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Turning to poetry, 75 years after Kristallnacht

‘Remembering the Kristallnacht’ program honored Rabbi Dr. Alfred Gottschalk

By Julie Torem Contributing Reporter

JCRC and JCC offer first ‘Changemaker’ lecture November 19

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Israel experience launches Brad Ausmus into job as Tigers manager

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The French Jews who anticipated the Nazi onslaught

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Kristallnacht (night of broken glass), more recently being referred to as the “November Pogrom” began on November 9, 1938 and ended the following day. It was, to many, the beginning of the end for millions of Jews. On this night 75 years ago, businesses were ruined; synagogues were set on fire; Torahs and sacred texts were torn and burned; but worst of all, families were torn apart. Men were arrested and sent to concentration camps and most were never reunited with their loved ones.

The Center for Holocaust and Humanity has been pivotal in providing a hands-on education for children and adults in Cincinnati. On Sunday, November 10, 75 years after Kristallnacht, people gathered at the Mayerson Hall at Hebrew Union College to honor those who perished in the holocaust and those survivors who are still able to share their precious life stories with members of our community.

On this particular anniversary of Kristallnacht, the late Rabbi Dr. Alfred Gottschalk - former President of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, was honored with the dedication of a sculpture by renowned glass artist, Maria Lugosi (1950-2012) of Hungary. HUC students and students from St. Ursula Academy and Moeller High School read excerpts from four witnesses to the Kristallnacht. Additionally, hauntingly beautiful music was provided by Deborah Netanel on the cello and Claire Lee on piano.

Why Dr. Gottschalk? Why honor a beloved member of the HUC community on the anniversary of Kristallnacht? For most people, Kristallnacht is an abstract. It is something that is studied, but could not fathom happening in this lifetime.

However, for Gottshalk, Kristallnacht was not an abstract memory, it was his childhood reality. He witnessed the burning of his synagogue and then witnessed his Grandfather wading into freezing water in an effort to save

what was left of the prayer books and torah scrolls.

In 1939, Dr. Gottschalk and his mother were granted exit visas from Germany. He and his mother lived in New York where he was greatly influenced by Rabbi Stephen Wise, who inspired Gottschalk to become a Reform Rabbi.

Dr. Gottschalk’s career included appointments by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Clinton. He was, by all accounts, an honorable man who had a positive impact on everyone he encountered.

“Crystal Night,” a sculpture by Maria Lugossy which was dedicated to honor Dr. Gottschalk, is extraordinary. It is made of layer upon layer of laminated glass sheets which was then shaved layer by layer to reveal faces.

According to Annie Fisher, a dear friend of Lugossy, the faces are those of Lugossy’s three children.

It should be noted that friends of

Maria Lugossy had tried for years to have “Crystal Night” displayed in Hungary (Budapest), where it was created but these requests were never acknowledged. Due to the increase in anti-Semitism in Hungary, those associated with the piece feel that it is much more appropriately displayed outside of that country.

In addition to the dedication of “Crystal Night,” attendees had the opportunity to hear Dr. James Young, Professor of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst speak about Kristallnacht. As Young describes it, Kristallnacht was the “night where hate crystallized from hate speech to sheer violence.”

Attendees also had the privilege of hearing Werner Coppel speak about his experience during the holocaust.

Coppel shared how his “typical German Jewish family” went from just that to being forced to carry iden-

tification cards indicating that they were Jews. Coppel continued to describe his bar mitzvah which included the sounds of Nazi’s chanting antiSemitic slurs during the entire service.

In 1941, Werner Coppel said goodbye to his parents as they were deported. He never saw them again.

Shortly thereafter, Coppel was taken to a forced labor camp before being sent to Auschwitz. On April 18,1945, Coppel and thousands of others were led on a death march. After the second day, Coppel managed to escape. He eventually married and had a family of his own.

Coppel stated, “The Germans killed 6 million Jews. There were a lot of bullets but we won the war because we are the Jewish people and we are here!” On August 8, 2013, Jacob Coppel, Werner Coppel’s great grandson was born.

In addition to “Crystal Night”, two more pieces by Maria Lugossy are on display at HUC.

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JCRC and JCC offer first ‘Changemaker’ lecture November 19 Less than two years ago, in December 2011, Roger “Dean” Gillispie was in prison, serving a sentence of 22 to 56 years for raping three women—a crime he never stopped insisting he didn’t commit. Even when he was offered a plea bargain of 30 days in jail, Gillispie would not admit to something he didn’t do.

