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JVS merger with Easter Seals puts focus back on career services

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Northern Hills to welcome Rabbi Naomi Levy as Scholar in Residence

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Will God have a say in Super Sunday outcome?

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Does Jordan truly want an independent Palestinian state?

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How living in Switerzerland taught me about anti-Jewish bias

Congregation Sha’arei Torah/The Village Shul close to completing construction of new synagogue building Nearly three years after its formation, Congregation S h a ’ a r e i Torah/The Village Shul, a M o d e r n Orthodox congregation, is nearing the end of a capital c a m p a i g n aimed at covering construction efforts for its own synagogue.

Formed in March 2011, the congregation was the response to those individuals who wished to develop a vibrant, participant-driven M o d e r n Howard Mayers, Rabbi Ezra Goldschmiedt, and Norman Frankel.

Orthodox synagogue.

“We plotted where every- congregation member and archiAs the new congregation body lived and this is right in tect Mike Maltinsky and modquickly became a cornerstone of the Cincinnati Jewish communi- the middle,” said Howard eled after the work of the legty, its members sought a new Mayers, the congregation's endary Frank Lloyd Wright.

“It’s a contemporary design, site and building that exhibited president emeritus.

Officially purchasing the site which is open and airy and that spirit and could accommoin summer 2012, the congrega- allows us to enjoy the properdate the growing membership.

It eventually found a 6.4- tion hired Cincinnati-based JDL ty’s park-like setting," Frankel acre picturesque site boasting Warm Construction to start said.

Mayers said he is grateful mature trees, water features and basic site work last fall.

Framing of the 4,794-square- that so much has come together rolling hills.

Located along Section Road foot structure started in late so quickly for the new congregation since it was founded in in the heart of Amberley December.

Completion of the project is March 2011.

Village, the new Shul will be “Everything’s just worked centrally located to the majority slated for early summer.

Of the building’s square out amazingly well as far as of its members. footage, a full 3,000 is dedicatbeing available when we needed “One of the essential feaed to the Shul itself. it,” Mayers said. tures of a location for an To construct a public buildA synagogue plays the role Orthodox Synagogue is that it is within close proximity to its ing in Amberley Village, having of a mikdash me’aht, a miniamembers’ homes as many of our three acres of land is a prerequi- ture Temple, said Rabbi Ezra Goldschmiedt, who started in congregants walk to synagogue site, Mayers said.

With a design intended to August as the congregation’s on Shabbat and the holidays,” said Norman Frankel, Sha’arei reflect a residential character, spiritual leader. the structure is conceived by Goldschmiedt said Jews Torah’s president.

long for the real Temple to be built one day in Jerusalem, "but this miniTemple also helps us keep our focus."

"Not only through the direction we pray, but also through the general structure of a synagogue, we create inspiring imagery that directs our mind to HaKadosh Boruch Hu, to G-d, in a way that other places cannot,” he said. “We’re looking forward to having this synagogue to enhance the direction of our entire congregation and community, not only in prayer, but in all matters of spiritual growth.”

The congregation launched a capital campaign to help cover part of the project’s more than $2 million price tag.

As of the end of 2013, 1.3 million dollars has been raised, putting the congregation well on its way to reaching and exceeding its stretch goal of 1.4 million dollars, Frankel said.

“The response in one word has been overwhelming,” Frankel said. “Every member of the Shul has contributed to the best of their ability and we’ve also received quite a bit of support from other groups and individuals who appreciate what Sha’arei Torah represents. It’s been an exhilarating and very gratifying process.”

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LOCAL • 3

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

Jewish Family Service clients share fun and hope at New Year’s celebration A father with his children, an artist and a former photo journalist, joined 21 other clients on Monday, December 30. 2013 to celebrate the New Year at the Jewish Family Service Barbash Family Vital Support Center. Although experiencing similar life challenges, friends and newcomers alike bonded over shared experiences and hopes for the future.

The vision of supporting clients’ social needs to achieve wellness at the Jewish Family Service Barbash Family Vital Support Center has come to life. Clients gathered to enjoy a Chinese-themed lunch that was prepared by Jewish Family Service staff and volunteers. The room was filled with positive energy as everyone talked, got to know each other, and shared stories. Old friends caught up about the past year’s events, and new friendships were formed with those they were meeting for the first time.

When lunch came to an end, the large activity room was divided into three smaller rooms to accommodate multiple group activities. The Center’s goal of providing peerbased programs that promote selfsufficiency by encouraging clients to form healthy relationships with each other was in full swing.

One group gathered to decorate calendars featuring Jewish holidays for the upcoming year. Children and adults enjoyed crafting together

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while swapping stories and sharing new calendar design ideas. The calendars quickly transformed from plain paper to works of art, complete with colorful stickers and magnificent drawings and designs.

The middle room had a tranquil and a relaxing atmosphere as clients and staff gathered for a session of chair yoga. This activity gave many clients a healthy skill set to start 2014 on the right note.

The last room, the kitchen area, was filled with laughter as people joined together in friendly conversation and each other’s company while cleaning up after the luncheon.

“The number of participants keeps growing. As we introduce

new activities, it is heartwarming to see the response. Our clients have asked Jewish Family Service to offer this place of engagement and learning and we are seeing the results of everyone’s hard work and planning,” said Fran Gafvert, Jewish Family Service Director of Vital Services.

Gafvert thanked the community organizations that provided important funding to promote wellness and recovery to families in need as well as the other individual donors whose generosity help Jewish Family Service strengthen lives every day.

Northern Hills to welcome Rabbi Naomi Levy as Scholar in Residence Northern Hills Synagogue Congregation B'nai Avraham invites the entire community to be part of a special weekend as it welcomes noted author and community leader Rabbi Naomi Levy as its Scholar in Residence during the weekend of February 14th through 16th.

Named as one of the most dynamic Jewish leaders in the nation, Rabbi Levy is the founder and leader of Nashuva, the Los Angeles-based spiritual outreach movement. Named one of the 50 top rabbis in America by Newsweek, she was a member of the first class of women to enter the Jewish Theological Seminary, and one of the first female Conservative rabbis to lead a pulpit on the West Coast. Rabbi Levy lectures widely on topics of faith, healing, personal prayer, social justice, and hope. She has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, and National Public Radio, and has been featured in Newsweek, Redbook, and numerous newspapers and other magazines.

Rabbi Levy will kick off the weekend at Friday night services on February 14th, speaking on "Life

Rabbi Naomi Levy

Under Construction: Healing Ourselves, Healing Our World." As Rabbi Levy notes, we are God's partners in building a better future.

Services will begin at 8:00 p.m., and will be followed by an Oneg Shabbat.

At Saturday morning services on February 15th, Rabbi Levy will speak on "A Single Step Can Cause Seas to Part." She will discuss the need to find courage to step forward when we are fearful, and what Jewish tradition teaches us.

Services will begin at 9:30 a.m., and will be followed by a kiddush luncheon.

On Sunday morning, following the congregation's 9:00 a.m. service, Rabbi Levy will lead a prayer-writing workshop, "From Your Mouth to God's Ear: Reclaiming Personal Prayer," addressing the question of whether prayer works. A light breakfast will be served.

All events, including the kiddush luncheon, are free and open to the entire community. Reservations are appreciated, and may be made by contacting the Northern Hills Synagogue office.

Jeff Bassin, one of the weekend's co-chairs, observed, "This special weekend is the first of a number of events the congregation will hold to honor Rabbi Gershom Barnard, who is retiring. We are excited to have Rabbi Levy join us as our scholar.

She has appeared at a number of congregations and communities around the country. They tell us Rabbi Levy is a dynamic and fascinating speaker. We hope many in the community join with this for this Scholar in Residence Weekend."

www.alterationscincinnati.com

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Kol HaLev Chavurah returns to Cincinnati on the decision to host Kol HaLev. “Our philosophy is to support the development of Jewish community across the spectrum of Jewish expressions”. B’nai Tzedek is also home to Beit Chaverim, a Reform community.

From 2008-2010 Kol HaLev met at the University of Cincinnati Hillel and held High Holiday services in a Hamilton County Park lodge.

Rockwern Academy celebrates Tu B’Shvat of the almond trees, students created their own paper trees and decorated them with leaves and pink flowers. Students were also able to plant parsley and take the planters home to watch the herbs grow over time. It was wonderful to see the children reunite with their friends from camp, synagogue, and community.

The Tu B'shvat get together is part of ongoing efforts to form bonds between the preschoolers at Rockwern and the J's Early Childhood School.

Seals development director, on the project.

On the topic of JVS Career Services, the Board always felt that among its charges was the need to serve both the Jewish community and the community at large. However, Bloch felt strongly that they had reached their limit on who they could serve. With the Cincinnati 20/20 vision being rolled out, he believed JVS needed to tighten its focus to jobs and careers for the Jewish community, and with a strategic plan in place, Bloch knew it was time for him to retire and turn that piece over to someone else. That someone is Kim Slaton, who as of February 2014 will be Acting CEO of JVS Career Services.

Slaton was appointed by the Board of Jewish Family Services.

“I am honored that the board has the faith and confidence in me to carry this agency into the next chapter,” said Slaton. “We want JVS to be the career nexus for the Jewish community.”

Bloch is confident that Slaton will drive the strategic plan JVS now has in place, and will make it more visible

VOL. 160 • NO. 28 THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014 29 SHEVAT 5774 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 5:39 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 6:40 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 production@americanisraelite.com RABBI ISAAC M. WISE Founder, 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

through Cincinnati 20/20 and by maximizing resources to create more opportunities for both job-seekers and employers.

This combination with Easter Seals Work Resource Center made sure that the people they both were serving were taken care of well into the future. For example, the VIP program at JVS that supported 8-10 severely disabled clients is still being run under the Easter Seals name, with full support from the JVS Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.

JVS moved their career services division to new offices on Reed Hartman, and is currently leasing the Rossplain building (their former location) to Easter Seals Tristate to house the vocational service department.

JVS Career Services has their community hat on.

Under Kim Slaton’s stewardship, what they do will be “about people and what their needs are,” according to Bloch. Whether its finding a job or finding an employee, JVS Career Services is ready to make the Jewish community a driving force in Cincinnati.

NETANEL (TED) DEUTSCH Editor & Publisher JORY EDLIN BETH KOTZIN Assistant Editors YOSEFF FRANCUS Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor ROBERT WILHELMY Dining Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR ZELL SCHULMAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists JENNIFER CARROLL Production Manager BARBARA ROTHSTEIN Advertising Sales ERIN WYENANDT Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

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“It’s a combination of equals, not a merger.”

Peter Bloch, former CEO of Jewish Vocational Service, is very firm on this point about the combining of JVS and Easter Seals Work Resource Center (WRC) into Easter Seals Tristate. As friendly competitors, JVS and Easter Seals had a similar culture, and Bloch decided to sit down with Easter Seals’ CEO Lisa Fitzgibbon to discuss future partnerships. The goal was to build a larger organization that would be more sustainable, and thus would be more responsive to their charges.

There was a “real synergy,” said Bloch. “One of the most remarkable, telling, and rewarding elements of this was the way the senior leadership came together almost instantly.”

Once Bloch and Fitzgibbons had a vision in mind, they brought together their respective board members, the Easter Seals strategic planning chair, and consultant Marta Brockterman to get executive committee approval

to pursue the idea.

With approval granted, they looked at both organizations’ operational, administrative, and programmatic divisions, and made the decision that this coming together was definitely a great plan.

The next step was governance. It was crucial that both organizations be on the executive committee, and that the first two years Easter Seals would hold the chairman position, and JVS the second two.

They were very clear on their mission, which became a solid touchpoint to go back to during discussions and negotiations.

The process of combining JVS and Easter Seals into Easter Seals Tristate went smoothly, and in January of 2012, at a long-standing WRC retreat, the entire staff was brought together to create Joint Teams to handle such issues as programs, transportation, and Human Resources.

Bloch made it clear that there was no hidden agenda: everything was out in the open.

These two organizations really bonded, and Bloch enjoyed working hand in glove with Pam Green, former Easter

“LET THERE BE LIGHT” THE OLDEST ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN AMERICA - EST. JULY 15, 1854

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JVS merger with Easter Seals puts focus back on career services

By Beth Kotzin Assistant Editor

The American Israelite

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Pre-schoolers and parents enjoyed making crafts for the Tu B’Shvat celebration.

On Friday, January 17th, Rockwern Academy welcomed the four-year old students from the JCC's Early Childhood School to celebrate Tu B'Shvat and prepare for Shabbat together. The morning began with joyous Shabbat songs and dancing with Rabbi Marc Kasten and Rabbi Shena Jaffe. Parents, students, and teachers all joined together to recite the Shabbat blessings and enjoy challah and juice together.

In celebration of Tu B'Shvat, Rabbi Shena read a beautiful story about the holiday. In recognition

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of the service is encouraged to do so, including children who often accompany songs with tambourines, maracas and drumming”. The experimental services draw from a diverse set of influences, including the Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements, in addition to some practices and melodies from the Jewish Renewal movement.

Lynne Haber, a Board member of B’nai Tzedek commented

• ca

potluck lunch.

Kol HaLev is made up of families and individuals, young and old, in search of meaningful, spiritual, and creative ways to celebrate Judaism. Professor Goldweber explained, “Services are held in both Hebrew and English with lots of singing, guitar playing and lively discussions in an informal setting.

Services include a Torah or text study. Anyone who wishes to lead or participate in a portion

r in Am ape er sp i

Kol HaLev (Voice of the Heart), Cincinnati's modern inclusive, experimental community is again holding their unique Shabbat morning services. Under the initiative of Professor Michael Goldweber and Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, Kol HaLev will now be meeting on the third Shabbat morning of each month at B’nai Tzekek Congregation in Montgomery.

Services are from 10:30 to noon followed by a communal

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 columnists of The American Israelite do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the newspaper.

LOCAL • 5

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

Top picks: 2014 JCC Jewish and Israeli Film Festival The JCC Jewish & Israeli Film Festival is back this February with eight award-winning feature films and various shorts from four countries that will be screened at Hebrew Union C o l l e g e , Kenwood Theatre, Mayerson JCC and Cinemark Oakley Station.

The enlightening festival for movie lovers of all faiths takes place Feb. 8 – Feb. 27 and the selections for this year’s festival are entertaining and thought provoking.

They explore themes of contemporary Jewish life and culture, while dealing with many of the hard issues confronting religious and cultural differences.

The films are a deliciously dramatic mix of music, identity issues, surprises, distinguished guest speakers and sweets. Some of the screenings will be followed by socializing over dessert.

The line-up includes a JCC Jewish & Israeli Film Festival first-- a cheeky family friendly movie: The ZigZag Kid. The Zigzag Kid won Last year's European Film Academy Young Audience Award, for which 12to 14-year-old kids from nine European cities pick their favorite from the Academy's nominated films.

