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Reform Judaism with a Latin flavor takes root in Florida school
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Discover yourself with Israeli artist Hanoch Piven The colorful and witty illustrations of Israeli illustrator Hanoch Piven have appeared throughout the last 20 years in most major American newspapers and magazines, including Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone. And on Tuesday, February 11, at 7 p.m., you can use his techniques to create a self-portrait in a laid-back, hands-on workshop with Piven at the Mayerson JCC. “Who ART You?” is designed for adults of all skill levels (high schoolers welcome), and is free and open to the public. Piven creates whimsical collage caricatures of political and entertainment figures, capturing a person’s essence by reinventing the meaning of everyday objects to sub as facial features: Kim Jong Il with nuclear missiles for eyes, a padlock for a mouth and holding a mushroom; and, in 2008, then-president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a grogger for a mouth and hamantaschen for eyes. Most recently, in January his portrait of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appeared in Fortune magazine. Piven’s presentation is part of “ISRAELITY: Redefining Reality in Israel,” a series of open dia-
logues presented by the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s Israel Center and its Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), along with the Mayerson JCC. Social innovators will give first-hand accounts of life in an unknown and unshown Israel—their personal ISRAELITYs. ISRAELITY continues on February 20 with Orthodox Rabbi Dov Lipman, the first Americanborn member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in almost 30 years. He will speak about religious tolerance in Israel. Partners include Adath Israel Congregation, Beth Israel Congregation, Congregation Beth Adam, Congregation B’nai Tzedek, Congregation Ohav Shalom, Northern Hills Synagogue, Rockdale Temple, Sha’arei Torah, Temple Sholom, The Valley Temple and Wise Temple. The series is offered in collaboration with American Jewish Committee (AJC); Cincinnati Hillel; Hadassah, Cincinnati Chapter; Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; Jewish National Fund (JNF); Na’amat; Rockwern Academy; and the University of Cincinnati Judaic Studies Department.
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Jewish Family Service workshop on healing early attachment wounds offers 6 CEUs Professionals are invited to earn 6 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) when Jewish Family Service presents Healing Early Attachment Wounds and Embracing Secure Relationships with established expert Diane Poole Heller, PhD, 8 am – 4 pm, Thursday, March 13, 2014 at the Mayerson JCC. This full-day workshop will focus on how healing childhood wounds is key for enjoying fulfilling relationships as an adult. Dr. Heller is an expert in the fields of Adult Attachment Theory and Models, Trauma Resolution, and Integrative Healing Techniques. She is known for her unique ability to communicate complex topics with humor and clarity. Her book on auto accident trauma resolution is used worldwide as a resource for healing general trauma. Dr. Heller is a dynamic speaker and teacher who
Diane Poole Heller, PhD
has been featured at prestigious international events and is the author of numerous articles in the field. “Dr. Heller will uncover how to heal this important part of the human journey, overcoming the grip of past wounds to have more fun, deeper connection, and
healthy intimacy in relationships,” says Susan Shorr, PhD, co-chair of the workshop along with Marcie Bachrach. Professionals will earn 6 CEUs. Professional certificates will be provided for Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, Counseling, Psychology, Teaching, Chemical Dependency, Occupational Therapy, and Rehabilitation Counseling. A Certificate of Completion is also available. This is Jewish Family Service’s 10th annual Miriam O. Smith Educational Series (MOSES) symposium, which has provided an opportunity for professional development as well as offers the community a chance to learn from nationally recognized mental health experts. Register by March 3. The registration fee includes continental breakfast, boxed lunch and 6 CEUs per professional discipline.
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into Wise Center and viewed on a large screen. This program will be held on Tuesday, February 11th at 8:15 p.m. (doors open at 7:45) and is exclusively offered by Wise Temple’s Eitz Chayim adult education program.
Mayerson JCC now offers kosher family meals to go Are you pressed for time but refuse to serve anything but the freshest, tastiest meals for your family? The J will help you get a dinner on the table that is both delicious and healthy. The new JCC Take & Bake program offers fresh and healthy kosher meals for the whole family on Friday nights. Family Style meals can be ordered to accommodate families of four to sixteen people. All food cooked and prepared at the JCC is supervised by Cincinnati Kosher (Cincinnati Vaad Ho’ir.)
“Families are so busy these days and we wanted to provide the community with tasty, fresh kosher meals that don’t cost an arm and a leg,“ said JCC Food Services and Catering Manager, Chef Barry Howard. “All entrees are reasonably priced and the JCC’s central location makes pick-up easy and convenient.” JCC Take & Bake offers several kosher meal options for the community that will be difficult to pass up. Meals include chicken in wine sauce, stuffed cabbage, baked
tilapia, bean and cheese enchiladas, and vegetarian lasagna. Matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish, challah and dessert platters can be added on to any meal or bought separately. Barry continued, “We really wanted to fill a void. There are limited options in Cincinnati where people can pick up a prepared kosher dinner for the whole family, especially for Shabbat, so we decided to start a ‘Take & Bake’ program. People can pick up an entrée now on Friday and we even offer a Shabbat pack with two candles, a challah,
and grape juice.” Chef Barry Howard, representing JCC Catering, used his experience as an owner of a popular catering company and his extensive background as a chef to bring this idea to fruition. Barry was a supervising chef at a local restaurant for 7 years and his meals are sure to please. Take & Bake orders must be received by Thursday at 3pm and dinners may be picked up at the JCC J Café on Friday between noon 6:15pm.
Hadassah monthly Coffee Talk with Betsy Goldfarb: ‘Do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you?’ Cincinnati Chapter of Hadassah will hold its monthly Coffee Talk program on Monday, February 10th at 9:30 am at the home of Elece Kovel. The topic is: “Do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you?” Guest speaker Betsy Goldfarb will explore the emotional and physical bonds we have with our “stuff”. She will help the participants gain a better understanding of how consumerism in America has shaped our buying and acquiring habits, to define the different stages of acquisition and dispersal during our lifetime, to identify the emotions our stuff evokes, and finally, to create some goals and
steps to gain a better handle on our personal space. Tobe Snow is Coffee Talk Chair. Betsy has returned to her native Cincinnati after more than 30 years away. During that time away she raised a family, created and ran a garden and patio accessory retail store and worked as a general manager of a pharmacy. Betsy’s commitment to providing extraordinary customer service has been evident in all of those careers and continues with Queen City Transitions. Betsy has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan and that background, as well as her Certified Senior
Move Management training helps her to focus on providing compassionate solutions with patience and skill. Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, was born from the vision of one woman, Henrietta Szold, who saw a great need and wanted to help. In 1912, the first Hadassah women laid down the foundation of the Hadassah Medical Organization and other vital projects in Israel and around the world. Today, Hadassah members meet, make new friends, discuss and learn as they support the two Hadassah Hospitals in Jerusalem, Hadassah College, Youth
Aliyah and other medical and educational programs. Cincinnati Chapter is full of vibrant, intelligent women who look forward to continuing Henrietta Szold's vision of making a difference in the world. Coffee Talk is a monthly casual gettogether, usually held in a Hadassah member’s home, to discuss topics of interest. Meetings are held the second Monday of the month, alternating between evening and morning times. Refreshments will be served. Coffee Talk is open to the public, and there is no charge to attend, but RSVPs are requested.
Mayerson JCC transportation helps older adults live independently from physical support to verbal guidance. JCC Non-Emergency Medical Transportation has caring drivers that will pick up senior adults at their home, transport them to their appointments including therapy, dentistry, hearing, dialysis, prescription pick-ups, testing and x-rays, and then take them home again. If a companion is required during the appointment, that can also be arranged. Reservations for Medical Transportation need to be scheduled at least 72 hours in advance. There is a nominal fee for this service. “Living out of town and knowing that my mom can call the JCC for medical transportation whenever she needs to go to dialysis gives me such great peace of mind. I know she is in great hands!,” said Emily Kaplan, daughter of Joan Barcowitz, a JCC Transportation Services user. Transportation Services are also provided for seniors who need a ride to and from the JCC for daily activities,
trips and lunches. The vans are comfortable and staffed by professional drivers who help riders on and off the bus, and are aware of each person’s individual needs. “Some of our drivers have been with us for several years,” said Tsippy Gottlieb, JCC Director of Senior Adult Services. “They know all their passengers and take really good care of them. Many have created meaningful friendships with drivers and other passengers.” The program provides seniors with an excellent opportunity to socialize with others and allows seniors to shop and complete other necessary errands. For many seniors without family, it is the only way they can maintain their independence. This service is easy to use, even for frail seniors. Tsippy continued, “ We are really excited to expand our Transportation Services to include so many more options for seniors in our community. We also are proud to offer
Transportation Services to other agencies for their programming and community events.” Weekday routes to and from the JCC include these areas of the city: Amberley Village, Blue Ash, Deer Park, Golf Manor, Hyde Park, Kennedy Heights, Kenwood, Loveland, Mason, Montgomery, Pleasant Ridge, Reading, Roselawn, Silverton, and Wyoming The JCC Senior Center has been awarded national accreditation from the National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC), a unit of the National Council on Aging (NCOA). National accreditation is the highest certification that a senior center can receive. They are the only senior center in Cincinnati to achieve this distinction and one of only two JCC’s across the nation. For additional information about Transportation Services, please contact the Mayerson JCC Senior Center Transportation Department.
The American Israelite “LET THERE BE LIGHT” THE OLDEST ENGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN AMERICA - EST. JULY 15, 1854
VOL. 160 • NO. 29 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014 6 ADVAR 5774 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 5:47 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 6:48 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 MILLARD H. MACK Publisher Emeritus 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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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 the weather is bad, JCC Transportation Services provides “curb-to-curb” pick up. In addition to the wide variety of wellness programs and enriching trips, the JCC Senior Center has expanded their Transportation Services to include new routes, destinations and NonEmergency Medical Transportation. JCC Transportation is a lifeline that allows seniors to move around their community. Transportation is crucial to maintaining a better quality of life and this program ensures access to essential services such as doctor appointments, grocery shopping, and trips to the pharmacy. The service offers hands-on assistance, helping passengers through the doors of their residences and destinations, as needed. This type of service includes several levels of assistance
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deputy assistant secretary of defense and as a senior director at the National Security Council. The “Live from New York” series originates and is broadcast live from New York’s prestigious Jewish cultural center, the 92nd Street Y. The broadcasts are fed
Est. 1854
Israel: What Next?”, through the 92nd Street Y “92YLive” series. Warren Kozak, author and journalist, will be interviewing acclaimed Middle East expert Dr. Michael Doran, who writes and lectures exclusively on the Middle East. Doran has served as a
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The United States embarked on a historically unprecendented engagement with Iran at a moment when the Middle East has never seemed more volatile and unpredictable. What has that achieved? Find out when Wise Temple presents “The United States, Iran, and
r in Am ape er sp i
Wise Temple’s 92Y Live series will feature Michael Doran with Warren Kozak: “The United States, Iran, and Israel: What Next?”
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.
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Jewish Family Service clients celebrate Tu B’Shevat Jewish Family Service Barbash Family Vital Support Center hosted a Tu B’Shevat Seder on January 16 to celebrate nature’s bounty of food. Tu B’Shevat marks the beginning of the “new year” for trees. After clients came together for a Seder meal, which was led by Rabbinic intern Nathan Farb, they participated in an inspirational art project. A painting of a leafless tree was brought to life when the clients created leaves with their
messages of hopes for the New Year. The holiday’s theme of appreciating the food we receive from the earth continued in the Vital Support Center’s kitchen. Jewish Family Service Case Manager Debbie Zimmerman, RN, shared nutrition tips with the clients and showed them how to cook food to achieve the best nutrition. This session allowed clients to gain valuable skills to improve their health.
Barbash Family Vital Support Center is unique as it offers clients who are experiencing financial difficulties or mental illness a place to be helped within a Jewish cultural setting. The Tu B’Shevat Seder is one of many events held at the Jewish Family Service Barbash Family Vital Support Center that allows clients to come together and feel part of a community. Nathan Farb admires the holiday art project by Jewish Family Service clients
Dr. Michael Meyer to speak at film festival opening night Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) and Mayerson JCC will host an extraordinary multi-media event to kick-off the 2014 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival on Saturday, February 8 at 8pm on the HUC campus. The Yellow Ticket, a 1918 silent film, banned by the Nazis because of its Jewish content, and later restored, will be presented synchronously with a musical score created especially for the film. Grammy-award winning composer and internationally renowned klezmer violinist, Alicia Svigals, and jazz pianist Marilyn, will perform live this original and captivating score. Dr. Michael Meyer, Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History Emeritus at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, will present an historical
background of the film immediately after the performance, followed by an opportunity for questions and answers with Dr. Meyer and the musicians. Michael Meyer was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up in Los Angeles, where he received his B.A. (with highest honors) from UCLA. Dr. Meyer earned his doctorate degree from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Since 1967, he served on the faculty of HUC, Cincinnati campus, having previously taught at the LA campus from 1964 to 1967. Professor Meyer's books have won three Jewish Book Awards. They include The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 17491824 (1967); Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform
Northern Hills Sisterhood to focus on aging well The Sisterhood of Northern Hills Synagogue - Congregation B'nai Avraham will meet on Sunday morning, February 9th for a special program focusing on aging well, with Ann Sutton Burke as the featured speaker. Burke is Jewish Family Service's Director of Aging and Caregiver Services and a Nationally Certified Geriatric Care Manager. In 2012 , Burke received the Outstanding Professional in Aging award from the Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio. With 30 plus years experience working in the field of aging, her focus has been planning and operations for community-based services including care management, home health, corporate elder care and caregiver services. Burke's expertise in helping senior adults live independently in their own homes was nationally recognized in 2006 when she had the privilege of tes-
tifying at a United States Senate hearing on Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities. Burke is current President of the Association of Professionals in Aging, and is a past President and current member of the City of Cincinnati Health Department’s Home Health Professional Advisory Committee. She also serves on the planning committees for the Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio’s Forum on Aging, and the Alzheimer’s Association Greater Cincinnati Chapter’s Alzheimer’s Symposium. Burke earned her undergraduate degree from Miami University in Gerontology, and a Masters in Public Administration from Xavier University. The program will follow a Board meeting beginning at 10:00 a.m. A light breakfast will be served. For more information, please contact the Synagogue office.
Movement in Judaism (1988); Jewish Identity in the Modern World (1990); and a collection of essays entitled Judaism Within Modernity (2001). He has published more than two hundred articles and longer reviews. From 1991 until 2013 Dr. Meyer served as international president of the Leo Baeck Institute, a scholarly organization devoted to the historical study of German Jewry that has branches in Jerusalem, New York and London. He is a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. Information about the 2014 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival Opening Night, movie trailers and purchase of Festival pass or individual tickets for all eight captivating films are available on the Mayerson JCC website.
