabled Jewish teens to visit Israel on special tour (JTA) — Thirteen Jewish teenagers will visit Israel on a trip that is believed to be the first-ever tour of the country designed for disabled and chronically ill teens. The 10-day program, Wish at the Wall, is sponsored by CHAI Lifeline, an international children’s health support organization. It will leave for Israel on Jan. 26 from Kennedy Airport in New York. The teens, 11 of whom use wheelchairs, will be accompanied by a full medical staff. Like most teen tours to Israel, the trip will include a trip to Masada, where the teens will ascend via cable car and then climb the final feet like every other tourist, in their case by pushing themselves the last several feet to the top. Modifications have been made to assure wheelchair access to every activity.
welcomed the revelations of the damage Stuxnet apparently caused to Iran’s nuclear program, seeing it as an opportunity.
Courtesy of Daniella Zalcman
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seen here addressing Columbia University in September 2007, has his citizens’ support when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, analysts say.
“The cyber worm may have set back Iran’s nuclear program, but it is unlikely to alter its nuclear ambitions,” said Ori Nir, the spokesman for Americans for Peace Now. “In order to introduce real change, the U.S. and its international allies must change the manner in which they deal with Iran and start to comprehensively engage with Tehran.”
Hadar Susskind, the vice president for policy at J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby that advocates for U.S. pressure on Israel in talks with the Palestinians, said the news of the virus demonstrated that there are creative ways of working around military brinkmanship when it comes to Iran. “Any nonviolent method is good,” Susskind said. “It shows we can create more time using a range of tools.” No nation or entity has acknowledged being behind the virus, which seemed to be designed to assume control of the nervous system at Iran’s nuclear facilities and to spin the centrifuges out of control, damaging about a fifth of them. The Times, citing anonymous sources, suggested that it was a U.S.-led venture with Israel’s cooperation. Germany and Britain also may have been involved, though perhaps unwittingly. Mark Fitzpatrick, the director of the nonproliferation and disarmament program at the London-based International Institute of International Studies, said it was critical not to regard the virus as a “deus ex machina” that would allow the world to shunt aside considerations of Iran’s ambitions. “Any solution to the Iranian crisis will require the use of a range of tools, including tougher sanctions, tighter export controls, a containment and deterrence posture, and a readiness to talk,” he said. “Stuxnet
obviously provides some breathing space by extending the timeline for Iran to get a bomb. It would be nice if it also gave Iranians a sense of futility that their enrichment efforts are not going to give them a bomb anytime soon.” That’s not likely to happen, according to Geneive Abdo, the director of the Washington-based National Security Network’s Inside Iran project. Iran’s leadership is susceptible to popular Iranian support for its nuclear program. Because of public opinion, she said, “They’re very careful that they’re not compromising on this issue.” If anything, Abdo said, the revelations will prod the regime to become more recalcitrant when it comes to major compromises, like shutting down enrichment entirely. Iran has tended to harden its line when it is weak. Instead, she said, Western powers might press for compromise on smaller issues like a broader regime of U.N. inspections. Western powers are scheduled to meet this weekend in Istanbul with Iran to discuss its nuclear program. “The West should use this breathing space to try and convince Iran to agree to more verification,” Abdo said. Citing her sources inside Iran, she said that “The Iranians are more fearful that more damage is on the way, so that’s an incentive to compromise to some degree.”
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NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
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Growth spurt: More farms at Jewish buildings seeding food awareness By Ben Harris Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) — After the unexpected death of his 26year-old daughter Jessica last August, Dane Kostin found himself searching for a fitting memorial, a project that would benefit the community and provide an appropriate tribute to a daughter who loved cooking with fresh, seasonal vegetables. Thus was born Jessie’s Community Gardens, a nonprofit trying to set up small-scale gardening operations at community facilities throughout the Hartford, Conn. area. This spring, the first garden will be dug on the grounds of the local Jewish federation. Another will be installed at Kostin’s synagogue, Beth El Temple in West Hartford. Kostin also has held discussions with the local Jewish nursing home, assisted living facilities and the two local Jewish day schools, all of which have expressed interest in participating. “It could gather volunteers to do mitzvah projects. It could provide food for the needy. It could do any number of things that we were thinking about,” Kostin told JTA. Across the country, similar ideas have prompted synagogues, JCCs, day schools and camps to
Courtesy of Kavanah Garden
B’nai mitzvah students from Temple Emanu-El in Toronto plant soybeans at the Kavanah Garden.
turn over hundreds of acres of land for growing vegetables in recent years. The gardens are tangible manifestations of the exponential growth of Jewish community interest in contemporary food issues, and most of the efforts combine growing vegetables with some opportunity for Jewish learning, social action or environmental awareness. In Denver, a five-acre organic farm on the grounds of the Denver Academy of Torah called Ekar, produced 8,000 pounds of vegetables last season for the local Jewish food pantry. In Toronto, Kavanah Garden, donated 400 pounds to a local Jewish organization where volunteer chefs prepared food and distributed it to the homeless. More than 1,200 people have visited the garden. At Camp Ramah Darom in Georgia, a small garden started in 2003 has grown into an entire sustainability track that now sends campers to help out at a nearby organic farm during the summer. Beth Sholom Congregation in Philadelphia grows, among other things, flowers that are brought to patients in hospitals and nursing homes. And the JCC Grows program, run from the JCC Association in New York, provides grants to centers across the country to establish community gardens. There is a growing network of more than 100 Community Supported Agriculture projects, or CSAs, housed at Jewish institutions. “It’s only recently — I think in the last three to four years, even in the last two years — there’s been a little bit of a tipping point both in the Jewish community and in the mainstream,” said Daron Joffe, an organic farming entrepreneur in Atlanta who says he’s helped establish some 20 gardens at Jewish community facilities. Among the many benefits, organizers of the gardens invariably cite the success they have had in building bridges beyond the Jewish community. In Denver, 40 organizations have been involved in Ekar, and about half the participants have been non-Jews, according to Ilan Salzberg, who runs the farm. Ekar offers small community plots where, for a modest fee, anyone can plant vegetables of their choosing. “I think it’s the right idea at the right time,” Salzberg said. “People love to work on something that is meaningful, that has tangible results and that connects you to the soil, connects you to the land, connects you to other people. This does all that.”
International Briefs Germany helps identify Holocaust-era mass graves BERLIN (JTA) — A project to save Holocaust-era mass graves from oblivion in Eastern Europe has received about $400,000 from the German Foreign Ministry. Thousands of sites of mass shootings in fields and forests across the region have been neglected, and the stories of what happened there nearly forgotten, said Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee, on Jan. 21 in Berlin in marking the first anniversary of the project. The project is coordinated by the AJC, the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the German War Graves Commission. The stories must be preserved and told to the next generation, the sites must be marked and the record must be corrected where Soviet ideology erased the fact that victims were Jews, Baker said. The funds will enable further documentation of sites and collection of testimonies. Preservation work will require further funds, he added. A team coordinated by the AJC's Berlin office, under the direction of Deidre Berger, surveyed several sites in 2010. Among them was Kysylyn, where about 500 Jews were shot to death in a field 68 years ago. The project was inspired by the work of the French Catholic Priest Patrick Desbois, who since 2001 has visited sites of mass shootings of Jews in Ukraine and collected eyewitness testimonies. Few people are left who could point the way to such sites, William Mengebier of Yahad-inUnum, Desbois' Paris-based organization, said during the news conference in Berlin on Jan 21. He described interviews with elderly Ukrainians who may not recall dates of killings, but who offer to take researchers to the sites themselves. Others participating on the missions include Rabbi Joe Shik of the London-based Conference of European Rabbis, and its cemetery project, Lo Tishkach; the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe; and the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies. More than 1 million Jews were murdered by mass killing units during World War II. In all, about 6 million Jews were killed by shootings, gassings in death camps and through slave labor.
INTERNATIONAL
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
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The vote in South Sudan for ‘the Jews of our time’ By Charles Jacobs Jewish Telegraphic Agency WANYJOK, Sudan (JTA) — The stars in Wanyjok’s sky blazed so bright it seemed as though God himself had switched on the lights in the vast blackness. I hadn’t seen a sky like this since I was a boy in the New Jersey countryside. It helped me understand how men from time immemorial have sought patterns in the stars — signs from the Creator of what was to come. I felt that here, in Bahr el Ghazhal province in South Sudan, God was signaling a miracle. I flew to Sudan on Jan. 6 to witness the birth of a nation. In 2005 President Bush, pressed by an unusual American grass-roots human rights campaign, forced a peace treaty on both sides of the bloody conflict between the Arab-Muslim North and the mostly Christian South of Sudan, Africa’s largest country. The treaty gave the South autonomy and said that in six years it could decide if it wanted to separate from the North. We had reached that moment with this month’s referendum, whose official results are slated to be announced Feb. 14. Indications are that 99 percent of voters opted for independence. From the start, I viewed the South Sudanese as the Jews of our time, targeted for mass murder
and slavery by the government in Khartoum while the so-called civilized world sat on its hands. Since the British granted Sudan independence in 1956, the North had dominated. Swept up in the surge of Islamic fundamentalism, Sudan’s leaders in Khartoum sought to impose Islamic law throughout the country. The South rebelled, and over the decades an estimated 3 million were killed and tens of thousands enslaved. Though the British largely had suppressed the enslavement of blacks in Africa, the practice was rekindled by Khartoum’s war. Slave raids were used as a weapon of terror to break southern resistance. Arab militias, armed by the government, stormed African villages, killed the men and captured the women and children as religiously sanctioned war booty. Little girls were used as domestics, boys as cattle herders, women as concubines and sex slaves. The right not to be owned by another human is second only to the right to life. Yet none of the establishment human rights groups screamed out about these slaves. In 1994 Mohammed Athie, a Mauritanian Muslim refugee, and I published an Op-Ed in The New York Times telling the story of a modern-day slave trade in North Africa. The response was overwhelm-
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Liberated slave Achol Yum Deng in Wanyjok, which would be part of an independent South Sudan, Jan. 9, 2011.
ing. We launched the American Anti-Slavery Group and built a bipartisan abolitionist coalition, including Christian evangelist Pat Robertson, gay Jewish congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the NAACP and more. We got Al Sharpton to go to Sudan to witness the liberation of slaves. Francis Bok, an escaped slave, published a book and spoke at churches, synagogues and schools across the United States. We testified before the U.S. Congress. At a meeting once with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, I asked why the United
States refused to use the word genocide when describing Sudan. Did America not make the same mistake 60 years ago when it ignored the annihilation of Europe’s Jews? The answer: By law, if we call it genocide we have to act. We were not going to act, so we couldn’t call it genocide. When the real heroes of this story — the brilliant and brave John Eibner and Gunnar Wiebalk of Christian Solidarity International — were criticized for redeeming slaves with unorthodox methods, I invoked Maimonides in their defense.
