Israelite 0718

AI

The American Israelite T H E

O L D E S T

04

E N G L I S H

New girls high school hires principal

LOCAL

p.3

Volunteer to professional, Lefton joins Fedratation staff

NATIONAL

p.7

Boy finds way to bar mitzvah with help of Simms Taback

INTERNATIONAL p.9

Correspondent’s death changed the course for Oscar-winning producer

DINING OUT

p.14

In Norway a smoked fish tradition to make lox lovers salivate

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK! FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013 11 AV, 5773

Lion of Judah thank you

CINCINNATI, OH Candle Lighting Times Shabbat begins Fri 8:43p Shabbat ends Sat 9:44p

VOL. 159 • NO. 52

p.12

SINGLE ISSUE: $1.00 J E W I S H

08

W E E K L Y

I N

A M E R I C A

Israeli reconnects with an American cousin

|

10

E S T .

1 8 5 4

|

Laying the groundwork for a third Temple in Jerusalem

“ L E T

T H E R E

20

B E

L I G H T ”

Nimoy, from Star Trek to Jewish photography

Jewish Foundation helps new girls high school find a home A new high school geared toward Jewish girls nationwide is getting its start next month in Cincinnati.

The school, Atara – “Atara” is Hebrew for crown – Girls High School of Cincinnati, which will serve grades nine through twelve and is focused on providing a quality education in conjunction with a Torah value system that can be shared by girls heading toward seminary, university, the professional world, community leadership, motherhood or the many combinations thereof.

“As the Talmud refers to Jewish girls as "B’nos Melech," daughters of the King, we thought it was a fitting name, particularly for a high school in Cincinnati, which is the Queen City," said Penina Teitelbaum, the new school’s principal. “We are looking to develop highly educated leaders who are models of refinement, sophistication, and who are deeply engaged with their Judaism and their relationship with G-d.”

The new school is getting its start in large part to the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, which purchased the Losantiville School on Elbrook Avenue last November during a public auction run by Cincinnati Public Schools.

The Losantiville School property was acquired as part of an overall community planning strategy coordinated with multiple organizations, particularly those within the immediate vicinity, according to the Jewish Foundation.

The property is located in an area that has seen significant growth and activity in the Cincinnati Jewish community, and the Foundation views this property as a potential asset to use for the future needs of the Jewish community.”

In the meantime, as part of its investment in Jewish education in Cincinnati, The Jewish Foundation has made two grants to Cincinnati Hebrew Day School that will involve the temporary use of the Losantiville School property: Capital funds to make some renovations to the first floor of the school building to accommodate new classroom space, and early stage operating funds to support the establishment of a new Orthodox girls high school in Cincinnati.

Losantiville School

“As CHDS has outgrown its current building, beginning this fall the renovated classrooms in Losantiville School will be used on a temporary basis for some of the day school's existing grades as well as for the new girls high school classes,” said Michael R. Oestreicher, president of The Jewish Foundation.

Oestreicher said the Foundation is committed to Jewish educational excellence in Cincinnati.

"Part of this investment involves supporting the Orthodox community and its educational institutions as they continue to grow and develop. In order to assist Cincinnati Hebrew Day School in managing its existing enrollment increases and in opening a new Orthodox girls high school, we are pleased to make space available at Losantiville Elementary School on a temporary basis to accommodate needed additional classrooms.”

Oestreicher said the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati looks forward to continued partnership with the community volunteers leading CHDS and its new girls high school, as well as

the new administrators beginning their tenures in the coming school year.

“As the owner of the Losantiville Elementary School building, The Jewish Foundation will continue working with the community to determine the most beneficial long-term uses for that property,” Oestreicher said.

“We are grateful for the enthusiasm that the new girl’s high school has received,” said Dr. Melissa Bernstein, a committee member for the new school. “We are appreciative of The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati for their support and for enabling us to establish a Jewish high school for young women.”

Those behind the school are shaping it to be a national standard for education for Orthodox Jewish girls, which will help Cincinnati be a destination city consistent with the vision for Cincinnati 2020, the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s community-wide planning process that envisions Cincinnati in the year 2020 as “a model Jewish community that attracts, retains and meaningfully engages indi-

viduals and families with its breadth and quality of Jewish life.”

The dual curriculum at Atara Girls High School of Cincinnati will value both Judaic and secular studies equally.

Atara plans to seek accreditation from The Independent Schools Association of the Central States, which would put it in good company with Cincinnati Country Day School, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, The Seven Hills School and The Summit Country Day School.

The school’s vision is to provide a wholesome environment founded upon excellence, where Jewish high school girls from diverse backgrounds will feel welcome and embraced; a place where girls will grow both academically and spiritually to be wellrounded individuals who love Judaism.

This vision is designed to allow for the new school to serve the needs of the community and provide a platform of growth for a variety of girls, who all share one thing in common -- their Jewish identity.

Coming soon in The American Israelite

MatureLiving REACH THE JEWISH SENIOR COMMUNITY WITH YOUR ADVERTISING MESSAGE Deadline for ad submission is Thursday, July 18 Publishes on Thursday, July 25

To Advertise or For More Information, Contact Ted Deutsch at 621-3145 or publisher@americanisraelite.com

LOCAL • 3

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

The American Israelite will use JTA Premium service

By Gabrielle Cohen Assistant Editor The American Israelite is proud to announce that it will be receiving the premium service from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) for its Israel, National and International sections of the paper.

The American Israelite, will be receiving the JTA Premium special package, which includes Celebrations, Seniors, Best Jewish Campuses, Women’s Health and Holiday Gift Guide along with approximately ten travel stories and ten arts & culture stories. The package offers different sections to choose from such as education, Israel travel and camp.

Through the education part of the package, readers will see headlines like “advocacy effort

AI

The American Israelite has Jewish schools reaping hundreds of millions in gov’t money,” “Jewish public schools? Hebrew charter franchises offer radically different models,” “for Hebrew charter school kids, religion comes after school,” “non-Orthodox day schools struggling even after the recession” and “mixed-age classrooms finding home in Jewish schools.”

The Israel travel section of

the package will include headlines such as “for West Bank tourists, a cocktail of religion, politics and wineries,” “Israel's expanding network of cycling paths luring bike tourists,” “in once unremarkable Tel Aviv, tourism is booming” and “not pressed for time? Try riding the Israeli rails.”

The preimum package also includes camp headlines such as “going iPhone-less: camps trying to ban gadgets while embracing technology,” “Jewish summer camps increasingly attuned to special needs kids,” “donors struggling to defray the rising costs of Jewish camp” and “Jewish camps seeking to bring diverse groups under the same tent.”

Look out for these various headlines throughout the end of 2013.

Rick Lefton makes move from volunteer to professional, joins Federation staff The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati welcomes Rick Lefton as the organization’s new Planned Giving Officer.

Before joining the Federation staff in May 2013, Lefton was a realtor at Comey & Shepherd, where, in the five years since obtaining his real estate license, he earned multiple awards from the local and state boards of realtors.

Previously, Lefton had dedicated 21 years to his family’s business, Provident Camera Shop in downtown Cincinnati.

“I have always been a ‘team’ guy, something I learned from working with my family from a young age,” said Lefton, “and by coming to work for the Federation, I’ve found myself a part of an even larger family— the entire Jewish community in Cincinnati.”

Rick—a native Cincinnatian and graduate of Walnut Hills High School and The Ohio State University—brings experience as a volunteer leader in the community to his position at the Federation, having served on the boards of both the Mayerson JCC (1999-2002) and Jewish Family Service (2008-2010).

Danielle Minson, the Federation’s Chief Development Officer, said, “Rick’s combination of sales and business experience, along with his dedication to the community—and not to

Rick Lefton

mention his infectious energy!—make him ideal for this position. We’re excited to have him on board.”

Lefton continued, “I love being a part of something greater than myself, and I wanted to extend my volunteer work into a more meaningful career where I can make a difference.

My experiences over these first couple of months have reinforced my decision. I’m working with great people doing

incredible work for our community!”

As Planned Giving Officer, Lefton will work closely with Director of Gift Planning and Endowments Jim Friedman.

Lefton is responsible for cultivating endowment gift commitments to the Federation. Gifts to an organization’s endowment— usually made through planned gifts or estate bequests—offer financial stability by supplying a steady source of funds that supplement annual fundraising efforts. Many donors choose to endow their annual campaign gift, ensuring that their support of the community will continue in perpetuity.

“Although his background is in other fields, Rick’s experience in helping people find their passion and achieve their goals fits perfectly in his new position,” said Friedman. “He is likeable and approachable, and I know our community members—the many he knows and those he doesn’t—will trust him to fulfill their aspirations to make a personally meaningful difference.”

Lefton is married to Mayerson JCC professional Betsy Singer-Lefton, with whom he has five children—17, 15 and 12-year-old triplets.

They live in Montgomery and are members of Wise Temple.

ONLINE EDITION

AI +

The American Israelite

www.americanisraelite.com

Richard Weiland Honored

by Talbert House with building commemoration Richard Weiland, long-time Talbert House board member, will be honored July 26 for his longstanding commitment and generous support at a building commemoration in Walnut Hills.

Weiland is a well-respected lobbyist and committed Talbert House volunteer who joined the agency’s board in 1977.

Weiland has been a tireless advocate of the agency mission.

“He believes in giving people another chance to improve their lives” according to Neil Tilow, president of Talbert House. Among his many notable accomplishments, Weiland was instrumental in drafting re-entry legislation known as the Second Chance Act. Subsequently, he was recognized by then congressman Rob Portman with an award for his efforts. Dick also received the prestigious Gold Star Award by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for his advocacy of reentry issues.

The building dedication at Talbert House is one of many honors bestowed upon Weiland.

Others include: • Weiland Scholarship Fund at Cincinnati State • Dick Weiland Field through the Reds Community Fund • Fred Shuttlesworth/Dick Weiland Room at New Life Baptist Church • Weiland Room at Talbert House • Dick Weiland Hall at American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College

• Marcia and Dick Weiland Theater at Camp Livingston • Weiland Gate at Mt. Scopus (Jerusalem) • Weiland/Rosedale House at Cincinnati Community Kollel • Weiland/Zeff House at Halom House • Weiland Patient Room 271 at Cedar Village Weiland has been credited with helping Talbert House expand its breath of services by working with all levels of government to provide services for welfare-towork, substance abuse, mental health and community correction.

Weiland also has been a generous donor and fundraiser and cochaired agency’s 40th Anniversary Dinner in 2006.

Weiland served as agency board chairperson from 1983-1985 and is chairperson of the board’s government relations committee.

Weiland also has served as president of government affairs for Ohio Jewish Communities and was the chairman and co-founder of the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education at Hebrew Union College.

Friday, July 26, 4 p.m. at 2534 Victory Parkway PROFESSIONAL ANNOUNCEMENT

4 • LOCAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Rabbi Hanan Balk honored with national rabbinic award tional and communal leader were exceptional.”

Following the award presentation, the convention’s keynote address was delivered by Orthodox Knesset Member and Yesh Atid party spokesman Rabbi Dov Lipman. Lipman, an Orthodox rabbi who is advocating full Orthodox participation in the Israeli army and work force, presented a factual clarification of his views, which have often been distorted, to a room full of rabbinic representatives from across the globe.

Cincinnati rabbi selected to participate in rabbinic delegation to India ty. Upon returning from India, we know that Rabbi Greenberg and other leaders will draw upon their experiences in India to teach their congregants about the importance of the traditional Jewish value of respecting the essential dignity of every human being and how that relates to ensuring human rights for people in the developing world.”

While in India, Rabbi Greenberg and the rabbinic delegation will learn about human rights and international development issues through site visits, meetings with local experts and working side by side with local community members on improving the infrastructure of their local school. The delegation will also have the opportunity to meet members of Nirantar, a women’s empowerment organization supported

by AJWS. Based in New Delhi, Nirantar provides learning opportunities for rural women on issues related to gender, sexuality, gender-based violence, caste and education.

Steven Greenberg is Director of the CLAL Diversity Project and Senior Teaching Fellow at CLAL (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership).

Since 2004, AJWS has sent more than 300 rabbis, rabbinical students, and graduate students in Jewish communal leadership programs from all denominations to work and learn alongside our grassroots partners in the developing world.

This program was created to inspire and cultivate Jewish communal leaders who are committed to advancing human rights for the most

marginalized people in the developing world. By simultaneously participating in service activities, the study of traditional Jewish texts, and discussions about the Jewish values that inform human rights work, participants return home passionate about their role as global Jewish citizens and even more dedicated to engaging their own communities in creating a more just world.

Upon returning to the U.S., participants will join a growing community of talented and passionate rabbinic alumni who have traveled with AJWS. This national community provides an active forum through which rabbis and rabbinical students engage in building Jewish communities committed to global justice.

Penina Teitelbaum

VOL. 159 • NO. 52 THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013 11 AV 5773 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 8:43 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 9:44 PM THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE CO., PUBLISHERS 18 WEST NINTH STREET, SUITE 2 CINCINNATI, OHIO 45202-2037 Phone: (513) 621-3145 Fax: (513) 621-3744 publisher@americanisraelite.com editor@americanisraelite.com production@americanisraelite.com RABBI ISAAC M. WISE Founder, Editor, Publisher, 1854-1900 LEO WISE Editor & Publisher, 1900-1928 RABBI JONAH B. WISE Editor & Publisher, 1928-1930 HENRY C. SEGAL Editor & Publisher, 1930-1985 PHYLLIS R. SINGER Editor & General Manager, 1985-1999 MILLARD H. MACK Publisher Emeritus NETANEL (TED) DEUTSCH Editor & Publisher GABRIELLE COHEN JORY EDLIN Assistant Editors

along, Jewish education was a passion in her family.

“Decades ago, my grandfather saw a dire need for Jewish education in his small community in Memphis, Tenn.,” she said. “He began the day school there in 1949, which has educated hundreds of students, and still stands and operates today.”

Teitelbaum’s parents both teach.

Her father, David Greenblatt, has taught in several New York universities, and her mother, Debbie Greenblatt, teaches Torah ideas to Jewish women worldwide.

“I grew up with weekly classes in my living room,” Teitelbaum said. “As a young girl, and quite the drama queen, a favorite activity of mine was to steal into my mother’s room, put on one of her outfits, and burst into the kitchen and begin “teaching” whichever hapless parent or sibling was sitting at the kitchen table.”

With that background, perhaps it’s no wonder Teitelbaum was drawn to teaching.

“I was intrigued and amazed at PRINCIPAL on page 19

JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN ZELL SCHULMAN RABBI AVI SHAFRAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists BONNIE ULLNER Advertising Sales Manager JENNIFER CARROLL Production Manager ERIN WYENANDT Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

ewish N h-J ew lis

Orthodox and everywhere in between.

“She has unbelievable people skills and a background in counseling which allows her to maximize her intuitive ability to understand the emotional needs of each girl and to know the right blend of love and discipline to maximize the potential of each student,” Samuelson said.

“This woman is a true eved Hashem (servant of G-d).”

Tova Scherer, who also serves on the committee for the new

school, said its principal needed to be “an experienced educator, intelligent person who could relate to the needs of teenage girls and foster their spiritual, intellectual, academic and emotional growth.”

Scherer said Teitelbaum is an "articulate, dynamic personality” with a love of Judaism, a contagious positive energy, a passion of service of G-d and a passion for excellence in education.

“Her understanding of human nature is mature beyond her years," Scherer said. "She is goal-oriented, striving for excellence and has a magnetic personality that will attract teenage girls to the school."

Her husband, Rabbi Binyomin Teitelbaum is an accomplished Torah scholar, who after studying in Israel, was a member of the Phoenix Community Kollel and an integral part of the Jewish community.

Teitelbaum’s experience with clinical psychology and her excellence as assistant principal have helped to hone her skills necessary to be an excellent principal, Scherer said.

Long before Teitelbaum came

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

ALEXIA KADISH YOSEFF FRANCUS Copy Editors

New girls high school hires principal Cincinnati’s new Jewish girls high school searched for a personality who has the ability to inspire high school girls to strive to be the very best they can be.

School organizers at Atara Girls High School of Cincinnati, which will serve grades 9 through 12, say they found that person in Penina Teitelbaum, one of three finalists brought in for an interview after the school’s selection committee received more than 20 applications and conducted about half a dozen interviews via Skype.

In her visit to Cincinnati, Teitelbaum “not only galvanized the girls, but entranced the community at large with her effusive personality and genuine love of Torah,” school organizers said.

Teitelbaum has been the assistant principal for Shearim Torah High School for Girls in Phoenix, Ariz., over the last number of years.

