The American Israelite, June 13, 2013

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THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013 5 TAMMUZ, 5773

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Bilbao Reigns in Spain

Cincinnati community remembers Benjamin Gettler In a speech given on June 7, 1945, General George S. Patton concluded: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

This quote is fitting for a community leader like Benjamin Gettler, who passed away on June 4, 2013, at the age of 87.

Reviewing Mr. Gettler’s career, we are thankful for his many lasting contributions to our lives. A prominent businessman, successful attorney, political activist and civic leader, we in Cincinnati will particularly remember him for his contributions while president of the Jewish Community Relations Council, his work in creating the Jewish Foundation, his leadership positions on the boards of the University of Cincinnati and Jewish Hospital, his role in providing regional transportation for all citizens and his involvement in the Republican Party.

Further, he was the executive director of the Rockwern Charitable Fund.

Nationally, Mr. Gettler was one of the founders of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and served as Chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Born in Louisville, Ky., he was the son of Herbert and Gertrude Gettler. His father, an insurance salesman, moved with the family from Louisville to Chicago, to Indianapolis to Terre Haute and finally to Cincinnati in 1938. Mr. Gettler grew up in the 1930s and ‘40s at a time when antisemitism was prevalent around the world. He carried that memory with him for his entire life, as he aimed to make safety for the Jewish people a top priority. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School at the age of 16 and received a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati, where he graduated at age 19 with a major in Economics.

Deciding to pursue a career in law, Mr. Gettler accepted a scholarship to Harvard Law School.

Upon his return to Cincinnati, Mr. Gettler practiced law, and eventually became president of Vulcan International and Chairman of the Board of the University of Cincinnati.

Mr. Gettler served as Chairman of the Board of the Jewish Institute for

Benjamin Gettler

National Security Affairs (JINSA) from 1994-1998. The mission of JINSA is to support a strong U.S. defense, a strong Israel defense and a link between the two. Throughout his leadership at JINSA, Mr. Gettler remained dedicated to supporting strong and robust American defense cooperation with Israel.

“I first met Ben Gettler in the mid1970s when he brought a JINSA delegation to visit our factory in Arad.

Consistent with his passionate commitment to the city of Cincinnati and the strategic relationship between the United States and Israel, he wanted the group to see a homegrown industrialist helping to build up the Jewish state. Ben’s legacy is his overarching

concern for Jewish security, and the impact he made by defining the direction—and enhancing the abilities—of organizations that promoted that agenda,” shared Gary Heiman, chairman and original trustee of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati.

“If you are lucky in life you get to work with someone like Ben Gettler.

If you are really lucky in life, you get to work with Ben himself. He may be gone but his guiding hand will always be on my shoulder. Ben was an American patriot and a fierce advocate for Israel. Ben was an American original. It was a privilege to have known him,” shared David Steinmann, former president of JINSA.

Admiral Leon Edney, Retired U.S. Navy Supreme Allied Commander, NATO, who also worked closely with Ben and David at JINSA, recently wrote that Ben’s strongest characteristics included his “ethical integrity, loyalty, a sense of fairness, and a desire to make a difference. Everyone who has the privilege of getting to know Ben and work with him is a better person for the experience. I certainly am.”

Mr. Gettler joined the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) in 1971—eventually becoming Chairman in 1978— primarily as a way to fight antisemitism and to concentrate on Israel’s security. He provided opportunities for politicians on the local, regional and national levels to learn about the Jewish community and Israel.

“It is impossible to measure the scope of Ben Gettler’s impact on our community. He unleashed his brilliant strategic talents to build many successful Cincinnati-based businesses, lead the Jewish Hospital Board, co-navigate the creation of our Jewish Foundation and promote the establishment of Cincinnati’s best-in-the-nation Israel Experience grant program. Having grown up in the shadow of the Holocaust, Ben fought masterfully and ceaselessly to protect the Jewish people on the local and national levels. Toward that end, Ben made it his personal mission to ensure that Cincinnati’s JCRC was one of the most focused and respected in America. I learned a great deal from Ben. We will all feel the loss of his indomitable spirit as we strive to embody the depth of Ben’s commitment to our people and our community,” remarked Shep Englander, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.

In 1978, Mr. Gettler was invited to join the board of Jewish Hospital, eventually becoming Chairman of the Board in 1991. When Jewish Hospital joined The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, he was instrumental in putting aside funds to begin a foundation that would benefit the Jewish community of Cincinnati.

As a central figure in the establishGETTLER on page 19

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Jewish Family Service WE GIVE A... campaign a finalist in local marketing competition was, and continues to be, included in other agency marketing such as radio ads and holiday postcard greetings.

S h e worked in partnership with a marketing committee initiated by the (Left to right): Mark Miller, Beth Schwartz, Sherry Kaplan, JFS board. The Catherine Stahl, Dennis Mitman and Max Yamson committee, chaired by At Jewish Family Service, WE Max Yamson, included Mark GIVE A...

Miller, Daniel Kerbel, Dennis A catchy and edgy marketing Mitman, Suzy Marcus Goldberg, campaign by Jewish Family Melanie Blumental, Ben Service earned the agency and its Rosenfield, Beth Schwartz and Director of Marketing Sherry Catherine Stahl.

Kaplan recognition by Cincinnati “Let’s be sure that We Give A… American Marketing Association huge round of applause and bow of as a finalist in its Marketer of the appreciation to our Marketing Year competition, non-profit cate- Director Sherry Kaplan and the gory. The Cincinnati Zoo took marketing committee for daring to home the non-profit category ‘push the envelope’ with an edgy award for its social media cam- slogan, aggressively using technolpaign marketing highlighting the ogy and strategically using tradibirth of a baby giraffe. The tional channels to move the camMarketer of the Year awards, which paign, abandoning the usual and were presented May 2 at a dinner typical and capturing our commureception, recognizes a company, a nity’s attention,” said Jewish marketing team within a company Family Service Executive Director or an individual who has demon- Beth Schwartz. strated overall excellence in marMark Miller’s company U.S. keting.

Digital Partners donated talent and Kaplan oversaw the execution time to create the “wegivea” webof a successful fully integrated site. 779 Video created the animatcampaign that was centered on four ed videos at a non-profit rate. Both short animated videos and the slo- allowed the campaign to stay withgan WE GIVE A… It incorporated in budget. a full spectrum of marketing chan“All of Sherry’s coworkers can nels over a six month period: a attest to the time, effort, and scrutimicrosite, direct mail postcards, ny that she put forth in order to get social media, email, traditional the execution of the videos, direct media ads, and movie theatre trail- mail, and messaging exactly the ers. The WE GIVE A... message way she and the committee wanted

it. Sherry wrote the preliminary storyboards for the videos, the copy for the voice-overs and spent hours in the editing process making certain that we were telling our JFS story effectively in less than a minute. The committee edited further, provided outside expert perspective, and strategized how to implement the campaign that Sherry smoothly carried out,” added Schwartz.

The WE GIVE A… marketing was developed in response to a challenge last year by Jewish Family Service Board President Michael Schwartz to create an edgy awareness campaign. Schwartz noted that “JFS is an incredible organization that is truly the ‘doing’ agency in our community. Too many people don’t know about all the wonderful services that JFS provides. We hoped that this campaign would entice people to take notice.”

Jewish Family Service has a wide array of distinct program areas serving all ages in the community from “babies to bubbies.”

These include infant adoption, emergency food and financial assistance, domestic violence prevention programs, youth mentoring, geriatric care management, immigration services, Holocaust survivor services and more.

“Someone who knows that our Bigs & Littles youth mentoring program leads a child to a more secure future may not be aware that we also have nationally certified geriatric care managers to help senior adults live independently. Or a donor may understand how case managers at our food pantry guide a family toward self-reliance, but may not know that we also have adoption social workers working JEWISH FAMILY on page 22

Mazel Tov to Adath Israel Congregation’s Confirmation Class of 5773 On Shabbat morning, May 4, Adath Israel Congregation’s Confirmation Class led services for the whole congregation. They read Torah, Haftorah and led Musaf. Lila Englander delivered the d’var Torah and spoke about her personal connection to Judaism.

This year’s confirmands enrolled in the class because of their dedication to continuing their Conservative Jewish education. With Rabbi Irvin Wise, they explored important and complex issues such as assimilation, the importance of Jewish values, and other topics relevant to their lives.

These sessions provided time for the students and the Rabbi to get to know each other better, and time to reflect on how Judaism has meaning in each of their lives.

As a group, the class commit-

ted to carrying out a year-long tzedakah project. They chose to volunteer at the Halom House and Cedar Vi l l a g e throughout the year.

They met once a month on Sundays b e f o r e M e r c a z The Adath Israel Confirmation Class of 5773 included: Hebrew High Talia Bailes, Danielle Caller, Ben Cohen, Lila Englander, School or at Allison Fisher, Herbert Meisner, Allison Nemoff and Eli one of their Seidman-Deutsch. volunteer our class to come together and not sites. Confirmand Ali Fisher only continue our Jewish reflected on the year. Education but also to participate “Confirmation class was a way for in Tikkun Olam.”

To all of you who expressed unqualified concern and showed unwavering support, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

With much gratitude and love,

Anita and Hank

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Camp Chabad campers explore acting with professional actress at CCM

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“Camp Chabad’s outstanding, nurturing and mature staff is handpicked from across the globe,” Rabbi Majeski noted. “Campers develop friendships with their counselors that last throughout the years.” Morning care and after care are available for an additional fee. A t-shirt, most trips and a nutritious Kosher lunch and snacks are included in the cost.

Monday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m., is the 2012 Ophir Award (Israeli Oscar) winner for Best Documentary and 2013 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival Audience Favorite, “Life in Stills.” In this touching and humorous documentary, two generations collide in loving and entertaining ways while they take on politicians at city hall to save the shop and its nearly one million negatives that document Israel’s defining moments. Despite the generation gap and many conflicts, Ben and Miriam embark on a heart-wrenching journey, comprising many humorous and touching moments – a journey that requires a lot of love, courage and compassion.

On Tuesday, June 25, at 7:30 p.m., enjoy the screw ball comedy “My First Wedding.” Sure to leave audiences smiling, “My First Wedding” was nominated for four Argentine Academy Awards and is one of Argentina’s biggest recent box office hits. The perfect storm of matrimonial disharmony ensues for Jewish-born Adrián and Catholic-born Leonora. Replete with a cast of eccentric and feuding family members, troublemaking ex-lovers, and the theological musings of a priest and a rabbi who are diverted from the wedding venue, this comedy of errors leads down a path of misunderstanding and disaster.

Ending the JCC Summer

Cinema Series, “Portrait of Wally” shows on Thursday, June 27, at 7:30 p.m. A documentary about the scandalous lawsuit over a Naziplundered painting by Egon Schiele is dissected in absorbing detail in this indignant exposé that reveals the political corruption and moral imperatives behind the New York art world. “[Portrait of Wally is] A must see for anyone who cares about modern art. Although the main story deals with art looted by the Nazis, the modern developments provide an astonishing thriller of a tale…Your mouth will hang open at the twists and turns in the history of this dear little painting,” noted film critic, Greer Nicholson.

Adath Israel second graders make map of Israel happened to look up at his wall, upon which was hanging a giant satellite map of Eretz Yisrael.

Maps have played an important role over the years in our understanding of the land of Israel. The Holy Land has been artfully depicted in maps for at least the last millennium. Over the years these maps have served as visual tools, helping to enhance our understanding of Eretz Yisrael.

For children especially, such visual tools are very important in the learning process. Kabakoff quickly decided that his students would make their own 3-D map of Israel.

They would learn about Eretz

Yisrael, and also would have fun doing so.

With that in mind, he had the children create their own physica 3-D map of Israel. The process began with giant wooden cut-outs of the land of Israel. The class discussed the different cities in Israel, and the layout of the land… where the desert region was, and where the lusher, greener lands were.

The students then portioned off the Negev, the Galilee, Judea, Samaria, and the coastal region, and covered each region with a particular kind of artificial turf/grass and then applied the materials to the wood cut-outs. A

discussion about the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee and the role these bodies of water play in modern day Israel ensued. The children had an absolute blast being able to create a physical map that they could hold in their hands.

This is the third year Kabakoff has provided this experience for his second graders. It has helped them gain a greater understanding of the land that is so sacred to the Jewish people, and it is a treasure they will have for years to come. Scott looks forward to next year at this time when our current first graders will be able to make Israel maps of their own.

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 GABRIELLE COHEN JORY EDLIN Assistant Editors ALEXIA KADISH Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN ZELL SCHULMAN RABBI AVI SHAFRAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists JOSEPH D. STANGE Production Manager ERIN WYENANDT Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

ewish N h-J ew lis

The second grade students at Adath Israel’s Jarson Education Center have been hard at work over the last few weeks of school learning about the land and people of Israel, and why Israel is so important to the Jewish people.

They have learned about Israel through our primary medium, our textbooks, of course, but it was also important to give the children a hands-on, experiential exposure to Eretz Yisrael.

A few years ago, Scott Kabakoff, our second grade teacher, was sitting at his computer thinking about how to provide this experience for his class. He

RABBI ISAAC M. WISE Founder, Editor, Publisher, 1854-1900

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well as horseback riding, rafting, rock-climbing and puppet-making make every day exciting for campers.

Campers ages 2-5 attend Camp Chabad at Chai Tots in Mason. A low camper-counselor ratio ensures a fun and safe experience that includes pony rides, visiting a petting zoo, t-ball clinic and a trip to Run, Jump and Play.

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Camp Chabad campers enjoy a field trip to COSI in Columbus

JCC Summer Cinema Series presents must-see films Based on feedback from the winter Jewish & Israeli Film Festival, the Mayerson JCC will offer more award-winning films at the JCC Summer Cinema Series, June 24, 25 and 27. All films will be shown at the Mariemont Theatre.

“The Summer Cinema Series allows us to continue to share great cinema from all over the world with our community here in Cincinnati. We are thankful to the Joffe family for assisting us in presenting three great Jewish and Israeli films this month,” said Mark Mayer, co-chair of the Mayerson JCC Jewish & Israeli Film Festival committee.

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indoor gymnasiums, climbing walls, swimming facilities and airconditioned bunk rooms; surrounded by professionally manicured sports fields at the University of Cincinnati. Camp Chabad offers free transportation from the Blue Ash and Mason areas with professionally driven buses.

Camp Chabad is accredited by the American Camping Association. In addition to acting, girls and boys ages 6-14 choose other I-shops including: jewelry design, martial arts, amazing accessories, plasterworks, bead creation, adventures with robots and chocolate creations.

Camp Chabad also provides a full sports experience with a professional Athletic Director known for getting children excited about sports and building good sportsmanship. Campers can sign up for certified swim lessons in the leisure pool, featuring a lazy river, water wall and bubble bench.

Weekly field trips to area favorites like Kings Island and COSI as

r in Am ape er sp i

If your child dreams of being on stage, Camp Chabad offers acting as one of its I-shops, in which campers choose specialty activities throughout the summer.

Karie-Lee Sutherland, a professional actress who teaches at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM) Preparatory Department and Playhouse in the Park, will present the Camp Chabad acting program.

Camp Chabad runs from June 24Aug. 9, but families can sign up for all seven weeks or “mix and match” any week to suit their schedule.

Camp Chabad director, Rabbi Menachem Majeski, says this unique program lets campers explore acting at one of the top acting schools. “Imagine using the props and costumes from world-class productions and learning acting in a professional acting studio.” Campers also will watch a production at CCM. In addition to the CCM facilities used for acting, Camp Chabad uses over 200,000 square feet of

THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE (USPS 019-320) is published weekly for $44 per year and $1.00 per single copy in Cincinnati and $49 per year and $3.00 per single copy elsewhere in U.S. by The American Israelite Co. 18 West Ninth Street, Suite 2, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2037. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, OH. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE, 18 West Ninth Street, Suite 2, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2037.