CSI sought to free slaves through an existing peace treaty between Dinka tribes, whose people were being targeted in southern Sudan, and local Arabs who needed Dinka wetlands for their cattle. To secure those grazing rights, the Arabs would go north and retrieve Dinka slaves, returning them to the South. CSI further motivated the return of slaves by providing cash to the Arab retrievers. When criticized for “incentivizing more slave raids,” I argued that this Christian group was following Jewish law. Jews, the Sages said, are required to redeem Jewish captives. When UNICEF blasted us for redeeming slaves and suggested the slaves must wait for liberation until hostilities ended, I responded: That’s exactly what the West told the Jews about Auschwitz. On Passover 2000, I participated in a CSI liberation trip to Sudan. I brought matzah and explained to the slaves that my people had been held in bondage long ago not so far from where we were. On our trip in January, we interviewed dozens of people at the polls. All voted for separation, for independence. Why? They said of the North Sudanese: “They stole our children and our wives. They stole our cattle. They murdered us.” SUDAN on page 22
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ISRAEL
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With eye on long term, Israel plans for ‘leapfrog’ growth to stem brain drain By Dina Kraft Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) —It was at a conference 15 years ago in the raw months following Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination that an unlikely Israeli trio — a young Navy officer, a leading businesswoman and a senior bureaucrat — hatched a plan for Israel’s future. It wasn’t exactly a plan for the future, but a plan to plan for the country’s future in an entirely new way: one focused on long-term strategic thinking to propel Israel into the world’s top 15 socioeconomic powers. Last week, the goal of becoming a nation with one of the highest GDPs per capita — the type of dramatic “leapfrog” growth that would see incomes and other quality-of-life metrics boosted across the socioeconomic divide — went from an idea to headline news when the goal was adopted as policy by the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a conference in Jerusalem called Israel 2021, announced to a hall packed with government officials, business leaders, students and social activists that “Good strategy with mediocre execution is better than mediocre strategy excellently performed. Our goal therefore is to present an excellent
strategy for Israel. “We cannot rest on our laurels,” he said. “We are entering a more competitive era.” The plan is to turn Israel into a “leapfrogging” nation. That’s defined as a case in which a nation triggers high and sustained growth for eight years while providing high quality of life — not just economically but also in terms of social services such as education, welfare and health. For Israel, leapfrogging is seen as imperative to keeping the country’s best talent from migrating overseas. Israel is suffering from acute “brain drain.” The country exports more PhDs than any other — a quarter of Israeli academics work abroad — and tens of thousands of others live in an ever-swelling Israeli Diaspora where career opportunities and higher quality of life beckon. Gidi Grinstein, president of the Reut Institute — the think tank that partnered with The Marker, the business section of Israel’s daily Haaretz, to host the conference — is the onceyoung naval officer who has been championing Israeli leapfrog growth for a decade and a half. The other two he originally designed the plan with are Raya Strauss, co-owner of Strauss Investment Ltd., and David Brodet, then the director general of the Finance Ministry.
At the conference Grinstein spoke of the dire existential consequences for Israel if an increasing amount of the country’s talent leaves the country. The problem, he said, is that Israel has the highest gap in the world between local talent and local quality of life. “Israelis are short-changed in quality of life, and if this gap grows beyond a certain level we could lost a critical amount of our talent,” Grinstein said. The conference convened some 3,000 Israeli decision makers to talk long-range strategy — not the strong suit of Israeli governments, which historically have prided themselves on improvisation in times of crisis rather than long-term strategic thinking, particularly outside the military arena. Hailed as the “biggest brainstorming session in Israel’s history” by its organizers, the conference featured hundreds of roundtable discussions by experts in civil society, economics and government. There were two days of intense discussion on a series of topics, including Israel’s competitiveness internationally and the integration of Arab citizens and haredi Orthodox Israelis into the labor force. Grinstein said the roundtables were part of a transformation in Israeli public discourse he believes is pivotal for leapfrogging to work.
“Countries don’t leap because of a small group of people at the top who make decisions,” Grinstein told JTA. “In Israel we need to mobilize what we call the serving elite: leadership in business, NGOs, academics, heads of labor unions and government. We know in countries that leapt there was an honest and credible discourse about priorities between business leaders, the nongovernment elite and the government. We need to educate and empower that group. “Not all of them believed they are part of a large enough and powerful enough group to transform Israel, and we wanted to give them confidence that they are part of the group that could change Israel,” he said. The conference also brought together three leading international experts on long-term development for their guidance on how lessons from abroad might be applicable to Israel. They were Michael Spence, a 2001 Nobel Prize laureate in economics; Rory O’Donnell, head of the National Economic and Social Council of Ireland; and Ricardo Hausman, director of the center for International Development at Harvard University. Economists at the conference argued that Israel cannot depend on its high-tech sector, which spurred most of the dramatic growth seen in the past two decades, in either the short or long term. That’s because studies show that it’s not growth in the elite sectors of the economy that boost high per capita GDP but higher salaries for workers across the socioeconomic spectrum. Recent leapfrogging success stories include Germany, Ireland, China, Singapore and South Korea. O’Donnell, the Irish economist who helped craft his country’s economic ascent from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of its wealthiest until the recent economic crisis, cited the parallels he saw in the Irish and Israeli experiences as small countries with large Diasporas, often fragile coalition governments and a history of national conflict. While in the past two years Ireland has returned to economic dire straits, O’Donnell ascribed his country’s dramatic rise until 2008 after decades of high employment to a “social partnership” between government, employers and unions. Among their successes was managing to get large numbers of longterm unemployed back into the labor market through activist public policy that promoted universal job training. In an interview with JTA, O’Donnell suggested that it was a model that might be applicable to Israel as it struggles to increase the low workforce participation of the haredi and Arab sectors.
Israel Briefs Bombing at Moscow airport seen as terrorism JERUSALEM (JTA) — A bombing at the busiest airport in Moscow that killed at least 35 and injured 130 is being called a terrorist attack by Russian officials. “From the preliminary information we have, it was a terror attack,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said of Monday’s attack on the Domodedovo Airport in a televised briefing. Medvedev also said that those responsible for the attack would be “tracked down and punished.” All Moscow transportation services went on high alert following the attack. Israel canceled all flights to Moscow. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it was not sure whether any of the victims were Israeli. In March 2010, two female Chechen suicide bombers blew themselves up in the metro system, killing 40. In 2004, two suicide bombers boarded separate planes at the same airport and blew themselves up in midair, killing all 90 people aboard the two flights. Israeli troops wound Palestinians breaking through checkpoint JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli soldiers reportedly shot and wounded two Palestinians after they broke through a military checkpoint near Hebron. Sunday’s incident follows several similar incidents in the West Bank in recent days. On Jan. 20, an Israeli Arab who breached a military checkpoint near Hebron was seriously wounded by Israeli soldiers. Two days earlier, a Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli troops near the settlement of Mevo Dotan after he opened fire on Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint. It was later disclosed that the Palestinian was a member of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Meanwhile, Palestinian sources say that one Palestinian was killed and two wounded Saturday near the border fence between Israel and Gaza. The Palestinians say the men were killed by an Israeli tank shell, but the Israel Defense Forces said there was no Israeli activity near the Gaza border at that time.
SOCIAL LIFE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
Int’l president of the Orthodox Union visits Congregation Ohr Chadash On Tuesday, Dec. 14, Steve Savitsky, the international president of the Orthodox Union came to Cincinnati to visit Congregation Ohr Chadash. Led by Rabbi Pinchas and Nomi Landis, Ohr Chadash is Cincinnati’s newest congregation. While in Cincinnati, Savitsky had a chance to meet with many of the donors and founders of Ohr Chadash, as well as the synagogue’s membership. At a dinner in the synagogue, Savitsky had the opportunity to hear member’s personal stories on how they came to be a part of this unique congregation, how they began their connection with the Landis’ and why this congregation is so important for Cincinnati’s future Jewish growth. The congregation also had an opportunity to hear from Savitsky when he spoke about the importance of having sincere connections to traditional Judaism. He explained how Jews do what they do not because they have to, but because they want to. All in attendance were inspired by his words.
R E F UA H S H L E M A H Frieda Berger Fraida bat Raizel
Pepa Kaufman Perel Tova bat Sima Sora
Daniel Eliyahu Daniel ben Tikvah
Murray Kirschner Chaim Meir ben Basha
Edith Kaffeman Yehudit bat B’racha
Ravid Sulam Ravid Chaya bat Ayelet
Roma Kaltman Ruchama bat Perl
Edward Ziv Raphael Eliezer Aharon ben Esther Enya
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MATURE LIVING
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Adult Education Classes For more information about each class, including registration and tuition, please contact the synagogue hosting the class. Adath Israel Congregation In-depth Torah Study with Rabbi Irvin Wise This is a lively discussion from subjects introduced in the weekly Torah portion. No previous Torah study experience is required. Sundays 10 a.m.: Feb 6, 13, 27 March 6, 13, April 10, May 1 Beginning Prayer Book Hebrew with Alan Weiner Learn the basics of reading Hebrew in the prayer book every Sunday at 10 a.m. Adult Conversational Hebrew at Mercaz Intermediate Hebrew, 6:30–7:30 p.m., will focus on grammatical concepts and vocabulary, and Beginning Hebrew, 7:30–8:30 p.m., will focus on basic grammar, sentence construction and vocabulary. Both classes are on Sundays. Jewish Ethics with Rabbi Wise This course explores a variety of ethical issues using Torah, rabbinic texts and current literature to discuss the various ethical challenges we face as Jews. Sundays 11 a.m.: Feb. 6, 13, May 1 Pesach Classes with Rabbi Wise This class is free and does not require registration. Sundays at 11 a.m.: Feb. 27, March 6, 13, April 10.
the letters) but are looking to add a level of understanding to their skills. Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m.
women and our lives today. Feb. 6, 10:15–noon. Golf Manor Synagogue
Current Topics and Conservative Judaism with Rabbi Wise Rabbi will lead discussions on different current events as they affect and shape the Jewish world, Conservative Judaism, and how Conservative Judaism understands and responds to these events. Tuesdays at noon: Feb. 8, 15, March 1, 15, April 5, May 3, 17 Bible and Beer Torah Study Bible and Beer meets monthly with Rabbi Wise at a restaurant TBA. The parshah for the week is discussed over a few drinks and vegetarian hors d’oeuvres. Anyone over 21 is welcome. Thursdays 5:30 p.m.: Feb. 10, March 10, April 14, May 5. Understanding Our Prayers and Services with Rabbinic Intern Bogard Whatever your skill or knowledge of Jewish prayer, there is something in this class for you. Shabbat mornings: Feb. 12, 26, 10–11 a.m. Pirke Avot Study with Rabbi Wise Saturday evenings during Omer: April 30 through June 4, 2011. Begins 30 minutes prior to Minhah. No registration required. Challah Baking with Kathy Wise Meet in the Adath Israel kitchen to learn Kathy’s famous recipe for challah! March 13, 3–5 p.m.