Pammy Samuelson, who serves on the committee for the new school, said Teitelbaum “strikes a very rare balance” that allows one person to meet the needs of a widely varied group of Orthodox girls, from the "yeshivish" to the Modern

The American Israelite

•

Rabbi Steven Greenberg of Cincinnati, Ohio was recently chosen as one of 17 rabbis from across the country to participate in American Jewish World Service’s (AJWS) fourth rabbinic delegation trip. On July 21, Rabbi Greenberg will travel with AJWS to Lucknow in northern India on a 10-day trip during which he will join with other national Jewish leaders and volunteers to reflect on connections between traditional Jewish teachings and human rights today.

“We are deeply gratified to have a leader of Rabbi Greenberg’s caliber as part of our rabbinic delegation to India,” said AJWS President Ruth Messinger. “Rabbi Greenberg, like the other rabbis traveling with us, is a tremendous leader not only in his synagogue but also in his local communi-

AI

Est. 1854

Council and the Beit Din of America — one of the leading authorities of Jewish law in the world — offered the following comments about Rabbi Balk’s achievements and leadership qualities that made him worthy of this most significant award: “For many decades I have known Rabbi Balk of Cincinnati, and I became more acquainted with him through many visits to that city.

He has remarkable accomplishments, and his honesty and outstanding professionalism in discharging his responsibilities as a congrega-

• ca

Deborah Rubenstein — beloved leaders of the Young Israel of Scarsdale and the Scarsdale Jewish community until their untimely deaths — held dear, including commitment to youth, Israel and working together for the sake of Jewish unity with organizations beyond the Orthodox constituency. Rabbi Rubenstein was also a past president of the Rabbinical Council of America.

Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the Av Beit Din (Chief Rabbinical Judge) of the Chicago Rabbinical

r in Am ape er sp i

Rabbi Hanan Balk, who served as the spiritual leader of the Golf Manor Synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio was recognized by his rabbinical peers with the Rubenstein Memorial Award in Rabbinic Excellence at the annual convention of the Rabbinical Council of America, on June 29, 2013. Balk shared the award with Rabbi Judah Dardik of Oakland, California.

The honor is bestowed annually upon a congregational rabbi who has excelled in rabbinic leadership in the realms which Rabbi Jacob and

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.

LOCAL • 5

THURSDAY, JULY 11, 2013

Update: Ethan Kadish making progress in recovery

By Gabrielle Cohen Assistant Editor Ethan Kadish who was struck by lightning at Goldman Union Camp Institute (GUCI) in Zionsville, Ind. June 29 was immediately taken to Indianapolis Children’s Hospital.

On July 3, Ethan was transferred

to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Originally, he was supposed to have a CT scan, but Ethan’s medical team cancelled it because they did not see a need for it. Instead, a MRI was done on Friday, July 5. The MRI confirmed the trauma Ethan suffered.

On July 10, Ethan’s breathing tube was removed. The day after, he continued to be able to breathe on his own and also began a feeding regiment designed to get his gut and lower gastrointestinal tract working together without any problems.

As of July 15, Ethan is being moved to the Rehabilitation Unit

of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He received the official authorization from his P.I.C.U. doctors.

Ethan is the son of Scott and Alexia Kadish. Scott is a Procter & Gamble employee. Alexia is a substitute teacher at Rockwern Academy and the American Israelite’s copy editor.

Please continue to say the Mi Shebeirach (Prayer for Healing) for Ethan and add him to the Refuah Shlema List. Please keep Ethan and the whole Kadish family in your thoughts and prayers.

For more information regarding Ethan’s condition, please visit Ethan’s CaringBridge site online.

Wise Temple Seniors host “Meet, Greet and Eat” Save the date! The Wise Temple Seniors will host a Meet, Greet and Eat on Thursday, July 25 at 1 p.m. at Wise Temple. Meet and greet the three new Wise Temple rabbis, Rabbis Karen Thomashow, Sydney Henning and Rachel Maimin. The new rabbis will tell us a bit about themselves and then socialize with the seniors in order to get to know

them. Pete and Kathy Teitelman, the chairs of the Wise Temple Seniors explain, “This is a great opportunity to meet the new rabbis in an informal setting.” In addition, meet long-time friends, greet some new friends, and, of course, nosh!

Along with meeting the new rabbis, come to hear about the Wise Temple Seniors programs

for the coming year. As a Wise Temple Senior group member who attends most of the Senior activities, Rabbi Judith Bluestein explains, “Wise Temple Seniors sponsor a mix of programs which are related to Judaism, civic or local issues, and other topics of interest to its members. All programs provide ample time for socializing with one another, but I

feel I learn something about the community and other senior members at each event.”

Over the years, the Wise Seniors group and its programs have been very popular. But new faces are always welcome. Rabbi Bluestein says, “The Meet, Greet and Eat is specifically designed to encourage anyone new to the temple or members who have not

come to a senior event in the past or anyone new Cincinnati to check out the Wise Senior group and its programs. Hopefully new people will join those who already know the secret: seniority brings with it fun!”

There is no charge for this program and it is open to members and non–members of Wise Temple.

Israeli scout blog: Week 3 Happy hour food truck night For the next few weeks, a member of the Israeli scout delegation, Affek, will share his story; from the first scouts interview in Netanya, to impressions of day-to-day life in Cincinnati and at Camp Friedlander.

Stay tuned to the Israelite, and visit his blog online for more experiences and photos: July 12: This is a Sunday morning, after the amazing weekend we spent with our host families. "Wow, I just remember coming to the airport," I think to myself. After saying goodbye to the host families and some pictures, we arrive at Camp Friedlander, where we are going to spend the next two weeks.

On the first night there is a "campfire" and the camp counselors prepare short and funny skits and help open the week in a good mood.

At night, Ziv, the head of our delegation, speaks to us about the schedule for this week. We will have three courses: ACE, Shot Rifle and American Workshop. Right now it means nothing to me, but I certainly expect to figure it out tomorrow.

The next morning is the ACE. Our instructors are Chris and Ahmed, who are Egyptian. I understand that the ACE is extreme sports like climbing, mountain skateboarding and even canoeing on the river. I enjoy it very much. After lunch and a short rest, we come to the shooting range, where waiting for us is Kevin, the rifle teacher. The course is very interesting and we're learning about the rifle, its structure and types of bullets and even how to clean it. (I shoot for the first time in my life, and I am very excited and go there almost every night I had spare time).

Finally, just before the flag lowering ceremony and dinner, we have

a course of American Workshop, where we create leather works such as knife cases, bracelets and even a key chain. "Nothing special," I agree with myself. "But this is a wonderful way to relax and enjoy the end of the day!" The week flies by, and on Friday night all the host families come to eat with us. I am very excited to see the Oeters after a week, and we are preparing for Abby‘s Bat Mitzvah tomorrow, which we were invited to well in advance.

Saturday, the Bat Mitzvah is here at Beth Adam Congregation. "I wonder how it will look. Everything here is so different in terms of religion,” I think quietly, smiling. We arrive at Beth Adam, where we read songs and special text for the Bat Mitzvah. Also Abby and both her parents read for the occasion. We arrive to a program venue in Cincinnati celebrating the Bat Mitzvah with activities, singing and dancing for Abby.

After an amazing and fun event, the second week starts. Even now we have three courses: COPE, Archery and Survival. In COPE we experience activities of team building and learn about respect, friendship, teamwork and leadership. In the Archery Shooting Course we study and learn about the bow, its structure, arrows and use. "It never loses the fun!" I think happily.

Finally we have a survival course in which we learn how to survive in the wild, and for the final part, we stay outside (the rainiest day they could choose) while we build a shelter and sleep in it.

Without noticing the second week disappears too. But... "Why did it end so soon?" I think to myself, half in a question, half in surprise.

Hop on the pop culture bang wagon… it’s time to hit the street and get with what’s trending when Access hosts its next event in the hottest spot in Over the Rhine… a vacant lot – or at least what will have formerly been a vacant lot just a few hours before it becomes the Night Owl Market (NOM), a “pop up party” for young professionals located just outside the coolest clubs and bars in town, featuring food trucks and other vendors, live music and more on Saturday, July 27th beginning at 9pm with a “pre game” HeBREW Happy Hour at Neons on East 12th Street.

Access will get the party started with free appetizers in a reserved space on the outdoor patio of Neons, one of OTR’s most popular bars, where guests can play Bocci Ball, Supersized Jenga and other games while enjoying a wide range of craft beers and specialty infused liquors.

All those who RSVP in advance will get their first drink on Access, and will receive complimentary NOM Bucks that can be used to purchase some of the best food and drinks that can be found on four wheels when the group heads outdoors for the ultimate NOM street party, at the corner of Central Parkway and Main Street.

There the group can sit at the tables and chairs in Access’ NOM tent or, hang with other bar hoppers right in the middle of the plaza and check out the live music and other entertainment!

“This event is perfect for anyone who has plans for later that night but wants to drop by for a drink before heading out for the evening,” explains Briana Landesberg, Access Event Coordinator. “However, it’s also the perfect event for those who don’t have any particular plans lined

Courtesy of Access

A food truck, like one of many to be found at the Night Owl Market

up, because chances are good they will hook up with a group going to other bars, or they can choose to stay with everyone else who’s hanging at NOM! Plus, it’s a great opportunity to get in on this fun pop up market trend and see what it’s all about firsthand,” she adds.

Access is an initiative of The Mayerson Foundation for Jewish young professionals, 21-35. The Happy Hour Food Truck Night is free with an advanced reservation and open to all young professionals, Jewish and non-Jewish, between the ages of 21-35. Access’ contact information can be found in the Community Directory listing located in this issue.

Access aims to provide a “no strings attached” way for Jewish young professionals to connect with one another and to the Jewish community. From social events to social action and everything in between, Access offers something to suit just about every Jewish young professional between the ages of 21-35 and

puts on 4-6 programs each month at some of the most popular venues in town, often attracting as many as 300-400 people to its larger Main Events.

6 • NATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Kerry drawing concern for focus on peace process, rather than Middle East upheaval

By Alex Traiman JointMedia News Service With his attention focused on a situation that is stable, relative to its immediate surroundings, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has left many in Israel wondering if the U.S. has its foreign policy priorities straight – particularly in the Middle East.

Kerry has visited Israel and the Palestinian territories five times since he started his new post in February (with the sixth, scheduled for July 11, expected to be canceled because of his wife’s health) in an effort to restart peace negotiations.

The recent push comes at a time of tremendous regional instability, with the ongoing civil war in Syria, anti-Islamist protests in Turkey, and a new president in Iran, as well as deadly rioting in Egypt following the deposing of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi – a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“The fact that the administration,

represented by the Secretary of State, has chosen to be preoccupied with the Palestinian issue proves that they have ignored a fundamental principle. If you are smothered by lethal sandstorms, don’t be preoccupied with the tumbleweeds,” Amb. Yoram Ettinger, former Minister of Congressional Affairs in Israel’s Embassy to the U.S., told JNS. “I don’t think this initiative will yield any positive results,” Ettinger said.

According to Ettinger, the latest peace push demonstrates that Kerry mistakenly assumes that the Palestinian issue is a core cause of Middle East turbulence.

“The recent developments on the Arab Street are totally independent of the Palestinian issue, which has never been a Middle East pace-setter,” Ettinger said.

“Being preoccupied with the Palestinian issue diverts valuable resources and attention away from much more critical threats to vital American economic and defense

Courtesy of Issam Rimawi/Flash90

Caption: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a press conference following their meeting in Ramallah on June 30, 2013.

interests,” he said.

A new study by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University indicates that Ettinger’s voice is not alone.

According to the poll, 71 percent of Jewish Israelis and 72 percent of

Arab Israelis believe that Kerry’s initiative has a low chance of succeeding in restarting negotiations.

Furthermore, only 29 percent of Israeli Jews and 47 percent of Israeli Arabs believe that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian

Authority will lead to peace in the coming years.

According to Ettinger, the existing peace agreements that Israel has signed with its neighbors – including the Israel-Egypt peace agreement of 1977 and the Israel-Jordan peace agreement of 1994 – have been Israeli initiatives, with the U.S. participating only after the processes had been started.

“Since 1949 there have been a litany of American initiatives and none of them have produced peace,” Ettinger said. “All of them have radicalized Arab expectations, and increased terrorism, because every time the U.S. proposes something, the Arabs have to outflank them from the hawkish side, because the Arabs cannot be seen as less hawkish than the Americans.”

“We are talking about a very negative impact on the peace process, not a positive one,” he said.

“This initiative runs contrary to the interests of the U.S., the peace process, and U.S.-Israel relations.”

Claims Conference report on bungled fraud episode in 2001 splits the organization

The Holocaust messenger who confronted FDR

By Uriel Heilman Jewish Telegraphic Agency

By Rafael Medoff JointMedia News Service

NEW YORK – The release of a highly anticipated ombudsman’s report about how the Claims Conference missed an opportunity in 2001 to detect a massive fraud scheme is raising serious questions about governance of the organization and pitting the organization’s chief executive against the chairman of its executive committee.

The report, which calls for changes to the structure, administration and management of the Claims Conference, also has divided the committee tasked with producing it.

On Sunday, two of the four committee members disavowed the report and resigned.

The report was commissioned following the disclosure that an anonymous letter received by the organization’s Frankfurt office in 2001 provided a chance to detect a massive fraud scheme that would run for another eight years and ultimately result in $57 million in fraudulent restitution payouts from 1993 to 2009.

The disclosure prompted calls for an independent investigation of the Claims Conference, including from leaders of organizations represented on its board. It also led to calls for the resignation of Julius Berman, the Claims Conference chairman (and a JTA board member), who oversaw one of the two failed probes into the allegations contained in the anonymous letter.

In response, Berman tasked a “select leadership committee” led by Reuven Merhav, chairman of the

Seventy years ago this month, on July 28, an eyewitness to the Nazi atrocities against Europe’s Jews brought the horrifying news directly to the most powerful man on earth. It was the moment that President Franklin D. Roosevelt came face to face with the Holocaust.

By the time he was 26, Polish underground member Jan Karski had been imprisoned by the Soviets, tortured by the Gestapo, and nearly drowned while escaping from a hospital in German-occupied Slovakia.

After all he suffered, it would have been understandable if Karski had ended his service at that point.

Instead, he chose to risk his life again, in order to alert the Free World about Hitler’s mass murder of European Jewry.

Karski, who was Catholic, was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, as the Nazis were deporting hundreds of thousands of Warsaw’s Jews to the gas chambers of Treblinka. Walking through the ghetto, he saw corpses piled in the gutter, emaciated children clothed in rags, and dazed men and women slumped against decrepit buildings.

When gunfire suddenly erupted, Karski’s comrades hurried him into a nearby apartment. He watched as two uniformed teenagers with pistols came down the street. “They are here for the ‘Jew hunt,’” Karski was told. Hitler Youth members would amuse themselves by venturing into the Jewish part of the city and shooting people at random.

Courtesy of JTA

German officials laying a wreath at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as Claims Conference officials look on, May 2013.

Claims Conference’s executive committee, to handle the matter.

Following its first meeting in early June, Merhav’s four-man panel asked the Claims Conference ombudsman, Shmuel Hollander, to investigate.

The committee’s report was first made public and posted online by the Forward on Monday, a day before the Claims Conference’s annual board meeting in New York.

(The president of the Forward Association sits on the Claims Conference board.)

“Best practice and competence, were missing in respect of this matter,” the report said of the 2001 episode. There is a “real need for improvements in the Claims Conference’s administration, management and governance, generally.”

On Sunday, committee members

Abraham Biderman and Roman Kent sent letters to the board saying the report contains factual errors and does not take into account management changes made since 2001. In addition, the chief executive at the Claims Conference, Greg Schneider, sent the board a lengthy rebuttal in which he called the report “deeply flawed.”

The remaining two members of the leadership committee, Merhav and Robert Goot, stand by the report.

The anonymous letter came to light during the trial two months ago of Semen Domnitser, a Claims Conference employee who oversaw the two major restitution programs in which the fraud occurred – the Article 2 Fund and the Hardship Fund. In all, 31 people were arrested CLAIMS on page 21

Courtesy of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

Jan Karski.

Days later, Karski and a compatriot, disguised as Ukrainian militiamen, took a six-hour train ride to a site in southeastern Poland called Izbica. It was a “sorting station.”

When Jews were shipped to a death camp, Karski learned, the Germans would first take them to Izbica, rob them of their last belongings, and then send them off to the gas chambers.

