February 16, 2012

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012 23 SHEVAT, 5772

Chanukah with Chabad Jewish Center

CINCINNATI, OH Candle Lighting Times Shabbat begins Fri 5:59p Shabbat ends Sat 7:00p

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Birth control fights return to campaigns, with Jews in key posts

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Mike Mills, president of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs...

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Threats to cut Egypt assistance could impact Israel, U.S....

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Grandson of Auschwitz survivor takes the ice for...

DINING OUT

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Indubitably delicious Indian cuisine at Baba India

SINGLE ISSUE: $2.00 J E W I S H

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After New Delhi attack, fears that Iran-Israel attacks could escalate

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In Israel, economic concerns mount, but unclear which party will benefit

Community invited to discuss the status of women in Israel and the IDF In a country where five young women just graduated from the Air Force’s prestigious pilots course and a woman presides over the Supreme Court, why were women recently excluded from speaking at a conference about women’s health?

This question—along with others relating to women in the public sphere in Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—will be addressed at the first program in the series “Israel Up to the Minute” on Feb. 21, from 7–8:30 p.m. at the Mayerson JCC. The status of women in Israeli society is a current “hot button” issue in Israel, and Cincinnati Community Shaliach—Emissary from Israel—Yair Cohen will give a briefing on the topic and moderate a discussion.

Young adults ages 22–45 are also invited to join Cohen at 6:30 p.m. for Power Half-Hour: Libations and Conversations, a networking event offered by the Young Adult Division (YAD) of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. They can take part in a kosher, Israeli wine tasting and mingle and network with other Jewish young professionals.

“We’ve planned the Power Half-Hour in conjunction with Israel Up to the Minute because we think it’s important to give Jewish young adults opportunities to learn about modern Israel,” says YAD development officer, Rebecca Hoffheimer.

“This program can be a first step for young adults who are interested in deepening their connections to the State. In fact, it is also being offered as one of a series of pre-trip programs for those considering going on a young adult summer trip to Israel.”

The Israel Up to the Minute series continues on March 20 and April 17, as part of the Mayerson JCC’s Adult Enrichment Program and in conjunction with the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati and the Jewish Community Relations Council.

“In my role of shaliach, I am tasked with bringing Israel to Cincinnati, and I believe that means all of Israel, its challenges along with its successes,” explains Cohen. “The Israel Up to the Minute briefings will delve into the stories behind the current headlines in Israel. We’ll discuss all sides of the issues and probably walk away with very few answers, but at least we’ll be asking the questions.” He concludes, “In my eyes, the in-depth debate we’ll engage in will lead to a more powerful involvement with and understanding of Israel—and that’s what it’s all about.”

Cohen arrived in Cincinnati in September 2011, after being trained by the Jewish Agency for Israel, and is primarily responsible for sustaining and strengthening the multi-faceted connections to Israel in Cincinnati through education, advocacy and travel.

These programs are free and open to the public.

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

NHS welcomes Rabbi Perlman Northern Hills Synagogue— Congregation B’nai Avraham will welcome Shabbat on Friday evening, Feb. 24, with services and a special congregational dinner. Highlighting the dinner will be Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, who will lead a study session and discussion on “New Perspectives on Tzedakah.” Services begin at 6 p.m., with dinner following at 7.

Rabbi Perlman has experience in both the congregational and

organizational worlds, and has written and taught extensively about tzedakah. Currently, he serves as Planned Giving Advisor at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

He will lead study and discussion on two topics of current significance: whether to give money to beggars, and balancing donations to specifically Jewish and to general causes.

Rabbi Perlman graduated from Yale University and was ordained

at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He served as a congregational rabbi in Beersheva, Israel and as Director of Development at NATAL, the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War. Before coming to Cincinnati, Rabbi Perlman was Associate Director of Philanthropic Gifts at the Washington, D.C. Federation.

A vegetarian dinner option will be available, as well as babysitting at no charge.

Wise Temple’s fifth grade retreat On an icy Saturday in January, 52 Wise Temple fifth graders gathered for an overnight retreat full of friends, food and lots of fun. The fifth grade retreat provides the students with a hands-on, interactive Jewish experience through learning, games, prayer, singing and community building activities. Activities during the evening were structured as a mini-“color war,” complete with team cheers and lighthearted

competition. Teams even competed in a cake decorating contest, which of course made a delicious snack!

After watching a movie in pajamas, the students went to bed tired but excited for the morning.

Sunday morning began with a delicious breakfast provided by the Wise Temple Brotherhood. Later, the students visualized themselves and the world five years from now and wrote notes that were placed in

a time capsule. They also recorded messages on digital recorders, which will be a lot of fun to listen to when they open the time capsule during Confirmation in 2017! The retreat was capped off with a presentation about colors from Mad Science. Each student got to make and take home their own “Technicolor Blender,” along with lots of wonderful memories of the time spent together at the retreat.

Sha’arei Torah plans to build in Amberley Village

By Rita Tongpituk Assistant Editor Congregation Sha’arei Torah, currently located at RITSS High School in Losantiville, announces plans to build a new location in Amberley Village.

Norman Frankel, president of Sha’arei Torah, said that based on their first year’s success — given the size of the current membership and growing needs — they are building on the momentum to anchor their congregation as a vital part of the future of Amberley Village and its Jewish community.

The purchase of the shul’s future location at Abrams Acres on Section Road is conditional and dependent upon receipt of necessary permits from Amberley Village. An application to the Amberley Zoning Board has been filed, and they are optimistic about the approval process. Their goal is to build a structure that enhances the neighborhood’s residential nature while preserving the beauty and aesthetics of this wonderful site.

“Purchase of the property has been made possible by the financial backing of a number of indi-

viduals, for this specific use. We could not otherwise acquire such an impressive site at this early stage in our congregational life without the backing of these individuals,” said Frankel. “Our Building Committee, chaired by Howard Mayers, is evaluating the best use of the current structure on the property and appropriate design of a new adjacent structure. They have arranged bank financing.”

Moreover, Frankel said that all financial support is very much appreciated, and he also plans to launch a capital campaign to support this project.

Discussing slavery, human trafficking On Thursday, March 1, at 1 p.m., Luke Bocher, the director of Contemporary Slavery Initiatives at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, will speak on the

issues relating to human trafficking, in Teller Lounge on the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion. Lunch is available with a reservation.

Concerts on Clifton Concerts on Clifton, sponsored

by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, presents the Sounds of Sondheim on Sunday, March 4, at 4 p.m.

The award-winning Stephen Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. His famous scores include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A Little Night

Music and Sweeney Todd. He also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story.

His works will be performed by the College-Institute’s rabbinical students and faculty. The concert will be held in the Scheuer Chapel.

The concert is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the performance.

SHABBAT & HOLIDAY SERVICE LEADER / TORAH READER for Egalitarian Conservative Congregation. We're seeking an enthusiastic and vibrant Service Leader to regularly lead services, including chanting Torah and Haftorah, for Shabbat and holiday services (potentially including High Holiday Services) at Congregation Ohav Shalom in Cincinnati, Ohio, a synagogue of almost 130 years.

This person could be a Rabbi, a Cantor, or a knowledgeable lay person who has an excellent voice and a strong expression of ruach!

CD’s are acceptable with your confidential resume to:

CONGREGATION OHAV SHALOM 8100 CORNELL ROAD, CINCINNATI, OH 45249 Potential candidates may also phone 513-276-6220 for additional inquiry.

JCC Summer Jobs Fair, Camp at the J It’s time to start thinking about summer fun and summer jobs.

Parents across the community can plan their children’s activities from June through August with Camp at the J. Registration is in progress for summer camp programs, and all are open to the public. Camp at the J offers families a full 11 weeks of exciting play and learning programs in a safe and convenient central location. For high school students, ages 16 and older, working at the J is a great way to spend the summer. Teens can learn more about job opportunities at the J at the Summer Jobs Fair on Sunday, Feb. 26, from 1 - 3 p.m.

The JCC Summer Jobs Fair provides information about Camp at the J positions, including camp counselors, specialists, Red Cross

certified lifeguards and swim instructors. Teens ages 16 and older can apply for positions. High school graduates and older can learn about senior counselor and camp specialist jobs. All Camp at the J positions require a 7-week commitment, June 11 – July 27.

Mia Perlman attended last year’s JCC Summer Jobs Fair and plans to be there again this year. “I really liked the JCC Summer Jobs Fair,” Mia said. “That’s how I got connected with the JCC. I was able to meet so many great people and was interviewed right there on the spot.

Later, I even got the job I wanted!”

Camp at the J offers activities for children entering kindergarten through grade 10. Facilities include indoor and outdoor pools, a modern playground, Ga-Ga pit, archery

range, ball field, full-size gym, art room and game room. For older campers, day trips, cook-outs, music and sports – including basketball, soccer, kickball, martial arts and outdoor games – offer nonstop fun! There’s even a Counselor in Training program for kids entering grades 9 and 10, where teens will gain leadership skills and valuable hands-on training as they build the values, knowledge and experience needed to become future camp leaders. An interview is required for acceptance into this program.

Camp at the J is an excellent choice for working families.

Parents may drop off their children as early as 7:30 a.m. and pick up as late as 6 p.m. Camps are offered all summer in 6-week, 3week and 1-week sessions.

Exploring Spirituality Through Movement PROGRAM FACILITATED BY FANCHON SHUR

From our Jewish roots to the fire of life…

How can motion tap into the energy of the Jewish people?

How can breath and word and story and dance connect us to holiness?

How can we unleash the power of the Shekhinah and Jerusalem in our lives?

Come explore the connection between mind, body , and spirit in this interactive afternoon workshop!

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2012 2-4pm @ Congregation B’nai Tzedek 6280 Kugler Mill Road, Cincinnati 45236 $5 - snacks provided

RSVP requested by Feb 21 • 984-3393 or bnai.tzedek@gmail.com

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VOL. 158 • NO. 30 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012 23 SHEVAT 5772 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 5:59 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 7:00 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 ISSAC 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 BARBARA L. MORGENSTERN Senior Writer YEHOSHUA MIZRACHI RITA TONGPITUK Assistant Editors ALEXIA KADISH Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor SONDRA KATKIN Dining Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN ZELL SCHULMAN RABBI AVI SHAFRAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists LEV LOKSHIN JANE KARLSBERG Staff Photographers JOSEPH D. STANGE Production Manager MICHAEL MAZER Sales ERIN WYENANDT Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

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through its Shomrei Ha’aretz (Stewards of the Land) program, which encourages member organizations and their synagogues to be certified in various areas of energy conservation and recycling.

As is undoubtedly the case with many FJMC leaders, Mills’ own involvement started at the local level. In the late 1980s, Mills was asked to join one of the teams of Adath Israel’s Men’s Club members who volunteered to cook breakfast for Adath Israel’s high school students on Sunday mornings. Following that he was asked by then Men’s Club President, David Dombar, to come to one of the Men’s Club leadership meetings. His involvement grew from there, eventually serving as the Men’s Club’s president from 1993 1995. While serving in this role, Mills and Rabbi Wise had a conversation that has served as an inspiration to Mills ever since. Calling Men’s Club and Sisterhood the “Mitzvah Arm” of the synagogue, Rabbi Wise made Men’s Club’s role in the Synagogue and contemporary Judaism relevant to Mills.

During his tenure as president, programming at the Men’s Club received international recognition from FJMC as in 1995, as Adath Israel received two FJMC Torch Awards (awarded for programming excellence) for its Purim Carnival and achievements in increasing its membership. Attending the national conference to accept the award was when Mills first considered that international scope of FJMC beyond Cincinnati. While at the conference, Mills met the FJMC Executive

The American Israelite

Est. 1854

ing Jewish men in Jewish life by strengthening the Jewish home, synagogues and the Conservative Movement as a whole. Today, FJMC fulfills this mission through a wide-range of international and regional programming, generally carried out on the local level by more than 250 men’s auxiliaries and Brotherhood organizations throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America and Asia.

One such program, which began as a response to the declining role of men within synagogue life, is Hearing Men’s Voices. This popular program, which has been successfully integrated into Adath Israel’s Brotherhood programming, involves a series of structured workshops where Brotherhood or Men’s Club members gather to discuss pressing issues facing today’s Jewish males, including the changing relationship with their fathers and their children, the role of G-d and religion in men’s daily lives, and various men’s health issues.

Another popular program is the recently-held World Wide Wrap, a special morning service held at synagogues around the world on the morning of the NFL’s Super Bowl, where the mitzvah of tefillin is both explained and demonstrated. Yet another popular program is FJMC’s Yom HaShoah Yellow Candle Program, through which FJMC and its affiliated Men’s Clubs distribute Yellow Candles to synagogue members to light on Erev Yom HaShoah in order to remember those who perished during the Holocaust. Recently, FJMC has even entered the Green Movement

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Director, Rabbi Charles Simon. Not long after this meeting, Rabbi Simon flew to Cincinnati to meet with Mills and Dombar in order to determine their interest in forming a FJMC region with some other Men’s Clubs in the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana region. As a result of those meetings, the KIO (Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio) region was born and Mills became the region’s first president.

Over the next years, Mills started to become more active with FJMC at the national and international level as well, at first taking on various projects, such as developing a training conference that continues today, and later serving on the FJMC Executive Committee. His progression within FJMC Executive Committee continued for approximately eight years until two years ago when he was selected to become the organization’s first vice president, meaning that he would become president once the then current president’s term expired.

Mills has three primary goals for his term as International President of FMJC. First, he wants to clearly establish a vision for FJMC’s future and also identify and enable those individuals who can help the organization achieve this vision. For Mills, part of developing FJMC’s future vision involves establishing on-going ‘think tanks,’ designed to continually assess how FJMC is meeting these new objectives and identifying new areas of potential growth for the organization. For instance, Mills sees FJMC’s role expanding in the next ten years, from an organization whose primary purpose is to help connect Jewish men with their religion, their synagogue and their community to an organization that also speaks on behalf of and advocates for Conservative Jewish Men. Second, Mills wants to help prepare his successor, First Vice President Myles Simpson, for a smooth transition when he succeeds Mills when he leaves office in July 2013. Finally, he wants to serve as an internal ambassador between the national organization and its regional and local counterparts and, at the same time, continue to strengthen FMJC’s bonds with external organizations such as Women’s League and United Synagogue, to determine how the three organizations can work best as a team.