Book of Esther: A Study of Characters with Rabbi Hanan Balk This class is a perfect prepartion for Purim, held Mondays at 12:30 p.m. at the Mayerson JCC. Northern Hills Synagogue — Congregation B’nai Avraham Talmud Study with Rabbi Gershom (George) Barnard The class is available to all regardless of previous knowledge, Saturday mornings at 8:45 a.m. No registration required. Siddur Hebrew This Hebrew class focuses on learning the Friday night and Saturday morning prayers. The beginners class is offered on Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. Union for Reform Judaism New Introduction to Judaism with Rabbi Margie Meyer The class covers Jewish beliefs, living, history and celebrations. It is intended for anyone who is interested in exploring Judaism: interfaith couples, those considering conversion, and Jewish adults who would like to refresh their knowledge. The class runs from Feb. 8–May 17 from 7–9 p.m. on the Hebrew Union College campus. To register, students should go online to URJ’s website.
Congregation B’nai Tzedek Stories with Jewish Soul taught by Kathy Wise Each session will feature Jewish short stories from a variety of sources, followed by guided discussion designed to explore the themes, motifs and ethical meanings. Mondays at noon: Feb. 7, 14, 28, March 14, 28, April 4, May 2, 16 Intro to Conservative Judaism with Michelle Neuman This class offers a basic, but comprehensive, overview of Conservative Judaism: holidays, literature, dietary laws, beliefs, life cycle events and more. A great class for Jews and non-Jews interested in Judaism and/or who are considering conversion. Mondays at 7:30 p.m. Beginners Plus Hebrew with Rabbinic Intern Daniel Bogard This class is for those who can read Hebrew phonetically (read
Temple Sholom Exploring Spirituality and Judaism From 11 a.m.–1 p.m., Feb. 20. at the Cincinnati Art Museum, this program focuses on Spirituality, Judaism and Art and examines how the visual arts stimulate spirituality. Pre-registration is required to ensure a sufficient number of guides. Torah on Tuesday with Candy Kwiatek Starting in February, this class can be joined at any time. This semester focuses on the book of Numbers, studying it from many perspectives. No Hebrew or prior text study experience is necessary. Legendary Jewish Heroines This class will examine several, lesser-known, biblical heroines including Tamar, Tziporah and Tizrah and will focus on parallels between the lives of these
Adult B’nai Mitzvah This class is to help those who wish to have adult b’nai mitzvahs: Feb. 12, 26, March 5, 26, April 9, 30, May 14, 28 at 9:30 a.m. Wise Temple “The First Basket” Shown March 6 at 9:30 a.m., the film follows Jewish basketball experiences from ash cans on the stoops of brownstones, to the bright lights of Madison Square Garden. Tuesday with Torah On Tuesdays, March 8 and 15 from noon–1 p.m. Rabbi Kamrass will discuss what makes Reform Judaism a distinctive, demanding and exciting approach to Jewish life. CLASSES on next page
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
MATURE LIVING
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2011 Mature Living Guide Independent You Life can be difficult for those struggling to fasten the buttons on a shirt or pulling one’s top over their head. The owners of this unique shop in Wyoming saw this firsthand while working with nursing home residents as health care social workers. Those with limited dexterity or mobility depended on these social workers to clothes shop for them. The choices were scarce. Independent You offers both a store front and online shopping, to aid customers in getting the right fit. The owners, Suzanne and Amy, have personally selected their clothing, accessories and unique gifts, bringing together quality and stylish, dignified choices. And, as an added personal touch, all the fabrics are wash and wear! Weil Funeral Home For over four generations — a span of over 90 years — Weil has served Cincinnati. Services include the use of their new chapel, which is wheelchair accessible, with seating for over 350. Thus the chapel can handle large public funerals or small private ceremonies, whichever the family desires. Also provided, are all-necessary materials for Jewish practices, from the most traditional Orthodox to the non-religious, including shiva stools and kria ribbons. Pre-arranging funerals can be arranged as well. Weil can arrange for services at area synagogues and at graveside.
independently. They are particularly dedicated to providing care for those with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer and other debilitating conditions, such as those arising from strokes and cardiac difficulties. Care is offered 24/7 by screened caregivers who are required to have extensive home care experience. Mike and Shannon Garfunkel (originally from Dayton and Cincinnati, respectivley) are the founders. After attending the University of Cincinnati, Shannon began working at Jewish Family Service in daycare , and Mike began working for Wall Street as a financial adviser. As time progressed, Mike wanted a career that would help others. Shannon’s interest in her work grew as she saw the results of her work. Together they formed Family Bridges, with offices in Cincinnati, Mason and Dayton.
Jewish Community Center The Jewish Community Center offers a wide variety of activities for seniors plus transportation services. Core programs include computer training, assistance with weight management and overall fitness. For 2011, upcoming programs include helping seniors adjust to changes in health, a dinner theatre and tax assistance. For information on the Senior Life programs, contact the J.
Cedar Village Retirement Community Cedar Village offers living accommodations for seniors with a variety of needs: helping those who are independent and people needing some assistance. Cedar Village serves the Greater Cincinnati community guided by a mission based on Jewish values. Their vision is that “aging will be a fulfilling and enriching experience for older adults and their families…” The Jewish residents will find full-time pastoral care, with Reform and Orthodox rabbis, as well as a kosher deli. Other amenities include private and public dining, a fitness center, two beauty salons, several libraries, a bank, transportation and a variety of activities, including adult lectures. From the website, “We celebrate the individual and recognize their physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs to ensure that they achieve an optimal quality of life.”
Family Bridges Home Care This non-medical home care’s mission is to help seniors live
Jewish Family Service More senior adults are maintaining independent lives. As they
CLASSES from previous page
our people have used to interpret and understand the Torah over the centuries. Rabbi Michael Shulman will investigate and connect these approaches to the most sacred and central book of Judaism.
92nd Street Y Program After Iraq – Conclusions and Consequences with Fareed Zakaria, moderated by Eliot Spitzer, live via satellite, on Thursday, March 10 at 8 p.m. Engaging in Torah On Tuesdays, March 22, 29 and April 5 from noon–1 p.m., this course will explore the various techniques, approaches and skills
On-going Rabbinic Literature Class On Monday, Feb. 28 and March 26 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. For those who want to engage in serious study, debate and discussion of Jewish texts.
age, you may notice changes in their day-to-day activities. Are you overreacting, or not recognizing a potentially serious issue? Jewish Family Service can help. “JFS skilled and sensitive geriatric care managers are experienced with the special physical, emotional, and practical needs of older adults,” said Ann Sutton Burke, MPA, CMC, director of Aging and Caregiver Services at JFS. “We visit with senior adults in their home for an assessment that focuses on strengths and coping skills, as well as their ability to care for themselves physically, socially, financially, and psychologically. Then, together with their spouse or children, we develop a specific plan to ensure they are safe, live with dignity, and make their independent living easier.” JFS has 18 dedicated experts in aging including social workers, educators and care managers. Their experience covers insurance benefits, community resources, counseling, Holocaust survivor issues, long distance care management, Russianspeaking concerns and more. To help determine if it is time for an assessment, JFS created a checklist for aging parents, categorized by concern, which is available on their website. “A lot of times there is a gap between knowing services are available and the older adult being ready to accept the service. We can bridge that gap,” said Burke. Jewish Family Service is located in the Mayerson JCC.
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DINING OUT
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Welcome to the wonderful world of Marx Hot Bagels By Marilyn Gale Dining Editor Strolling into Marx Hot Bagels in Blue Ash, I took a trip down memory lane. I was transported back 25 years in time, where I had spent the morning in toddler gym at the JCC, trying to get the young ones to run around and tire themselves out in the hope of them taking a long afternoon nap. But before going home, what better place to go for lunch than Marx Hot Bagels, then located in Roselawn. Today, the shop is in Blue Ash and the food is still great, the bagels fresh, the choices many. Thick, dense tuna salad on an everything bagel, or maybe a toasted jalapeno one for mama, and the children still clamor for the pizza bagel. Yes, I have fond memories of Marx Bagels, comfort food for everyone. I give this deli, bakery and luncheonette credit for helping me raise a family in the Jewish tradition. Bagels after Sunday school, bagels in the freezer for morning breakfast, bagels for funerals. Sure, other newcomers have arrived, with fancy names and coatings on their bagels, but I admit my loyalty to Marx Hot Bagels, pure and simple. John Marx and his bagel shop are as much a part of the Jewish community as any congregation. Marx Hot Bagels is to the Jewish community as Skyline chili is to Cincinnati. John Marx is the Bagelman although when he is in costume, I think the print on his shirt should say Super Bagelman as he is a baker extraordinaire. The menu proclaims itself as the Classic Kosher Bagel Shop serving Cincinnati since 1969. Over 35 varieties are baked fresh daily. But John Marx brings more than 35 types of bagels to the brightly lit deli. Marx personifies resilience, creativity, and fun. Marx says, “I don’t take anything seriously.” Surviving a troubled childhood where he was kicked out of three high schools and spent time in foster care, Marx gives credit to the nuns, who were his teachers, for recognizing his inner spark. Marx recalls working as a bouncer in a bar in Mt. Adams and meeting a
(Clockwise) Bagels, bagels, everywhere; Golden challah makes every day special; Give me a fresh, warm bialey anytime, night or day; Super Bagel Man, John Marx, has been a supporter of the Jewish community for over 40 years.