Determined to tell the world what he had seen, Karski made his way across occupied Belgium, Germany, and France, his life in danger every step of the way.

Thanks to an injection from a sympathetic dentist that swelled his jaw, Karski was able to avoid conversations that might have revealed his Polish identity. From France, he hiked across the Pyrenees mountains into Spain, and then traveled to London.

HOLOCAUST on page 22

NATIONAL • 7

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

Boy finds way to bar mitzvah with help of Simms Taback graphic books

By Debra Rubin Jewish Telegraphic Agency As his mother read to him, Levi Davishoff puckered and moved his lips in the universal sign indicating that something is sour. He then pointed to the lemon pictured in the library book.

His mother, Marla, was thrilled. It was the first time that Levi, then 18 months old, had communicated with the baby sign language he had been learning. He had been in therapy for developmental and cognitive delays since was 2 months old.

Davishoff rushed out to buy the book, “Joseph Had a Little Overcoat,”

by Simms Taback. It would become Levi’s favorite.

Little did she imagine that 12 years later the book would play an integral part in Levi’s bar mitzvah ceremony.

In fact, for many years it wasn’t clear that any bar mitzvah service

would take place.

“His learning disabilities were exacerbated by an illness,” Davishoff said. “He had a significant cognitive decline that he still hasn’t recovered from.”

Due to the illness, Levi, who attends a therapeutic day school, skipped a year of Sunday school at Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation in Lincolnshire, Ill. But he missed being there and remained eager to have a bar mitzvah ceremony.

“I just wanted to be like everyone else,” he recalled.

Youngsters at Levi’s synagogue aren’t obligated to read the Torah portion at their bar or bat mitzvah. So Levi decided to do a project on Taback, who had become his favorite author.

He researched the graphic artist who wrote children’s books and had been a designer for The New York Times and CBS Records. Levi also

contacted Taback’s daughter, who sent an autographed copy of the “Joseph” – it was placed in the Holy Ark next to the Torah for Levi’s service.

“I just love his books; they’re very interesting and I just think they’re great books,” the 13-year-old said. “They’re funny and they’re good stories.”

Levi’s mother, meanwhile, designed a service booklet for the May 31 bar mitzvah celebration evoking Taback’s use of collages by using images from “Joseph” and his other works.

After the booklets were printed, she added die cuts to each – a signature of Taback’s books. For example, at the top of the page with “Hatikvah,” she punched out a Star of David, which peeked through to an image on the next page taken from the cover of Taback’s book “Kibitzers and Fools.” That image appeared near the portion of Levi’s speech that mentions the book.

On another page, a punch-out of a wine glass was placed next to the Kiddush in the service, revealing on the following page a picture of the sun and flower from “Joseph.”

“As I learned about Simms Taback, I discovered how important books are in my life,” Levi said in his speech. “I am lucky to collect a small library for myself and I try to find new homes for my books when I am done reading them.”

That is, he said, “if my dog Cocoa hasn’t destroyed them first.”

“Articulating the speech was the hardest part,” Levi told The Lifecyclist, his shyness about talking to a reporter coming through. “I just was proud of myself because I did a good thing.”

Said Kol Hadash’s Rabbi Adam Chalom: “The big smile on his face, his obvious sense of accomplishment and pride, were priceless.”

Courtesy of Tell Draper

Levi Davishoff on the bimah of Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation in Lincolnshire, Ill.

For extreme kosher couponers, it’s about the money and the thrill

By Yaffa Klugerman Jewish Telegraphic Agency SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – Anita Batt’s weekly grocery shopping goes something like this: First, she checks several online coupon blogs, which offer guidance about the best sales and coupon combinations in stores such as CVS, Kroger and Target.

Next, Batt prints the several dozen coupons she will use and places them in her organizer sorted by store. Then she visits about six stores, sometimes performing multiple transactions at the same location to maximize savings.

Her purchases are stored in her basement, where stacks of toilet

paper and paper towels are piled to the ceiling. About 20 shelves hold items like 34 bottles of barbecue sauce, 18 boxes of coffee packets, 20 bottles of shampoo, 16 bottles of salad dressing and about every type of cleaning supply imaginable.

“It looks like I don’t need all that stuff,” acknowledged Batt, 43, who works full-time and keeps kosher. “But I get it when it’s on sale, so I never have to buy something that’s not on sale.”

When the economic downturn and the success of TLC’s “Extreme Couponing” bolstered the popularity of clipping coupons, many Jewish consumers struggling to cover their own big-

ticket items – like day school tuition or summer camp fees – discovered coupons could help them make ends meet, too.

“There used to be a certain stigma within some circles of Jewish people who would not coupon because there’s a feeling that we shouldn’t have to do that,” said Lesley Zwick.

Mara Strom says interest in couponing is growing “While we may not get coupons for our kosher meat and cheese, we can save a fortune on the rest of the items in our grocery cart,” said Strom, the $12.99-a-pound cut of kosher brisket is less of a financial burden.”

Courtesy of Yaffa Klugerman

Extreme couponer Anita Batt showing off her stockpile.

Ron Dermer bringing to envoy’s post loyalty to Netanyahu, history of abrasiveness

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON – “I was with him when” Ron Dermer laced his address to the 2009 American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference.

Dermer used the phrase five times in the first five minutes of the speech – the “him” being Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I can shed a little insight into the mind of the Israeli prime minister,” Dermer told the crowd. “Because on that I’m something of an expert.”

Two elements of the address, made just weeks after Netanyahu assumed office, explain Dermer’s ascension this week to the country’s most important diplomatic post, the ambassadorship to Washington.

Dermer has a closeness to Netanyahu so steadfast that it does not inhibit his brashness in boasting about it. And Dermer utterly buys into Netanyahu’s most cherished notion about himself – that he has

Courtesy of Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA

Ron Dermer, Israel's next ambassador to the U.S., speaking at a 2009 convention for Jewish bloggers in Jerusalem.

been right when others have been wrong.

“He’s a man of basic core convictions who has time after time been willing to stand against the current when it was not popular,” Dermer told AIPAC.

Born to a family of conservative Democrats in Miami – his father and brother are both former Miami Beach mayors – Dermer, 41, served as Netanyahu’s top adviser from his assumption of office in March 2009 until his new term began in March of this year.

But Dermer is known for more than just loyalty to his boss. His reputation is as a brash political player dismissive of those with whom disagrees.

He is rumored to be the one responsible for news stories about Obama’s supposed snub of Netanyahu during his 2010 White House visit. And Obama administration officials believe he was behind Netanyahu’s perceived tilt toward Mitt Romney in last year’s presidential election.

“To me, it’s not an ideal choice as he’s seen as extremely political and as someone who has repeatedly gone to the press with negative stories,” a former Obama administration official told JTA. “You want

someone trusted and discreet to be your ambassador.”

Dermer’s reputation raised eyebrows when his name first surfaced earlier this year as a possible replacement for Michael Oren, the historian turned diplomat who will wind down his tenure in Washington this fall. But leaders of mainstream Jewish groups, which lavishly praised the pick on Tuesday, said those muddied waters were under the bridge.

“He’s coming here as ambassador to the United states, not to get involved in partisan politics,” David Harris, the American Jewish Committee director, told JTA. “The prime minister knows it. He knows it.”

Abraham Foxman, the AntiDefamation League’s national director, noted that Dan Shapiro, Obama’s envoy to Israel, once was closely identified with positions that upset the Netanyahu government. In his previous position, as the top Middle East official on the National

Security Council, Shapiro took the lead in pressing Israel to freeze settlement expansion.

“The relationship is bigger than political nuance,” said Foxman, who added that since Obama’s successful March visit to Israel, the tensions that once divided the governments have passed.

Passed, perhaps, but difficult to forget. Unlike Shapiro and other functionaries turned ambassadors, Dermer made the case for his boss in an abrasive tone. In 2011, he declined a New York Times request for an Op-Ed in a letter that was later leaked to The Jerusalem Post.

“It would seem as if the surest way to get an Op-Ed published in The New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel,” Dermer wrote.

Dermer immigrated to Israel in 1997 after several years of involvement in Republican congressional DERMER on page 22

8 • NATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

After tragedy, Camp Tawonga alumni recall close community and meaningful summers

By Arno Rosenfeld Jewish Telegraphic Agency SAN FRANCISCO – When a massive oak tree toppled over on a stage where five counselors were having breakfast at Camp Tawonga, killing one and severely injuring two others, news of the tragedy quickly rippled across the Bay Area Jewish community.

Founded in the 1920s, the camp located near Yosemite National Park is a pillar of California Jewish life, and thousands of Bay Area Jews are among its alumni.

The death of Annais Rittenberg, 21, a senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an art

counselor at Tawonga, in the July 3 accident hit close to home.

“Tawonga has been the main Jewish part of my life,” said Moorea Blythe, 18, a counselor at the camp.

In the Bay Area, which has among the lowest affiliation rates of any major Jewish community, Tawonga’s pluralist, nondenominational approach has been a key to its success. Many campers come from homes that are unaffiliated with a synagogue or Jewish institution, and the camp’s philosophy reflects the population.

“Maybe some like to pray, others like to connect to their spirituality through nature,” Jamie Simon, the camp director, told JTA. “We want

to offer a lot of different modalities for connections to Judaism, and hopefully something will ring true for each child.”

The area where the camp is located is also near and dear to the hearts of Bay Area Jews.

At San Francisco’s Temple Sherith Israel, a stained-glass window installed in 1905 depicts Moses bringing the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments down from El Capitan, the vertical rock formation towering over the Yosemite Valley.

Hannah Horowitz grew up north of San Francisco in an area with few Jews. A former camper and counselor at Tawonga, she said the camp helped her connect to nature and

make connections with other Jewish youth.

“For the first time, I had a whole community of Jewish peers that I was really close with,” Horowitz said.

David Waksberg, CEO of Jewish Learning Works, San Francisco’s board of Jewish education, said the camp has been successful at helping the campers find their Jewish identity meaningful.

“Tawonga has done a great job in delivering Jewish learning in an experiential way to northern California families in ways that are authentic and meaningful to people here,” he said.

Courtesy of Facebook

Annais Rittenberg, inset, a 21-year-old counselor, was killed when a massive oak tree crashed down on a campfire circle at northern California’s Camp Towanga.

Ben Hirschfeld: A (safe) light unto students in Africa

By Suzanne Kurtz Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Courtesy of Ben Hirschfeld

Ben Hirschfeld has helped supply more than 11,300 Kenyan students with solar lanterns to use while reading and doing their schoolwork.

When Ben Hirschfeld first heard that students in developing African countries lacked electricity and must endure noxious fumes from smoky kerosene lamps while reading and doing their schoolwork, the teenager from Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., knew he had to find a way to help.

Over the last four years – with guidance from his neighbor and fellow Woodlands Community Temple member Pam Allyn, who also heads the New York-based literacy organization LitWorld – Hirschfeld, 19, has raised enough money to replace the dangerous kerosene lamps with cost-effective and environmentally

friendly solar lanterns for more than 11,300 Kenyan students and their families.

A recent recipient of a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award, Hirschfeld, a rising sophomore at Columbia University, says he plans to use his $36,000 prize to expand his “Lit! Solar Lantern Project” and provide solar lanterns to more than 15,000 additional students and their families in Kenya as well as Guinea and Nigeria.

With the funds, Hirschfeld says, his goal is “trying to be as high impact as possible.”

JTA: Who or what are the biggest influences in your life?

Ben Hirschfeld: I would say my community and my family. From

Seeking Kin: Israeli reconnects with an American cousin—and goes searching for another

By Hillel Kuttler Jewish Telegraphic Agency The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends.

BALTIMORE – In May, Tel Aviv resident Baruch Axelrod sent a letter to his first cousin, who lives in New Jersey. The letter returned unopened to Axelrod’s home because the cousin, Gary Hyman, had moved, his new address unknown.

The branches of their families had not been in contact for more than 20 years, when Axelrod’s sister Chana Pavlowitz visited the United States. Axelrod had never even met Hyman, but he well remembered Hyman’s parents, Aaron and Bela.

Aaron was the brother of Axelrod’s sister, Yehudit, nicknamed Yennie.

Aaron, Axelrod remembered, had come to Israel to attend his bar mitzvah and was “a good uncle.”

Aaron and Yehudit had remained close, despite the distance. They’d grown up in Frankfurt, Germany, but both left after Hitler’s rise to power –

Courtesy of Baruch Axelrod

Israeli and American cousins hope they can find another cousin Nadia, seen here.

Yehudit in 1935 for prestate Israel, where she abandoned her Yiddish name, Yenta; and Aaron in 1938 for the United States.

In his search for find Hyman, Axelrod, a 70-year-old retired chemical engineer, looked online and found many New Jerseyans with the name. Which was the right one? He decided to broadcast his search on

the Israeli radio program “Hamador L’chipus Krovim” (Searching for Relatives Bureau).

Within two weeks of the midJune broadcast, a listener had located Hyman’s accounting practice in Freehold, N.J, and passed on the information. Axelrod sent Hyman an email, and in the ensuing two weeks they have exchanged near-daily messages.

“I was very excited to hear from him. I was kind of shocked that he was able to locate us,” Hyman said.

“I’m hoping we can continue to stay in touch. If we go to Israel or they come to the United States, I would love to get together.”

The reconnection, they hope, might maximize their efforts to find another first cousin, Nadia – the daughter of Moshe, a brother of Aaron and Yehudit. Moshe, too, had left Frankfurt as a young man, settling in England and working as a librarian. Whatever connection Aaron and Yehudit had with Moshe wasn’t spoken about much, probably because Moshe died young, possibly SEEKING on page 19

them I’ve learned what to be proud of and what to strive for.

What have been some of the most meaningful Jewish experiences in your life?

I grew up in a very Jewish environment. There was always an emphasis on tikkun olam at my temple and at home. I studied at the Technion [in Israel] and I was part of Hazamir, a Jewish choral group.

How has your Jewish identity had an impact on your service project?

After the first distribution of lanterns, I remember waking up that morning and seeing the feedback and I said right there, “Now I really feel like a bar mitzvah. “I really connected then to the Jewish value of

National Briefs Hillel taps Eric Fingerhut, former congressman, as CEO and president NEW YORK (JTA) Eric Fingerhut, a former U.S. congressman and leader of Ohio's system of public universities and colleges, has been tapped to serve as the next president and CEO of Hillel.

Fingerhut's hiring was approved Sunday in a unanimous vote by Hillel's board of directors during a meeting in New York. He comes to the international campus organization after serving most recently as a corporate vice president at Battelle, a Columbus-based independent research and development organization.

Digital archive of Pittsburgh Jewish community is completed (JTA) A digital archive of the Pittsburgh Jewish community from 1895 to the present was completed

tikkun olam and feeling like a responsible man.

If you could have lunch with anyone and tell him or her about your service project, who would it be?

Bill Clinton. I’m really interested and inspired by the work of the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, specifically their work on HIV and finding marketbased solutions to combat the disease.

What do you think you want to be doing when ”you grow up” or think you’d like to be doing professionally in perhaps five or 10 years?

I’d love to be doing something that allows me to still be helping people and making a difference. after six years.

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries completed the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project last week, the university announced. Three weekly Jewish newspapers and a weekly newsletter are available.

Group calls for guidelines to prevent Jewish funding of activity that gives BDS a platform (JNS) JCC Watch, a pro-Israel advocacy group, is holding protests on the second Thursday of each month until it sees new guidelines that prevent the UJA-Federation of New York’s funding of activities that give a platform to activists of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Between 40 and 50 people attended the first such JCC Watch rally on July 11 outside of the 92nd Street Y (92Y) in New York City, protesting the 92Y’s recent invitation of antiIsrael speakers including “The Color Purple” author Alice Walker and Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters.

Richard Allen, head of JCC Watch. told JNS that his group is asking Jewish community members to “close your wallets to any of these charities that are promoting donor fraud.”

INTERNATIONAL • 9

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

War correspondent’s death changed the course for Oscar-winning Jewish producer

By Beth Kissileff JointMedia News Service The career of British-Jewish film producer Simon Chinn, who has received two Academy Awards in the Best Documentary category, might have taken a very different direction if not for the death of a journalist in the line of duty.

Chinn, who won Oscars in 2009 for producing “Man on Wire” and in 2013 for “Searching for Sugar Man,” was initially interested in a career in journalism. But a sniper in El Salvador killed war correspondent David Blundy, the father of one of

Chinn’s friends, in November 1989 while Blundy was working for London’s Sunday Correspondent.