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

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Young Professionals get fired up for a cooking competition It’ll be a “food fight” to the finish when Access’ JGourmet presents the Top Chef Challenge on Monday, June 24, at 7 p.m. at a Forkable Feast in Oakley. This culinary competition will pit teams against one another in a race against the clock to impress the judges with the tastiest, most creative concoction. A secret ingredient will be revealed at the event and each group must incorporate it into their dish to compete for the title of Top Chef 2013! Twenty-five dollar Visa gift cards will be awarded to each member of the winning team! Light bites will be served before the competition begins.

Whether you’re a pro in the kitchen or can’t even boil water, all you need is a little competitive spirit to participate. While no experience is needed, team members will have to think fast and work together to take home the prize!

This event is part of Access’ JGourmet initiative, which focuses on engaging events for foodies throughout the year. JGourmet is best known for its interactive cooking classes which are designed to take traditional Jewish fare and other favorites to a whole new level of hands-on fun.

“JGourmet is one of Access’most

popular Signature Programs and is often the very first thing newcomers sign up for,” says Briana Landesberg, Access’ new events manager for Young Adult Initiatives. “In fact, it was the first thing I signed up for when I moved to Cincinnati from Florida almost two years ago!” she adds. “I didn’t know anyone at the time, but I met a ton of people in the class, most of whom I’m still friends with to this day!”

JGourmet classes are typically held in a series of three monthly classes, which take place on Monday evenings at designated times throughout the year at A Forkable Feast in

Oakley, a commercial kitchen and retail store owned and operated by Jewish community members, Randy Bloch and Stu Schloss, who open their doors after hours to Access in order to provide private classes.

JGourmet is one of nine Signature Programs that are based on the special interests of the Access constituents between the ages of 2135. Others include No Boyz Allowed, just for women, No Ma’am for men, ACTout for those interested in volunteer opportunities, JSPN, sporting events and fitness programs at the JCC, Got Shabbat, Friday night dinners, Schmooze for Twos for couples

in committed relationships, HeBREW Happy Hour, meet ups at local clubs and bars, and JCafe, light conversation about topics of Jewish interest.

To RSVP for the Top Chef event, or for more information about Access, please consult the Community Directory listing in this issue for Access’ contact information.

Livni’s talk wows AJC Global Forum audience

Schwartz Family at Global Forum (from left) Seth Schwartz, Drew Schwartz, Dr. Peter Schwartz, and Lael Schwartz

For many Cincinnatians, the high point of the American Jewish Committee’s 2013 Global Forum was the speech of Tzipi Livni, Israel’s Justice Minister and Chief Negotiator with the Palestinians.

AJC Cincinnati President Rick

Michelman noted: “AJC truly excels in international relations.

This was displayed again and again at the Global Forum through dialogues with Foreign Ministers and over 30 Ambassadors. Impressive!

The highlight for me, nevertheless, was the personal commitment in the speech of Tzipi Livni. There is hope for peace!”

AJC Vice President Cheryl Schriber felt uplifted and moved by Livni’s speech: “She wants to take Israel forward, despite having parents who were freedom fighters at Israel’s birth. She feared they could never understand or forgive her for her views. Her commanding presence and personal direct-

ness were inspiring to me in a way that I could not imagine reading her written words would have been.”

Board member Rabbi Shena Potter Jaffee attended as AJC’s New Generation Fellow. She found it “inspiring to hear world leaders bravely speaking about their positions on world affairs.

Tzipi Livni, Israel’s Justice Minister, clearly set forth the case for a realistic path to a two-state solution. She spoke passionately and bluntly about Israel’s role, the U.S.’s role and the reality of living in a tough neighborhood.”

Rabbi Jaffee also praised Dalia Ziada, executive director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Developmental

Studies in Egypt, who “gave a deeply personal account of her vision of the Arab Spring, the difficulties of the road ahead, and the essential role women must play in any successful future for the region.”

Board member Kurt Grossman evaluated the Global Forum from the perspective of his interfaith experience: “Every talk I attended on interfaith issues was informative and impacting. I chose to meet with representatives of the Methodist Church, concerned that the path they seem to prefer in regard to the Middle East is not helpful to finding peace. AJC representatives and I had the chance to clearly and

openly explore the differences that separate us when it comes to moving toward a peaceful two-state solution in the Middle East.”

Dr. Peter Schwartz of Pennsylvania attended with his two sons from Pennsylvania and his son Seth Schwartz from Cincinnati: “The Forum was magnificently run, with tremendous education across a very broad political, strategic, and religious frontier. The opportunity to speak to people with similar and also divergent ideas from across the planet was unique for me. But most importantly the men of our family had a fabulous bonding experience which brought each of us closer to our roots.”

Northern Hills HaZaK features Cantor Sharon Hordes Cantor Sharon Hordes will present “Songs in the Key of Life” when Northern Hills Synagogue Congregation B’nai Avraham hosts the programming year’s closing HaZaK program for seniors on Wednesday, June 19, at noon.

Cantor Hordes is one of the congregation’s favorite performers, having grown up at Northern Hills,

and is the daughter of Don and Elaine Hordes. She currently serves at Kenesseth Israel Congregation in Louisville. Cantor Hordes received her B.A. in classical voice at Indiana University, and her master’s in sacred music from Gratz College.

She was the first cantor ordained by the Rabbinic Reconstructionist College in Philadelphia. Melody

Wise Temple Brotherhood continues bike riding Wise Temple Brotherhood continues a 10-year tradition this summer with the weekly summer Sunday morning bike rides on the Loveland Bike Trail. Brotherhood members, and their families and guests, meet every Sunday in the summer shortly before 9 a.m. at Harrison and Railroad Streets in the heart of Loveland (the bike trail parking lot) and ride for several hours. The leader of the group, Lew Ebstein, comments that this portion of the bike trail is flat and mostly tree-lined so it is a relatively easy and shaded bike ride. There is no need for participants to be experienced bike riders. Lew and other Brotherhood members are on-hand to help with air for your tires or a quick adjustment to your bike. Lew explains, “Everyone rides at their own pace and, because it is a safe bike path, anyone can turn around at

anytime if they prefer a shorter distance or if they have time constraints. The only requirement is that every rider must wear a bike helmet.”

Lew notes that this is a very informal event, “There is no need to make prior reservations. If you wake up on Sunday and see that the weather is beautiful, feel free to head down to the bike trail and join in. We continue to do this activity year after year because it’s a great group, a lot of fun and good exercise. We especially hope to see some new faces this year.” After the ride, everyone gathers for food and drinks at one of the local establishments to celebrate and discuss the riding experience.

If you would like to let the Brotherhood know you plan to attend or if you would like more information, please contact the Wise Temple office.

Wallace will accompany on piano.

“HaZaK” is an acronym, with the letters standing for the Hebrew words “Hakhma” (wisdom), “Ziknah” (maturity), and “Kadima”

(forward). The HaZaK programs are for adults 55 and older, and are open to the entire community. Many attendees have come from the JCC, Cedar Village, Brookwood

Retirement Community, and throughout Greater Cincinnati.

For reservations or more information, please call the Northern Hills Synagogue office.

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Regional: Miami University Hillel earns Organization of the Year award Hillel at Miami University recently celebrated several accomplishments at Miami’s student organization and adviser recognition ceremony.

In its fourth year, the event celebrates the hard work and dedication student organizations and advisers give to “make the Miami undergraduate experience the best in the country,” as stated in the Miami University strategic goals.

Hillel won three awards: the Outstanding RedHawk Spirit Program for “Hockey Shabbat” award, the Program of the Year for “Challah for Hunger” (tied with HAWKS Peer Educators) award and the Organization of the Year (tied with Global Citizen) award.

Student leaders Ryan Fuldauer, a sophomore psychology major from Mayfield Heights, and Danielle Goldberg, a junior political science major from Northridge, Calif., organized the Hockey Shabbat. With Shabbat providing a critical entry point for Jewish students at Miami to par-

ticipate in Jewish life on a regular, and texts, the concept was part in the campus community. ongoing basis, this activity gath- explained in broader terms – a Challah for Hunger, a new ered Jewish students to engage sense of responsibility, one to the project, was coordinated by Elaina more fully in the Miami experi- other and related to the various Ostrow, a senior architecture ence at a very popmajor from Beaver ular sports arena.

Creek; Zach Shabbat services Abramowitz, a junHillel won three awards: the Outstanding were held at ior accountancy and Goggin Ice Arena finance double major RedHawk Spirit Program for “Hockey after which the from New Albany; crowd of over 50 Heather Allentuck, a Shabbat” award, the Program of the Year students attended senior middle childthe home game. hood education This year major from North for “Challah for Hunger” (tied with HAWKS Hillel’s attendance Potomac, Md.; and at weekly Shabbat Melanie Swartz, a Peer Educators) award and the Organization celebrations grew senior architecture significantly. The major from of the Year (tied with Global Citizen) award.

Shabbat experience Montgomery. is truly a gathering Two newly of the community engaged students coand provided an excellent envi- communities of which one is a chaired the yearlong experience – ronment for informal Jewish edu- part. Hockey at Miami is a spirited one oversaw the baking of the cation. community event that allows stu- challah while the other organized The “Jewish Teachable dents to share in the excitement, and helped sell the challah at Moment” this year related directly growth, hardships and endurance Shriver Center – to raise money to “do not separate yourself from of all involved. Hockey Shabbat for those in need. A Jewish learnthe community.” While originally allows Jewish students to explore ing component and general inforemanating from Jewish scholars their Jewish identities and play their mation about local, national and

global issues related to hunger and homelessness were introduced each week. An online order form and weekly marketing materials alerted students, staff, faculty and community members about the sales.

Over 60 different students and several volunteer groups prepared Challah in the Hillel kosher kitchen throughout the year. More than 300 challahs were baked and sold.

There are plans to expand the program next year.

“The students did an amazing job initiating purposeful programs this year and adding tremendous value to the campus and greater communities. It is wonderful and greatly appreciated that their time, effort, dedication and sense of community have been noticed and rewarded,” said Marcy Miller, executive director of Hillel at Miami University.

“Special thanks go out to so many for their support of the students’ endeavors!”

Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. appointee, has history of controversial statements on Israel

By Jacob Kamaras JointMedia News Service Samantha Power, President Barack Obama’s replacement for Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has a history of controversial comments about Israel, reigniting concerns regarding the Obama administration’s support for the Jewish state that were raised after the nomination of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), told JNS on Wednesday that a look at the list of Obama’s nominees and appointments to positions that impact Israel – including Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John O. Brennan, and now Power— “makes very clear that President Obama is no friend of Israel, and that he is insensitive to the interests of American Jews and the pro-Israel community, because all of those important posts have been filled with people who have been very hostile to Israel.”

Power from January 2009 to March 2013 held positions including special assistant to the president, senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the National Security Council, and member of the Atrocities Prevention Board.

During a 2002 interview at the University of California, Berkeley Institute of International Studies,

Courtesy of Eric Bridiers

Samantha Power, the new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

when asked what she would advise a U.S. president to do if either party in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict was “moving toward genocide,” Power referenced the pro-Israel lobby by saying the situation might mean America “alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import,” before seemingly vouching for an American invasion of Israel to protect the Palestinians from genocide.

“It may mean more crucially sacrificing – or investing, I think, more than sacrificing – literally billions of dollars not in servicing Israelis’, you know, military, but actually in investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing bil-

lions of dollars it would probably take also to support, I think, what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old, you know, Srebrenica kind or the Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence,” said Power, who later retracted her comments in an interview with Haaretz.

In a 2007 interview posted on the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s website, Power said, “America’s important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decisionmakers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.”

Power has also criticized the New York Times for reporting that there was no massacre of Palestinians in Jenin in 2002, commenting in the 2003 book Ethnic Violence and Justice, “I was struck by a headline that accompanied a news story on the publication of the Human Rights Watch report. The headline was, I believe: ‘Human Rights Reports Finds Massacre Did Not Occur in Jenin.’ The second paragraph said, ‘Oh, but lots of war crimes did.’

Why wouldn’t they make the [Israeli] war crimes the headline and the non-massacre the second paragraph?”

ZOA’s Klein told JNS that the appointment of Power is a troubling development for the prospects of Israel at the U.N., a body whose resolutions already

frequently condemn the Jewish state. Klein added that Power’s firing from Obama’s 2008 election campaign over calling Hillary Clinton “a monster” indicates that Power lacks the diplomatic tact required for the U.N. ambassador role.

Klein said ZOA plans to scrutinize Power, publicly note her past statements about Israel, and speak with other Jewish groups about the issue – just like ZOA did when it felt Obama’s nomination of Hagel for defense secretary warranted opposition.

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), another group that was vocal in its opposition of the Hagel nomination, also issued a warning about the Power appointment on Wednesday.

“Samantha Power has a record of statements that are very troubling to Americans who support Israel,” RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said in a statement.

“We urge members of the U.S. Senate to question her closely about her past statements and writings.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), however, praised the Power appointment, with Barry Curtiss-Lusher, ADL national chair, and Abraham Foxman, ADL national director, saying in a statement, “We are pleased that President Obama has nominated a true champion of human rights who led the effort to make averting genocide and atrocities a core part of American policy to head the U.S. delegation at the United

Nations.”

“As head of President Obama’s multilateral affairs efforts, Samantha engaged in an all-hands-on-deck U.S. campaign against Palestinian unilateral efforts in the U.N. to circumvent peace negotiations. She experienced first-hand the hostility faced

by Israel and the abuse of the U.N. bodies to promote anti-Israel bias.

As someone who appreciates, to the core of her being, the meaning of international human rights mechanisms, Samantha is clear eyed and understands the injustice of their abuse to target Israel’s legitimacy,” Curtiss-Lusher and Foxman added.

The ADL leaders’ statement did not reference any of Power’s past controversial comments on Israel.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a well-known author and TV host who last November was a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in New Jersey, wrote in a 2011 op-ed recounting a conversation he had with Power that she “rejected utterly the notion she had any animus toward Israel.”

“She acknowledged that she had erred significantly in offering hypothetical comments that did not reflect how she felt,” Boteach wrote, regarding Power’s 2002 comments in Berkeley. “She said that opponents of President Obama had unfairly taken her disorganized comments further and characterized them as ‘invade Israel’ talk.”

NATIONAL • 7

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

EU envoy: Settlements Seeking Kin: Photo brings desperate leading to Israel’s isolation hope for a Holocaust miracle

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency

By Hillel Kuttler Jewish Telegraphic Agency

WASHINGTON – Israel’s settlement building is increasingly isolating the country in Europe, leading to European Union policies that could reinforce Israel’s delegitimization, according to the top EU representative to the peace process.

Andreas Reinicke, the EU’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said increasing frustration with the settlement movement is leading Europe to adopt policies that single out Israel for punitive measures.

In an interview Wednesday at the EU’s Washington mission, Reinicke, in town for meetings with counterparts in the Obama administration, cited two policies in particular: increased levies on goods manufactured in West Bank settlements, which already are in place, and labeling to distinguish products manufactured in Israel from those in the West Bank, which is under consideration.

“What the Europeans feel compelled to do is to make clear that our political position, our understanding of the territory of the State of Israel, which is the borders of 1967 including West Jerusalem, has to be reflected in our legal relationship between Israel and the European Union,” he said.