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Dr. Richard S. Sarason to speak at Adath Israel Hazak Dr. Sarason, Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought at the Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion, will explore the ways in which music makes worship moving and memorable for most Jews, be it traditional chant or composed melody. The title of his discussion is:
"Whoever Sings Prays Twice: Music as Prayer." Adath Israel Hazak president, Miriam Elfenbaum, announced that Hazak is proud to present this fascinating program to the entire Senior Jewish Community. "Music can take us to places that words, even sacred words, by
themselves cannot," stated Dr. Sarason. "Through examples of liturgical music of various kinds and from various places, we will explore the power of music to amplify and deepen the meaning of sacred texts," he continued, "and together we will try to answer several questions: How
does the music interpret the text? How does the text suggest the music? How do text and music together exalt us or move us to tears?" Dr. Sarason will speak at noon on Sunday, February 23rd in the Marcus Chapel of the Synagogue. Winter soup, sandwiches and
dessert will be served prior to the lecture. There is a nominal charge and reservations are required before February 14th. For further information please call the Synagogue office.
Extension of Boris Schatz exhibition complements HUC-JIR exploration of Israel The Skirball Museum Cincinnati is extending its current exhibition, The Boris Schatz Collection at Hebrew Union College, to participate in a weeklong exploration of Israel at the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. The exploration marks the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Each day during the week of February 10, students and faculty of the Cincinnati campus will
explore various facets of Israel through lunchtime presentations. The presentations will focus on innovative Israeli artistic expressions, the relationship of nonJewish communities to Israel, personal experiences in Israel and other topics. Both students and faculty will make the presentations. To contribute to the week’s exploration, Abby Schwartz, the Skirball’s interim director, developed a self-guided tour booklet
featuring works in the museum’s core collection, An Eternal People: The Jewish Experience, that were made by artists who taught or studied at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, now the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. The illustrated booklet includes descriptions of works by Ze’ev Raban, Ephriam Moses Lilien, Lazar Krestin, Reuven Rubin, Yaakov Greenvurcel and Nachum Gutman, among others.
This self-guided tour is related to the Boris Schatz exhibition on view on the fourth floor of Mayerson Hall. Schatz was the founder of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in 1906, and was responsible for bringing artists and teachers to the school in its formative years. “It is exciting to view these works in the core collection through the lens of the history of the Bezalel Academy,” says Schwartz. “The changes in artistic
leadership and the influence of modernist trends at the school can be traced through this special tour.” This exhibition will now be on view through Thursday, February 27, 2014. The museum is open to the public free-of-charge Tuesdays and Thursdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. Group tours are available by appointment.
A Cincinnati-Brit celebration of the Czech Torah rescue to be held at B’Nai Tzedek Shabbaton Feb. 7-9 Exactly fifty years after the discovery and rescue of 1,564 Torahs, collected and warehoused during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in WWII, the British are celebrating that miraculous event in early February and Congregation B’nai Tzedek is celebrating right along with them! The Torah scrolls from Bohemia and Moravia, originally discovered in Prague by an American-British art dealer, eventually became the responsibility of the London Westminster Synagogue. Known as the “Czech Torahs,” the scrolls arrived in England in 1964, after which they were inspected and classified as usable, restorable, or commemorative. A scrolls commission was
established whose intent was to distribute these Torahs to synagogues around the world as a memorial to those Jewish communities that perished during the Nazi occupation. The commission tasked with the scrolls project immediately started receiving requests for scrolls from around the world. Priority was given to congregations needing a Sefer Torah for services. B’nai Tzedek was the first synagogue in Cincinnati to receive a Czech Torah, arriving in August, 1972, just in time for the High Holy Days services. Used for decades, primarily for special events and holidays, B’nai Tzedek retired its Czech Torah in April, 2013, due to its
fragility. It is now housed in a special display case in the synagogue sanctuary, together with a plethora of documents about its history, its original hometown of Trest, and its journey to Cincinnati. B’nai Tzedek’s celebrations will take place throughout the weekend of February 7-9. On Friday evening, the story of the Torahs’ rescue and the adoption of the Trest Torah by B’nai Tzedek will be retold by Alex Cohen. He will also introduce many of the other Holocaust Torahs found throughout Cincinnati, whose pictures and stories will be on display. Tea and scones will be served after the event. On Saturday morning, Shabbat services will be interwoven with
members’ stories about how they or their families, like the rescued Torahs, forged new lives after the Holocaust. The British-themed luncheon will also celebrated the 90th birthday of Jack Kwiatek, a founder of the congregation. Saturday evening, an educational session will center on the film “Nikki’s Family,” the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved 669 children in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. On Sunday morning the congregation will take part in a special tour at the Center for Holocaust and Humanities Education on Montgomery Road. In addition, throughout the first two weeks of February, two special poster exhibits from the
CHHE will also be on display at B’nai Tzedek. “Shouldering the Responsibility: The Story of Josef Motschmann depicts the work of a German Catholic teacher through his journey to rediscover and restore the 700-year history of Jewish life in his community destroyed by the Holocaust. Her Story Must be Told: Women’s Voices from the Holocaust presents the memories, photos, and stories of fifteen Jewish women whose survival experiences span a dozen countries.” For times and additional information, please contact the synagogue office.
Reform Judaism with a Latin flavor takes root in Florida school By Uriel Heilman
Courtesy of Uriel Heilman
Anabella Mandelblum, a kindergarten student at Jacobson Sinai Academy in North Miami Beach, is a recent immigrant from Venezuela
MIAMI (JTA) – When Alejandra Schatzky-Cohen and her husband decided to enroll their children in a Reform Jewish day school in North Miami Beach five years ago, they had more on their minds than the average prospective day school parent. The family was living in Caracas at the time and the situation for Jews in Venezuela was becoming increasingly precarious. The city’s Hebraica school and Jewish cultural center had been on the receiving end of multiple raids by the national police over the previous few years, antiSemitic propaganda was becoming commonplace on state-controlled media, and President Hugo Chavez
had just expelled Israel’s ambassador. The streets of Caracas were so dangerous that Schatzky-Cohen’s kids had to be shuttled to and from school in a hired car with bulletproof windows tailed by a second vehicle to thwart attempted kidnappings. After years of hemming and hawing, they finally took the step that thousands of other Latin American Jews have taken over the past decade and a half: They moved to Miami. “We moved to a house near school, and now my son can walk on his own to the school and the JCC and back,” Schatzky-Cohen told JTA. “We needed to get out of Venezuela. My kids could not grow up in that environment.”
At their new school, Jacobson Sinai Academy, Schatzky-Cohen’s four children have gotten more than just a safe haven: They’ve found a place with both a Latin and Jewish flavor. An estimated 75 percent of Sinai’s 440 students come from Latin American families, and most are relative newcomers to America. There are Jews from Mexico City who sought refuge from a deteriorating security situation. There are Venezuelans who left during the nadir of Chavez’s rule, along with more recent arrivals fleeing the violent crime and economic problems that followed his demise. There are Argentines who came a decade ago seeking escape from an economic crisis. Colombians, Peruvians,
Panamanians and Cubans have come for reasons ranging from security to family to livelihood. The Latin influx has helped turn Miami into one of America’s most unusual Jewish communities. “We’ve had these seismic trends that affect the demography of Miami-Dade Jewry over the decades that I don’t think many Jewish communities have experienced,” said Jacob Solomon, CEO of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. That’s immediately apparent at Sinai Academy, from the mix of languages on the playgrounds and in the classrooms to the tight security at the school’s entrance – a concession to anxious parents long accustomed FLORIDA on page 22
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Coalition brings together National groups opposing new Iran Briefs sanctions By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – A loose coalition of advocacy groups and policy experts, including a pair of dovish Jewish organizations, have been coordinating messaging in support of the Obama administration’s Iran strategy. The coalition was convened by the Ploughshares Fund, which advocates for a nuclear-free world. Coalition participants – J Street and Americans for Peace Now, among them – have been in touch through email exchanges and conference calls since September, when it emerged that the Obama administration was advancing toward talks with Iran over its nuclear program. A focus for the coalition has been opposing new sanctions under consideration in the Senate that the Obama administration says could scuttle the talks. Congressional staffers on both sides of the issue say that opposition to the sanctions has been intense and that lobbying and advocacy by the groups was likely a factor. On at least one occasion, White House officials briefed the groups about the Iran talks in a bid to spread the administration’s message through their network. The consensus among participants is that the coalition has empowered voices that often viewed themselves as being in the political wilderness when it comes to influencing U.S. policy on Iran. “This is the best we’ve ever been coordinated,” said Lara Friedman, director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now. Other groups involved in the coalition include the National Iranian American Council; the American Security Project, which advocates for nuclear security; the Atlantic Council, a realist foreign policy think tank; and the Arms Control Association. Additionally, scholars from think tanks such as the Rand Corp., the Carnegie Endowment and the Center for a New American Security have participated in individual capacities. While they are united in opposing the current sanctions legislation, the coalition members have differed in the past on Iran sanctions. For instance, the National Iranian American Council and Americans for Peace Now opposed past economic sanctions backed by the Obama administration. J Street, on the other hand, backed sanctions that were supported by the administration. Participants who spoke to JTA on and off the record about the grouping have emphasized that the coalition is informal and the groups are not beholden to each other.
Josh Block, the president of the Israel Project, cast the coalition as an extension of forces that for years has sought to undercut the mainstream pro-Israel lobby. “The very same groups that make up the core anti-Israel and relentlessly critical of Israel movement in Washington are those that are working together to oppose sanctions on Iran,” he said, noting that some members of the grouping accuse those who support new sanctions of being “warmongers.” Coalition participants said that the issue of depicting sanctions legislation supporters as favoring war has come up in internal discussions. The differences among coalition participants came into the open Jan. 12 on Twitter when Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, accused Sen. Mark Kirk (RIll.), who initiated the sanctions bill, of “warmongering.” In turn, Colin Kahl, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration now with the Center for a New American Security, admonished Parsi. Kahl, who has been outspoken in opposing the new sanctions legislation, tweeted that it was “worth distinguishing between advocacy for war (‘warmongering’), which most aren’t doing, and policies that make war more likely.” Americans for Peace Now and J Street have warned that passage of the new sanctions legislation could lead to war with Iran. Coalition participants said the utility of their grouping was in sharing resources. A lobbyist in the coalition might learn from congressional staffers that a committee is seeking expertise on the Iran issue; the lobbyist is able to direct the staffer to scholars who would reflect the coalition’s view. Conversely, scholars seeking to influence lawmakers tap lobbyists to find out how best to reach them. Grass-roots activists are able to tap into scholarly research to back up their bids to get members of advocacy groups to call Congress. “There’s a whole bunch of groups, we’re disparate, we have our own agendas, our own boards and positions, but we’re sharing information the way an informal coalition should, and it’s empowering people to be more effective,” Friedman said. “This is the most energizing and fun thing I’ve done in years. You feel you’re not alone.” Such coalitions are not new in Washington. Grover Norquist, fabled as an advocate of lowering taxes, for decades has convened a Wednesday lunchtime gathering of conservative thinkers where cards are exchanged and ideas are bandied.
Jewish leaders praise retiring Congressman Henry Waxman (JNS) – Jewish leaders on Thursday praised U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who announced his intent to retire, for his contributions to the U.S.-Israel relationship. Waxman represented southern California for 20 terms in the House. “Henry Waxman has devoted his career to fulfilling the Jewish concept of tikkun olam – repairing the world,” William Daroff, director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Federations of North America, said. Waxman has been a champion of Jewish causes such as “the plight of Holocaust survivors and the U.S.Israel relationship,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Rabbi Jack Moline. NY bill cuts state funding to colleges boycotting Israel (JNS) – The New York State Assembly on Jan. 28 passed a bill to halt government funding to academic institutions supporting a boycott of Israel. The vote passed 56-4. ZOA poll: Less than a third of Americans believe Obama ‘close and reliable friend of Israel’ (JNS) – In a survey of 1,000
Americans conducted by McLaughlin Associates and commissioned by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), less than a third of respondents – 31 percent – agreed with the statement that President Barack Obama is a “close and reliable friend of Israel,” compared with 38 percent who disagreed. A majority of respondents, 51 percent, said they do not believe Obama “has done all he can to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said a future Palestinian state would be “hostile to Israel and support terrorism,” and only 17 percent said a Palestinian state would live in peace with Israel. ‘Kerry Plan’ for Israelis and Palestinians may be revealed soon (JNS) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry may soon be set to outline his framework for an IsraeliPalestinian peace deal, according to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. In a Jan. 28 column titled “Why Kerry Is Scary”, Friedman outlined the “Kerry Plan,” which he wrote would “call for an end to the conflict and all claims, following a phased Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank (based on the 1967 lines), with unprecedented security arrangements in the strategic Jordan Valley.” It will call for the establishment of a Palestinian capital in eastern Jerusalem and for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the “nation state
of the Jewish people,” wrote Friedman. Scarlett Johansson ends role as Oxfam ambassador over differences on BDS (JNS) – Jewish-American actress Scarlett Johansson stepped down as a global ambassador for the anti-hunger group Oxfam International, which criticized her for serving as spokesperson for Israeli carbonated beverage company SodaStream. Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of the Jerusalem-based watchdog group NGO Monitor, said, “Radical Oxfam officials have exploited their power to lobby the EU to impose economic sanctions, based on false allegations of ‘unlawful demolition of Palestinian civilian infrastructure. Oxfam also campaigns on behalf of Hamas and ignores terror attacks against Israelis.” ‘Seinfeld’ reunion show in the works, Jerry Seinfeld says (JNS) – Jewish-American comedian and sitcom star Jerry Seinfeld confirmed speculation that his 1990s hit show “Seinfeld” might return for a short reunion show. During an appearance on a New York City radio station, WFAN, Seinfeld confirmed rumors that he was filming when recently spotted with actor Jason Alexander, who played George Costanza on the show, outside Tom’s Restaurant in New York City, which frequently appeared on the show as Monk’s Café.
8 • INTERNATIONAL
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Romania has come a long way on Holocaust remembrance, but denial persists By Cnaan Liphshiz
Courtesy of Cnaan Liphshiz
Romanian President Traian Basescu says politicians who deny Romania’s role in the Holocaust should be “stigmatized.”
BUCHAREST, Romania (JTA) – Touring the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005, Romanian President Traian Basescu was unprepared to confront some painful truths. Facing a photograph showing pro-Nazi Romanian troops offloading their Jewish countrymen from cargo trains, Basescu was shocked and saddened. For decades, his country’s educational system had obscured the truth of Romanian complicity in the deaths of their Jewish countrymen.