young man named Gary Schwartz who had started a bagel shop in 1969. It was called Hot Bagels, a franchise out of New York. Schwartz hired Marx at minimum wage. The shop went bankrupt in 1971. During the transition and liquidation, while cleaning in the
basement of the bagel shop, Marx found stacks of money and brought it to Steve Cohen who was handling the closing of the current business. Marx said Cohen complimented him on his honesty and offered to put the money into a “seed account” to
help Marx launch his version of hot bagels. Marx’s version is an alchemical knowledge for transforming these circular bland breads into great combinations of herbs, fruits, seeds and flour. He has creativity infused into his bagels. The
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early history of the bagel shop only had seven kinds of these doughy treats. Before I moved to Cincinnati, I had never eaten a raisin bagel. John Marx started to make sweet bagels in 1970. Marx told me that he was the first person in the U.S. to make raisin and blueberry bagels and he is proud of them being served at the Smithsonian Institute. Although Marx isn’t “technically Jewish,” his culinary finesse in bagel making is evident of a bissel of Jewish roots. Marx jokingly recalls that his great-grandfather, who died in 1909, might have been Jewish. He says, “Marx is a Jewish name. Karl Marx, Groucho Marx, there is even a city in Germany called Marxburg.” From a nutritional standpoint, Marx’s bagels are made from a high gluten, unbleached flour and contain no preservatives or artificial ingredients. The bagels are boiled in water and have no butter or oil. You can’t beat the price: unsweetened bagels are 90 cents each, sweetened ones are 95 cents. Marx always gives you a baker’s dozen, 13 instead of 12. There are 25 choices in the cream cheese department, almost half are lite options. The fish salads are always a treat, heavy on the seafood, light on the mayo. Marx, a man of droll humor, has a low carb, high protein lunch—hold the bagel—for $7.35, either topped with tuna, salmon or white fish salad. Challah is also sold, a golden beauty, for $4.09. Desserts include rugelach and babka as well as muffins, brownies, elephant ears, Danish, coffee cake and struedel. Party trays are available and made to order. Bagel Bite Bowls, dessert trays and baskets are other ways to feed families, friends and colleagues in a festive display. You can’t go wrong with Marx Hot Bagels. Call it nostalgia or purely a quality Jewish community staple produced with style. Young and old can find something delectable here. Thank you, Mr. Marx, for all that you do. Marx Hot Bagels 9701 Kenwood Road Blue Ash, Ohio, 45242 513-891-5542
DINING OUT
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
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Jewish traits gone bad I have long suspected that the Jewish stereotypes invoked by comedians, impolite pundits and anti-Semites contain some grain of truth. After all, even a powerfully positive middah, or personal trait, can, if mangled or misapplied, devolve into a parody of its essence. And when that happens, a negative stereotype results. Take, for instance, the obsession with money and possessions about which Jews are regularly impugned or mocked. (Some may recall—it was before my time— the Jewish radio jokester Jack Benny who, accosted in a skit by a mugger demanding “Your money or your life!” pauses a few seconds and then, when the stick-up man repeats his warning, responds: “I’m thinking! I’m thinking!”) But concern with currency is only mockery-worthy when it has degenerated into stinginess (as in the case of the fictional muggee) or thievery. In its pure form, it is called frugality, and is lauded by the Torah. “The possessions of the righteous,” the Talmud teaches, “are as dear to them as their bodies.” That comment is not meant to counsel miserliness; it conveys a deep and quintessentially Jewish thought: Every honestly earned penny has true worth, for it can be turned into something meaningful. We might think of someone who, say, rinses out and re-uses a Styrofoam cup as some sort of miser; and maybe he is. But he might also be a truly righteous man, appreciative of, and reluctant to waste, something still usable. If he’s generous to the needy, we know which one he is. And so while stinginess may be ugly, frugality is not; indeed, it is a Jewish trait, and should be proudly embraced as one. Similarly, the stereotype of Jews as cliquish is rooted in our very real and proper sense of peoplehood. When, however, we unwittingly give the impression that we look down upon others similarly created in the image of G-d, we offer mockers (and haters) ammunition. It is important to not let our special bond with the “family” that is Klal Yisrael, the Jewish People, send a negative message to others. But internalizing that special bond, in the end, is essential to being a Jew. Of late, I’ve been thinking about another Jewish stereotype: the worrier. The fellow who frets
about whether he turned the oven off or locked the door before he left home, about what might happen if he boards that plane, or what that stomach pain might mean. Of course, all sorts of people worry about small or far-fetched things. But there does seem to be a particular stereotype of Jewish overanxiousness. What middah might it, in a twisted way, reflect? What occurs is that worrying about unlikely things that might go wrong might be the flipside to something very Jewish indeed: Appreciating the myriad things that regularly go right. We say “Modeh Ani” (the daily acknowledgement of gratitude to G-d each morning) to acknowledge the all-too-easily-ignored miracle of our waking up. We say “Asher Yatzar” (the blessing recited after using the bathroom) to remind ourselves not to take the functions of our bodies for granted. We say “Modim” (“We acknowledge,” one of the silent prayer’s blessings) during each of our prayer services to thank G-d for His continuous gift of our lives and sustenance. That all reflects a fundamental Jewish middah, “hakarat hatov”— in the phrase’s most literal, most fundamental, sense: the “recognition of the good” that G-d bestows on us daily, indeed every hour, every minute, every second. To be exquisitely sensitive to all the blessings from which we constantly benefit requires us, on some level, to realize all that could go wrong. There are people, after all, who don’t wake up from their night’s sleep; whose bodies do not function normally, whose lives or livelihoods are imperiled. Only a keen recognition of such possibilities can lead us to fully appreciate what so many people mindlessly take for granted. Could that quintessential Jewish characteristic be what sometimes decays into “Jewish worry?” Might anxiety be a warped expression of what, ideally, should be a feeling of joyful gratitude to the Creator for (in Modim’s words) “nisecha sheb’chol yom imonu”—the “miracles that are with us each and every day”? Perhaps, in other words, the Jewish worrywart, by obsessing over the myriad things that can go wrong, is mangling the Jewish trait of gratitude to the Creator for when things go right. Rabbi Shafran is an editor at large and columnist for Ami.
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Dear Editor The day was clear and sunny, yet cold and brisk. It was one of those days where you could see your breath even in the car and where your ears and nose turned bright red after only five minutes outside. Standing up for something not even the cold could quell, 50 seventh graders, parents and teachers gathered on a crisp morning for an important cause. We gathered at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center with hundreds of other people, young and old, black and white, from all walks of life, to march for freedom and civil rights for all, in our city and in our nation. Guided by Dr. King’s dream, we marched from the Freedom Center to Fountain Square with a song on the wind and a purpose. At Fountain Square we heard from the religious leaders of our city who challenged us to work to fulfill Dr. King’s dream. They praised us and told us how proud Dr. King would have been seeing us all gathered here on this day in fellowship, holding one another’s hands, our heads bowed in prayer. We prayed the same prayer Dr. King prayed: an end to violence and poverty, a time when peace and prosperity would rule the land. And with that hope and
prayer on our lips, we returned to the Freedom Center inspired, ready for a very special program. Led by our fabulous seventh grade B’nai Mitzvah class teachers, our students delved into the issues of freedom and slavery— yesterday, today and tomorrow. As our students explored the exhibits of the crowded museum, around every corner they were challenged by difficult questions: How is freedom a struggle? Where do I stand on the issues of prejudice, stereotypes and racism? Who influences my opinions and my views of the world? What can I do to make a difference in the world? If I don’t take action now, when? Through the exhibits and displays, discussions and questions, I am proud to say that our students came to some very profound understandings. One student remarked, “Freedom is not just an issue for AfricanAmericans, or Jews, it is an issue important to everyone.” Another student said that the message of the day was “to show that we aren’t always free, but we have choices and it’s important to make the right ones.” Other students were shocked and angry to learn that slavery continues in our own day, even right here in our own country, “I can’t believe that there are over 27 million slaves right now, we’re extreme-
ly lucky we have what we have.” Regarding Martin Luther King, one of the seventh graders said, “Dr. King helped all of us become a little more free … and we can all use a little more freedom sometimes in our lives.” Another student made a connection between Jews and AfricanAmericans saying, “their struggle is like our struggle, we are both minorities, and we both were slaves.” Without a doubt, we left the Freedom Center that afternoon more warmed than chilled by the experience. Our hearts were warmed to the ongoing quest for civil rights in our own community. Above all, we learned that the responsibility is ours to make freedom happen. Rabbi Israel Mattuck, one of the early reformers in the UK wrote, “indeed freedom and responsibility are intimately related. Freedom is a necessary condition of responsibility; and the assumption of responsibility gives worth and meaning to freedom.” It is up to us to take the steps and walk the path of righteousness and justice before us. I can think of no greater lesson for this sacred day and for our B’nai Mitzvah students—the future of our people and of our community. Rabbi Michael Shulman Isaac M. Wise Temple
T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: MISHPATIM (SHMOT 21:1\24:30) 1. What specific mitzvah does one perform for the poor? a.) Lend money b.) Give charity c.) Feed and clothe the poor 2. What special mitzvah is there concerning collateral for a loan? a.) Should be equal to the value of the loan b.) Should be returned when the loan is repaid c.) Should be returned by sunset if it could used at night 3. Where is the term holiness used? a.) Using a Jewish court of law instead of a Rashi 3. B 22:30 ÅgHolinessÅh means to avoid contact with non kosher meat. Rashi 4. C 23:19 The word ÅggediÅh usually translated as a goat, also means calf or sheep. Rashi 5. C 23:17 Hashem commanded us to appear three times to thank him for his kindnesses as he is the ÅgmasterÅh of the earth. Sforno
By Rabbi Avi Shafran Contributing Colomnist
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
secular court b.) Avoiding the eating of non kosher meat c.) Paying a worker on time 4. Which animal should not be cooked with milk? a.) Fish b.) Cow c.) Goat 5. When is there a mitzvah that all Jewish males should appear before Hashem? a.) One time any day of the year b.) There is no special mitzvah c.) During each of the three festivals ANSWERS 1. A 22:24 While the giving of Tzedakah is a mitzvah, the Parsha mentions loans specifically. The mitzvah is to give first priority to a poor person over a rich person. Rashi. 2. C 22:25 The mitzvah to return the collateral to the owner by sunset concerns an item which the borrower would use by night and would not need by day.