Reinicke said the European establishment overwhelmingly opposes actions that isolate Israel as a whole, noting for instance the decision by British physicist Stephen Hawking to boycott a conference in Israel this summer.

“The vast majority,” he began, then corrected himself. “Everybody is against this,” he said, referring to the boycott and divestment movement.

Nonetheless, he acknowledged that the policies distinguishing settlement products from Israeli products reinforce the movement to isolate and delegitimize Israel.

“The danger is there,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s a good development.”

Reinicke suggested that the labeling policy would soon be adopted.

“The number of foreign ministers who are supporting this are increasing,” he said. “This is a development we should look at, which is not a good development.

“It is almost impossible to explain to any European why settlement is continuing all the time. It is difficult to explain to Europeans why increased settlement activities mean an increase of security for the State of Israel.”

The pessimistic scenario outlined by Reinicke echoed similar warnings this week from John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state,

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends.

BALTIMORE – Picking up her mail about a year ago, 88year-old Rose Goteiner stopped in her tracks upon seeing the photo on a newsletter cover.

Posing shortly after the Holocaust ended, 21 people were standing before a truck marked “American Joint Distribution Committee” – the relief organization later known as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. There were young children and teenagers, plus a few adults.

In the middle of the front row was a girl wearing a light-colored dress, hands at her sides and staring into the camera.

Goteiner believes it is her sister, Ruth Konigstein. And now Goteiner is hoping against hope that Ruth is still alive and that the sisters might miraculously reunite in their twilight years.

“I thought I was going to die when I saw it,” Goteiner, of Boca Raton, Fla., said of the picture.

“Right away I knew it was her.

My whole body was shaking.

Right now, I’m shaking.”

Goteiner last saw Ruth, as well as two brothers, Herman and Alfred, and her parents, Heskel

Courtesy of Sean Gallup/Getty

Demonstrators in Berlin protesting the deaths of pro-Palestinian activists in a clash with Israeli commandos aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, June 2010.

and from the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, one of Israel’s staunchest friends on the continent.

“Yes, the United States of America will always have Israel’s back,” Kerry said in remarks Monday to the American Jewish Committee. “We will always stand up for Israel’s security. But wouldn’t we both be stronger if we had some more company? “ Also addressing the AJC, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg described an erosion of support for Israel in Europe.

“Alarm among Israel’s foreign partners about the continued expansion of Jewish residential areas beyond the Green Line, steadily eroding the size and contiguity of the residual non-Jewish territories, often seems to be felt in Israel as a political nuisance to be overcome rather than a serious questioning of Israel’s political credibility,” he said.

The Czech Republic was the only European nation to join the United States and Israel last year in opposing the Palestinian Authority’s successful bid to enhance its United Nations status to non-member state observer.

Most of the other 27 members of the European Union abstained on the vote. Asked why Europe does not treat the Palestinian Authority’s quest for statehood recognition absent negotiations with Israel with the same seriousness that it opposes settlement expansion, Reinicke said it was hard for European nations to adamantly oppose a diplomatic maneuver.

“We think that the Palestinians should come to the negotiating table without preconditions,” he said. “We had a strong discussion and very, very intensive discussions among the Europeans about how to move. But the bottom line, it is a sort of diplomatic activity. It is peaceful, not a violent one.”

He expressed coolness about a plan advanced by Kerry to seek $4 billion in private investment for the Palestinian areas, noting that economic conditions – in particular the ability to move people and goods about freely – are more important than money.

“I remember everyone’s face,” she said, no doubt aided by the treasured family photograph she has kept since the war. It sits in a frame atop her bedroom dresser, a formal portrait made of herCourtesy of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Global Archives self with her Rose Goteiner believes that her sister, Ruth parents and Konigsberg, is shown in the middle of the bottom row of this 1946 photograph taken in Amsterdam. siblings during their imprisonment at and Sheindel, in the Dubrowa ghetto in Poland in 1943. Ruth Dubrowa. Heskel and Herman, was 4 or 5 at the time; Rose was then about 13, are wearing the compulsory yellow Jewish star on 17 or 18.

That year, the Nazis deported their suit jackets. Rigid, harsh Goteiner, first to the Gelenau expressions characterize everylabor camp in Germany, then on a one’s face—all except Herman’s. three-day march to Reichenbach, His lips indicate a slight smile.

Herman also displays a banda sub-camp of the Gross-Rosen age on his right cheek, where he concentration camp.

The fate of the others? Even was shot by German soldiers. The now Goteiner doesn’t know. soldiers had stormed the family’s Shortly after being liberated, ghetto apartment after being Goteiner heard from another sur- tipped off that the Konigsteins vivor that they may have been were allowing butchered meat to deported to Auschwitz and, pre- be packaged in their kitchen and sumably, their deaths. (Three sib- sold on the black market. Fearing lings who presumably were killed, their execution, the parents survived the war, and two of them escaped out a window while Herman held off the intruders by are still alive.)

Still, their images remain fresh SEEKING on page 21 in Goteiner’s mind.

8 • NATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Faster than a speeding bagel: Super Jewish dad

By Edmon J. Rodman Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES – As the new Superman movie “Man of Steel” flies to an opening on Father’s Day weekend, we earthbound Jewish men have the superhero’s creators – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Jewish teenagers from Cleveland – to thank for setting such a super high bar.

Especially if Superman, the ultimate immigrant, is a member of the tribe, as cultural commentators like Harry Brod in his book “Superman is Jewish?” maintain.

Finally, then, we have an explanation as to why Jewish men are expected to fly over all obstacles, see through our family’s problems and leap with a single bound over the water shooting out of our broken washing machines.

This model of Jewish masculinity in his home world of Krypton was called Kal-El, which in Hebrew can be taken to mean “voice of God.” But in the home world of Jewish dads, who listens to us?

It’s not that Superman is the first man of Jewish origins whose light outshines ours. Just look at

National Briefs San Francisco hosts 15,000 for Israeli innovation event (JNS) Fifteen-thousand people, including Israelis, Americans and Russians, recently celebrated Israel’s 65 years in the San Francisco Bay Area with a showcase of Israeli innovation through the 13th annual Israel in the Garden. Organizers say the event was the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.

At the June 2 event sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, San Francisco, “young Israeli entrepreneurs showcased their new technologies, drew hundreds of young adults for whom this was their first Israel in the Gardens,” said the fund’s CEO Jennifer Gorovitz, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Kerry authorizes $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt despite concerns over democracy (JNS) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry authorized $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Egypt last month despite writing himself in a memo that the U.S. is “not satisfied with the extent of Egypt’s progress” on its democracy, Reuters reported Thursday.

The Secretary of State, according to U.S. law, needs to confirm that Egypt “is supporting the transition to civilian government, includ-

Courtesy of Edmon J. Rodman

A cape for Father’s Day? Super Jewish dads leap family issues with a single bound and boast their own superpowers.

Though red-hot beams do not shoot from our eyes, Jewish men have been known to display other skills with heat. Recall that it was Jacob who sat around the fire all day cooking, and had a hot bowl of stew ready when his brother Esau came home hungry from the hunt. We also figured out how to make matzah in the required 18 minutes. Though I think we’ll pass on the credit for cholent. We’re in kosher barbecue cook-offs in Kansas City, Atlanta and Memphis. On TV we have Ilan Hall, a winner of Season 2 of “Top Chef,” and Eric Greenspan and Alex Reznik, contestants on the “Next Iron Chef,” as examples of successful Jewish men in the kitchen. Inspired by their success, I recently took a challah baking class. Does “bread of steel” make me super?

Cheer our mastery over conflict: Many Jewish men have learned to mitigate the POWs! and BAMs! that life can throw. In the Bible, Moses negotiates with God to save the Children of Israel. In Pirkei Avot, Hillel says, “Be like the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace.” In Israel, Gerald Steinberg, founder

and president of NGO Monitor, also is the founder of Bar-Ilan University’s graduate program on conflict management and negotiation. In the U.S., Kenneth Feinberg, an expert in mediation and alternative dispute resolution, served as the master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. With three sons, my own skills as mitigator often were called into action; as boys they used to fight over video games. My super solution? I powered down the conflict by flipping off the circuit breaker for the TV room. Worked great – until dark, that is.

Cheer our super design sense: It’s not that we mean to criticize the new cape, tights and boots, but surely we can come up with a better costume. Hailing from the planet “Schmatta,” we come from generations of tailors, garment designers and manufacturers. As far back as Joseph, we understood the importance of a good coat.

Today there are several blocks of downtown Los Angeles where many of the fabric stores have a mezuzah on the doorpost. Men

the Bible: Moses parts an entire sea; Jacob wrestles with, and defeats, an angel; and Judah Maccabee, whose name means “Hammer of God.” On those mornings when you couldn’t run faster than a rolling bagel, how does that make you feel?

Guys, chill. So you’re not a

man of steel. We are men of shpiel – super rationalizers who have developed and carefully crafted a number of Jewish powers. It’s not like we are going to be invited to join the Legion of Super-Heroes anytime soon, but on Father’s Day, Jewish men should be applauded.

Cheer our powers with fire:

ing holding free and fair elections, implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion, and due process of law” prior to transferring the military aid.

But Kerry’s May 9 memo stated that waiving the restrictions on Foreign Military Financing (FMF) was necessary to ensure “a strong U.S. security partnership with Egypt” that “maintains a channel to Egyptian military leadership, who are key opinion makers in the country.”

‘Hannah Arendt’ movie captures intensity of intellectual combat

Russian seniors, Hasidim are poorest Jews in New York (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS) According to a UJAFederation of New York report, Jewish poverty in the New York area is on the rise. More than 560,000 people live in poverty in the New York area, amounting to one in five New York-area Jewish households.

Over the past 20 years, according to the report entitled Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 Special Report on Poverty, Jewish poverty has grown much faster than the Jewish community as a whole. Factors that make a family more likely to be poor include having children under 18, households with seniors, and households that include someone who is divorced, separated, or widowed.

The largest group of poor Jewish households in the New York area is Russian-speaking seniors.

The Hasidic community has the second-largest number of poor households and the third-highest incidence of poverty of any group.

FASTER on page 21

By Tom Tugend Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES – Movie mavens may have to come up with a new genre to classify “Hannah Arendt,” the biopic of the German-Jewish philosopher.

New York Times critic A.O. Scott suggests it is an action film – albeit one in which the weapons are ideas and theories are volleyed on a battlefield where a questionable hypothesis can turn lifelong friends into bitter enemies.

Director Margarethe von Trotta, who has dealt previously with complex Jewish women (“Rosa Luxemburg”) and the Nazi era (“Rosenstrasse”), faced a particularly daunting task in visually portraying the life of a woman known mainly for her ideas.

Footage of Arendt at work is interspersed with shots of her silently chain smoking, pacing back and forth, sitting at a typewriter or just staring at the ceiling.

But if nothing else, “Hannah Arendt” shows that a contest of the mind can be just as intense and vicious as an armed conflict.

The film about her life will begin its U.S. distribution in the coming months after premiering in New York in May. Arendt arrived in America in 1941, a Jewish refugee from Nazi-

Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films

Barbara Sukowa as Hannah Arendt in the film “Hannah Arendt,” a film by Margarethe von Trotta.

occupied Europe. She was an intellectual respected in professional circles but mostly unknown to the general public. And so she may have remained save for the fateful decision of legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn to send her, rather than a seasoned journalist, to cover the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.

The decision would forever change Arendt’s life. Her series in The New Yorker – later expanded in her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” – triggered a furor and made “banality of evil” into an enduring catchphrase used to describe the abdication of moral judgment demonstrated by Eichmann and Nazi bureaucrats in

carrying out the orders of their superiors.

Arendt’s view of Eichmann as a soulless technocrat rather than the embodiment of evil, and her belief that Jews were complicit in facilitating the deportations of their coreligionists to the death camps, aroused widespread condemnation. Many of her closest friends broke with her. The AntiDefamation League reportedly urged rabbis to denounce the book in their High Holidays sermons.

In the film, Arendt’s secretary points to three piles of letters. The smallest stack are letters from people “who think you are good,” the secretary says. A stack three HANNAH on page 21

INTERNATIONAL • 9

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

Protests in Turkey: Can Erdogan weather the storm?

By Sean Savage JointMedia News Service Widespread protests in Turkey are threatening the decade-long rule of Islamist Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raising questions over his ambitions to transform his country.

The protests, which began in Istanbul’s famous Taksim Square over government plans to turn nearby Gezi park into a shopping mall modeled after Ottoman-era army barracks, have turned into a widespread rebuke of Erdogan’s Islamist rule, spreading to several other major Turkish cities such as Ankara and Izmir as well as several cities abroad with Turkish expats.

As the protesters swelled in numbers on Friday and then again Saturday night, police began a widespread crackdown, firing tear gas and water cannons at protestors. Later on, Turkish police retreated, leading to widespread jubilation among the protestors.

On Sunday and into Monday, tens of thousands of protestors again flooded into Taksim Square chanting, “Victory, victory, victory,” “Erdogan, you’re a dictator, resign!” and “Erdogan thinks he is a sultan,” Israel Hayom reported.

As protests have grown and spread throughout Istanbul,

numerous reports by protesters on Twitter and other social media outlets claim police brutality.

Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said 1,750 people were arrested since May 28 in connection with the protests.

Professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University and expert on TurkishIsraeli relations, told JNS, “There is a large secular population, particularly in western Turkey around Istanbul, that is very frustrated by the Islamization of Turkey [under Erdogan].”

“This has accumulated over the past decade into what we are seeing now,” Inbar said.

“However, the problem is the secular parties have no leadership.

This was not instigated by the secular party. This is popular rage.”

Since the formation of the modern Turkish Republic from the remains of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire under secular leader Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk,” the country has had an uneasy relationship with its former empire and Islamic heritage. The military, which has traditionally been the vanguard of secular values, has intervened numerous times to maintain the country’s secular footing. But this has taken a toll on the country’s democratic

institutions and economy.

One of Erdogan’s biggest claims to success has been the stability he has brought after decades of military coup d’états. Under his leadership, the economy has dramatically improved and the country’s international profile has grown. Consequently, many experts touted Erdogan’s rule as an example of blending Islam and democracy together as an example for the rest of the Middle East.

But that model has come at a cost. Erdogan has grown increasingly authoritarian, arresting dozens of journalists and other activists, purging the military of its secular stalwarts, and jailing hundreds of generals and other officers on charges of plotting to oust his Islamist government, according to the Economist. At the same time, Erdogan has been gearing up to amend the Turkish constitution to increase the powers of the presidency, and then seek to run for president in 2014.

“We see a lot of autocratic tendencies of Erdogan. We see attacks on the press and other democratic institutions. While it is still a democracy, but a very problematic democracy, this is what many secularists are protesting and afraid of,” Inbar told JNS. “He is trying to change the system. He is trying to change the

Shadows cast on the heroism of ‘Italian Schindler’

By Alessandra Farkas Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (Corriere della Sera Online) – His Wikipedia page remembers him, in at least 10 languages, as “the Italian police commissioner who saved thousands of Jews from being deported to Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War and for this was deported to the Dachau Concentration Camp, where he died.”

“For his actions,” according to the free encyclopedia, “Giovanni Palatucci was decorated with the ‘Medaglia d’oro’ award for civil merit, and honored as one of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’

by Yad Vashem (September 12, 1990) and ‘Servant of God’ by the Catholic Church.”

But a growing chorus of historians and scholars who for years have been studying the most celebrated of “righteous” Italians are saying Palatucci is nothing but a myth, a sensational fraud orchestrated by the alleged hero’s friends and relatives who claim he saved more than 5,000 Jews in a region where there lived fewer than half that number of Jews.