Based on the popular novel by Israeli author David Grossman, writer/director Vincent Bal turns The ZigZag Kid into a 95-minute magic trick that seems to take place in a whimsical alternate universe where anything is possible. The film is a delightful mixture of genres – a detective story and a coming-of-age tale, with a dose of romance. High production values, a fabulous 60s soundtrack, and a series of chases on trains, scooters, and cars make it an endearing tale about identity and following one’s best hunches. The ZigZag Kid will be shown at the Cinemark Oakley Station on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 3:30pm.

Another film sure to bring a smile to anyone’s face is

of guilt, felt by both Jews and Arabs. Opening drawings animate a sense of place and tell the entire backstory of one misunderstood, angry Arab youth in the space of a few still images. New to Berlin, 14year-old Ali (a barely mustached Neil Belakhdar) is desperate to fit in and finds himself in charge of vandalizing a Jewish veteran to prove himself to his new gang. What starts out as hatred leads to an unimaginable and life changing bond that unfolds throughout the movie. Kaddish For a Friend will play at the K e n w o o d Theatre at 8pm on Thursday, Feb. 13 and at 1pm on Thursday, Feb. 20 at the Mayerson JCC. The 2014 JCC Jewish & Israeli Film Festival also includes these award-winning and thought provoking films: Ameer Got His Gun, Besa: The Promise, The Ceremony, and Eagles.

The films are a deliciously dramatic mix of music, identity issues, surprises, distinguished guest speakers and sweets.

Cupcakes. The film is a kitschy musical comedy from celebrated Israeli director Eytan Fox about a perky group of fresh-scrubbed young Israelis that find themselves the underdogs in an international singing contest they entered to cheer up their heart-

“...writer/director Vincent Bal turns The Zig Zag Kid into a 95-minute magic trick that seems to take universe where anything is possible.” broken friend. The showing is in partnership with Women’s Philanthropy of Jewish Federation of Cincinnati and will be followed by cupcake treats for guests. Cupcakes will be shown at the Cinemark Oakley Station on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 7:30pm.

The Opening Night Event at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Feb 8 at 8pm) is a multi-media event featuring the 1918 film “The Yellow Ticket.” A silent drama that includes a live, original score composed and accompanied by Grammy-winner and internationally renowned klezmer violinist & composer Alicia Svigals, and jazz pianist Marilyn Lerner. They bring to life this silent cinematic classic that portrays a woman’s struggle to overcome adversity in a story of secret identities, heroic measures and triumphant love.

Remarkably progressive for its time, the film explores antiSemitism, gender bias, and human trafficking in Imperialist Russia. The opening night includes a dessert reception and a meet-and-greet with the musicians.

Other films in the festival have the potential to make viewers discard stale stereotypes. Leo Khasin’s deeply felt Kaddish for a Friend draws on the anger born

JCC Fun Technicians added a twist to the Chicken Soup Cook-Off, just for kids January 26th was a “souper” duper Sunday for families with young children when the Mayerson JCC Fun Technicians presented the Kids’ Chicken Soup Coop at the 10th Annual Chicken Soup Cook-Off at Wise Center. Children were able to participate in an activity-packed afternoon, which was complete with a Chicken Dance DJ Party, chicken games, movies, stories, crafts and snacks, while their parents enjoyed a chance to schmooze and sample soup on the main level. This program was open to children ages 3-10.

The highlight of the event was the Chicken Dance and DJ Party, headlined by DJ Todd and Dancer Fresh. From limbo and YMCA, to Coke & Pepsi and other popular games, there wasn’t a dull moment on the dance floor! There were prizes, special effects lighting and other fun surprises. Plus, there was plenty of time for photo ops with everyone’s favorite feathered friend, Chauncey the Chicken, throughout the afternoon!

In addition, the JCC Fun Technicians brought their own brand of entertainment to the event in the form of special stations where young guests could play chicken board games, hear chicken tales with PJ Library, try their luck in Pin the Beak on

the Chicken, and make edible marshmallow chickens to eat or take home! For those children who just wanted a chance to chill out, there was a showing of the popular movie, Chicken Run, in the youth lounge.

The Kids’ Chicken Soup Coop was run by the Mayerson JCC, known for putting on some of the biggest events for families in the community “I’m so pleased that the JCC was able to contribute to such a popular annual community gathering,” says Marc Fisher, Mayerson JCC CEO. “The Kids’ Chicken Soup Coop not only provided parents at the Cook-Off with an important service free of charge, it was an exciting children’s program in its own right.”

The Chicken Soup Cook-Off celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. More than 30 restaurants and amateurs showed off their cooking prowess in this competition for the Best Chicken Soup in Cincinnati, with the participants as judges.

The event wass open to the entire community.

Winners were chosen in both the Professional and Amatuer Divisions.

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Will God have a say in Super Sunday outcome?

By Hillel Kuttler BALTIMORE (JTA) – Rabbi Daniel Alter expects some added fervency during daily prayer services at the Denver Academy of Torah in the days leading up to the Super Bowl.

Alter, the academy’s head of school, recalls that when the Colorado Rockies faced the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 World Series, his students were more focused on prayer than ever before.

“That created a conversation on the role of prayer,” Alter said. “It brought up questions: Does God care? We probably will be having

some of those conversations in the week leading up to the Super Bowl.”

With the Denver Broncos set to face off against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, it’s likely Jewish students in Colorado won’t be the only ones praying with a little extra zeal this week.

A poll taken earlier this month by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 22 percent of respondents believe God plays some role in the outcome of sporting events.

In its sampling of 1,011 adults, the Washington, D.C.-based organization found that 26 percent of respondents pray for God’s interven-

tion to help their team and that 48 percent completely or mostly agreed that God rewards athletes who have faith with good health and success.

Daniel Shapiro, the strength and conditioning coach for the men’s basketball team at the University of Washington, would seem to be among them. Players and coaches for the Huskies regularly assemble for pregame prayers, a tradition maintained by many in pro and college sports, including two that Shapiro has coached: the Sacramento Kings of the NBA and the University of Dayton.

But Shapiro, who was at the Jan. 19 NFC championship game that

sent the Seahawks to the Super Bowl, says the prayer ritual is less a request for divine intervention than an acknowledgment of a higher power.

“One thing I’ve noticed is, they never pray for a win. They pray that everyone stays uninjured and that He lets us give our best effort, which I think says a lot,” Shapiro said. “My take is it’s not up to God. If you pray for a win, and then don’t [win] – then what? He let you down? It’s more about we acknowledge your presence.”

Larry Bensussen of Bellevue, Wash., who will be attending the game on Sunday at New Jersey’s

MetLife Stadium, said he doesn’t think God cares much about the game’s outcome either. But like the 21 percent of respondents in the religion survey who say they don a favorite jersey when viewing sports, Bensussen said he is superstitious about what he wears for big games.

On Sunday, Bensussen will be attired in the No. 54 jersey of Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner and a proven good-luck pair of pants, along with plenty of warm clothing for the first-ever coldweather, outdoor Super Bowl.

Bensussen, whose wife, Shelley, SUPER on page 22

In Sundance premiere, a look at Shin Bet’s methods

By Matthew Weinstein PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) – Perhaps the most difficult thing about watching the new documentary “The Green Prince” is feeling that you should not be there, that everyone in the theater should be asked to leave before any more Israeli intelligence secrets are divulged.

When the Israeli newspaper Haaretz first broke the story in 2010 of how the son of Hamas leader Hassan Yousef spent a decade as Israel’s top informer in the West Bank, it warned that Israeli intelligence officials would not be happy to see so many of its secrets revealed: how it recruits

National Briefs CAMERA billboard near NY Times office criticizes paper for biased reporting (JNS) – A new billboard adjacent to the New York Times office in midtown Manhattan calls out the newspaper for what a media watchdog group says is anti-Israel bias in its reporting.

The billboard, an initiative of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), states: “Would a great newspaper slant the news against Israel? The New York Times does.” The billboard accuses the newspaper of “misrepresenting facts,” “omitting key information,” and “skewing headlines and photos.”

Last November, the Times admitted it made “a regrettable choice” by featuring a photo of relatives of Hussein Jawadra, the Palestinian terrorist indicted for killing 19-year-old Israeli soldier

and handles its Palestinian agents, how it managed to break the second intifada, and how it identified terrorist leaders so they could be arrested or assassinated.

The film version, which had its world premiere here this week at the Sundance Film Festival, is narrated by two voices: the Green Prince himself, Mosab Hassan Yousef, and his Shin Bet handler, Gonen ben Itzhak. Based on Yousef’s autobiography, “Son of Hamas,” the film tells the story of his odyssey from young militant to spy for Israel’s security service to Southern California asylum seeker fighting to avoid deportation back to the Middle East.

Yousef’s code name within the

Shin Bet was derived from the green color of the Hamas flag and his near royal pedigree among Palestinians. Told through a combination of interviews, reenactments and archival footage, his story takes the viewer inside two worlds.

For Yousef, Hamas was “our family business.” His father spent more than a decade and a half in Israeli prisons for his leadership role in Hamas. Most recently, he was arrested in 2011 and released on Jan. 19, two days after the film premiered.

The younger Yousef was himself arrested at age 17, and not for the first time, for buying guns. It was during the months-long con-

finement that followed in Israel’s Megiddo prison that he came to understand Hamas’ brutality.

Yousef decided he had been living a lie and agreed to become a spy for his sworn enemy.

For Yousef’s handler, turning the son of a Hamas founder was a career-making achievement. Ben Itzhak, the son of an Israeli army general, was inspired to join the Shin Bet following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Yet all was not to end well for the agent.

Ben Itzhak grew close to his source and, from the Shin Bet’s perspective, betrayed the agency, trusting Yousef over his senior officers and breaking with proce-

dure by meeting with him alone in the field and allowing him vacation time in Israel, including a rental car and a hotel.

From ben Itzhak’s perspective, it was all necessary to maintain the relationship and save Israeli lives. Haaretz reported that the pair had prevented dozens of planned attacks, including a plot to assassinate President Shimon Peres and former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

“So many people owe him their life and don’t even know it,” ben Itzhak told Haaretz.

Eventually ben Itzhak was fired from the Shin Bet, but the bond between him and Yousef

Eden Atias, in its coverage of that murder.

manders to wear religious garments, and the request can still be denied. “The new policy states that military departments will accommodate religious requests of service members unless a request would have an adverse effect on military readiness, mission accomplishment, unit cohesion and good order and discipline,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nathan J. Christensen said in a statement released by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York.”

A number of New York-based universities have Israel branches, and Silver made clear in a statement that the target was groups that boycott Israel.

friend of Israel and a close friend of AIPAC, and we look forward to our continued work together for many years to come.”

White House appoints first special envoy for Holocaust survivor services (JNS) – The White House on Friday announced the appointment of Aviva Sufian as the first Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Special Envoy for U.S. Holocaust Survivor Services.

Sufian “will focus on those [Holocaust] survivors currently living in poverty, as well as those who may not be receiving services for which they are currently eligible,” according to the White House.

U.S. Department of Defense loosens religious clothing restriction for troops (JNS) – The Pentagon last week agreed to allow U.S. troops greater freedom to grow beards or wear religious garments such as headscarves, turbans, and yarmulkes with their military uniforms.

Men and women in the military, however, still must seek special approval from their com-

N.Y. State bill ends funding to schools linked to boycott groups WASHINGTON (JTA) – A bill introduced in the New York State Assembly would suspend funding to educational institutions which fund groups that boycott Israel.

The legislation, introduced earlier this month by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and first reported by Mondoweiss, an antiZionist news site, would ban state funding to colleges which fund groups that boycott “in countries that host higher education institutions chartered by the

AIPAC rejects report of differences with Wasserman Schultz WASHINGTON (JTA) – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee said an article describing differences between the group and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was “inaccurate.”

“I wanted to forward a statement issued by AIPAC National Board Member Ike Fisher after The Huffington Post released an inaccurate article regarding AIPAC and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” said an alert sent to AIPAC activists on Friday by Mark Kleinman, AIPAC’s Southeastern director.

"Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz has a strong record of support for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” the statement quotes Fisher as saying. “She is a good

SUNDANCE on page 22

Treasury's Cohen to Turkey, UAE to talk Iran sanctions WASHINGTON (JTA) – Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen, the top Obama administration official monitoring Iran sanctions compliance, will visit Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The Treasury Department announcement Monday casts this week’s visit in the context of making sure nations still comply with the main sanctions even as a number of sanctions have been removed while talks, known as the Joint Plan of Action, or JPOA, are underway between Iran and the major world powers aimed at keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Cohen and other Obama administration officials in recent weeks have pushed back against claims that the talks will relieve pressure on Iran and have noted sanctions enforcement.

NATIONAL • 7

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

Will AIPAC-Obama sanctions clash dent pro-Israel lobby’s clout?

By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – In previous AIPAC vs. White House dustups, the pro-Israel lobbying group’s strategy was to speak softly and let Congress carry the big stick.

But in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s face-off with the Obama administration over new Iran sanctions, congressional support may not be so readily available and keeping a low public profile is proving impossible.

According to congressional insiders and some of the pro-Israel lobbying group’s former senior executives, AIPAC may soon face a tough choice: Stick out the battle over sanctions and potentially face a reputation-damaging defeat, or reach out to the White House and find a way for both sides to save face.

“I don’t believe this is sustainable, the confrontational posture,”

said Steve Rosen, a former AIPAC foreign policy chief known for his hawkishness on Iran.

The Obama administration has taken a firm line against the sanctions bill backed by AIPAC, warning that the legislation would harm prospects for a achieving a diplomatic solution on the Iranian nuclear issue. Meanwhile, the confrontation has landed AIPAC squarely in the media spotlight and drawn pointed criticism from leading liberal commentators.

AIPAC has been stymied by a critical core of Senate Democrats who have sided with the Obama administration in the fight. While AIPAC’s bid to build a veto-busting majority has reached 59 – eight short of the needed 67 – it has stalled there in part because Democrats have more or less stopped signing on.

Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the bill’s sponsors, rounded up 15 Democrats

when the bill was introduced on Dec. 19, just before Congress went on its Christmas recess. Since Congress returned this month, however, they have added just one Democrat, Michael Bennet of Colorado.

AIPAC, however, says its bid to pass sanctions is on track.

“Our top priority is stopping Iran’s nuclear program, and consequently we are very engaged in building support for the MenendezKirk bill which now has the bi-partisan co-sponsorship of 59 senators,” AIPAC’s spokesman, Marshall Wittman, wrote in an email to JTA. “This measure would provide our negotiators with critical leverage in their efforts to achieve a peaceful end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

But in a recent interview with The New Yorker, President Obama appeared confident that backers of the bill would not reach a veto-proof

Courtesy of Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is the Democratic sponsor of new Iran sanctions legislation.

majority.

“I don’t think a new sanctions bill will reach my desk during this period, but if it did, I would veto it and expect it to be sustained,” Obama said.

A source close to AIPAC said the

stall in support for the legislation is due in part to the fact that of 10 committee chairmen opposed to the bill, four are Jewish and have histories of closeness to the pro-Israel community.