Though impressed by Blundy when he met him, Chinn said in an interview with JNS that after reading Blundy’s obituaries, he understood that he “did not want [Blundy’s] life, a perpetually unsettled life.” It was a life Blundy “thrived on,” but Chinn realized that he could have a reasonable facsimile of the war correspondent’s experience – but with more stability and less danger – by getting involved in documentary films, where one “parachutes into situations, has adventures, and

leaves.”

Chinn recalled that for years he worked on documentaries for British television – on “Zimbabwe, the Balkans, South Africa, Serbia, Iraq after Saddam was captured. “ Once he married and had children, however, Chinn said he wanted to “stop that” and “not go to hairy places.” Not that Chinn’s current line of work is risk-free. He said he has been involved in a project on the narcotics wars in Mexico through which he has been “helping a director who is putting himself at considerable risk.”

Being a producer is “sort of a black art,” Chinn told JNS. He

explained that there are “many things involved,” but that he mainly “originates projects” and is the “person who has the first vision of the film, creative and financial.” Chinn said he must figure out “how to get the resources to make the film we want to make, how to get the work out in a way that will maximize its potential.”

As the producer, Chinn said he is “where the buck stops” because he is ultimately responsible for bringing a film in on time and on budget. But it is a fundamentally creative role, because he is also enabling the directors he works with to realize their ambitions to make the films they want to make.

Courtesy of Simon Chinn

Oscar-winning British-Jewish producer Simon Chinn.

After Twitter data release, examining how Europe and U.S. define and police online anti-Semitism

By Alina Dain Sharon JointMedia News Service Twitter on Friday agreed to release data identifying users to French authorities in response to a January ruling by a French court regarding anti-Semitic tweets posted last October. Users had jumped on the chance to tweet phrases like “a good Jew is a dead Jew,” ultimately forcing the French Jewish students’ union (UEJF) to file a lawsuit against Twitter for allowing that content to appear.

Friday’s decision by Twitter was “a great victory in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism” and “a big step in the fight against the feel-

ing of impunity on the Internet,” said Jonathan Hayoun, president of France’s Union of Jewish S t u d e n t s (UEJF), in a statement.

When the French court had decided last January that Twitter must reveal the identities of users who sent out those anti-Semitic tweets, Twitter initially refused to release the data. UEJF then sued Twitter for 38.5 million euros. In a rare newly announced move overlooking U.S. free speech laws Twitter agreed to release the data and said in a statement that the social net-

work will work with UEJF “to fight racism and anti-Semitism,” and “to improve the accessibility of the procedure for notifications of illicit tweets.”

The French incident, which led to a cross-continental debate on the difficulty of defining and policing antiSemitism online, is hardly the first case of hate in social media and on the Web. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2013 Digital Terrorism and Hate Report found more than 20,000 hate and terror-related websites, social networks, forums and more, a 30-percent increase from 15,000 in 2012.

Also in Europe, a February report by the Community Security Trust

In Portugal, Jewish law of return moves from Facebook to law book

By Cnaan Liphshiz Jewish Telegraphic Agency Until 2009, right-wing Portuguese politician Jose Ribeiro e Castro didn’t have much interest in the expulsion of his country’s Jewish community in the 16th century. That changed once Ribeiro e Castro opened a Facebook account.

Online, the 60-year-old lawmaker and journalist connected to several Sephardic Jews, descendants of a once robust Jewish community numbering in the hundreds of thousands, many of whom were forced into exile in 1536 during the Portuguese Inquisition. Eventually the encounters morphed into a commitment to rectify a historic injustice.

For Ribeiro e Castro, correcting the injustice meant spearheading a bill to naturalize the Jewish descendants of expelled Jews, a measure that unanimously passed the Portuguese parliament in April and

Courtesy of Portugal's National Assembly

Jose Ribeiro e Castro speaking at the Portuguese parliament, 2012.

went on the books last week.

“The law is a commendable initiative,” said Nuno Wahnon Martins, the Lisbon-born director of European affairs for B’nai B’rith International. “It has economic considerations as well, which do not subtract from parliament’s worthy decision.”

Portugal’s initiative comes as

countries across Europe continue to invest millions to develop Jewish heritage sites – an effort they say is rooted in their belated recognition of the continent’s vibrant Jewish history, but often is also an acknowledged attempt to attract tourist dollars at a time of economic stagnation.

Last year, Spain announced a similar repatriation plan to Portugal’s, though the effort has yet to advance. And the country boasts a network of nearly two dozen cities and towns, known as Red de Juderias, aimed at preserving Spain’s Jewish cultural history in an effort to attract tourists.

Later this month, Portugal will open a $1.5 million learning center in Trancoso, a town once home to many Jews. The prime minister is slated to attend the July 19 opening of the center, which will be aimed at the area’s anusim, descendants of Jews forcibly converted during the Inquisition.

showed that the number of antiSemitic incidents via social media in the United Kingdom grew nearly 700 percent in the 12 months before it was released.

“Social media is becoming more and more of a problem for us if you look at anti-Semitism,” Ronald Eissens, co-founder of the Dutch anti-racism group Magenta and the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH), which works to counter cyber-hate and has 21 members in 20 countries, told JNS. “There’s a lot of it around.

Prosecution is a lot harder because most social media are based firmly in the U.S.” In France, the Gayssot law of

International Briefs Saudi airline under fire for discrimination against Israeli passengers (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS) New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio said on Monday that Saudi Arabian Airlines should be excluded from U.S. airports if it doesn’t stop discriminating against Israeli passengers.

According to a New York Post report, a member of de Blasio’s staff called Saudi Arabian Airlines pretending to be an Israeli citizen trying to book a ticket to fly from JFK to Mumbai, India via Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian Airlines booking agent told him that he wouldn't be allowed to travel on the airline due to his nationality.

Ramadan mini-series on Arab TV networks employs antiSemitic stereotypes (JNS) The Anti-Defamation League has condemned a mini-series being broadcast around the Middle

1990 was passed to repress racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic acts and criminalizes Holocaust denial.

French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson later claimed the law violated his right to freedom of expression and academic freedom, but the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled against him. France punishes the dissemination of racist content online with fines and terms of imprisonment. These penalties increase if the dissemination was public – for example, on a website rather than in a private email – according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

East during Ramadan that depicts Jews as the enemies of Islam and employs anti-Semitic stereotypes such as Jewish greediness and large-scale conspiracies.

“With Syria, Egypt and other countries in the Middle East going through historical upheavals, it is absurd and outrageous that the entertainment of the Ramadan season promotes the Muslim subjugation of caricatured Jews…” said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman.

U.S. fears Iran will develop a nuclear bomb ‘under the radar’ (JNS) The United States is concerned that Iran would somehow be able to deceive the West and develop a nuclear weapon “under the radar,” and it is no longer certain that it would be able to learn of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s intentions to that effect ahead of time, Israel Hayom reported Sunday.

Despite the West’s attempts to carefully monitor Iran’s nuclear progress, a senior Western source told Israel Hayom that Tehran’s accelerated uranium enrichment efforts and the fact that it has multiple secret enrichment sites were cause for concern.

10 • ISRAEL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Benjamin Netanyahu, head of state and tour guide

By Shlomo Cesana JointMedia News Service Down in the tunnels of the Western Wall, just before midnight, a young film-crew member working on Peter Greenberg’s travel show, “The Royal Tour,” turns to Benjamin Netanyahu and says, “That’s great, prime minister. Now let’s do it again.”

Cramped under the vaults, everyone begins to feel the air getting stuffy and drops of sweat begin to appear. Netanyahu, who has repeated the explanation about the enormous rock placed in the supporting wall of the Temple during the Herodian Era several times, is displaying endless patience. The people in the room may be asking themselves, “Why does Netanyahu need all this?” The answer is clear: he wants to send tidings from Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s speeches on international stages have showed that his relationship with the camera is very natural, but this challenge of describing the Western Wall, a site that time constantly changes, is more familiar to veteran tour guides

Israel Briefs More than 5,500 attacks on Jews in Israel in first half of 2013 (JNS) Figures released by Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron, a volunteer emergency medical response organization in Israel, show that there were 5,635 attacks in the first half of 2013 against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, and the greater Jerusalem region.

Hatzalah spokeswoman Yehudit Tayar said, “If there is spray painting on the side of a mosque or an Arab’s tires are slashed it is on the news, but violence against us is ignored… Can you imagine being attacked on a consistent basis and it not even being reported?”

Despite BDS calls, Arab farmers train in Israel to improve Gaza agriculture (JNS) Two groups of Arab farmers left Gaza this week to attend an agricultural seminar in northern Israel with the goal of improving Gaza’s agricultural industry. According to the office of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), 60 Gazans participated in the conference despite calls from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)

than to heads of state. The challenge stems mainly from the fact that Jerusalem has always been inhabited. Throughout the generations, people have fought over it, attacked its residents, conquered it and destroyed its buildings. Yet Jerusalem was never abandoned, due to the religious traditions linked to it.

When tour guides present the foundations of the Temple Mount as seen through the Western Wall Tunnels project, which began after the Six Day War in 1967, it is difficult to understand why tourists are crouching under the vaults and in tunnels – essentially remnants of the Ayyubid Period – atop which the modern-day Muslim Quarter is located.

But Netanyahu’s task is even more difficult, since he is expected to communicate the same message in television-friendly language.

Therefore, when he talks about Herod’s construction and about a rock that weighs 600 tons, he translates these concepts into practical terms, saying, “Take two jumbo jets full of passengers, okay? Now put them here. That is how much this

movement calling to boycott Israeli products and industries.

The conference was sponsored by Origins Seeds Company, which exports cucurbitacae (cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and similar fruit) and seeds to 17 countries, including Hamas-controlled Gaza and Palestinian Authority-controlled territory.

Netanyahu calls P.A.’s Abbas in honor of Ramadan JERUSALEM (JTA) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time since the new Israeli government was sworn in.

Netanyahu called Abbas to offer greetings on the occasion of the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. But he also called for the two men to speak to each other again at the start of new peace negotiations.

Israeli President Shimon Peres delivered a message to the Muslim world in honor of Ramadan. The message was distributed through social media channels.

“Dear friends, Ramadan Kareem is not only a holiday for you but a celebration for all of us, after all we are coming from the same family, the family of Abraham and after all you, us, the Christians, all of us pray to the Lord to end the bloodshed, to let the children be safe in their homes, to make it unnecessary for the mothers to cry,” Peres said in his message.

Courtesy of Marc Israel Sellem/POOL/FLASH90

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen at the Western Wall on January 22, 2013. Netanyahu’s latest role at the Western Wall comes as a tour guide, as seen on Peter Greenberg’s travel show, “The Royal Tour,” which follows various heads of state as they serve as tour guides in their native countries.

rock weighs. And that is just one rock, in just one of the four supporting walls of the Temple Mount, when the renovations took place during the Herodian Era.” Facing the Holy of Holies With three cameras pointed at him, Netanyahu can’t escape from

any angle. During his first term as prime minister, Netanyahu approved the digging of an exit from the tunnels in efforts to encourage safe, popular tourism.

But then Yasser Arafat, then the president of the Palestinian Authority, seized the opportunity to launch a violent confrontation on

the grounds that Israel was trying to destabilize the foundations of AlAqsa mosque. That is when Netanyahu coined the phrase “the rock of our existence.” During the current tour in the Western Wall Tunnels, he reiterates his argument from back then, explaining why the Temple Mount is so important to the Jews and why ever since the Jews were exiled, they always continued to pray in the direction of the Temple Mount (which Jews are not allowed to enter) and took solace in praying at the Western Wall.

It is apparent that he is not forgetting for one minute who his audience is, and he makes the connection between the Bible (or Old Testament, as Christians call it) and the New Testament.

“Right here, on the very street where we are standing, which ended in a junction to the Temple Mount, it is very possible that Jesus once walked,” he says.

For hundreds of millions of viewers in America, it may be enough to see these remains with their own eyes, accompanied with a convincing explanation, to pick up and visit the Holy Land.

Holy work or troublemaking? Laying the groundwork for a Third Temple in Jerusalem

By Ben Sales Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM – No praying.

No kneeling. No bowing. No prostrating. No dancing. No singing.

No ripping clothes.

These are the rules that Jews must abide by when visiting the Temple Mount, the site where the First and Second Holy Temples once stood, located above and behind the Western Wall in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Although the area is under Israeli sovereignty, the mount – known to Muslims as Haram alSharif – is controlled by the Islamic Wakf, a joint PalestinianJordanian religious body. As the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, whose golden dome overlooks the city, the Temple Mount attracts daily crowds of Muslim worshipers.

Under Wakf regulations, Jews may only access the mount for 4 1/2 hours per day and are forbidden from praying there.

But when Rabbi Chaim Richman stands only feet from the Dome of the Rock, surrounded by Muslim visitors, he whispers a chapter of Psalms.

A frequent presence on the mount who knows the guards by name, Richman is the international director of the Temple Institute, an organization based in the Old City with a singular goal: to

Courtesy of Ben Sales/JTA

Chaim Richman, international director of the Temple Institute, standing next to a replica of the holy ark at an exhibit of Third Temple vessels in the institute's offices in Jerusalem.

rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Ahead of Tisha b’Av, the fast day next week that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the institute released a video showing Jewish children donning tool belts and leading their fathers out of synagogue to begin construction of the Holy Temple.

“Our goal is to fulfill the commandment of ‘They shall make a Temple for me and I will dwell among them,’ “ Richman says, quoting Exodus. “The basis of a

Torah life is action.”

Following the Second Temple’s destruction in 70 C.E., most rabbis adopted the position that Jewish law prohibits reconstructing the Holy Temple prior to the age of messianic redemption, or that the law is too ambiguous and that the messiah must come first.

The Temple Institute takes a different position.

“There are no Jewish legal barriers” to rebuilding the temple, Richman says, only political ones.

SOCIAL LIFE • 11

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

NEW YORK SHABBOT Jewish young professionals got into a New York State of mind when Access brought a little bit of NYC to the QC (Queen City) for its New York City Shabbat on Friday, May 17, 2013 at the Metropolitan Club in Covington, Ky. It was part of Access’ newest dinner series, The United States of Shabbat, aimed at showcasing some of the best culture and cuisine our country

ANNOUNCEMENTS BIRTH tephen Dann and Phyllis Leventhal announce the birth of their granddaughter, Este Rose Marks, born on June 29th.

Parents are Leah and Daniel Marks of Chicago.

S

ISRAELI’S “BIG BROTHER” FEATURES A LOCAL

has to offer, from sea to shining sea. Guests had the chance to mix and mingle with other YPs from Greater Cincinnati and around the region, while enjoying a sit-down Shabbat dinner with all the trimmings, including some of the most popular ethnic flavors made famous in Manhattan, including an Italian pasta bar, Latin and Asian entrees and Jewish deli desserts to top it all off. New York City Shabbat was the second in Access’ United States of Shabbat dinner series, which featured many of the iconic tastes and traditions of our country’s many unique

iana Dine, daughter of Dr. Andrew and Eden “Edie” Dine is currently on the Israeli TV show “Big Brother” going by the name Didi Louzon. Diana is a graduate of Sycamore High School and Ohio State. She visited Israel during high school and spent a semester abroad at Tel Aviv University during her junior year at Ohio State. From those visits she formed a strong attachment and love for Israel; she moved to Tel Aviv in February of this year to make aliyah.

D

cities. The first was Cincinnati Shabbat.

ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE FREE! BIRTHS • BAT/BAR MITZVAHS • ENGAGEMENTS WEDDINGS • BIRTHDAYS • ANNIVERSARIES

Place your FREE announcement in The American Israelite newspaper and website by sending an e-mail to articles@americanisraelite.com

AI

The American Israelite

12 • CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

LION OF JUDAH THANK YOU LUNCHEON Members of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s Lion of Judah Society attended a Thank You Luncheon at Rockwern Academy on May 29, including a tour of the "Mapping Our Tears" exhibit at The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. Thanks to the event committee of Alison Caller, Cindy Guttman and Sally Hiudt and to our Women's Philanthropy Chair, Debbie Brant!

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

CELEBRATING ISRAEL’S 65TH On Sunday, April 14th, Access threw a birthday party beach bash in celebration of Israel’s 65th at Grand Sands in Loveland! This outdoor sand volleyball facility became Israel for the day and featured live camel rides, 21,000 square feet of sand, a mechanical surf board, a “Masada” rock climbing wall, hookah in the Bedouin tent, olive oil tasting, authentic Israeli food, candy and snacks at the Israeli Candy Bar, music and more. Guests also got to get their photos taken in front of a green screen which made it look like they were standing in the Old City in Jerusalem.