The hypothesis of a massive

rescue mission by Palatucci already had been categorically denied by the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs in a memorandum dated July 1952, and later by Yad Vashem’s Institute of the Righteous commission in 1990.

At a roundtable discussion organized by the Primo Levi Center at the Casa Italiana ZerilliMarimo in New York, the exdirector of Yad Vashem, Mordecai Paldiel, said that under his supervision, Palatucci was recognized in 1990 as Righteous Among the Nations for having helped “just one woman,” Elena Aschkenasy, in 1940. Paldiel also said the commission “did not find any evidence or testimony that he might have assisted anyone outside of this case.”

Yet in 1955, the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities recognized Palatucci, and in 1995 the Italian government decorated him with the Medaglia d’oro award for civil merit. During the ecumenical ceremony for the Jubilee on May 7, 2000, Pope John Paul II included Palatucci among the martyrs of the 20th century. In 2004, the diocesan phase of the canonization process concluded officially naming the hero who died in

Dachau in 1945, at age 36, a “Servant of God.” But who conducted the historical research on which these recognitions were based? What spawned the myth of the “Italian Schindler?”

The official biographies – the latest of which, “Giovanni Palatucci: a right and a Christian martyr,” by Antonio De Simone and Michele Bianco with a preface by Cardinal Camillo Ruini – speak of thousands of Jews being sent to the internment camp in the town of Campagna. They would have been protected there by Bishop Giuseppe Maria Palatucci, Giovanni’s uncle – who in 1953 called the notorioius camp a “vacation spot.”

“Impossible,” replies Anna Pizzuti, editor of the database of foreign Jewish internees in Italy, “no more than 40 Fiume residents were interned in Campagna. A third of the group ended up in Auschwitz.”

The biographies then recall the 800 Jewish refugees who in 1939 secretly boarded a Greek ship, the Agia Zoni, that departed from Fiume on March 17, 1939 headed SHADOWS on page 22

constitution to fit his vision,” Inbar added.

On Sunday, Erdogan went on television to defend his policies, dismissing criticism that he has become a “dictator.”

“I don’t have dictatorship in my blood… I am a servant, I don’t have any interest in making provocation,” Erdogan said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But Erdogan also angered many of the protestors with his remarks, calling them a “bunch of looters” and branding them as a “minority” who are trying to force their will on the majority, the Associated Press reported.

Erdogan also blamed Twitter, which has been used extensively in the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, calling it a “menace to society.”

Despite the explosion of protests, Inbar told JNS that Erdogan is likely to be able to weather this storm for now.

“He is quite cocky and believes he is quite secure in his position,” Inbar said. “I think he feels these demonstrations won’t really spread. But it really depends on what happens. If someone prominent organizes the demonstrations, they could really turn into an issue for him. But so far it has been very spontaneous.”

Security guards fail to pursue assailants of German rabbi

By JTA Staff Jewish Telegraphic Agency BERLIN (JTA) – Security guards at a shopping mall in Germany failed to pursue the youths who attacked a rabbi, a German news agency reported.

Mark Dainow, vice chair of the Jewish community of Offenbach, told the epd news service that six to eight youths, who appeared to be of “Middle Eastern origin,” attacked Rabbi Mendel Gurewitz at the southern German district’s KOMM-Center on the evening of June 2.

The youths reportedly shoved the 39-year-old rabbi and shouted “s*** Jew,” “f*** off” and “viva Palestine.” Investigators are reviewing videotapes from security cameras.

Mall security guards and the alleged assailants reportedly demanded that Gurewitz erase images of the attack he had taken on his smartphone. One of the police officers who arrived after being called by mall security SECURITY on page 21

International Briefs Oslo daily: Reaction to circumcision cartoon similar to Mohammed riots (JTA) – The Norwegian daily newspaper Dagbladet said reactions to its caricature on circumcision “are similar” to riots that erupted over Danish cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad.

Referencing Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten caricatures of Mohammed in 2005, Dagbladet wrote in a statement, “We now have similar reactions to a cartoon that Dagbladet printed last week.”

Several people died in what The New York Times termed “a wave of violent protests by Muslims” in the Middle East and Europe over the caricatures mocking Mohammed.

Last week, several Jewish organizations condemned the Dagbladet caricature, which showed two people who were widely perceived to be Jewish maiming a child with a fork and bolt cutter while holding a book and professing their faith.

Underground tunnel discovered at Sobibor WARSAW, Poland (JTA) – Polish and Israeli archaeologists discovered traces of an underground tunnel at the site of the former death camp in Sobibor.

The tunnel, whose discovery was announced on Wednesday, ran from a barracks to outside the camp fence. It may have been dug by the prisoners of the Sonderkommando who worked in the camp burning the corpses of murdered Jews.

Australia offering reward to find suspects in '82 bombings SYDNEY (JTA) – Police in Australia offered a $100,000 reward to help flush out the four primary suspects in two 1982 bombings in Sydney.

Detective Chief Superintendent Wayne Gordon, the commander of the terrorism investigation squad, told reporters on Thursday in Sydney that he hoped the money would entice the public or the alleged perpetrators of the Israeli Consulate and Hakoah Club bombings to come forward.

Wife of imprisoned IranianAmerican pastor pleas before UN Human Rights Council (JNS) The wife of imprisoned Iranian-American Pastor Saeed Abedini, Naghmeh, made an impassioned plea for the release of her husband before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Pastor Abedini was sentenced to eight years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison for his Christian faith earlier this year.

10 • ISRAEL

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Why did Israel’s promising electric car maker fail?

By Ben Sales Jewish Telegraphic Agency TEL AVIV – It was supposed to be the car of the future, a nearsilent, battery-powered vehicle that would wean the West off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and save the environment in the process.

And an Israeli company seemed destined to build it.

Better Place, founded in 2007 by the exuberantly confident entrepreneur Shai Agassi, was trumpeted as the king of Israeli startups, a company that would keep the air clean and the streets quiet while saving money for its users.

Six years and more than $850 million in venture capital later, the dream lies in tatters.

On May 26, Better Place declared bankruptcy, its management transferred to a liquidator and the future of its 38 battery switching stations in Israel thrown into peril. Thousands of vehicles built specifically for the company’s network sit unsold in lots, their future uncertain.

“We stand by the original vision as formulated by Shai Agassi of creating a green alternative that would lessen our dependence on highly polluting transportation technologies,” said a statement from the company’s board of directors. “The technical challenges we overcame successfully, but the other obstacles we were not able to overcome, despite the massive effort and resources that were deployed to that end.”

Better Place had raised hopes that someone had finally figured

Courtesy of Roni Schutzer/Flash90/JTA

Shai Agassi, founder of Better Place, standing next to one of the company’s electronic vehicles during the opening ceremony in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, February 2010.

out how to bring an electric vehicle into mass usage. The company appeared to have hit on an innovative solution to problems that had long bedeviled electric car makers: limited range, lengthy recharge times and consumer reluctance to shell out big money for an experimental technology.

The company adopted a model similar to the cell phone industry: Drivers would pay a monthly fee for access to a network of stations where they could swap batteries in about the amount of time it would take to fill a tank with gasoline.

Customers also could charge their cars at home for free.

Agassi was the face of the company, a relentless booster who was named to several lists of the world’s most influential people.

But what is arguably the highestprofile flop in a country legendary for successful startups comes as no surprise, those familiar with the

company’s operations say.

Former employees, customers and industry experts paint a picture of a company that grew too big, too fast, built a car too expensive and impractical, and chafed under management with a penchant for burning through cash.

“I don’t think Better Place failed due to a mistake in technology,” said Sam Solomon, a venture capitalist and the chairman of Mobideo Technologies, which sold charge-station software to Better Place. “It ran too fast with too much. They did not get enough of a critical mass in a single market in order to demonstrate success.”

The company’s downward spiral began last year; Better Place lost more than $450 million in 2012. Agassi was ousted as CEO in October, and the company would go through two more chief executives before falling under control of a state-appointed liquidator.

Israel was the company’s principal market, its system seemingly well suited to a country where most drivers stay within a densely populated central region and the price of gas is high.

Investors believed in Agassi’s vision, buoying him with $850 million in funding. Even before the Israeli venture launched, Agassi had started a second network in Denmark and was planning others – in Australia, the Netherlands, China, Japan and the United States, in San Francisco and Hawaii.

Solomon said it was Agassi’s first and possibly biggest mistake, that the company should have focused on Israel before going global.

“What he needed to do was focus on a small core success,” said Solomon, who drives a Better Place car. “He basically ran it like a big company when he had to run it like a lean startup. It was way over-expanded. He was trying to run too many projects at once.”

Agassi exuded confidence, predicting that by 2010 there would be 100,000 Better Place cars on the road. The actual number turned out to be zero. The first charging station was opened in 2008, but the cars, manufactured by the French company Renault but sold by Better Place, were not available for purchase until 2012. And instead of building a compact car meant to travel short distances, Better Place offered only a family sedan.

“They needed a smaller car built for cities, a cheaper car,” said Yoav Kaveh, an automotive columnist for Haaretz.

Better Place sold fewer than 1,000 cars in Israel. And when sales hadn’t picked up by the end of 2012, the board cut spending and replaced Agassi, who is not speaking to the media.

But one of his defenders, former Better Place director of policy Yariv Nornberg, said Israel could have done more to help the venture get off the ground by providing tax credits for electric car drivers.

Denmark offers a $40,000 tax break to promote electric cars.

“We could have expected better from the public interest,” Nornberg said. “Things would have looked different if there was more help for the user.”

Better Place’s 38 switching stations in Israel may close by June, but some customers say they’ll still happily drive their cars, which they say provide a cleaner, quieter and smoother ride. Without the stations, they will have to charge their cars at home.

“The service I’ve had up until now makes it a complete replacement for a petrol car,” said Brian Thomas, who bought his car a year ago. “It’s so quiet and fast and nice to drive.”

Despite the setback, Nornberg still sees a bright future for the electric car industry. Better Place, he says, was ahead of its time. And even though it failed commercially, it succeeded in getting batterypowered rubber to meet the road.

“It’s not about buying the gadget,” he said. “It’s another means of transportation that’s better for the general public.

“The dream is not over. It’s only the beginning.”

On rabbinic equality, non-Orthodox leaders are hopeful but wary

By Ben Sales Jewish Telegraphic Agency TEL AVIV – Israel’s plans to move ahead with the funding of nonOrthodox rabbis appeared to be a landmark achievement for Reform and Conservative leaders, who have long chafed at their second-class treatment by the Israeli government.

But even as they welcomed last week’s news that the Ministry of Religious Services was revamping its policies to permit non-Orthodox rabbis to receive government-funded salaries, Reform and Conservative leaders were cautious in their optimism – and perhaps with good reason.

Last year, Miri Gold, a Reform rabbi from the rural Kibbutz Gezer, won a Supreme Court case entitling her to a state salary. A year later, she has yet to see her first paycheck.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, who leads a 300-family Reform synagogue in Jerusalem. “We’re a long way from it happening. I’m certainly not going to put in additional

spending money yet.”

The ministry’s intentions were made public on Thursday in the response by the state’s attorney to a Supreme Court petition filed in January by Conservative and Reform leaders. The petition accused the government of discrimination for funding only Orthodox rabbis in city neighborhoods.

“The intention here is to create criteria that will set appropriate standards for funding communal rabbis without asking which denomination the relevant congregation belongs to,” the response said.

According to the state’s attorney, the ministry intends within six months to reform the current system, which grants the Orthodox a monopoly over state-funded rabbinic posts.

In Jerusalem, all 157 state-appointed neighborhood rabbis are Orthodox.

Instead, the ministry would fund any city congregational rabbi – Orthodox or not – should the congregation meet certain yet-to-bedefined criteria.

But the leaders of Israel’s nonOrthodox movements fear a repeat

of what happened with Gold, where criteria were established that made it nearly impossible for her to receive a state salary as the Supreme Court intended.

“The big question is if this will be implemented in a way that’s really equal,” said Yizhar Hess, CEO of the Israeli Conservative movement.

“It’s too early to say what the criteria will be, when they will come up or whether they will be equal.”

The Religious Services Ministry offered no information about the criteria being formulated, or even when the standards would be decided.

“Now I can’t tell you anything about the criteria,” said Idit Druyan, spokeswoman for Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben Dahan. “I have no schedule.”

The responsibility for implementing the policy change lies with Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett, chairman of the right-wing Jewish Home party. Since taking office, Bennett has shown a penchant for effecting change quickly, enacting a trio of religious reforms two weeks ago and pushing a bill to

Courtesy of Flash 90/JTA

Israeli Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett, right, and Deputy Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan unveiling a series of reforms in religious services in Israel at a news conference in Jerusalem, May 19, 2013.

change elections for chief rabbi.

Those reforms were more about process than substance. This change could threaten an anchor of Orthodoxy’s dominance of Jewish institutions in Israel – a move that could upset Bennett’s Modern Orthodox base and rally the haredi

Orthodox opposition.

For now, however, Reform and Conservative leaders remain hopeful that change is on the way – even if it’s a long way off.

“We just have to keep up the vigil,” Gold said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to give up on this.”

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

Looking for a new car?

Check out these dealerships to find the car suitable for your needs: THE AUDI CONNECTION Servicing the Cincinnati community for nine years, the Audi Connection provides superb service to all of its customers. They are the largest Audi dealership in Cincinnati. With a strong and committed sales staff, they have satisifed many customers’ needs with their many years of car dealership experience.

In 2012, they were recognized as one of only 10 Audi Elite Magna Society

Israel Briefs Syrian rebels briefly seize control of Golan border crossing, Austria pulls peacekeepers (JNS) Syrian rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar alAssad briefly took control of the Quneitra border crossing between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights on Thursday, forcing the Austrian U.N. peacekeepers stationed there to flee.

As a result of the incident, Austria has decided to pull its 380 peacekeepers following the battle there, Reuters reported.

The 1,000-strong United Nations Disengagement Observer Force has been monitoring the Quneitra crossing since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Ban is urgently looking for a country to replace the Austrian contingent, calling the peacekeeping mission “essential.”

Muslim extremist party holds a march through Ramallah (JNS) Hundreds of Muslim fundamentalists belonging to Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) held a march through the streets of Ramallah on Tuesday

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This dealership has new and used car options in pre-owned and certified condition. Their options include eight Sedan models, one Spyder model, one Sportback model, three Cabriolet models, six Coupe models, three SUV models, two Roadster models and one Wagon model. All of these vehicles are top notch and ranked the highest quality cars on the road. to mark the 92nd anniversary of the fall of the Caliphate, the Gatestone Institute reported.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir is an international pan-Islamic political group that calls for the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate, which was dismantled following the end of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The group also calls for the elimination of Israel.

“Today I felt as if I’m in Syria or Gaza. It’s strange that the Palestinian Authority, which arrests people who post critical comments on Facebook, allows Muslim extremists to march in Ramallah, calling for the establishment of a Caliphate,” a Palestinian university student told the Gatestone Institute.

Netanyahu: Israel won’t intervene in Syria if not targeted JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel will not intervene in the Syrian civil war if Israel is not targeted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also told his Cabinet at its weekly meeting Sunday that the situation in Syria shows Israel cannot depend on others for its security.

Netanyahu said the Syria situation is “becoming daily more complex.”

“Only last week, we saw battles close to our border on the Golan Heights,” he told the Cabinet. “Israel is not intervening in the Syrian civil war as long as fire is not being directed at us.”