Non-Jewish lawmakers tend to take their cues on Israel-related issues from their Jewish colleagues – a common template with lawmakers from other communities – and this is no different, the source said.

AIPAC’s determined push on sanctions is drawing some anger from Democrats. A number of party insiders say that staffers on Capitol Hill are referring openly to AIPAC as an antagonist on the Iran issue in private conversations.

“Now it just looks like AIPAC is backing a partisan bill rather than pushing a bipartisan policy to stop Iran,” said a former Democratic Hill staffer who deals in Middle Eastern AIPAC on page 22

Birthright expands eligibility for free trips to Israel

By Jacob Kamaras (JNS) – The Taglit-Birthright Israel program has expanded eligibility for its free 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18-26, JNS has learned. Teenagers who went on an educational trip to Israel during high school were previously not eligible for Birthright trips, but can now participate, confirmed Noa Bauer, Birthright’s vice president of international marketing.

Birthright’s eligibility guidelines previously stated, “If you have been to Israel before but only with your family or on other personal business, you are still eligible. However, if

you have been to Israel as part of a touring group, educational program, study program or an organized extended residential program since you were 12 years old, you are not eligible.”

While those who have taken educational trips to Israel after turning 18 are still not eligible for Birthright, youths who took such trips before 18 can now go on Birthright from ages 18-26, Bauer told JNS. “I think everybody thought about [the change in the eligibility guidelines] for many years, and everybody wanted to have it,” Bauer said. “It was a matter of funding, and

I think today you see more antiIsrael things on campus, and we realized over the years that people that have been to Israel again have more confidence for talking about Israel, and geopolitics, and anything pertaining to Israel after visiting with Birthright Israel. I think we’re one of the best platforms to do that for college students.”

The change in guidelinesapproved Wednesday by Birthright’s steering committee and proposed by the committee’s chairman, Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett-will go into effect Feb. 19 Courtesy of Taglit-Birthright Israel

BIRTHRIGHT on page 19

Taglit-Birthright Israel trip participants with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Omnibus spending bill grants half billion to Israel

By Dmitriy Shapiro (JNS) – With much fanfare and six different pens, President Barack Obama signed the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2014, capping years of Congressional budget fights and officially alleviating the sequester cuts that last year began indiscriminately slashing government spending.

The bill, negotiated by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (DMD), closely followed a budget compromise devised by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) in early December 2013. Lasting until Sept.

30, 2014, the appropriations spare Israel-related aid, specifically defense cooperation, from the budget ax. The bill fully funds the

$3.1 billion commitment in the U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding, returning funding to pre-sequester levels.

Before being signed by the president, the bill received strong bipartisan approval, passing the House on Jan. 15 by a vote of 359 to 67; the Senate took up the measure the next day, voting 72 to 26 for passage.

In the overall deal, which represents a return to the long-dormant budget negotiation process between the House and the Senate, no party got everything it wanted.

But when it came to disbursements affecting the Middle East, a premium seems to have been placed on stability.

The Department of Defense section of the appropriations bill specifies a number of line items assisting in Israeli defense infrastructure and collaborative projects with the U.S., allocating funds for

“Israeli Cooperative Programs.”

The bill specifies that $235.3 million should be provided to the Israeli government for the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system; $149.7 million for research and development of the Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense program; $74.7 million for “an upper-tier component to the Israeli Missile Defense Architecture;” and $44.3 million for the Arrow System Improvement Program.

The Arrow System is a cooperative program intended to counter threats that are not defendable using Iron Dome. The system has been in development since the late 1980s and is now in its third iteration, according to the IsraelDefense website.

“The system is designed to deal with threats that fly on too small a trajectory to be engaged efficiently

by Iron Dome, the Israeli interceptor credited with an 80 percent suc-

Courtesy of Israel Defense Forces

The Iron Dome missile defense system’s battery in Ashkelon. The $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill signed by President Barack Obama for fiscal year 2014 specifies that the U.S. should provide $235.3 million to the Israeli government for the Iron Dome.

cess rate against rockets fired by Palestinian militants,” Reuters reported.

Speaking to The Jerusalem

Post, U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel (DNY), the ranking member of the OMNIBUS on page 19

8 • INTERNATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Does Jordan truly want an independent Palestinian state?

By Sean Savage (JNS) – The U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations have yet to yield any tangible results. Serious disagreements remain over key issues such as borders, refugees, security, and the status of Jerusalem. Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a surprise visit to Jordan’s King Abdullah to discuss these issues. While Jordan officially supports a two-state solution, Jordan’s leaders have also quietly expressed serious concerns over the parameters of a future Palestinian state.

Does Jordan truly want an independent Palestinian state?

“The Jordanians want a solution that doesn’t undermine the domestic stability of the Hashemite kingdom. [One that] creates a relatively secure border and protects their interests in Jerusalem. The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations touch upon their national security,” Aaron David Miller – a former U.S. Mideast advisor and negotiator, and now a distinguished scholar at the Wilson Center think tank – told JNS. One of the major issues to arise in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has been the status of the Jordan Valley, a narrow rift valley between the Judean Mountains and the Jordan River that forms

International Briefs International Holocaust Remembrance Day marked by 54 Knesset members at Auschwitz (JNS) – The largest Israeli legislative delegation to date, numbering 54 Members of Knesset, marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday by holding a special ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland.

All of the major factions of the Knesset were represented in the delegation, excluding Kadima, Hadash, and the Arab parties, according to Israel Hayom.

Participants included MK Issawi Frej (Meretz), who is Muslim, and MK Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beiteinu), who is Druze. The Israeli delegation also included 24 Holocaust survivors.

New excavations shed light on Sobibor death camp (JNS) – A recent excavation has provided a silent testimony to the mass killing of about 250,000 Jews

Courtesy of Kobi Gideon/GPO/FLASH90

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the Royal Palace in Amman, Jordan on January 16, 2014.

the border with Jordan. Both Israel and Jordan are deeply concerned that the West Bank could turn into a haven for terrorists, like the Gaza Strip did after an Israeli withdrawal in 2005.

Thus far, Israel has made it clear that it wants to hold on to the Jordan Valley and to maintain the current Jewish communities there as well.

“I do not intend to evacuate any settlements or uproot a single Israeli,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Davos, Switzerland.

In the recent meeting between Netanyahu and Abdullah, Netanyahu briefed the Jordanian leader on the “recent developments in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,” and emphasized that Israel “places a premium on security arrangements, including Jordan’s interests, in any future agreement,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

According to Israeli media reports, Jordan is in favor of some type of Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley. Like Israel, Jordan is concerned about the Jordan Valley and the possibility that ter-

at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in Poland, 70 years after the perpetrators tried to cover their tracks by razing the site to its core and planting what was to become a thick forest. Their decision was prompted by a prisoners’ revolt.

ing technology industry.

“Our goal is to foster applied research and continued growth in Israel’s technology sector,” said Lockheed Martin executive John Evans. “We recognize evolving global needs, as well as the wealth of innovation taking place within Israel and its universities.”

Abbas aide: Palestinians should resume armed resistance (JNS) – Senior Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi, who serves as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s security adviser, said Sunday that the Palestinians should embark on a violent uprising in the West Bank and resume their “armed resistance” against Israel.

“As things stand, we won’t have a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip even 20 years from now. Therefore, we should consider resuming the path of armed resistance. Maybe that will bring about change,” Tirawi told the Lebanese news channel Al-Mayadeen, according to Israel Hayom.

Lockheed Martin announces deal to develop Israeli technology (JNS) – American defense giant Lockheed Martin is teaming up with the EMC Corporation to jointly invest in developing Israeli’s boom-

Pig’s head sent to Rome synagogue in apparent antiSemitic incident (JNS) – A pig’s head was sent to a major synagogue in Rome as well as to other Jewish-affiliated sites in an apparent anti-Semitic incident targeting the city’s Jewish community.

According to reports, a pig’s head in a box was delivered to Rome’s Grand Synagogue on Friday ahead of Shabbat and to the Israeli Embassy and the Museum of Rome, which is featuring an exhibit on the Holocaust. Additionally, antiSemitic graffiti was found on the walls of a municipal building in Rome.

Upcoming Fox TV series ‘Tyrant’ to be partially filmed in Israel (JNS) – The upcoming Fox television network series “Tyrant,” which will air on the FX cable net-

ror groups could smuggle weapons or plan attacks from the West Bank.

“They [Jordan] are desperately concerned about a Gaza-like situation on their border. Presumably that is why they wouldn’t mind some type of Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley. But that doesn’t mean they think that Israel should annex the Jordan Valley,” Professor Asher Susser, a senior fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JNS. But an official at Jordan’s American Embassy told JNS there are “no grounds” to reports suggesting that Jordan favors Israeli control of the Jordan Valley.

“Because of the secretive nature of these [IsraeliPalestinian] talks, there has been a lot of false and exaggerated information in the media,” Dana Daoud, an official at the Embassy of Jordan in Washington, DC, told JNS. According to Daoud, Jordan’s position has remained the same throughout the negotiations.

“Our position hasn’t changed.

We believe that the only way to a comprehensive peace is through a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as the capital of a fully independent Palestinian state,” said Daoud.

Nevertheless, the Jordanians and the Palestinians have a unique

and intertwined history that dates back nearly a century, creating a complicated relationship between the two sides.

Originally in its infancy, the area known as modern Jordan was part of the original British mandate of Palestine. In 1922, the British partitioned the original mandate, setting aside all the land east of the Jordan River to become an Arab state. But Jordan’s Hashemite kingdom still believed that areas west of the Jordan River, especially Jerusalem, should be under their control. As such, during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, Jordanian forces occupied what is known today as the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, controlling it until 1967 and granting citizenship to many of the Palestinian Arabs living there.

When Israel took control of these areas as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordan’s King Hussein still laid claim to the region and control over the Muslim Holy Sites in Jerusalem.

Further complicating matters, many Palestinians fled to Jordan in 1967, and combined with their 1948 influx into the country, Palestinians now constitute a majority of Jordan’s population.

“On the Jordanian side, there is an understanding of the intimate

work this summer, is slated to be partially filmed in the Israeli city of Kfar Saba.

“Tyrant” was created by Israeli filmmaker Gideon Raff – who also created the Israeli TV drama “Prisoners of War” and its American counterpart “Homeland” – and is produced by Howard Gordon, who also worked on “Homeland” and the Fox counter-terrorism drama “24.”

According to the show’s creator, “Tyrant” will be loosely based on events in the Arab world, especially Syria, where President Bashar alAssad went from training in England to be an eye doctor to becoming a mass killer.

viously ineligible high school students who had already traveled to Israel through other educational programs the steering committee agreed to seek funding for greater participation of French Jews in Birthright.

Netanyahu at World Economic Forum: Israel can get Arab support against Iranian threat (JNS) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he believes Israeli and Arab leaders can work together against common threats like Iran’s nuclear program or Islamic extremism.

Birthright expansion includes increased French participation (JNS) – In addition to the decision to open Birthright trips to pre-

JORDAN on page 22

Iran FM: We did not agree to dismantle anything (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday that Iran “did not agree to dismantle anything” in the interim nuclear deal it reached with world powers in November in Geneva.

Zarif said the U.S. statements about the deal, which went into effect this week, were misleading.

Israeli President Shimon Peres receives special award at Davos (JNS) – Israeli President Shimon Peres received the “Spirit of Davos” award at a special plenary session during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Upon receiving the award, Peres was praised by WEF Founder Klaus Schwab for his “vision, soul, values, heart, and his compassion, which he has shown again and again.”

ISRAEL • 9

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

In the start-up nation, a growing movement of corporate philanthropy

By Ben Sales TEL AVIV (JTA) – When the Israeli mobile maps start-up Waze accepted a buyout from Google for more than $1 billion in June, each of the company’s 100 employees walked away with an average of $1.2 million from the sale.

An even bigger check, though, went to Baruch Lipner, a Canadian Israeli who hasn’t worked in the high-tech or finance industries for a decade. The acquisition put $1.5 million on his desk.

A veteran of the venture capital world, Lipner is now the sole employee of Tmura, a nonprofit that pushes Israeli start-ups to donate stock options to charity. If any of the donating nonprofits merges, goes public or is bought, Tmura cashes in the options and distributes the money to Israeli youth and educational charities. If the start-up fails, Tmura carries none of the risk.

Even though Tmura owned less than 1 percent of Waze, the recordbreaking deal made 2013 a banner year for Tmura, comprising approx-

imately three-quarters of the $2 million it raised.

“Our small fraction of a percent was worth a lot of money very quickly,” Lipner said. “A lot of the entrepreneurs running these companies are good people who are happy to help.”

Waze wasn’t the only Israeli company giving back in 2013.

As the country’s economy has grown in recent years, experts and corporate advisers are seeing a START-UP on page 21

Courtesy photo

Israeli kids trying their hand at arts and crafts in a project offered by JVP Community, which funds youth programs in poor Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Negev tourism now an easy train ride from the rest of Israel’s treasures

By Jeffrey F. Barken (JNS) – Past the Gaza Strip, toward the rocket-battered city of Sderot, a new train now connects isolated Negev communities to the larger Israeli population centers. Not surprisingly, the Sderot line also opens the gates to increased tourism in that region.

For many people in Sderot, the new rocket-proof train station, which opened in December 2013, was a landmark event symbolic of the noble national effort that Israel’s first president, David Ben-Gurion, outlined in his 1963 speech, “The Renewed State of Israel.”

“The Negev is a great Zionist asset, with no substitute anywhere in the country,” Ben-Gurion said. “It is a desolate area which… has the

Israel Briefs Scarlett Johansson defends deal with Israel’s SodaStream (JNS) – Jewish-American actress Scarlett Johansson has come under fire from human rights groups for serving as spokesperson for Israeli carbonated beverage company SodaStream.

Oxfam International, a human rights group that Johansson is involved with, took issue with her deal due to its opposition to “all trade from Israeli settlements.”

SodaStream has long been the target of pro-Palestinian groups for operating a factory in Ma’ale Adumim, which is across the Green Line east of Jerusalem. But at the factory, SodaStream employees many Palestinian workers and includes an on-site mosque.

“I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine,” Johansson said in a statement.

potential to be densely populated, even amounting to millions.”

This is an exciting process of infrastructure development, expansion, and national renewal. The train ride through the desert territory to the south offers travelers a unique glimpse into the social-economic and national security realities faced by the modern state of Israel. It is also a starkly beautiful, scenic, and rugged trail of adventure.

Indeed, the view from a southbound train is a spectacular realization of Ben-Gurion’s vision for the Negev. Tall cranes dot the horizon of Israel’s rising cities south of Tel Aviv. Among the white sands, shrub studded hills, and sprouting wheat fields, high-rise apartments are under construction everywhere.

New developments gradually are

Negotiators discuss limited Israeli withdrawal from West Bank (JNS) – Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in the U.S.-brokered peace talks are discussing a limited series of Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank, dependent on the Palestinians maintaining security in the area, the London-based daily alHayat reported.