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Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise
JEWISH LIFE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
Sedra of the Week By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT MISHPATIM • EXODUS 21:1–24:18
Efrat, Israel - “And they saw the God of Israel…. They had a vision of the Divine and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:10, 11). Toward the conclusion of the portion of Mishpatim, immediately following God’s establishment of His covenant with Israel, we find a mystical vision of God which gives rise to a fascinating difference of opinion between Targum Onkelos (second century CE) and Rashi (1040-1105). The numinous character of the story deserves a careful reading. “Moses then went up, along with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of Israel’s elders. They saw the God of Israel, and under His feet was the likeness of sapphire brickwork, like the essence of the heavens in purity. And [God] did not send forth His hand against these great men of the Israelites. They had a vision of the Divine and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:9-11). The Targum sees this incident in a very positive light. Having experienced the Revelation at the foot of the mountain, the leaders went up to the top and “saw, had a vision of” the Divine. “They suffered no damage” from this mystical experience, even though, in the Talmudic recording of a much later “journey into the ‘Pardes,’” Elisha ben Abuya, Ben Azzai and Ben Zoma were seriously maimed by the experience, and only Rabbi Akiva emerged “whole.” “These [great men] saw the glory of God, and they rejoiced in their sacrifices which had been willingly accepted as if they themselves had eaten and drunk from them” (Targum ad loc). Rashi takes the story much more literally, he is far more critical of the leaders’ actions. He maintains that when the Bible reports that God did not “send forth His hand” against these leaders, the Bible is hinting that they were worthy of punishment. He cites the Midrash Tanhuma that they gazed upon God “with a vulgar and materialistic heart, eating and drinking in the Divine Presence” (Rashi, ad loc). I believe that Rashi is “put off” by the words “and they saw, and they had a vision” – verbs of seeing rather than of hearing. In previous commentaries, I have contrasted “seeing” – which is merely external – with “hearing,” from the
word shema, which means to internalize, to take into one’s being (me’a is intestine) and to become internally transformed. This is precisely how our sages understood the central maxim of our faith: “Shema Yisrael, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” Despite the legitimacy of interpretations of “your ears must hear what you express with your mouth” (you yourself must hear every word of the three paragraphs which you are reciting; you dare not sight read) and “shema – in any language which you understand,” the normative Halacha derives from shema that the one who recites it must internally accept upon himself the yoke of the Kingship of heaven (B.T. Brachot 13a). And it is this third interpretation which would translate shema as “internalize.” The tragedy of the Israelites is that they experienced the Exodus through a superficial “seeing” rather than a more internal “hearing.” Just before the Revelation, God chides them: “You have seen what I have done to Egypt, how I carried you on eagles’ wings; but now if you will internalize, yes internalize [shamo’a, tishme’u] My voice and guard My covenant, only then will you be to Me a treasure…” (Exodus 19:4-6). But the Israelites were not yet at the level of internalizing. They only “see” the sounds of the Revelation (ibid 20:15), and God re-states His problem at the end of
the portion of Yitro: “You have [merely] seen that I spoke to you from the heavens” (ibid 20:19). Indeed, it is only when, toward the end of our portion of Mishpatim, the Israelites declare “na’aseh v’nishma,” we will perform [the commandments] and internalize [them], that God enters into the covenant with Israel. And then, at the climax of the covenant, our aristocratic leaders regress into “seeing” – a superficial encounter which enables them to crassly eat and drink in the presence of the Divine. God even attempts to teach them with a vision of sapphire (sapir), from the verb to tell, to communicate a narrative. The story of the Exodus from Egypt, and the Ten Commandments of morality is to be told and heard from generation to generation in order to inform and etch within the very DNA of the nation the twin ideals of freedom and morality. But, alas, to no avail. This “seeing” of the aristocrats leads in a straight line to the worship of the Golden Calf, which turns a spiritual and soul-transforming ideal into a paltry and limited “image.” We must wait for the portion of Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11–34:35) to understand how God will teach the Israelites how to internalize. Shabbat Shalom Shlomo Riskin Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone Chief Rabbi — Efrat Israel
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JEWZ IN THE NEWZ
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Jewz in the Newz By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist MOSTLY “SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE” JESSE EISENBERG, 27, will host “SNL” on Jan. 29 (NBC, 11:30PM). Eisenberg, who starred as Facebook co-founder MARK ZUCKERBERG, 26, in the hit film “The Social Network,” was nominated, but didn’t win the Golden Globe for the role. But he is also up for a Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) Award for the part and he’s likely to snare an Oscar nomination. “SNL” creator LORNE MICHAELS, 66, is the first guest on the new TV series, “Oprah Presents: Master Class.” He’ll share stories and insights. (Airs Sunday, Jan. 30, 8PM. Many encore showings.) As you might guess, the show can be seen on the new OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) cable station. The SAG awards also air at 8PM, Jan.30, on TNT and TBS cable. Only acting awards are presented—the Jewish film category nominees are Eisenberg; JAMES FRANCO (“127 Hours”) and HAILEE STEINFELD (“True Grit”). The Jan. 7 “SNL” episode featured a funny bar mitzvah sketch that you can see on the internet or in an upcoming re-run. The premise is that three famous singers perform at a bar mitzvah. GWYNETH PALTROW’s impression of Taylor Swift was the best of the three and included some clever Jewish-reference lyrics. Paltrow is scheduled to appear on the NBC family roots show, “Who Do You Think You Are,” sometime later this season. Hopefully, they will explore the Jewish side of her family— which includes her second cousin, Rep. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS (Paltrow and Giffords are both daughters of non-Jewish mothers and Jewish fathers who identify as Jewish. Paltrow’s paternal grandfather and Giffords’ paternal grandmother were siblings). THE MECHANIC Opening on Friday, Jan. 28, is the violent film thriller, “The Mechanic.” Jason Statham stars as Arthur Bishop, an elite assassin. His mentor (Donald Sutherland) is murdered and he wants revenge. Complications ensue when Harry’s son, Steve (BEN FOSTER, 30) wants to team up with Bishop to avenge his dad’s murder—and he asks Bishop to teach him the assassin’s trade. Foster is an interesting actor. In recent years, he has shown a real talent for playing troubled (“The Messenger”) or even totally vil-
lainous characters (“4:10 to Yuma”). However, in his early adolescent roles, he mostly played a sweet guy (a Jewish teen in “Liberty Heights,” a recurring role on TV’s “Freaks and Geeks”). I recently discovered his 2001 film, “Get It Over.” If you like “Glee” at all—you’ll get a kick out of it. Foster plays a nice high school senior who joins the cast of his school’s musical play to be close to his gorgeous ex-girlfriend, who dumped him. There is a raft of quirky and pretty funny supporting characters —including one played by MILA KUNIS, then only 18. It’s certainly not “West Side Story,” but it’s worth a rental. JEWS ON ICE Here’s this year’s run-down of Jews in the National Hockey League. This list was prepared with the help of Jewish Sports Review magazine: MIKE BROWN, 25, right wing, Toronto Maple Leafs. Brown broke into the NHL in 2007, playing for Vancouver. In early 2009, he was traded to Anaheim. Last year, he played in 75 games and was an effective penalty killer. He was traded to the Leafs in the off-season; MICHAEL CAMMALLERI, 28, center, Montreal Canadiens. A top player, formerly with Los Angeles and Calgary, “Cam” signed a five-year, $30 million dollar contract in July 2009. Last season he started hot, was injured, but made a remarkable comeback during the playoffs—scoring the most goals of any player, on any team, that was in the playoffs.; JEFF HALPERN, 34, forward, Montreal. Halpern is now playing for his fourth team since he broke into the NHL in 1999. He was the Washington Capitals team captain and the captain of the U.S. National team at the 2008 world championships; ERIC NYSTROM, 27, left wing, Minnesota Wild. Nystrom, the son of NY Islander legend Bobby Nystrom, broke into the NHL with Calgary and stayed with themuntil the end of last season. He had his best season last year, and signed a big bucks contract with Minnesota in the off-season; DYLAN REESE, 26, defenseman, New York Islanders. Reese made his NHL debut last March and played 19 games before being sent to the minors. He started the season in the minors—and has been calledup and sent down to the minors three times. As I write this, he’s “up again.” (Also: COLBY COHEN, 21, a defenseman, played a few games in November for the Colorado Avalanche. He was traded to Boston that month and is now in the minors.)
FROM THE PAGES 100 Years Ago Mrs. Ernestine Hattenbach, a former resident of this city, but lately of Oklahoma City, Okla., was buried at the United Jewish Cemetery Tuesday afternoon. The deceased was 83 years old, and is mourned by her children, Mr. Meyer Hattenbach, Mr. Joseph Hattenbach, of Toledo, O.; Mrs. Joseph Epstein, of Oklahoma; Mrs. Hannah Orbach and Mrs. Henry Kahn of Okmulgee, Okla., and Mrs. Henry J. Benjamin, of St. Louis, Mo. Dr. Grossmann delivered the funeral sermon in the chapel. Ferdinand B. Maertz, 68 years old, died at his residence, 765 Greenwood Avenue, early Monday morning
January 23. Mr. Maertz came to this country from Heilbron, in the southern part of Germany, with his parents, fifty-nine years ago. In 1872 he married Regine Sinn, 69, who, with four children, now survive him. The undertaking establishment, which he owned, has been handed down through three generations. He was a thirty-second degree Mason, and also belonged to several other organizations. The children who survive him are Mrs. Joseph Kronacher, who lives at the residence with her parents; Mrs. I.K. Friedman and Mrs. L.B. Kuppenheimer, both of Chicago, and Mr. Bert L Maertz, who also lives at
the residence on Greenwood Avenue, and who has for years been associated with his father in business. The funeral occurred at the United Jewish Cemetery on Wednesday afternoon, Rev. Dr. Louis Grossman officiating. The Scottish Rite Ring service was used. The active pallbearers were Ben Rice, Moses Schwab, Julius Glasier, Moses Nusbaum, Jacob Kronacher and William Ornstein, while the honorary ones were John Gilligan George Wiltsee, John Radel and John E. Sullivan. Ferdinand Maertz was one of the best-known men in Cincinnati, and had a host of friends. — January 26, 1911
75 Years Ago Mrs. Sam Vigran and daughter, Miss Constance Vigran, formerly of Richmond, Ind., now are residing at 3424 Brookline Avenue, Clifton. Mr. Justin Rollman has been reelected to a vice presidency and Messrs. En L. Heidingsfeld and David L. Liebman have been re-elected to the Advisory Board of the Property Owners’ Association. Mrs. Levi A. Olan, of Worcester, Mass., is the guest of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Messer.
Mr. and Mrs. A.B. Cohen, of Burton Avenue, will leave Friday, Jan. 31st, for the South, where they will be established at the Rooney-Plaza, Miami Beach, Fla. They will also visit their son, Ralph, a cadet at the Kentucky Military Institute, with winter quarters at Venice, Fla. Isador Elsbach, 76, of 243 Hearne Avenue, passed away at his home Monday, Jan. 27th. He was retired secretary-treasurer of the Anchor Paper Co. and was a director of the
Aragon Savings and Loan Association for the past 45 years. Services were held at Weil Funeral Home Wednesday, Dr. James G. Heller officiating. Interment was in United Jewish Cemetery. Mr. Elsbach leaves besides his widow, Mrs. Sophie Bamberger Elsbach, two children, Mrs. Louis Sommer and Fremont Elsbach, and three sisters, Mrs. Jack Bamberger, Miss Belle Elsbach, and Miss Emma Elsbach. — January 30, 1936
50 Years Ago In honor of his 80th birthday, Rabbi Eliezer Silver will be given a dinner Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 6:30 p.m., at the Jewish Community Center. Judge Benjamin S. Schwartz of Juvenile Court heads the sponsoring committee. Members include Isidor Schifrin, Samuel Dallob, Samuel Lissitz, Philip Steiner, Alfred Segal, James L. Magrish, Samuel M. Schmidt, Mrs. Ben Moskowitz, Bernard Pepinsky, Milton Schloss, Mrs. Mitchell J.