Although he remains busy at the national and international level, Mills remains an active member of Adath Israel’s Brotherhood as well.

Current Adath Israel Brotherhood President, Hamilton Lempert, said that Mills serves as a valuable resource for him – someone who has served as President of Brotherhood and is always willing to answer his questions and serve as a sounding board for new ideas.

ewish N h-J ew lis

Along with the privilege of having one of its own members serve as the International President of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (“FJMC”), Adath Israel Congregation received an additional honor when Mike Mills took over this post in 2011. Adath Israel also became the temporary home of the President’s Torah Mantle which will be prominently displayed during Adath Israel’s Brotherhood-led Shabbat Services on March 3.

Sharing in Adath Israel’s honor will be Synagogue Emanu-El, in Charleston, S.C., where Mills also maintains a residence, which will house the Mantle from the summer of 2012 through July 2013.

The Torah Mantle is also known as “Chellie’s Torah Cover” in honor of its creator, Rochelle J. Davidoff, wife of past International President Stephen Davidoff. Presented to FJMC on July 16, 1997, the needle point Mantle both symbolized the then current status of FJMC and also paid respect to the organization’s, and Judaism’s, past and future. Surrounding FJMC’s historic logo in the center of the Mantle are 18n Kippot, each of which contains within it the letters FJMC. Thirteen of the Kippot represent the 13 FJMC regions in existence at the time (that number has now grown to 17, including an international region) with one additional Kippah representing regions that would be added in the future.

Also represented on the Mantle is Israel (the blue and white Kippah), the United States (the red, white and blue Kippah) and Canada (the red and white Kippah). Finally, a yellow and black Kippah honors the victims of the Shoah. Adath Israel’s Rabbi Irvin Wise is pleased that rather than honoring the International President with a gavel or some other secular object, FJMC chose to honor the International President with the Mantle, an object that is so entwined with the heart of the Conservative Movement, the Torah. Rabbi Wise also said that the Mantle serves as a reminder that we are part of a traditional, Torahcentered modern-progressive movement; with the Mantle’s contemporary design symbolizing the modernity of the Conservative Movement and the Torah itself serving as a symbol of our religion’s history and tradition.

FJMC’s roots date to the mid1920s, when Rabbi Samuel M. Cohen, who was serving as the Director of the United Synagogues of America, first conceived of the idea to establish a national group comprised of the leaders of existing Men’s Clubs throughout the Conservative Movement. The overall focus of the group was, and remains today, building a network of Men’s Clubs dedicated to involv-

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Mike Mills, president of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, leads Shabbat services

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Shalom Family’s Wild West Purim Fest is sure to be a big hit Calling all little cowpokes… it’s time to round up your posse and get ready for a rootin’, tootin’ good time when Shalom Family, an initiative of The Mayerson Foundation, and the Mayerson JCC present the Wild West Purim Fest, a free event for families featuring the famous Pickled Brothers in a Wild West Stage Show sure to thrill and amaze audiences young and old. Plus, guests will be treated to a traditional Purim carnival with a western twist, mechanical bull rides just for kids, old-fashioned family photos, prizes galore and of course, hamentaschen, on Sunday, March 4, from 3-5 p.m. at the Mayerson JCC. For the fourth year in a row Shalom Family and the Mayerson JCC have partnered up to put on a community-wide Purim party with all the trimmings! This afternoon of family-friendly fun is completely free and will feature the Pickled Brothers, a lively duo whose performance harkens back to a time when similar sideshow acts worked their way through the western frontier, delighting children and grownups alike. Featured on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Animal Planet, the Discovery Channel and the Guinness Book of World Records, these hilarious brothers will attempt some of the most hazardous feats, all with a sense of fun as they swallow swords, eat fire, lay on a bed of nails with 1,000 pounds of weight on top of them and perform dozens of other fascinating and death defying acts sure to delight participants of all ages!

Right before the main act goes on stage, the JCCilly Players will warm up the audience with a special Wild West-style reenactment of the Purim story. And immediately following the Pickled Brothers’ performance, guests are invited to take

“Our annual Purim event has become one of our most popular programs of the year.”

Julie Robenson part in The Little Pardner Purim Carnival which will include Wild West-inspired games and prizes as well as a kid-friendly mechanical bull ride, old-fashioned family portraits and lots of other fun surprises.

In the spirit of the holiday, young participants are encouraged to dress up, whether they wish to come clad

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in Western wear, as a character from the story of Purim, or in whatever costume they choose.

“Our annual Purim event has become one of our most popular programs of the year,” says Julie Robenson, Shalom Family’s event coordinator. “From an engaging stage show to a traditional Purim carnival with a twist, this event offers lots of games, prizes and activities for the little ones, plus plenty of time for parents to visit together in a family-friendly atmosphere!”

The event is free with advance reservations and open to young families with children 12 and under.

Siblings and grandparents are welcome. The first 200 to RSVP will receive a special gift for each child under 12 years old in their party.

Past Purim parties have included the Purim Bash, Hamentaschen Hip Hop and Hocus Pocus Purim.

In addition, Shalom Family puts on some of the biggest events for young families in the Jewish community all throughout the year.

Some have included: Dream JobA-Rama Kids’ Career Fair, the Potato Pancake Arty Party, Circus Sundae, Superhero Hanukkah, the Pirate and Princess Party, Galaxy Glo-Glo and so much more!

Shalom Family events are always FREE and offer a great way for parents and children to spend quality time together. And the best part

is, there are plenty of opportunities for grownups to socialize and get to know one another while their kids work the wiggles out in a fun and safe environment!

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German city of Wurzburg brings back its long-lost Jews

By Hillel Kuttler Jewish Telegraphic Agency BALTIMORE (JTA) — John Schwabacher was 12 years old when World War II ended.

He and his brothers, Michael and Thomas, emerged from hiding in their hometown of Wurzburg, Germany and joined their father in San Francisco. Their grandmother and countless other relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, and their mother and grandfather died just prior to being deported.

When Schwabacher would travel overseas on business for the semiconductor equipment company he founded, he often would detour to visit his hometown. His most recent visit was a decade ago, for the birthday party of a woman who helped save him and his brothers.

This April, Schwabacher, now 79 and retired, will bring his family back to the northern Bavarian city, including his brother Michael

Courtesy of John Schwabacher

John Schwabacher memorialized his grandmother with this plaque, or stolperstein, he sponsored in the German town of Wurzburg. Schwabacjer will show it to his family on a visit to his family on a visit to the city in April.

(Thomas is deceased). Wurzburg’s mayor is inviting Jewish natives to return with their spouses as honored guests for a weeklong visit, airfare and lodging included.

Approximately 25 couples from

Israel, the United States, Argentina and England have registered, and the city is seeking others.

Wurzburg’s outstretched hand is meaningful to Schwabacher, “an acknowledgement that the Jews accomplished a lot in Germany, and that [Germany is] overcoming the reluctance to admit that the Jews contributed a lot,” he told JTA. “I’m going because it’s an official recognition of the Jews.”

Rotraud Reis, director of the city’s Johana Stahl Center for Jewish History and Culture in Lower Franconia, called Wurzburg’s sponsorship long overdue, especially with traveling difficult now for aged Holocaust survivors.

“It’s important for them to see how the city tries to deal with this dark period of its history, and it’s important that the city says, ‘We know what happened in the Nazi period, that people left and were murdered,’ ” she said. “And it’s an

important gesture to have them here as guests of the city.”

Other German cities have hosted such visits over the years, but this is a first for Wurzburg.

The April 16-23 program will include an opening reception at the town hall; meetings with present-day residents at the Jewish community building; a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in the synagogue, which in 2006 was incorporated into the community building; ceremonies dedicating plaques, known in German as “stolpersteine” (stumbling stones), in the sidewalks near buildings where Jews resided before they were deported; and trips to cemeteries where visitors’ relatives are buried.

New York’s Fred Zeilberger, 82, will be attending to dedicate a stolperstein in memory of his grandmother, Lina Mimetz, who last lived in a nursing home on the site of the contemporary Jewish community building. After surviv-

ing the Jungferhof, Kaiserwald and Stutthof concentration camps, Zeilberger returned to Wurzburg and for two years lived in the nursing home with other survivors before leaving for America.

Fewer than 1,100 Jews now live in Wurzburg, nearly all recent arrivals from the former Soviet Union. Before World War II, approximately 8,000 Jews lived in Germany’s lower Franconia region, about 2,000 of them in Wurzburg, Ries said.

Josef Schuster, who practices internal medicine in the city and whose parents were from Germany, explained that Mayor Georg Rosenthal revived earlier, aborted initiatives to host former Jewish residents. Rosenthal, who is not Jewish, appreciates Jewish history and is committed to its preservation, said Schuster, who serves as vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

WURZBURG on page 19

Birth control fights return to campaigns, with Jews in key posts

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — Birth control is rapidly gaining steam as an election-year wedge issue, with Jewish advocates lobbying out front and behind the scenes in what is shaping up as a clash between calls for individual freedom and religious liberty.

Several Jewish groups and lawmakers played a behind-the-scenes role in the latest flashpoint: last month’s order by the Obama administration requiring most religious institutions — other than houses of worship — to include contraceptives in health care coverage. The order has been strongly

criticized by the Republican presidential front-runners, who portray it as proof that the Obama administration is hostile to religious communities.

Even before the U.S. Health Department issued its ruling, the Republican presidential primary battle had helped put the contraception debate back on the campaign agenda. Taking the fight in the other direction, the GOP candidates argued in effect that states should have the right to ban birth control.

During one debate, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum argued that the U.S. Supreme Court wrongly decided the landmark 1963 Griswold v. Connecticut case that blocked states from criminaliz-

ing the use of birth control by a married couple and cemented the constitutional right to privacy.

Romney, Santorum and Newt Gingrich all have voiced support for the so-called Personhood Amendment, a measure that defines a fertilized egg as a human being and, advocates on both sides say, could be interpreted to ban some forms of birth control.

While recent events have thrust the issue back into the national limelight, Jewish groups on both sides say the issue never really went away.

It’s not just that the role of government in making birth control available is inextricably wrapped into abortion, its better-publicized

sister when it comes to reproductive controversies. The issue also goes to the core of an American argument that has endured for decades over which entity in a democracy is more entitled to religious freedoms, the individual or the health care provider.

The division over who is preeminent under the law, a community and its institutions or the individual, splits the Jewish community.

Orthodox and more liberal groups took opposite sides on last month’s Health Department order requiring all religious institutions except for houses of worship to include contraceptives in health care coverage.

“The larger issue here is the issue of the relationship between

religious employers and employees and religious providers and patients, and the rights of each,” said Abba Cohen, the Washington director of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox umbrella group.

If the issue is playing out more prominently in the public eye, it is because the actors in the churchstate separation controversy are seizing the political moment of an election season defined increasingly by cultural divisions between left and right, said Sammie Moshenberg, the director of the National Council for Jewish Women’s Washington office.

BIRTH CONTROL on page 19

For Orthodox musicians, alternatives to the Friday night concert abound

By Lisa Alcalay Klug Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES (JTA) — With his yarmulke, ritual fringes and lyrics occasionally borrowed from ancient texts, Grammy-nominated reggae star Matisyahu may be the most publicly Jewish performer in the mainstream music scene. But he’s not the only one.

Growing ranks of Jewishly committed performers are finding success on the national stage. Located on both coasts, these independent artists share more with Matisyahu than keeping the Sabbath. They, too, are attracting audiences with compositions informed by their spiritual lives: building connection, meaning and hope.

“The fuel that keeps us going is the feedback we get all the time that says, ‘Your music inspires

me,’” says Yehuda Solomon, who with his band Moshav has opened repeatedly for Matisyahu. “People tell us all the time, ‘I don’t listen to Jewish music, but you guys break all the stereotypes.’ ” Solomon is the chazan, or cantor, for the Orthodox Happy Minyan in Los Angeles, dedicated to the lively, liturgical compositions of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. As Moshav’s lead vocalist, Solomon performs original world music, folk and rock in Hebrew and English, as well as “Shlomo tunes.”

For mainstream musicians hoping to make it big, Friday-night gigs help build successful careers.

Without that option, licensing material and composing produce vital income. Some artists moonlight behind the scenes, which led to a Grammy Award for guitarist C

Lanzbom of Pomona, N.Y. Jewish artists Pink and Barbra Streisand are among the nominees at this year’s Grammy Awards ceremony.

Although Lanzbom loves performing, he won the Grammy last year for mixing — for Pete Seeger and the Rivertown Kids’ best children’s musical album, “Tomorrow’s Children.”

Lanzbom, the son of Holocaust survivors, began his foray into music at age 7. Like Solomon, he was heavily influenced by Carlebach.

Although Carlebach was never as mainstream as Matisyahu, his iconic singing career spanned more than 40 years. Constantly touring, Carlebach performed at Carnegie Hall, the Berkeley Folk Festival and a range of international venues, from coffeehouses to synagogue

basements. It was Carlebach who paid for Lanzbom’s first flight to Israel and introduced him to meaningful religious practice.

When Carlebach died in 1994 from a heart attack aboard an airplane, Lanzbom dedicated his first solo album to him, covering his songs. The album, “Beyond This World,” propelled Lanzbom into the Jewish market.

“It might look like I chose to limit myself,” he says, “but it also gave me an identity.”

Lanzbom works with some household names, recently mixing a Seeger track featuring Bruce Springsteen. But he is best known to Jewish audiences as part of the rock-folk band Soulfarm, which he co-founded with Solomon’s brother, Noah, a gifted vocalist and mandolin player. Together they record original compositions, Carlebach

songs and Breslov Chasidic tunes.

The Solomons grew up in Israel next door to Carlebach on the moshav Mevo Modi’im. The religious, musical village Carlebach founded in 1976 has spawned numerous bands, including Moshav, which performs worldwide on Jewish and mainstream stages. Its next album, “Light the Way,” debuts this spring.

Even when the music of these indie artists boasts appeal universally, the spiritual underpinnings often resonate as uniquely Jewish.

Perhaps the most extreme example is the Matisyahu hit “One Day,” which speaks of a messianic era.

NBC aired the song in promos for its Winter Olympics coverage.

Highlights from his forthcoming album recently performed in San Francisco suggest more inspirational material ahead.