“There is talk of security arrangements and standards for these arrangements, which will last for many years, and these standards are subject to the so-called improved Palestinian security performance, which will govern by Israel in the end,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top Palestinian official.

John Kerry doubtful that Israeli-Palestinian framework deal is imminent (JNS) – Has U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lost his trademark optimism regarding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations?

In an interview with the Saudibased Al Arabiya network on Thursday, Kerry was asked whether

easing Israel’s shortage of affordable housing, and cities like Ashkelon and Sderot are booming despite the ever-present threat of terror from hostile neighbor Hamas.

“Sderot was dying until we went into Gaza with operation Pillar of Defense,” Marianne Navon, a resident of Kibbutz Dorot, situated eight kilometers (five miles) east of Sderot, tells JNS. “Now the city is safe. [Israel’s] Iron Dome [missile defense system] is effective, and every single apartment in Sderot has had a shelter built. It’s no longer fun for Hamas to aim rockets here,” she says.

According to Yankele Grosfeld, who manages the small guesthouse at Kibbutz Dorot, Israel’s south is a NEGEV on page 21

Courtesy of Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash90

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz seen aboard a train in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, where they inaugurated a new rocket-proof train station, on Dec. 24, 2013. The new train line connects isolated Negev communities to larger Israeli population centers.

he thought a framework agreement between the two sides was imminent. Kerry responded that he doubted such a deal could be reached next month.

and has an Israeli stop sign on it to warn local Christians. The billboard also has links to two websites on it, including a site which encourages conversion to Islam.

Israel to launch first civilian satellite into orbit in 2015 (JNS) – Israel will launch its first civilian satellite into orbit in December 2015, Israel Space Agency Chairman Maj. Gen. (res) Yitzhak Ben Israel said Thursday, Israel Hayom reported.

The Venus satellite will be launched from the Kourou Islands in French Guiana and was designed for earth observation. The project cost tens of millions of dollars and has an expected lifespan of at least 10 years.

Palestinians arrested over weapons cache in Hebron (JNS) – Two Palestinian residents of Hebron were arrested last week in a joint operation by the Israel Defense Forces, the Border Police, and the Israel Police, on suspicion of storing illegal weapons caches in their home, Israel Hayom reported.

Among the weapons found by the security forces was an Uzi submachine gun, an M-16 assault rifle, a carbine rifle, hand guns, and an assortment of some 8,000 bullets.

According to security officials, the confiscated weapons are believed to have been earmarked for terrorist attacks.

Nazareth billboard warns Christians against slandering Allah (JNS) – A large billboard in the center of Nazareth, the childhood home of Jesus, warns Christians against slandering Allah and links to a website encouraging them to convert to Islam.

The billboard features an English translation of Quran 4:171

Al-Qaeda-linked cell in Jerusalem nabbed by Israeli security forces (JNS) – Three al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in eastern Jerusalem were recently arrested by Israeli security forces, which uncovered the terror-

ists’plots to carry out large-scale terror attacks throughout Israel.

According to the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security force, the intended targets included the Jerusalem Convention Center, a bus line traveling between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, and the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

The Shin Bet said that the three east Jerusalem suspects were recruited by an al-Qaeda operative in Gaza named Ariv al-Sham, who was possibly under direct orders from Al-Qaeda chief Ayman alZawahiri to carry out the attacks.

1,500-year-old Byzantine church with impressive mosaic floor unearthed in southern Israel (JNS) – An impressive 1,500 year-old church with elaborate mosaic floors was unearthed in southern Israel by archeologists, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

“An impressive basilica building was discovered at the site, 22 meters long and 12 meters wide,” said Dr. Daniel Varga, who directed the excavation activities for the IAA.

10 • MATURE LIVING

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

2014 Mature Living resources Cincinnati has many options for those who are seeking the right retirement center for themselves or a family member, or who are look-

ing for special assistance to do every day tasks and more. Check out these various businesses that can help you or your loved one:

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Their professional design team will assist you with all bathroom selections. They will personally manage your project and meet every bathroom remodeling budget. All projects are completed in a timely, clean and cost effective manner. Visit their large & fully functional bathroom shower enclosures and tile showroom located in Loveland.

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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.

Episcopal Retirement Homes At Episcopal Retirement Homes you will discover all the things they do to enrich the lives of older adults and the reasons they have become a leader in providing these services. People describe their premier retirement communities as a combination of a luxury resort, summer camp, and college.

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Family Bridges This non-medical home care’s mission is to help seniors live independently. They are particularly dedicated to providing care for those with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s cancer and other debilitating conditions, such as arising from strokes and cardiac difficulties.

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Hospice of Cincinnati Hospice of Cincinnati provides the best possible and most meaningful end-of-life experience for all who need care and support in our community. As experts in end-oflife care, we aggressively manage symptoms, support caregivers and educate families on what to expect during the course of illness.

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The JCC Senior Center The JCC Senior Center offers a variety of weekly activities for seniors 60 years and older. Seniors can participate in a range of programs including water classes, chair aerobics, hot lunches, entertainment, intergenerational programs and much more.

Mayerson JCC Transportation Services offers a wide range of programs to help senior adults live independently in their community.

Whether its time to “give up their keys” and stop driving, or just if

CONTINUED on next page

MATURE LIVING • 11

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

CONTINUED from previous page the weather is bad, JCC Transportation Services provides “curb-to-curb” pick up. The JCC Senior Center has expanded their Transportation Services to include new routes, destinations and NonEmergency Medical Transportation. This program ensures access to essential services such as doctor appointments, grocery shopping, and trips to the pharmacy.

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Come see what life at The Seasons is all about, request more information today!

Visiting Angels People both young and old may find themselves in situations when assistance with daily living is required. Traditionally, this help has been provided by family members, but as lifestyles have changed, family members alone are not always able to provide this assistance in response to this need.

Visiting Angels can fill that need by providing affordable, dependable and personalized in-home care. Caregivers provide personal care, transportation, run errands, prepare meals, do light housework and assist with personal hygiene and laundry. By offering services for up to 24 hours, 7 days a week, Visiting Angels provides non-medical in home care and companionship to clients who are elderly, disabled or convalescent, allowing them to maintain independence in

the privacy of their own home.

The employed caregivers and companions possess the genuine desire to help seniors. They are subjected to the most comprehensive screening process and background checks and are bonded and fully insured. Visiting Angels serves Greater Cincinnati, Lebanon and Butler, Clermont, and Warren Counties.

Weils Funeral Home For over four generations — a span of 90 years — Weil has served Cincinnati.

Services include the use of their new chapel, which is wheelchair accessible and able to comfortably hold over 350 people.This allows them to handle large public funerals or small private ceremonies, whichever the family desires. Also provided are all-necessary materials for Jewish Practices, including all-wood, orthodox caskets, burial vaults, traditional burial garments, kria ribbons, shiva candles, acknowledgement cards, registry books, folding chairs, shiva stools, prayer books and other requested items.

Weils is nothing if not accommodating, services can be arranged at the cemetery, at Temples or Synagogues or various other locations.

12 • MATURE LIVING

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Cedar Village: Looking to the future About to celebrate 17 years of existence, Cedar Village’s history is one of continually evolving to meet the needs of our community. The future looks much the same. The healthcare landscape is changing as people live longer with more com-

plex medical needs. The reimbursement world is continuing to increase in its challenges and the demands on the aging services industry are changing. What are we doing to meet those demands and what does the future hold?

Rehabilitation Services Recovery from illness or injury and achieving an optimal quality of life are important at any age. There are many ways in which physical, occupational and speech therapy can help a person to regain function and be able to live their lives fully again. Over the past several years, Cedar Village has grown its rehabilitation services significantly. Now there are 50 dedicated beds for inpatients and a state-of-the-art rehab center equipped with all of the latest treatment tools, including the Biodex balance assessment and training system and even a medical laser for deep tissue healing and pain relief.

Inpatient therapy, however, is only half of the story. A large area of the new rehab center is dedicated for outpatients. That means folks who have been discharged from an inpatient stay can come back and continue to work with the therapy staff they know and trust to help complete their recovery. It also means that they can come in just for outpatient therapy too, just as they would in any therapy setting. One of the exciting 2013 changes is that outpatient therapy is now available

in two locations—at Cedar Village in Mason and in the Mayerson JCC in Amberley. Both inpatient and outpatient therapy are available to people of all ages. We’ve had patients as young as 22 and as old as over 100, all in therapy, all working to recover.

As a part of rehab services, Cedar Village is the only site on this side of Cincinnati to offer driving assessment. Performed by a specially trained Occupational Therapist, we use specialized equipment to assess physical, cognitive, visual and functional ability to drive safely. The technical assessment is then followed by an in-car assessment and results in a recommendation to the patient, family and physician. It is not always a recipe for turning in the car keys; there are often suggestions for improving safety to allow the older adult to continue to drive.

Aquatic Therapy There is much literature that documents the tremendous benefits that warm water therapy provides.

The buoyancy of the water and the gentle resistance that it offers can allow patients to move more freely than on dry land and to work muscles and joints that would be too painful to work with without the support of the water. Cedar Village broke ground on the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati Aquatic Therapy Center in the late summer and we look forward to opening the new center in July 2014.

Palliative Care and Hospice End of life services are also an important part of the continuum of care. Since the hospice movement began in the United States in the 1970’s, we have all learned a great deal about working with patients and families to create a meaningful transition. Cedar Village Hospice will celebrate three years of operation this spring. As a community hospice, Cedar Village Hospice works with individuals and families both within our walls and in their own homes or other facilities in the community. Our hospice team consists of dedicated staff—physicians, nurses, social work, aides, chaplains and volunteers. In addition, Cedar Village added a palliative care service this year. Palliative care is focused on pain control and may be done before hospice or just to manage pain and symptoms for a short time. We have a full time nurse practitioner on staff whose role is to provide that ongoing and consistent palliative care, in conjunction with our medical staff and it has made a difference in the quality of life for our patients, tenants and residents.

Village Care VillageCare is the newest of Cedar Village’s programs and it is intended to help older adults stay healthy and independent. The first of the VillageCare elements is the Wellness Assessment. Performed by a board-certified geriatrician,

along with a team of other experts from disciplines such as therapy and psychology, the assessment results in a full report. That report will help the individual, as well as their personal physician, develop a plan to improve or maintain their health.

It’s a snapshot to help them see where their health is at the moment and what can be done to improve it and it is a valuable tool for our older adults.

Shalom Center for Elder Abuse Prevention Cedar Village continues to be a strong voice in the fight against elder abuse. Between 3-1/2 and 5 million older adults are victims of abuse every year in this country. It is a silent problem, it is an unrecognized problem and it is a tragedy.

The Shalom Center offers a safe haven for abused older adults for 90 to 120 days of crisis stabilization, at no charge. Victims receive a full range of services including medical care, therapies if needed, legal services and intensive counseling through our partnership with Jewish Family Service. Our older adult victims cannot speak for themselves. We need to help them and that’s why the Shalom Center exists.

If you are concerned about an older adult being abused, call us; we can help you determine the next steps and put you in touch with services that can make all the difference.

Home Care 101 One of the great challenges of home care can be just learning the language and getting oriented. “Home Care” simply means care given in a home vs. a facility such as assisted living or a nursing home and it is typically of a non-medical nature. Home Care generally includes four categories of services: 1. Activities of Daily Living – eating, bathing, toileting, getting in/out of bed, medication management.;. 2. Household maintenance – cleaning, cooking, laundry and other chores; 3.

Transportation – shopping, errands, medical appointments, etc...; 4. Companionship – hobbies, live-in care, Alzheimer’s Care and safety assurances How will you know if home care is needed: Common signs include: excessive overdue bills; missed appointments and medications; weight loss or lack of appetite; personal hygiene/odor issues; depression, reduced social activity; and/or home in disarray, in need of cleaning.

Family members or friends are often primary or supplemental providers of home care.

However, home care can also be provided by independent caregivers. These individuals are not associated with an organization and work for themselves.

The primary benefit is lower cost. Drawbacks include greater uncertainty around caregiver quality, often minimal formal training, lack of insurance/workers compensation, and lack of back up care should the caregiver be sick or quit.

Home care agencies recruit, screen, train, and employ caregivers. Benefits include back ground checks on employees, 24/7 care and access, back up caregivers if one is sick or not a good match, caregiver training, caregivers are insured and bonded and employers provide workers compensation insurance. The tradeoff is a higher cost than hiring directly.

CONTINUED on next page

MATURE LIVING • 13

THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 2014

Alzheimer’s or dementia: is there a difference?

By Ken Paley Episcopal Retirement Homes Among the many concerns people have about getting older, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are often at the top of the list. As the general population ages, the country is seeing a big increase in these cases and it is going to get worse.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, someone develops Alzheimer’s every 68 seconds.

Alzheimer’s is the 6th leading cause of death in the US and there is no cure or way to prevent it. However, there are medications available that can ease the symptoms but usually the effects are just temporary. The toll it takes on family members and caregivers is monumental and finding the causes and a cure has become a high priority for researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

Most people do not know what the difference is between Alzheimer’s and dementia. Think of it this way: dementia is a symptom and Alzheimer’s is a disease that can be one of the causes of the dementia symptoms.

One usually sees dementia symptoms when someone is experiencing a decline in cognitive ability to the point where their behavior is noticeably different from, or interfering with, what has been their normal behavior. This decline is caused by a malfunction in

CONTINUED from previous page A good home care agency can be a godsend. However, not all agencies are created equal.

Family Bridges offers a detailed check list that can be used when selecting a home care agency but important questions to ask are: are they certified by a reputable organization; are they bonded and insured; how long have they been in business; what are the hourly costs; are there different rates for services or just an hourly fee; is there a deposit or other fees associated with caregiving services; do they operate under a contract or mutual obli-

the brain that negatively affects how brain cells interact with each other.

While Alzheimer’s accounts for over 60% of dementia cases, there are other causes of dementia that include vascular disease, trauma, later stage Parkinson’s, a stroke, reactions to medications, etc. It is not uncommon for older adults to show increased signs of dementia on a temporary basis as well in situations such as after a surgery, or even as a symptom of a urinary tract infection.

Although at the moment there is no real cure, there is real hope.

Besides the millions of dollars being spent on research and clinical testing that is underway for various new drugs to treat the problem, there is a non-pharmaceutical approach on the horizon that employs a simple yet specific therapy which stimulates the prefrontal cortex. This approach is a lot more than doing crossword puzzles and numbers games. The results are very promising, some say remarkable, and there will be more to hear about this in the near future.

It is a scary thought that an estimated 45% of people over 85 will suffer from some form of dementia.

It’s no wonder all of us Boomers think about it every time we word search or forget an appointment.

But here are some behavioral distinctions between possible Alzheimer’s-type symptoms and normal aging: gations; and is there a daily/weekly minimum Once you’ve decided on an agency, the next step is to interview and choose a caregiver.