Now here he was in Washington seeing hard evidence to the contrary. “For over 50 years of communism, we have been taught that Romania did not do that, that this was not real, that we were not involved in the Holocaust,” Basescu told JTA in an interview at the presidential palace Friday ahead of a three-day visit to Israel. “Yet there I was, facing reality.” A former senior official in the merchant marine under the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Basescu, 62, wrapped up his threeday visit to Israel. In the region he met with Israeli President Shimon
Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. But it was the visit to Washington nine years ago that convinced Basescu to ramp up Holocaust commemoration efforts. Under his leadership, Romania has owned up to its Holocaust record more directly than ever – progress that has facilitated its integration into the European Union and helped forge lucrative ties with Israel. The same year as his visit, Romania set up the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust. Since the institute’s establishment, more than 100
schools have launched Holocaust education programs, several national monuments have been erected, an official memorial day was designated and laws were passed on restituting lost Jewish property. Yet failures in the restitution of property and persistent Holocaust denial – even in academia and government – have tarnished the country’s reputation and threaten to eclipse the efforts by Romania to correct the effects of Ceausescu’s denial policy. “Most Romanians believe the ROMANIA on page 21
Behind Japanese fascination with Anne Frank, a ‘kinship of victims’ By Cnaan Liphshiz
Courtesy of Alain Lewkowicz
Japanese tourists visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam last year.
AMSTERDAM (JTA) – She speaks only Japanese and is not entirely sure what country she’s in, but 18-year-old Haruna Matsui is happy to stand in the rain for an hour with two friends to see the home of a person she has never met yet nonetheless considers her soul mate. “We visited Paris and Brussels, so I just had to come here to see Anne’s home,” an excited Matsui told JTA last week outside Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House. Matsui has read Japanese manga comic book adaptations of Frank’s diary several times and watched every anime cartoon film she could find about the teenage diarist who spent two years hiding in an Amsterdam attic before her arrest in
1944. Frank’s story is so well known that dozens of nations are represented in the entry line of the museum established at her former hideout on Prinsengracht 263. Every year, more than a million people visit the museum, making it one of the Dutch capital’s most visited tourist destinations. But interest in Anne Frank is particularly intense in Japan, where her story continues to reach new audiences through comic books, cartoons, museum exhibitions and educational initiatives. For some Japanese, this is a source of pride. But researchers who have studied this fascination say it has a dark side, reflecting a tendency to focus on Japan’s victimhood during World War II while ignoring responsibility for atrocities committed by its
troops who fought as allies of Nazi Germany. Matsui thinks Japan was neutral during World War II. “The Germans fought the French and English and the Jews in Europe, and then America and Japan had a war later,” she said hesitantly through a translator. For many Europeans, Anne Frank is a potent symbol of the Holocaust and the dangers of racism. But the Japanese people tend to connect to her story for fundamentally different reasons, according to Alain Lewkowicz, a French Jewish journalist who wrote an elaborate iPad application,”Anne Frank in the Land of Manga,” about his investigation of the Anne Frank phenomenon in JAPANESE on page 19
Nearly half the Israeli parliament marks Holocaust remembrance day at Auschwitz By Cnaan Liphshiz OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) – Watching thousands of Poles dance to Klezmer music just 50 miles from the Auschwitz death camp, Johnny Daniels could feel an ambitious plan taking shape. The experience last year at Krakow’s annual Jewish Culture Festival prompted Daniels, a 28-yearold Israeli and Holocaust educator, to organize the largest-ever Knesset delegation to Auschwitz. Nearly half the Israeli parliament was in Poland Monday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 69th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. They also conducted a joint session with counterparts from the Polish parliament. “At the festival, I realized the Holocaust had a huge impact also on Polish society, and I decided to do something connected to how we relate to each other,” said Daniels, the director of From the Depths, a nongovernmental education organization.
At the camp, the Israeli delegation – which comprised 58 Israeli lawmakers, including several ministers – marched to the Birkenau death complex in formation, flanked by the Knesset guard and flying Israeli flags. Amid the snow-filled crematoria, they stopped to sing the Israeli national anthem in the freezing wind before breaking into smaller groups, many of them praying and remembering murdered relatives. Unlike during previous Israeli events in Auschwitz – including the 2003 flyover by Israel Air Force fighter jets – the visitors heard family stories from Poles like Piotr van der Coghen, whose father, a resistance fighter and medic, treated his Jewish fellow prisoners as an inmate at the Plaszow camp. Another Polish lawmaker, Ewa Wolak, spoke at the joint inter-parliamentary session in Krakow about a growing awareness among Polish priests and farmers of the need to demarcate the countless mass graves of Jewish Holocaust victims that dot the Polish countryside. For Poles, the Knesset delegation
arrived as Polish interest in the Holocaust and Jewish culture continues to grow, yielding a slew of recent books and movies and the opening of several Jewish museums and culture festivals. Foremost among the new museums is the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, whose core exhibition is due to open later this year in Warsaw. The number of annual visitors to the Auschwitz museum has more than doubled since 1988, from 600,000 to 1.4 million. There is a “growing recognition of how the Holocaust was an enormous loss also for Polish society,” said Shevah Weiss, a Poland-born Holocaust survivor and former Israeli ambassador to Warsaw. “Gradually, more and more Poles are discovering the enormity of that loss and are moved to attempt to recover some of it.” Holocaust studies and interest in Polish Jewry’s heritage is growing in Israel, too. Israel’s education ministry last year announced a new program for teaching first graders about the Holocaust. Currently, the subject is not taught until junior high. Some
25,000 Israeli teenagers are sent to Poland each year, at a cost of $30 million annually. Joining the Israeli lawmakers was a delegation of 24 Holocaust survivors, including Noah Kliger, who recalled reciting the Kaddish mourning prayer with other Jews while sitting on a heap of corpses in a Nazi railway car. They agreed to pray only after the son of one of the dead agreed to share his bread with them. “Eating the bread, I asked where his father was,” Kilger said in his speech. “He said, ‘Somewhere under all these corpses.’” Several U.S. politicians joined the ceremony as well, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who spoke of “a profound emotional experience,” and Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and Republican presidential candidate. “As we’re standing here in our warm coats and still cold, I can’t imagine the suffering of those who were forced to work here in pajamas,” Huckabee told JTA. “The Knesset stands here as testament that the will of good is better than the will
of evil. Their flag signifies how, had there been a Jewish state, there would’ve never been a Holocaust. That’s why there must always be a secure Jewish state.” Sending the Knesset members cost Israeli taxpayers $130,000, according to The Marker daily. Another $400,000 was raised by From the Depths, Johnny Daniels’ outfit, to cover events surrounding the inter-parliamentary session in Krakow. A large chunk of the organization’s budget for producing the event came from Stewart Rahr, an American philanthropist who grabbed some tabloid headlines last year after he reportedly sent a video to friends showing him having sex with three women in a limousine. Knesset spokesperson Yotam Yakir and Daniels both denied a New York Post report earlier this week that Rahr had covered the Knesset members’ travel costs as well. “He’s a good man and a major donor to Jewish causes and also to this organization,” Daniels said.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
Jewish debate on Sochi Olympics centers on human rights, corruption, security By Alina Dain Sharon (JNS) – With the Winter Olympics gearing up for their Feb. 7 start in Sochi, Russia, the Jewish debate on the games mirrors the discourse taking place in the broader international and athletic communities. While some Jews say they view the games purely as sport – with social or political issues not factoring into their evaluation – not all can ignore Russia’s controversial “gay propaganda” legislation, political detentions, allegations of Olympic corruption, and the recent terrorist threats against the games. “I personally don’t plan to attend or follow the games and actively encourage boycotting/not attending the games,” Anya Levitov, managing partner at Evans Property Services in Moscow, told JNS. Levitov, who is Jewish, said the various sensitive issues in Russia “make these games anything but an event to follow.” At the forefront of international criticism leveled at the Russian government in the months leading up to the Sochi games is the country’s recent legislation against “gay propaganda.” Masha Gessen, a RussianAmerican journalist and activist who is both Jewish and openly gay, told ABC News that the propaganda law, which was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last June, bans the distribution of information
International Briefs While Roger Waters targets Johansson, SodaStream CEO ‘proud’ of Israeli factory (JNS) – SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum, whose company aired a Super Bowl commercial featuring Jewish-American actress Scarlett Johansson on Sunday, said he is “very proud” of his company’s presence in Israel. “We are very proud of our factory in Mishor Adumim,” Birnbaum said. “It is important to understand that this is an operation that employs both Israelis and Palestinians. All the workers in our company have equal rights. We call it an ‘island of peace.’” Kerry under fire for linking boycotts of Israel to negotiations with Palestinians (JNS) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was criticized for saying Israel would face more boycotts if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations he is brokering fail. “You see, for Israel, there’s an
that could harm children’s development or encourage them to accept alternative sexual relationships. “There have already been attempts to remove children from lesbian couples. So, basically, LGBT people [in Russia] have an incredible amount to fear right now, especially if they have children,” Gessen said. Furthermore, while the law itself only bans propaganda, there has been an increase in antigay violence around the country. International Olympic Committee member Gian-Franco Kasper has claimed that as much as a third of the record-high $50 billion price tag for the Olympics has been siphoned off, while Boris Nemtsov, a critic of Putin’s government, told ABC News he has evidence that Russian officials and business executives stole at least $30 billion of the funds meant for Olympics-related projects. Levitov told JNS that the the Olympic sports venues were hastily built and may be hazardous to spectators and players. “The [Olympic] construction was done by migrant workers, many of whom were sent back home without pay,” Levitov said, adding that growing nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment has been growing in the country in recent years. Putin has denied allegations of Olympics-related corruption. “I do not see serious corruption instances for the moment, but there is a problem with overestimation of
construction volumes,” Putin recently told reporters, explaining that some contractors had won tenders due to low bids that they subsequently inflated. “This price increase, it is sometimes due to contractor’s deliberate acts, and sometimes it is due to the fact that the professional valuation of necessary investments, especially in mountain conditions, for a mountain cluster, are not efficient enough,” he said. Putin’s presidency has not been associated with the kind of statesanctioned anti-Semitism that was prevalent during the Soviet era. But Levitov believes that “the rise of state-sanctioned xenophobia and anti-gay hatred… as any intolerance, is ultimately a threat to the Jews.” International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Editorial Manager Stuart Lieberman – who will be reporting on the March 7-16 Paralympic Games, which are also taking place in Sochi – disagrees with boycotting the Olympics. “I don’t think you can be entirely separate from politics [as it relates to the Olympics], but I don’t think you should be avoiding countries for reasons like this,” Lieberman told JNS. Part of the value of the games is “to inspire and excite the world, and to instill change in society,” he added. Sochi’s Chabad-Lubavitch center is preparing to welcome an influx of Jewish athletes and visitors to its 3,000-member local Jewish commu-
increasing delegitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There is talk of boycotts and other kinds of things. Are we all going to be better with all of that?” Kerry said Saturday at the annual Munich Security Conference
John Kerry’s soon-to-be-revealed framework for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is drawing significant criticism for its rumored proposals concerning Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. In a conversation with Jewish leaders, Martin Indyk, the top U.S. envoy in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict talks, confirmed that Kerry’s plan would be presented within weeks and would not include any surprises.
French Jews hold massive pro-Israel rally in Paris (JNS) – As anti-Semitism rises in France, the country’s Jewish community held a major rally in central Paris on Sunday. The Jewish National Fund (JNF), the Israeli Foreign, Defense, Tourism, Agriculture and Immigrant Absorption ministries, and other donors funded the event. Titled “Israel Today and Tomorrow,” the rally was the brainchild of the JNF’s chief emissary in France, Reuven Naamat, and gathered 15,000 demonstrators, among them Jewish community leaders from across France, Israeli government ministers, and JNF Chairman Efi Stenzler. Kerry’s forthcoming peace plan draws criticism for Judea and Samaria withdrawal (JNS) – U.S. Secretary of State
Nazi-looted art should be returned to Jews, WJC’s Lauder urges (JNS) – World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder on Thursday urged German officials in Berlin to work toward returning Nazi-looted art to its rightful Jewish owners. The art pieces “are the last prisoners of World War II… They should be returned to the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs,” Lauder said, according to the Associated Press. Christian Zionist group sponsors latest immigration wave of India’s Bnei Menashe (JNS) – The International
Courtesy of Ivanaivanova via Wikimedia Commons
Gornaya Karusel, a sports and tourism area on Mount Aibga in Krasnaya Polyana that will serve as a venue for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, which start Feb. 7.
nity. Chabad has acquired two temporary centers that will be staffed by 12 rabbinic interns, and its staff has equipped itself to prepare about 7,000 kosher meals over the course of the games. Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, the Chabad emissary to Sochi, does not take a political stand on any of the human rights or corruption issues in Russia. “I view my role in this community as a spiritual one, I’m here to cater to the needs of the Jewish community, as well as to visiting tourists,” Edelkopf told JNS. “It is our goal as an organization that the spiritual and religious needs of those living and visiting Sochi are met, and hopefully expanded,” he
said. Edelkopf did, however, note that the Sochi Jewish community is “in touch with local officials and security experts” regarding safety precautions, in light of concerns that the Sochi Olympics may be a target for terrorist attacks, particularly from Islamist groups in the Northern Caucausus region. In December, two suicide attacks killed 34 people in Volgograd, about 700 kilometers north of Sochi. An Islamist group from the Caucausus claimed responsibility for the attacks. Police have started to impose long-planned restrictions of access into and movement within Sochi.
Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), a Christian Zionist organization, has sponsored the immigration of another wave of members of India’s Bnei Menashe “lost tribe” to Israel. The Bnei Menashe is a community located in northeastern India whose members claim to descend from the tribe of Manasseh, one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. While some have doubted their connection to Judaism, in 2005, Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi recognized the group as descendants of one of the lost tribes, paving the way for them to immigrate to Israel under the Right of Return law.
it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,” National Intelligence Director James Clapper wrote in testimony submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
U.S. intelligence: Iran can build bomb at will (JNS) – Iran’s ability to create missiles with nuclear warheads is currently more dependent on the “political will” of the country’s leadership than on closing technological gaps, according to the annual American intelligence community’s report presented to Congress last week. “Tehran has made technical progress in a number of areasincluding uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles-from which it could draw if
Israeli UN Ambassador Prosor: Palestinian children still taught to hate Jews (JNS) – Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor issued a stern warning on Jan. 29 against the failure to crack down on incitement and Holocaust denial internationally, saying it would pave the way for future travesties. “From this chamber I want to warn the world – do not close your eyes to the atrocities around you; do not turn away from the animosity that ensues,” Prosor said during an open U.N. debate. “In schools, mosques and media across the Middle East, people are being taught to hate, vilify, and dehumanize Israelis and Jews,” he said. “As we speak, a generation of Palestinian children is being taught that murder is moral, racism is righteous, and terror is tolerable. The Palestinian Authority’s media quotes Hitler, describes Jews as less than human, and displays maps that erase Israel’s existence.”