Thankfully, the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP), housed at the University of Cincinnati, and its director and co-founder, Mark Godsey, believed Gillispie and took up his case—their first case—in 2003. And after almost nine years of dedication and grueling work, including discovering that no physical evidence existed to connect Gillispie to the crimes and that information had been withheld from the jury during his trial, Godsey and his OIP students succeeded.

Gillispie served 20 years of his sentence before a federal judge ruled that his trial was unfair and released him on bond. He was the twelfth prisoner freed through the Project.

At the time of his release, Gillispie told WCPO news, “You know why someone goes to a war now, to fight for freedom.

You know the value of it, for sure. That's one thing you learn.

When someone goes to war, I know what they're fighting for.”

Godsey said, “Student idealism and passion is the lifeblood of the OIP. Without their passion and inspiration, this victory would not have happened. The

Roger ‘Dean’ Gillispie and Mark Godsey.

students are what make us better than other legal organizations that aren't run by students.”

On Tuesday, November 19, in the first of the three-part “Changemaker” series, Godsey and Gillispie will speak about the OIP and its work to exonerate individuals who have been wrongfully convicted. All are invited to join the conversation at 7 p.m. at the Mayerson JCC. The program is free with advance registration.

The Changemaker series offers fresh approaches to current issues facing our community by bringing local Cincinnati

leaders to explore big ideas and offer new perspectives.

Subsequent presentations will address hate and religion in the public sphere (on Thursday, December 5 with UC law professor Ronna Greff Schneider) and the continuing investment in Cincinnati's downtown urban core (on Tuesday, January 14 with 3CDC president and CEO Stephen G. Leeper). The series is presented by the JCC Wolf Center for Arts & Ideas and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.

Celebrate Thanksgivukkah at the JCC This Hanukkah, join the Mayerson JCC for a unique “Thanksgivukkah” event! To celebrate such a special year of combined holidays, the JCC will offer a one-of-a-kind create your own latke bar with traditional and innovative toppings for your potato pancakes. On Tuesday, December 3, everyone is invited to create your own latke, help light the JCC’s man-powered menorah and participate in the One Candle for Tzedakah toy drive.

The JCC will light the community Hanukkah menorah each night of Hanukkah, Nov. 27 – Dec. 4, at 5pm. On Tuesday, December 3 from 5 -8pm, the JCC menorah will be lit by the community effort of individual bike riders to generate energy to keep the ‘candles’ burning. Each rider will keep the light burning for fifteen minutes on this bike-powered menorah. This event is open to the public and anyone interested in keeping the menorah burning,

should sign up before the event at the JCC. After schvitzing, enjoy your own latke creation (5-7pm). The latke bar will feature sweet and white potatoes, traditional goodies of sour cream and applesauce, and some Thanksgivukkah surprises.

Latkes are offered for a minimal fee.

The JCC also encourages everyone to participate in its annual One Candle for Tzedakah toy drive. New, unwrapped toys, clothing and gift cards can be dropped off until Friday, December 6 at the Mayerson JCC, the JCC Early Childhood School or Cedar Village in Mason.

“The JCC toy drive has been a long standing partnership between the JCC and Jewish Family Service. The toys collected by the community allow us to provide for many families in need during the holiday season,” said Beth Schwartz, Executive Director of Jewish Family Service.

All donations go to help families in need during the 2013 holiday season. Gifts will be distributed via Jewish Family Service Bigs and Littles and other local organizations.

Another family-friendly way to celebrate the holidays on Sunday, November 24 at the JCC, is the Jump and Jelly Donut Jam: an Inflatable Festival of Lights Celebration featuring the Zooperstars.

At 3pm, the Zooperstars, giant 10 ft. tall walking inflatable characters, will kick off the festivities with a show stopping, jaw-dropping performance. Zooperstars have been featured on America's Got Talent and sports arenas around the world.

Children will enjoy bounce houses, balloon sculptures, and jelly donuts. You'll even have the chance to star in your own music video. Advance RSVP required.

Gobble Tov!