NATIONAL • 7

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Threats to cut Egypt assistance could The Peril of Precedent, Israel and the Peace Talks impact Israel, U.S. influence in Mideast

By Dovid Efune JointMedia News Service A day after recent low level peace talks collapsed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Arab world through his official Facebook page. Responding to questions from the Palestinian Authority-linked Ma’an News Agency, he declared that he was ready to “go to Ramallah” for talks with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas blamed Israel for the PA withdrawal from the talks. Saying, according to the Associated Press, that Israel failed to present detailed proposals for borders and security requested by international mediators. Netanyahu responded by pointing out that the PA representatives “refused to even discuss” Israeli security needs. In the past, this pattern has been fairly consistent; the PA, or previously the PLO, agrees to talks and inevitably withdraws at some point or other, pointing fingers at the Israelis. The Israelis refer to Arab entrenchment and almost always call for a continuation of “peace talks.”

In Prime Minister Netanyahu’s now famous speech to Congress last year, which followed the PA’s aggressive campaign to gain legitimacy for its continued efforts to attack Israel diplomatically, he passionately proclaimed, “Now

National Briefs Mormon church apologizes for proxy baptism of Wiesenthal’s parents (JTA) — The Mormon church has apologized for the posthumous baptism of the parents of Simon Wiesenthal.

A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last month submitted the names of Wiesenthal’s parents for posthumous baptism, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor who died in 2005; his mother was killed in the Nazi death camp Belzec in 1942.

Posthumous baptism, which is done by proxy, is also known as “baptism for the dead.” It allows members of the church to stand in for the deceased to offer them a chance to join the church in the afterlife.

In 2010, the church agreed after meetings with Jewish leaders to halt the proxy baptisms of

again I want to make this clear.

Israel is prepared to sit down today and negotiate peace with the Palestinian Authority.”

This repeated cycle might cause one to wonder, “Does Israel actually have a ‘red line’?”

Meaning, is there anything that the Arabs could do that would prompt Israel to demand the situation be remedied before agreeing to, or calling for, a return to discussions?

An entire generation of Palestinians has been fed a steady diet of vile hate, and it is clear that the incitement and education of Arab children to kill Jews precludes the possibility of establishing any form of peaceful living arrangement between Arabs and Israelis. Fatah TV recently broadcast a message saying that “Our children... were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine, and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood.” The PA TV program, For You, hosted a congratulatory ceremony for the convicted Fogel family murderers, who slaughtered an Israeli family in 2011, including a 4month-old baby girl.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response was conciliatory in tone, when the following was posted on his Twitter feed: “We hope the Palestinian Authority decides to resume the talks and back away from terror and glorification of killers.”

Holocaust victims unless the names were submitted by their direct ancestors.

The church said Monday in a statement that it “sincerely regret[s] that the actions of an individual member ... led to the inappropriate submission of these names,” which were “clearly against the policy of the church,” the newspaper reported.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, participated in many of the high-level meetings between Jewish leaders and Mormon officials.

“We are outraged that such insensitive actions continue in the Mormon Temples,” he said in a statement on the organization’s website. “Such actions make a mockery of the many meetings with the top leadership of the Mormon Church dating back to 1995 that focused on the unwanted and unwarranted posthumous baptisms of Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”

Meanwhile, some members of the church have submitted the name of Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel for proxy baptism, who is still living, the Huffington Post reported.

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — The future of a key pillar of Israeli security could rest with the fate of a few dozen pro-democracy activists in Egypt.

After Egyptian authorities filed charges on Feb. 6 against 43 American and other foreign prodemocracy activists who worked in the country, leading members of Congress issued stern warnings about a possible cutoff in U.S. aid to Egypt. If that aid disappears, it could have significant implications for Israel-Egypt relations and U.S. influence in the region — the aid has been a crucial moderating lever keeping the peace between Israel and Egypt for more than three decades.

While the congressional threats to cut assistance to Egypt are just threats for now, the increasingly stern warnings from Washington underscore a deterioration in the U.S.-Egypt relationship amid the chaos of postMubarak Egypt.

The most potent threat to Egyptian assistance came from Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the chairwoman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

“The harassment of Americans who are in Egypt trying to help

Courtesy of Gigi Ibrahim via CC

Protesters in the aftermath of deadly riots march in Cairo on Feb. 3, 2012. The increasing chaos in Egypt, including the recent arrest of U.S. democracy activists, has raised questions about how it factors into U.S. and Israel security considerations in the region.

build their democracy is unacceptable,” Granger said last week after the charges were filed in Egypt against 16 U.S. citizens, including Sam LaHood, the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. At least six of the Americans remain in Egypt and are barred from leaving the country, The New York Times reported.

“Not one more dollar should flow to the government of Egypt until the secretary of state can assure the American people that this issue is resolved,” Granger said.

U.S. officials have been scrambling to figure out who to deal with as Egypt has descended into disarray, with a soccer riot Feb. 1 devolving into a free-for-all that left at least 74 people dead.

Administration officials have reached out to the Egyptian military government, to secular parties and to the Islamists who won the recent parliamentary elections.

But a year after Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt’s future is still very much uncertain.

THREATS on page 20

8 • NATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Ahead of March meetings, Israel and the U.S. close ranks on Iran

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s one of those coincidences too tempting to believe it is a coincidence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is delivering a speech to AIPAC about what should happen next with Iran and likely meeting with President Obama to discuss Iran options on the same day that the International Atomic Energy Agency convenes in Vienna to consider a report about Iran.

Netanyahu’s office confirmed over the weekend that he would address the American Israel Public Affairs policy conference on March 5, and sources say a meeting with Obama is likely. The IAEA board is meeting the same day — hours before the speech — to consider its

Courtesy of Avi Ohayon/GPO/FLASH90

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama, shown at a September 2011 meeting at the United Nations in New York, are likely to meet again in Washington at the beginning of March, when decisions on Iran will be coming to a head.

inspectors’ latest Iran report. The most recent such report came closer than ever to indicting the Iranian regime for making weapons, and it helped spur stronger international

sanctions against Tehran.

It is a coincidence, though.

Attendance by Israeli prime ministers at the annual AIPAC policy conference, which these days

draws nearly 10,000 people, is generally a must. The IAEA board, although it meets twice yearly, does not set a date until several months in advance.

The confluence of events, however coincidental, underscores how decision-making on Iran is drawing closer for all the parties, and could come to a head if not by March, then before the year ends, according to recent media reports.

“Israel is in a delicate place,” Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told a small group of reporters on Tuesday in Washington, where he is meeting officials under the auspices of The Israel Project. “It has committed itself to a military engagement” unless Iran retreats from its suspected nuclear program, he said.

“I don't see how we can skip that

after August,” Rabi added, noting that the fall is the approximate deadline that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has set before Iran’s program becomes too intractable to curtail through a military strike.

There are signs that the Obama and Netanyahu governments, after a period of uncertainty, have begun to coordinate their message on Iran.

Rabi, who also chairs Tel Aviv University’s Middle East history department, said he had heard that the recent visit to Israel by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military joint chiefs of staff, “made things clearer.”

Previously there had been reported tensions between the two countries over Israel’s reported refusal to promise advance warning to the United States of an Iran strike.

MEETINGS on page 21

After string of foiled plots, concerns mount over Iranian-backed terror

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — When America’s top intelligence official said that Iran’s regime is considering attacks on U.S. soil, he cited a single incident and qualified the assessment with a “probably.”

But intelligence and law enforcement experts say the Jan. 31 warning by the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, was likely based on more than the evidence he cited.

“I would be surprised to learn a statement like that was not backed up by intelligence,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The question of whether Iran will respond to escalating international pressure over its nuclear program

with terrorist attacks on overseas targets is of particular concern to Jewish communities around the world.

While there has been intense speculation over how Iran would respond to a possible Israeli or American strike against its nuclear facilities, experts already are citing with concern a series of recent foiled plots, allegedly connected to Iran or its proxies, against Jewish and nonJewish targets.

In his written unclassified testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper cited only the alleged plot revealed in October to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir at the Cafe Milano, a popular Georgetown hangout for the powerful and influential. The attack allegedly had the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The 2011 plot to assassinate the

Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,” Clapper wrote.

Matthew Levitt, a former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury under George W. Bush, said Clapper’s inclusion of Khamenei in his warning, even with the “probably” qualification, was no accident.

“People are careful to say what they mean, and nothing more,” he said of the intelligence community.

“As soon as I read that I said, Uh-oh, that’s not just a statement to say the threat to the ambassador was real, [Khamenei] was in there to say it went to the top.”

Sources close to law enforcement say there is no specific threat of an attack, although the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in recent weeks have intensified their monitoring of possible threats.

ABC News cited an Israeli internal security document in reporting Feb. 3 that Jewish and Israeli institutions in the Unites States are on high alert over concerns that they will be targeted by Iran or its proxy. In a letter, the head of security for the Israeli consul general for the Mid-Atlantic states, according to ABC, wrote that the security threat has increased on “guarded sites” such as Israeli embassies and consulates, and “soft sites” such as synagogues, as well as Jewish schools, restaurants and Jewish community centers.

ABC reported that local and regional law enforcement and intelligence officials in U.S. and Canadian

cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Toronto have increased security at Israeli and Jewish institutions, and that federal officials also have increased vigilance in looking for imminent attacks.

“In the past few weeks, there has been an escalation in threats against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,” ABC quoted a U.S. regional intelligence document as saying.

“Open source has reported many demonstrations against Israel are expected to be concentrated on Israeli embassies and consulates.

Such demonstrations have occurred internationally as well as domestically. These demonstrations could potentially turn violent at local synagogues, restaurants, the Israeli Embassy and other Israeli sites.”

TERROR on page 20

After New Delhi attack, fears that Iran-Israel attacks could escalate

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — Iran and Israel appear to be locked in an assassination contest.

Israeli leaders blamed Iran for two assassination attempts late Sunday and early Monday — in Tbilisi, Georgia, and in New Delhi, India. The bomb in Tbilisi was disabled before it could be activated, and the attack in India wounded the wife of an Israeli diplomat and her driver.

The attacks follow a number of reported attempts on Israeli and Jewish targets, most recently in Azerbaijan and Thailand. They also follow a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and military figures associated with Iran — most recently on Jan. 11. Iran has blamed Israel for being behind

those attacks. In keeping with Israeli policy on such issues, Israeli officials have declined to comment.

Experts warn that the attacks could get worse.

“It’s clear we’re already in a situation of escalation, but what’s still not clear is how far that’s going to go,” said Michael Adler, an expert on Iran at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

If Iran manages to kill Israelis, it could invite an escalated response from Israel.

“We don’t need a war of words to descend into a war of assassinations to descend into something much bigger,” said Joel Rubin, director of government affairs at the Ploughshares Fund, which supports projects aimed at advancing peace.

After the bombing in India on Monday and the foiled attack in Georgia, Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu fingered Iran.

“Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” he said. “The government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism. We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”

On Tuesday, an Iranian national was injured by bombs that exploded in a Bangkok house he shared with two other non-Thais. Unnamed Israeli officials said the bombs were being prepared for a large-scale attack against an Israeli target.

“The attempted attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies are continuing to perpetrate terrorism,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said

in a statement from Singapore.

“The recent attacks are yet another example of this.”

Iran’s ambassador to New Delhi, Mehdi Nabizadeh, rejected Netanyahu’s accusations about the Indian and Georgian attempts, calling them “untrue and sheer lies, like previous times,” Reuters reported.

Nabizadeh also condemned the attack.

But on Feb. 3, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country is prepared to assist those who would “confront” Israel and the United States.

“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help,” he said in a rare Friday sermon. “We have no fear expressing this.”

The attacks in Georgia and New Delhi took place the day after the

fourth anniversary of the car bombing in Syria that killed Imad Mughniyeh, the operations chief for Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanon proxy.

At the time, Hezbollah leaders said they would avenge the killing at a time and place of their choosing.

That was widely seen at the time as a signal that Hezbollah was ending its unofficial moratorium on attacking Israelis and Jews outside the Middle East that had been in place since the mid-1990s.

In 1994, an Iranian-sponsored bombing thought to have been carried out by Hezbollah operatives leveled the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring more than 300. A bombing attack on that city’s Israeli Embassy two years earlier had left 29 dead.

ATTACKS on page 21

NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL • 9

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Grandson of Auschwitz Ahead of French elections, survivor takes the ice Sarkozy makes pitch to Jews for Germany

By Devorah Lauter Jewish Telegraphic Agency

By Jason Miller Jewish Telegraphic Agency WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich.

(JTA) — More than 65 years ago Kurt Kaufmann was liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

This weekend his U.S.-born grandson, Evan Kaufmann, is taking the ice for the German national hockey team.

After finishing a successful college hockey career at the University of Minnesota, Kaufmann tried out for several professional hockey clubs in the United States before being advised by his agent that his best option was to play for a German team in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. Thanks to his late grandfather’s German roots, Kaufmann received German citizenship quickly and, together with his wife Danielle, relocated to Dusseldorf in 2008. This weekend, the 28-year-old forward will represent the German national team in the Minsk Cup, a four-nation tournament. He’ll also compete with the national team in May’s world championships, and hopes to have a chance to make the German Olympic squad that will compete in the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia.

During his first years playing for the DEG Metro Stars, Kaufmann kept his Judaism to himself and didn’t tell his teammates that he was the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor or that his great-grandparents perished in the Holocaust.

International Briefs Son of Shoah survivors to challenge Chavez (JTA) — Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, will challenge President Hugo Chavez in upcoming elections.

Capriles, 39, governor of the Miranda state, won a primary Sunday with 61 percent of the vote to become the unity candidate against Chavez, who has been in office for 13 years. Some 3 million voters participated in the country’s first-ever primary ahead of the Oct. 7 election.

Though Capriles’ maternal grandmother is Jewish, he was raised Catholic and he describes himself as a fervent Catholic.

“Because of my mother and grandmother, for Jews I’m Jewish, but I’m Catholic,”

Courtesy of Eishockey Magazin

Evan Kaufmann, a U.S.-born hockey player whose greatgrandparents were killed in the Holocaust, is now representing the German national team.