10 • ISRAEL
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Rahr revs up United Hatzalah with $1.3 million ambucycle donation By Josh Hasten (JNS) – Citing his passionate desire to see worthy charities viewed as the “underdog” succeed, charismatic New York Billionaire and philanthropist Stewart “Stewie Rah Rah” Rahr on Jan. 28 donated 50 life-saving ambucycle vehicles worth a total of $1.3 million to Israel’s United Hatzalah emergency services group. A ceremony in Rahr’s honor was held atop the Aish HaTorah World Center building in Jerusalem’s Old City, overlooking the Western Wall Plaza and the Temple Mount. Rahr, 67, had originally donated a fleet of 12 ambucycles, which
were on display at the event. (Ambucycles are outfitted with a specialized storage box that contains a complete trauma kit, oxygen canister, blood sugar monitor, and defibrillator.) But after Rahr shared his “rags to riches” life story – how after selling his billion-dollar pharmaceutical business, Kinray several years ago he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to philanthropy and “helping the little guy” – inspired attendees began making pledges towards additional ambucycles on the spot. Feeding off of their enthusiasm, Rahr committed to match every donation to United Hatzalah dollar for dollar, thus quadrupling his initial pledge.
Rahr’s generosity comes amid the backdrop of a new campaign to double United Hatzalah’s ambucycle fleet from 300 to 600 vehicles, which would drastically cut down emergency response times across the country. United Hatzalah is Israel’s first and largest fully volunteer emergency rapid response service. By utilizing an ambucycle fleet with its patented GPS based dispatch technology, the group’s 2,300 medical volunteers are able to arrive on site to administer urgent care within minutes of the initial call of distress – bridging the gap between emergency and ambulance arrival. Rahr told JNS that he only
recently learned about United Hatzalah and its work but was “so impressed with their enthusiasm that after just 30 seconds I was hooked.” He added that “saving lives brings [me] instant gratification.” In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Rahr explained that “there are no luggage racks on a hearse (you don’t take your money with you when you die), and since God blessed me with so much, I want to give back and share with those in need.” United Hatzalah President and Founder Eli Beer told JNS that Rahr is “truly an inspiration” and “a great Jewish philanthropist that only wants to do good, and only wants to
give back.” In his remarks from the podium, Beer referred to the fact that Rahr had arrived in Israel for the event only several hours after accompanying Israel’s Knesset delegation to Poland for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Just yesterday, on International Holocaust [Remembrance] Day, Rahr went to Auschwitz to see where millions of Jews were murdered. At United Hatzalah here today, we are doing the exact opposite of the Nazis – fighting for human lives. Stewart Rahr is fully committed to our cause and we are RAHR on page 21
Southern Israel slated to be ‘Silicon Wadi,’ cyber-security hub By Maayan Jaffe (JNS) – The southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva has long been stigmatized by its peripheral location, economic instability, and poor public image. That reputation, however, is giving way to that of a comprehensive cyber-field ecosystem with all the components for global leadership. On Jan. 27, Lockheed Martin and EMC Corporation announced their plans to invest in projects based in the recently established advanced technology park (ATP) in Be’er Sheva. The announcement took place in Tel Aviv at the CyberTech 2014 International Exhibition and Conference. Later in the week, IBM made a similar announcement.
Israel Briefs IDF seeks budget increase in 2015 (JNS) – The Knesset Subcommittee for the Defense Budget convened Sunday to discuss a request by the Israel Defense Forces to increase its 2015 budget by 2.75 billion shekels ($781 million), which would bring the overall defense budget for next year to NIS 64 billion ($18 billion), Israel Hayom reported. IDF: Dramatic increase in Gaza rockets in January (JNS) – January saw a dramatic increase in Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza, according to the latest figures released by the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF said Gaza terrorists have launched 28 rockets at Israel since the beginning of 2014. This nearly triples the monthly rocket fire directed at Israel during the last six months of 2013.
Lockheed Martin and EMC intend to jointly develop and enhance partnerships with Israeli companies, the Israeli government, and academic institutions in Be’er Sheva, in order to explore and promote collaborative research-and-development projects in cloud computing, data analytics, and related cyber technologies. Under the arrangement, these global leaders will identify a series of development opportunities that can be contracted to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and other experts in the field. Local talent supporting the projects will commit to regular project reviews and deliverables schedules in their efforts to develop nextgeneration EMC and Lockheed Martin capabilities.
Although Lockheed Martin is the top IT-solutions provider for the U.S. government, the company’s 60-plusyear presence in the Jewish state has until now primarily focused on aerospace and defense endeavors. The ATP endeavor changes the nature of the relationship between Lockheed Martin and Israel. “We can and have developed a lot of the [cyber security] capabilities and technologies ourselves, but we are looking for partnerships with others… to help us continue to not only build our business, but advance our capabilities,” Robert Eastman, defense and intelligence solutions vice president for Lockheed Martin, told JNS. “We look at Israel and we see a truly equal partner. It’s the capa-
bilities they have, the understanding of the cyber threats and the ability – through the innovation available in the Israeli culture and workforce – to be able to develop the world’s leading cutting-edge projects.” “Israel’s entrepreneurial and academic communities offer a unique combination of talent, innovation and pioneering spirit,” noted Dr. Orna Berry, vice president and general manager of EMC’s Israel Center for Excellence. EMC currently employs more than 1,000 people in Israel and has invested billions in the country through the acquisition of nine Israeli companies, various investments in Israeli technologies, and the establishment of sales and R&D centers in
seven locations in Israel. EMC expects its activity in Be’er Sheva to expand considerably. This announcement was part of a larger discussion, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, at the cyber event in Tel Aviv. The prime minister told the roughly 5,500 attendees from Israel and abroad that Israel intends to lead a coalition of willing countries to fight the forces that seek to “ruin the blessing of connectivity” that the Internet has provided. The major battleground will be the CyberSpark national cyber security complex in Be’er Sheva, part of the 15-building ATP. “Be’er Sheva will not only be the
The increased Gaza rocket fire is the latest growing threat for southern Israel. Terrorists operating in Egypt’s unstable Sinai Peninsula have also targeted Israel with rockets.
and its industry of death will not be immune while our citizens are being attacked,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.
‘Era of Fire,’ in light of the amount of missiles and rockets we face as a constant threat. There are about 170,000 rockets and missiles that threaten Israel,” Kochavi said last week at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv.
Tzipi Livni at the Munich Security Conference, Erekat rejected the Israeli request that the Palestinians recognize it as the Jewish homeland. Erekat justified his claim by saying his ancestors were the real descendants of the Canaanities and lived in the area for “5,500 years before Joshua Bin-Nun came and burned my hometown, Jericho.”
Arab man tries to breach Iron Dome battery (JNS) – Israeli soldiers shot and wounded an Arab man who tried to breach the perimeter of an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in Eilat on Thursday, Israel Hayom reported. The man, a resident of Haifa, approached the Iron Dome battery unarmed and was ordered by soldiers to stop. According to the preliminary investigation, the man did not obey the soldiers’ commands. Ultimately, they fired in his direction, and one round hit the man in the lower back. IAF strikes Gaza terror sites in response to rocket fire (JNS) – The Israeli Air Force struck three terror sites in the Gaza Strip early Friday in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed, the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit said. “The bases of Gaza terrorism
Knesset Christian allies caucus, Jewish group honor Israeli Christian leader Nadaf (JNS) – The Israeli Knesset’s Christian allies caucus and the World Jewish Congress honored Greek Orthodox Father Gabriel Nadaf at a Jan. 29 ceremony in Jerusalem. “Christians have to be a part of the State of Israel. They are citizens and so they have to be partners in everything that happens in the state. We have to encourage and adore you,” said Likud MK David Rotem, a member of the Christian allies caucus, the Jerusalem Post reported. IDF intelligence head: 170,000 rockets threaten Israel in ‘era of fire’ (JNS) – The head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, Major General Aviv Kochavi, said the threat of rockets and missiles from Israel’s enemies is one of the greatest challenges Israel faces today. “We call this period in time the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict talks a ‘non-issue,’ says Ya’alon (JNS) – The current U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations are a “non-issue,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said last week at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv. “Behind closed doors the Palestinian issue does not even come up. In public one has to pay lip service,” Ya’alon said. Chief Palestinian negotiator: We were in Israel before the Jews (JNS) – The Palestinians cannot accept Israel as the Jewish state because they lived in the region long before the Jews, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said over the weekend, Israel Hayom reported. Speaking with Justice Minister
SILICON on page 22
Chief Rabbinate’s kosher certification services undergoing overhaul JERUSALEM (JTA) – Plans to overhaul kosher certification services offered by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate include having different levels of certification and outside companies employ the supervisors. Naftali Bennett, who serves as minister of religious services, and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau announced the reforms on Monday at a news conference. Under the new system, the restaurants and other kosher establishments will not pay the kosher supervisor directly, which could lead to graft. The supervisors will be paid by an outside company, which will be paid by the owner of the kosher establishment.
SOCIAL LIFE • 11
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
ANNOUNCEMENTS BIRTH on and Cyvia Star of Framingham, Massachusetts, joyfully announce the birth of Riya Penina Star on August 26, 2013. Riya is the granddaughter of Lauren Scharf of Cincinnati, Dr. Martin and Barbara Scharf of West Bloomfield, Michigan and Alvin and Paula Star of Woodcliff Lake, NJ. Riya was named in loving memory of her great-grandmother Raja Habel and her aunt Rosalyn Perci Scharf.
J
Shabbat Prep at Cincinnati Hillel – from left: Liza Vilenchuk, Ilana Matheson, and Jaimie Maxwell.
JYP’S TRIP TO KEENELAND Access members donned their best Derby-worthy attire for a trip to Keeneland Racetrack, the Bluegrass region’s famed center of Thoroughbred racing and breeding. They arrived in style on a state-of-the-art party bus, enjoying wine, champagne mimosas, and gourmet snacks on the way. Once at Keeneland, they met up with other YP’s from Lexington for lunch, and then took to the track to cheer on their favorite horses. Access is open to Jewish Young Professionals ages 21-35. Non-Jewish significant others are always welcome.
Riya Penina Star
12 • CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE
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WISE TEMPLE INSTALLATIONS On Friday, October 25, 2013, Wise Temple held the Rabbinic Installation of Rabbi Karen Thomashow, Associate Rabbi, and Rabbis Sydney Henning and Rachel Maimin, Assistant Rabbis. The new rabbis and their families were welcomed to Wise Temple with a Shabbat service that was followed by a festive Oneg Shabbat and Dessert Reception. All members of the Jewish community were invited to attend, and join with the Wise Temple family in celebrating these rabbis’ commitment to service, leadership skills, knowledge, and dedication to touching the lives of others through their sacred work.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE • 13
14 • DINING OUT
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Asian Paradise just the place for a new twist on Pacific Rim tastes By Bob Wilhelmy My hope for members of the Jewish dining public is that they too find the enjoyment I have found in “Asian” cuisine, and especially, Asian “fusion” cuisine, of the type offered at Asian Paradise restaurant. At Asian Paradise, Jewish diners can choose from a wide range of entrée dishes that are commonly found in Chinese, Japanese and Thai restaurants. But there is a noticeable, delicious twist—the fusion techniques employed in the Asian Paradise recipes. Take it from me, that approach makes a taste difference in one’s dining experience. For instance, I enjoyed egg-drop soup on my last visit. That’s standard fare for a Chinese restaurant, right? But this soup was silky to the tongue and really special in taste. It helped that the outside temperature was in single digits, but I loved the soup. It featured shitake mushrooms instead of the standard variety, and the broth was vegetable based, which I appreciate because that lowers the fat content. But what flavor! Again, outstanding ingredients, prepared with special care. The pad Thai was equally delightful. Personally, I love pad Thai, and most restaurants do an adequate job with the dish. Asian Paradise’ version is exceptional. First, the noodles are fettuccinesized rice noodles, instead of the thread-sized version, so they hold and carry more of the flavors of the dish. Second the rusty-red color sauce of the dish is packed with flavor and even leaves a little pleasant after-burn when the meal is finished. Also, personally, I like the ability to customize the protein in the dish. I chose the chicken, but it can be vegetarian, beef, seafood and several other choices. Another dish I was served proved to be a wonderful surprise and a treat. The pan-roasted Chilean sea bass is a healthy portion of fish, and it is moist and very nice to the teeth. Again, the fish filet is served with a sake-miso over steamed asparagus, with peppers, onions and mushrooms as complementary flavors. My prediction: you will love it! I did. Proprietor Ben Wang says fusion cuisine is a mix and match of the best of Chinese, Thai and Japanese food styles. It’s cross-cultural. It is a combination of the food, the service and the elegant ambiance of the place. In addition to all that, he says the cooking process and ingredient approach at Asian Paradise are different from most “Chinese” or ethnically “Asian” restaurants in this area. So what’s different? Part of the difference can be found in the ingredients used, as you may have noticed in some of the dishes I’ve described earlier in the article. Asian Paradise uses items that are not commonly found in local Pacific Rim restau-
Ben Wang, proprietor of Asian Paradise restaurant.