This event was put on as part of the Cincinnati Jewish community’s line-up of “Israel at 65” programming that has been going on for the past six months. Access is an initiative of The Mayerson Foundation for young professionals, 21-35. For more information, please consult the community directory in the back of this issue.

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE • 13

14 • DINING OUT

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

In Norway, a smoked fish tradition to make lox lovers salivate

By Daniel Grushkin Jewish Telegraphic Agency ASKOY, Norway – “Two minutes after you’ve eaten good smoked salmon, take a breath,” says fishmonger Ragnar Fjellskal.

“The taste sits long and gives you a sense of wellness, like a cognac.”

Fjellskal and I are on our way to his smokehouse in Askoy, an island in western Norway not far from Bergen, the country’s second-largest city and the hub of its fish trade. Located some 300 miles northwest of Oslo, the city is reachable by the Bergen Railway, a scenic train route that runs through the Hallingskarvet range, rising 4,000 feet above sea level and passing the pristine fjords for which this Nordic nation is renowned.

A burly man with a graying beard, Fjellskal abandoned a lucrative career as an engineer to join the family fish business 14 years ago. Some 85 years ago, his grandfather exported smoked salmon to the United States. Then his mother took over. Today, he and his brother, Oystein, run Fjellskal Fisketorget, one of the largest stalls in the Bergen Fish Market.

Part of the draw, Fjellskal says, is his smoker, a massive metal kiln in a house otherwise indistinguishable from nearby residences. Fish trucks rumble by continually, but the neighbors don’t seem to mind.

“They’re used to it,” Fjellskal says. “This oven has been here for nearly 50 years.”

There’s little in common between the Talmudic and Viking traditions. Sit a Jew and a Norwegian at a table and they might grasp for common ground.

That may be because the country has only a tiny Jewish community, the story of which is told at the Jewish Museum in Oslo, housed in the second synagogue built in the capital, in 1921.

But when the subject turns to smoked salmon – the translucent pink strips, the way the salt puckers the tongue and the smoky oils coat it – members of both tribes go into paroxysms of delight.

“It’s not surprising that these cultural staples overlap,” says Niki Russ Federman, the fourthgeneration heir of Russ and Daughters, a 100-year-old New York smoked fish shop. “Herring, smoked salmon and pickled lox aren’t just Jewish foods; these are shared by lots of cultures. Jews like to take ownership: ‘These are our foods.’ Then you get Scandinavians saying, ‘Wait, these are ours.’”

Today, the vibrancy of Norwegian fish culture is evident

in places such as Vulkan, an Oslo neighborhood that might be described as the Brooklyn of Norway. Wedged between the art school and graffiti-scrawled dive bars, an artisanal food market opened nine months ago in a former smelting plant. Vendors offer iconic Norwegian foods like reindeer sausage, cloudberry jams and, of course, fish.

Maruis Tvethaug, the manager of Froya Seafood, points out the catch of the day. Pink spiny king crabs and fists of whale meat crowd one display. Long flanks of smoked fish line the other.

Tvethaug’s boss started out selling shellfish from a cart at an Oslo gas station 16 years ago and became an underground sensation.

Unlike in America, where smoked salmon is typically sheared into paper-thin slices, Tvethaug cuts thicker pieces vertically, places the salmon on buttered bread and eats it like an open-face sandwich. That way, the fish’s flavor and texture is naked; it can’t hide under a doughy bagel and a blanket of cream cheese.

“Norwegians know everything about fish,” Tvethaug says. “Or at least they think they do.”

The Jewish and Norwegian fish traditions actually emerge from very different places.

Norwegians cold smoke their salmon in a labor-intensive process that begins with filleting the fish, handpicking the pin bones and laying the fish in a tub of curing salt for up to two days.

Then the fish is hung inside a smoker whose temperature never climbs above 80 degrees. Wood chips from up to a dozen types of tree burn on the floor of the oven while the salmon flanks hang from hooks high above the heat.

Jewish lox is traditionally cured in brine and tends to be much saltier, but these days most lox is lightly brined and then smoked. Its popularity in the United States owes more to the arrival of Germans and Scandinavians in the 19th century than to immigrants from the European shtetls.

By mid-century, when the Transcontinental Railroad connected the abundant salmon fisheries on the West Coast with the hungry Jewish immigrants on the East Coast, lox became popular because it was cheap, parve and easy to prepare. It was only in the 1930s that lox met the bagel and became a Jewish substitute for the brunch de rigueur of the time – eggs Benedict.

“You can’t get much more treif than that,” says Gil Marks, author of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. “As a Jewish equiv-

Courtesy of Joongi Kim/Creative Commons

A vendor at the Bergen Fish Market offering smoked salmon to customers.

Courtesy of Daniel Grushkin

Maruis Tvethaug cutting a slice of salmon at the Bergen Fish Market.

alent, you substitute a bagel for the English muffin, lox for the Canadian bacon and cream cheese for the hollandaise sauce. The irony is, how many people have eggs Benedict on Sunday, and how many have bagels with lox?

We won that culinary war.”

Smoked fish has a storied past in Norway, too.

The Vikings lacked the salt necessary to preserve fish, but had plenty of timber for smoking.

Some 800 years ago, in the same spot where Fjellskal now has his stall in Bergen, men of the Hanseatic League, an expansive German trade confederation, settled in these wharves and started a lucrative export monopoly. Their

preferred fish, however, was cod, not salmon.

It was only in the 19th century that Norway started exporting salmon mainly to England, according to Arstein Svihus, director of the Norway Fisheries Museum in Bergen. Salmon is so abundant in Norway that “the servants stipulated in their contracts that they should not be served salmon more than four days a week,” Svihus said. “They were so sick and tired of eating it all the time.”

Housed in an old storehouse from 1670, the fish museum, founded in 1880, is closed for renovations until 2015. But when it reopens, visitors will learn about Norway’s love affair with the sea, from the early herring and cod fishermen to the digitized, modern fleet of today.

Norway continues to be a major salmon exporter. With 64,000 miles of coastline, the country produces some two-thirds of the world’s salmon exports, about 1 million tons annually, nearly all of it from fish farms along the coast.

At the Bergen market, Fjellskal offers a taste of his favorite smoked fish, a wild smoked salmon that costs $60 per pound. The fish is intensely red and denser than typical smoked salmon. The flavor fills my mouth with salt and fish oils and tickles my nose with a scent of pine needles. And just as I swallow, it wallops me with a satisfying, almost metallic tang.

“You’re not going to get that from a ham and cheese sandwich,” Fjellskal says.

DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

RESTAURANT DIRECTORY 20 Brix

Izzy’s

Pomodori’s

101 Main St

800 Elm St • 721-4241

121West McMillan • 861-0080

Historic Milford

612 Main St • 241-6246

7880 Remington Rd

831-Brix (2749)

1198 Smiley Ave • 825-3888

Montgomery • 794-0080

7625 Beechmont Ave • 231-5550 Ambar India Restaurant

4766 Red Bank Expy • 376-6008

Slatt’s Pub

350 Ludlow Ave

5098B Glencrossing Way • 347-9699

4858 Cooper Rd

Cincinnati

8179 Princeton-Glendale • 942-7800

Blue Ash

281-7000

300 Madison Ave • 859-292-0065

791-2223 • 791-1381 (fax)

The Best Japanese Cuisine, Asian Food & Dining Experience In Town 9521 FIELDS ERTEL ROAD, LOVELAND

(513) 239-8881 asianparadiserestaurant.com

7905 Mall Road • 859-525-2333 Stone Creek Dining Co.

Andy’s Mediterranean Grille At Gilbert & Nassau

Johnny Chan 2

9386 Montgomery Rd

2 blocks North of Eden Park

11296 Montgomery Rd

Montgomery • 489-1444

281-9791

The Shops at Harper’s Point

6200 Muhlhauser Rd

489-2388 • 489-3616 (fx)

West Chester • 942-2100

9521 Fields Ertel Rd

Kanak India Restaurant

Sukhothai Thai Cuisine

Loveland

10040B Montgomery Rd

8102 Market Place Ln

239-8881

Montgomery

Montgomery

793-6800

794-0057

3120 Madison Rd

Marx Hot Bagels

Tandoor

Cincinnati

9701 Kenwood Rd

8702 Market Place Ln

STEAKS, SEAFOOD & PASTA OUTDOOR DINING • PRIVATE ROOMS Best Happy Hour in Town!

Live Music on Friday & Saturday 12110 Montgomery Road (513) 677-1993 www.tonysofcincinnati.com

Asian Paradise

Baba India Restaurant

Blue Ash

Montgomery

891-5542

793-7484

4858 Hunt Rd

Mecklenburg Gardens

Tony’s

Blue Ash

302 E. University Ave

12110 Montgomery Rd

891-8900 • 834-8012 (fx)

Clifton

Montgomery

221-5353

677-1993

2912 Wasson Rd

Padrino

Walt’s Hitching Post

Cincinnati

111 Main St

300 Madison Pike

351-0123

Milford

Fort Wright, KY

965-0100

(859) 331-0494

9525 Kenwood Rd

Parkers Blue Ash Tavern

Wertheim’s Restaurant

Cincinnati

4200 Cooper Rd

514 W 6th St

745-9386

Blue Ash

Covington, KY

891-8300

(859) 261-1233

321-1600

NEW SPRING MENU &

LUNCH & DINNER (for 2) SPECIALS 2 BLOCKS FROM EDEN PARK

FAMOUS CORNED BEEF Uncompromised Quality at Popular Prices

andyskabob.com • 513.281.9791

(513) 369-0245 Izzys.com

906 Nassau St • Cincinnati, 45206

Bangkok Terrace

Blue Elephant

Lunch: Mon-Fri 11:30-3 Dinner: Mon-Thu 5-9:30 Fri 5-10:30 • Sat 4:30-10:30

8102 Market Place Lane Montgomery, OH 45242 794-0057 • 794-0235 (fax) www.sukhothaicincy.com

Cafe Mediterranean

Dine-In / Take-Out / Delivery ✳EXOTIC DISHES✳ ✳ADJUSTABLE SPICE SCALE✳ ✳FABULOUS DRINKS✳ ✳VEGETARIAN - FRIENDLY✳

Carlo & Johnny 9769 Montgomery Rd Cincinnati 936-8600

4858 Hunt Rd • Blue Ash, 45242 (513) 891-8900 • Fax 834-8012

www.BangkokTerrace.com

GET RESULTS.

In MainStrasse Village

Free Parking

Place your restaurant ad here!

Your restaurant will also receive featured articles and a spot in the dining out guide.

Call 621-3145 today.

Ask about our Specials!

"Top 100 Chinese !

Restaurants in America" !

Chinese Restaurant News - 2004

CINCINNATI ENQUIRER: !

1/2

. Sushi Bar . Full Bar, Liquor . Sunday Brunch The Shops at Harpers Point . 11296 Montgomery Road!

Banquets

(513) 489-2388! !

EARLY-BIRD DINNER SPECIALS NOT VALID WITH ANY OTHER OFFERS.

LUNCH & DINNER SPECIALS COME ENJOY A WIDE VARIETY OF GERMAN & AMERICAN SPECIALTIES.

514 W 6TH ST, COVINGTON, KY

(859) 261-1233

16 • OPINION

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Removal of Islamist Morsi a source of hope in Israel

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

By Ben Sales Jewish Telegraphic Agency TEL AVIV – For the second time in less than three years, Egypt is erupting in chaos, with a popular protest movement leading to a swift change in the country’s leadership.

For Israelis, the Egyptian military’s removal of Mohamed Morsi from the presidency last week is a cause for optimism.

An Islamist and a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi’s brief tenure saw a further estrangement between Israel and Egypt. The Brotherhood advocates Israel’s destruction and supports Hamas, the terrorist group that governs in Gaza. And while Morsi upheld the 1979 peace treaty with Israel during his year in office, his refusal of contact with Israel and his warm relations with other Islamist governments portended future tension between the countries.

With Morsi gone and the Egyptian military reasserting itself, Israel can breathe a little easier. Israel has enjoyed close cooperation with the Egyptian Army in recent decades, born of their shared interest in combating terrorist groups and maintaining stability.

“To get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood is great for Egypt and for the region,” said Zvi Mazel, Israel’s ambassador to Egypt in the late 1990s. “It’s the best thing that has happened this year. One of their central goals is to destroy Israel.”

The takeover also poses risks for Israel.

A weak and unstable Egypt will be less able to maintain calm in the Sinai Desert, act as an anchor of stability in the Arab world or step in as a mediator between Israel and its enemies.

And while dealing with a country led by secular pragmatists is obviously preferable to one led

by Islamists, the 2011 Egyptian uprising showed that a government inclined positively toward Israel may only be possible amid significant repression at home.

Israel thus far has stayed silent in response to the unrest in Egypt’s capital, neither praising nor condemning the military’s actions nor reaching out publicly to the new government in formation.

In an interview last week with the Italian newspaper La Corriere Della Sera, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said only that Israel is watching events in Egypt very carefully. Netanyahu also made only passing reference to Egypt in his weekly speech to

the Cabinet on Sunday.

The Israel Defense Forces also have reacted calmly. Troop activity on Israel’s southern border has not increased meaningfully, despite a rocket exploding last week near the resort town of Eilat and the bombing of an Egyptian gas pipeline to Jordan.

Last week, Israel allowed Egypt to move troops into the Sinai – a move prohibited by their peace treaty – as an added security measure.

Despite ongoing close coordination between the Israeli and Egyptian militaries, the Sinai has been a hotspot of terrorist activity since Mubarak’s ouster, a situation that could get worse with Egypt’s top brass focused on containing the unrest in Cairo, which already has claimed dozens of lives. In addition to the pipeline bombing, an Egyptian soldier was killed there on Sunday.

Morsi’s fall also has weakened Hamas, which enjoyed a small uptick in prestige during his administration. In October, the emir of Qatar became the first head of state to visit Gaza. The following month, Morsi’s mediation of the conflict between Hamas and Israel led to a slight easing of Israel’s Gaza blockade.

Now, Hamas again is on the ropes. Its parent organization has been removed from leadership after only a year and it has lost some financial support from Iran for choosing to back the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, an Iranian ally. If the Egyptian military clamps down on weapons transfers in the Sinai and underground tunnels to Gaza, it could stanch Hamas’ supply chain.

For now, Israeli officials are reacting with a poker face. But if the Brotherhood’s fall portends a decline in Islamist fortunes across the region, Israelis will likely smile and collectively exhale.

“The interests of the [Egyptian] government are pragmatic – to work in Sinai against terror and to revive the Egyptian economy,” Mazel said. “They may even cooperate with us more economically. It was a cold peace. We’ll see what happens now.”

Have something on your mind?

Let your voice be heard!

Send a letter to the editor: editor@americanisraelite.com

AI

The American Israelite

In Egypt, the new parliament is Tahrir Square

By Boaz Bismuth JointMedia News Service

goal of establishing theocratic states across the Arab world.

While Syria remains in the throes of the uprising that began in March 2011 – the latest in a series of upheavals that first sprang up in Tunisia and followed in Libya, Yemen, and Egypt that was optimistically referred to as the “Arab Spring” – Egypt has managed to find time for two revolutions, or, as it appears now, one revolution and one military coup (depending on who you ask).

Since January 2011, Cairo’s Tahrir Square has become part parliament and part presidents’ guillotine. After Hosni Mubarak took his fall, it was Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi’s turn.

It took 25 days to remove Mubarak from power in 2011. This time, the mob needed just more than three days to take down the elected president, Muslim Brotherhood member Morsi. According to the Egyptian army’s political roadmap, Morsi’s successor will be chosen in a democratic election. That person should know the last thing he needs is a crowded, angry Tahrir Square to inevitably show him the door. The winds of revolution continue to blow in Egypt while it continues to look for a better future. These winds will likely claim more victims.

Whoever is next in line should take heed.

Ever since the Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Sheikh Hassan al-Banna in 1928, it has aspired to lead Egypt by imposing its brand of Sunni Islam, from the constitution to day-to-day life. It took the Brotherhood 85 years to reach its goal, through Morsi’s rise to power. But exactly one year later, Egypt removed Morsi with the army’s generous cooperation, a huge blow for the Brotherhood and its

Seeing no evil in the West Egypt’s first free elections in history failed; this is what happens when they are held too early in the democratization process. But in Washington, DC, American officials were thrilled about the “early results” in Egypt. They pressured Cairo to hold elections, even congratulated Morsi on his victory.