“At first I was pretty uncomfortable expressing that I was Jewish and speaking about my family’s background, but that was true even in America. It’s not something in the hockey world that is really talked about,” Kaufmann told JTA. “It’s not something I was comfortable sharing with most people. But I’ve found that the younger generation here in Germany is open to differences and from my experience they’ve all been interested in knowing more about being Jewish, including the holidays and traditions.”

GRANDSON on page 22 Capriles told JTA last year in an interview.

Capriles has been the target of anti-Semitic attacks. In 2009, progovernment supporters dressed in red surrounded the Governor’s House and painted swastikas on the yellow outer walls. During the governor’s race in 2008, government-aligned media described Capriles as a member of the “Jewish-Zionist bourgeoisie” and “genetically fascist.”

Foundation will aid UK Holocaust survivors (JTA) — A new grant-giving foundation will provide one-time grants to help improve the quality of life for Holocaust survivors living in the United Kingdom.

The Six Point Foundation said it has $6.3 million to assist victims of Nazi persecution or refugees, fugitives or emigrants from Nazi Germany or Nazioccupied territories.

Grants could be for purposes including medical costs, travel costs, special equipment including medical beds and stairlifts, and heating costs.

PARIS (JTA) — Trailing in the polls and with elections just 10 weeks away, French President Nicolas Sarkozy went to one of his most reliable bases of support — French Jews — to drum up enthusiasm.

On the morning of Feb. 8, Sarkozy met at Elysees Palace with released Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who holds dual French-Israeli citizenship. And later that day, the president addressed the annual dinner of the main French Jewish umbrella organization, the CRIF. “France won’t compromise on Israel’s security because Israel is a miracle,” Sarkozy said. “France will never accept the questioning of Israel’s security.”

But with the French economy stumbling and some Jews less than thrilled with Sarkozy’s record on Middle East-related issues, he may not find the same kind of backing in the community as he did when he won the last French presidential election in 2007.

“A lot of Jews who voted for him are disappointed today,” said Ralph Bohbot, who was one of 1,000 Jewish community members at the CRIF dinner and identified himself as a member of the Alliance Centriste political party. “He didn’t know how to handle the economic crisis.”

Courtesy of Erez Lichtfeld courtesy of CRIF

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, with CRIF President Richard Prasquier, center, and the Socialist Party front-runner for the French presidency, Francois Hollande, at the CRIF dinner, Feb. 8, 2012.

Sarkozy has not officially declared himself a candidate in the elections, which has its first round of voting set for April 22. Polls show him trailing the Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande, by 32 percent to 25 percent. Hollande also was in attendance at the CRIF dinner. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right, anti-immigrant National Front, is polling at approximately 15 percent.

Despite the decline in support for the president among Jews, Sarkozy’s conservative Union for a Popular Movement party still remains far more popular among the country’s 600,000 Jews than

among the general French population of 60 million.

Jerome Fourquet, analyst for the French Ifop polling center, says that 40 percent of Jewish voters feel “close to” the UMP, versus just 26 percent for the French in general.

Another 40 percent of French Jews are associated with the political left, compared with 48 percent in the general population.

“A part of the Jewish community is pretty worried about its security, and that’s a platform that is pretty favorable to the right,” Fourquet said.

SARKOZY on page 22

10 • ISRAEL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Is Hamas trying to change its stripes? In Israel, economic concerns mount, but unclear which party will benefit

By Mati Wagner Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — Is Hamas trying to change its stripes?

Terrorist attacks against Israelis appear to be on pause, and rocket fire from Gaza is down significantly. The Hamas leader in Damascus, Khaled Meshaal, is trying to distance himself from the Assad regime and align Hamas with the forces of the Arab Spring.

Hamas’ parent organization in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, has entered mainstream politics in Cairo, and U.S. officials have met with Brotherhood leaders.

And this week in Doha, Qatar, Meshaal and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced plans for a new unity government that will include both Hamas and Fatah, Abbas’ faction.

Hamas is clearly undergoing a “reorientation” as a result of geopolitical changes in the region, said Shlomo Brom, director of the program on Israeli-Palestinian relations at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

“Hamas is moving away from Syria and Iran, and to a certain degree from Hezbollah, and is repositioning itself in line with the popular movements behind the Arab Spring and the democratization process, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia,” Brom said. “A

By Mati Wagner Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Courtesy of Mohammed Al-Ostaz / Flash 90 /JTA

Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinians’ prime minister in the Gaza Strip, meeting with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in the Bahraini capital of Manama, Feb. 4, 2012.

renewed push for reconciliation with Fatah should be seen as part of this reorientation.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t biting.

In a statement released in response to the announcement in Doha, Netanyahu suggested that the planned Palestinian unity government is more about Abbas joining the extremists than Hamas joining the moderates in the Palestinian Authority.

“If Abbas moves to implement what was signed today in Doha, he will abandon the path of peace and join forces with the enemies of peace,” Netanyahu said in the statement. “President Abbas, you can’t have it both ways. It’s either

a pact with Hamas or peace with Israel. It’s one or the other.”

An Israeli official who insisted on anonymity said the international community must make clear to Abbas that joining forces with Hamas — which the United States, Israel and many European countries consider a terrorist organization — is a step away from Israeli-Palestinian peace.

“Our recommendation to the international community is that if they want peace, they won’t achieve it by normalizing relations with Hamas,” the official said. “That just pushes peace farther away.”

HAMAS on page 22

Ayelet Galena, Bill Mardo and Jack Zarrow

By Alan D. Abbey Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Eulogizer highlights the life accomplishments of famous and not-sofamous Jews who have passed away recently.

Ayelet Galena, 2, plight moved thousands Ayelet Galena, the 2-year-old who suffered from a rare bone disease and whose plight became known to thousands through blog posts and community activities in New York and elsewhere, died Jan. 31.

Galena’s parents, Seth and Hindy Poupko Galena, worked through their own emotions and raised funds and awareness about Ayelet’s illness on a blog.

Gabrielle Birkner of the Forward wrote: “Many of the thousands of those mourning Ayelet today knew her only through the Tumblr blog where her parents chronicled, with remarkable compassion, eloquence and humor, the toddler’s courageous fight.

“As the months passed, and Ayelet’s condition grew worse, the images provided an unflinching look at the little girl’s reality: There were

myriad tubes and machines connected to Ayelet’s swollen body and bald head (which was always lovingly covered with a floral hat or headband).”

Bill Mardo, 89, sportswriter who pushed for integrating baseball Bill Mardo, a longtime sportswriter for The Daily Worker and one of the leading voices for integrating baseball in the 1940s, died Jan. 20 at 89.

Mardo’s efforts, along with other Jewish colleagues at the newspaper, wrote columns and articles over a course of years that many have credited with creating the moral case for opening Major League Baseball to African Americans. In the new book “Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball,” Temple University’s Rebecca Alpert wrote that Mardo initiated the campaign to convince Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey to integrate the team.

After Jackie Robinson became Major League Baseball’s first black player, he and Mardo became friends.

Mardo was born William Bloom in Manhattan and grew up in foster families in Brooklyn. His interest in left-wing politics began

when he read The Daily Worker as a teenager and then joined the Communist Party. He changed his name to Mardo as a tribute to his sisters Marion and Doris. Mardo joined The Daily Worker in 1942.

Jack Zarrow, 86, Oklahoma oil exec and philanthropist Jack Zarrow, a Tulsa, Okla., oil and gas supply company CEO and philanthropist whose foundation supported education, mental health and Jewish charities, died Feb. 2 at 86.

Zarrow was on the boards of the University of Tulsa and Gilcrease Museum. The foundation established professorships at the Mayo Clinic, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas, and donates to Jewish causes in the United States and Israel, including the Jewish Federation of Tulsa and the Tulsa Jewish Retirement & Health Care Center.

“Jack was a quiet, unassuming guy who for all his success was very receptive and approachable and who always honored his roots,” said David Bernstein, past executive director of the Tulsa Jewish Federation. “The Jewish community takes a lot of pride in the fact that Jack was an active member and represented us so well to the total community.”

JERUSALEM (JTA) – “It’s the economy stupid” was how American political strategist James Carville once summed up the defining issue in U.S. presidential elections.

But in Israel, besieged by enemy nations and locked into an ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, security has traditionally trumped all other political agendas. Until now.

In part because of a sharp decrease in West Bank terrorism and the relative quiet in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, Israelis have begun to turn their attention from security concerns to economic ones. Some believe this may help Labor and Meretz, parties that have failed to garner wide support for their dovish positions on security matters but may have more appeal when it comes to socioeconomic issues.

“This is the first time since I began writing 23 years ago that there is a chance this election will not be about hawks and doves but about social justice and how the fiscal budget should be split up,” said Daniel Ben-Simon, a former journalist and parliamentarian from the Labor Party.

His party head, Shelly Yachimovich, has been articulating a social democratic economic policy that aspires to promote more social justice and equality and less “piggish capitalism.”

Demonstrations last summer that protested exorbitant housing prices, high costs for basic necessities and growing income inequality managed to mobilize an unprece-

Israel Briefs Gun is only way to fight Israel, Hamas head says JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said in Iran that armed resistance is the only way to fight against Israel.

The “gun is our only response to the Zionist regime,” Haniyeh said Monday in Tehran, according to the semi-official Iranian Fars news agency.

“In time, we have come to understand that we can obtain our goals only through fighting and armed resistance, and no compromise should be made with the

dented number of Israelis. Called the J14 Movement (after the July 14 date it began), the protest drew more than 400,000 Israelis into the streets — more than the number who attended the 1982 rally organized by Peace Now to protest Israel’s role in the Sabra-Shatilla massacre.

“The J14 movement was and is a crucial moment where the people in this country started to look within and think about themselves as individuals,” said Daphni Leef, who sparked the protest through a Facebook campaign. “They rejected the concept, ‘as long as you are alive don’t complain.’ ” The demonstrations continue to have an impact. It was largely due to an increased sensitivity to social justice that the Histradrut labor federation, Israel’s largest workers’ union with strong ties to the Labor Party, succeeded in launching a strike last week to champion the rights of outsourced, temporary or contracted workers. For years the workers have suffered from low wages, a lack of job security and no pension benefits. Unlike past strikes, there was wide public support for the Histadrut’s battle for contracted workers.

“We enjoyed a lot of backing — on Facebook, on the streets, in the news media,” Histadrut spokeswoman Dafna Cohen said of the five-day work stoppage, which ended Sunday with contract workers receiving a minimum monthly wage and other benefits.

“People who had their flights delayed, could not conduct transactions at the bank or suffered from the strike in other ways showed a lot of empathy and solidarity with us. It was heartwarming.” enemy,” he reportedly said.

Haniyeh also said the Israeli presence “inside Palestine” is “the root of all regional problems.”

On Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the Arab League at a meeting in Cairo that he will resume efforts in United Nations agencies to recognize a Palestinian state if Israel does not agree to his conditions for resuming peace negotiations.

The conditions, which Abbas said he will send in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, include basing talks on the 1967 lines, a halt to construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, and the release of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Abbas also called on the Arab League to organize an international peace conference.

SOCIAL LIFE • 11

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

ANNOUNCEMENTS

MARTA HEWETT GALLERY finely crafted contemporary art

BIRTHS BIRTHS r. Jeffrey and Jamie Weisbrot are very pleased to announce the birth of their son, Evan Miles on January 15, 2012. Evan is the grandson of Dr. Albert and Sherry Weisbrot and Harlan and Rhoda Priesman of Lincoln, Neb. He is the great-grandson of Rita and the late Edwin Grusd, the late Moszek and Mindla Weisbrot, the late Jean Priesman Selo and Ernie Priesman, and the late Elsie and Herbert Levin.

D

obyn and Mike Bloomberg (Robyn Miller) of Chicago are proud to announce the birth of their son, Evan Herschel, on November 15, 2011.

Grandparents are Barbara and Donald Miller of Cincinnati and Pam and Steven Bloomberg of Highland Park, Ill. Great-grandparents are Abe and Adeline Ordman of Dyer, Ind. and Pauline Miller of Cincinnati. Evan Herschel is lovingly named after his late greatgrandparents Herb and Blanche Bloomberg.

R

ENGAGEMENT andra and Henry Spitz of Cincinnati, Ohio, are happy to announce the engagement of their daughter Miriam to Tommer Kahan, son of Adi Kahan and Rina

S

1310 Pendleton Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 281-2780 Tue–Fri: 10–5, Sat: 11–3 Free Parking Available

Final Friday!

Tommer Kahan and Miriam Spitz Kahan. Miriam obtained a BA degree in International Relations from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA in International Business from Webster University Regent’s College, London. She made Aliyah in 2007 and has been working in Tel Aviv as a marketing communications manager for international pharmaceutical companies. Tommer Kahan was born in Herzliya, graduated from law school and worked as a lawyer in communications. Tommer is completing his MBA in marketing.

Both Tommer and Miriam will be living in Ramat Aviv and are very excited to have a spring wedding reception in Cincinnati as well as a summer wedding in Tel Aviv.

Join us in the gallery on Friday, February 24th from 6pm - 10pm.

View our current exhibit and enjoy works by exciting artists from around the world.

SEE THIS EXHIBIT ONLINE AT

www.martahewett.com

Martin Janecky, Violin, lifesize, blown glass/hot sculpted

12 • CINCINNATI SOCIAL LIFE

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CHANUKAH WITH CHABAD JEWISH CENTER Chabad Jewish Center held a number of Chanukah programs this year, with something for everyone to enjoy. The lineup included: Kids in the Kitchen, numerous Olive Press Workshops, Chanukah on Ice, a giant Lego Menorah and Choir and a family Chinese Buffet Dinner on December 25.

Mussy Gonzalez with Judah Maccabee at an Olive Press Workshop

Tucker & Griffin Ames and Ellie Frankel fill donuts with jelly at Kids in the Kitchen

Ellie Frankel and Levi Mangel grate potatoes for latkes with the help of Lucy Tessel at Kids in the Kitchen

Choosing olives to press for oil

Shelly Gilman and friends at Chanukah on Ice

Olive Press Workshop and Chanukah Story told by Judah Maccabee

Working the olive press

Spinning the hand-powered centrifuge to separate oil from olive juice

Noah Yasgur serves latkes and donuts to all

Chabad Hebrew School choir singing Chanukah songs

Beth Pollitt along with Rabbi Cohen next to the giant Lego Menorah on display

Heath, Mirel and Arden Fleishman with Judah Macabee

Deborah Eckert and Jeff Rubinstein enjoy the Chinese Buffet

Rabbi Cohen leads a round of Jewpardy with contestants Greg Spitz, Brook Samuelson and Ilan Nacasch at the Chinese Buffet

WONDERFUL WEDDINGS 2012 S PECIAL S ECTION If your business/organization wants to reach the greater Cincinnati Jewish community regarding weddings, this is the issue to do it!