An entrée of Mongolian beef.
rants, such as taro root, Vietnamese basil, shitake mushrooms, lemongrass, lo bok (Chinese white radish), and more. In fact, many “Chinese” restaurants take just the opposite tack, trying to use commonly available, inexpensive ingredients and covering them with flavorful sauces. Please realize that I am not implying
there is anything wrong with that approach either, but the fact is the food quality and the special flavors derived from that quality is not the same as you’ll find at Asian Paradise. As for Ben Wang, he stated: “We use wok and grill, which is the way food is prepared (in Asian countries,
but not in most U.S. eateries offering that cuisine). Not just wok. No MSG. No heavy sauce on the food—so flavors of food comes through. Vegetables are fresh and not canned or frozen—that makes a big difference.” The wok and grill process amounts to grilling the meat or
seafood for some entrée items, and stir-frying the vegetables that go with the protein. Then the dish is combined with the appropriate sauce, but just lightly dressed and not smothered or suspended in the sauce. The wok and grill process is an added step, but one worth taking, I think. One can both see and taste the difference made by the dual cooking approach. And Wang says that’s how Asians cook. Prior to the entrée dishes, we enjoyed a treat from the sushi bar. Again, Wang gave insight. “Most sushi rolls, they have thick band of rice and less in the center. Not sushi here,” he claimed. He’s right. We had a Russian roll with tuna, salmon, asparagus and cucumber. Delicious! Our meal was followed by a vanilla ice cream “sushi roll” wrapped in pancake batter, deep fried, and served with a chocolate sauce. Oh, boy! Is that ever good! I recommend a trip to Asian Paradise, and when you go there, be ready to change your thinking about foods from that part of the world. You’ll taste the difference. Asian Paradise 9521 Fields Ertel Rd. Loveland 239-8881
DINING OUT • 15
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
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101 Main St
800 Elm St • 721-4241
4200 Cooper Rd
Historic Milford
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1198 Smiley Ave • 825-3888
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7625 Beechmont Ave • 231-5550 Ambar India Restaurant
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Pomodori’s
350 Ludlow Ave
5098B Glencrossing Way • 347-9699
121West McMillan • 861-0080
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8179 Princeton-Glendale • 942-7800
7880 Remington Rd
281-7000
300 Madison Ave • 859-292-0065
Montgomery • 794-0080
7905 Mall Road • 859-525-2333 Andy’s Mediterranean Grille
1965 Highland Pk. • 859-331-4999
Slatt’s Pub 4858 Cooper Rd
At Gilbert & Nassau 2 blocks North of Eden Park
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9521 Fields Ertel Rd Loveland
Kanak India Restaurant
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239-8881
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6200 Muhlhauser Rd
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3120 Madison Rd Cincinnati
Marx Hot Bagels
8702 Market Place Ln
The Best Japanese Cuisine, Asian Food & Dining Experience In Town
321-1600
9701 Kenwood Rd
Montgomery
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891-5542 Tony’s
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16 • OPINION
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Israel helps Bedouin Arabs, and everyone complains By Stephen M. Flatow (JNS) – Doesn’t it sometimes seem that no matter what Israel does, the world will criticize it? The Israeli government recently put forward a plan to vastly improve the lives of the Bedouin Arabs who live in the Negev desert-yet once again, the Jewish State found itself battered by angry critics. For many years, the 160,000 Bedouin Arabs in the Negev have been haphazardly setting up illegal encampments on public land. With their high rate of unemployment and low levels of education, the Bedouins have created a chaotic situation in a region that is crucial to Israel’s future. The Israeli government did what any progressive-minded government would do. It set up a committee, headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, to study the problem. The committee’s recommendations were then incorporated into a development plan by a senior aide to the prime minister, Ehud Prawer, and a former cabinet minister, Benny Begin. The Prawer-Begin plan was based on two principles: helping the Bedouins and developing the Negev. Every government has the right, indeed the duty, to properly regulate the use of its land and other natural resources. This right extends across the board and is not limited to certain neighborhoods, cities, and communities. As someone who has worked in a real estate-related field for more than 30 years, I know that here in the United States, anyone who attempts to construct an office building, establish a housing development, add an addition to their home, install a swimming pool, or divide a parcel of land, comes up against the zoning and planning laws of their municipality and state. In fact, the government’s right to insist on the planning of communities rather than permit helter-skelter development has been repeatedly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. If the government has such a right in the United States, why would anyone say it shouldn’t have such a right in Israel? After all, Israel’s basic sovereign interests are the same as those of any other government. Israel owes its citizens, whether they live in the Galilee, Jerusalem, or the vast expanse of the Negev, the implementation of zoning and planning laws and methods that advance
the regulated growth of its towns and cities and underdeveloped lands. The Prawer-Begin plan treats the Negev Bedouin with the utmost respect-in fact, with kid gloves. Instead of prosecuting them for illegal squatting, it provides them with massive assistance in order to relocate them from substandard living conditions to new communities, where they will be able to legally purchase land and reside in modern homes. In short, it would bring them into the 21st century. Meanwhile, the Jewish National Fund has already embarked on a massive campaign, in its words, “to improve quality of life for all residents of the region and encourage a population shift away from crowded, expensive central Israel” while “developing housing, employment, environmental sustainability, agricultural research and development, water treatment, restoration and cachement, tourism and recreation, education and security.” Yet the Israeli government’s eminently sensible plan, and the JNF’s generosity, was met with derision and protest. Israeli extremists and militant Arabs, in the Knesset and in the streets, screamed that moving the Bedouins-even if it was moving them up-was somehow a violation of their rights. Israel’s rights, of course, are of no interest to the grumblers. But the sheer volume of the protests caused the Israeli government to shelve the plan. The Negev accounts for more than half of Israel’s land mass. Yet it is home to just eight percent of Israel’s population. For the sake of Israel’s future, it must be developed and populated. “It is in the Negev that the people of Israel will be tested,” David BenGurion famously said. “For only with a united effort of a volunteering people and a planning and implementing State will we accomplish the great mission of populating the wilderness and bringing it to flourish. This effort will determine the fate of the State of Israel and the standing of our people in the history of mankind.” The time has come to fulfill Ben-Gurion’s vision. New Jersey attorney Stephen M. Flatow is a frequent commentator on Middle East politics, terrorism, and victims’ rights.
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The American Israelite
In Iran sanctions debate, what the sides are arguing about By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – The White House is mounting a fullcourt press in the Senate against a new Iran sanctions bill, but the fight is focused less on the proposed sanctions themselves than on their timing and the conditions attached to them. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), is backed by much of the pro-Israel community, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The U.S. House of Representatives last summer overwhelmingly approved a similar sanctions package. The Senate bill’s backers say it gives the United States greater leverage in its efforts to negotiate a resolution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. But President Obama says new sanctions could scuttle the talks. Two of the bill’s most controversial provisions are a requirement that Iran not be allowed to maintain any uranium enrichment capacity and non-binding language calling on the United States to support Israel if it strikes Iran’s nuclear program in self-defense. The Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 was introduced in the Senate on Dec. 20 and so far has garnered 59 co-sponsors, eight short of the two-thirds necessary to override a promised presidential veto. The bill enjoys the overwhelming support of Republicans, with only two GOP senators not among the cosponsors. In addition to Menendez, 15 other Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors – although one of these, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (DConn.), now says there “may not need to be a vote” as long as progress is being made in talks.
At least 20 members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus have come out in recent days supporting the White House in its bid to keep the sanctions bill from advancing. White House officials have said in off-the-record conversations with Jewish leaders that the sanctions themselves are not controversial. Should the talks with Iran fail, officials have said that they would press to have Congress pass the new sanctions “in a day.” What are the new sanctions? • Existing sanctions on Iranian crude oil would be expanded to include its refined version, petroleum, and its products. • Existing sanctions on Iran’s shipping sector would also be expanded to include engineering, mining and construction sectors, as well as Iranian free economic zones. • Existing sanctions on Iran’s financial sector would be broadened beyond current bans on its nuclear and energy sectors to virtually any dealings, save for humanitarian transactions. • The bill also expands individuals targeted by sanctions to include employees of a broad selection of official and semi-official Iranian bodies. Disagreement over timing The White House’s principal objection to the bill is its timing. The Joint Plan of Action, the November interim agreement between Iran and six major powers, is intended to create a six-month window for reaching a final settlement. The interim agreement, which exchanged a partial rollback of existing sanctions for a partial rollback of Iran’s nuclear activity, requires the United States to “refrain from imposing new nuclear-
related sanctions.” It’s unclear whether the legislation as currently devised violates those terms. Backers of the bill say that by allowing the president to suspend implementation for six months, the legislation does not violate the interim deal. “It provides the president the time he has requested to see if negotiations can succeed without additional sanctions being imposed during the talks if Iran keeps to its end of the interim framework agreement,” Brad Gordon, the director of policy and government affairs for AIPAC, says in a video message posted on the group’s website. But others argue that mere enactment of the bill, even if implementation is delayed, constitutes a violation. “This bill would impose new sanctions and, while the measures may not be enforced, they will become law,” says an analysis by the Arms Control Association. The White House has also warned that while the passage of new sanctions legislation might not spur Iran to quit the talks, as it has threatened to do, they might lead to the collapse of the international coalition that brought Iran to the table. Disagreement over outcome Another White House objection has to do with outcomes required by the bill. The Obama administration complains that the bill would constrain its ability to negotiate an agreement with the Iranians. Backers of the bill admit as much. “The Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act of 2013 clearly defines parameters for a final agreement,” Gordon says in the AIPAC video. IRAN on page 19
JEWISH LIFE • 17
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
other religions, that spirituality means to leave the material world and ascend to the celestial spheres of the Divine; therefore, G-d had to explain to Moses that Jewish spirituality means to bring G-d down into the material world and sanctify it. This is indeed the basic function of Torah: to sanctify the kitchen and dining room with Kashrut, to sanctify the bedroom with family ritual purity, to sanctify the market-place with business ethics, to sanctify the calendar with holy days and sacred moments. Hence our Sages declare that what the Almighty truly has in this world is the four ells of halakha (religiolegal practices). The previous Torah portion of Terumah began with the Divine charge,: “And they shall make for Me a Sanctuary so that I may dwell among them” (Ex. 25: 8). In effect, G-d gave us a world – albeit an imperfect, incomplete world with darkness as well as light, evil as well as good – and expects us to perfect it, to re-make the world into a veritable Sanctuary so that the Divine will feel comfortable dwelling among us. This is the charge as well as the challenge, the model as well as the mission of the Sanctuary. And those who are expected – at least in the first instance, – to transmit and effectuate this message are the priests, and especially the High Priest. In order to do so, the High Priest must first see himself as being capable of carrying out such a formidable task, he must see himself as a powerful king, representing the King of all Kings, garbed in regal robes of honor and glory. And his dress expresses a message. Just as the ideal King of Israel dare not involve himself with opulent, material blandishments like numerous wives, horses, gold and silver but must demonstrate his devotion to G-d by always having with him a copy of the Torah (Deut. 17:16-20), so must the High Priest wear the “tzitz” on his forehead “always,” a gold head-band on a thread of tchelet (heavenly royal blue) on which was written “holy unto the Lord” (Ex. 28:3638). And just as the ideal king of Israel must understand that his authority derives from his nation, that his rule must be by virtue of the will of the people and for the sake of the people (Deut. 17:18-
19), so does the High Priest wear the breast-plate of justice over his heart, upon which were embroidered twelve precious stones upon which were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. “And Aaron shall carry the names of the children of Israel in the breast-plate of judgment upon his heart when he enters the Holy Place as a reminder before the Lord always” (Ex. 28:29). In order to succeed in his daunting task of perfecting the world in the Kingship of G-d, he must learn from his special garb to lead the priests in total devotion to G-d and the nation. Every Israelite must also see himself as a High Priest in function, as a proud representative of a holy nation and kingdom of priests. After all, does not the male Israelite dress himself every day in his phylacteries, the head tefilin atop his forehead on the place of the High Priest’s tzitz and the hand tefilin opposite his heart, the place where the breast-plate of the High Priest expressed the names of the twelve tribes? And the tefilin are called a symbol of glory (pe’er, Ezek. 24:17), just as the regal robes are vestments of honor and glory (tife’eret, Ex. 28:2); and in wearing the tefilin, the Jew becomes
the High Priest’s tzitz and is significantly called by the Bible “tzitzit,” or a “junior tzitz”. Every Jew must share in the mission to perfect the world, and must be inspired to do so by wearing the priestly, regal garments which teach commitment to G-d and commitment to our nation. 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: TEZVE (SHMOT 27:20—30:10) 1. Which oil was used to light the Menorah? a.) Olive oil b.) Any oil was kosher c.) Sesame seed oil 2. The Menorah stood near to which vessel in the Mishkan? a.) The alter b.) The Holy of Holies c.) The Curtain 3. Which best describes the Shoham Stone? a.) The High Priest wore two of them 4. A 28:29 5. B
EFRAT, Israel – “And you shall make sacred garments for Aaron your brother for honor and glory” (Ex. 28:2). The Torah portion of Tetzaveh is wholly dedicated to Aaron and his children, the High Priest and the Holy Temple priesthood. We are given a precise description of the ritual by which they were consecrated for their Divine task, including the specific Sanctuary offerings which were to be brought. But what is most jarring to the modern ear – and especially to those of us who have become accustomed to the tie-less and jacket-less informality of Israeli dress – is the painstaking description of the unique apparel of the priests, the eight special garments of the High Priest and the four special garments of the regular priests. As quoted above, the Torah itself commands, “And you shall make sacred garments for Aaron your brother for honor and glory,” and the Talmud stipulates that only when properly garbed are the priests endowed with sanctity and permitted to minister in the Sanctuary (B.T. Zevahim 17b). Is the Torah then teaching us that “clothes make the man?” What about the internal characteristics of knowledge and virtue and commitment? I believe that, upon deeper reflection, we will understand that the priestly garb is not meant to endow sanctity, but rather to inspire sanctity – as well as to instill within the priests the confidence that they can make the entire world sacred. Moreover, the Torah teaches that every Jew must see him/herself as a High Priest dressed in sacred vestments, a member of “a holy nation and a Kingdom of priests.” Immediately prior to the Revelation at Sinai, there is a strange dialogue between G-d and Moses, in which the Almighty calls out to Moses, Moses attempts to climb to the top of the mountain, G-d tells Moses to go down to the nation, Moses complains that the nation has been disallowed from ascending the mountain, and G-d again tells Moses to go down (Ex. 19:20-25). My revered teacher and mentor Rav J. B. Soloveitchik ZTZ”L explained that Moses thought, in accordance with the
“...G-d had to explain to Moses that Jewish spirituality means to bring G-d down into the material world and sanctify it.”