In the West, officials looked the other way when the Muslim Brotherhood essentially co-opted a revolution that was launched by young, liberal, secular Egyptians. It was most important for them to put a check by the word “elections” on their shopping list. Washington was oblivious to the goings-on in Egypt, and it was caught off-guard days before the start of the large-scale demonstrations that led to Morsi’s eventual ouster.

Whoever was in Egypt saw firsthand the speed at which the situation deteriorated. Defense Minister Col. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi revealed that the military had recommended to President Morsi in November that he include the various political streams in the day-to-day dialogue.

For his part, Morsi preferred to maintain his grip on the steering wheel.

While the Muslim Brotherhood was fascinated with democracy, it forgot that Egypt was a big country with a population of 84 million. Of those, the Brotherhood received just 14 million votes. They didn’t see all the millions who didn’t vote for Morsi. In addition, the removal of the Supreme Military Council, which had ruled Egypt alongside the Muslim Brotherhood, was done in an insultingly hasty and haphazard manner. The army brass didn’t forget this insult, and was waiting for

the moment to exact revenge.

Remarkably, officials in Washington were blind to what was taking place on Egypt’s streets. In April, a young, energetic group of oppositionists began to coalesce under the banner of Tammarud (“rebellion”). They circulated petitions and funded their own billboard ads and notices. They even set a deadline date of June 30, the oneyear anniversary of Morsi’s swearing-in as president. They were determined to ensure a very unhappy birthday for Morsi’s presidency.

Eventually, the Tammarud movement said it managed to gather 22 million signatures. More than half not only attached their signatures, but also went out to the streets to demonstrate. Their success was stunning, even unprecedented. Cairo had never seen a civilian army of this size take to the streets.

But the U.S. never saw it coming. Just days before the protest, the U.S. ambassador to Cairo, Anne Patterson, called on the Egyptian opposition to respect the election results, saying that she didn’t “believe that street demonstrations could bring about better results than the elections.”

It took the sight of millions in the streets for Washington to alter its tone. In a July 2 telephone conversation between Morsi and President Barack Obama, Obama said democracy “is not just about elections” but also about “ensuring that the voices of all Egyptians are heard.”

For the demonstrators, this was too little, too late. Protesters in Tahrir Square carried signs condemning the American government. One sign even accused Washington of backing a Fascist regime. Another sign that was hung between two trees bore the words, “Obama supports EGYPT on page 22

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

WHAT’S HAPPENING the Mishna concludes, it is chiefly the attributes of fear of God and performance of good deeds which truly count in assessing the proper wife.

The Talmud adds, “It is clear why Yom Kippur is a Festival, since it brings forgiveness and absolution, since it is the day when God gave the second tablets [as a sign of His forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf]; but what is the reason for the joy of the 15th Av?” The Talmud then gives seven possible reasons, from the suggestion that on that day members of the tribes were permitted to marry one another, to the opinion that on 15 Av, the desert generation stopped dying, to the astronomical fact that from that day on, the sun begins to lose its strength and the days begin to be shorter.

Permit me to add another possible reason, one which would also explain the unique manner in which we are to celebrate the 15th of Av. Josephus records that on the afternoon of the ninth day of Av 70 CE, the Holy Temple was set aflame; this was the day of heaviest fighting. It would be logical to assume that as Jews witnessed Jewish sovereignty and God’s very throne smoldering, they tore their garments and sat on the ground, sitting shiva not only for the lost lives, but also for the disappearing dream of at-hand redemption.

If the seven-day mourning period began on 9 Av, it must have concluded on 15 Av, the seventh day, about which our sages rule that “partial mourning on that day is accounted as if one had mourned the complete day.”

Hence they rose from their shiva on 15 Av, Tu B’Av. It was precisely on the day that their shiva concluded that our Sages ordained the merriment of Tu B’Av. This parallels the joy when the High Priest emerged unscathed from the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur; a sign that Israel had indeed been forgiven! The Holy Temple may be burning to the ground, but the Jewish nation remains alive and God’s commitment to His eternal covenant remains intact (as is clear from

AT YOUR SYNAGOGUE?

this week’s reading, which we also read on Tisha B’Av (Deut.

4:25-32).

As the Midrash teaches, God exacted punishment from the wood and stones of a physical edifice, albeit a holy one, but He demonstrated His ultimate forgiveness by keeping His nation alive and His covenant operational. This is why and how 9 Av will one day be a day of great celebration.

God ordains Tu B’Av as a day of weddings; Judaism sees every wedding ritual as a ringing confirmation of the future of the Jewish people, as a personal commitment to continue the nation and the faith because “there will yet be heard on the streets of Judea and in the great plazas of Jerusalem, sounds of gladness and sounds of rejoicing, sounds of grooms and sounds of brides” (Jeremiah 33: 11).

Judaism bids us never to despair. Certainly our generation has not been disappointed!

STAY UP-TO-DATE WITH A SUBSCRIPTION TO THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE NAME ADDRESS CITY

STATE

CHECK TYPE OF SUBSCRIPTION

1 YEAR, IN-TOWN

CHECK TYPE OF PAYMENT

CHECK

VISA

ZIP 1 YEAR, OUT-OF-TOWN

MASTERCARD

LIFETIME

DISCOVER

1-Year Subscription: $44 In-town, $49 Out-of-town Send completed form with payment to: The American Israelite 18 W. 9th St. Ste. 2 • Cincinnati, OH 45202-2037

LITTLE KNOWN CINCINNATI FACTS What was the first jewish cemetery in Cincinnati?

In 1821, when Benjamin Lieb, who had not been known as a Jew, was dying, he begged to be buried as a jew. Since there was no existing jewish burial ground, Morris Moses and Joseph Jonas, two of Cincinnati’s six Jews, purchased a small plot of ground to bury Lieb.

The Chestnut Street Cemetery is the oldest Jewish cemetery west of the Alleghenies and is located in the West End.

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

This quiz provided by Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati.

T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: VAESCHANAN (DEVARIM 3:23/7:30 1. What did Moshe pray for? a.) To enter Canaan b.) Defeat the enemies of the Children of Israel c.) Manna

4. Where did Moshe speak to the people? a.) In the land of Sichon b.) In the Bashan c.) Opposite Peor

2. Did Hashem grant his request? a.) Yes b.) No

5. What does the Torah compare Egypt to? a.) Prison b.) Garden of Eden c.) Fiery furnace

3. Whom did Moshe counsel? a.) Joshua b.) Elazar c.) Pinchas should go in front of the people to war. The Children of Israel lost the battle of Ai because Joshua did not lead in front. Rashi.

4. C 3:29 5. C 4:20

EFRAT, Israel – ‘Comfort you, comfort you, My People’ (Isaiah 40:1).

The Shabbat after Tisha B’Av is known as the Shabbat of Comfort, a phrase taken from the first verse of the prophetic reading from Isaiah. Additionally, a most fascinating festival day – one which is unfortunately not very well known – falls just about one week after the bleak fast for the destruction of both of our Holy Temples. An analysis of this festival, known as Tu B’Av, “the 15th day of Av,” will reveal a striking similarity between it and the Shabbat of Comfort.

The conclusion of the last Mishna of tractate Ta’anit (26b) teaches as follows: “Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said, ‘There were no greater festive days in Israel than the fifteenth day of Av and Yom Kippur, when the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white dresses so as not to embarrass those who didn’t have their own. They would go out and dance in the vineyards.

What would they say? “Young man, lift up your eyes and see whom you wish to choose for yourselves. Do not cast forth your eyes after beauty, but cast forth your eyes after family. False is grace and vanity is beauty; a woman who fears the Lord is the one to be praised”; and the scriptures further state, “Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her deeds praise her in the gates.”

The Talmud then cites the Tosefta, which provides a more descriptive picture: “The beautiful ones among them, what would they say? Cast forth your eyes after beauty, for woman was only created for beauty. The ones with good pedigree, what would they say? Cast forth your eyes after family, because woman was only created for children. The plain ones, what would they say? Take your wares for the sake of heaven, as long as your adorn us with gold (and then even the plain-looking women will appear to be beautiful).”

Apparently, the 15th day of Av was a kind of Sadie Hawkins day, when the women would entice the men to marry them; and each woman would emphasize her particular quality: beauty, family or “for the sake of heaven.” And, as

The Holy Temple may be burning to the ground, but the Jewish nation remains alive and God’s commitment to His eternal covenant remains intact

Rashi 2. B 3:26 Moshe did not enter Canaan because of The Children of Israel. Rashi 3. A 3:28 Moshe advised Joshua how to deal with quarrels between people. Also, Joshua

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT VEETCHANAN DEUTERONOMY 3:23-7:11

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. B 3:23-25 Even though Hashem said he would not let Moshe enter Canaan, a person should pray to Hashem even after a decree is given because it can be reversed with prayer.

Sedra of the Week

18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist Meyers Engaged I long wasn’t sure if “SNL” star Seth Meyers, now 39, was Jewish or not. About four years ago, a very reliable media source reported that his younger comic actor brother, Josh Meyers, was Jewish. Based on that source, I made one of my very few mistakes and described Seth as Jewish in this column. It appears that a column reader with a “line into” NBC contacted “SNL” and not long after I got a call from an NBC staffer who informed me that “Seth Meyers is not Jewish.”

Subsequently, I was able to determine that Meyers’ paternal grandfather was his only Jewish grandparent. (My sense is that Meyers is not religious.)

On July 6, Meyers got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, human rights lawyer ALEXI ASHE, 30. Ashe’s mother, JOAN, is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. Her father, TOM, a Jew-by-Choice, spoke to famous Jewish food chef JOAN NATHAN in 2010 about how he and his wife cook together on holidays: “Since I am a convert,” he said, “each holiday brings back memories of when I was in my mid-20s and chose Judaism. They are definitely my holidays too, and I look forward to the foods, the smells, and the traditions. The Jewish palate is more eclectic than what I grew up with as a young Protestant boy in Queens.

Jews have the whole world, from Middle Eastern to Asian foods.”

I think it’s likely that Seth and Alexi will have a Jewish wedding. There’s even an outside chance that Meyers will “join the tribe” and I’ll be retroactively right about him being Jewish. By the way, Meyers is set to replace Jimmy Fallon as the host of NBC’s “Late Night” when Fallon replaces Jay Leno as the host of “The Tonight Show” in 2014.

Belated Plug “The Way Way Back,” which opened in a few theaters on July 4, has gotten good reviews and great buzz. Look for it to be added to the schedule of a theater near you. It’s this year’s “sleeper” summer hit movie. The movie’s lead character is Duncan (Liam James), a shy 14-year-old boy who goes on summer vacation with his mother (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carrell). Trent is mean to Duncan, but he is mentored by the owner of a local water park (Sam Rockwell).

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

NEWZ

AMANDA PEET, 41, and MAYA RUDOLPH, 40, have juicy supporting roles. Pretty newcomer ZOE LEVIN, 20, plays Trent’s not-very-nice teen daughter. Levin, who comes from a religious Jewish family, grew up in a Chicago suburb.

Hope for Amanda Bynes Right now, I believe that actress AMANDA BYNES, 27, who was very sweet when I interviewed her in 2007, is suffering from a mental breakdown and is likely self-medicating with street drugs. She has fended off intervention attempts by her parents (her mother is Jewish). It is legally very difficult to force an adult into treatment and Bynes, almost certainly, has millions of dollars of past earnings that provide her with a cushion from reality.

Although it seems unlikely now, she could make a comeback. Robert Downey, Jr., who spent time in state prison for drug use, cleaned-up in 2006 and “Iron Man” has turned him into a mega-star. Actress NATASHA LYONNE, 34, appears to be another “happy story.” While never a star, Lyonne had a lot of good adolescent roles, including playing a sharp-tongued teen in the first “American Pie” movie.

However, from 2001-2007, she had well-publicized battles with hard drug substance abuse; was arrested several times; and almost died from drug-related illness.

Since 2008, she’s been clean and has re-built her career on the stage. Now she has a juicy costarring role in the new Netflix series, “Orange is the New Black.” All 13 episodes of the first season series were released for Netflix on-line viewing on July 11 and it has already been picked-up for a second season.

Lyonne, in a case of art-imitating-life, plays a drug addict who is the prison cellmate of the lead character, Piper Chapman.

Lyonne recently spoke to “Women’s Wear Daily” (WWD), which described her as “sober and very together.” About her character’s relationship to her own life, she told WWD: “In those reservoirs of pain that come with being that selfdestructive, also comes this buoyancy and survival that comes from what it’s like to come out on the other side. I feel lucky to be able to inform the character with that degree of honesty.”

Next week, I'll tell you about the other Jewish members of the cast and the woman who is the basis of the series.

FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO WASHINGTON, D.C. WANTED. – The Washington Hebrew Congregation wishes to engage a Chasan and Hebrew Teacher for the Salary of 800 Dollars a year. If the Candidate is capable of teaching the English and German languages he can increase his Salary to 1200 Doll. –– The same Congregation wishes also to engage a Schochet whose income will be about 7–800 Dol., a year.

For particulars apply to A. ADLER. record, Sec. CLEVELAND HOUSE 146 Champlain Street, CLEVELAND, Ohio.

The Cleveland House is situated in the healthiest part of the city, and recommends itself, as well by being located in the center of the business community, as for its tasteful and convenient arrangement.

The name of the proprietor is a guarantee of the good board and attention of the house. – July 31, 1863

125 Y EARS A GO The Plum Street Temple Industrial School opened last week with an attendance of seventy pupils.

Many had to be refused, as the funds will not permit the engaging of more teachers. Miss Fanny Lederman is a valuable and efficient volunteer teacher. The children are taught plain sewing, darning, crocheting, hem–stitching and embroidering.

Many thanks are due Miss Laura Seasongood and Mrs. David B. Hyman for donations.

Artistic floral emblems for weddings, balls, etc. Special attention given to elegant and appropriate designs for funeral emblems by mail or telegraph. Huntsman, the Walnut Street Florist.

Encouraged by his remarkable success in this city Mr. M. Strauss, the artist tailor of 276 Vine Street, near Seventh, has decided to open branch stores in Boston and Kansas City. These branches will be in charge of his brothers, who are not only expert tailors but excellent business men also. This house has a great future and we predict marked success for the Messrs. Strauss Brothers.

– July 20, 1888

100 Y EARS A GO Mrs. Rosa Aufrecht celebrated her eighty–second birthday July 10, at the Jewish Home for the Aged.

Mrs. Aufrecht is the oldest pupil of the late Rev. Dr. Issac M. Wise, and probably the only one living in the country. She was his pupil when Dr. Wise taught school in Ronsperg, Bohemia, prior to 1843. Mrs. Aufrecht was the first matron of the Cleveland Orphan Asylum when her

husband, the late Rev. Louis Aufrecht was its superintendent. A few years later the couple removed to Cincinnati, where Mr. Aufrecht was a member of the teaching staff of the Hebrew Union College. After Mr. Aufrecht’s death in 1882, Mrs. Aufrecht lived in mostly this city, and about five years ago, after she lost her only son, entered into the Jewish Home. She is well remembered by a host of former pupils of her husband, and her birthday was celebrated in great fashion. Some of her late husband’s pupils presented her with an easy chair and flowers, fruit and sweetmeats, were sent into the Home in large quantities. Mrs. Aufrecht retains her mental faculties completely, and though feeble enjoys fairly good health. Her numerous friends wished her many happy returns of the day and they surely meant it. – July 17, 1913

75 Y EARS A GO Those seeking shelter from the heat and respite from household routine have found the Bake Shop of the United Jewish Social Agencies a cool spot to enjoy luncheon this summer. It is open daily except Sunday for luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and has a tea room where the weather always is pleasant.

Many shoppers drop in the tearoom in the afternoon for a cool drink and food after a hot day downtown. The Bake Shop also caters to those desiring to serve luncheon at their homes during the summer months.

Bakery specials Tuesdays and Thursdays have proved popular so those desiring to make selections from the specials on these days are urged to call early on Mondays and Wednesdays to make their selections by phone or in person.

Phyllis and Natalie Tenenbaum will be hostess at the Young Judaea leaders’ meeting at 539 Blair Avenue, Saturday, July 30th, at 8 p.m. – July 28, 1938

50 Y EARS A GO Three Cincinnatians –– Louis Weiland, Robert Kraft and Bernard Rosenberg –– were elected to important offices in B’nai B’rith District Grand Lodge 2 at its recent convention in St. Louis.

Mr. Weiland, who has had a distinguished career in B’nai B’rith, was elected treasurer.

Mr. Kraft was re–elected to the 12-man Board of Governors and Mr. Rosenberg was elected to the District Court.