Miller, Dr. H.B. Weiss, Joseph Gootman, Kartan M. Mailender, Sigmund M. Cohen, Jacob Lichter, Martin M. Cohn, Albert J. Butchkes, Isidore Butchkes, Morris Mandell, Sidney Rose, Jacob Jacobson, Phillip Mosowitz, Ben Ritter, Jack Getz, Edward Jacobs, Harold Raab, Morris Weintraub, Edward Malkis, Abe Berman, C.E. Israel, Alfred B. Katz, Albert Harris, Sol Goodman, Charles M. Messer, Murray J. Bergman, Meyer Goldberg, Abe Dennis and
Mrs. Nathan Sliver. Mrs. Louise Rothenberg Freiberg, of 7154 Knoll Road, Amberley Village, passed away Friday, Jan. 20, at Holmes Hospital. Her husband is president-elect of the American Orthopedic Association. Mrs. Freiberg is survived by her husband; their daughter, Mrs. Elliot B. Meyer, Washington, Pa.; their son, Dr. Richard A. Freiberg, of Chicago; and a brother, Dr. Robert C. Rothenberg of Cincinnati. — January 26, 1961
25 Years Ago Mark H. Berliant has been elected chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cincinnati Free Store/FoodBank for 1986. Mr. Berliant was formerly Free Store Board Vice Chairman and Chairman of its Finance Committee. Free Store/FoodBank has two operating divisions, Direct Services and the FoodBank Division. The better known of these two divisions is the “Direct Services Division” which provided services to over 50,000 families during 1985. Services included food, clothing, furniture and special services to families. The “FoodBank Division” serves 329 other non-profit organiza-
tions, which in turn, serve the needy in their neighborhoods. This division received approximately 6,000,000 pounds of food and other products during 1985. All in All, the FreeStore distributed goods in the community valued in excess of $10,000,000 for its total program last year. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Senior announce the engagement of their daughter, Susie Rosenberg, to Perry M. Moss, son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Moss of Denver. Susie is also the daughter of the late Alan L. Rosenberg and the granddaughter of Mrs. Sidney Rosenberg of Miami Beach.
Mrs. Blanche Rindsberg of 8330 Ridge Road passed away Jan. 27. She is survived by her husband, Albert; two daughters, Lois Ostrov and Kathleen Kellar; a brother, Herman Weinberg; seven grandchildren, Beth Feldman, Hilary Gud of Atlanta, Faye Deutsch of Miami, Howard Levy of Columbus, and Mark, Richard and Miles Michelson; and a great-grandson, Jason Michelson. Mrs. Rindsberg was the wife of the late Henry Levy, the mother of the late Marvin Levy, and the sister of the late Harry Weinberg and Tillie Richter. — January 30, 1986
10 Years Ago Congregation Ohav Shalom installed its new officers and board of directors at an installation dinner held Jan. 14. Barrie Joffe was installed as the new president. New vice presidents are David Weil and Marcie Mendelsohn. Howard Yasgur is the new treasurer. Oscar Jarnicki, Miriam Steele and Rabbi Robert Reiner were installed as new members of the board of directors. Eunice Davis, 86, passed away
January 13, 2001. Mrs. Davis was born in Cedartown, Ga., and was the daughter of the late Abraham and Bella Cohen. Mrs. Davis is survived by her children, Patty and Dr. Norman Statman and Renee and Sam Frankel. Surviving grandchildren are: Alan and Melinda Statman , Betsy and Paul Besi, Shari and Mike Poff, Dan and Kate Statman, Margo and Dr. Eliot Kirstein, Stuart Frankel and Rita Mirman and Susan Frankel and Jeremy Perlin. She
is also survived by seven great-grandchildren . Mrs. Davis was a member of Adath Israel Congregation. Helen Stix Glazer, 87, passed away January 8, 2001. Mrs. Glazer was born in Cincinnati. She was the daughter of the late Walter and Edith Stix. Mrs. Glazer was the wife of the late Dr. Alfred Glazer, and is survived by her children, Arthur and Mary Glazer and Walter Glazer. She is also survived by six grandchildren. —January 25, 2001
CLASSIFIEDS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
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COMMUNITY DIRECTORY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS Big Brothers/Big Sisters Assoc. (513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Beth Tevilah Mikveh Society (513) 821-6679 Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7226 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 • camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 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 Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com 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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production@ americanisraelite.com FESTIVAL from page 1 is a crowd-pleasing uplifting film about overcoming bigotry and self-doubt, as an ex-con finds himself coaching an upstart Orthodox Jewish baseball team. “The Yankles” received several 2010 awards, including “Best Comedy” at the International Family Film Festival and “Audience Choice for Best Feature” at the Palm Beach and Anaheim International Film Festivals. The movie “Berlin ‘36” will be shown at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 30, and at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, and is a German film with English subtitles. Inspired by a true story, this film replays a remarkable piece of forgotten Olympic history when the Nazis conspired to replace Gretel Bergmann, a female Jewish athlete, with an unknown male athlete disguised as a girl. Bergmann’s real-life story was featured in the HBO documentary “Hitler’s Pawn.” Karoline Herfurth (who plays Bergmann in the film) was featured in the Oscar-winning movie “The Reader,” with Kate Winslet. Herfurth recently won several “Best Actress” awards in Europe. At 7 p.m., on Jan. 30, the highly-acclaimed drama, “Anita,” will be shown. This Argentinean film with English subtitles was written by award-winning director Marcos Carnevale. It appeared at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival — the first and largest Jewish Film Festival in the world. “Anita” tells a touching survival story of a young woman with Down syndrome who learns to care for herself and touches the lives of others after losing her mother during a tragic bombing. This screening is a collaboration between the Mayerson JCC and Jewish Vocational Service and will be followed by a post film discussion led by Ariella Cohen and Cindy Guttman. “The Matchmaker,” a film that depicts a portrait of life and love in Israel in 1968 shortly after the historical Six-Day War (also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War), will be shown at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 31. Award-winning director Avi Nesher produced this romantic and nostalgic Israeli film with English subtitles. It was shown at the Israel Film Festival in New York. On Feb. 1, at 7 p.m., the JCC is showing “An Article of Hope.” This unique documentary spotlights Israeli Colonel Ilan Ramon, one of
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(513) 531-9600 the astronauts who perished in the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster. Feb. 1, 2011, is the eighth anniversary of the tragic space shuttle accident. This documentary received awards at the 2010 Columbus International Film Festival, as well as from The “1939” Club (one of the world’s largest and most active Holocaust survivors organizations). There will be a post-film program with Dr. Henry Fenichel, a Holocaust survivor (and former board president of Northern Hills Synagogue) whose tiny Torah was taken into space to commemorate the loss of Col. Ramon. The Feb. 1 screening is a collaboration between the Mayerson JCC and The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. The Israeli drama, “Seven Minutes in Heaven,” is featured at 7 p.m., on Wednesday, Feb. 2. This film (in Hebrew with English subtitles) tells the story of a young Jerusalem woman who struggles to reclaim her memory after a horrific suicide bombing left her clinically dead for seven minutes. Recent awards include “Best Feature Film” at the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the “Haifa Cultural Foundation Award” at the Haifa International Film Festival. Reymond Amsellem, who plays the main character in the movie, was nominated for “Best Actress” by the Israeli Film Academy. The 2011 Cincinnati Jewish & Israeli Film Festival concludes with the highly-acclaimed documentary, “100 Voices: A Journey Home,” on Thursday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. This poignant and compelling musical tells the history of Jewish culture through a group of 72 cantors who visit Poland (the original home of cantorial music) to join local choruses in a series of sold-out concerts. One of the cantors in the film, Cantor Steve Stoehr, will lead a special program at the JCC following the screening. “100 Voices” is being positioned for Academy Award consideration for “Best Documentary” and has been featured at the Haifa International Film Festival and the Hollywood Film Festival. Movie trailers and reviews, as well as advance online ticket sales for the Jewish & Israeli Film Festival, are available on the JCC website. This event is sponsored by LKC Foundation, as well as several other generous donors. To learn about sponsorship opportunities or purchase tickets by phone, call Courtney at the JCC.
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Alpha Epsilon Pi Alumni Club event The Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity is forming a Cincinnati area Alumni Club. Fellow brothers and their significant others are invited to schmooze and enjoy a bagel brunch. This premiere
event will take place on Sunday, Jan. 30, from 11–12:30 p.m. at Kingsgate Marriott. With over 1,500 alumni living in the greater Cincinnati area, the fraternity is looking to utilize
connections, meet each other’s families, mentor the young, reminisce on their past and create new memories. Alpha Epsilon Pi’s most hallowed quote, “commitment for a lifetime,” has led
members to create the first AEPi Cincinnati Alumni Club. At this event, they will be creating a formal alumni club with an election of officers. Attire is casual, and the brunch is free of
charge and compliments of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity Foundation. Reservations are requested by Jan. 28 at the AEPi alumni website.
Federation’s community insurance review results in benefits Twelve years ago the Jewish Federation, the Jewish community agencies and the synagogues each provided for their own property and liability insurance. Then, under the leadership of the Federation, a program was created that enabled all of these community organizations to collectively purchase their insurance within one sponsored program. This was accomplished with the expert guidance of a professional team— led by Fred Wittenbaum, a principal at Cincinnati’s SP Agency. Since that time, the program has provided all the participants with enhanced coverage at a significantly reduced cost. In addition, throughout the period that this program has been in place, the participants have received excellent insurance and claim services from the respective
insurers and the SP Agency. This past year, the Federation engaged an independent risk management and insurance consultant, Malecki Deimling Nielander & Associates, LLC (“MDN”), to review the program to see if further efficiencies could be achieved. MDN was selected after several individuals in the insurance community identified MDN as the company with the most competent, ethical and unbiased consultants in the industry. MDN was asked to do the following: Ensure that the program was operating as efficiently as possible. Conduct a risk assessment for all of the 27 participants, including the Federation, the agencies, several synagogues and other organizations. Assist the Federation—both
now and in the future—with the administration of the program and the associated communications with the participants. Greg Deimling and Pam Gossett from MDN were assigned to this task and have been a part of this process for nearly a year. The Jewish Federation’s Finance & Administration Committee has expressed their tremendous satisfaction to Greg and Pam for the job that they have done. “MDN has taken a great program and made it even better,” said Bob Brant, who, as a volunteer, led the Insurance bid-out process for the Federation. “They’ve done a great job managing this process and have taken every step to ensure that the program is the most efficient it can be for the community. Their work has been so
impressive that I will now recommend them to our own clients.” “We are very thrilled with the response we have received,” said Pam. “But certainly, we could not have accomplished all we did without the full cooperation of everyone throughout the Jewish community. The spirit of collaboration throughout the process made the project a real pleasure.” “Over the years, Fred Wittenbaum and the SP Agency have done an excellent job of expanding the program for the community in a most cost-effective manner,” explained Greg. “During this review process, we considered the community’s needs today and several years into the future, and we know that the depth of the benefit that the Federation has achieved in sponsoring this program is excep-
tional in terms of coverage that limits each participating agency’s exposure and risk. This result is largely due to the total support we received from both the volunteers and professionals with whom we were privileged to work.” “We believe that MDN did a superb job using their expertise to continue what has been a marvelous package for our community and the participating agencies,” added Bill Freedman, vice president of finance and administration for the Jewish Federation. “SP Agency has done a great job assembling the concept and maintaining the package; and MDN helped us validate it and shape it to meet the new needs of the community. We are grateful to these two outstanding companies for all they have achieved on behalf of our community.”