adorned with the four portions of the Torah – expressing love of G-d, fealty to commandments, the sanctity of the people of Israel and the sanctity of the land of Israel – placed in the tefilin batim (houselike repositories), much like the King is adorned with the copy of the Torah which must always accompany him. Moreover, the second traditional Jewish garb is the talit katan (“Prayer Shawl”), featuring a thread of t’chelet (heavenly royal blue) which is a salient feature of
b.) They were circular c.) The letters on them were engraved d.) There was nothing written on them 4. Where did the High Priest wear the Choshen a.) By his heart b.) Over his forehead c.) It rested on the Holy Ark 5. Did the Priest's clothing include shoes? a.) Yes b.) No
2. C 27:21 3. A,C 28:9,10,11
by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT TETZAVEH EXODUS 27:20 – 30:10
Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise
ANSWERS 1. A 27:20 The olive was without any sediment
Sedra of the Week
18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ
JEWZ
IN THE
By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist Winter Olympics The Winter Olympics will be held from Feb. 6 until Feb. 23. Israel is sending a five-member team, none of whom are expected to medal. I know of one Jewish athlete on the American team and one on the Canadian team. If I learn of more, I will alert you next week. The American is figure skater SIMON SHNAPIR, 26, who has competed in pairs skating with his partner, Marissa Casteilli, 26, since 2006. The duo won the 2013 and the 2014 U.S. championship in their event. Shnapir was born in Moscow, but immigrated to the States, with his parents, when he was 16 months old. The Canadian is figure skater DYLAN MOSKOVITCH, 29, a native of Toronto, who competes in pairs with his partner, Kirsten Moore-Towers, 21. The duo has won several international competitions. While the opening ceremonies are on Feb. 7, figure skating, including pairs skating, gets an early start on Feb. 6. This year, for the first time, the scores in figure skating events, including pairs, will be used to determine a national team skating medal winner(s). In case you’re wondering: American Gracie Gold, top figure skater, isn’t Jewish. Also, top American Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin has one Jewish grandparent (her paternal grandpa) – but she doesn’t identify as Jewish. Movie News Last week, French choreographer Benjamin Millepied, 36, told an Israeli newspaper that he is converting to Judaism and is about halfway through the process. “Becoming Jewish is very important to me,” he told the paper. Millepied wed actress NATALIE PORTMAN, 32, last year in a Jewish ceremony and the couple have a young son. The actress met the very handsome Millepied when he choreographed the dances for “Black Swan” (2010). Portman went on to win the best actress Oscar for her role in that film. Millepied is set to take the post of Director of the Paris Opera ballet this September and Portman says that the whole family will primarily reside in Paris starting in the near future. By the way, Millepied’s name, which isn’t a stage name, roughly translates to “a thousand feet.” One couldn’t ask for a better name for a choreographer. “Monuments Men,” is an
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action film which is based on the exploits of a real-life American army unit which was tasked with finding and rescuing the works of art which the Nazis had looted from all across Europe (a large percentage of the art was stolen from Jews). “Men” was directed and co-written by George Clooney. It was co-written by GRANT HESLOV, 50. Heslov has been Clooney’s writing and business partner for decades and the pair have shared two best screenplay Oscar nominations. The real names of many unit members are used in the film and Clooney stars as George L. Stout, the name of the real-life unit head. About half the real-life members of the unit were Jewish and Clooney said in an interview that two of the unit members will be identified as Jewish in the film. One probably is JAMES RORIMER (1905-1960), a top Metropolitan Museum curator who became Stout’s right hand man (played by Matt Damon). The other probably is Pvt. Preston Savitz, who is played by BOB BALABAN, 67. Rorimer worked very closely with the real-life Rose Valland (played by Cate Blanchett), a French art curator who compiled, at some risk to herself, an amazingly complete list of Nazi-plundered art and the locations were it was stored. She turned this list over to the ‘Monuments Men’. Beatles Tribute CBS will mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first American TV appearance, on the Ed Sullivan Show, with a (tape) of a recent tribute concert. Musicians who performed a Beatles’ tune included JOHN MAYER, 36, ADAM LEVINE, 34, and his band, Maroon 5, Alicia Keys, Dave Grohl, Annie Lennox, Keith Urban, and Katy Perry. Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney each played a solo, three song set at the end of the concert. Then they joined all the other performers in an energetic finale. The concert included recorded celeb tributes and onstage tributes to the late John Lennon and the late George Harrison. (Their respective widows and children were in the audience and acknowledged). Also in the audience were Paul’s (Jewish) wife, NANCY SHEVELL, 53, and Ringo’s wife of 33 years, former actress and “Bond Girl” BARBARA BACH, 66. Bach’s late father was Jewish.
FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO The undersigned takes pleasure in informing the public that they have opened a LIVERY AND SALE STABLE on Patterson Alley, between Main and Walnut, and Fifth and Sixth Sts., where they will constantly keep on hand a large stock of well-broke horses, for sale or hire. Their harness, buggies, and carriages are all new and of the latest style. B. Maertz & Sontheim. “The Nameless Graves Where Our Heroes Lie” is the name of a beautiful song by Chaplain J. H. Lozier, which has just been published by John Church, Jr., at No. 66 West Fourth. This song breathers the pure sorrow of a truly loyal heart over the last resting places of those of our brave soldiers who lie in the battlefields of this war. It will carry a soothing balm to the hearts of those who have lost friends, as well as those who have not. – March 4, 1864
125 Y EARS A GO Mr. Isaac Green and Miss Bella, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. N. Goldsmith, all of Cincinnati, were united in marriage on Sunday last, by the Rev. Dr. Philipson, at the residence of the bride’s parents, No. 300 West Fifth Street. A domino surprise party was given last Saturday evening, at West Cincinnati Turner Hall, in honor of Miss Henrietta Wagner. The Committee of Arrangements consisted of Messrs. A. Steiner, J. Greenfield, J. Cohn, Joe Wagner, M. Aaron, and Isidore Wagner. The affair was a very pleasant one and the participants enjoyed themselves hugely. The accident of which we spoke last week as occuring to Mr. Jacob Ezekiel, has not proven serious. Though he was knocked senseless at the time he soon regained consciousness. He is up and about the house and expects to be out shortly The Hebrew class under the auspices of the G.A.L.S. has been successfully reorganized. A class in Jewish history will be organized next week. – February 7, 1889
100 Y EARS A GO Work wanted, by an elderly man of good moral character as night watchman, shop sweeper, or waiting on sick. Address Isador Bachman, 1532 Bremen St, Cincinnati, O. Pupils wanted for private instruction in common and high school branches by a university graduate, well qualified. Instructions given in Hebrew also. Address Miss Emily M. Bloch, 70 Albany Av., Avondale. Phone Avon 3064. Shopper’s at Pogue’s will hereafter miss a very familiar figure, as Miss Pauline Mack, who has been connected with that establishment for
a great many years, was one of five old employees who have been retired on very liberal pension. Mrs. Celia Kuhn, relict of the late Samuel Kuhn, died on January 29. Funeral was from the residence of her daughter, Mrs. W. Elmer, 3480 Harvey Avenue, Avondale, interment being at the Clifton Jewish Cemetery. – February 5, 1914
Mrs. Alice Friedlander, 983 Debbe Lane, passed away Friday, Jan. 31. She is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Margit Stuart; a son, Walter; and four grandchildren. Services were held at the Hillside Chapel, Rabbi Murray Blackman officiating.– January 30, 1964
75 Y EARS A GO
Dr. and Mrs.Elliott C. Silbar (Lauren Mazar) announce the birth of twin daughters, Sydney Elana and Lyndsie Moriah, Jan. 12. The infants have a sister, Rachel Merissa. Maternal grandparents are Ellen and Ralph Mazer of Cincinnati. Paternal grandparents are Drs. Muriel and John Silbar of Milwaukee. Great-grandparents are Mrs. Jene Mazer of Cincinnati and Hallandale, Fla., and the late Morris Mazer, the late Majorie Perlmutter and the late Albert Pearl, Anita Silbar and the late Dr. Sidney Silbar of Milwaukee, and Hannah Cheplin and the late Harry Cheplin of Baldwin, N.Y. Myrna Miller announces the engagement of her daughter, Ellen Fay, to Josh Lemberger. Ellen is the daughter of the late Dr. Jack J. Miller and the granddaughter of Sam and Ann Miller. Josh is the son of Doris Lemberger and the late Samuel Lemberger. – February 16, 1989
Girls! Are you interested in getting into a swell group of girls who think a girl need not be ashamed of having a brain? You would! Well then you’ll want to join the “M” Club (you need to be between the ages of 18-25 to join). The “M” Club is having a tea on Sunday, Feb. 19th, at 3 p.m. Come up to the Center then if you are interested. But first get in touch with Catherine Cohn at UNiversity 7624. If you want to jump the gun and get in earlier on their splendid meetings, come up Sunday afternoon. You’ll like it. Annoucement has been made of the engagement of Miss Marion Jacobs, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Julius D. Jacobs, 888 Clinton Springs Avenue, to Mr. Harold J. Effron, son of Mr. and Mrs. A.I. Effron, 4012 Paddock Road. Miss Jacobs is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, where she was a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority; Mr. Effron is a graduate of Washington and Lee University, where he was a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Mayer, of Greenwood Court, are enjoying a four week’s cruise to the West Indies. Mr. and Mrs. Morris Schiff, of Newport, KY, announce the engagement of their daughter, Betty, to Mr. Carl Bear, son of Mrs. Fannie Bear, of Bogart Avenue. – February 9, 1939
50 Y EARS A GO Dr. and Mrs. Allen Litwin (Maxine Berger), 8498 Foxcroft Drive, announce the birth of a daughter, Nancy Lynn, Wednesday, Jan 22. The infant has three sisters, Susan Carol, Dianne Karen, and Elise Jeanne. The grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Berger and Dr. and Mrs. Morris J. Litwin, all of Cincinnati. Mr. and Mrs. Isadore Fleischman, 5044 Oberlin Boulevard, announce the forthcoming Bar Mitzvah of their son, Ethan David, on Saturday, Feb. 8, at 9 a.m., at Adath Israel (Feinberg) Synagogue, Lexington Avenue and Reading Road. Relatives and friends are invited to worship with the family and to attend the Kiddush following the service. Ethan is the grandson of Mr. Arthur Fleischman. No cards.
25 Y EARS A GO
10 Y EARS A GO Neshama, an educational initiative of The Golf Manor Synagogue, held its first chavurah Feb. 8, at the home of Ben and Ronna Schneider, under the guidance of Rabbi Hanan Balk, dean of Neshama. A chavurah is a group of people who gather in a friendly, informal setting to study Torah. To become a host of such a gathering, one may invite a group of friends for an evening of study on a topic of their choice. Neshama’s first chavurah, “Becoming One Flesh: How to Enhance Our Marital Bonds,” was delivered in memory of Ronna’s grandparents, who enjoyed a long and wonderful marriage. Leah Burgin, daughter of Lester and Margie Burgin, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah Sat., Feb. 14, 2004 at Northern Hills Synagogue-Congregation B’nai Avraham. Michael Mintz, son of Howard and Ann Mintz, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah Sat. Feb. 14, 2004 at Isaac M. Wise Temple. Barry J. Levey, former State Senator, age 73, died Feb. 5, 2004. He is survived by his wife of 33 years, Marilee A. Levey; his sons, Johnathon M. (Jill) King and Michael L. Levey; his daughters, Pamela (Christopher) Levey-McGuire and Lory L. (Daniel) Bellino; his sister, K.L. London, and his three grandchildren. – February 12, 2004
COMMUNITY DIRECTORY / CLASSIFIEDS • 19
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 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
JAPANESE from page 8 Japan. In January, a version of the work was published by the FrancoGerman television channel Arte. “She symbolizes the ultimate World War II victim,” said Lewkowicz. “And that’s how most Japanese consider their own country because of the atomic bombs – a victim, never a perpetrator.” Currently, approximately 30,000 Japanese tourists visit the Anne Frank House every year, 5,000 more than the annual number of Israeli visitors. That figure places Japan 13th in a list whose top 10 slots are all occupied by European and North American nations. Japan has seen the publication of at least four popular manga comic books about Anne Frank and three animated films. The first Japanese translation of Anne Frank’s diary appeared in 1952, one year before it was first published in Hebrew. “Basically, every Japanese person has read something about Anne Frank, which is even more amazing considering the shocking ignorance on history of many young Japanese today,” Lewkowicz said. “The older
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
generation has read the book, and they buy the manga adaptation for their children.” One place where Japanese children encounter Anne Frank’s story is the Holocaust Education Center at Fukuyama City, the only such institution in the region. Run by a Japanese reverend, Makoto Otsuka, the center has welcomed 150,000 schoolchildren since its establishment in 1995. Located just 50 miles from where the American atomic bomb landed on Hiroshima in 1945, the center is home to a statue of Anne Frank, one of only two such statues found in Japan and the only ones in her memory in the Far East. The children also tour the center’s scale model of the Anne Frank House in Holland. In 2011, the center received one of two cuttings sent to Japan from the chestnut tree Frank described in her diary. Japan is the only Asian country besides Israel with saplings from the tree. The one in Fukuyama is already nine feet tall, according to Otsuka, who spoke to JTA in Hebrew. He studied the language to improve his ability to study the Holocaust, he said. “Anne Frank is a powerful symbol for peace in Japan,” Otsuka said.
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
“That’s why her story resonates with so many Japanese, who have suffered the horrors of war.” Otsuka began planning a Holocaust education center in 1971 after meeting Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, the only member of the family to survive the war. “What I instantly saw in the man was how much love he had, despite everything he’d been through,” Otsuka said. Introducing Japanese people to Anne Frank’s story was important to Otto Frank. His efforts in this regard may be part of the reason for the Japanese interest in his daughter, according to Ronald Leopold, director of Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House. In his book, Lewkowicz juxtaposes Japan’s Anne Frank fascination with what he and many others consider Japan’s failure to fully acknowledge the actions of Japanese troops in areas they occupied in China and Korea. “The Anne Frank-Japan connection is based on a kinship of victims,” Lewkowicz said. “The Japanese perceive themselves as such because of the atomic bombs dropped on
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 IRAN from page 16 The most contentious of the requirements has to do with uranium enrichment. For the president to suspend the legislation’s sanctions provisions, the bill requires he must certify that a final agreement will “dismantle Iran’s illicit nuclear infrastructure, including enrichment and reprocessing capabilities and facilities.” Such a requirement comports with the demand of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any final agreement permanently end Iran’s enrichment capability. Iranian nuclear knowledge and capability is advanced enough, according to supporters of this condition, that even enriching uranium to five percent – a level generally used for peaceful purposes – would allow Iran to quickly advance to weapons-grade enrichment if it so decided. White House officials have said that Iran would never accept a total enrichment ban and that the best possible outcome would be a five percent enrichment capability. The bill would also allow Congress, by a vote of both chambers, to reimpose any sanctions that were suspended as a result of an agreement. Disagreement over Israel The bill recommends U.S. backing for Israel should it determine that it must strike Iran. In its “sense of Congress” section, it says: “If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They don’t think of the countless Anne Franks their troops created in Korea and China during the same years,” In Korea, Japanese troops organized the rape of thousands of enslaved Korean women who were known as “comfort women.” They also perpetrated mass killings of Chinese civilians. Japan apologized in 1993 to Korea and again in 1995 for having “caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.” But many consider the apology insufficient and insincere, citing the absence of reference to war
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(513) 531-9600 nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.” That language, according to critics, amounts to allowing a foreign nation – albeit one that is a close ally – a determinative role in deciding when the United States joins a military action. “Let me acknowledge Israel’s real, well-founded concerns that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its very existence,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a Jan. 14 floor speech opposing the bill. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war. By stating that the U.S. should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.” The bill’s backers note that by definition, “sense of Congress” language is not binding and that the bill concludes that nothing in it “shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization of the use of force against Iran.” Moreover, they note, the language is identical to a non-binding resolution that the Senate passed in May by a vote 99 to 0. Feinstein was among its co-sponsors.