12 • THE CAR ISSUE

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JAGUAR LAND ROVER CINCINNATI Jaguar Land Rover Cincinnati strives to support its distinctive brand with a sales and service experience that is equally unique and satisfying. As greater Cincinnati’s exclusive authorized Jaguar Land Rover dealer, they carry an excellent selection of new and certified pre-owned Jaguars and Land Rovers, as well as other luxury brands. Their Jaguar Land Rover sales guides are both knowledgeable and passionate about their brands and look forward to keeping you informed throughout your purchase experience.

When your vehicle is in need of maintenance, Jaguar Land Rover’s certified service staff will be happy to assist. For your convenience, Jaguar Land Rover Cincinnati offers a Service Rental Program by appointment to customers who have purchased their vehicle from them. If you choose to wait for your service to be completed, enjoy complimentary beverages and snacks as well as take advantage of their wireless Internet connection.

The new vehicles they carry are six Jaguar XF models to choose from: XF, XF 3.0, XF 3.0 AWD, XF Supercharged, XFR and XFR-S. There are 10 Jaguar XJ models: XJ, XJ All Wheel Drive, XJL Portfolio, XJL Portfolio All Wheel Drive, XJ/XJL Supercharged, XJ/XJL Supersport, XJL

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There are four Land Rover Range Rover Sport models: Range Rover Sport HSE, Range Rover Sport HSE LUX, Range Rover Sport Supercharged and Range Rover Sport Autoiography There are four Land Rover Range Rover models: Range Rover, Range Rover HSE, Range Rover Supercharged and Range Rover Autobiography.

KINGS VOLKSWAGEN OF LOVELAND Kings Volkswagen of Loveland is your most loved Cincinnati Volkswagen area dealer.

Their convenient location

THE CAR ISSUE • 13

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

in Loveland allows them to serve as your most convenient Cincinnati Volkswagen dealer with a wide selection of new and used VW cars, as well as World Auto Certified PreOwned models, wagons, vans and SUVs. Volkswagens are widely recognized to be among the best in quality, reliability, safety and value, just as they’re known with their award-winning commitment to customer satisfaction in both sales, leasing and service.

They’ve been the area’s original VW Marketplace since 1986. Their commitment to only the VW brand allows them to excel in Sales, Service and Parts. Their 100 percent VW Certified staff is ready to provide you with the most professional and courteous experience.

Experience the Kings VW difference as they’re easy to find and easier to deal with.

Their car option models include Beetle, CC, Eos, Golf, GTI, Jetta , Passat, Routan, Tiguan and Touareg. These do not include all of the preowned vehicles offered at Kings Volkswagen. They find the right car for you.

LEXUS RIVERCENTER For 10 and half years, Lexus RiverCenter has been servicing the Greater Cincinnati area in their original location in Covington. Having the status of Lexus Elite, this dealership has the best

customer service possible.

They service their customers first then sell cars.

Their guests and employees are treated with respect and honesty, and their marvelous facility was built around the idea of indulging our clients, including our award-winning Lexus lounge. With new and used vehicles, you can find the car that’s right for you at Lexus RiverCenter.

Their new model showroom collection includes LS Sedan, GS Sedan, ES Sedan, IS Sedan, FPerformance IS, F Sedan, LS Hybrid, GS Hybrid, ES Hybrid , RX Hybrid, CT Hybrid, LX Luxury Utility, GX Luxury Utility, RX Luxury Utility and Convertible IS C. Their pre-owned showrooms vary from the Lexus brand to BMWs to Cadillacs.

Lexus RiverCenter finds a car up to your high standards every time. The employees of Lexus RiverCenter would like to wish all of the fathers out there a happy Father’s Day. MERCEDES-BENZ OF CINCINNATI For over 25 years, Mercedes-Benz Cincinnati has been servicing the Greater Cincinnati area. The number one goal of this family-owned dealership is customer satisifaction.

With a large staff to help, owner Dana Hackney ensures that you will have the best service and sales experience they have to

The number one goal of this family-owned dealership is customer satisifaction

14 • THE CAR ISSUE

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offer. Hackney strives to be at the dealership every day to help out and make sure everything runs smoothly. This dealership also provides a free car wash three days a week for Mercedes-Benz owners, a shuttle service, Starbucks cafe and homemade cookies made fresh daily.

They have many new and pre-owned vehicles to purchase. The new vehicle options are E-Class, E350 4MATIC, CLS550 4MATIC, ML350, C300 4MARTIC and many others. They offer the best pre-owned vehicles for a great, reasonable price.

MONTGOMERY LINCOLN Originally named Kenwood Lincoln Mercury, Montgomery Lincoln moved nine months ago from Kings Automall to what they now call home in the heart of Montgomery. In business since 1976, many of their employees have been with the dealership for years. Customer service for them means making the car buying experience as easy and enjoyable as possible. They find the vehicle you want with the price you’re looking for.

In their inventory, new, used and certified are all included.

Their car options include different Lincoln MKS, Lincoln MKX , Lincoln MKZ, Lincoln MKT, Lincoln Navigator and various certified and used car models. When purchasing any of these vehicles, you will not be disappointed.

PERFORMANCE LEXUS Servicing the Cincinnati community for 24 years, customer service is Performance Lexus’s number one priority. Their motto is every customer, every vehicle, every day.

They strive to provide excellent sales and services to their customers on a daily basis. Whether you’re looking for a New, Used or Certified Lexus Car, SUV or Hybrid, they promise to work hard and fair to earn your business.

With their long-term employees, they are able to have long-term customers because of their familiar service.

Their new model showroom collection includes LS Sedan, GS Sedan, ES Sedan, IS Sedan, FPerformance IS F Sedan, LS Hybrid, GS Hybrid, ES Hybrid, RX Hybrid, CT Hybrid, LX Luxury Utility, GX Luxury Utility, RX Luxury Utility and Convertible IS C models. Their pre-owned showrooms vary from the Lexus brand to BMWs to Fords. You won’t be disappointed with their superb customer service and the car options galore.

SHARPS VALET PARKING SERVICE For 47 years, Sharps Valet Parking Service provides valet services for restaurants, hotels, weddings, corporate functions, but mostly private home functions and country clubs. They are the oldest valet company in the Greater Cincinnati area. They are a fully insured company with professionaly trained and dressed valets. During the colder months, they also provide coat check services as well.

DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

The scoop on rich and meaty dishes of North Indian cuisine

By Bob Wilhelmy Dining Editor Colonial British presence in India often has been cited as a moderating, “westernizing” influence on much of the cuisine of that country. The contention goes that the English showed up and to the vegetarian kitchens of India introduced butter, cream and meat, along with an imperial ardor for the ways of John Bull. Thus began a culinary shift to richer, more flavorful dishes, especially in northern regions, namely the Punjab and Rajasthan, around the metropolis of Delhi.

“Not so,” says Jesse Singh, founder and owner of Ambar India Restaurant. “Actually, the cuisine of Northern India was heavily influenced by Central Asia before the British came. Central Asians were meat-eaters, and before those peoples came, Indian cuisine was primarily vegetarian.

Not many animal products at all.

“What the British did was send the tastes of India around the world,” he said. At that time in their history, Englishmen were proud of saying the sun never set on the British Empire. Wherever British influence was present, so too were some of the cultural influences Imperial England brought with it from other parts of the world. A taste for Indian food was one of those.

Ambar India is in its 19th year of serving the Greater Cincinnati area. The cuisine of Northern India is the specialty of the house.

Ethnic Indians favor Ambar over other Indian eateries because the food is authentic, and because there are many vegetarian selections, according to Singh.

“Vegetarian food is healthier for you—that’s the common perception in India. And it’s cheaper too.

“At Ambar, we highlight what our customers like to eat. Spinach dishes are very popular; chick peas, lentils, rice dishes—all very popular. Also popular are the chicken, lamb and fish dishes.”

Among the most ordered vegetarian entrée dishes are: saag paneer, a flavorful combination of homemade cheese cubes cooked with spinach and cream; aloo choley, a dish of chick peas and potatoes prepared in North Indian style; and dal makhani, an entrée of lentils in cream, prepared with a touch of spices. Add a personal favorite to this list—the bhartha, which is eggplant cooked with other veggies and mildly seasoned. There are many more veggie dishes from which to choose— 21 in all.

There are 16 chicken specialties offered on Ambar’s menu.

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Chicken curry is among the most ordered of all entrees on the menu, the chicken cooked in a mildly spiced sauce that is delicious with nan (traditional Indian-style bread). Another is special chicken tikka masala, featuring lightly broiled chicken that is then cooked in a savory tomato, onion and bell pepper mélange. In addition, there are tandoori-cooked chicken dishes on the menu.

Lamb specialties include a curry dish, and the lamb is simmered in the curry to infuse the flavor in the meat. For those who want really hot, spicy lamb, there is vindaloo, simmered along with potatoes.

Spiciness of dishes is the diner’s choice at Ambar, the range being one to six, the higher the number, the spicier the dish.

“When we first opened the restaurant, more people ordered dishes that were not spicy—mild seasonings,” said Singh. “Now, most customers order medium spiciness (three or four on the scale). More people are eating the hotter dishes

on the menu,” and that includes non-Indian diners.

Ambar mixes its own curry seasonings, which is typical of the Indian kitchen. There is no recipe list of ingredients for a curry. “For me, curry is a mix of onions, garlic, and ginger, and all the mixed spices go into that: cardamom, cumin, coriander black pepper, paprika, ginger powder and garlic powder,” he said.

After 19 years on Cincinnati’s restaurant scene, much has changed. Two constants for Ambar remain the preference ethnic Indians have for dining at Ambar, and the habit they have of bringing their special guests from India to dine at Ambar with them.

“We focus on very clean dishes that are low in fat and provide the flavors of India to our customers,” he said.

See you at Ambar.

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16 • OPINION

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Alice Walker at the 92Y: Mild program, tight security, and a squelched interview

By Maxine Dovere JointMedia News Service The day before music star Alicia Keys rebuffed the appeals of author Alice Walker and Pink Floyd band member Rogers Waters to cancel her upcoming performance in Israel, Walker herself benefited from the Jewish community, which gave her a platform to promote her work.

On May 30, the 92nd Street Y in New York City hosted Walker – an activist for the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement – for a booksigning for her new collection of poetry, The World Will Follow Joy, and her new book of meditations, The Cushion in the Road.

Before the book signing, the 92Y stage was the setting for a dialogue between Walker and The Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler for a dialogue that was adoring – each singing the other’s praises.

Outside the event on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, the response of the Jewish community to the use of the 92Y as a venue for an anti-Zionist proved pale. A small, noisy group of perhaps 20 people – mostly elderly – demonstrated against the appearance of Walker.

Lannie Grauman, one of the few younger protesters, told JNS she was raising her voice to make clear that a Jewish organization should not provide a venue for an avowed hater of Israel. “Walker spreads lies about Israel,” she said.

A police presence would arrive when a confrontation between a screaming protestor and a Walker supporter threatened to erupt into physical conflict. Security was not only tight – it was adamant. Even people coming into the 92Y lobby were interrogated.

Della Johnson awaited a friend on the landing outside the entry doors. Johnson told JNS she “simply wanted to see [Walker] in person,” and was not keeping up with Walker’s political opinions.

Those opinions – including Walker’s positions concerning Israel, her support of the BDS movement, or her participation in the attempts to break Israel’s legal blockage of Gaza – found no expression during her time on stage. The love-fest began with Ensler’s pronouncement that “it feels right,” as the two clasped hands. “I honor this woman,” Ensler said.

Walker and Ensler conducted a polite, philosophical dialogue about “humanity,” with frequent expressions of high regard for

each other’s work.

The few questions allowed from the audience were submitted in writing, on cards supplied and collected by ushers. The questions were thoroughly filtered – any possibility of Walker being challenged on Israel was eliminated.

When the staged segment was finished, the two authors sat together. “This is a book signing,” announced the 92Y’s director of security.

“If you don’t have a book you have to leave,” he added.

There were no exceptions.

Lorri Schwartz, who had been invited to attend by an Ensler associate, is a therapist who spends her professional life treating victims of rape, abuse and suffering. She was summarily escorted out of the book-signing line – forced to purchase a book in order to have a moment of conversation with Ensler.

After each purchaser of an Ensler or Walker book had received a signature, Walker agreed to answer several questions from JNS. Asked why she refused to allow Israeli publisher Yediot Books to translate The Color Purple into Hebrew last year, Walker responded, “It was translated [into Hebrew] before there was a boycott [of Israel]. So it’s already there.”

Explaining her rationale behind boycotting Israel, Walker told JNS that in her experience, “boycotts are ideal for such situations in which you refuse to employ violence.”

“You know, we went through this in the [American] South,” she said. “We went through this in South Africa and it’s the only option… because Israel has been very brutal in occupying Palestinian land and its mistreatment of Palestinian people. Have you been to Gaza? You see what has been done to the people?”

Before Walker could respond to the point that Gaza City is highly developed and residents there enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, Beverly Greenfield, director of public and media relations for the 92Y, attempted to interrupt the conversation.

But Walker continued.

“I would stop my government from giving the Israeli government so much money,” she said.

“We need the money here. Our schools are a mess – they’re closing them down. Our hospitals are terrible. You know, the poor communities are in such suffering. We need the money that we have been giving to Israel all these years. It’s WALKER on page 22

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Samantha Power, U.N. nominee, highlights Obama’s genocide problem

By Rafael Medoff JointMedia News Service The nomination of Samantha Power for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations has drawn the Jewish community’s attention to her controversial 2002 remark about hypothetical U.S. action against Israel to protect Palestinians from genocide. But Power’s confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate is also likely to address a broader question: How can lawmakers judge her record on responding to genocide, when the government agency she has headed for the past year has no office, no staff, no phone number, and no public record of taking any action to fulfill its stated mission – to prevent atrocities in Darfur and elsewhere around the world?

Just weeks after President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, the International Criminal Court indicted Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for spearheading the Darfur genocide. He was charged with sponsoring the Arab militias that were “murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing, and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property” in Darfur.

The Obama team included many outspoken advocates of U.S. action against the Bashir regime.

Before becoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice had publicly urged airstrikes on Sudan. Samantha Power wrote a book urging U.S. intervention against perpetrators of genocide.

Joe Biden, as a U.S. senator, called for imposing a no-fly zone over Sudan. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama himself vowed, “I won’t turn a blind eye to slaughter”

of civilians abroad and said, “There must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government.”

Developments on the ground in Sudan during Obama’s first term provided good reason for U.S. action. In 2009, Bashir’s mass expulsion of foreign aid agencies led to widespread starvation among genocide survivors. In late 2010, the ICC reported hundreds of civilians murdered and thousands displaced in renewed attacks by government-sponsored Arab militias against villages in Darfur. By the summer of 2012, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof was reporting from Sudan about new “mass atrocities that echo Darfur” against non-Arab tribes in the Nuba Mountains.

Yet the Obama administration’s response was lethargic – and worse.

The new U.S. envoy to Sudan, J. Scott Gration, told the Washington Post in 2009 that American policy should be based on “giving out cookies” and “gold stars” rather than punishing Bashir. In 2010, Gration told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. now supports having Bashir judged by a local Sudanese court rather than by the ICC (even though that would increase the chances of an acquittal or a light sentence). In 2011, Gration’s successor, Princeton Lyman, told an interviewer, “We do not want to see the ouster of the [Bashir] regime, nor regime change.”

Meanwhile, Bashir was brazenly flaunting the ICC indictment, by traveling openly to various Arab and African countries. Even though some of those countries were major recipients of U.S. aid, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Libya, neither Obama nor advisers such as Dr.

Power publicly criticized them.

Bashir had become the least-wanted most-wanted man in the world.