Family Bridges also provides a complete list of interview questions to clients such as: do they share hobbies and interests with the care recipient; what education level do they have; do they have references; are they patient, compassionate and a good listener; and where did they get their home care experience Please feel free to call Family Bridges Home Care anytime. Locally owned and operated since 2003.

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Difficulty carrying on a conversation vs. forgetting the word you want to use Frequent forgetfulness and not realizing it vs. forgetting a person’s name No longer remembering the date or season vs. temporarily forgetting what day it is Confusion working with numbers vs. making occasional numerical mistakes None of these situations above definitively mean you or your loved one have started down the dementia path, but talking it over with a physician would not be a bad idea, if only to rule out the early onset possibility.

Since 1951, Episcopal Retirement Homes (ERH) has dedicated itself to improving the lives of older adults through innovative, quality living environments and inhome and community-based services delivered by experienced and compassionate professionals. ERH owns or manages ten senior living communities: two premier communities, Deupree House and Marjorie P. Lee, both in Hyde Park; and eight affordable living communities for limited-income seniors.

ERH also operates in-home and community-based services including their geriatric care management service, Living Well Senior Solutions; delivers 75,000 Meals on Wheels annually.

14 • DINING OUT

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Tony’s wine dinners educational, entertaining, delicious

By Bob Wilhelmy If ever you’ve visited America’s Pacific Northwest and its pristine Willamette and Russian River valleys, you can picture the beauty of it all. At Tony’s Steaks & Seafood Restaurant recently, the focus was on wines from this region and food pairings expressly arranged to complement the wines.

The wine tasting dinner changed my thinking on these events, at least as they are offered at Tony’s. My pre-conceived notion of a wine-tasting dinner was that they are simply pricy meals with lots of wine. My thinking has changed dramatically. Wine dinners, Tony’s style, are much more than one might expect.

For starters, the whole evening (roughly two and a half hours) was fun! We were seated at 7 p.m. at a round table with three other couples, all total strangers at the start of the evening. From the very first sip of wine, we began comparing notes, so to speak, between and among all at the table. We talked about the wines and how each varietal complemented the food being tasted. I’ll get back to this “fun” part, but let’s set the stage.

Second, and just as important, the food and wine were excellent!

Also, each dish brought out was one that you are not likely to find on the typical “fine-dine” menu, but very good. And the wines, whites and reds, were very good, and all bottles you’d pay a pretty penny for, were you to buy them.

So special dishes and fine wines; what’s not to like there?

Featured on the vintner end was T.J Christie, a fellow who knows a great deal about wines in general, and even more about the wines of the American Pacific Northwest. At the same time, the “show” had a second star on the billing—Executive Chef Harvey Germain, who made regular visits to the private dining room as each dish pairing came in.

T.J. did an educational blurb on each glass of wine served, telling us whether the wine was aged in oak or stainless, along with tidbits on the vineyard, the vintner, the grapes used and the quality of the particular harvest that went into each bottle. He gave us an idea of how many bottles went to market on each pairing, and most were only a limited number of cases, in the low thousands.

Chef Germain followed up what the wine specialist had to say with a description of the food he paired with the wine, and how he worked to get the flavors of the dish to closely complement the wine choice. For instance, with

Tony Ricci meets and greets a guest in his restaurant’s dining room.

The entrée dish pictured is the salmon in cherry butter-cream sauce.

the 7 Hills Viognier, an oak-aged white wine from the Columbia Valley’s Talcot Vineyards, we were served a kale “sprouts” salad. Delicious! Picture baby kale (looked miniature, actually), very tender, and flavored in a dressing made of roasted Clementine citrus and a black garlic and kohlrabi emulsion.

Toasted corn chex (the cereal) were on the side, and the whole effect was special, intriguing and tasty.

Another course, the fourth,

featured organic salmon in a cherry butter-cream sauce paired with an excellent, full-flavored pinot noir from Elk Cove vineyard. The salmon was nicely but lightly browned outside and moist, flaky and done to perfection inside. The sauce was delicate and delicious, with bits of cherry to add sweetness, and the wine added a perfect peppery, fruity, complex complement to the fish. The salmon was my favorite of the evening, though the next course came very close to beating it.

The exterior of Tony’s, seen on a cold, wintry day.

Next came a brisket, done up in a tasty, tangy blueberry compote demi glace that was served over Washington gold mashed potatoes. I found myself wanting to leave not one morsel of this fifth course entrée on my plate.

Scrumptious!

The meal was finished with chocolate “tartare,” small squares of chocolate, with a wafer-thin cookie over, and a ball of sauce that had a skin on the outside.

Instructions were to hold the ball on the cookie at a height of six

inches over the chocolate, and then let the ball fall to the chocolate. The ball burst and sent the sauce over the chocolate squares.

Yummy!

Tony’s changed my idea of wine dinners. You can call Tony’s to find out more about the next wine dinner. Bet you’ll enjoy the experience as much as we did.

Tony’s 12110 Montgomery Rd. Montgomery 677-1993

DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

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16 • OPINION

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Time to get serious about cybersecurity

By Paul Goldenberg NEW YORK (JTA) – The growing risks posed by homegrown terrorism, the rise of European ultranationalist fervor and anti-Israel boycotts, coupled with the likelihood that Mideast tensions may intensify, has given rise to a distinct and unfamiliar threat directly impacting homeland and Jewish communal security.

Groups or individuals wishing to cause harm to Jewish institutions no longer require physical access. A criminal, hacker or terrorist-related group from the other side of the globe can breach an agency or synagogue computer network and silently gather its most vital information.

Hackers and computer criminals now have the capacity to make digital copies of information that once filled floors of locked filing cabinets under the careful watch of staff and volunteers. Most troubling is that a theft of this nature can go undetected for years, if not indefinitely.

As we witnessed during the holiday season, governments, retail establishments, corporations and nonprofit organizations large and small have been the targets of cyberattacks aimed at defacing websites, disrupting networks, stealing information and damaging systems.

Earlier this month, several French Jewish communal websites were defaced by sympathizers of the antiSemitic French comedian Dieudonne, a controversial figure known for his Holocaust denial and admiration for gas chambers.

Many Jewish community institutions maintain some of their most valuable assets in digital form, including the home addresses of their employees, monetary transfers, donor information and other sensitive data. The dangers are further enhanced when one considers our growing reliance on digital networks, Web-based technology and the explosion of smartphones.

This massive dependence on technology provides a perfect platform for those who seek to harm Jewish interests. What’s more, an institution’s private information is threatened with every download, every click on an Internet link and every opened email.

Not one year ago, a server that hosts approximately 50 Jewish congregational websites was attacked by a politically motivated hacker group called the Moroccan Ghosts.

The group plastered the targeted websites with their logo and an hourlong video denying the Holocaust.

According to cyber experts, it was part of a larger trend of hackings targeting the websites of groups thought to be supporting Israel.

The incident provides just a glimpse into the damage that can

result from breaches to an institution’s cybersecurity. Of highest concern is when personal information such as the names, home addresses and schools attended by the children of Jewish leaders and staff become open source posts on anti-Semitic and Islamic extremist websites.

“Cyber threats to Jewish organizations pose significant security risks to their operations and include everything from surveillance and intelligence collection on leaders and members to accessing systems that can disrupt operations or be exploited for conducting a physical attack,” says Mitch Scherr, CEO of the data security firm Encryptics.

“The fact that critical information is being transmitted between offices and across the Internet is all the more reason that it must be protected while in transit and at rest.”

Due to the evolving nature of this risk, the question of who is responsible for addressing cybersecurity concerns is somewhat vague. The fiduciary duty of administrators and directors without a doubt extends to the protection of significant digital assets.

What, then, are their specific responsibilities when it comes to cybersecurity? Can an administration or organization’s leadership simply rely upon its IT department to address cybersecurity needs, particularly when many are ill equipped to identify, respond to and mitigate such threats?

Leaders of Jewish organizations large and small have an obligation to educate themselves on the nature of their respective agency’s cyber technology and ensure that the threat is treated earnestly. Reach out to state homeland security officials, pursue cyber training, promote cyber hygiene standards for staff and volunteers, conduct vulnerability assessments and, most important, contact local law enforcement partners to request cybersecurity information and resources.

Cybersecurity has become the newest front in homeland security. It is imperative that we apply the same level of awareness and action to this threat as we have to ensuring the physical security of our facilities.

Last year, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a call to arms against cyberattacks, warning that sophisticated attacks against the United States could be America’s “cyber Pearl Harbor.”

The threat of cyberattack is more real than ever. Like the years leading up to 9/11, the clarion call has been sounded and warnings have been made. Are we listening?

Paul Goldenberg is the national director of the Secure Community Network, an initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America.

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Rampaging minority politicized MLA conference

By Amy Schwartz CHICAGO (JTA) – The Modern Language Association, which held its annual conference here Jan. 9-12, has approximately 28,000 humanities scholars in its membership, about 4,000 of whom attend the annual conference. The conference features hundreds of workshops and panel discussions – about 800 in total this year – on topics ranging from Italian-American literature to comics and graphic novels to old Norse language and literature.

The campaign to boycott Israel – commonly known as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS – was surely the last thing on the minds of most MLA attendees in Chicago. So why did this year’s program include a roundtable panel discussion on academic boycotts of Israel and a factually flawed resolution alleging that Israel bars academics seeking to enter the West Bank?

In my view, it was nothing more than the political rampaging of a small cadre of MLA members intent on politicizing the event and taking advantage of the membership’s general lack of awareness to foist a wholly non-academic issue to the forefront of the conference.

Talking to friends and fellow MLA members, it was striking that none of them had heard of the academic boycott panel or the resolution. Indeed, MLA members seemed acutely unaware of the larger political context and agenda of the panel discussants and resolution proposers, including Omar Barghouti and David Lloyd, who are major players in the BDS movement.

The roundtable discussion was a closed session open only to MLA members. Those who attended were largely a self-selecting group of

supporters. The room was half filled with about 100 people, although three security guards stood at the door. The atmosphere was similar to a pep rally, complete with much applause and grandstanding.

There was nothing academic about the panel discussion. Rather it was a hostile, politicized circus in the guise of an intellectual and academic discussion.

It got worse when MLA delegates moved to a discussion of Resolution 2014-1 charging that Israel bars academics seeking to enter the West Bank. The propaganda and polemics of resolution supporters was astounding.

In light of these events, I decided to step up to the microphone to speak out against the resolution at the open hearing of the Delegate Assembly. I spoke to the integrity of the MLA as an academic organization and the imperative that it remain apolitical. If organizations like the MLA become vehicles of the political agendas of its members, this respected group will be compromised, resulting in more harm to the already suffering state of the humanities.

Such results are being seen in other academic circles. Just look at the recent backlash to the American Studies Association’s vote to impose a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. More than 150 university presidents have publicly criticized academic boycotts. Several universities have withdrawn their institutional membership in the ASA. The response to my testimony was predictable. Lloyd claimed BDS proponents were being “unfairly attacked, intimidated and threatened to suggest there would be a backlash against the MLA for this resolution.”

The Delegate Assembly on Jan. 11 was sheer chaos. The chairper-

son, Margaret Ferguson of the University of California, Davis, had little control over the room and seemed to change the rules as she went along, quashing those who simply wanted to be heard and eventually moving to suspend the rules of order expressly meant to govern the proceedings.

I can’t say those of us who knew in advance of the roundtable and the resolution were surprised by the insidious atmosphere. There was an expectation that most MLA delegates would be largely uninformed about these issues, and the delegates would vote on impulse without doing their due diligence and reading the background material.

The warnings were sadly apt. It surprised me to be in a room of accomplished scholars from highly respected universities and hear them respond to the resolution with a profound lack of awareness of its political context and implications.

In the end, while the body voted down consideration of an emergency resolution condemning “attacks” and “intimidation” of the ASA for its boycott, Resolution 2014-1, passed by a vote of 60-53, exhorted the U.S. State Department to investigate alleged “denials of entry” of American scholars traveling to pursue academic research and teach in the West Bank.

The resolution advances to the executive committee meeting in February and, if it passes there, will go to before MLA members for a vote. At that point, the resolution must be supported by a majority of voting members whose number equals at least 10 percent of the overall membership.

Colleagues who have attended MLA meetings for decades say they have never seen anything like what occurred. Several members who MLA on page 19

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

expected verbal usage is that the donor “gives” gifts and the recipient “takes”. There may be intangible rewards which outweigh the expenditure, but the proper Hebrew verb should still be “let them give for Me a gift offering”, not take for Me a gift offering.

I once heard from my revered teacher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in the name of his grandfather Rav Haim HaLevi, that the individual donor must first give his gift to the Gizbar or treasurer of the Sanctuary; the treasurer represents the entire Knesset Yisrael (Congregation of Israel), accepting the gift-offering on their behalf. The donor then takes the gift which no longer belongs to him but rather to Communal Israel and presents it to the Sanctuary on behalf of “Israel entire.”

This procedure ensures that no object in the Sanctuary could be claimed by any individual, no matter how much he may have donated, not even if he had made the ritual object himself. Once a sacred object becomes part of the Sanctuary, it could never be removed or tampered with. It no longer belongs to the donor; it belongs to Klal Yisrael (Israel Entire).

This also applies to every sacred object in a synagogue or Bet Midrash today. No donor may remove it for whatever the reason; it was first given to Klal Yisrael and only later, afterwards, to the synagogue. It even applies to a seat with a name written upon it. No one can eject anyone else from “his seat”; it may be memorializing his name or memorializing his parent’s name, but it does not belong to either of them!

What made Moses such a successful fundraiser? Rabbi Yosef Yoizl of Navardok founded 180 Yeshivot in Eastern Europe between the two World Wars. He had a student who fell short of his Yeshiva’s standards and he gently insisted that he leave. Another Rosh Yeshiva accepted the student to his institution. This time, he barely made the grade, but not long afterwards, left the Yeshiva and went on to become a very wealthy businessman. Rav Yosef Yoizl visited with his former student and received a gift of one million rubles to open another Yeshiva.

When the Rosh Yeshiva who had

taken in the failed student came to visit his former pupil, he had extremely high expectations of the gift he would receive, but he only got eighteen rubles. He bitterly complained, to which he received the following reply: “When Rav Yosef Yoizl visited me, he showed disdain for my fine furniture, and he spoke of Torah learning as the highest value. Through his presence, my money lost all value for me, I gladly gave him a million rubles. But when you entered my home, I saw how your eyes glowed in amazement at my expensive furniture. You called me by the honorific title “reb” – certainly not because of my Torah Knowledge. In your presence, my money gained in value and so I could barely part with eighteen rubles!”

Moses had no interest in the gold, silver or precious stones. He understood that the material objects were only a means to inspire to ultimate values of spirituality!