• Bands/DJs • Banquet Halls • Bridal Shops • Caterers • Event Rentals • Florists • Photographers To advertise, contact Ted Deutsch at 621-3145 or publisher@americanisraelite.com Deadline is March 1st Publishes on March 8th

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14 • DINING OUT

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Indubitably delicious Indian cuisine at Baba India

By Sondra Katkin Dining Editor The warmth engendering food of Northern Indian cuisine at Baba India Restaurant will transform the winter blues and blahs to oohs and aahs. The tongue tingling, healthy herbs and spices saturate the senses with exotic flavors that the British have loved for centuries. Not long ago, only the elite cognoscenti were able to attain the best Indian cuisine. Now, thanks to Jassi Singh, a passionate proponent of Punjabi food and the “father” of five “offspring,” including Ambar in Clifton, we can go to restaurant row in Oakley, with convenient parking, and dine like pashas. The restaurant is bright with window walls on three sides and white tablecloths providing a touch of elegance to the simple decor. If you are a neophyte, the popular lunchtime buffet will introduce you to an enticing variety of meats, vegetables, soups, salads, sauces and desserts designed to satisfy the heartiest appetites. A frequent customer, Edie Moore, told me that, “The deliciousness of the food keeps me coming back.” Her favorite vegetable is the spinach (saag). I share a weakness for its homemade cheesy richness. On this visit, it was combined with chickpeas — a double health whammy of protein, fiber, chlorophyll, calcium and iron. Moore thinks, “The potato combined with turnip took it beyond the usual. The dal soup is another favorite of mine. It combines earthy and simple — very tasty.” She also appreciates the variety. “They keep altering the side dishes so you get new flavors to try,” she noted. My potatoes were combined with green beans. The solid and the soft were a texture and taste treat.

Two types of bread, bhatura and naan, are used traditionally to scoop up your food. There are several Indian restaurants in New York City where using utensils is considered rude. Don’t worry, forks are favored here. The naan is chewy and wonderful and more than capable of curving to clear the crumbs that can’t run or hide. The bhatura, a bread that separates and becomes puffy when fried, is not to be missed. There is also a “bread” wafer for the gluten challenged made of lentils, called papadum.

Indian food in general is gluten friendly. Where else can you have a fried vegetable appetizer (pakora) battered with chickpea flour (gram) and soups not thickened with flour? They offer a dal/lentil soup that is thick and redolent with the appealing scent of cumin, a delicious spice, considered an effective antioxidant. You can indulge and improve your health at the same time. A savory tomato soup with a sweet finish is another selection.

There are several chicken dish-

(Clockwise) Colorful and delicious selections from the buffet; Owner Jassi Singh with some of his talented staff (L-R) Kuldeep Singh Gill, Balbir Singh Maan and Swaran Ram pose in front of well-stocked bar; Balbir Singh Sandhu holds fragrant rice for the buffet; Inviting interior at Baba; One section of the copious buffet featuring sumptuous carrot cake, soups, tasty chicken tandoori and crispy vegetable pakora.

es on the buffet including chicken tandoori. My fork easily removed the mild, flavorful meat from its bone, and its moist, tangy goodness got gobbled quickly. Another choice, “the spicy chicken,” small cubes coated in a red pepper rub, lived up to its title. Most selections are mild and diners are warned when they are not. If you are a “heat seeker,” you can find wave upon wave of the wow factor on both the buffet and the menu. If you still want a more intense experience, there are sauces that will deliver the devilishly incremental spiciness you desire. Talk about tongues of steel!

I was told by Vijayant Datta, a host and server with degrees in sociology and law from India, that owner Jassi Singh “can cook, serve, manage, he’s a very good multitasker and he takes care of everything. Singh trains the chefs and he can tell just by looking whether

something was properly prepared.”

His favorite dessert, he declared, is the “carrot cake” (gazar halwaa).

“Some customers call ahead to make sure it’s available,” he added.

I tasted it and took some home for my husband Steve. He was pleased that it was another gluten free delicacy he could enjoy. We both thought its thick, pudding-like texture was reminiscent of cake, and the sweet richness and carroty chewiness added a caramelized intensity. Other desserts on the buffet include kheer/rice pudding and vanilla custard. One server likes to freeze the custard and relishes its rich ice cream taste.

Singh recommends the chicken tikka, large marinated chunks of white meat with vegetables, sizzling hot from the tandoor (clay oven). To begin the meal, he suggests the vegetarian appetizer with six samples including homemade cheese, vegetables, potatoes, lentil

wafers, spinach and chickpeas. His favorite chicken dish is the chicken makhani, all white meat with a spicy marinade, cooked in the tandoor on skewers with a tomato based sauce. There are several curry selections offered. As a measure of their popularity, a customer ordered a carry out of curry sauce for the chicken she had at home. She commented that Baba has the best curry in town. Her husband, a doctor at Children’s Hospital, works with two Indian doctors who love the food here.

Another lunch diner, David Johnson said, “I love Indian food. I used to go to Ambar but this location is easier for me with good quality, a great neighborhood, easy parking and great service. As soon as you walk in, someone is there to greet you and sit you down.” He always gets a mango lassi with lunch. This is a terrific smoothie, fresh and fruity with homemade

yogurt — a perfect counterbalance to the savory spices. Baba offers many vegetarian, chicken, lamb and fish entrees and seven bread choices. After lunch I observed the staff eating bhaturas stuffed with mildly spiced potatoes and cheese.

They looked delicious and I will try them next time. There are dinner specials that feature samples of many of the appetizers, entrees and desserts. They also have full bar service with generous 7 - 8 ounce portions of wine and a large variety of international, Indian and domestic micro brews. The hours are Monday — Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 9:30 p.m.; Sunday, 12 to 9 p.m.

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DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

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16 • OPINION

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Charedi like me

Later, even as he enjoyed some celebrity for his gambit, he received so many threats to his life that he moved to Mexico.

In a somewhat less brave experiment, two secular Israeli television reporters recently video-documented something similar, beginning with their transformation — aided not by drugs but a professional make-up artist — from typical secular Israelis to bearded, kaftan-ed charedim. With the help of a charedi “consultant” to guide them in matters of mannerism, the two men metamorphosed into an entirely passable charedi pair — and sallied forth to see if, as some have charged — charedim suffer discrimination and worse from non-religious Israelis.

The two undercover reporters walked through and rode buses in secular neighborhoods; they made inquiries about renting a house and about joining a gym.

It wasn’t exactly gripping documentary journalism, but it did have its moments of interest. While the

Rabbi Shafran is an editor at large and columnist for Ami Magazine.

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

Dear Editor, I know you run a newspaper for profit and I know you target a readership of a certain political mindset, but is there no way to introduce any balance into the political reportage.

I am led to write this because of JTA’s Ron Kampeas’ recent article on the contretemps between the Center for American Progess (CAP) and AIPAC. Nowhere in that 1000 word article was there a single quote of an actual post on CAPs blog that criticized Israel, only that AIPAC found them offensive.

Can we not decide for ourselves what might constitute “offensive”? No, of course not, because any straying from the AIPAC line is condemned as treachery.

Please, let’s stand against the current neo-McCarthyist constraining of debate amongst Jews, many of who, like myself, love Israel but who also love a free exchange of ideas.

By the way, I am well aware there is J street and Tikkun for Peace Now types, however The American Israelite represents the mainstream. It is the paper which is read by the majority of Jews. I fear it has been subject to right wing terrorism.

Sincerely, Andrew Loewy Cincinnati, Ohio Dear Editor, I am writing in response to the article dated Feb. 9, 2012, referring to the JCC management restructures. I was perplexed at how someone who has done a “great job” as stated in the article, loses his job.

Who is making decisions for our Jewish community? Does our JCC really need a CEO? Didn’t we go through a “comprehensive” national search once before? He unfortunately left Jeff with many problems to overcome.

Granted, not everything was perfect, but couldn't any deficiencies have been dealt with in a more professional manner?

Being a frequent user of the JCC, many issues have come up and I expressed my concerns with Jeff.

He always got back to me immediately and addressed all of them positively. Jeff Baden has devoted his entire life to our community and what does he get in return? “Goodbye.” No other job description was even offered to him.

The JCC Board should take a deeper look inside of themselves and reflect on how this was handled.

Losing Jeff altogether would be a big loss for our JCC and community as a whole.

Sincerely, Edward Paul Cincinnati, Ohio

T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: MISHPATIM (SHMOT 21:1—24:18) 1. What is the punishment if a master knocks out the tooth of his slave? a) Lashes b) The slave goes free c) Pay restitution 2. What is the punishment if a son knocks out the tooth of his father? a) Death b) Pay restitution c) Lashes 3. What is the punishment if one knocks out the tooth of another person? a) Lashes refer to the intentions of the person breaking into the home. A person is entitled to self defense if he is unsure of the intruder’s intentions. However, if it is clear the intruder will not kill the owner, then the owner can not harm him. Rashi

He recounted the “hate stare” he regularly received from whites and the myriad indignities of black life at the time, like the difficulty of finding a public restroom to use.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

b) Payment c) Fine 4. If there is a dispute about a deposit and if it were lost or stolen what is the ruling? a) Split the difference b) The depositor always pays c) The depositor swears he did not use the item and does not pay 5. What is the punishment if a person is caught breaking into a home at night? a) Lashes b) He could be killed by the homeowner c) He is publicly disgraced by the court

2. A 21:15 “Wound” means blood was shed.

The son is punished for father or mother. Rashi 3. B 21:24,25 “Tooth for a tooth” means the value of a tooth. Talmud 4. C 22:6-8 5. B 22:1, 2 The terms “tunnel” and “sunrise”

Back in 1961, a man named John Howard Griffin, a white native of Mansfield, Texas, published a remarkable book. “Black Like Me” was his account of six weeks of travel by bus across the deep south — as a black man, which he wasn’t.

Two years earlier, Mr. Griffin, with the help of a dermatologist, took large doses of a drug that darkens skin and spent up to 15 hours daily under an ultraviolet lamp to intensify the effect. He closely cut his hair and even shaved the backs of his hands before setting out to experience what it was like to be black in that era and place. He recounted the “hate stare” he regularly received from whites and the myriad indignities of black life at the time, like the difficulty of finding a public restroom to use.

pair, at least in the footage included (and, presumably, with a cameraman noticeably present), encountered only politeness from secular Israelis, one would-be landlord seemed to have no explanation for why the asking rent was considerably more than had been advertised.

Another person answering the door of an apartment for rent claimed she is only the current tenant and promised to have the owner get back to the pair, which apparently never happened. On a bus, non-religious riders chose to stand rather than sit next to one of the “charedi” men.

None of which amounts to anything more than the softest of bigotry. Most likely just wariness in the face of the unfamiliar. The interactions were all entirely friendly and civil.

Which is what most of us would expect. Israelis can, to be sure, evidence a certain bluntness — often interpreted, at least by Americans, as gruffness. It is likely the product of the general tenor of the MiddleEast coupled with the fact that Israelis live daily with the thought that millions of people near and far would like to erase their country — and them — from the face of the earth. But even that bluntness was not evident in the film. The ersatz charedim were stared at here and there, but largely ignored.

Does such a decidedly unscientific experiment indicate that charedim as a group are truly accepted as brothers and sisters by all other Israelis? That they in fact are not belittled, resented and even hated? No. It just means, at most, that the belittlers, resenters and haters are a minority, not readily in evidence “on the street.” They tend to hang out elsewhere, like at the Knesset and the pages of Haaretz.

Still and all, it’s heartening to imagine — and I think it is true — that charedim are not subject to abuse in daily life, even when they venture into other neighborhoods.

Most Israelis, even if they have opinions that clash with their charedi co-citizens, are tolerant of those who choose to live more intensely traditional Jewish lives than they do.

And, of course, the same is true in the other direction. While there may be charedim who harbor ill will toward their secular fellowJews, they are the exception. In fact, the regularly heard canard that “the charedim” despise other Israelis might be a good topic for the intrepid reporters’ next investigative journalism foray outside their studio.

They could visit some religious neighborhoods or towns and try to interact with the locals there, to see if they experience any such animus.

And they won’t even need any makeup.

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. B 21:26, 27 “Slave” means a non Jewish slave. The Talmud discusses if the master has to hit the slave with the intent to hurt the eye or even if the master intended for the eye but did not have intent to hurt it.

Rabbi Avi Shafran Contributing Columnist

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Sedra of the Week

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Efrat, Israel — “And He did not stretch out His hand against the aristocrats of the children of Israel; they gazed at G-d and they ate and they drank” (Exodus 24: 11).

What is the best way to worship G-d? Does G-d prefer ascetic fasts and physical deprivation or celebration through food, wine, song and dance? Some difficult verses in this week’s biblical portion give rise to this debate amongst the commentators.

The Israelites have experienced the revelation at Sinai, events then reach a climax with the sealing of the Covenant. “And (Moses) sent out the young men of the children of Israel and they offered whole burnt offerings and they sacrificed bulls to the Lord as peace offerings to G-d” (Exodus 24:5).

Moses concludes the Covenant with all of the Israelites who cry out, “Whatever the Lord says we shall do and we shall internalize” (na’aseh ve’nishma). (Exodus 24:7) Then Moses and Aaron, Nadav and Avihu and the 70 elders begin to climb up Mount Sinai, “And they saw the Lord of Israel, and under His feet was the likeness of sapphire brickwork, like the essence of the heavens for purity.

And He did not stretch out His hand against the aristocrats of the children of Israel; and they gazed at G-d and they ate and they drank” (Exodus 24:10,11).

The greatest leaders of Israel experienced a vision of the Heavenly realm surrounding the invisible Divine Being. They respond to this with celebrations: eating sacrificial meats and drinking wine libations. Rashi comments that these young men looked – perhaps to try to see the Divine form – and for this together with their vulgar and mundane behavior; eating and drinking at the height of an ethereal, spiritual experience, they were worthy of punishment, but G-d, in His infinite compassion did not harm them.