In the face of all this, disheartened Darfur advocates were given new hope by the president’s dramatic 2012 announcement – from the podium of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – that he was creating an Atrocities Prevention Board, with Power as its chair. The most optimistic among us were tempted to see parallels to the remarkable lifesaving work undertaken by the War Refugee Board, after pressure by congress and Jewish activists forced President Franklin Roosevelt to establish that agency in 1944.

And there was substantial public support for President Obama’s initiative: a poll by Penn Schoen Berland found 69 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should “prevent or stop genocide or mass atrocities from occurring in another part of the world.”

With public opinion on its side, would the Obama administration finally turn a corner in its genocide policy?

Unfortunately not.

When U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (RVA) introduced a bill in 2012 to suspend non-humanitarian aid to countries that host visits by Bashir, the State Department worked behind the scenes to bury the measure. A petition by 70 leading Holocaust and genocide scholars to Dr. Power, urging her to back the bill, went unanswered. (Ironically, Power, in her book, had urged the U.S. government to use “economic sanctions” and pressure on its allies to combat genocide – a fact noted in the petition.)

POWER on page 22

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

hands of Pharaoh, a totalitarian tyrant.

What they required was a benevolent and ethical but strong leader. After so many years of slavery, a lack of leadership would send them into the kind of panic which had pushed them into the orgies of the golden calf. Hence, just following the splitting of the Red Sea, God instructs Moses to use his leadership staff and strike the rock.

Now, however, after a full year of freedom, God would have expected Moses to have rejected the power of the staff to gain the obedience of the Israelites and to have utilized instead the persuasiveness of the word to win their fealty and faithfulness. Hence God instructs Moses to speak to the rock – the stubborn Israelites – rather than to strike it.

Moreover, Moses has by now received the second Tablets, which included the Oral Law (Exodus 34: 28), the hermeneutic principles which empowered the people to become God’s partners in interpreting His words in every generation.

Speech invites dialogue. God wants Moses to realize that as the Israelites matured, they required a different brand of leadership.

Instead of the scepter of authority and control, they required the speech of the Oral Law. Then, the Torah, which is always compared to water, will come forth from them, from that very stubborn “rock” of a nation.

After all, it’s that same stubbornness which energizes commitment, enduring commitment, even unto death, the commitment of the Israelites to the Torah in which they have become invested by means of the Oral Law. This incident of Moses’s sin and punishment is sandwiched between Miriam’s death and an account of a well that Yonatan Ben-Uziel identifies as the return of the well of Miriam: “And from there [the Israelites traveled] to the well; this is the well regarding which the Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather the nation and I shall give them water.’ Then all of Israel sang this song; concerning the well, they sang to it” (Numbers 21:16, 17).

I believe the Bible is here presenting an alternative to Moses’s brand of “scepter” or “striking” leadership; it is Miriam’s brand of “singing” leadership. Words enter the mind of the other and hopefully lead to dialogue and debates;

songs enter the heart and soul, leading to spirited and spiritual uplifting.

The Torah, the Oral Law which includes input from Israel, is referred to as a book, but also as a “song” (Deuteronomy 31:19). A book educates the mind; a song inspires the heart. A book speaks to individuals; a song moves the masses.

We met Miriam before at the splitting of the Red Sea. After Moses sang his song to God and the Israelites repeated his words (Exodus 15:1), Miriam took a drum and inspired the other women to also take drums and initiate dancing (ibid 20). Moreover, Miriam rouses them all to sing together.

As the Lubavitcher Rebbe explains the prophetic verse, “Then [in the Messianic Age] there shall be heard... the sound of the groom and the sound of the bride.” The sound of the bride (the woman) shall be the sound of Torah, but it will be different from the men’s Torah; it will be a Torah of song, a Torah of heart, and a Torah which includes everyone.

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

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T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: CHUKAT (BAMIDBAR 19:1—22:1) 1. Did the Children of Israel complain about more than water? a.) Yes b.) No

4. Who lived in Arad? a.) Giants b.) Canaanite kingdom c.) Edomites

2. What did Moshe say when the Children of Israel wanted water? a.) Pray to Hashem b.) Buy from the surrounding nations c.) Listen you rebels

5. Where did Bnei Yisroel go after Mountain of Hor? a.) Go around Edom b.) Go around Moav c.) To Kadesh

3. What did Moshe hit the rock with? a.) Another rock b.) The staff c.) He sat on it Children of Israel to go through his land. the Children of Israel got frustrated because before they were at the southern border of Canaan, and now they were going around to the east. Rashi

EFRAT, Israel – “Take the staff... and speak to the rock...”

(Numbers 20:8).

One of the most important aspects of Jewish life which characterizes our generation is the empowerment of women, in political, social and even religious spheres. Many years ago, in a lengthy private meeting (yehidut), the revered Lubavitcher Rebbe told me that the greatest challenge facing Orthodox Jewry was the position of women in society – and our halachic response to what was then a newly-found acceptance of female “equality” within Western culture.

The question remains whether women’s greater involvement in Torah learning and teaching will produce a different dimension, or at least a different emphasis, to the quality of Torah which is emerging. I believe the answer to this query may be found in this week’s portion of Hukat.

I would like to begin this commentary with a different but connected issue in our portion: the sin and punishment of Moses. The children of Israel arrive at the wilderness of Zin, settle in Kadesh, Miriam dies and the people complain bitterly over the lack of water (Numbers 20:1, 2). Rashi immediately notes the connection: so long as Miriam was alive, a special well accompanied the Israelites on their journey. With her death, the well – and its water – were sorely missed.

God instructs Moses to “take the staff... and speak to the rock.”

The staff could symbolize Moses’s brand of leadership, it may even have been the staff he used earlier to smite the Egyptian taskmaster. The rock may symbolize the Jewish people, a stiffnecked nation, hard and stubborn as a rock, quick to kvetch and ripe for rebellion (so explains Rabbenu Tzadok in his Pri Tzadik commentary).

Moses, however, strikes the rock, as God had bidden him to do in similar circumstances a year before (Exodus 17:1-7). In this instance, however, he is excluded from entering the Land of Israel because he strikes the rock rather than speaking to it (Numbers 20:713). Why the distinction, and why such a harsh punishment? The use of a rod, or a scepter, implies regal authority, domination and control.

By the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites had suffered 210 years of subjugation at the

After all, it’s that same stubbornness which energizes commitment, enduring commitment, even unto death, the commitment of the Israelites to the Torah in which they have become invested by means of the Oral Law.

dressed as Canaanites who lived on the southern border of Canaan. “The road of the Wayfarers” means that the battle happened on the same road the spies used to enter Canaan. Rashi 5. A 21:4 The King of Edom did not allow the

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Hukat Numbers 19: 1 – 21: 35

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. A 20:3-5 2. C 20:10 3. B 20:9 4. B 21:1 Actually, they were Amalakites

Sedra of the Week

18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist Israel/America Celeb Doings “I look forward to my first visit to Israel. Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show” So said popular AfricanAmerican singer Alicia Keys in response to requests from novelist Alice Walker and former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters that she join a cultural boycott of Israel. Keys said that she will keep her commitment to make her first trip to Israel and play Tel Aviv’s Nokia Arena on July 4.

BARBARA STREISAND, 71, will visit Israel in the next week. On the 17th, she will receive an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University. On the 19th, she probably will sing at the opening night of the Presidential Conference, which coincides with the 90th birthday of Israeli President SHIMON PERES. On the 20th and 22nd, she will perform public concerts in Tel Aviv.

Here’s most of a “cheeky” review of her recent London concert by a Brit paper: “Despite the body searches and metal detectors, the public camera ban and ticket prices that would make a Russian oligarch think twice, Streisand’s fans welcomed her with a standing ovation – apart from the doddery devotees who barely managed the arena steps. You could almost admire the chutzpah of charging [about $675] for decent seats. It couldn’t possibly be worth that, though the star did bring a 60-piece orchestra as well as her remarkably resilient voice…She rolled back the years on “The Way We Were,” swooped and soared on “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and blasted out a show-stopping sequence from “Gypsy.” But while she made musical theatre look easy, Streisand showed her age when bawling ‘80s hit “Woman in Love”….Her [half] sister ROSLYN KIND, 63 guested on a scrappy duet of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” and the nepotism got out of control when Streisand’s son, the unknown JASON GOULD, 46, sang one of his own songs while she beamed with maternal pride.”

[Kind and Gould will also play Israel.]

Zegen, Dunhan, and Posen MICHAEL ZEGEN, 30, will join the cast of the HBO series, “Girls,” next season. Zegen previously appeared on “Rescue Me” and played gangster BUGSY SIEGEL on HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” By the

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NEWZ

way, the NY Times just reported that famous fashion designer ZAC POSEN, 32, grew-up near “Girls” star LENA DUNHAM, 27, and went to the same Brooklyn private school as her.

Her parents hired him (when she was 12 and he was 17) to take her to-and-from school and babysit her until they came home. She cites him as an important mentor.

Melmania Continues A couple of weeks ago, PBS’ “American Masters” series broadcast the first documentary about MEL BROOKS made with his cooperation. (It can be viewed online, now.) On June 6, the American Film Institute honored Brooks, 86, with its lifetime achievement award. The ceremony, which is always fun to watch, will be broadcast on TNT on Saturday, June 15 at 9PM. Famous director Martin Scorsese presented Brooks with his award.

Mensch of Steel By now, there have been so many articles/books about the origins of the Superman comic book character that anybody who cares to know – knows – that the Man of Steel was created by two Jewish guys and that the Superman story has many oblique Jewish references – such as his “refugee” status and his original name (Kal-El). Still, it’s doubtful that anyone is ever going to do a film in which Clark Kent/Superman “comes clean,” embraces Judaism, gets married, and has to confront the difficulties of performing a bris on his Super Baby son.

Instead, Hollywood has decided, once again, to re-tell the Superman story from the start in the hope of reviving the Superman movie franchise the way that director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter DAVID GOYER, 47, revived the flagging Batman movie series with “Batman Begins” (2005). These two guys have teamed-up together again to produce and write, respectively, “The Man of Steel,” which opens on Friday, June 14.

Handsome Brit actor Henry Cavill has the title role, with Amy Adams co-starring as Lois Lane.

The movie starts on Krypton and centers around Superman’s battle, on Earth, with a super criminal who, like Superman, escaped the destruction of Krypton, their home planet.

Pretty Israeli actress AYELET ZURER, 43 (“Munich” and “Angels and Demons”), plays Superman’s mother, Lara.

RICHARD SCHIFF, 58 (“The West Wing”) plays Dr. Emil Hamilton, a brilliant scientist.

FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO

100 Y EARS A GO

Wood’s Theater. - Miss Mary Provost closed a quite successful engagement at this establishment last Saturday evening. This lady has acquired for herself a high rank in the profession which she has chosen to adorn, and the theatergoing public of Cincinnati has shown its appreciation of her truthful delineations by loud plaudits and hearty encomiums. - In the early part of the present week the beautiful spectacular play called the “Sea of Ice” was produced in a magnificent style. Several members of the company also received benefits, and they certainly deserve real benefits, for they always exert their utmost to amuse and satisfy their audiences. - Next week, the celebrated Comedienne, Miss Kate Denin, opens an engagement. She is spoken of in terms of unqualified praise by all who have seen her, and we therefore anticipate an immense rush. Secure your seats early. - June 26, 1863

Latonia - Derby Day will be on June 14, Saturday. There are six fine races every day, first at 2:30 p.m. Admission, $1.50; ladies, $1.00; boxes, $5.00. Covington cars from Sinton , Fourth and Vine, to grandstand every two minutes. L. & N. trains from Fourth and Smith streets at 1:10, 1:40 and 1:55 p.m.

Coney - Club-house service better than ever. Music while eating. Twenty-four miles of cool river ride. Playgrounds for children. Dancing on boats. Boats leave from foot of Boradway at 9:30 and 11 a.m., and 1, 2:30, 4, 5:30, 7 and 8 o’clock p.m.

Chester - Has its bathing beach now open daily from 7 a.m. on.

Clubhouse service and cuisine are unexcelled. There are free motion pictures, vaudeville, cabaret shows, dancing. Attractions are good and better than ever. - June 12, 1913

125 Y EARS A GO The cook-book of Mrs. Dr. Pulte, which has lately been published, is one of the greatest successes of its kind. Every recipe in this book has been carefully tested by the author and so accurately written down that even the most inexperienced housekeeper can be successful. Particular attention is paid to the diet of the sick. A part of the net proceeds arising from the sale of this book is to be devoted to that excellent charity, the Ohio Hospital for Women and Children. The demand for the book has been unusually large.

The Esculapia Springs are now ready to accomodate guests for the season under the new management and with a new corps of the best of French cooks.

Good music, fine rooms, and the most modern and convenient accommodations at the Club House. Hot and cold sulphur baths. The Springs are located in Lewis County, Ky., and can be reached by a pleasant boat ride overnight and arriving at the Springs for breakfast. The Big Sandy Railway is now completed from Maysville to Ashland. The best family accommodations at the old rates are offered, and everything is warranted first class.

For bouquets, cut flowers, baskets, emblems, etc., call upon Huntsman, the Walnut Street florist. Orders by the mail and telegraph receive prompt and careful attention, and lowest prices guaranteed. - June 15, 1888

75 Y EARS A GO Members of the Council of Jewish Women who assisted Mrs. Louis Egelson, chairman, of the Year Book Membership List, were Mesdames Jack Blumenthal, Martin Mandelker, Lester Reins, Michael Simon, Nathan Rosin, Joseph Wallenstein, Miss Terese Rosenthal and Miss Florence Kaufman.

During July and August the Council office in Wise Center will be closed. Anyone wishing information may communicate with the president, Mrs. Samuel Smickler, Woodburn 7802.

Announcement is made of the engagement of Miss Libby Harris, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Morris Harris, Camden Avenue, to Mr. Joseph Simon, son of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Simon, Cleveland Avenue.

They will be married in early December.

Mr. and Mrs. Sol Marcus announce the marriage of their daughter, Ray, to Rabbi Samuel Cook, son of Mr. and Mrs. Morris Cook, Sunday, June 12th, at Stony Banks Farm, Pipersville Pa. Rabbi Cook graduated at the Hebrew Union College in 1934. - June 23, 1938

50 Y EARS A GO Mr. David S. Meisel, a senior at UC College of Law, was recipient of several awards at the college’s Honors Day. He was awarded the Lawrence Maxwell prize for excellence in Case Club competition, the Judge Alfred Mack prize in equity, the Henry Otteman real property prize,

the land title guarantee and trust company award for excellence in the study of real property, and the lawyer’s title insurance corporation prize for highest average grade in real property.

He also was awarded certificates of recognition for his services to UC as an associate justice of Student Court and for participation in intramural moot court competition.

He again was awarded a scholarship to complete his studies next year toward the degree of juris doctor. - June 13, 1963

25 Y EARS A GO Rabbi Stephen M. Marcu has been named the new rabbi of Congregation Ohav Shalom. He will assume his duties July 1.

Marcu succeeds Rabbi Bernard Greenfield, who retired Dec. 31, following 41 years with the congregation.

Marcu studied at Yeshivat Knesset Chizkiyahu and Yeshivat Keren B’Yavneh in Israel and was ordained at Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Ill., in 1964. He received a Jerusalem examination degree from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, a bachelor’s degree in math from Roosevelt University, Chicago, and a master’s in education from Wichita State Univeristy.

He also attended doctoral program classes at the University of Kansas.