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

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T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: TERUMAH (SHMOT 25:1—28:9) 1. What were the Shoham stones and set in stones used for? a.) To decorate the Holy Ark b.) To decorate the poles to move the vessels of the Mishkan c.) For the garments of the High Priest 2. Who made the plans to layout the Mishkan? a.) Hashem b.) Moshe c.) Betzalel

a.) Towards the Mishkan b.) Towards each other c.) Toward the Holy Ark below them 4. Was there a border for the Table a.) Yes b.) No 5. Which vessel in the Mishkan needed tongs? a.) Table b.) Menorah c.) Altar

3. Where were the two Kerubim facing?

4. A 25:23,24 The border had a crown to symbolize royalty. Rashi 5. B 25:37 The tongs placed the new wicks in the cups everyday. Rashi

EFRAT, Israel – And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and let them take for Me a gift offering (Terumah) from every individual motivated by his heart…” (Ex. 25:1).

Moses not only served as the Rabbi, Rosh Yeshiva and “Pastor” of the Israelites, but he also did the fundraising – collecting the “gold, silver, copper, wool, linen, ramskins, acacia wood, illuminating oil, anointing oil, aromatic incenses and precious stones” for the construction and upkeep of the Sanctuary (ibid.

25:3-7).

Moreover, he was consummately successful: “Moses commanded that they proclaim throughout the camp, saying, ‘Man and woman shall not do any more (collection) work towards the gifts for the Sanctuary’ the people were restrained from bringing… there was extra” (ibid.

36:6-7). I can only state that, in my own history of fundraising for Torah institutions both here in Israel as well as in the United States, there was never “extra”!

There is, however, one difficult phrase in the second verse of our Biblical portion. God commands Moses to tell the children of Israel to “take” gift offerings for the Sanctuary; ought not the proper verb be to “give” gift offerings for the Sanctuary?

I certainly understand the significance of the adage that “it is better to give than to receive,” and that individuals who give of their time for a good cause often receive much more in satisfaction than they expect.

Indeed, I can never forget the response of one of our regular donors when I visited him soon after the Madoff debacle. Since it had been rumored that he had lost his entire fortune, I stipulated when I called for a meeting that I would not accept a check even if he offered one; I was coming only to thank him for his many years of generosity and to wish him well for the future.

Despite my sincere remonstrations, the donor insisted upon giving me another check. “You must understand”, he said. “My entire fortune went down the drain of excess greed. The only thing I still have – and can truly still enjoy the benefits of – is the money I spent on my children’s education, and the funds I gave to worthy charities. No one can take those away from me”.

Having said all of this, the

‘Man and woman shall not do any more (collection) work towards the gifts for the Sanctuary’ the people were restrained from bringing… there was extra” (ibid.

36:6-7).

expression of love between a male and a female.

To show the love between Hashem and The Children of Israel. Also, their faces were bent down towards the Ark. Daas Zekanim

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT TERUMAH EXODUS 25: 1- 27: 19

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. C 25:7 2. A 25:10 3. B,C 25:20 The Kerubim faced each as an

Sedra of the Week

18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist At the Movies/On TV “Labor Day” is based on a critically-acclaimed 2009 novel of the same name by JOYCE MAYNARD, 60. JASON REITMAN, 36, directed the film and wrote the screenplay. He says that this film, a complex drama, is much different from his other films and he “just hopes he nailed it” (his three previous films were all box-office and critical hits: “Thank You for Smoking,” “Juno,” and “Young Adult’).

“Labor” stars Kate Winslet as a reclusive woman with a 13-yearold son. Their lives drastically change when they meet and decide to harbor an escaped convict (Josh Brolin).

On Showtime: “Billy Joel: A Matter of Trust—A Bridge to Russia” premieres. This documentary recounts how BILLY JOEL traveled to the former Soviet Union in 1988 and become one of the first big Western acts to play the then-Communist country. The film includes footage of his Soviet concerts and recollections by Joel, now 64. Also on Showtime: “Quality Balls”, a documentary on the life of comedian/director DAVID STEINBERG, 71, premieres. Steinberg, the son of a Canadian rabbi, comments on his almost 50-year career and many clips are shown.

Super Bowl Stuff The Super Bowl will (probably) be played on Sunday, Feb. 2.

This is the first time that a Super Bowl will be played outdoors in a cold-weather city: East Rutherford, NJ, a New York suburb. and no doubt the NFL is praying another polar vortex doesn’t descend. Neither team (Seattle or Denver) has a Jewish owner, player, or coach, but there a few Jewish Bowl connections of interest.

The game’s huge viewing audience is catnip for companies trying to make their products much better known. Super Bowl ads usually feature clever copy or big-name endorsers, or both.

Soda Stream, an Israeli company that makes and markets a carbonation system that allows you to make your own sodas at home, has seen its sales rise incredibly in the last decade – but it still isn’t an American household name.

So, it’s turned to a celebrity spokesperson – and scored a “10” by signing SCARLETT JOHANSSON, 29, to promote their product in TV ads. The first ad featuring the gorgeous actress will air during the Super Bowl.

Johansson has endorsed other products, but this will be her first

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big TV ad campaign.

While Northern Jersey seems like a lot more “Jewish” place than Seattle or Denver – both these cities have interesting Jewish ties that date back to their pioneer days – BAILEY GATZERT (1829-1893), a cofounder of the city’s first synagogue, was elected mayor of Seattle in 1876 (way before any other now-major city had a Jewish mayor) – and Denver was the home of Colorado native Dr. FLORENCE SABIN (18711953), the first woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins medical school. She became a top medical researcher and public health physician. Each state can place two statues in National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. and Sabin is one of the two persons Colorado selected.

Jersey Scorecard If you are at all like me – a Jewish/political news junkie – you’re wondering who is Jewish among the names being cited daily in news reports about the New Jersey Bridgegate scandal(s). I haven’t run them all down, but here are a few: DAVID WILDSTEIN, 63, the former Port Authority official implicated in the bridge shut-down, is Jewish – according to the Forward newspaper – which couldn’t (yet) run down how observant his family was/is.

Mayor STEVE FULOP, 36, of Jersey City, is the son of working class Romanian Jewish immigrants. In 2003, Fulop left Goldman-Sachs, his employer since college, and enlisted in the Marines. He was deployed to Iraq with his Marine Corps Reserve unit. He was elected Jersey City mayor last May. He is seen as a “reform Corey Booker type” with a great future. Fulop claims that long scheduled meetings with State government officials, aimed at helping Jersey City right after he took office, were cancelled when he refused to endorse Gov. Christie for re-election.

Hoboken mayor DAWN ZIMMER, 45, is married to prominent jewelry company owner STAN GROSSBARD, 55.

His company’s most famous product is the radiant cut diamond, which his father invented.

Zimmer converted to Judaism a few years after her marriage. She says that she and family reserve Friday nights for “family and no work.” Zimmer says that the Lieut. Governor told her that hurricane recovery funds for Hoboken would be held up until she supported a big real-estate deal.

FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO

honor of the engagement of their sister, Miss Edith Katzenberger to Mr. Albert Goldman.

75 Y EARS A GO

50 Y EARS A GO

125 Y EARS A GO Died, Rebecca Harris, wife of Isaac Harris, at 10 p.m.

Monday January 7, 1889, at the family residence, No. 395 West Seventh Street. The interment occurred Wednesday, January 9th at 2:30 p.m., in the United Jewish Cemetery, Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, O. Rebekah Harris, nee Jacobs, was born in London, England, Purim, 1827, came to America in 1850 with her husband and child, and resided continually in Cincinnati up to her death. For twenty-five years she had been a great but patient sufferer, and finally sacrificed her earthly existence by unselfish devotion to the living and unceasing grief for the dead. Her six sons carried her remians to their last resting place, in accordance with her and their wishes. Peace to her ashes.

Mr. Jacob Ezekiel, the honored Secretary of the Hebrew Union College, while in the act of getting upon a street car last Monday evening at Fourth and Main, was struck by the pole of a two-horse Adams Express Co.’s wagon, on the left side of the face, receving an ugly gash.

Fortunately he was not thrown down and managed to escape being trampled under the hoofs of the recklessly driven horses. He was taken to his home in a carriage and a physician was called. The venerable gentleman’s escape from a fatal injury is almost marvelous. His many friends here and elsewhere will be glad to learn that he is not seriously injured and will be about again in a short time. – January 31, 1889

100 Y EARS A GO The betrothal is announced of Jean, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Kaufman of Forest Avenue, Avondale, to Mr. Herbert R. Bloch. Mr. Bloch is the son of Abe Bloch, who has been a prominent worker in communal affairs and in B’nai B’rith circles for many years.

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence D. Lauer will be at home on Sunday, February 1, 1914, at their residence, the corner of Marion and Dakota Avenues, Avondale, Cincinnati, O., in

N. Nachum Eden has been elected to the National Council of the Joint Distribution Committee for a term ending in 1966. Mr. Eden is a member of the Board of Community Hebrew Schools, Bureau of Jewish Education, Yavneh Day School, and Jewish Community Center, and is past president of LZOA. He is a member of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Welfare Fund and Associated Jewish Agencies. – January 30, 1964

25 Y EARS A GO

10 Y EARS A GO Elaina (Pravda) and Timothy Mears of New Albany, OH announce the birth of a daughter, Michelle Catie Mears, on Jan. 13, 2004. The maternal grandparents are Myra and Dr. Marvin Pravda of Montgomery, OH. The maternal great-grandparents are Dr. Samuel Harris of Cincinnati, and the late Charlotte (Teddy) Harris, and the late Joseph and Claire Pravda of Bronx, NY. The paternal grandparents are Mary and Dale Mears of Chagrin Falls, OH. The paternal great-grandparents are Margaret Owen of St. Joseph, MO. Michelle has an older sister, Anna.

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY / CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATIONS Access (513) 373-0300 • jypaccess.org Big Brothers/Big Sisters Assoc.

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Chabad (513) 731-5111 • campchabad.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 •camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Kollel (513) 631-1118 • kollel.shul.net Cincinnati Community Mikveh (513) 351-0609 •cincinnatimikveh.org Eruv Hotline (513) 351-3788 Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (Miami) (513) 523-5190 • muhillel.org Hillel Jewish Student Center (UC) (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati 513-961-0178 • jcemcin.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) 214-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 JVS Career Services (513) 936-WORK (9675) • www.jvscinti.org Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 Shalom Family (513) 703-3343 • myshalomfamily.org

BIRTHRIGHT from page 7 for enrollment in Birthright’s summer 2014 trips.

“Taglit proved itself as a leading agent in strengthening Jewish identity among young people in the Diaspora and in building ties to the State of Israel,” Bennett said. “Taglit alumni are our best ambassadors, and the journey they experience in Israel equips them with the best tools to represent Israel abroad. Expanding their number and opening eligibility will allow Taglit to continue having a positive influence on the Jewish world.”

Rabbi Dave Felsenthal, director of the Orthodox Union’s Israel Free Spirit/Taglit-Birthright program, said in a statement, “For years, our most involved students had to give up on Birthright to go on a high school trip.

Now our best students can also get the awesome Birthright experience as their second trip to Israel.”

Felsenthal said his Birthright program now expects “many more applicants than ever before.”

In the 13-plus years since philanthropists Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt joined forces with the Israeli government, the Jewish

The Center for Holocaust & Humanity Education (513) 487-3055 • holocaustandhumanity.org Vaad Hoier (513) 731-4671 Workum Fund (513) 899-1836 • workum.org YPs at the JCC (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org CONGREGATIONS CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net B’nai Tikvah Chavurah (513) 284-5845 • rabbibruce.com Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org Congregation Ohr Chadash (513) 252-7267 • ohrchadashcincinnati.com Congregation Sha’arei Torah (513) 620-8080 • shaareitorahcincy.org Congregation Shevet Achim (513) 426-8613 • shevetachimohio.com Congregation Zichron Eliezer 513-631-4900 • czecincinnati.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 Shevet Achim, (513) 602-7801 • shevetachimohio.com Temple Beth Shalom (513) 422-8313 • tbsohio.org Temple Sholom (513) 791-1330 • templesholom.net The Valley Temple (513) 761-3555 • valleytemple.com

Agency for Israel, global Jewish communities, and other philanthropists to fund Birthright, the program has taken about 350,000 young Jews to Israel.

Birthright recently said that more than 17,000 Jewish young adults would participate in its trips this season, the largest number of winter participants for Birthright since the program was founded in 2000. The program expects to reach 50 percent of Jewish young adults worldwide over the next five years.

A series of studies by Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies have shown that former Birthright participants are 42 percent more likely to feel “very much” connected to Israel compared to people who didn’t go on the trip. Program participants are also more likely to belong to a religious congregation than those who did not attend Birthright, and participants are also slightly more likely than non-participants to make charitable contributions to Jewish or Israeli causes, according to the Cohen Center research.

“The evidence is clear that Taglit inspires a stronger sense of Jewish identity,” Brandeis University professor Leonard Saxe, a chief author of the

EDUCA EDUCATION Chai Tots Early Childhood Center (513) 234.0600 • chaitots.com Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Kulanu (Reform Jewish High School) (513) 262-8849 • kulanucincy.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org Sarah’s Place (513) 531-3151 • sarahsplacecincy.com Yeshivas Lubavitch High School of Cincinnati (513) 631-2452 • ylcincinnati.com ORGANIZATIONS 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 BBYO (513) 722-7244 • mayersonjcc.org Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati.hadassah.org Jewish Discovery Center (513) 234.0777 • jdiscovery.com 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

research and director of the Cohen Center, told JNS last summer for a story on Birthright’s 13th anniversary. While the Cohen Center surveys didn’t ask directly about leadership, it’s clear that Birthright “produces a desire to be part of the Jewish community,” according to Saxe.

Matthew Putterman, a 24-year-old analyst for a real estate financial services firm in Houston who went on Birthright in 2010, told JNS last year, “The sense of global Jewish community developed during Birthright definitely helped to substantiate my initial feelings of wanting to help if at all possible.”

Philanthropists Sheldon and Miriam Adelson have donated $180 million to Birthright.

“Exposing young Jews to Israel helps broaden their awareness and deepen their cultural identity,” Miriam Adelson has said.

Dozens of countries looking to connect Diasporas with their motherlands are taking notice of Birthright, according to Gidi Mark, the program’s CEO. Mark told JNS last year that he attended a conference in Dublin, Ireland “where everybody was talking about Birthright-Israel as a pioneer in this.”

DO YOU WANT TO PLACE A CLASSIFIED? Send an e-mail including what you would like in your classified & your contact information to

business@ americanisraelite.com or call 513-621-3145 OMNIBUS from page 7 House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called the passage of $3.1 billion in Israel security assistance as a demonstration of “the bipartisan commitment to ensuring Israel’s security needs are fully met.”

In an interview, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that such funding is vital to protect Israel’s position vis a vis its neighbors.

“Right now, it’s more crucial than it has been – if you look around Israel right now, it’s a very unstable region – with Iran obviously on the precipice of a nuclear weapon,” Schanzer told JNS. “And this notion of the Qualitative Military Edge is getting much harder for anyone to be able to calculate how to maintain that edge, and so the continued funding of Iron Dome and new weapons systems are incredibly important for Israel at this moment.”