crimes and repeated visits by Japanese leaders to shrines honoring some of the worst perpetrators. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit last month to one such shrine sparked strongly worded condemnations from the Chinese government. Otsuka says his museum is limited to the Holocaust and that other war crimes are not part of its scope. But he notes that the institution’s mission statement extended to “deepening the understandings of the period and helping to enhance awareness for world peace among young people.” Despite this, Lewkowicz says that Otsuka is quietly working to raise
20 • LEGALLY SPEAKING
Employment consequences of a criminal conviction A LEGAL LOOK
by Michael Ganson There are lasting repercussions for one found guilty in a criminal proceeding – and one of the most harmful consequences is in the employment field. Approximately, 84,000 individuals are charged each year with a federal felony or Class A misdemeanor. Historically, more than 95% pled guilty. Ohio’s rate is usually somewhat lower, but still hovers around 80%. Although most of us know the rights to bear arms or to vote are affected by what crimes an individual is adjudged guilty, there are many others imposed by state law, federal law or regulation. Even the type of crime the person is found to be guilty of can cause unique consequences. I shall focus this article on some of the employment consequences – from both the employee prospective and the employer prospective. Please note that the following is by no means comprehensive. It is intended to simply get you thinking. Ohio Revised Code 2961.03 states that a felony conviction for theft (and probably any other crime of dishonesty) results in the revocation of the licenses of those working in several different areas of employment. Nonresident aliens convicted of a felony are subject to deportation. In fact, Ohio law requires the judge to include in her admonishments a warning regarding deportation to every defendant before the guilty determination is addressed. Federal law prohibits felons from enlisting in any branch of the armed forces; with the proviso that the Secretary of Defense has the discretion to authorize exceptions. Many federal agencies have created regulations that prohibit felons from contracting government employment opportunities. For example, health care professionals can be excluded from Medicaid and Medicare. Federal law excludes felons from serving as well as the ability to continue to serve as law enforcement officers. Indeed, those wishing to find employment in airports as screeners, or even
kiosk workers who need access to secured areas, will find that convictions within 10 years of their employment will prevent them from working in such areas. Other restrictions on employment can arise in those jobs that require a Transportation Worker Identification Credential. Employment in the general business world that requires international travel can also be impacted. Convictions involving the illegal use of a passport can result in revocation of one’s passport. Not having a passport in today’s global economy is a certain impediment to one’s job opportunities. Employers are increasingly conducting more thorough preemployment investigations of prospective employees. And with the tools now available to them with access to the Internet, getting information on a prospective employee is pretty much a click away – even without the permission of the prospective employee. It is noteworthy to mention that investigations of this kind cannot usually be “sanitized” by removal of what may be information that would cause a prospective employer to select another candidate for the position being sought. The savvy prospective employer now has access to archival records – snapshots of the past – that enable him to see material that was once on the Web that has since been removed. For instance, every person arrested usually has an Internet record of the arrest even if found not guilty. Further, it is becoming a more frequent occurrence in the interview process for companies to require a prospective employee to sign an authorization for release of all information concerning him. Often, this release will result in a disclosure of a criminal conviction that has been expunged or even sealed. Consider which of two candidates would be hired; the one with no record or the one with a record. The full consequences of one’s past mistakes will usually not just be felt at the time of conviction. It is like a pebble in a pond. The ripples continue long after the pebble sinks to the bottom. The information contained in this article is intended to provide only general legal information and is not intended to be relied upon for specific legal issues or any particular legal matters. For specific legal issues or any particular legal matters, the reader is advised to consult with and secure the legal advice of an attorney of their choice.
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The Firing of an Eighth Grade Public School Science Teacher Legally Speaking
by Marianna Bettman Yes, this all really happened in the twenty-first century. An eighth grade public school science teacher named John Freshwater was fired from the Mt. Vernon Ohio Middle School over a dispute about whether he injected his personal religious beliefs into his science class. Freshwater says he was fired for exercising his right to academic freedom in violation of his First Amendment Rights. Specifically, he claims he was fired for encouraging students to think critically about evolution. The Mt. Vernon School Board says he was fired for failure to adhere to the established science curriculum, for repeatedly interjecting his Christian religious beliefs into his teaching plans, for disobeying orders to remove religious displays from his classroom, and for insubordination. In my opinion, the Freshwater case was the most important case decided by the Supreme Court of Ohio in 2013. It came out in November, and the vote was 4-3 to uphold Freshwater’s termination. I did a preview of this case in an earlier column. (It was argued in February of last year, so the case took a long time to decide). Even though this case raises some very significant religion questions under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the majority mostly ducked them all, deciding the case on statutory grounds. That is a perfectly proper thing to do – judges are supposed to decide cases on non-constitutional grounds when they can. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor wrote the decision to uphold the firing. Joining her were Justices French, Lanzinger, and O’Neill. Justices Pfeifer, Kennedy, and O’Donnell dissented. The decision in this case is a long one; I’ll try to boil it down to manageable size. Freshwater was hired by the Mt. Vernon School Board in 1987 to teach eighth grade science. The Board had a policy forbidding the teaching of religious thought in the curriculum. From 1994 until 2002, Freshwater repeatedly received positive teaching evaluations, and there is no question that his students always did exceptionally well on the state standardized achievement tests. But during this same period Freshwater was told on several occasions not to distribute materials about creationism and intelligent design. Despite these warnings, in 2003
Freshwater submitted a proposal to the Board entitled “Objective Origins Science Policy,” asking the Board to add a policy statement to the science curriculum allowing teachers to “critically evaluate” evolution. The Board rejected this proposal, consistent with a subsequent decision from the State Board of Education to strike similar language from its statewide science benchmarks. Freshwater persisted nonetheless. In 2006, the Board received a complaint from a parent of one of his students about a handout on critically evaluating evolution. A subsequent investigation showed that this handout appeared to be taken in whole or in part from several intelligent design websites. The then school superintendent again directed Freshwater to stop distributing such materials. All of this came to a head when the parents of another one of Freshwater’s students alleged that during an in-class science experiment, Freshwater made the sign of the cross on their son’s arm with a Tesla coil. This led to a federal lawsuit by the parents, and a formal investigation of Freshwater’s teaching of evolution by an independent consulting firm hired by the School Board. Ultimately, (I’m skipping a lot of procedural stuff), the Board unanimously passed a resolution of intent to fire Freshwater on four grounds. The two key ones here were his failure to adhere to established curriculum and his disobedience of orders. In Ohio, by statute, a teacher can be terminated for good and just cause. It is not easy to do this, and a lot of due process is involved. After the Board’s resolution of intent, Freshwater requested a public hearing, as was his right. This hearing, conducted by a Referee, involved 38 different days of witness testimony spread out over almost 21 months, included more than 80 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, and ultimately resulted in over 6,000 pages of transcript. When all was said and done, the Referee found the Board had good and just cause to fire Freshwater for injecting his personal religious beliefs into his teaching, contrary to Board policies, and for repeatedly disobeying orders of his superiors about removing religious materials from his classroom. On January 10, 2011, the Board, by a vote of 4-1, fired Freshwater. At this point, judicial review kicks in. Freshwater appealed his termination to the Court of Common Pleas of Knox County, which upheld it, as did the court of appeals for that area. The Supreme Court of Ohio agreed to hear the case. At the oral argument of the case, Freshwater was represented by the Rutherford Institute. The short version of the opinion by Chief Justice O’Connor is that insubordination constitutes good and just cause for termination under Ohio law. The Court defined insubordination as willful disobedience of or failure to obey a valid order from an administrative superior. And the Court found Freshwater was
clearly insubordinate in failing or refusing to remove religious items from his classroom. But there is a kicker here, and a concerning one. I said the majority mostly ducked the constitutional religious issues. But it confronted one head on, and I think incorrectly so. (I admit I have been tutored on this point by Professor Ronna Greff Schneider, my colleague at the U.C. College of Law, and an expert in the First Amendment.) All of the justices on the Court except Justice Judy Lanzinger agreed that the order to Freshwater to remove his personal Bible from the top of his desk was an unconstitutional order violating his Free Exercise rights. So that could not be part of the basis for firing him. (Professor Schneider and I agree with Justice Lanzinger on this point.) The difference, then, between the four justices in the lead opinion and the three in the dissent, are that the former think there were ample other legitimate grounds to terminate Freshwater, and the latter do not. Justice O’Donnell, author of the key dissent, sees the core issues in this case as the free speech rights of public school teachers and the academic freedom to choose the way to implement the required curriculum. He sees Freshwater as a man unfairly singled out because of his willingness to challenge his science students to think critically about evolution and to discuss creationism and intelligent design in doing so. Because this is just a single column, and not a treatise, I’ve got to wind it up. I am a strict separationist when it comes to church and state. I think Freshwater was clearly insubordinate, over a long period of time. As far as Freshwater’s personal Bible, I’m going with Professor Schneider’s view that context matters, and the Court should have viewed Freshwater’s refusal to remove it in the broader context of his other activities, and the Court incorrectly ignored the potential Establishment Clause violation in letting him keep it there. She said this, in a guest post on my blog: “in light of the religious nature of some of Freshwater’s teaching, the Court should have concluded that a reasonable person would have perceived that Freshwater was endorsing religion with the presence of his Bible in violation of the Establishment Clause.” As to the other point about academic freedom, that concept applies mostly to universities, not to secondary or primary schools. Justice O’Donnell ignored a significant recent federal case holding that a public high school teacher did not have a First Amendment right to select books and methods of instruction for use in the classroom without interference from the school board. And secondary school teachers are obliged to follow the established curriculum. I think the Supreme Court of Ohio made the right call here, except about Freshwater’s personal Bible. But that’s a pretty big except.
FIRST PERSON • 21
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
This Year in Jerusalem This Year in Jerusalem
by Phyllis Singer The death of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Jan. 11, following eight years in the vegetative state of a coma, generated numerous reports and commentaries about his condition during that time and about the issue of life-support systems. Details about Sharon’s condition include discrepancies about whether or not a ventilator aided his breathing. There is no discrepancy, however, about the fact that he was on a feeding tube and that he was comatose and in a vegetative state. Nevertheless, Sharon’s son Gilad argued that during the eight years, his father showed some evidence of response. Because Sharon evidently never indicated his preference regarding life-support systems, his sons, Gilad and Omri, had to make the choice after he suffered a masROMANIA from page 8 Holocaust happened, but many still think Romanians did not perpetrate it,” Liviu Rotman, a historian at the University of Bucharest, told JTA. “To them it was the Hungarians or the Germans, but never Romanians, despite a wealth of evidence.” Some 750,000 Jews lived in Romania prior to the Holocaust; approximately half were killed. Romanian troops also were responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews in Transnistria, the Romanian name for Ukrainian territory occupied by Romania during the war. In 2012, a politician who denied that Jews had suffered in Romania during the Holocaust was appointed to a ministerial post despite protests by Jewish groups. The politician, Dan Sova, later apologized and said his statement was the result of ignorance. A few months later, a Romanian member of the European Parliament denied the Holocaust on television. The following year, a prominent historian said it was a “huge lie” that large numbers of Jews were killed in areas under Romania control during the Holocaust, leading to his
sive stroke in January 2006. According to reports in the press, Sharon had suffered incurable brain damage, and doctors at Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, advised his sons to allow him to die. Writing in his biography of his father, “Sharon: The Life of a Leader,” Gilad said that he and Omri insisted that their father be kept alive. “I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end,” Gilad wrote. According to reports, Gilad, Omri or Gilad’s wife visited Sharon every day at the Sheba Medical Center rehabilitation facility outside Tel Aviv, where he had been transferred from Hadassah Hospital. Although stories and reports about Ariel Sharon no longer appear daily in the Israeli press, the issue of life-support systems for terminally ill patients is still with us—facing all those who live with a terminally ill family member. According to an article by Yaakov Ne’eman and Elliot Sacks for the Institute for Jewish Medical Ethics, active euthanasia and passive euthanasia are forbidden by Israeli law and Jewish law (Halacha). However, passive euthanasia, including withdrawing or withholding life-support systems, has been permitted in some cases under Israeli law. And, according to Ne’eman and Sacks,
some halachic decisors, including 20th-century authorities Rabbis Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Moshe Feinstein, have ruled that if the patient is not capable of independent life, it is permissible to remove life-support systems. Moreover, in Israel, there is no such thing as a living will, as there is in the United States. According to a legal source in America, a living will allows an individual to make the decision “of whether life-prolonging medical or surgical procedures are to be continued, withheld, or withdrawn … It allows [an individual] to express [his or her] wishes prior to being incapacitated.” Although Israel does not have living wills, it does have a Dying Patient Law, which allows an individual to fill out a long, complicated form indicating which procedures he or she would want medical providers to perform. The form is then filed with the Ministry of Health. The problem regarding the Dying Patient Law is that most doctors don’t bother to check with the Ministry of Health to see if their patient has filed the form, unless a family member informs the doctor that the form is on file. In many cases, however, patients— including those with terminal illnesses—do not fill out the form. Perhaps it is too complicated, or perhaps it is too intimidating.