U.S. textile boss steps in to save Negev factory Leading textile industrialist, Gary Heiman, answered Israeli President Shimon Peres’ call and came to the aid of Mitzpeh Atzma’ut (The Independence Sewing Plant) located in Mitzpe Ramon. Heiman helped the sewing factory avoid imminent closure and the dismissal of dozens of its employees. Heiman, president and CEO of the global company Standard Textile, which owns Arad Textile Industries and several other similar plants in Israel, agreed to temporarily manage and operate Mitzpeh Atzma’ut in order to professionally evaluate its financial and operational feasibility. More than a month ago, Israeli President Shimon Peres appealed to a number of industrialists and to owners of industrial companies asking them to assist in saving the
Mitzpe Ramon company. Gary Heiman immediately responded to this request by making his Arad management team available to help rescue the company. President Peres said: “I personally thank Gary Heiman for making his team available and in playing a vital role in the rescue of the company and its dozens of jobs. The company in Mitzpe Ramon, in particular, and the textile industry in Israel, in general, is a critical national interest of our country, and I call upon all relevant governmental agencies to come together on this mission.” Arad’s management team hopes that an experienced and professional management together with a detailed business plan will salvage the Mitzpe Ramon plant and place it back on a path of growth and
prosperity. A final decision regarding the plant’s future could be reached after several months of closely examining the plant’s operations and the demand for the plant’s products. Heiman remarked: “Domestic manufacturing is a critical priority, and a country that doesn’t place local industry at the top of its national priorities — both in hightech and traditional industry — endangers the future destiny of its citizens. A country can’t exist only on imports from low-cost, third world countries and neglect the ability of its citizens to support themselves. I’m committed to act to preserve the Independence Company and trust that others involved with its preservation will part take in the responsibility and will do everything possible in order to assure the
success of this initiative. “For the past 35 years I have been committed to bringing innovation and progressive industrial technology to conventional industries,” said Heiman, adding that helping Mitzpeh Atzma’ut is “part of my belief that the periphery, and the Negev in particular, are important to the overall security of Israel.” He added, “The goal is to provide respectable jobs to the people who live in these towns and to encourage others to move there.” Heiman has invested years in the future of the Israeli textile industry. As the major textile exporter in Israel today and the only one to continue to invest in the country, more than a year ago Heiman signed on to save this industry by backing the proposed “Textile Law” that was recently passed in
the Knesset mandating preferential treatment for “Made in Israel” products for the Israeli Security sector. He was presented with the Pioneer of the Negev award, which was given to selected and distinguished key industrialists who developed the Negev during the country’s first 60 years. The company has employed more than 100 workers in the past from several areas in the center of the Negev. The company supplies uniforms to the Ministry of Defense, the Israel Defense Forces, the police and other customers. Over the last years, customers discontinued business with Mitzpeh Atzma’ut and shifted their purchasing to the East. Simultaneously, the company incurred large debts, was unable to maintain itself, and was on the verge of permanently closing.
Mercy Health Partners expands access to expert heart care Mercy Health Partners is making it easier than ever to connect with some of the top heart care experts in Greater Cincinnati. Three leading cardiologists who practice primarily at The Jewish Hospital have signed on to join Mercy Medical Associates, the growing network of physicians employed by Mercy Health Partners. Don Wayne, MD, FACC; David Whang, MD, FACC; and Daniel Tramuta, MD, FACC are members of Greater Cincinnati Cardiovascular Consultants
(GCCC), one of the region’s leading cardiovascular practice groups. They will join the rest of the cardiologists from GCCC who will officially become part of Mercy Medical Associates in January 2011. The growth is part of efforts by Mercy to provide patients with easy access to a complete network of expert care—from primary care physicians to leading specialists, all within the same network and who practice at Mercy’s six area hospitals. “We’re building a complete sys-
tem of cardiac care that ranges from nutrition and weight loss to diagnostics and open heart surgery,” said Mercy Health Partners CEO James May, who adds that Mercy will continue to work with many of the cardiologists on its medical staff in developing a leading, comprehensive heart program. The Jewish Hospital, which joined Mercy Health Partners in March 2010, is a key part of that complete system of cardiac care. The hospital had one of the first open heart programs in Greater
Cincinnati and continues to provide comprehensive, high-quality, heart care today. Open heart surgery is also available at Mercy Hospital Anderson and Mercy Hospital Fairfield, and another open heart surgery center is under construction at the new Mercy Hospital West and is expected to open in 2013. Having access to proven, experienced cardiologists is critical: nearly a quarter of all patients who are admitted through Mercy’s eight area emergency rooms are experiencing some type of heart problem.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death nationwide. “Treating cardiovascular disease benefits from a holistic approach that Mercy Health Partners is uniquely qualified to deliver,” said Dr. Thomas Jenike, one of two physicians who founded Greater Cincinnati Cardiovascular Consultants. “By joining with Mercy Health Partners, we’ll be participating in a system with the resources to assist patients in every stage of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery.”
NEWS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
WEBSITE from page 1 eral manager. She left the paper in 1999 when she and her husband, Allen, made aliyah. As editor of The Israelite, Singer won awards for excellence from the American Jewish Press Association and the Cincinnati chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Before leaving Cincinnati, she also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jewish Community HADASSAH from page 1 and research with the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO), one of the world’s leading institutions in health care. Comprised of two medical facilities in Israel—the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center at Ein Kerem and the Hadassah University Hospital at Mount Scopus—HMO places great emphasis on clinical and scientific research with the aim of advancing TUNISIAN from page 1 Ali and his wealthy cronies. On Tuesday, the North African country’s interim prime minister and president, Mohamed Ghannouchi and Fouad Mebazaa, both resigned from what had been the country’s ruling party. “The community is fine,” Bismuth told JTA by phone from Tunis. “Up until now we’ve had no problems. This is not really a matter of religion; it’s a popular revolution. The Jewish community is very well taken care of.” Asked about Ben Ali, often described by the local Jewish community as a protector of Tunisia’s Jews, Bismuth sounded a new tone. “He was behaving like a crook,” Bismuth said. “He and his family stole property from people and the state, and they destroyed everything BARAK from page 1 Ironically, the split of Labor — until this week a part of the Israeli government but now in the opposition — may yet strengthen the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak’s decision to quit Labor and found a new political party along with four other Labor defectors leaves Netanyahu with eight fewer members in his coalition, but the 66 who remain are considered far more stable than the 74 he had pre-defection. Before Barak’s dramatic announcement, Labor was threatening to withdraw all 13 of its Knesset members unless Netanyahu could show real progress in peacemaking with the Palestinians. That would have left the prime minister with only 61 coalition members, the vast majority right-wingers and the
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Relations Council and a Community Service Award from Cedar Village. Singer will now resume writing a monthly column, “This Year in Jerusalem,” for the Israelite, focusing on life in Israel. Her column will begin Feb. 3. Pastor will be contributing her “Incidentally Iris” column to The American Israelite. In this humorous slice of life column, she shares her insights and hard-won knowledge
and philosophy on being an aging baby-boomer. She is the mother of five sons and the grandmother of four. Her funny anecdotes charm and beguile readers. Pastor’s column ran for nearly 20 years in a local paper before she relocated to Tampa, where she continues to work in the Jewish community. Readers will remember Pastor as managing editor at the Israelite from 2003–2006. After 30 years in the culinary world and with five published
cookbooks, Schulman knows about food. Readers can expect a variety of yummy recipes and features in print and online including: Jewish holiday features, highlighted local cooks, new kosher products and new Jewish cookbook reviews. All recipes will adhere to kosher laws. Schulman’s articles will help make any mealtime special. In addition to these exciting and entertaining columns, The American Israelite Online offers a
user-friendly format to quickly browse the current or recent issues or view dedicated pages for news from organizations, synagogues and community and social events. With connections to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, The American Israelite Online is now the place to go to keep up-to-date on Cincinnati’s Jewish news. Go to our new website at www.americanisraelite.com, and let us know what you think.
and improving medical care. The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Colorectal Center cares for approximately 15-20 Israeli patients each year, and starting July 1, 2011, will train the first pediatric colorectal surgery fellow from Hadassah. Hadassah Life Membership benefits for women 17 and older include a Life Membership recognition pin, subscriptions to the award-winning Hadassah Magazine and Hadassah’s National
eNewsletter, advocacy, health and Jewish educational programs, professional networking opportunities, Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) for health care professionals, health insurance options, and participation in local, regional and national Hadassah events. Hadassah Associates, formed in 1966 and now 28,000 strong, are men in partnership with Hadassah women to support Hadassah projects like health care (Hadassah
Medical Organization), education (Hadassah College Jerusalem), youth programs (Young Judaea and Youth Aliyah/Children at Risk), and environmental resource development (Jewish National Fund). Associates can sponsor local fundraising events and activities, take part in educational seminars, make their voices heard on public policy, and support medical research, including stem cell research in Israel.