From 1985-1988, Marcu was rabbi at B’nai Jacob Congregation, Ft. Wayne, Ind. From 1981-1985, he served Skokie Valley Traditional Synagogue, Skokie and from 1972-1981, he was rabbi at Ahavath-Achim-Hebrew Congregation, Wichita, where he was instrumental in developing educational programs and a speaker series in Judaism, Bible and Jewish philosophy. - June 16, 1988

10 Y EARS A GO Jeffrey L. Lazarus will be presented with the Sigmund M. Cohen Memorial Award for Excellence in Service to the Jewish Community Center at the annual meeting of the JCC Monday, June 23 at 7 p.m.

The Cohen Award is given annually to a member who has rendered distinguished volunteer service to the JCC, and who also volunteers in other community organizations in a selfless and quiet manner.

Jeff Lazarus, a lifetime member of the JCC, received the Kovod Society Award in 1967, and was an honorary preisdent of the JCC board in 1981. He has actively served on the boards of both the JCC and the Jewish Federation. June 19, 2003

COMMUNITY CALENDAR / CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

COMMUNITY CALENDAR June 20 8:15 a.m. - Elder Abuse Prevention Breakfast Cedar Village 5467 Cedar Village Dr. (513) 754-3100 June 20 7:30 p.m. - A Discussion with Dr. Jeffrey Burds Adath Israel 3201 E. Galbraith Rd. (513) 487-3055 June 25 7 p.m. - JFS Annual Meeting 8487 Ridge Rd. (513) 766-3326

June 26 7 p.m. - Opera goes to Temple Rockdale Temple 8501 Ridge Rd. (513) 891-9900 June 25 - 28 Summer Cinema Series Mayerson JCC 8485 Ridge Rd. (513) 761– 7500 September 17 Peter Sagal Mayerson JCC 8485 Ridge Rd. (513) 722-7226

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

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Chabad (513) 731-5111 • campchabad.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 • camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Kollel (513) 631-1118 • kollel.shul.net Cincinnati Community Mikveh (513) 351-0609 • cincinnatimikveh.org Eruv Hotline (513) 351-3788 Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (Miami) (513) 523-5190 • muhillel.org Hillel Jewish Student Center (UC) (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati 513-961-0178 • jcemcin.org Jewish Community Center (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org Jewish Community Relations Council (513) 985-1501 Jewish Family Service (513) 469-1188 • jfscinti.org Jewish Federation of Cincinnati (513) 985-1500 • shalomcincy.org Jewish Foundation (513) 214-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 JVS Career Services (513) 936-WORK (9675) • cincinnaticareer.net 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 • btzbc.com Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org Congregation Ohr Chadash (513) 252-7267 • ohrchadashcincinnati.com Congregation Sha’arei Torah 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 EDUCA EDUCATION Chai Tots Early Childhood Center (513) 234.0600 • chaitots.com

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Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Kulanu (Reform Jewish High School) 513-262-8849 • kulanucincy.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org Sarah’s Place (513) 531-3151 • sarahsplacecincy.com Yeshivas Lubavitch High School of Cincinnati 513-631-2452 • ylcincinnati.com ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 BBYO (513) 722-7244 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 (937) 886-9566 • 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

ment of the Jewish Foundation in 1995, Mr. Gettler’s leadership and vision helped guide the Foundation’s groundbreaking philanthropic investments in the Cincinnati Jewish community.

Having funded capital projects in many areas of Cincinnati, including the University of Cincinnati, Yavneh Day School, and Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, the initiative considered to be Mr. Gettler’s crowning achievement is the Foundation’s nationally recognized Israel Travel Grants program, which has helped more than 1,300 young Jewish Cincinnatians participate in educational experiences in Israel. He understood the role the Foundation could play in making critical Jewish identity-building Israel experiences more affordable and accessible.

Rabbi Lewis Kamrass remarked that one of the gifts of Mr. Gettler’s leadership was in anticipating changes in the landscape. This proved helpful in his workings with Jewish Hospital and when helping to form the Jewish Foundation. When the concept of Israel Travel Grants was first discussed, Mr. Gettler was an immediate advocate of the idea. While other communities offered smaller grants, he supported the concept of having no financial barriers for a young person to be able to experience Israel.

“Ben had the great capacity of being a forward thinker. He used strategic thought to reach that vision.

He immediately saw value in the Israel Travel Grants and wanted to help young people develop a certain pride, as well as their own relationship, with the land of Israel,” commented Rabbi Kamrass.

“Ben was a true giant, not only in the Cincinnati Jewish community but in the Jewish world outside of our region. He was a visionary leader, and his accomplishments serve as an inspiration to those of us who follow in his footsteps. Ben was very proud of his role in the establishment of the Jewish Foundation. During his time on the board, and afterward through his quiet counsel, he helped position us to make a lasting impact on the Cincinnati Jewish community, as well as on the broader community in which we are invested,” remarked Michael R. Oestreicher, president of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati.

Guy Peri, president of the Rockwern Academy board, shared some thoughts on Mr. Gettler’s involvement with Rockwern

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(513) 531-9600 Academy. “It was Ben Gettler’s vision to invest the life savings of his close friend and business partner, Dr. Samuel S. Rockwern, in our community’s pluralistic Jewish day school. The vision united two of Ben Gettler’s bedrock values—loyalty to his friend and education. Ben envisioned Rockwern Academy providing the highest quality of both Jewish and general education. We share that vision and are deeply grateful to Ben for the endowment gift that will contribute to a strong future for Rockwern.”

At the suggestion from and with the unwavering support of his wife Dee, Mr. Gettler decided to leave a lasting legacy for his family. He collaborated with his dear friend Michael Rapp to co-author “Visible Footprints: The Life of Benjamin Gettler,” which was published in March 2012.

“Ben was a man of integrity, wisdom and vision; a man deeply loyal to his friends, the United States, Israel and the Jewish people; a man who demanded excellence from himself and from those with whom he worked.

For all these reasons and more, I’ve always respected him as a colleague, community leader, and most of all, as a dear friend,” said Rapp.

To quote from Goethe’s “Faust:” What you have as heritage, Take now as task; For only thus you will make it your own.

Benjamin Gettler has shown us the way. If we wish to benefit from his work, it is now our task to continue along the path he set forth.

The Gettler family would like to acknowledge their gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Andrew Loewy, Mr. Gettler’s primary physician, for the kindness and sensitivity he displayed in caring for him.

Mr. Gettler is survived by his wife, Dee Gettler; his children, Thomas D. Gettler, Gail (Alex Eby) Gettler, Jorian (Neil) Roth, Benjamin R. (Brooke) Gettler and John (Julie) Gabriel; his grandchildren, Anna and Layla Eby, Reed Gettler, Benjamin Gettler III, David and Marisa Roth and Will and Kate Gabriel; and his sister, Mona (Michael Rothenberg) Gettler. His sister, Selma Post, predeceased him.

Services were held at Weil Funeral Home on June 6, with Rabbi Kamrass officiating.

Memorial contributions to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, U.C. Foundation, Track and Field Department or Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal would be appreciated.

20 • TRAVEL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Bilbao Reigns in Spain Wandering Jew

by Janet Steinberg

of glass strategically placed to catch the natural light.

Gehry, a Pritzker prize-winning architect, told the story of a German client who had seen a Gehry building in Switzerland.

The client said to him “That one was Wow! Now give us Wow! Wow! Wow!” In Bilbao, Frank Gehry’s Museo Guggenheim has given the world Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! From a distance, the splendid, bizarrely shaped $100-million museum looks like a massive steel sculpture. The museum’s architect described his building on the banks of the Nervion River as a ship that has run aground. Others

Thanks to “starchitect” Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum, the former industrial town of Bilbao, Spain, that was once dubbed the ugliest city in Europe, has had a vibrant rebirth that exceeded the townsfolk’s wildest imagination. Little wonder that it was one ofthe highlights of Silver Whisper’s cruise itinerary from Lisbon, Portugal to Southampton, England.

Our Silversea shore excursion departed the Getxo pier for a scenic 45-minute drive to Bilbao.

As we approached the city we passed through its industrial outskirts and took in the splendid panoramic view from Mount Artxanda. A lacy iron sculpture crowns the park from which you Puppy: floral sculpture by Jeff Koons have a birdseye view of the Bilbao skyline and a distant glimpse of the iconic Guggenheim Museum. Bilbao is linked to the recreational park atop Mount Artxanda by a funicular.

From Mount Artxanda, our Silversea shore excursion continued down the city’s main thoroughfare Gran Via which reflects Bilbao’s 19th-century mining and industrial prosperity.

Upon arrival in the heart of the city, we proceeded toward the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art (Museo Guggenheim) that opened in 1997.

And there it was!

Maman: bronze spider by Louise Bourgeois Frank Gehry’s masterpiece in flowing titanium and limestone. Built by have likened the silhouette of renowned architect Frank O. Bilbao’s Guggenheim to a roller Gehry, the Guggenheim reflects coaster, a mermaid, a waterfall, a Bilbao’s heritage with its suggeshula girl and a fish. tion of maritime shapes and sails.

Gehry’s fixation with fish, a The building is covered with over form that often appears in his 35,OOO titanium tiles and pieces work, dates back to his childhood

upbringing when his grandmother took him to market on Thursdays. “We’d go to the Jewish market,” Gehry said, “we’d buy a live carp, we’d put it in the bathtub and I would play with this goddamn fish for a day until the next day, she’d kill it and make gefilte fish.”

Frank Gehry, born Frank Goldberg in Toronto, Canada, told the story of his name change shortly after getting his architectural degree from the University of Southern California and studying at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

“In Canada, when I was a Courtesy of Janet Steinberg

Frank Gehry’s Museo Guggenheim

Courtesy of Janet Steinberg

Courtesy of Janet Steinberg

kid, I remember going to restaurants with my father that had signs up saying NO JEWS ALLOWED. I used to get beaten up for killing Christ. My ex-wife said to me, ‘You don’t really wanna put your kids through this.’ But I’ve always

regretted changing it.”

Gehry’s Jewish roots remained with him throughout his life.

According to a guide I had on a previous visit to the museum, one of the first questions Gehry asked when he came to Bilbao was if there was a synagogue. There was not. But what there was, and is, in this former industrial town was what Philip Johnson, the dean of American Architects, called “the most important building of our time.”

Puppy, Jeff Koon’s 1992 floral sculpture standing guard opposite the museum, is the Guggenheim’s mascot. Constructed of stainless steel, soil, flowering plants, and an internal irrigation system, this humongous West Highland White Terrier topiary is literally still growing. Having your picture taken with Puppy is a must-do in Bilbao.

Maman is Louise Bourgeois’ huge bronze spider standing in front of the Guggenheim.

Bourgeois said that The Spider was an ode to her mother who was her best friend. “Like a spider,” she stated, “my mother was a weaver... spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.”

Also in front of the museum is Indian-born, British artist Anish Kapoor’s sculpture of 80 reflective stainless steel spheres. Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay, India to a Jewish mother. His maternal grandfather was a cantor in the synagogue.

The Guggenheim acquired Kapoor’s dazzling work of art, named Tall Tree & The Eye, in 2010 for $3.5 million.

In addition to Frank Gehry, several other renowned architects have left their mark on Bilbao. In the midst of the city’s Cultural Revolution, even the subway entrances (“Fosteritos” designed by world-class architect Sir

Norman Foster) are works of art.

These dramatically curved glass structures mark street level entrances to Bilbao’s Metro system.

The Zubizuri Bridge is another architectural masterpiece designed

by Jewish architect Santiago Calatrava, The Zubizuri (Basque for “white bridge”) across Bilbao’s Nervion River, links the Campo Volantin right bank and Uribitarte left bank of the river. It offers pedestrians a convenient way to get from the hotels on one side of the river to the Guggenheim on the other side.

After leaving the Guggenheim, our tour continued with a drive to the Old Quarter, or “Casco Viejo,” located on the right-bank of the Nervion River. During the walking tour, we saw the 14th-century Gothic Cathedral, Arriaga Theatre, Plaza Nueva and the City Hall. Before returning to the port, the tour culminated with pintxos and drinks at the Cafe Kiosko del Arenal.

Pintxos are small snacks usually eaten in bars, traditional in northern Spain and especially popular in the Basque country.

Those items called “pintxos” in the Basque Country are called “tapas” elsewhere in Spain. The name pintxo, in the Basque language, means spike and these appetizers take their name from the toothpick that is usually spiked through them to hold them together.

Bilbao, the once-grimy, largest city in Basque country where unidentified objects used to float down a foul-smelling river, is now a spruced up tourist town rivaling the likes of Spain’s most popular destinations.

Spanish Steps in the right direction.

FOOD • 21

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013

All about food

I had one of the most exciting weekends. On Saturday, June 1, Max Schulman, my oldest grandson of my 11 grandchildren got married to Leia Greathouse at Beth Adam, with a reception following at the Kenwood Country Club. I never thought I’d live to be part of this absolutely beautiful and exciting event. It was truly a family affair.

I must say, as a food writer I need to share one of the most outstanding, fabulous and tasteful highlights of the wedding menu.

The Wedding Cake!

Over the years I’ve attended many weddings, saw and tasted many wedding cakes, but this one gets first prize! It wasn’t covered with lots of fancy roses or decorations. Its simplicity was elegant. It was four tiers, and what was interesting was after the guests were seated for dinner, the bride and groom cut the cake. First, they did not wait until everyone was ready to leave and you carried a piece of wedding cake home in a napkin so by the time it got home it was smashed and not even edible.

Each slice of cake held four different ganaches. It was a yellow cake with layers of chocolate, lemon, vanilla, and raspberry ganache. Not only did it melt in my mouth, but I had two pieces

and could have had a third. It took my son-in-law, Avi Bear, baker extraordinaire, three days to bake the layers, and ice the cake. It took another hour for my daughter, Karen, and Avi to place the layers on top of one another on the cake table and surround the cake with fresh, white peonies, like those carried in the bridal bouquet.

Another extraordinary surprise was the table assignments. A long table held rows of individual, minature, white lace bags, tied with thin, brown satin ribbon with your name and table number printed on it. Inside, the bag held five white Jordan almonds and a small card. On it ws written the following: “In the Italian Tradition, These Almonds Represent Five Wishes for the Bride and Groom. One for Health, One for Wealth, One for Happiness, One for Fertility, One for Longevity.” I had never seen anything like this before.

I thank my son, Stuart, and his wife Carol Ann, for providing the centerpieces at the rehearsal dinner. Each table held a rainbow of the most beautiful roses, cut from their rose garden of three hundred rosebushes.

Leia’s grandparents, of blessed memory, came from Italy, my father, of blessed memory, came from Russia. This beautiful wedding brought two families together, whose first generations came from European backgrounds. As my late father would have said “Only in America.” Oh yes I almost forgot, I think I danced too much. It took three days for my muscles to stop aching.

Although these “life” recipes I’ve shared with you may not be baked or cooked, you may wish to use one of these creative ideas for your next party. Believe me, this “Bubbie” will remember this “Simcha” for a long time.

FASTER from page 8 like Dov Charney of American Apparel, Marc Jacobs and Mark Ecko – born Marc Milecofsky – as well as Michael Kors, one of the judges on “Project Runway,” are all designing men with Jewish backgrounds. My own contributions?

One hot night in Los Angeles, with only a pair of flannel pajamas, with scissors, I cut short the sleeves and the legs. Bloomingdale’s, are you listening?

Cheer our superpowers in the bedroom – just not the bedroom you think. In our kids’ bedrooms we make the greatest storytellers.

Backed by a line of Jewish ancestors who were dreamers like Joseph and Jacob, and the tradition of the maggid – the community storyteller, how could we not tell a good tale?