The bill also provides aid to Egypt and Jordan, and allocates approximately $400 million for the Palestinian Authority, but the disbursement of these funds hinges on a number of scenarios.

For Egypt, up to $350 million in aid would be halted if the fledgling military government violates the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 in any way.

MLA from page 16 first learned of the agenda at the conference expressed such disgust that they threatened to cancel their membership if the resolution passes. A serious backlash by members this spring would not be surprising.

Preemptive preparations for this uphill battle were thorough and thoughtful. The impressive group of Jewish intellectuals who fought the resolution, led by highly respected professors Cary Nelson of the University of Illinois and Russell Berman of Stanford University, helped organize an alternative discussion

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(513) 531-9600 The Palestinian earmark will cease if the P.A. continues attempts to gain recognition as a state in the United Nations or other U.N. agencies without Israeli agreement. The P.A. is also prohibited from pursuing legal action against Israel in the International Criminal Court.

A congressional source close to the legislation told JNS that this language is not new and has not resulted in punitive actions against the Palestinians because of a presidential waiver built into the legislation. That’s why Congress’s seemingly proactive stance against Palestinian incitement has had no tangible results, explained the aide.

Still, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) released a statement last week praising the bill, saying the legislation “takes important steps to support peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.”

“It presses the Palestinians to halt anti-Israel incitement by explicitly linking Palestinian economic aid to their efforts in countering incitement of violence against Israelis and ensuring that they are supporting activities aimed at promoting peace, coexistence, and security cooperation with Israel,” AIPAC said

on academic freedom immediately after the academic boycott roundtable.

Clearly the effort to counter the mainstreaming BDS initiatives within academic organizations is only beginning. MLA Scholars for Academic Freedom and anti-BDS forces such as the Israel Action Network, the Israel on Campus Coalition, the Anti-Defamation League and others will continue to educate and inform the MLA membership and initiate outreach to other academic organizations to promote responsibility, academic freedom and integrity

20 • BUSINESS / FIRST PERSON

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Katie Hamelburg helps motivate teen volunteers Dick Friedman to lead

By Suzanne Kurtz Sloan than just as individuals.” ingful Jewish experience that you’ve Executive Service Corps of In turn, she added, the teens “can had so far?

(JTA) – More feel the tangible impact of what Cincinnati Board of Trustees thanWASHINGTON 600 Jewish teenagers descend- they’ve done and take it back Katie Hamelburg: As a teen, USY Richard E. Friedman will lead Executive Service Corps of Cincinnati’s 2014 board of trustees as Chair and Vice Chair respectively. Friedman replaces Aubrey Herman, who chaired the board for two years and has been a board member since 2007.

Friedman joined ESCC’s board in 2011. He currently serves on the boards of the Greater Cincinnati Tennis Hall of Fame, Activities Beyond the Classroom Foundation (ABC), Tennis for Charity, LLC, and the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati. He is the Immediate Past President of the Faculty Club at the University of Cincinnati.

He has been a member of the faculty and administrative staff of the University of Cincinnati since 1971. He served as the Assistant to the President and as a Dean in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences. Friedman is currently a part-time member of the faculty, offering course work in Philosophy.

He is also the founder and principal consultant of REF & Associates Consulting.

Executive Service Corps of Cincinnati (ESCC) is dedicated to

Dick Friedman

enhancing the lives of all individuals in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. The nonprofit organization, headquartered in Blue Ash, OH, gives back to the community by transferring knowledge and expertise through consulting, coaching and leadership development. The organization, founded in 1995, has served more than 500 local nonprofit organizations and currently has 130 members who volunteer their services.

ed upon New Orleans this past December to bring positive change to a city still affected eight years later by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The teens arrived from across North America to participate in the annual international convention for United Synagogue Youth (USY), the Conservative youth movement.

Over the course of five days, they engaged in multiple service projects like repairing homes damaged in the hurricane, cleaning up marshes, playing music at nursing homes and going house-to-house registering people to vote.

For one of the participants, Katie Hamelburg, 18, the gathering was the embodiment of her commitment to tikkun olam, the Jewish commandment to repair the world.

“I felt energized, excited and empowered,” said the Rockville, Md., native of her time in New Orleans. “Without groups like USY volunteering [the city] wouldn’t be able to flourish. The impact we make as a movement is greater than just as individuals.”

“It’s important for the teens to help, to motivate and educate others,” Hamelburg said. “The impact we make as a movement is greater

home.”

This past year Hamelburg, who served as the international social action vice president for USY, spearheaded “Operation 18,000,” a yearlong initiative that challenged teens to view donating their time as equal in importance to raising money for the causes they care about.

An online database was established for the teens to record hours spent volunteering as well as where they volunteered and what they did.

The goal of collectively contributing 18,000 hours was surpassed, with the teens volunteering a collective 32, 686 hours, said Hamelburg, who is now a freshman at the University of Maryland, where she is majoring in Jewish studies. “We committed to working towards social justice individually and as a movement, and both exposed the impact of our work, inspired teens to play a role in this work, honored this work, and continued our efforts to repair the world.”

JTA caught up with Hamelburg who spoke about who inspires her, why she enjoys her favorite Jewish holiday and her favorite iPhone app.

taught me to be in a meaningful, spiritual Jewish community. I was able to learn, sing, question and be a Jewish teenager. It taught me what I can be as a Jew.

JTA: Can you share with us a mean-

HAMELBURG on page 21

JTA: If you could have lunch or coffee with anyone and tell him or her about the USY service projects, who would it be?

KH: Abraham Joshua Heschel. I think he’s very inspiring and a change maker. I’d learn a lot from a coffee date with him.

JTA: What do you think you want to be doing when “you grow up” or what would you like to be doing professionally in perhaps five or 10 years?

KH: I hope to be involved in informal Jewish education; youth groups, summer programs, camp. Some type of philanthropy work.

JTA: What is your favorite Jewish holiday?

KH: Passover. It’s a great combination of both religious [customs] as

How living in Switzerland taught me about anti-Jewish bias

By A. Pinsker NEW YORK (JTA) – During the height of the recession, I moved to Switzerland. I had already lived in France, Japan, India and Israel, and traveled much of the rest of the world.

I’d gone global for work, love, spirituality and cultural infatuation, but this last time was for cash: As a teacher in the recession during a hiring freeze, like thousands of other Americans, I became an economic expat.

In the land of chocolate, cheese, bankers and income, my fellow New York native teachers and I were able to afford taxi rides, apartments on our own and meals out, living the American Dream – only abroad. We were paid a six-figure salary to teach Muslim princes, Hindu billionaires and Jewish corporate kids at an international middle school of students aged 11 to 14 in Zug, where the infamously pardoned Marc Rich brought Glencore, making the small former farm town fabulously wealthy.

The students were “third culture kids,” gone global from living in one oil-rich nation to another. They reminded me a lot of myself – not in financial terms but cultural: I am a half-Jewish,

half-Ukrainian pan spiritual writer, teacher and yoga instructor who identifies as Jewish. Having lived around the world, I felt for them.

At one of our first staff meetings, one of the British teachers was discussing a problem student.

“He has Russian boy syndrome,” she said. My mouth dropped. “They’re obsessed with weapons and violence!” she said to a room full of nods.

Then my Indian-English coteacher joked: “I thought this was a global school!”

Everyone in the room laughed.

My Park Slope liberal skin chafed.

I was the only teacher in a school of thousands that celebrated Rosh Hashanah. I had to ask for special permission to take off two days. When I returned, my co-teacher asked if I had enjoyed my day off at the “Jewish celebration.” Noting a snippiness, I responded that I’d rather not discuss my religion. She retorted that “I was making things difficult” and she was “just making conversation.”

Near Christmastime, I saw for the first time blackface Santa’s helpers; St. Nicholas’ helpers were “Moors.” At the same time was a British-only celebration at

school that I satirized in an article for The Huffington Post.

Although I went to the Orthodox church in Geneva to volunteer, I was still called anti-Christian by my supervisor. As a half-Jew who had lived previously as a “nothing” (read to most: Christian), I never had experienced actual exclusion or discrimination. I was shocked.

The article and my other “outbursts” landed me in the principal’s office, where I was informed there were other complaints about me.

Separation of church and state is just an American thing, I soon learned. By Christmas I already was afraid of what would happen when I saw the baby Jesus manger set up in the parking lot.

When I was in the fifth grade, I had asked a teacher where were the other decorations besides the “Christian” ones? She asked, “Are you Jewish?” I said, “My dad is and my friends are,” and she immediately put up Kwanzaa and Hanukkah decorations. But in Switzerland, this attitude only attracted sneers and mocking remarks. I felt like I should resign.

I put my mezuzah inside my door. At a wedding in Israel – only a four-hour flight – I felt at

home among my people, the Jews. My suspicions about Switzerland were valid: I was being discriminated against. By living in Japan, New York, Paris and India, all American and proIsrael or Jewish friendly (I lived in the Marais district in Paris), I had not realized that antiSemitism actually existed, and had never heard a discriminatory word spoken.

At a staff meeting I raised my hand and said, “Exclusion is a form of bullying, so please note that not all the students are Christian, so please say ‘Happy Holidays’ to all the students instead of ‘Merry Christmas.’ “An American supervisor smiled and said “Happy Holidays.” I was thrilled. My co-teacher made every student line up to say it to me with spite.

An Irishwoman who referred to me as “the Jewish girl” said, “Switzerland is a Christian country, it has tradition, and Israel might be the same.” I told her maybe, but we were in an International school and that in India, an extremely diverse country, they would never celebrate the wrong holiday or wish a Happy Ramadan to a Hindu.

Majority rules, she said, simply.

“Christians are the majority in

the U.S., too,” I said. I realized what a very special place America is.

My comments resulted in the silent treatment in the staff room.

I wasn’t invited to showers and parties. My New York friend said I was behaving like a college freshman. In fact, in college I had been a radical feminist activist – but then it was a good thing, not something to be penalized for.

My boss, a Scot, went out of his way to buy me a Hanukkah present and encouraged me to resign to preserve my teaching record and, more importantly, my belief that global citizenry, not nationalism, would help bridge the international world.

So I gave up the job. My rights in Switzerland were not those of an American. I’ve been all over the world, but only back home was I able to be a dissident, doing my patriotic duty by speaking up.

Now, back in Brooklyn, controversial artists are a dime a dozen, and I’m probably the least neurotic person in the room. I lost a nice income, but at least I know I’m free to be who I am.

It’s good to be home.

A. Pinsker is living on three continents in a search for love and a spiritual home.

FIRST PERSON • 21

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014

In New York, a glimpse of Middle East peace

By Adi Meyerson NEW YORK (JTA) – It was 11 o’clock on a chilly September night and I was coming home from a gig – my first in New York City. I had just moved to Manhattan from Jerusalem a couple of months before to become a professional jazz bass player and would take any job I could get.

Now here I was, all 5-foot-3 and 105 pounds, lugging my giant instrument through the East Village, with only $30 in my pocket and tears in my eyes.

“Is this how Manhattan is going to be?” I thought to myself. I wondered if I had made a mistake.

Passing by a Greek restaurant with tables on the street, I locked eyes with a middle-aged man in a suit with blue eyes and gray hair eating outside with friends. He looked at me carefully while I was walking by and smiled. I politely smiled back and continued to make my way home when the man stopped me and asked what instrument I played.

I told him I was coming back from a gig where I played the bass.

I needed to get home and could not afford a cab, but the man intrigued me. His accent was different, Middle Eastern, maybe even Israeli.

I politely asked where he was from.

NEGEV from page 9 practical destination for tourists seeking to make the “star trip of Israel.”

“We are only one hour from every major site – Jerusalem, the Dead sea, and Tel Aviv – and it is much cheaper to stay here,” Grosfeld explains. Couples can enjoy a cozy room at Kibbutz Dorot for as little as 400 shekels (about $115) per night.

Their accommodation includes an Israeli breakfast, and on Friday evenings they can join kibbutz members at the communal dining hall for a traditional Shabbat dinner experience.

The kibbutz itself is a beautifully landscaped oasis, including a lap pool, and there are scenic trails to be HAMELBURG from page 20 well as being interesting and fun to participate. My entire family comes from all over the country. It’s 30 people and so much more than reciting the prayers. It’s a communal celebration!

JTA: What kind of things do you do for fun?

KH: I’m in an Israeli dance troupe.

I’m also big into music. I play the piano and guitar. And I go with my roommate for smoothies, any type.

JTA: Do you have a favorite iPhone app?

“I am from Palestine,” he said.

“And you?”

Without thinking I blurted out, “I’m from Israel.” Only as I said it did it occur to me that I was talking to my enemy. My parents moved to Jerusalem in the 1990s from California and decided to buy an old Arab house in the Baka neighborhood, in the southern part of the city.

Growing up I was taught to avoid contact with any unfamiliar Arab men. The only Arabs with whom I would be allowed to speak were my Dad’s Christian Arab friends who worked in our garden and lived in eastern Jerusalem.

“From Israel?” he said smiling, “Come join us for dinner. Let’s talk.”

As a lone 21-year-old woman, I politely refused his offer to dine with four strange men. Yet after more persuasion and warm smiles, I decided to join them. I was flattered – and pretty hungry.

Over the next hour we talked about food, argued over who had the best hummus in Jerusalem and who invented shakshuka, the Middle Eastern stew of poached eggs in tomato sauce. He and his friends told me stories about the treatment they received every morning at the Israeli-Palestinian border coming from Gaza, and I told them about how I hadn’t been allowed to

take buses as a child to lower the risk of being in a suicide bombing.

We agreed on the music of Miles Davis, Umm Kulthum and Zohar Argov. We spoke English, yet we discovered that our languages, Hebrew and Arabic, share multiple words. Politics was not mentioned – just five ordinary people sitting around a dinner table.

Halfway through the meal, the suited man made a toast: “For peace, love and understanding.”

“This is not the people’s war; this is between our leaders,” he said.

“If only they could sit down and have a conversation over dinner, they might realize that we are all human.”

After a Greek salad, two glasses of wine and some honey cake, the suited man explained to me that he was the Palestinian ambassador in the United States and that I was having dinner as well with the Palestinian coordinator for the United Nations and the son and grandson of the current Palestinian prime minister.

At first I didn’t believe them.

There was no way I could have just happened to run into these four very important politicians and join them for a normal supper at a Greek diner.

But the suited man wasn’t lying.

They treated me to dinner and gave my bass and me a ride home in

their black car while listening to Umm Kulthum. I couldn’t help but wonder why I felt so safe. I would never get into a car with a Palestinian in Israel, let alone four.

But in New York, my new city, somehow anything felt possible.

The suited man turned to me and joked, “Now that you’re in a car full of politicians, you’re not going to kidnap us and use it against us, right?”

I laughed, feeling reassured.

Yes, anything was possible here.

We said goodbye and exchanged emails. They promised to let me know when they come to New York again. I’d let them know about my next gig. I climbed the stairs to my Hell’s Kitchen apartment feeling confused yet rewarded.