However, Israel does allow an individual to fill out a medical power of attorney form, designating someone to make medical decisions if the patient is unable to do so. Therefore, in many cases, the issue of life-support systems to prolong a dying patient’s life must be faced—often by an individual who has medical power of attorney. This is what our son Hanan and I—both of whom had medical power of attorney for Allen—had to do. Although Allen had refused to fill out—or even look at—the form from the Dying Patient Law, he had made it very clear to both Hanan and me that if the issue arose and he was not able to make the decision himself, he did not want to be put on any life-support systems. “Just let me go,” he said. “Let Hashem [God] decide.” Although my children and I hoped that when the time came, Allen would pass away peacefully in his sleep, and we would not have to make the decision, things did not quite work out that way. During the last three weeks of his life, a severe sepsis infection invaded Allen’s body, including his brain, which prevented him from communicating with us. His vital organs began to shut down, and his condition began to decline. Early one Friday morning, Hanan, who had been at the hospi-
firing from a teaching post at a German university. And last month, a Romanian state television channel was fined for broadcasting a Christmas carol celebrating the burning of Jews. Romania has paid a price internationally for the incidents. The United States and Israel condemned the Christmas carol episode. And last year, the Ukrainian Jewish Committee cited Romania’s supposed refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the killings of Ukrainian Jews in opposing its bid to chair the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a consortium of some 30 countries including the U.S. and Israel. One Ukrainian Jewish Committee official told JTA in October that the objection might evaporate were Romania to donate money to support Ukrainian Jewish causes. The American Jewish Committee supports Romania’s bid. In the interview, Basescu made no attempt to minimize the problem. “Mistakes are still being made in statements and declarations today and must be criticized in a much stronger way than praises about the positive developments,” Basescu said. “The positive devel-
opments are normal, they must be done. But the errors, especially by politicians, must be stigmatized.” But Basescu’s own record with racism is not immaculate. He has apologized repeatedly for a 2007 incident in which he was heard on tape calling an aggressive journalist a “stinking gypsy.” In the interview, Basescu makes a point of noting that his commemoration efforts are also for “that other minority affected in the Holocaust, the Roma.” On restitution, Romania’s record also is not without blemish. The country has given the local Jewish community the equivalent of $33 million in cash and stock, a sum that represents a fraction of the hundreds of millions in assets stolen from the Jewish community that the state has promised to return. “Over the past year, there has been a slowdown in restitution connected to economic problems in Romania,” said Nachliel Dison, the acting director general of the World Jewish Restitution Organization. “So the government is giving us the runaround, bogging down the process in court and negotiations to reduce the payment due.” Basescu said his country may have been overly confident when
it undertook restitution obligations just prior to a real-estate market crash in the first quarter of 2013. But the Romanian leader said he remains committed to returning actual confiscated property – not a monetary substitute – but perhaps only once the economy recovers a little. “It is an extremely difficult process,” Basescu said, “but it is our ambition to apply this principle.” Despite low unemployment figures, Romania is one of the European Union’s poorest members and suffers from a drain of skilled labor. One way of improving the economy, Basescu said, is through trade with Israel, an exchange that last year reached $400 million. On the Israel trip, Basescu said he hoped to consolidate Romania’s ties to Israel, particularly in scientific fields, and connect to the 500,000 Romanian speakers in Israel – one of the largest Romanian Diasporas in the world. Some of them are childhood friends who visited with Basescu in 2009 during his last presidential visit. “They come to see me at the hotel,” Basescu said, “and we catch up.”
tal overnight, called me and said that Allen’s condition was worsening, and the doctors were talking about artificial means to keep him alive. I told Hanan I would be there as quickly as possible, but in the meantime, since he also had medical power of attorney, he should tell the hospital doctors there should be no life support. I also contacted our family doctor and asked him to speak to the hospital doctors. He knew that Allen did not want life support. They listened to him and to Hanan and me. There were no artificial means. Allen lived for about seven more hours. Hanan and I were there when he passed away. As I read about the eight years that Ariel Sharon stayed alive on life support, I could not help but think of Allen dying peacefully without it. What is the point? Does prolonging life help the patient who no longer has a chance for a viable life? Does it really help the family, or does it cause agony for the family? I personally feel that the decisions of Rabbis Auerbach and Feinstein, as explained by Ne’eman and Sacks, are appropriate for both the patient and the family: They “ruled that a dying patient should not be kept alive by artificial means where treatment does not cure the illness but merely prolongs the patient’s life.”
RAHR from page 10 proud to have his support; this generous donation will assist us to save even more lives,” said Beer. Rahr decided to make the initial donation after watching an inspirational TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk delivered by Beer, which has generated hundreds of thousands of online views. At first he pledged four ambucycles and then sent out an email to his personal rolodex of more than 700 A-list celebrities, asking them to donate whatever they could to United Hatzalah, with a promise to match every donation. The list included Michael Milken, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harvey Weinstein, Sheldon Adelson, Jeff Schottenstein, Alicia Keys, Andrea Bocceli, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Mark Wahlberg, Leon Black, Mort Zuckerman, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Andre Agassi, Ari Emmanuel, Ashton Kutcher, Marc Cuban, Jay Leno, and Tommy Hilfiger. At the Jerusalem event, Rahr was sporting a personalized Hatzalah fleece bearing his name in Hebrew and English, bright yellow athletic shoes, and a yellow watch. Yellow he explained, is his favorite color, representing his optimistic outlook on life.
22 • OBITUARIES D EATH N OTICES MAXWELL, William, age 86 , died January 25, 2014; 25 Shevat, 5774. HARRIS, Joyce, age 98, died January 28, 2014; 27 Shevat, 5774. ZOLLETT, Roslyn C., age 93, died January 31, 2014; 30 Shevat, 5774. WAGSHUL, Mollie, age 89, died February 1, 2014; 1 Adar 1, 5774.
O BITUARIES MAXWELL, William (Bill) Abraham William (Bill) Abraham Maxwell was born on March 2, 1927 to Evelyn and Benjamin Maxwell in Newark, NJ. His father died at a young age, leaving young Bill to provide and be a substitute father for the family. Bill joined the ROTC and later enlisted in the US Army as an underage soldier. He served under General Douglas McArthur’s Intelligence Signal Corps during the occupation of Japan in 1946 and held the rank of 2nd Lieutenant upon discharge. After the war he attended Rutgers School of Pharmacy on the GI Bill and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business. In college he was a member of Bnai Brith. It is in Philadelphia where he met his wife Marcia Frieden, whom he married in 1950 and was married to for 64 years. After two years in Washington, D.C Bill and Marcia moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Bill first worked at General Electric in Evendale. A 1953 article in The American Israelite introduced Milton Schloss of E. Kahn’s & Sons (makers of Kahn hotdogs), a large meatpacking operation, where Bill then spent 38 years. Bill started out as an industrial engineer, progressed to operations manager and ended his career at Kahn’s as Vice President of Engineering, Humans Resources and Administration. Bill was a devoted husband, diligent provider, and proud father of 4 who was an avid investor in the stock market, a local team sports fan, and dedicated to the needs of the Cincinnati Jewish community. He was a founding member of Temple Sholom , a Reform congregation in Amberley Village. He served Temple Sholom in many roles, among them Treasurer, Vice President and the fourth President of the Temple from 1959-1961. Some of his innovations included helping to create an endowment for the Temple for which he was a major fundraiser, a pension fund for Founding Rabbi Stanley Brav, and ultimately he created a family fund for special projects. Bill was actively sought as an advisor by presidents of Temple Sholom for many decades. William Maxwell passed away
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on January 25, 2014 – 24 Shevat 5774. He was pre-deceased by his parents Benjamin and Evelyn Maxwell, and by his sisters Sonya and Thelma, and his brother Myron. He is survived by his beloved wife of 64 years, Marcia D. (Frieden) Maxwell and his children Max (Jill) of Madison, WI; Susan (Wayne Shepard) of Marstons Mills, MA; Marc (David Passer) of Somerville, MA; and Edward (Deborah Dinerman) of Piedmont, CA. He was the loving grandfather of Heather, Eva, Oliver and Emmett. Services were held on Tuesday, January 28, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. at Weil's Funeral Home. Rabbi Gerry Walters, formerly of Temple Sholom and now of Cedar Village, where Bill spent the last years of his life, officiated. Interment took place at the United Jewish Cemetery. A Memorial observance was held at the Clubhouse of The Maples at Twenty Mile Farm, 3400 Twenty Mile Way (Montgomery Road), Loveland on Tuesday following burial. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Cedar Village Hospice in Mason or Temple Sholom in Amberley Village. ZOLLETT, Roslyn C. Roslyn C. Zollett, of Lauderhill, FL, died Friday, January 31, 2014, at the Florida Medical Center. She was born in New York, New York. Mrs. Zollett lived in Florida for 25 years. She was a member of Temple Beth Shalom when she lived in Middletown and she was a hospice volunteer in Florida. Roslyn was born in New York, living much of her youth in the Bronx, overlooking Yankee Stadium. She had a great love of the arts, particularly opera. She took great delight in attending the Metroploitan Opera in New York with her family, not only enjoying the opera but explaining in detail the history of the Met Rabbi Horvitz used Psalm 23 to describe Roslyn. “When we speak of women, the term valor is not commonly used. ‘Valor’ is reserved for those who have proven themselves in battle. However, it was in life’s battles that Roz proved herself. She was strong and supportive, so ‘her husband lacked for nothing.’ ‘Her children rise up and bless her’ Roslyn was blessed with two loving sons: Scott and Jeff.” Mrs. Zollett is survived by her two sons, Dr. Scott (Lynn) Zollett and Dr. Jeff (Karen) Zollett; one sister, Helene Stein and 4 grandchildren. Roslyn was preceded in death by her husband, Dr. Phillip D. Zollett in 1989. Funeral Service were held Monday, February 3, 2014 at 11:00 am at Wilson-Schramm-Spaulding Funeral Home, 3805 Roosevelt Blvd., Middletown with Rabbi Haviva Horvitz officiating. Interment was at Woodside Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to Vitas Innovative Hospice Care, 16800 NW 2nd Ave. #400, North Miami Beach, FL 33169.
FLORIDA from page 6 to worrying about security. (Last year, two students had relatives back home who were kidnapped for ransom.) The school has students from 17 countries, including Russia and Israel. Latin Jews have been a boon to Sinai. The number of students has swelled by more than 50 percent since 2000, and there’s now a wait list to enter preschool despite tuition fees ranging from about $16,000 in kindergarten to $24,000 in eighth grade. As recently as the late 1990s, alumna Melissa Neuhut recalls, hers was one of just three Latin families in the school. Just eight years ago, teachers with Latin roots were told to refrain from speaking Spanish on campus, according to one administrator. Today, two of the three preschool classes are Spanish immersion. English speakers begin studying Spanish in kindergarten. An office assistant helps facilitate visas for Latin children. The school employs two full-time specialists in English as a second language. The on-site temple has a Latin cultural committee. “It’s been an interesting transition for the school,” said Nancy Posner, Sinai’s head of school. “We want to make them American, but we want them to keep their cultures.” Sinai hasn’t been the only Miami-area beneficiary of Latin immigration. On the other side of SILICON from page 10 cyber capital of Israel, but one of the most important places in the cyber security field,” Netanyahu said in a speech. The groundwork for the project was laid over the past decade, according to Prof. Dan Blumberg, head of the homeland security institute at BGU. He said this southern success story begins in 2004. “Back then, Deutsche Telekom … was looking at investing in securing data that would be transferred over cellular phones in the future. That brought them several placements; one of them was Israel,” Blumberg told JNS. “[The company] ended up investing in and opening up a research center at BGU that would focus on data security, which led to an agreement in 2006 where ‘T-Labs’ [Telekom Innovation Laboratories] were opened at BGU.” Those labs led to a new group of BGU researchers focused on cyber security and then to the first-of-its-kind Master’s Program in Cyberspace Security. In the past few years, BGU saw the establishment of the first stages of the ATP, a joint venture between the university, the Be’er Sheva municipality, and private entrepreneurs. Simultaneously, the Israeli government made the decision to move most of the IT units of the IDF to the south. Then, two years ago,
the 14-acre JCC that abuts the school sits the Scheck Hillel Community School, an Orthodoxrun institution nearly twice the size of Sinai that also is mostly Latin. It’s not surprising that many Latin Jewish immigrants are opting for day school education: In many Latin American countries, Jewish day school enrollment is de rigueur even for non-observant families. What’s unusual in Sinai’s case is that so many Latin families are choosing a school affiliated with Reform Judaism, a movement with which few Latin American Jews are familiar. Sinai parents such as Liliana Eidelstein say the Reform-affiliated school is much more reflective of the liberal Judaism they practice than the Orthodox-oriented schools in Latin America to which they used to send their children. “We love the way Reform Judaism emphasizes community service and tzedakah and all those things you don’t always get at a Jewish school,” said Eidelstein, who moved here from Panama 11 years ago. “It’s about bringing your Jewish values and traditions into the greater community.” Just as important for many Sinai families is preserving their Latin ties, something they say is more likely in Miami than in other American cities. Aside from the ubiquitous Spanish culture, Miami’s proximity to Latin America enables many immigrants to commute during the week to maintain their livelihoods back home.
Ilan Naibryf, 14, an eighth-grader and president of the student council, has a typical Sinai background. His family immigrated to Miami from Argentina when he was 2, but his father still commutes for work to South America, where he is a carpet tile manufacturer. Ilan’s mother, Ronit Felszer, teaches in one of the Spanish-immersion early childhood classes. At one point, the family pulled Ilan out of Sinai and tried public school, but quickly found it did not suit them. “It’s not just the academics at this school,” Felszer said. “It’s the community.” More than an hour before dismissal time, parents begin showing up at Sinai to chat in a picnic area near the main entrance. At school celebrations and cultural events, parents bring in homemade empanadas, chorizo or arepas. Many school families have bought homes near the school, creating a real community and, buyers say, boosting surrounding real estate values. In the meantime, Sinai is planning for growth, with expansion slated for the early childhood program and middle school, as well as early talk of starting a high school. If they succeed, it would be the only Reform Jewish high school in the United States. “We have this exciting new population,” said Posner, the head of school. “It’s a little bit of a laboratory to see when a new community becomes a part of an existing community.”
Israel established a national cyber bureau to coordinate defense against attacks on the country’s infrastructures and networks, and to boost Israel’s economy by building up its cyber defense industry. In the last few years, the number of Israeli cyber defense companies has ballooned from a few dozen to more than 200, accounting for five to 10 percent of the global cyber security industry. Israel faces roughly 100,000 cyber attacks per day, and during wartime that number jumps to one million, Israel National News reported last summer. “We are in a very good position,” Blumberg told JNS, noting that the expansion of the ATP and the new investments in what will be a center of excellence in cyber security will generate jobs in the south and keep graduating students in the area. “In LA you have Silicon Valley. In Berlin, Silicon Allee. In Be’er Sheva, you will have Silicon Wadi,” said Blumberg. The model – strong synergy and collaboration between a university, government and private developers – is not new, though it is new to Israel. Gabe Goldhirsh, CEO of Columbia, Md.-based Synerjent, LLC, likened the new model to government-industry-academia partnerships available through institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins. He told JNS that he attended the Tel Aviv conference in
hopes of “facilitating the bringing of Israeli technologies proven within the intelligence community in Israel to the U.S. and making them accessible to protect the U.S. government and commercial corporations.” Steve Keef, founder and president of the Fredrick, Md.-based Patriot Technologies, had a similar agenda. The day after the conference ended, he said he was already interviewing Israeli cyber companies to try to identify new and innovative technologies to bring to the U.S. market. Keef has been working with Israelis for 10 years, and said the country is “extremely innovative,” but in a different way than others he works with. He told JNS that Israeli scientists think outside the box, sighting an example of a neurologist who used his research in detecting anomalies in the brain for a new approach to malware detection. Also at the conference was Maryland’s new cyber security director, Jeffrey Wells. Under the leadership of Gov. Martin O’Malley, Maryland is trying to become the epicenter of cyber technology in the U.S. Wells said the “collaboration and foresight that O’Malley had to create a strong and positive relationship with Israel and Israeli companies” would serve Maryland well. He said Maryland is presently focused on identifying traditionally underrepresented populations to engage in the cyber arena.