Perhaps this episode was a precursor to the idolatrous worship of the Golden Calf, which took place

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT MISHPATIM EXODUS 21:1- 24:18

Rashi comments that these young men looked – perhaps to try to see the Divine form – and for this together with their vulgar and mundane behavior; eating and drinking at the height of an ethereal, spiritual experience, they were worthy of punishment, but G-d, in His infinite compassion did not harm them. only 40 days later. Then, the people “offered whole burnt offerings and they brought peace offerings.

The people sat to eat and drink after which they rose up for an orgiastic celebration.” (Exodus 32:6,7) From the beginning of this chapter, the emphasis is on “seeing,” because in the absence of Moses’ physical presence, the nation was desperately seeking a G-d they could see.

This is one of the rare instances in which Rashi’s commentary departs from the interpretation of the Targum Onkelos, the authorized Aramaic translation of the Bible. Rashi criticizes these young men for eating and drinking at the height of their spiritual experience.

The Targum, on the other hand, sees their celebrations as a worthy and noble reaction to the Divine acceptance of the sacrifices which occurred without mishap: “There was no harm done to the aristocrats of the children of Israel; they saw the glory of the Lord and they rejoiced in their animal offerings which were received with satisfaction by the Lord.”

I would argue that Targum is closer to the straightforward reading of the text. Rashi is uncomfortable with the people trying to see G-d and then giving physical expression to their celebrations.

For the Targum, so long as there is no physical representation of G-d whatsoever and since G-d showed no displeasure at the actions of these young men, what they did was perfectly in order.

G-d is pure spirit, but we human beings are not disembodied intellects or non-corporeal souls. Just as we were created with body, so must we celebrate G-d’s gifts with our bodies. The

worship of the Golden Calf was a very different story. Then, the Israelites became obsessed with experiencing a G-d that could be seen, and so they created a physical g-d, a molten calf. They not only ate and drank from their sacrificial offering; they rose up to orgiastic excess, hence they were then punished.

One final observation, it is relatively easy to worship G-d when fasting in synagogue; it is far harder to transform eating and drinking into a religious experience of thanksgiving to G-d. But I believe that this is the great contribution which Judaism makes to religious experience. We sanctify the body with the commandment of circumcision for men and mikveh for women. We sanctify our Sabbath table with wine and bread as a replica of G-d’s altar in the Holy Temple, which was replete with the showbread and the wine libation.

The real test of the truly religious personality is not whether they can deny the physical, but whether they can sanctify it. And so the Hassidim explain the Talmudic adage, “There is no kiddush, (sanctification of the wine), except in a place where an entire meal is eaten” not only to refer to specific commandment to connect the Kiddush on Shabbat to a meal, but also as a message for life. If you want to gauge people’s sanctity, don’t examine them praying in the synagogue, look at them when they are eating at the table with their family and friends.

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

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18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist OSCARS, PART I The Academy Awards ceremony, hosted for the ninth time

by BILLY CRYSTAL, airs on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 26th, at 7PM, EST. Below are the “tribe members” who were nominated for their work on films other than English language, feature films.

Next week: the rest of the nominees.

Best Foreign Language film: “In Darkness” (Poland) and “Footnote” (Israel).

“In Darkness” is based on a true story of a Polish Catholic man who helped hide Jews in the sewers of Lvov during the Holocaust. The director is AGNIESKA HOLLAND, who was born (1948) and raised in Poland, the (secular) daughter of a Jewish father/Catholic mother. The adapted screenplay is by (nonnominee) DAVID SHAMOON, 64, a Canadian who was born in India. He’s the son of Iraqi Jews who fled Iraq following the infamous 1941 Baghdad pogrom.

“Footnote,” a comedy/drama, was directed and written by Israeli JOSEPH CEDAR, 43, an Orthodox Jew. The film is about a father and son who both teach in the Talmud Dept. of Hebrew University. The son’s accomplishments far outshine the father’s. The dynamics of their relationship come to a head when the father is mistakenly told that he’s to receive an academic award meant for his son.

Best documentary feature: “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory.” Conominees JOE BERLINGER, 40, and BRUCE SINOFSKY, 55, have long been a documentary filmmaking team. “Lost 3” is the third of three documentaries they have made about the case of “The West Memphis Three” (three teens charged and convicted in the 1993 murder of three young boys). The “Lost” series, which began in 2000, brought tremendous attention to a case marked by police misconduct and shoddy evidence. The “West Memphis Three” were freed in 2011.

Sinofsky’s father was executive director of the Boston chapter of Jewish Big Brothers.

Best documentary, short subject: “The Barber of Birmingham” was co-directed and produced by co-nominees ROBIN FRYDAY, 53, and GAIL DOLGIN. It’s about James Armstrong, an African-American who was an unsung hero of the civil rights movement. For 50 years, this WWII veteran has run a voter education program out of his Alabama barbershop. Dolgin, who won many awards for her

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documentaries, died in October, 2010, age 65. She long served on the board of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

MADONNA IS A MENSCH Madonna, the famous singer, has announced that later this year she will embark on her first tour since 2009. The tour will start in Tel Aviv on May 29 and then proceed to Europe before coming to the United States in August. The Tel Aviv concert is not a huge surprise. Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, recently recounted her prior visits: “This [2011 concert] will be the fourth performance by the Queen of Pop in Israel. Her first show was in 1993, and in her last world tour, ‘Sticky & Sweet’, Madonna brought her mix of provocative music and spirituality to the Holy Land with two concerts in 2009. Madonna also visited Israel in 2004 and 2007 on private pilgrimages, along with other Kabbalah devotees. She’s been dabbling in Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism, for more than a decade and has taken on a Hebrew name, Esther.”

Most big time pop music acts don’t play Israel. It’s not politics.

It’s because the high overhead of bringing an act with a big stage show to a small, “far away” country like Israel, doesn’t make economic sense. The tickets for Madonna’s 2012 Israeli concert are reasonably priced ($60-$120) and I think Madonna may actually be losing money on the Israeli concert. Contrast Madonna’s actions with some Jewish rock stars (like GENE SIMMONS of Kiss), who used “money” as their excuse why they never played Israel.

Yes, I know many of you are thinking that the “Kabbalah mysticism” that the Kabbalah Centre teaches Madonna and other acolytes in Israel and other countries is watered down “mishigosh” (nonsense) and its name is virtually an insult to real Kabbalah scholars. However, time has shown that the influence of the Centre’s “mishigosh” is minimal. It’s now a “has been thing” with celebs and other people who flit from one “new-agey” quasi-religious thing to another.

Madonna is virtually the last celeb consistently associated with it. On the plus side: her “Kabbalah-inspired” trips to Israel have brought the country good publicity and thus helped tourism. Plus, if you add up what Madonna’s enormous entourage will spend in Israel on their tour, plus the share of her concert revenues that will remain in Israel with promoters, etc. — her concert may actually aid the Israeli economy.

FROM THE PAGES 100 Y EARS A GO The proudest man in Cincinnati last Wednesday was Morris H. Isaacs. It marked the first appearance in grand opera in their home city of Mabel Riegelman, who sang “Gretel” in the afternoon performance of Humperdinck’s fairy opera, Hansel and Gretel.” Miss Riegelman is Mr. Isaac’s niece. For years he has devoted himself to securing a musical education for this little Cincinnati girl, who has rewarded his efforts by taking her to place among the great artists of grand opera. The unselfishness of Mr. Isaac’s devotion becomes more apparent when you realize that he has never heard and will never hear his niece’s voice. For many years he has been totally deaf, but has become a successful businessman, largely by interpreting the movement of the lips with remarkable facility. Miss Riegelman and her mother were the guests of Mr. Isaac while in Cincinnati. On Wednesday afternoon he attended the performance of “Hansel and Gretel.”

Apparently there is nothing to be desired by Mr. Isaacs in the career of Miss Riegelman; she has justified the most sanguine hopes of her friends. But there must be times when Morris Isaacs joins in the prayer of the poet for “the sound of the voice that is still.”

Miss Olga, daughter of the Judge Frederick S. Spiegel and wife, was married to Mr. Alexander A. Landesco of this city at the residence of the bride, 855 Hutchins Avenue, Avondale, Wednesday evening. Dr. Grossmann performed the ceremony in the presence of about 50 guests. — February 15, 1912

75 Y EARS A GO Mr. Edgar M. Powers who served during the flood as director of WPLM, mobile two-way Morsecode radio station borrowed from Dayton, is active in planning a Red Cross civilian radio reserve personnel for emergency duty here.

Marilyn Weiland, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Weiland, 4015 Beechwood Avenue, is recuperating from injuries received Friday, Feb. 5th, while riding her bicycle near her home.

The friends of Mrs. Sylvan Joseph will be glad to know she is recuperating at her home, 205 Wedgewood Avenue, after an operation at Jewish Hospital.

Friends celebrated the ninth radio anniversary of the sport commentator, Mr. Harry Hartman, of WCPO Monday, Feb. 14th.

Mrs. Clara Sommerfield, 76, widow of the late Abraham Sommerfield, clothing manufacturer, passed away Tuesday, Feb. 9th, in

Atlanta, Ga. — February 18, 1937

50 Y EARS A GO Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Tumen (Betty Davis) 3168 Dot Drive, announce the birth of their daughter, Lynn Ellen, Friday, Feb. 2. The infant has two brothers, David and Stephen. The grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Noah David, of 3420 Davis Lane, and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Grossman of Elberon, N.J. Mr. and Mrs. Louis Goldsmith, 3418 East Galbraith Road, announce the forthcoming Bar Mitzvah of their son, Coleman Barry, on Saturday, Feb. 24, at 10:30 a.m. at Rockdale Avenue Temple.

A reception will be held in Coleman’s honor at Cresthills Country Club from 7 to 11 p.m. that evening. No cards.

Dr. Joseph D. Heiman, a widely known surgeon who had practiced in Cincinnati for more than 30 years, passed away in Guaymos, Mexico, on a vacation with his wife Tuesday, Feb. 6. His age was 65.

He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Louis Miller Heiman; their son, Joseph L. Heiman, 708 Avon Fields Lane; their daughter, Emmy Lou Cholak, a physician at Chapel Hill, N.C.; and a granddaughter, Shirley Heiman.

Nathan Richman, a patient at Sheltering Oaks Hospital for the past 4-1/2 years, passed away Monday, Jan. 29. He was a retired builder and contractor.

He is survived by four daughters, Mrs. Eva Newmark of Cincinnati; Mrs. Fay Richmond of New York City; Mrs. Lottie Joseph and Mrs. Lillian Brown, both of Chicago; a son, Harvey H. Richman, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. — February 15, 1962

25 Y EARS A GO “We have lived two lives.”

So says Dr. Yuri Nepomnyaschy, a Russian Jew who immigrated to Cincinnati 14 years ago with his wife, Nora, and his daughter, Lenna, now a student at Miami University.

The Nepomnyaschys (pronounced Nee-pom-ni-shee) were one of the first two families that came to this city. They rode the tip of a wave of releases that occurred in the late 1970s, during the rule of Russian leader Leonid Breznev.

By 1980 an unprecedented number of Jews had been let out of the Soviet Union — more than 200,000. Of these, about 200 families found their way to Cincinnati.

On the whole, these immigrants were well educated, eager and ambitious to move into the main-

stream of American life.

The work of the late Lincoln Fechheimer, noted Cincinnati architect and designer of the first two buildings on the Clifton campus of Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion, was recognized recently by College administrators at a luncheon in honor of the architects nieces, Mrs. Alfred Glazer and Mrs. James Magrish, and his grand-niece, Lisa Glazer. Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, president of the College-Institute and Dr. Samuel Greengus, Dean of the Cincinnati campus, presented the women with the Israel commemorative stamp depicting the Classroom Building. — February 19, 1987

10 Y EARS A GO Stuart Warshauer and Temple Sholom were recognized by the Inclusion Network at its seventh annual Inclusion Leadership Awards dinner Jan. 27. The event, sponsored by Federated Department Stores, Inc. and WLWT, cited Warshauer with an honorable mention in the Outstanding Achievement category.

“As chairman of the Resident Home from 1965 to 1969, he pioneered the concept of providing a wide range of services in the community. He wrote The Resident Home’s federal grant and helped raise the matching funds to provide the first residential alternative to institutionalization in our community,” according to the written material.

Sidney H. Brown, 83, a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, passed away at Scarlet Oaks Retirement Community February 3, 2002. He is survived by his daughter, Marianna Brown Bettman, and his son, Daniel Brown.

A graduate of Hughes High School and the University of Cincinnati College of Business Administration, Mr. Brown was the president of the Brockton School Trimming Company, a shoe and leather business founded by his father, Max Brown, a Russian immigrant. His son, Daniel, joined him as the third generation at Brockton.

Sidney’s daughter, former Judge Marianna Brown Bettman, attributes her political skills to her father, who loved shmoozing with people in the shoe trade. As children, both Daniel and Marianna remember watching their father and grandfather at work in their Court Street shop where bows for women’s shoes were still manufactured. Mr. Brown was married for 58 years to Genevieve Elbaum Brown, who predeceased him in 1996. — February 14, 2002

CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY COMMUNITY 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 Livingston (513) 793-5554 • camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Mikveh 513-351-0609 • cincinnatimikveh.org Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (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) 514-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 Jewish Vocational Service (513) 985-0515 • jvscinti.org Kesher (513) 766-3348 Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 Shalom Family (513) 703-3343 • myshalomfamily.org 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 Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tikvah (513) 759-5356 • bnai-tikvah.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • bnaitzedek.us Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org

Congregation Ohr Chadash (513) 252-7267 • ohrchadashcincinnati.com Congregation Sha’arei Torah shaareitorahcincy.org 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 Temple Beth Shalom (513) 422-8313 • tbsohio.org Temple Sholom (513) 791-1330 • templesholom.net The Valley Temple (513) 761-3555 • valleytemple.com

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

ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati.hadassah.org Jewish 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.org

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

production@ americanisraelite.com WURZBURG from page 6 “It’s a special feeling the mayor has. It’s in his heart to do this,” he said. “There’s a very good connection between him and the Jewish community.”