One meal did not mean world peace, I knew, but for the first time in my life, I felt a glimmer of hope.

When I called my parents to tell them what happened, I was scared they’d be mad that I’d put myself in a risky situation. Instead they were amazed.

“I’m proud of you,” they said, promising to share my story with their friends who felt hopeless about peace throughout the endless negotiations between the two lands being revived by the U.S. government.

(Maybe the solution to the problem should be to bring the Israeli and

Palestinian negotiators to the United States instead of trying to revive the talks in the Middle East.)

Not that I thought I would ever see the Palestinian men again. Our dinner probably did not have as much as an impact on them as it had me.

But a few months later I received an email from the ambassador inviting me to be his guest to the Seeds of Peace gala. I was anxious and a little worried. What if I didn’t recognize him? What if the whole thing turned out to be a scam?

When he walked in the room, I immediately remembered him. He had that same inviting and familiar smile that made me trust a complete stranger.

At the gala, the ambassador introduced me as his guest, proudly telling the story of how we met.

“Peace can be made,” he said, “if you are willing to let it happen.”

taken through the surrounding garlic and carrot fields, citrus orchards, and olive groves.

“Tourists love the cows,” says the secretary of Kibbutz Dorot’s guesthouse, Orian Orbach. “Foreigners come to enjoy the quiet country, biking and hiking trails, commute to the other major sites, and then return for a pleasant weekend.”

Nearby, at Kibbutz Ruhama, early risers can catch a brilliant sunrise over the badlands. The rolling grassy landscape marked with scattered Roman ruins offers the ideal picnic spot. For 1,000 shekels (about $29), tourists can also experience the best view of the Negev and Gaza by chartering a hot air balloon tour of the countryside.

START-UP from page 9

one of the things they should do,” Mahadav told JTA. “The bad news is that that critical mass is about a third of the large companies in Israel. Two-thirds are less committed.”

Good Vision CEO Ivri Verbin says corporate social responsibility goes beyond writing a check. He notes that most Israeli companies urge their employees to make inkind donations by doing pro-bono work or volunteering with nonprofits – a reflection of what some say is an Israeli reluctance to donate in cash.

Many Israelis feel burdened by high taxes, Verbin says, but they’re happy to lend a hand.

“It’s not enough to give money,” he said. “It’s much more important to be honest, to be responsible. In Israel it’s easy because even the CEOs like their employees to volunteer.”

Good Vision aims to pair its client companies with charities that could benefit from their services.

The leading Israeli insulin manufacturer Novo Nordisk, for example, joined with the Israeli Cycling Federation to fund a bicycle program for Israeli youth because cycling helps prevent diabetes.

A similar logic inspired JVP Community, a nonprofit created by Erel Margalit, founder of the venture capital firm Jerusalem Venture Partners. By funding youth programming and educational initia-

tives in poor Jerusalem neighborhoods, JVP Community hopes to foster social entrepreneurship that will complement the firm’s encouragement of Israeli business.

“We tell the kids about high-tech to make them part of the start-up nation,” said JVP Community CEO Yair Zaafrany. “They don’t have opportunities. They want to be soccer players, which they can’t achieve, or bus drivers or barbers.

We want to give them more opportunities, and the connection with JVP opens that world for them.”

Founded in 2002, the nonprofit receives a quarter of its budget from JVP. Employees of JVP volunteer in the youth programs and the participants are brought to visit the firm’s offices. Other start-ups funded by JVP also have donated to the nonprofit through Tmura.

In recent years, several professionals say, the biggest challenge has been teaching Israeli companies the value of organized giving. But as more and more corporations have increased their charitable work, Lipner expects other companies to follow suit.

“When we first started to pitch the model to give options to charity, it was an educational project,” Lipner said. “Once we started making real money, the story started to change.”

KH: WhatsApp Messenger so I can text my friends in Israel and a smoothie app for whenever I go to Smoothie King.

The Teen Heroes column is sponsored by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, which is dedicated to celebrating and supporting teens repairing the world. To learn more about the foundation’s Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards, visit their website. Please tell us about teens who deserve attention by email.

steady uptick in corporate donations and a growing culture of corporate responsibility.

Israeli corporate philanthropy experienced a nearly sevenfold jump between 1998 and 2008 – from 89 million shekels, or about $25 million, to 600 million shekels, or about $172 million – according to Hebrew University’s Center for the Study of Philanthropy. More recent data isn’t available, but observers say the upward trend has continued.

Good Vision, an Israeli corporate social responsibility consultancy that counts El Al Israel Airlines and Bank Leumi among its 25 clients, prepared reports for three companies on corporate giving last year. Now it is writing 10. Of the 320 companies partnering with Tmura, 54 donated options in 2013.

According to the 2013 Maala Index, which measures Israeli corporate giving, the 82 companies that reported giving gave about 1 percent of their profits to charity, a rate similar to the American corporate giving average.

Maala CEO Momo Mahadav says the percentage has risen only slightly since 2008, but that the number of companies reporting data has nearly doubled.

“If we look at the last 10 years, there is a critical mass of Israeli companies that are committed and regard giving to the community as

Adi Meyerson grew up in Jerusalem and recently moved to New York to study at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary music, majoring in jazz performance on the upright bass.

22 • OBITUARIES

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

D EATH N OTICES

SUPER from page 6

KAHN, Eleanor, age 93, died January 21, 2014; 20 Shevat, 5774.

is a past board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, will attend the game with his two sons and a daughter, who will be wearing their good-luck jerseys, too. Shelley will be accompanying the family east for the occasion, but won’t attend the game. Too cold, she said.

Favorite jerseys didn’t work for Bensussen in 2006, when he attended the Seahawks’ first Super Bowl appearance, in Detroit. The

TOBIAS, Ann, age 85, died January 22, 2014; 21 Shevat, 5774.

JACOBS, Harold, age 89, died January 23, 2014; 23 Shevat 5774.

MARGOLIN, Sonya, age 81, died January 23, 2014; 23 Shevat 5774.

MAXWELL, William A., age 86, died January 25, 2014; 24 Shevat 5774.

SIMKIN, Sonia, age 99, died January 26, 2014; 25 Shevat 5774.

SUNDANCE from page 6 grew stronger. Yousef declined to work with subsequent handlers and had reached the breaking point after 10 years of living his underground life. He was allowed to relocate temporarily to San Diego under the guise of needing dental surgery.

The Israelis thought the break was temporary, but Yousef had other ideas. Once in the United States, he began a new life, joining a Christian church, writing a book and applying for political asylum.

But his application was denied and U.S. authorities began proceedings to deport him as a terrorist.

In the end, only ben Itzhak was willing to attest to the veracity of Yousef’s claims, flying from Israel to San Diego for a decisive hearing in 2010. The gambit worked, thanks in part to a campaign that included letters from members of the Israeli Knesset and the U.S. House of Representatives. Yousef remains in Southern California to this day, disowned by his family but embraced by many new friends and supporters.

At a Q&A following one of the screenings, Yousef, ben Itzhak and the film’s director, Nadav Schirman, spoke of their partnership in making the film, referring to each other as close friends and brothers. For Schirman, aside from the cloak-and-dagger quality of the story and the revelations about both Hamas and Shin Bet, the heart of the film is the relationship that evolved between his two subjects.

“I found their connection so full of hope in the sense of ‘see what happens when people dare trust one another and go against preconceived notions?’” Schirman said. “The best of enemies become the best of friends.”

He adds, “Their humanity defies all the rules and breaks all the boundaries.”

AIPAC from page 7 issues and, like many others, asked not to be identified because of the issue’s sensitivity.

AIPAC’s efforts have spurred surprisingly blunt criticism from sources that are more known for caution on such matters. The new director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Rabbi Jack Moline, earlier this month in an interview with JTA accused AIPAC activists of using “strong-arm” tactics on uncommitted senators.

Douglas Bloomfield, who served as AIPAC’s legislative director in the 1980s and is now frequently critical of the group, warned that with most Democrats inclined to back Obama on this issue, the confrontational posture taken by AIPAC could wound its reputation down the road.

“There could be repercussions across the board with a lot of members of Congress the next time they say they want them to go to the barricades,” he said.

AIPAC already is taking some high-profile hits on TV, with liberal commentators accusing the lobby of trying to scuttle a diplomatic settlement with Iran.

“The senators from the great state of Israel are against it,” comedian Jon Stewart said last week on “The Daily Show,”accompanied by a graphic of a map of Israel emblaJORDAN from page 8 relations between the Jordanians and Palestinians and the historical connections between the two sides of the river,” Susser told JNS. Yet Jordan’s original inhabitants, Bedouin tribes living there before 1948, view the Palestinian situation as a difficult problem that has plagued the country for decades.

Known as “East Bankers,” these tribes control many of Jordan’s important state institutions, including the military and domestic security forces, and therefore have considerable influence on King Abdullah. These native Jordanians have long opposed the presence of Jordan’s Palestinians, often treating them as second-class citizens.

“Jordan thinks that if there is no real settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians, that there will be another conflict between them in which Israel would crush the

Seahawks fell that day to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Back in Denver, Judaic studies teacher Benjamin Levy, a Seattle transplant, said he might wear a football helmet to class – as protection, if not fan identification.

When students baited him on his Seahawks allegiance, Levy responded that the better team could only be determined in a Super Bowl matchup. Now, the day of reckoning is approaching.

Last week’s final exams limited

the trash-talking opportunities, but all bets are off in the coming days.

Levy, a first cousin of Shapiro, is bracing for the onslaught.

If the Seahawks win, “I’m not going to gloat in their faces, much as I’d like to,” he said. “If the Broncos win, how long until I can show my face until the taunting stops?”

But the Super Bowl is not all about competing allegiances, even in Denver. A New York Jets season ticket holder who won two tickets to the game in a raffle decided not to

attend and sold the tickets to his brother, a Denver Academy of Torah board member, who promptly donated them to the school. The academy auctioned them off in a fundraiser, resulting in a $10,000 windfall for the school.

“It’s helping a wonderful cause in which kids are being educated in Torah every day,” said Kathy Bashari, the Denver Academy’s director of development. “Everyone involved did amazing mitzvahs.”

zoned with the AIPAC logo.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes said the 16 Democratic senators backing the sanctions bill are “afraid” of AIPAC. Rosen said that such exposure, while irritating to AIPAC, would not be a factor in getting the lobby to shift course. More serious would be calls from donors to the group who have ties to Democrats. AIPAC’s reputation as having bipartisan support – a critical element of its influence – could be put at risk.

“AIPAC puts a premium on bipartisan consensus and maintaining communication with the White House,” said Rosen, who was fired

by AIPAC in 2005 after being investigated in a government leak probe, though the resulting charges were dismissed and he later sued AIPAC unsuccessfully for damages.

Rosen noted AIPAC’s forthcoming policy conference in March; such conferences routinely feature a top administration official – the president or vice president, the secretary of state or defense. At least one of these failing to appear “would be devastating to AIPAC’s image of bipartisanship,” he said.

A way out for the group would be to quietly negotiate a compromise behind the scenes with the White House, Rosen said.

“They don’t want to be seen as backing down,” he said of his former employer, “but the White House is

good at helping people backing down without seeming to back down.”

AIPAC hardly stands alone in advocating the sanctions, said an official from another Jewish group, noting that support for the bill spanned the breadth of the community from the right-wing Zionist Organization of America to the consensus-oriented Jewish Council for Public Affairs. None of these groups, including AIPAC, wanted a confrontation, the official said.

“It’s awkward, and the pro-Israel organizations have been looking for a way to climb down from this question,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.

However, the official said, the Obama administration has taken a confrontational approach. The official cited a pointed remark by National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan who suggested earlier this month that congressional backers of the sanctions legislation actually favor war with Iran and “should be up front with the American public and say so.”

“There seems to be a concerted effort by the White House to say we’re not going to blink,” said the Jewish organizational official.

Notably, a top White House official in an off-the-record conference call last week with Jewish leaders dialed back such accusations, saying

that backers and opponents of the bill both wanted a peaceful resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Others, however, argue that the conflict with the White House was not necessarily bad for AIPAC. “When they are being attacked, they come out on top from a fundraising point of view,” said a former AIPAC official speaking on condition of anonymity.

An aide to a Republican senator who backs the sanctions said that in the long run, AIPAC’s better bet was to align itself with Congress rather than the White House.

“Congress holds the foreign policy purse,” the aide said. “The White House will always have a new occupant. It is less important what the White House thinks of any organization and far more important what Congress thinks of any organization.”

Morris Amitay, a former AIPAC executive director, said the lobby’s natural approach toward the executive branch was to influence its adversary, Congress.

“AIPAC’s relationship with the White House has never been kissykissy,” said Amitay, who now leads a pro-Israel political action committee.

“And if you look at where Congress is today on Israel issues, the peace process, Iran, AIPAC is doing a terrific job.”

Palestinians. Then Jordan will be faced with another few hundred thousand refugees. That’s the last thing they want,” Susser said.

For Jordan, the other core issues such as Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem are also extremely important.

“The problem is there is a nationalist trend in Jordan that is rather anti-Palestinian, very adamant on the right of return of Palestinians. Not because they are devoted to the Palestinian cause, but they want the Palestinians in Jordan, as many as possible, to leave,” Susser explained.

On Jerusalem, Israel has also vowed to never again have the city divided, as it was between 1948 and 1967. Jordan, on the other hand, supports the Palestinians’ proposal of having their capital in eastern Jerusalem. But Jordan also has control over the Muslim Holy Sites in eastern Jerusalem, which may pose problems for Jordan and the Palestinians.

Indeed, modern Jordan has taken steps to separate itself from the situation to its east. In 1988, Jordan’s late King Hussein formally renounced ties to the West Bank and endorsed Palestinian statehood there. In 1994, Jordan also signed a peace treaty with Israel, paving the way for recognition and cooperation.

“Gone are the days, or even the illusions, that had Jordan negotiating for the Palestinians, [or] playing some sort of surrogate role or agreeing to participate in some sort of co-federal structure in which the Jordanians would assume responsibility [for the Palestinians],” Miller told JNS. As such, despite its historic ties to the Palestinians, modern Jordan prefers a more passive role in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“I think Jordan is a significant player and remains a big player in the broader regional framework.

But it just does not have the street credibility or influence to adopt

independent positions on the Palestinian issue or to pressure the Palestinians to accept positions they don’t want,” Miller said.

Susser explained that Jordan prefers to stay on the sidelines until a more comprehensive framework agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians is reached.

“The Jordanians want to be in the loop, but they don’t want to be responsible for the negotiations.

They don’t want to be held responsible in the Arab world for whatever concessions need to be made to the Israelis; they’d rather let the Palestinians do that,” he said.

Nevertheless, Susser believes that since it is one of the region’s most stable countries, Jordan may help a future Palestinian state after it has been established. “[The Jordanians] are quite open to a confederation and helping the Palestinians, but only after a Palestinian state has been established,” Susser said.

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