Affectionately known as “Uncle Lou,” Mr. Weiland has been a member of the organizations since 1914.

He was president of Lodge 4 in 1920, served two terms on the general committee of the District (now the Board of Governors), and is a past

president of Cincinnati B’nai B’rith Council, the Lawyers’ Club of Cincinnati, and Adath Israel Congregation. He has been program chairman of the Lawyers Club of Cincinnati more than 20 years and is a past president of the Greater Cincinnati Savings & Loan Exchange. – July 18, 1963

25 Y EARS A GO At the Adath Israel Synagogue’s annual meeting, Herman L. Krieger was elected president, 1988–89, with a new slate of officers and trustees.

Installation ceremonies will be held at a dinner meeting, Wednesday, Aug. 10 at 6:30 p.m.

Krieger served as vice president of the synagogue for the past five years, and prior to that was involved in such activitie as teaching in the religious school, coordinating the daily minyan and serving as chairman of the religious services committee.

Non-synagogue activities included serving on the board of the Jewish Community Center for the past four years, receiving the Kovod Award two years ago and being a member of the program review committee of the Jewish Community Center. He has also volunteered his ervices for the Jewish Welfare Fund for more than 15 years. During that period he has chaired several divisions during many campaigns.

Krieger retired eight years ago from the U.S. Public Health Service and the Environmental Protection Agency after thirty–nine and a half years service. He fills his free time doing volunteer work for the Senior Adult Program of the JCC and visiting the sick in our hospitals as part of the Caring Chavurah program of Adath Israel. – July 21, 1988

10 Y EARS A GO Robin E. Harvey of Cincinnati was inducted as a member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC–JIR) June 9 during services held in conjuction with the Board of Governors meetin. in the Petrie Synagogue on the New York campus of HUC–JIR. She was inducted by Burton Lehman, chair of the Board of Governors, and Rabbi David Ellenson, president of HUC–JIR. Harvey has also been appointed chair of the Cincinnati Board of Overseers, succeeding Alvin Lipson who has served in the position since 2000.

Harvey is the first woman to chair the Board of Overseers in the history of the College–Institute.

“We are proud to welcome Robin as a member of HUC–JIR’s Board of Governors and especially excited to have her as chair of the Cincinnati Baord of Overseers,” stated Dean Kenneth E. Ehrlich. – July 24, 2003

COMMUNITY CALENDAR / CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013

COMMUNITY CALENDAR July 25 10:30 a.m. - JCC Senior Center Technology Fair and Celebration Mayerson JCC Amberley Room and Gallery (513) 722 - 7255 July 27 9 p.m. - Happy Hour Food Truck Night Neon’s 208 E. 12th St. (513) 373 -0300 July 28 3 p.m. - Lollipop Book Swap Mayerson JCC (513) 703 3343

July 28 5 p.m. - Ben-Gurion Society Thank You Event (513) 985 1513

DO YOU WANT TO PLACE A CLASSIFIED?

July 29 to August 4 Camp at the J: Quest Overnight at Camp Livingston Camp Livingston (513) 722 - 7258

Send an e-mail including what you would like in your classified & your contact information to

September 17 Peter Sagal Mayerson JCC 8485 Ridge Rd. (513) 722 -7226

business@ americanisraelite.com

October 8 5:30 p.m. - AJC Community Service Award honoring Jay Price Mayerson JCC 8485 Ridge Rd. (513) 621-4020

or call Erin at 621-3145

PRINCIPAL from page 4

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

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Chabad (513) 731-5111 • campchabad.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 • camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Kollel (513) 631-1118 • kollel.shul.net Cincinnati Community Mikveh (513) 351-0609 • cincinnatimikveh.org Eruv Hotline (513) 351-3788 Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (Miami) (513) 523-5190 • muhillel.org Hillel Jewish Student Center (UC) (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati 513-961-0178 • jcemcin.org Jewish Community Center (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org Jewish Community Relations Council (513) 985-1501 Jewish Family Service (513) 469-1188 • jfscinti.org Jewish Federation of Cincinnati (513) 985-1500 • shalomcincy.org Jewish Foundation (513) 214-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 JVS Career Services (513) 936-WORK (9675) • 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

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

the ability to impact others through speech,” she said.

Teitelbaum chose her own path in that area, and after taking an Advanced Placement class in psychology, she decided to pursue a career in mental health counseling.

“It was my own way of connecting to people, through ‘teaching,’ and as any therapist worth their salt will tell you, a whole lot of listening,” she said.

Teitelbaum earned a bachelor’s degree in social science with a specialization in human behavior from Adelphi University, and a master’s degree from University of North Texas.

“At that point … I trained for two years at The Family Institute, a rigorous and cutting edge training program for mental health professionals,” she said. “I learned much about people, and even more about myself.”

All the while, she remained tethered to the classroom, teaching at Machon Academy, a high school in Queens; at Olamot, a high school in Jerusalem; and at JEWEL, a Torah study program for college students in Jerusalem.

At that point, Teitelbaum moved with her husband and children back to the United States, where she was offered the opportunity to work as assistant principal and mechanechet (guidance counselor) at Shearim Torah High School for Girls.

The new position offered Teitelbaum the opportunity to combine her two great passions, teaching and psychology.

“I was lucky to work under the venerable Rabbi Raphael SEEKING from page 8 of tuberculosis. Axelrod remembered only that his mother lit a yahrzeit candle each year in Moshe’s memory.

But in the box of photographs Yehudit had kept, Axelrod recently noticed one image that showed a husband, wife and little girl – Moshe’s family. On the back, someone – Yehudit, apparently – wrote that Moshe had died on March 23, 1955, in Ilford, Essex.

Pavlowitz, Axelrod’s older sister,

SENIOR SERVICES

• • • • •

Up to 24 hour care Meal Preparation Errands/Shopping Hygiene Assistance Light Housekeeping

(513) 531-9600 Landesman, who trained me in the art of school administration,” she said, “In Shearim, I worked on a variety of tasks, including curriculum oversight and development, classroom observations, and developing and running an effective disciplinary program.

Teitelbaum said she also enjoyed teaching several classes in the school, including, in a “sweet twist of fate,” the very same AP psychology course that kick-started her interest in education.

“I relish both the day-to-day running of the school, and the slow and steady longer term work of moving the school towards a vision of academic and spiritual excellence,” she said. “However, my greatest reward comes from my relationships with the students.”

Teitelbaum said she feels privileged to be given the opportunity to educate and impact the young minds that are the Jewish leaders of tomorrow.

“They are our future and our legacy, and it is imperative that we develop in them a love for Torah, for learning, and for life,” she said. “It is my sincere belief that a blend of warmth, structure, and a firm push towards academic achievement, provides an ideal atmosphere for emotional and intellectual growth.

Teitelbaum said she hopes to build an institution that puts out confident and well-educated young women who are deeply connected to their roots.

“With a rigorous dual curriculum, we hope to provide them with the tools to be successful on both a personal and professional level,” she said. “I look forward to coming to Cincinnati and partnering with the community in this exciting venture.” said she remembered that both Moshe Hyman and his wife, whose name she did not know, had died while Nadia was a child, and that one of Nadia’s maternal cousins took in the girl.

Gary Hyman told Axelrod that he remembers Nadia moving to Washington, D.C., but he doesn’t know where she is now or her married name.

“I really long to find her,” Axelrod said of Nadia. “It was a small mystery to find [Gary Hyman], but to find her is a big mystery.”

20 • FIRST PERSON / ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Incidentally Iris Incidentally Iris

by Iris Ruth Pastor When my son hears the news by text, he drops his phone in disbelief.

When my mom hears the news from a casual acquaintance, sobs burst forth from her throat.

When I hear the news by phone from my son, I collapse in a heap on the floor and begin to weep.

What do you do when the unthinkable happens to a close friend? When the thing most feared

comes true? A loss – especially a sudden one – brings on feelings of incredulity and disorientation in all who knew and cared for the newly departed.

How do we respond to such raw need? We attend the funeral.

Visit the home for shiva. Bring a casserole. Send a donation. And we ponder over what else we can do to ease the burden: how much is too intrusive? How much is too little?

How much is just right?

These are questions I am grappling with in the weeks following the accident – an accident that took the life of my friend’s adult son – leaving a grieving widow and two small children. Leaving stunned parents, siblings, friends and business associates.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, says that creating something is one of the most delightful ways to enhance happiness. I feel creating something is also intuitively comforting to both the giver and to the receiver.

Especially in cases of tragic loss.

In the wake of her devastating, inconsolable loss, I mail my friend a book on grieving though my gut tells me it is too soon for her to concentrate. I think about baking her brownies and sending them air express, but know she has no appetite. I am too far away to pay her and her husband an afternoon visit and hug them both tightly. I am stumped. What more can I do?

I drive to my neighborhood bookstore to get my mind off my dilemma. I sit cross–legged in front of shelves overflowing with craft projects. My fingers fly restlessly over the book jackets.

Desultorily, I pull a few books off the shelf and stack them beside me. Frustrated that my perusing is not yet proving productive, I pause to draw a steadying breath. And then a soft cover book with earthy colors catches my attention: The Prayer Shawl Companion.

I lift it off the shelf, open it wide in my lap and eagerly begin to flip through its pages.

One sentence in the book’s

introduction stops me cold: Prayer shawls become tangible symbols of love when words can't be found to adequately express one’s feelings.

The book profiles nursing shawls. Baptism shawls. Traveling shawls. Mexican rainbow shawls.

And of course, a Tallis – our Jewish prayer shawl – worn by Jewish men and some Jewish women during services and milestone events.

Tallis literally means “cloak” and like secular and other non–secular shawls, tallit provide covering.

When our world unravels, knitting and gifting a shawl connotes hope for better days. It symbolizes an enveloping circle of compassion. Lovingly crocheted or knitted, the shawl drapes around the shoulders of someone in need of comfort. It wraps them in an embrace. As the authors say, giving and receiving a shawl opens the doors of communication, reinforces relationships and invites understanding and healing.

I’d like to rewind the clock so that my friend’s son doesn’t climb

up a ladder to inspect a roof for disputed damage. I’d like to rewind the clock so he doesn’t plunge through a skylight, falling 20 feet to his death. But time relentlessly marches forward, not backward, and I can't rewrite history.

I buy the book. I pick out a pattern. I head for the knitting shop and purchase three skeins of yarn in a soft aqua color. I pick up my needles and cast on. Knit one, purl one. Knit one, purl one. The familiar rhythm lulls me into a calm state of mind. I hope that, when finished, my shawl will provide my friend with a sense of calmness too.

I hope that, when finished, my shawl will provide my friend with a private place to escape to – a place to take stock, be soothed, find solace and begin to mend and revive. It’s not perfect, but it's a start.

Keep Coping, Iris Ruth Pastor

Leonard Nimoy, from Star Trek to Jewish-themed photography, has lived long and prospered

By Robert Gluck JointMedia News Service Leonard Nimoy says there is a “strong strain of Judaism” in everything he does – including his famous on-screen hand gestures.

Best known for his character Mr. Spock in the “Star Trek” television show and movies, most recently in his cameo as Spock Prime in this year’s blockbuster “Star Trek Into Darkness,” Nimoy’s Vulcan hand gesture comes from an experience he had at synagogue when he was 8 years old.

Nimoy’s father told him not to look as worshippers averted their eyes during blessings recited by the kohanim.

“The men were chanting, shouting and praying in an Orthodox service,” Nimoy, 82, says in an interview with JNS. “It was very passionate, very theatrical. I was chilled by the whole thing.”

Years later, while on the set of the “Star Trek” television show, Nimoy suggested to the director that Vulcans like Spock should offer some gesture in greeting other Vulcans.

“The director asked me what I had in mind and I suggested the gesture used by the kohanim,” Nimoy says. The gesture went on to be accompanied by the expression “live long and prosper.”

Nimoy, born in Boston, recalls that he grew up “in a very Jewish environment and was bar mitzvahed appropriately when I was 13.”

“The neighborhood I grew up in had several synagogues, and I sang in the choirs for the High Holidays,” he tells JNS. “There is a strong strain

Courtesy of Gage Skidmore

Leonard Nimoy, at the 2011 Phoenix Comicon in Phoenix, Arizona, gives his Vulcan hand gesture from “Star Trek” – a gesture he said was modeled after the Jewish kohanim.

of Judaism in everything I do. It is a presence that I do not deny and do not want to deny. It is a valuable resource for me and a valuable part of my consciousness.”

Born to Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews from Ukraine, Nimoy narrated the documentary “A Life Apart: Hasidism in America” in 1997, about the various sects of Hassidic Jews. In October 2002, Nimoy published “The Shekhina Project,” a photographic study inspired by Kabbalah. exploring the feminine aspect of God’s presence.

According to Rich Michelson, owner of the Northampton, Mass.based R. Michelson Galleries, the best art often opens up a societal debate – and Michelson believes Nimoy’s religiously controversial “Shekhina Project” certainly did so when it was published and shown to the public in 2002.

A feminine word in Hebrew, Shekhina is the Talmudic term for the dwelling or settling of God’s divine presence on Earth. Over time,

the concept of Shekhina evolved in more progressive Jewish circles into a softer, empathetic feminine counterpart to God who could argue for humanity’s sake, comfort the poor and sick, and stand as the mother of Israel. “[Nimoy’s] depiction of women – some wearing tefillin and nothing else – as the essence of the feminine manifestation of God struck some as revolutionary and others as salacious,” Michelson tells JNS. “The response in our gallery was overwhelmingly positive, as it was in most venues where we toured the exhibit. There were some synagogues that refused to show the work, and others that canceled Mr. Nimoy’s speaking engagements, but in almost all cases, another synagogue was happy to step in and host the exhibit.”

Nimoy has a long list of activities he has participated in that have to do with his Judaism.

“I surprised a lot of people by playing Tevye in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ in 1971 on an eight-week eastern tour that was very successful,” he says.

Barbara Gellman-Danley presented Nimoy with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Antioch University in a ceremony at his home in California. A former graduate of Antioch with an M.A. in bilingual education, the honorary degree was awarded in great part due to Nimoy’s activism in Holocaust remembrance.

Nimoy produced and starred, with Dabney Coleman and Blythe Danner, in a television movie called “Never Forget.” Written by Ronald Rubin, the 1991 film is a dramatiza-

tion of a Holocaust survivor who confronted a Holocaust denial organization’s lies in court. Nimoy met the survivor, Mel Mermelstein.

“Mermelstein’s family was taken into Auschwitz during the second World War,” Nimoy says. “His siblings and parents were killed. He won his lawsuit, but more importantly, the subject of the Holocaust went into American law for the first time in 1979. It became a legal fact.”

Gellman-Danley says Nimoy’s fame never got in the way of his commitment to social justice causes.

“Indeed, he worked in key symbolism of his own faith into his character as Mr. Spock,” GellmanDanley tells JNS. “I recall he was very committed to organizations, museums and affiliated projects that reflected his own value system. He is a consummate artist – both performing, writing and through beautiful photography. I found Mr. Nimoy to be a very caring, deep and committed man who is leading a measurably purposeful life.”

Nimoy’s portrayal of Mr. Spock in “Star Trek” earned him iconic status as well as three Emmy nominations. But aside from his numerous credits as an actor and director, Nimoy is also a successful recording artist and author, having published two autobiographies as well as several volumes of poetry, two of which also feature his photographs. His photographs are in the collections of many major museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Judah L. Magnes Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum of New York, the New Orleans Museum of Fine Art, and the Hammer Museum.

“I just produced a collection called ‘Eye Contact’ of 25 fine art prints,” Nimoy says. “The concept is that there is no eye contact with the models in the photographs. It has to do with the issues of privacy, neutrality, modesty and voyeurism.”

At Michelson’s website (www.Rmichelson.com), viewers can see Nimoy’s work and note his rising stature as a major contemporary American photographer.

“There is no doubt that Nimoy will always be identified foremost with Mr. Spock,” Michelson says.

“But he is no dilettante with the camera.”

Yet, Mr. Spock remains the most enduring aspect of Nimoy’s fame.

First airing in 1966, the character would become an icon over the years as “Star Trek” branched off into syndication and later onto the big screen as a series of six feature films. Being identified with one of the most recognizable characters in television history is intriguing to Nimoy, and it is something he embraces.

“I admire Spock, and if I had to choose any character ever portrayed in television or film, I would choose Spock because I enjoy being identified with this very interesting character,” Nimoy says.

“Spock claims to be other than human but he’s a terribly human character,” he adds. “That’s what makes him so attractive. People understand him and identify with him. His dilemma is a human dilemma. Particularly for young people.