Hadassah Child Life Members (from birth to 16) will receive all the benefits of Life Membership once they turn 17 years old. They also receive a special welcome package including a certificate and pin, one year free at a Young Judaea club (when they reach 8 years old), and optional insurance discounts. For more information, please contact the Cincinnati Chapter of Hadassah at or enroll online at Hadassah’s website.
they could put their hands on.” Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, described the Tunisian government of Ben Ali as a “corrupt and kleptocratic dictatorship.” About 1,000 Jews, the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, live on the island of Djerba, where Jews have maintained a historical presence for more than 2,000 years. Another 400 Jews live in Tunis, the capital, with much smaller communities in Zarzis, Sfax and Sousse. The country’s population of 9.5 million is nearly all Muslims. Islam is the state religion of Tunisia, which sits on the Mediterranean coast between Algeria and Libya just south of Italy. In 2002, a terrorist attack on the El-Ghriba synagogue in Djerba involving a truck bomb killed 21 tourists, mostly Germans. Al-Qaida
took responsibility for the bombing. Judy Amit, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s regional director for Africa and Asia, said her organization has been in daily contact with Tunisian Jewish leaders throughout the crisis. “Ever since the rioting erupted there, we’ve been in close contact with members of the community,” said Amit, speaking in an interview from Israel. “It’s an economic protest with local grievances related to high unemployment and high food prices. There’s been no violence against the Jewish community, and no Jews or Jewish institutions have been targeted.” Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs at the American Jewish Committee, noted that “Jews have been part of the fabric of Tunisian life for more than 2,000 years, since well before
the Arab conquest.” Yet Isaacson, who visited Tunisia last month, warned that things could quickly change for the worse. “My concern is that if the situation is not stabilized, there could be further instability and create a breeding ground for extremism,” he said. “That’s not been a part of the equation, but it could happen if the enormous damage done first by Ben Ali and second by the riots is not compensated by a very serious international infusion of outside assistance.” As of Tuesday, some 78 people have been killed, with economic losses estimated at $2.2 billion — equivalent to about 4 percent of Tunisia’s GDP. Schools and universities have been shut down as a precaution against violence and vandalism by protesters, including the
Chabad school in downtown Tunis. Yechiel Bar-Chaim, JDC’s country director for Tunisia, said his main concern is for the 100 Jews of Zarzis, who live in a two-squareblock area just off the town center. Four non-Jewish civilians were killed during protests there late last week, and a Jewish shop was among the many looted. Bar-Chaim said that until a few days ago, this self-imposed “ghetto without walls” was carefully guarded by police. But the police have “simply disappeared from the streets of Zarzis and the army presence there is basically a passive one,” he reported. “The police have reportedly disappeared in many places throughout Tunisia,” though a heavy police presence continues to guard the Grand Synagogue of Tunis and the central building of the Jewish community, he said.
minimum necessary to stay prime minister in the 120-seat Knesset. Such a narrow coalition would have opened up Netanyahu to harsh domestic and international criticism for leading a perceived hard-line government. Now, in what appears to have been a coordinated move, Netanyahu and Barak have pulled the rug out from under the feet of their opponents. With a more stable coalition, Netanyahu almost certainly has secured a full term in office, until 2013. Barak preempted attempts to oust him as Labor leader and force him to leave the Defense Ministry by cutting a deal in which he can stay on as defense minister after leaving Labor. Many Israelis on the left and right viewed Barak’s move with deep skepticism. The new party he heads, called Atzmaut, which means Independence, has a hazy
future other than the assurance of four ministerial berths in Netanyahu’s government and the chairmanship of a Knesset committee. The leader of Israel’s opposition, Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni, called it the “dirtiest and ugliest maneuver” in Israel’s political history. Her own party was a breakaway from Likud in November 2005, when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led an exodus of moderates, including Livni, from the Likud. The regional implications of the upgraded Netanyahu-Barak partnership could be far reaching. It would appear that the peace process with the Palestinians is over, as the more dovish members of Netanyahu’s coalition have exited. Even if Netanyahu wanted to cut a deal with the Palestinians, his remaining coalition partners likely would block it.
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OBITUARIES
OBITUARIES WEILAND, Ruth Ruth Weiland passed away on Saturday, December 25, 2010. Born on December 12, 1907, Ruth was the youngest of four daughters born to Dena Weinberg (Russia) and David Friedman (Hungary). She was preceded in death by her parents; her three sisters, Bertha Jacobson, Emma Glicksberg and Madeline Fine; her first husband, Bernard S. Ostrom, D.D.S.; her second husband, Fred Weiland; and her devoted daughter, Sally O. White. Ruth is survived by her loving daughter, Lois Marcus; and admiring sons-in-law, Gary Marcus and Roy White; her six adoring grandchildren and their spouses, Maury and Jan White, Barb and Mike Reed, Dan and Jessica White, Ben and Melanie Marcus, Beth and Daniel Gordon, and Susie and Ross Libenson; and her 21 greatgrandchildren, Ben, Andy and Alex Reed; Emily, Madeline and Henry White; Alison and Jacob White; Hanna, Jordan and Sofia Marcus; Zach, Josh, Naomi, Moshe, Avi, Sara Rivkah, Zahavah and Ellie Gordon; and Jacob and Ari Libenson. Ruth is also survived by step-children Janet Solinger, Marilyn Klein and Dick Weiland, for whom she held a special place in her heart. Ruth was known as Razel to her sisters, Mom to her children and Gram, or Grandma Ruth, to her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. She was also affectionately known to those in her SUDAN from page 9 President Obama sent Sen. John Kerry to the country to ensure that Khartoum would abide by the vote. South Sudan likely will be free. But what of the slaves?
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vast circle of family and friends as Ruth, Ruthie, Aunt Ruth, Auntie Mame, The General and also, as Mrs. Weiland, to her devoted housekeepers Renae and Pat, and friends at the Regency. The description next to Ruth’s picture in her 1924 Hughes High School senior-class year book (taken at age 17, because she had skipped the 4th grade at Avondale School) reads: “A black haired, dark-eyed Ruth steps from the pages of an old Biblical story, with the beauty and purity of the maiden of ancient times, combined with the spirit, gayety and wisdom of a twentieth century girl.” Ruth’s favorite quote, for the yearbook, was “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Her transparent and transcending essence was captured quite accurately by her high school classmates. Ruth was in the Latin Club, the Honor League, and always the whiz at numbers, the SecretaryTreasurer of the Math Club. Ruth’s daughters, Sally and Lois, each inherited their mother’s beauty and smarts. Ruth was not permitted to attend college after high school. No place for a woman, according to her 19th century parents. Her keen mind was instead put to work making change in the family’s bakery; and unbeknownst to her father, figuring the odds for her wagers on the ponies with the bookie next door; she never forgot the name of her first winner, “Bag and Baggage” and, to the day she died, she never could eat a donut. Well beyond her 100th birthday, she still loved going to the Reds games, the race track and her
favorite restaurants every weekend. And of course, every Friday afternoon, she kept her hair and nail appointment, including the Friday before her 103rd birthday celebration.
Bush’s treaty had no provision for the emancipation of slaves still serving masters in the North. We remain pledged to set them free. So we trekked to the liberation sites last week, meeting and photographing 397 retrieved slaves. We posted the account of our trip at The Wall
Street Journal and video interviews of slaves online. They are hard to watch. In one, a woman named Achol Yum Deng recalls being captured in a slave raid. She was threatened with death, gang raped, genitally mutilated, racially and religiously insulted, and forced to convert to a religion not her own. She lost sight in one eye when her master thrashed her face with a camel whip for failing to pray. Achol also lost the use of one arm when her master attacked her with a machete for failing to grind grain properly. Who would we be if we left these people in bondage? It was good to be a Jew in Juba, South Sudan. An airport guard, a Balanda tribesman, upon learning I was Jewish, brightened with a smile and a hug: “Welcome, you are one of God’s chosen people,” he said. And several Dinka men marveled at Israel’s defeat of Arab armies. We’ve come a long way. Years ago, when Francis Bok watched “The Ten Commandments,” he grew tearful. “God opened the Sea for the Hebrew slaves, but He’s not yet
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Ruth Weiland
Ruth was always a woman of style and grace. As her classmates at Hughes noted, she loved all things beautiful: beautiful clothes, beautiful homes, beautiful jewelry, beautiful music, beautiful flowers and beautiful people; those with spirit, emotion and intellect. In fact, the wedding dress which she designed and wore for her betrothal to Ben Ostrom was so stunningly stylish that both her daughters, Sally and Lois, her step-daughter-in-law Marsha Weiland, her granddaughter Barb and her granddaughtersin-law Jan and Jess were all able to wear the same dress in their weddings. L’dor v’dor, with all its sentiment and mazal. Ruth also loved to travel. She
went to Paris and Prague with Lois and Gary for her 90th birthday. She traveled to Scandinavia and Europe with second husband Fred; Israel twice. She took her grandchildren on bar and bat mitzvah trips to London and New York. She honeymooned with first husband Ben in Cuba. College visits to see the grandchildren in Boulder, Ann Arbor, Boston and Charlottesville were the norm. Summers in Wisconsin, Lake Tahoe and San Francisco were all part of life with Grandma Ruth. Shopping, trips to museums, Broadway shows, and of course, family dinners, at home or out on the town, with as many family members and friends as could be gathered, are what will be remembered. And always, with a cheerful disposition, a warm smile, a few words of encouragement or empathetic hug and kiss. And curiosity—Ruth was always interested, and she was always interesting; a woman of the world, fascinated by politics and economics, movies and plays. She was a player—not only the horses, baseball and basketball—she was also a stock market maven. Her favorite television shows were “Wall Street Week” and “The Nightly Business Report.” Her advice was to “...read, listen and then make up your own mind.” Ruth always seemed to have the knack for finding the good in people. She was able to help make you feel good about yourself. The glass was always half full. She knew from the experience of her 100 plus years, just how bad things could get, and she knew that there was no use in dwelling on such
things. No room for self-pity with Ruth. “What are you going to do?” she would say, “you cry about it, and then you go on.” With your head held high, a smile on your face and a kind word for everyone you meet. That was her way. Every Pesach, every Rosh Hashanah, every year, Ruth made the gefilte fish from scratch; first with her sisters, then with her daughters and finally with her grandchildren. We have it on CD and we will still make it every year. The fish market has her order on file. Every year it was the best ever. And there was always enough for the entire extended family, the rabbi, friends and the help, to take some home for the rest of the holiday. Like the fish, every year there is plenty of good to look forward to; that was Ruth’s way. Ruth was our Matriarch, our very own Shabbos Queen. Her way reflected the promise of Shabbat; the light of the candles emanating off her hands as she caressed the warmth and reflected it back to her family. Her keen awareness of the importance of family and the beauty of mutual covenant, are lasting lessons which will make her life for a blessing, upon blessing, upon blessing. Comfort and strength were ingrained within us by her gentle presence and eternal strength. She brought us up to see the good, to fulfill our personal potential and to be steadfast and strong in the face of whatever comes our way. Ruth has been loved and she will be missed; and she will always be remembered.
Courstesy of American Anti-Slavery Group
Charles Jacobs, right, greets Salva Kiir, a candidate to be the first president of an independent South Sudan, in Juba, Jan. 12, 2011.
redeemed my people,” he said. Go look now, dear Francis, at the stars in Wanyjok.
Charles Jacobs is the president of the Boston-based American AntiSlavery Group.
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