Writers like Sholem Aleichem, Isaac

Bashevis Singer and S. Y. Agnon have set the tone. Today, Harvey Pekar, author of the comic book series “American Splendor,” and Barry Deutsch whose “Hereville” books about a “troll-fighting 11year-old Orthodox Jewish girl,” have added a new edge to the tradition.

At Chanukah, one year, tired of the same old holiday storybooks, I made up one of my own to share with my kids – “Chaim and the Chanukah Derelicts.” As I recall telling them: “It’s about this downtown parking lot and Chaim, he’s a lawyer who often works late. Well, one night during Chanukah, after getting off late from work, while walking to his car, Chaim gets ...”

As to my superpowers? The next morning you should have heard me try to explain that one to my wife.

Zell’s Bites

by Zell Schulman

SEEKING from page 7 escaped out a window while Herman held off the intruders by pushing against the door – until being shot. Heskel and Sheindel hid for several weeks and eventually returned.

In both photographs, Ruth’s square countenance features earlength hair parted above the left eye. The resemblance between the two might be so uncanny as to prove that Ruth survived the Holocaust, was assisted by the JDC – and may be found today, when she’d be about 75. Or perhaps Goteiner’s memory and yearning for good news after losing so much are playing tricks on her.

There’s no way to know which is correct – at least not yet. The JDC’s director of global archives, Linda Levi, said the organization’s records and ship manifests did not turn up the name Ruth Konigstein (or an alternative spelling, Konistein).

The name might have appeared in manifests of one ship in particular because the JDC’s caption states that the photograph shows “16 children who departed for the U.S. after their visas and immigration papers were arranged by the local offices of the JDC. These children went to America on the S.S. Marine

Flasher.”

Another possibility is that the girl in the group picture is indeed Ruth, with her given name not appearing in records because it had been changed or was forgotten amid the Holocaust’s trauma.

The Marine Flasher made several journeys between Europe and the United States during that period, Levi said, often bringing Jewish orphans to America.

Levi said several people in the photograph have been identified by visitors to the JDC website and others who telephoned. One woman, Galia Kempis, of Brooklyn, N.Y., called to say that she is the girl in the front who’s holding a doll and that her brother, who lives in Canada, is the boy to her left wearing overalls.

The picture was one of 1,500 released by the JDC in its two-year campaign documenting its relief efforts during and after World War II. The JDC invites visitors to the project’s website to identify those pictured and relate some of the context.

If Ruth Konigstein ultimately is found through this article, she and her siblings will have their niece, Gloria Jaffe, to thank. Jaffe, of Cleveland, discovered “Seeking Kin” when she typed the words

“long-lost relatives” into a search engine. She then contacted “Seeking Kin” to ask for assistance.

Goteiner and her late husband, Henry, raised two daughters, who produced three grandsons. And after the Holocaust, good luck delivered Goteiner the three siblings she had presumed gone.

Her elder brother, Joseph, had survived the war in Russia, settled in Israel and lived the rest of his life in the United States. Older sisters Eda and Lena survived a number of camps; some together and some apart. Lena, now 90, lives in Cleveland, and Eda, 92, is in Arizona. Eda cries every time she looks at the JDC photo, Goteiner said. Another brother, Joseph, survived the war but has died.

Goteiner sheds her tears, too, including while being interviewed for this article. The portrait on her dresser is her only photograph of Ruth, Alfred and Herman. But Goteiner is hoping she’ll gain many more pictures when she sees her long-lost sister again.

“I hope she’s alive. Maybe she was adopted by somebody” after reaching America, Goteiner said of Ruth. “That’s her, 100 percent. I can swear by it. … I’d hug her, kiss her and cry, mostly just to know she’s alive.”

HANNAH from page 8 times higher is “from people who think you are terrible.” And the third, medium-sized, is “ from people who want you dead.”

In one heart-wrenching scene, Arendt flies to Israel and the deathbed of Kurt Blumenfeld, perhaps her closest companion since the days when they were members of a Zionist youth group in Germany. Arendt tries to mollify and comfort Blumenfeld, but in his last gesture, he turns his back on her.

The scene’s drama is exceeded only by a tour de force near the film’s end, when Arendt, facing a class at The New School in Manhattan, mounts a passionate defense of her writings.

Summarizing her philosophy, she exhorts the students to think independently if the human race is to avoid future catastrophes on the level of the Holocaust. She also tries to persuade her critics that in trying

to understand the mentality of Nazi war criminals, she in no way means to exculpate or forgive them.

Not all of “Hannah Arendt” is about intellectual sparring or pensive brooding. She is portrayed as an ardent woman, capable of discussing obscure philosophical points while shooting pool, and loyal and loving to her husband despite his occasional extramarital affairs.

Arendt herself was no stranger to illicit encounters. In a flashback, we see her as a young university student involved in a love affair with her professor, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who joined the Nazi party in 1933.

Some critics have detected in Arendt a certain intellectual snobbishness and a disdain for the mental capacity of the “lower classes,” which may have led her to denigrate Eichmann as a man incapable of thinking for himself. Shawn points

out that in her story, she has inserted a term in Greek that few New Yorker readers could understand.

“In that case,” Arendt replies, “they should learn Greek.”

In a sense, Arendt’s forceful intellect was both her strength and weakness, shaping her view of the Eichmann trial “from the perspective of a distant and somewhat ironic observer,” said Barbara Sukowa, the German actress who puts in a brilliant performance in the title role. Perhaps as a result, Arendt could not imagine how hurtful her pronouncements were to Holocaust survivors and the families of victims.

The movie’s dialogue is alternately in German and English, and the film gains authenticity by frequently inserting clips from the actual Eichmann trial.

The production was supported financially in part by the Israel and Jerusalem film funds.

SECURITY from page 9 reportedly also told the rabbi to erase the images, which he reportedly did.

The head of the local police department later apologized to the rabbi, as did the mall manager for the behavior of the security personnel.

According to a report in the Hessischen Rundfunk radio online edition, Gurewitz phoned the head of the local Jewish community, Henryk Fridmann, during the incident. The latter reported hearing the words “s*** Jew” over the phone.

Dainow told reporters that the youths followed the rabbi out of the building, but that an acquaintance of the rabbi was driving past and picked him up. Gurewitz described the incident as “horrible, shocking.”

He has filed charges against the unknown assailants.

“The least we can expect now is a full explanation by the authorities,” Corrado Di Benedetto, president of the Union of Councils of Foreigners in the state of Hesse, said in a statement. He called the incident an “attack against the

peaceful coexistence of all people in our region.”

Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called the incident “shameful and shocking.”

The Conference of Orthodox Rabbis in Germany sent an appeal to the public to be more vigilant against antisemitism and racism.

“One can’t look away in denial when Jews are attacked, threatened and cursed in a public place, only because they are recognized as Jews by their head covering,” the group’s statement read in part.

22 • OBITUARIES

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

JEWISH FAMILY from page 3

SHADOWS from page 9

with birth mothers and adoptive families to give infants a secure loving home,” Kaplan explained.

The committee’s goal was to create a bold identity that would differentiate Jewish Family Service from the crowd of Jewish-named organizations, emphasize the importance of the agency’s professionals’ direct involvement with clients, and increase awareness to current and potential supporters within the Cincinnati Jewish community by embracing all service areas under a new young and smart umbrella.

WE GIVE A... was born.

The Jewish Family Service mission statement is to strengthen lives in times of need. The vision statement is to create a Jewish community where everyone lives with stability, dignity and hope.

“WE GIVE A...child stability.

WE GIVE A...family hope. WE GIVE A...senior adult dignity. WE GIVE A...community strength,” said Kaplan. “It is edgy, attentiongrabbing and daring. Yet, when the sentence is complete in various ways, it softly explains what our dedicated Jewish Family Service team does every day.”

for Palestine in an operation organized personally by Palatucci.

But from the diary of the group’s guide preserved at Yad Vashem and the documents of the port authority collected in the Italian State Archives, it becomes clear that it actually was an operation of the Jewish Agency of Zurich carried out under the strict watch of Palatucci’s superiors. Not only did these superiors exact a painful process of extortion, they also sent back to the border the neediest refugees, the stateless and those who came from Dachau.

Also from the archives, we find that Palatucci was an officer of public security at the police headquarters in Fiume from 1937 to 1944, where he worked in the immigration bureau and was in charge of the census of Jewish citizens on the basis of which the Prefecture applied Mussolini’s racial laws. In Fiume, the census was conducted so thoroughly and the laws applied with such zeal that it provoked international protests and a reaction from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

According to the monograph by Silva Bon titled “The Italian Jewish Communities of the Province of Kvarner Rijeka and Opatija (19241945)” and the data collected in the “The Book of Memory” by Liliana Picciotto, during Palatucci’s brief regency the percentage of Jews POWER from page 16 Asked by a Fox News interviewer in January 2013 why the U.S. had been silent over a recent Bashir visit to Egypt, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Bashir “does need to be held accountable for what happened on his watch as president” (Curiously, she made him sound like a bystander rather than a perpetrator). But, she emphasized, the U.S. had to “prioritize” and focus on maintaining good relations with Egypt.

Last month, the Obama administration announced that a delegation representing the Bashir regime would soon visit the U.S. Heading the delegation will be Bashir adviser Nafie Ali Nafie, a

deported from Fiume was among the highest in Italy. “There Would Be Enough,” the recently published family portrait by Silvia Cuttin, clearly and accurately depicts the tragic experience of the Jews of Fiume.

In “Giovanni Palatucci: A Proper Memory,” Marco Coslovich reconstructs the ambiguous professional profile of a 30-year-old vice commissioner of police who swears loyalty to the Republic of Salo.

“Palatucci never served as chief of police in Fiume,” Coslovich reveals, “but as an adjunct vice commissioner under the control of superiors who were notoriously antiSemitic.”

As opposed to being in conflict with superiors, documentation shows that Palatucci was considered a model public servant and fully enjoyed their favor. He was considered to be “irreplaceable” by the prefect Testa.

Between April 1944 and the beginning of September of that year, Palatucci was regent and directly dependent to the upper echelon of Salo, Tullio Tamburini and Eugenio Cerruti.

Historian Michele Sarfatti in the episode of the television program “La storia siamo noi”dedicated to Palatucci, expressed doubts in 2008 as to the plausibility of the disproportionate numbers attributed to a community that numbered just over 1,000. Further, between immigration

and internment, the community was reduced to little more than 500 by October 1943.

According to the Venetian historian Simon Levis Sullam, the Palatucci affair is tied to the broader problem of how anti-Semitic persecution in fascist Italy – and the role Italians played in it – has been represented in the 68 years since the end of the war. Co-editor of a recent study on the Shoah in Italy published by UTET (2012), Sullam explains, “The myth of the good Italian has constituted a source of collective self-absolution after the Second World War regarding the support offered to anti-Semitic and racist politics in the period 19371945, in which thousands of Italians participated directly.”

Coslovich emphasizes how more than half of Palatucci’s personal dossier reflects the efforts carried out by his father, Felice, and his uncle, the bishop, aimed at completely rehabilitating the reputation of the commissioner with respect to ethnic cleansing. Additionally, the concession of a war pension accorded by law only to widows and orphans of the casualities of war (Palatucci was a bachelor) indicates the involvement of the Italian government in designating their relative as a “savior of Jews.”

Between 1952 and 1953, Bishop Giuseppe Maria Palatucci availed himself of the written collaboration of Rodolfo Grani, a Jew from Fiume

of Hungarian origin whom he had met during Grani’s brief internment in Campagna. However, the historian Mauro Canali, an expert in the history of the fascist police system at the University of Camerino, maintains that in the copious documentary evidence regarding Grani, there is no indication that he ever met Giovanni Palatucci.

But someone who did meet Palatucci was the Baron Niel Sachs de Gric, also a Fiume-based Jew of Hungarian descent, a lawyer in the ecclesiastical court and representative of the Holy See for the Concordat with Jugoslavia. In 1952, the bishop sent de Gric an article for publication in the periodical Osservatore Romano with an “invitation” to take credit for its authorship. The documents attributed to Grani and de Gric – their authenticity demands to be verified, and neither received the commissioner’s assistance – launched the outsized version of Palatucci’s heroism.

The last piece of the legend to fall is the one connected to the circumstances of Palatucci’s death. The arrest warrant signed by Herbert Kappler and deposited in the Central Archives of State leaves no doubt: Palatucci was accused of treason by the Germans for having transmitted to the enemy (the British) documents of the Social Republic of Salo requesting negotiations for Fiume’s independence, not for having protected the Jews of that city.

prominent participant in the Darfur massacres. A petition by 107 genocide scholars to Obama, urging him to cancel the visit, has so far gone unanswered.

Ironically, countries far smaller and weaker than the United States have shown much more backbone on this issue. Uganda, South Africa, and even tiny, deeply impoverished Malawi have threatened to arrest Bashir if he attempts to take part in international conferences in their countries. The president of Brazil stormed out of a banquet rather than sit next to Bashir. Yet the U.S., apparently worried about angering Bashir’s allies in the Arab League, continues to stand idly by as the Butcher of Darfur travels freely.

And the Atrocities Prevention Board under Samantha Power?

Thirteen months after it was established, it still has no office, no web site, no phone, no public record of action, not even a single statement issued about Bashir’s travels or other issues related to atrocities in Sudan or anywhere else.

No wonder the major news media seem unaware of the Atrocities Prevention Board’s existence. In reporting Power’s nomination as U.S. ambassador, the New York Times mentioned only that she “worked on humanrights issues on the National Security Council during Mr. Obama’s first term.” The Washington Post described her as “Obama’s adviser for multilateral affairs and human rights before

resigning earlier this year.”

Has the Atrocities Prevention Board been preventing atrocities on the sly? Presumably Obama would not have chosen such a high-profile setting for the announcement of the Board’s creation had he intended it to be some kind of top-secret operation.

Hopefully Power can resolve this mystery at her confirmation hearing.

In the meantime, while Obama named Susan Rice to replace outgoing National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and Samantha Power to replace Rice, there was no mention of who will be replacing Power as head of the Atrocities Prevention Board. But given the Board’s inactivity, does it even matter?

WALKER from page 16

is the 92Y afraid to have her state her position?

Jonathon Tobin wrote for Commentary that by “inviting Walker, whose opinions and actions about Israel are not exactly a secret, the Y is signaling that it and its members do not consider advocacy for the antiIsrael BDS movement to be a disqualifying factor when it comes to the people they invite to their hall.”

Concerning Walker’s comments before the interview with JNS was shut down, one might wonder whether her knowledge of foreign military aid spending policy is so minimal that she does not know that the majority of such funds are, by mandate, spent in the U.S., providing jobs and revenue for Americans. Walker should also be

aware that school funding generally comes from local or state sources.

When an assumed intellectual, a so-called humanistic thinker like Walker, eliminates facts as a basis for her positions, a dangerous precedent is set.

Alicia Keys, upon rejecting Walker’s calls to cancel her July 4 concert in Israel, told the New York Times, “I look forward to my first visit to Israel. Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.”

Walker herself said on stage at the 92Y, “You have to want to be free – it’s hard work. You have to love people.”

Heed your own advice, Ms. Walker.

not right. There’s no way you can make it right.”

As Walker continued to express her views, the 92Y’s Greenfeld, who monitored the entire interview, again interrupted. “This is not the place for this,” she said, before shutting down the interview.

If the 92Y believed in an open dialogue on stage, why should its communications officer forbid the continuation of that dialogue off stage? Alice Walker is a public figure, and she has made her anti-Israel position clear.

Why, then, was she stopped while stating her views in a one-on-one interview at a premier institution of the Jewish community like the 92Y? Why