Teenagers really understand what Spock is dealing with, which is finding the proper balance between logic and emotion.”

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT • 21

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2013

Book Review: A Time to Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew

By Sue W. Ransohoff Book Reviewer “A Time to Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew,” by Jonathan D. Sarna, uses the Jewish calendar as a scaffolding for his letters to his daughter – and to all of us. Each month represents a subject, and the span is varied indeed, including what kind of a Jew to be; how much of Torah should you obey in today’s life, the Holocaust and Holocaust fatigue; freedom as characterized by Passover, assimilation, anti-Semitism. The subjects, as you can see, are weighty ones, making choices is challenging and ethical decisions even more so.

Starting with Freedom, Sarna reminds us that Jewish freedom and American freedom have much in common: why, indeed, do we sing “America the Beautiful” at the conclusion of the Passover service? And freedom, he adds, is the foundation for any workable country; it is the “hook” that entices people to come here, or to make aliyah. He explores the meaning of freedom, and the wide variety of

ways of being Jewish – all of which include freedom.

“There are almost as many Judaisms as there are Jews... it is the price we pay for religious freedom.” Next he explores how to choose, among these infinite varieties, without saying that there is only one right way. He emphasizes that it’s his daughter’s choice, and it is also our choice.

Another compelling, and I must admit, somewhat confusing topic, is Torah. He describes a most unusual wedding, at which the groom does not appear. The bride is the Torah, dressed in white, and the festivity symbolizes a marriage-like relationship between Jews and their Torah.

Sarna tells us too that the Bible tells us: “gather the people, men, women and children... that they may hear and learn to revere the Lord our

God, and to observe faithfully every word of the Torah.”

And now that we’re on the subject of Torah – have you ever wondered where it came from; how it came into being? Sarna explains that there are many legends about its origin, and, again, you may choose. Some of these legends are sweet indeed, and if you choose one of these, it is hardly surprising. Which one? I cannot help but like the one in which God offers the Torah to the people of one country after another, all of whom rejected it.

Finally God offers it to the Jewish people who, rather than being daunted by its high level of morality, accept it.

This is only one version; you are free to accept this, or to explore others.

Indeed, if there is one word that describes Sarna’s approach to being a Jew, it could be “balance.” He does not adjure, demand, require. He offers a smorgasbord of choices in each subject; it is then up to his daughter, and to us, to make a thoughtful and personal decision.

There is, however, an exception to this overall acceptance of variety and

Former AI columnist, Chuck Klein, publishes CIRCA 1957

By Netanel (Ted) Deutsch Publisher Chuck Klein, a former AI columnist and author of many books, columns and articles has published the 2nd Edition of CIRCA 1957. This expanded version includes over 6,000 additional words. Klein said during a recent interview, “Though the book is classified as a novel, it’s autobiographical inasmuch as in trying to record that era I couldn’t come up with better stuff than what really happened – at least to me. Most of the characters are composites, but those who are identifiable, signed releases.”

This historically and technically correct work is set in Cincinnati during the early years of rock & roll and hot rods. Readers of The American Israelite will recognize many scenes, locations and maybe some of the characters. The first CLAIMS from page 6 in connection with the scheme; all pleaded guilty or have been found guilty.

The report blames a “litany of lack of diligence, competence and judgment” among senior Claims Conference leaders for failing to follow up on the 2001 letter suggesting that Domnitser was engaged in foul play. But the report singles out no individual for special opprobrium and says there is no evidence that anyone at the Claims Conference tried to cover up the bungled reviews in 2001 of the anonymous letter’s allegations.

edition, according to Klein, sold out shortly after publication in the early 90s.

The worth of any book is in the reading and CIRCA 1957 has generated high praise from reviewers including this quote from the San Francisco Review of Books that gave the novel a 4 out of 5 Star rating: “My favorite thing about this book is how fully it immerses you in the world of the 1950s. The slang, the cultural attitudes, the lifestyle – it’s all bursting from the page with such complexity and richness... is evidence of a strong character and solid writing. The fact that Paul [the protagonist] is both frustrating and endearing is a testament to Klein’s skill.”

The American Israelite had this to say in its 27 September 1990 full review of the 1st edition: “Hilarious tome... accurately portrayed through the eyes and feel-

ings of a male teen-ager.”

This is not for the faint of heart as Klein describes in graphic detail teen-age sex, harrowing high speed street races and course language.

In fact, it was the Claims Conference that unearthed correspondence in Frankfurt about the 2001 letter and turned it over to the FBI after discovering the fraud and alerting the FBI to it in 2009.

In his rebuttal, Schneider is clear about who he believes is responsible: Karl Brozik, the director of the Claims Conference’s Frankfurt office, which received the anonymous letter describing five problematic cases handled by Domnitser. Again and again in his 21-page rebuttal, Schneider points to mistakes made by Brozik, who died in 2004.

But the report says Brozik does

not deserve blame for the “Letter affair.”

“We find it impossible to accept this version of events, and believe it to be without any basis in reality,” The New York office also conducted its own probe that recommended further investigation. Berman delivered the report to Taylor on Sept.

5, 2001.

The ombudsman’s report notes the failure to follow up on either of the 2001 probes, concluding that they “should, at the very least, have served as an alert to Mr. Domnitser’s superiors” – but there was no one “functioning in this capacity.”

choice. A chapter which I found particularly challenging, is: assimilation, or anti-assimilation, pinned most appropriately to the festival of Hanukkah. There are as many possibilities to this subject as there are facets to a round-cut diamond.

Sarna is emphatic on one way of handing the assimilation that may come with a mixed marriage, when the two participants will select some aspect of, say, Christianity, and some of Judaism. A tree – and candles. He may be balanced and accepting on many issues, but this one he is both eloquent and adamant: “It is fine to admire other peoples’ traditions” he writes, “but to filch them, secularize them and then mix them with traditions from wholly different faiths strikes me as ill-mannered and irresponsible. A little bit of this and a little bit of that may be fine for a stew...”

There is something very gratifying about a book which adjures you to

take a look at your Judaism and its many aspects: what they mean to you, what you can do to “repair the world,” what a thoughtful approach to these issues can do to enrich your life.

Sarna’s writing is very accessible, and his thoughts, his adjurations to his daughter make you think in new and appealing ways. You may not agree with all his approaches – but he asks only that you think about them, and fit them to your Judaism and to your life.

Sue Ransohoff, has lived in Cincinnati since the end of WW II when she married Cincinnatian Jerry Ransohoff. She was a clinical social worker for 20 years; most significantly as Coordinator of the Adoption Unit at the Hamilton Country Welfare Department. She is also a published free lance writer, and oral historian.

She has served on the Boards of Planned Parenthood, and many other community organizations.

22 • OBITUARIES

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

D EATH N OTICES

HOLOCAUST from page 6

SCHWARTZ, James M., age 89, died on July 14, 2013; 7 Av 5773.

British officials were chilly.

Foreign Minister Anthony Eden showed little interest in Karski’s account of the slaughter of the Jews, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent word that he was too busy to meet the Polish courier at all.

Karski headed for Washington. On July 28, 1943, he met with President Roosevelt, in the Oval Office, for more than an hour.

Karski began by describing the activities of the Polish underground.

The president listened with fascination, asked questions, and offered

O BITUARIES WILLIAMS, Freada Freada Williams, age 93 of Mason, Ohio, passed away Monday, June 24, 2013. She is survived by her children, Rita Beck–Marcum of Las Vegas, Nev., Mark (Barbara) Williams of Mason, Ohio; brother, Sidney Mittelman of Canton; grandchildren, Seth (Karissa Rodriguez) Williams, Brandon Williams, Michelle (Terry) Davidson, Michael Armentrout: great grandchildren, Tanya & Eric Davidson, Laila Williams and D’erick Underwood. Preceded in death by her beloved husband, Samuel L. Williams; sisters, Rose Primak and Mayme Altman.

Freada – known to friends and family as Fritzie – was born on March 6, 1920 in Canton, Ohio.

She got married to Samuel Williams of Canton. Samuel passed away, at a young age, in 1953 leaving Freada to raise her two young children – Rita and Mark – on her own. She moved with her family to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1958.

Freada worked at a number of different firms, including Standard Textile, doing clerical and secretarial work. She was an active member at Cedar Village during her first few years there.

Her nephew, Scott Mittleman – who grew up in Canton – recalls Aunt Freada’s warmth and kindness. When he was a young boy and spent 19 months at Childrens Hospital in Cincinnati. He fondly remembers that in all his time at the hospital Aunt Freada never missed a day visiting him.

Fraeda loved to cook and enjoyed the opportunity to have family dinners with her children and grandchildren. She was an avid reader and proficient at needlepoint. Her great-grandchildren had the opportunity to bond with her when she took them to Hebrew School and were always happy when she baby sat for them.

Graveside funeral services were held at the Canton Hebrew Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to Cedar Village Retirement Community in Mason, Ohio, the Alzheimer’s Association or a charity of your choice.

DERMER from page 7 politics. He drew close at first to former Soviet political prisoner Natan Sharansky, co-writing with him “The Case for Democracy,” a book that President George W. Bush later cited as a major influence. In the book, Sharansky treats Dermer as a full partner in shaping its ideas.

Through Sharansky, Dermer met Netanyahu, and they also forged an immediate closeness. Netanyahu, the finance minister in the mid2000s, sent Dermer to Washington as economic consul.

Dermer lets little stand in his way. Oren – also U.S. born and beloved by the U.S. Jewish community – wanted to keep his job, insiders say, and the only reason he was removed is that Dermer wanted the envoy post.

EGYPT from page 16 terrorism” in large type. By terrorism, protesters meant the Muslim Brotherhood.

Americans were so enthralled by the new democracy taking shape in the land of the Nile that they were willing to turn a blind eye toward the plagues of Egypt that had been accumulating since 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood, after hopping on the bandwagon of the Tahrir Square protests last year, had a golden opportunity to take its seat and play the political game.

For the first time since 1954, the Brotherhood’s political activities were legalized, and the supreme constitutional court in Egypt deemed that it could field candidates for the presidency and parliament.

Mubarak was horrified from his jail cell. Anwar Sadat spun in his grave.

They knew the true identity of the Muslim Brotherhood, and they had limited their activities. But the events in Tahrir Square were imbued with euphoria. For the sake of democracy, the Ikhwan (“Brotherhood” in Arabic) and the Salafists would be permitted to enter politics.

The problem was that even under the rule of the military, which was affectionately being referred to as “the people’s army,” Egypt failed to garner any significant achievements.

unsolicited advice, some of it a bit eccentric – such as his idea of putting skis on small airplanes to fly underground messengers between England and Poland during the winter.

Then Karski turned to the plight of the Jews.

This was not the first time FDR heard about the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. For nearly a year, detailed reports about the killings had been reaching the White House.

But the meeting with Karski was the first time President Roosevelt encountered an actual eyewitness to the killings.

Despite Karski’s harrowing firstperson account of the atrocities, the president was not moved. FDR was, as Karski politely described it, “rather noncommittal.”

Roosevelt viewed the suffering of the Jews as just another unfortunate aspect of what civilians suffer in every war. As he rose to leave the Oval Office, Karski asked the president if there was any message he wanted to send to those suffering under the Nazi jackboot. The president leaned back, his trademark cigarette holder balanced in one hand, and said, “Tell them we shall win this war!”

Despite President Roosevelt’s lack of interest in the fate of the Jews, Karski did not lose heart. In the months to follow, he authored a harrowing book-length account of the situation in Hitler’s Europe, called “Story of a Secret State,” and delivered hundreds of lectures around the United States about his experiences.

At a White House ceremony earlier this year, Karski was posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. It was a fitting tribute to a man whose life symbolized the need to speak out when – as President Obama recently put it – “so many others stood silent.”

Long before Dermer was formally named as the new ambassador, he was taking calls from Jewish schools and synagogues in Washington eager for his membership.

Oren and his two predecessors, Salai Meridor and Daniel Ayalon, made outreach to the U.S. Jewish community a hallmark of their tenure. Oren in particular was sensitive to anger in the Jewish community over Israel’s perceived discrimination against women and helped broker a tentative compromise that would allow for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

In 2009, Dermer said he considered cultivating ties with the American Jewish community’s liberal wing a waste of time. Dermer is believed to be behind the liberal lobby J Street’s inability to secure

meetings with high-level officials during its Israel trips. Oren, by contrast, has forged low-level ties with the group.

Like other Jewish groups, J Street welcomed Dermer’s appointment.

Dermer also led efforts in the Prime Minister’s Office to limit the activities of human rights groups in Israel, casting them as agents of foreign powers. Some of the groups have the support of leading Jewish liberal benefactors from the United States.

Dermer’s defenders in Washington say those issues are dwarfed by the immediate challenges facing Israeli-U.S. interests in the Middle East.

“He will be an effective representative of the State of Israel generally, and Prime Minister Netanyahu

specifically, as we are in a crucial period of U.S.-Israel relations with the need to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” said William Daroff, who directs the Jewish Federations of North America’s Washington office.

Unprompted, Foxman, Harris and Daroff all made the same point: Dermer’s closeness to Netanyahu is what will make his time in Washington a success.

“The most important thing for any ambassador in Washington, especially any Israeli ambassador, is that he brings the full trust of the prime minister,” Harris said. “That’s an asset you cannot put a price on.

“What it says to the host country is that I am sending someone in whom I have full confidence, so when you talk to him you have a direct conduit to me.”

A political error With army officers at the helm, Egypt descended into political chaos. Its socioeconomic crisis only worsened. This time, the masses demanded the head of defense chief Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. Then, it was the Muslim Brotherhood’s turn to seize the moment. In three rounds of parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood won a majority. In the race for the presidency, its candidate, Morsi, a dull, nondescript man who wasn’t even his party’s first choice, prevailed over his main liberal opponent, Ahmed Shafiq.

Afterward, Morsi made every mistake in the book. His first error was bringing a hasty end to the joint power structure he had shared with the military. This strange coalition consisted of the army ruling side-byside with the Muslim Brotherhood, the same Brotherhood that was persecuted by the military under the Mubarak regime.

Morsi dismissed Tantawi and installed al-Sissi, a man who was reportedly sympathetic with the Brotherhood. It was obvious that Morsi cast an envious gaze toward Turkey, where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to subdue protests against him by bringing his military’s high command to heel. Morsi would soon learn that what worked in Turkey – a country that is also in the midst of

large-scale demonstrations with no clear end in sight – wouldn’t necessarily work in Egypt.

Shortly afterward, Morsi made a second, fatal error. After the supreme constitutional court gave the order to dissolve parliament, Morsi fired the state prosecutor and assumed judicial powers. If there is one thing that Egyptians respect as much as religion, it is the judiciary. Morsi didn’t grasp the extent of that respect.

Beyond the question of who Egypt’s next president will be, one is left to wonder about the role of Egypt’s military in the two revolutions we just witnessed, which unfolded in very similar ways. In 2011, as now, the alliance formed between the army and the masses led to the overthrow of a leader.

Once the military issued its ultimatum for Morsi to resign, the die was cast. When the military ultimatum expired July 3, demonstrators in Tahrir Square celebrated as if they were certain that al-Sissi would announce the president’s dismissal.

The images were reminiscent of what we saw in Tahrir Square on Feb. 11, 2011, when the army did all the work as the police disintegrated.

Ultimately, the second revolution in Egypt left a sense that the army wanted to re-enact the events of the first revolution – only this time it wanted an outcome that was more to its liking. An alliance between the military and the secular

public seems a much more logical, natural fit than that which we saw in Egypt’s last revolution.

Many world capitals that were not enamored of the image of a bearded Islamist president in power expressed joy at the events leading to Morsi’s ouster. Interestingly, a disagreement emerged in two capitals where there is usually agreement on such matters. The ayatollah regime in Iran was horrified to watch a mob depose political Islam from the throne. In Damascus, however, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was happy to see that the failure of political Islam in Egypt meant his chances of remaining in power grew.

Meanwhile, in Ankara, Erdogan congratulated himself on his wise decision to install his close associates in the secular and Westernized Turkish army’s high command. It was only a month ago that Turkish protesters shouted, “Taksim Square in Istanbul is Tahrir!”

But is Erdogan wrong? Did the success of Westernized and secular Egyptians in bringing about Morsi’s ouster actually encourage the Westernized and secular Turks? Are we at the end of the line for revolutions in the region? Or is this just the beginning? Nobody knows for sure.

Boaz Bismuth is a columnist and correspondent for Israel Hayom, where this article originally appeared.