A notable moment, he explained, occurred with January’s publication of a book documenting each of the 1,455 Jewish tombstones used to construct a centuries-old building that was razed in 1987. The book represented the climax of a lengthy research project by three local and two Israeli historians. The tombstones, some dating to the 1300s, now are kept in the Jewish community building.

Schwabacher is looking forward to showing his grandson the home of the former’s grandfather, Wilhelm Schwabacher, who owned several flour mills and saved people after World War I. “I want that [information] not to die with me,” he said.

BIRTH CONTROL from page 6 “There has been a longtime effort to really restrict women’s reproductive help overall,” she said. “But the people fighting this fight to make women’s health care less accessible have been emboldened by things on the political scene, most notably the antichoice majority in the House of Representatives.”

The most recent evidence of the division is related to the rule under the Affordable Care Act requiring employer-provided health insurance plans to include contraception and related “preventive” services for employees.

Catholic Church leaders had urged that an exemption for religious institutions be broadened from houses of worship to include a range of religiously affiliated institutions, like hospitals. Top Catholic officials, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made their case in private meetings with Obama.

A number of Jewish groups and lawmakers pushed back from the other side. NCJW organized a meeting with senior administration officials as well as representatives of Jewish Women International

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(513) 531-9600 Schwabacher also mentioned a 2011 event that he said illustrates the city’s seriousness about dealing with the Nazi horrors: a memorial for the deportees in which thousands of residents walked from the Jews’ former homes to the railroad station.

“It was one of the most impressive things they did. That’s one of the reasons I’m going,” he said.

“It was a lot more significant than paying for airline tickets. I don’t excuse what happened. I was filled with fury, as you might expect. But I’ve lived a marvelous life in the United States.”

Please send a message to Seeking Kin at JTA if you are a Holocaust-era Wurzburg native who wishes to participate in this program or if you would like our help in searching for long-lost friends or family. Include the principal facts in a brief email (up to one paragraph) and your contact information. and a number of liberal Christian umbrella groups. Two eminent Jewish congresswomen, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), the latter one of Obama’s earliest backers in his bid for the presidency, became involved.

On Jan. 20, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary for Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the exemption would stay as is: confined to houses of worship.

Schakowsky praised the decision, saying it was “inconceivable” that contraception was once again controversial. “No employer should decide for a woman whether she can access the health care services that she and her doctor decide are necessary,” she said.

“This decision will help working families by giving them access to free birth control,” Boxer wrote on the Huffington Post. “The cost of birth control can be prohibitive for many women, particularly in these difficult economic times.”

NCJW applauded the decision not to expand the exceptions from the law requiring employers’ health care plans to pay for birth control but said it wished there were no exceptions at all.

Orthodox groups said the decision was a disappointment.

20 • ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

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Sandler and Samberg on Fallon, Joan Rivers’ plastic surgery ‘700 club,’ Oprah’s Chasidim show

By Six Degrees (No Bacon) Staff Writer Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (Six Degrees No Bacon) — The post-Super Bowl “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” featured Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. Both have SNL under their belts (Fallon does too), both are very Jewish and, according to Sandler, they both have a pretty similar name — which is enough for them to actually work together on a new movie, “That’s My Boy.” Not many serious topics were discussed, though Samberg said he had always wanted to play Sandler’s son, since their nose resemblance is just uncanny.

Sandler, Samberg and Fallon also impersonated one another — a pretty simple task for Sandler (mentally challenged 8-yearold?), but Sandler’s imitation of Fallon and Samberg was the winner.

And Fallon did a keg stand, with Samberg and Sandler holding his legs. He only lasted five seconds.

Joan Rivers plastic surgery meter You know how sometimes you’re watching TV and all of a sudden Joan Rivers appears and someone always says, “Man, she’s probably had over 500 plastic surgeries!”

Believe it or not, the number is actually higher: 739!

In an interview with the Australian Daily Telegraph, Rivers, 78, admitted that having plastic surgery for her is kind of like going to Starbucks for others, except that the coffee at the clinic is probably better.

“Every weekend I just go in and I do something new. I get a 10th one free,” Rivers said. “It’s a little like coffee; you just keep going.”

Rivers, whose new reality TV show “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best” is threatening to kill your TV from the inside, was interviewed alongside daughter Melissa, who apparently is not really happy with her mom’s knife fetish.

“At one point I start to think the risk outweighs the reward, so I wanted my mom to know how I felt about it and I think I made myself fairly clear,” Melissa said.

Apparently that didn’t really work out, though Joan is taking pride in one thing she hasn’t done yet: a tattoo. Melissa joked that her mom should tattoo her home number on her body, with a mes-

sage: “If lost, please call Betty White.”

By the way, in case anyone is contemplating trying to keep up with Rivers, at a rate of one surgical procedure a week, it should take a little more than 14 years to reach 739. It’s a long time, but think how spot-on your Joan Rivers Halloween costume will be in 2026.

Apatow wins Writers Guild nod He may not have the storytelling strength of Steven Spielberg or the cinematic artistry of Terrence Malick, but Judd Apatow is finally getting the kudos he deserves as a fantastic director/screenwriter/everything else.

The Writers Guild of America will be honoring Apatow at its Feb. 19 awards ceremony, with Kristin Wiig presenting the satirical director with his award. While some may consider this an undue honor (everyone just loves those serious movies), those haters are wackadoos. The Juddster has taken the comedy genre and turned it on its head, creating a new brand of funny that appeals to the elitists and frat boys alike.

Mazel tov on the big honor, bro.

Parker in for Moore in ‘Lovelace’ Hey, remember Demi Moore?

You know, the hottie who went all angsty-tween after her separation by huffing nitrous oxide and chilling with Disney love child Zac Ephron?

Apparently directors aren’t so keen on Moore these days either.

She reportedly dropped out of filming for “Lovelace,” a movie about the “Deep Throat” porn star Linda Lovelace. And who’s taking over? Why, if it isn’t Sarah Jessica Parker.

Parker was photographed recently on the “Lovelace” set dressed as feminist leader Gloria Steinem (Demi’s original role).

Producers reportedly courted Parker after Moore dropped out and now will star in the film alongside Amanda Seyfried as the title character.

Oprah airing show about Chasidim News first surfaced a few months ago that Oprah Winfrey had made an unusual visit to a mikvah in Brooklyn Heights as part of her new series, “Oprah’s Next Chapter.” More details are now available about Oprah’s forthcoming show about Chasidic

Jews and their “usually private and mysterious way of life.”

According to OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, “During the episodes, Oprah spends time with two Hasidic Jewish families who give her unprecedented access into their world, revealing secrets into their usually private way of life. Oprah sits down with a family of 12 as part of her visit, enjoys a traditional meal, and meets one of the few black Hasidic Jewish families in the country.”

The two-part show will air on consecutive days starting Feb. 12.

Cuban’s ‘purrfect’ investment Mark Cuban has a history of successful investments. He was one of the pioneers of webcasting and owned an NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, that finally won the championship.

Cuban’s next big thing?

Drawings of cats.

Cuban is a judge on the ABC entrepreneur show “Shark Tank,” in which people pitch business ideas to major investors who can choose whether to invest in them.

Last Friday, this dorky-looking guy named Steve Gadlin appeared on the show to talk about his website, I Want to Draw a Cat For You. For $9.95, Gadlin will draw you a little cat stick figure. Pretty simple, right?

According to TMZ, Gadlin only spends about 63 cents on material. Sounds pretty profitable, enough for Cuban to invest $25,000 in exchange for 33 percent of the company. Cuban’s investment caused the website to crash, with thousands of immediate requests instead of the weekly 10 to 40.

To anyone who doesn’t take the online cat phenomenon seriously, who’s the last to laugh right meow?

Portman to show off her ‘Scruples’ Harvard grad, Oscar winner and new mom Natalie Portman can add a new title to her resume.

According to Reuters, the “Black Swan” star is set to produce the new ABC series “Scruples,” based on the 1970s classic novel by Judith Krantz.

While the book was already made into a relatively successful miniseries in the 1980s, this version will be bigger, badder and way hotter. The hourlong drama is being billed as a “sexy soap set in the late 1970s” that revolves around a socialite who opens a fashion boutique following the death of her husband.

THREATS from page 7 The stakes are high, with implications not just for the peace treaty that has kept Israel’s southern border mostly quiet for decades, but broader American capabilities in the region, including how the United States addresses tensions with Iran.

The immediate dangers are to U.S. influence in helping shape the outcome of pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the region that are likely to take their cues from Egypt, the most populous and historically most important Arab country. There also are tactical dangers to the access that U.S. forces have in a region where they might soon deploy to contain any Iranian threat to cut off oil supplies.

“The aid was not only supposed to undergird the peace treaty but security arrangements, U.S. overflights, Suez Canal access,” said David Schenker, a former Pentagon Middle East desk officer who is now an Egypt expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In the short term, a cutoff in assistance to the Egyptian government would not precipitate a war with Israel, experts say; no party in Egypt, however hostile it is to Israel ideologically, wants to invite the uncertainty of conflict with a powerful neighbor.

“The Egyptians have their own reasons to keep the peace treaty and abide by its terms,” said Ed Abington, a former diplomat in the region who subsequently joined a Washington firm that lobbied for Arab governments.

But, he added, “if we cut off assistance, we jeopardize the relationship we’ve had since Anwar Sadat. That would be bad for Egypt and the United States. We don’t want to push Egyptians away.”

Should matters deteriorate, congressional action may be inevitable.

Adding their voices to Granger’s call were Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on international development and foreign assistance. Cardin said TERROR from page 8 The document said that “Law enforcement should be vigilant when making periodic checks at all Jewish facilities.”

An Israeli intelligence report warned that forged Israeli passports might be used by potential terrorists to leave the Middle East and enter the United States and Canada.

As the tensions over Iran’s nuclear program mounted, Jewish security professionals noted the possible threat to Jewish institutions around the world.

A number of disrupted plots overseas in recent weeks have raised concerns, said Paul Goldenberg, national director of the

the United States should “re-evaluate the status of our bilateral relationship” with Egypt.

“One of the benefits of assistance was that we were going to have insight and influence,” Schenker said. “If they’re going to be overtly hostile, Congress has its own prerogative. It is a lot of money for the American taxpayer to give to a country that is not a friend.”

Whether the prosecution of LaHood and others could trigger actual cuts in the approximately $1.5 billion in U.S. assistance to Egypt is unclear. Newly stringent language about U.S. aid to Egypt in the 2012 congressional appropriations specifies that Egypt must meet “its obligations under the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty” and support “the transition to civilian government including holding free and fair elections; implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.”

Nor is it clear yet whether due process has been violated for the 19 Americans who face charges.

Egypt watchers say the activists likely were targeted by Fayza Abul Naga, Egypt’s minister for international cooperation, a holdover from the regime of deposed President Hosni Mubarak who is known for her anti-Western animus. The activists may have created an opportunity for Naga by not obtaining the proper licenses and by violating a recent travel ban on U.S. aid workers.

That has led to a paradox, according to Schenker.

“If you look at this from the SCAF's position,” he said, using the acronym for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the interim military government in Egypt, “the White House has been beating them up for eight months for not democratizing enough, and now we’re asking them to intervene in the judiciary, which is supposed to be independent.”

If anything, the arrests pointed to a broader problem vexing U.S. attempts to engage with Egypt, Schenker said: The country’s transition is increasingly chaotic.

Secure Community Network, an effort funded by the Jewish Federations of North America that works on strengthening security for Jewish institutions.

“The people that want to come after Israel overseas will look at Jewish targets in the host nations as well,” he said. “They will look not just at embassies, but at synagogues and JCCs as secondary targets.”

An example cited by Goldenberg of the conflation of Jewish and Israeli targets was the late January arrests in Azerbaijan of at least two citizens of that country in connection with an alleged plot to kill two rabbis and the Israeli ambassador in the capital city, Baku.

FIRST PERSON • 21

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Share the past to ensure the future Incidentally Iris

by Iris Ruth Pastor Five years ago, I became a grandmother. Once I got over the sheer, unadulterated joy of being a grandparent – I did what every other grandmother worth her salt does…I began to worry. I worried about my granddaughter’s formula, her excrement schedule, her sleeping patterns, her temperature, her mood, her burping. I worried myself into a perpetual state of angst and exhaustion and I wasn’t even the custodial relative – her fully capable parents were!

After a lot of soul searching and after chatting with a bunch of other neurotic grandmas, I began to come to grips with what being a MEETINGS from page 8 In the wake of Dempsey’s meetings with his counterparts, U.S. and Israeli officials reset a date for the Austere Challenge, the largest-ever joint anti-missile exercise, for sometime around October, according to officials who have knowledge of the discussions, and U.S. military officials will visit Israel later this month to plan the exercise.

A decision by Israel in December to postpone the exercise, originally set for May, spurred talk of distancing between the two countries.

Obama sought to set such doubts about coordination to rest in a pre-Super Bowl interview he gave Sunday to NBC. “We have closer military and intelligence consultation between our two countries than we ever have,” he said when Matt Lauer asked him if he expected advance warning from Israel in case of a strike. “And my No. 1 priority conATTACKS from page 8 For its part, Israel has not acknowledged responsibility for the attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists. But a number of unnamed American officials have told media outlets that they believe Israel is behind the killings.

Patrick Clawson, an Iran analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Israel’s posture in the region stems from the existential threat that Israeli leaders believe is posed by Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Recent reports

grandparent – for me anyway - is all about. And it’s been relatively smooth sailing ever since.

Quite simply, I decided that my role is not to police their eating habits, drill them on their spelling words or take them shopping at the drop of a hat – although there is nothing intrinsically wrong with these endeavors. Rather my job as a grandmother is to pass down to each of my four grandchildren an understanding of the traditions and beliefs that are important to me and reflect the way I live my life. My job is to give them a glimpse of what has molded me, impacted me and served me well as I matured and developed. And the way to do this is simple: through the telling of stories.

Judaism has an ancient tradition for passing on personal values, beliefs, blessings and advice to future generations – called an ethical will. In spite of its name, it is not a legal document and it is not a will. Quite simply, it is a letter about the things, people, and experiences we value and it elevates our story telling to a higher level. An ethical will clarifies and communicates what is meaningful in our lives to our families and even our

friends and communities if we wish to expand the recipient base.

Themes for ethical wills are many and varied – but here are a few to consider: A story or experience that impacted you, lessons learned, regrets/triumphs, advice and guidance, Blessings, dreams and hopes.

Dan Tobin is a medical doctor, living in upstate New York. He lost his father when he was 18 months old. When he started working in the end-of-life field, he realized that he knew very little about this man who fathered him and that his life was profoundly affected by his loss. He began to search for information. Was his father cheerful or morose? What sports did he enjoy?

What books did he read? Who were his heroes and role models?

Unfortunately, the information was scarce and Dan Tobin, to his dismay, found out little about the father he never knew. Because of that, he promised himself that his children would never suffer such a loss. When Dan Tobin turned 40, he put pen to paper. “I wanted my kids to know who I was as a person and how my values and beliefs had shaped my life.”

Very simply, an ethical will is a

document designed to pass ethical values from one generation to the next. An ethical will not only benefits the recipient, but also helps you learn about yourself, as you reflect on your life, clarify what type of legacy you want to leave and how you want to be remembered. It can be a vehicle for sharing with your grandchildren how you feel about them, as well as articulating for them what you stand for.

You don’t have to be a prolific, fluid writer. A few paragraphs is all it requires. And speaking from the heart. Here are some examples of opening statements: The lessons I’ve learned from life are that...

The person who had the biggest impact on me was.

I am most proud of….

Favorite sayings that guided me are…

How I met your grandmother (grandfather)…

My hopes and dreams for you are…

From my parents I learned that…

The most meaningful religious holiday for me was…

Nor does an ethical will necessarily have to be introspective.

Consider these topics:

What major historical events do you remember from your childhood?

In grade school what was your favorite subject and why?

What subject was most difficult for you?

Growing up, what was your favorite thing to read?

What do you remember about your learning to ride a bike, swim, dance, etc.?

To get started: Pick a topic and jot down a few meaningful words.

Craft the words into a few sentences – which will lead naturally to a paragraph or two. Add an introduction and a conclusion and pronto: your first draft. Put it aside for a day or week, come back to it and revise as needed.

Technology changes. And we want our ethical wills to last through the decades. If working on the computer, print out a hard copy for posterity too. You might even consider a trip to an art store for acid free, archival paper. And most importantly, enjoy the process. Be open to possibility. And savor the moment of retrospection.

tinues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel, and we are going to make sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this, hopefully diplomatically.”

The same day, Obama signed off on the most restrictive Iran sanctions yet, targeting Iran’s Central Bank, essentially making it impossible for third parties to deal with the U.S. and Iranian economies simultaneously.

A letter to Congress accompanying the order notes that it comports with the enhanced sanctions law passed by Congress in December and underscores its expansive intent. The order enhances freezes on U.S. dealings with Iran dating back to 1995 that forced any U.S. entity or its subsidiary to return funds that are identified as having originated with sanctioned Iranian individuals or entities.

Mark Dubowitz, the director of

the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that tracks the effectiveness of sanctions, said the Central Bank sanctions will accelerate the impoverishment of the Iranian regime.

“It’s an effective way to target Iranian government assets being processed through the U.S. financial system and potentially to freeze those assets for later distribution to victims of Iranian terrorism,” he said.

Congressional aides involved in sanctions legislation noted that the order comports with the law signed

by Obama on Dec. 31 that was authored

by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). Still, it was a sign of the urgency that the Obama administration is now attaching to heading off a nuclear Iran — and the prospect of an Israeli or U.S. military strike — that the president issued the order well within the 60 days provided by the law before he had to

invoke a waiver.

Obama administration officials, in conversations in recent weeks with their Israeli counterparts and with Jewish and Israeli media, had emphasized that it was necessary to line up substantive international support for the sanctions in order for them not to backfire. One nightmare scenario, they said, would be for oil prices to rise as a result of the sanctions, thus further enriching Iran’s theocracy.

Those ducks appeared to be lining up: On Jan. 23, the European Union imposed an oil embargo on Iran, and on Monday, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, who runs Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company, told CNBC that the Saudis would not allow the price of oil to top $100 a barrel. It is currently at $97 a barrel.

Rabi said Israel would have to see substantive steps toward the likely disintegration of Iran’s current regime if it were to hold off on

a strike: The impoverishment of the Iranian middle class, precipitating upward pressure on the regime, would be one sign.

“Sanctions will work,” he said, “if the ayatollahs feel that the whole saga is aiming at their very survival.”

Another would be meaningful inspections at Iranian nuclear sites, including the one near Qom uncovered by Western intelligence in 2009. A team of IAEA inspectors last month met with Iranian officials in an attempt to resume comprehensive inspections.

For now, Israeli leaders seem satisfied with the pace of pressure on Iran. After meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he “thanked her for the determined stance of the United States on the Iran issue and said the steps taken in recent weeks send an important message to the entire region.”

suggest that Israeli leaders think that time is running out to halt the program before Iran has passed a point of no return on the way to a nuclear weapon.

“Israel’s attitude would be diplomats are expendable because of national survival,” Clawson said.

In the New Delhi attack, Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of a diplomat stationed with the Israeli Defense Ministry mission in India, was the injured woman, Ynet reported.

On Tuesday, she was in stable condition following surgery to

remove shrapnel and reportedly woke for the first time. The bomb reportedly was attached to the car by someone on a motorcycle and detonated remotely while she was riding.

Some reports say that Koren realized what happened and began exiting the car before the explosion.

She was taken to the hospital by rickshaw, Ynet reported. She could soon return to Israel, according to reports.

The Associated Press reported that the shrapnel was removed from her spine and that she has partial

paralysis in her legs.

After the attack, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz called a meeting to assess the situation of Israel’s foreign missions.

India’s foreign minister reportedly called his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, and said his country would work to capture the attackers. He also said his country will provide additional security for the embassy.

In a call with Indian reporters following Monday’s attack, Paul Hirschson, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, commended

the Indian and Georgian governments for working with Israel to follow up on such attempts and prevent them in the future. He also suggested that Israel’s responses to such attacks would not be confined to prevention.

“I don’t think we’re going to say we’re going to twiddle our thumbs happily at attempts on Israelis anywhere,” he said Monday in a conference call organized by The Israel Project.

Keep Coping, Iris Ruth Pastor

JTA Israel correspondent Marcy Oster contributed to this report.

22 • OBITUARIES D EATH N OTICES KIRSCHNER, Myra M., age 85, died on January 29, 2012; 5 Shevat, 5772.

ZASLAVSKAYA, Adel, age 84, died on February 10, 2012; 17 Shevat, 5772.

GORDON, Milton, age 92, died on February 14, 2012; 21 Shevat, 5772 GRANDSON from page 9 Kaufmann married Danielle Liberman, whom he met at Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka, Minn., the Conservative synagogue where their families are members. Rabbi Harold Kravitz recalls that “they took notice of each other in our sanctuary when they were at High Holiday services a few years ago and started to date. They married in SARKOZY from page 9 Sarkozy as interior minister during the second intifada was widely credited for cracking down on the wave of anti-Semitic attacks in France at the time—a national effort that continued into his presidency. He remains an outspoken supporter of Israel.

In a sometimes emotional speech to a crowd of approximately 1,000 at the CRIF event, Sarkozy called for Israeli-Arab peace, talked of the importance of sanctions against Iran and extolled the Jewish state.

But his speech wasn’t all pandering. He said the solution to the Iran problem should be diplomatic, not military, and expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

Sarkozy’s decision last October to HAMAS from page 10

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

our sanctuary a few years later.”

The couple is expecting their first child, a son, this June and will be relocating from Dusseldorf to Nuremberg, where Kaufmann recently signed a three-year contract with the local team, one of 14 in the German hockey league.

How did his parents react when he decided to play professional hockey in Germany? “They were a little unsure initially just because of everything that happened [in Germany], but they knew it was my lifelong goal to be a professional hockey player and I committed so much time to it,” Kaufmann said.

“It’s an issue not just for them but for a lot of American Jews in general. Germany is so different today than it was back then. I wish more people could come over here today so they wouldn’t have to carry that stereotype forever.”

Being chosen to play for the national team carried with it mixed emotions for Kaufmann as well. “A lot of the time I was thinking

whether my grandpa would be happy about this or sad or mad. The more I thought about it, I know he had plans to come back to Germany before he died. He wasn’t able to, but that helped me get over those initial fears. I feel more pride with the association of feeling German than I ever thought I’d have.”

Observing Judaism has been a challenge for the young Kaufmanns as well. “The first year we were in Dusseldorf, we went to a small Orthodox synagogue. We had a tough experience. We were taking photos from the outside and we were questioned and had to show our passports because there was an incident there a few years prior.

That spoiled it for us.” The couple does make a point of trying to keep the Jewish traditions alive. They share holiday dinners together and observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the Passover seder.

Since becoming more open about his Judaism and his family’s ties to the Holocaust, Kaufmann’s

teammates have become more curious. “They want to know what everything means for me compared to them. But ultimately, they know who I am as a person. Our friendships were established without religion so it doesn’t change anything. I was always hesitant to talk about it, but now that I’m being more public about it, I’ve become more comfortable with the history. I think it’s a good story to express.”

While his teammates tell him that anti-Semitism still exists in certain regions in Germany, Kaufmann hasn’t experienced any firsthand. “I don’t think it’s any different than in America or any other country.

There’s always going to be people who have their own beliefs.

Personally, I’ve only had good experiences in Germany.”

Kaufmann knows that he has his detractors in the Jewish community who find it troubling that someone who lost members of his family in the Holocaust could be playing for the German national team. “Initially

there was a part of me that thought that way,” Kaufmann said. But, he added, “I’ve always been taught to give people a second chance.”

“Everything that happened was so long ago and in a country that was so different,” Kaufmann said.

“Obviously, I never want to forget what happened and that’s why I tell my story. But to hold that against a whole country of people who had nothing to do with it would not be right.”

Kaufmann has considered that he could be competing against the United States in May at the world championships, but he’s not concerned. “I’m focused on helping this team and playing my role within the squad to help us win hockey games and I don’t think it matters who the opponent is.” In addition to fulfilling his dream of playing on the Olympic team in two years, Kaufmann also expressed his desire to get his son skating when he’s 3 years old, a year earlier than his own first time on the ice.

vote in favor of Palestinian state recognition in UNESCO, the Parisbased U.N. cultural and science organization, riled many in the Jewish community, and Sarkozy addressed the issue in his speech.

“We also wanted to tell the Palestinians that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that they too could be taken into consideration and listened to,” he said. “I know that by taking that position I could have troubled some of you, but if a friend of Israel doesn’t do it, who will?”

One Sarkozy supporter who asked not to be named said that Sarkozy “didn’t do everything perfectly, but the reality is that the alternative would be worse.”

Perhaps more than his record on Israel, France’s economic woes are diluting support for the president

among Jews. Sarkozy has been criticized for his handling of the European debt crisis, his deference to Germany on economic issues and the prospect of austerity measures, which are cutting into consumer spending here.

Jewish critics of Sarkozy also note his inability to significantly influence the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the failure of his Mediterranean Union project, which he envisioned as a new coordinating body for the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea. While many Jews may gravitate to the Socialist candidate in the upcoming elections, few are likely to vote for Le Pen, whose far-right party is seen as hostile to Jews despite her attempts to distance the party from its anti-Semitic past and its founder, her father, Jean-Marie

Le Pen. Le Pen, who wants to outlaw public Muslim prayer, has tried to court Jewish voters, but Jewish community leaders say they won’t bite.

“We won’t vote for the National Front,” CRIF President Richard Prasquier said flatly at his group’s dinner.

Frida Zeitouni, 62, a member of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, says that judging from the chatter at the dinner and among her friends, most French Jews will vote for Sarkozy. But in the south of France, where there are more tensions between Jews and immigrants of North African and Muslim backgrounds, Le Pen’s pitch may actually appeal to Jewish voters, Zeitouni said.

“There are a lot of immigrants, and the Jews there have had

enough,” she said. “That’s why Prasquier says over and over, ‘Don’t vote le Pen!’ because some Jews will because there are so many Arabs.”

The leading opposition candidate, Hollande, is considered a supporter of Israel, and he recently met with CRIF leaders.

Robert Hue, a left-leaning senator and Hollande supporter, acknowledges that many Jews have viscerally positive feelings about Sarkozy. But he says that Hollande can do more for the community.

“Hollande has a steady position. It might evoke less of the emotional discourse that was heard tonight” from Sarkozy, he said, but Hollande “is more into factual reality, so that we can advance and get somewhere.”

Hamas has offered no sign that it will accept the three minimal requirements for recognition demanded by the Quartet grouping of the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, foreswearing terrorism and

accepting previous IsraeliPalestinian agreements.

But some Israeli officials worry that in the wake of the Arab Spring, pressure might build in the West to deal with Hamas. Last month, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, met with Muslim

Brotherhood Chairman Mohamed Badie and other senior leaders in the Islamic movement.

“The region is definitely changing, and for some in the international community this means being more amenable to relations with Hamas,” said an Israeli Foreign Ministry official who insisted on anonymity. “However, our position — and the official position of the international community as articulated by the Quartet — is that as long as Hamas continues to advocate terrorism and sticks with its anti-Semitic, genocidal agenda for the destruction of the Jewish people, there must be no political relations with it.”

It’s too early to say whether Hamas is undergoing a real change in its positions. At the end of December, during a meeting in Cairo with Fatah and Islamic Jihad, which is also considered a terrorist group, Meshaal declared his willingness to adopt a strategy of popular resistance used in the Arab Spring, as opposed to terrorism.

Meshaal also expressed openness to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along the pre-SixDay War lines with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

In other interviews, however, Meshaal has spoken in favor of the Palestinians’ right to fight Israel through armed struggle because “armed resistance is the strategic choice for liberating Palestinian land from the sea to the river” — that is, all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

“Hamas’ reorientation and the implementation of its reconciliation agreement with Fatah may be interpreted by some as a de facto fulfillment of the Quartet’s conditions for engagement,” Brom said.

Khaled Abu Toameh, a Palestinian commentator and journalist for The Jerusalem Post, said Hamas is increasingly seen as a legitimate player.

“For the first time, we are seeing Hamas representatives meeting publicly with the top leaders of Arab nations,” Abu Toameh said.

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