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Northern Hills HaZaK to focus on affordable care act The Affordable Care Act will be the focus when the HaZaK group of Northern Hills Synagogue Congregation B'nai Avraham holds its monthly program on Wednesday, November 20th. Following a delicious lunch, Attorney Bill Freedman, with Dinsmore & Shohl, LLP, will present “The Affordable Care Act Demystified: Practical Tips to Cope with the Coming Changes to Health Care.” The event will take place at the Synagogue and begins at noon.

No topic is of greater concern in America today than the impact of the Affordable Care Act. Both information and disinformation are widely circulated. Amidst all of this confusion, it is vitally important to have the correct facts to enable people to make informed decisions.

“HaZaK” is an acronym, with the letters standing for the Hebrew words “Hakhma” (wisdom), “Ziknah” (maturity), and “Kadima” (forward). The HaZaK programs are for adults 55 and older, and are open to the entire community. In addition to members of Northern Hills, many attendees have come from the Jewish Community Center, Cedar Village, Brookwood Retirement Community, and throughout Greater Cincinnati.

There is no charge for the program and lunch, but donations are greatly appreciated. Please RSVP to the Synagogue office by Monday, November 18th.

The completed Benjamin Felson archives now open for research The University of Cincinnati’s Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions received two generous donations, from Nancy Felson and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine’s Department of Radiology, to process the “Dr. Benjamin Felson papers”.

Dr. Felson was an expert radiologist and inspiring teacher who served as the director of radiology at Cincinnati General Hospital for over 20 years. This important project has recently been completed and is now open for research purposes.

In honor of what would have been Dr. Felson’s 100th birthday, and in conjunction with the opening of this collection, the Winkler Center is hosting an exhibit on the history of radiol-

Dr. Benjamin Felson

ogy through December 31, 2013.

Dr. Felson is rememberd fondly by many of his students and colleagues at the University.

Correspondence received so far has show how much his opinion was respected by his peers and sought after by his students.

One letter indicated two points that were most important to Dr. Felson: that if you learn it, you’ll like it; and any method will fail if done poorly and will succeed if done well.

Furthermore, Dr. Felson believed that enthusiasm was the best attribute for a teacher, better than erudition and better than research expertise.

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

VOL. 160 • NO. 17 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013 11 KISLEV 5774 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 5:06 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 6:07 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

Upcoming Hanukkah get-together for young professionals at the Skirball Museum The Skirball Museum of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is offering a Young Professionals’ Hanukah GetTogether on Sunday, December 1.

The event starts at 4:00 p.m. with a chance to see Hanukkah menorahs from around the world and to visit the special Boris Schatz exhibition of bronze and wood reliefs, ivories,

oils and sepia paintings. Schatz (1867-1932) founded the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, which tried to express the authentic “Jewishness” of the characters it depicted. Attendees of the gettogether will have an opportunity to make a brass relief of their own to take home.

Participants can also view An

Eternal People: The Jewish Experience. This permanent exhibit includes seven galleries that show the heritage of the Jewish people through immigration, archaeology, the Torah and other topics.

Starting at 5:30 p.m., participants can light the Hanukah candles with friends and enjoy a Hanukah dinner.

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Lecture to advance cause of interfaith studies coming to UC The inaugural “Conway Lecture in Catholic Studies ” will be delivered by John Connelly, history professor at University of CalifornaiBerkeley and author of the recent book, “From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933-1965.” The lecture will be at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 20, in Alumni Hall in the Russell C. Myers Alumni Center.

Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr will deliver opening remarks at the event. The lecture series, sponsored by the University of Cincinnati program in Catholic studies, explores the historical and contemporary significance of Catholicism in the global Catholic Church.

“The UC program in Catholic

studies hopes to contribute to academic learning and the common good concurrently,” says professor Jeff Zalar. “Because it has implications for enriching the CatholicJewish interfaith relationship, John Connelly’s scholarship accomplishes these dual goals. The exciting participation of Archbishop Schnurr emphasizes the great promise of the Conway Lecture Series as yet another way UC reaches out to our community.”

The lecture will discuss Connelly’s findings on the changing face of the Catholic-Jewish relationship since the days of the Holocaust.

He explores the question of how Catholic intellectuals undertook one of the most momentous, yet neglected and misunderstood theological

transformations in modern history.

The lecture is co-sponsored by Catholic studies, the Department of Judaic Studies, and the Department of History, all programs within the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences at UC. Community organizations involved in the development of this event include the Jewish Community Relations Council, the American Jewish CommitteeCincinnati, and the Center for Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier University.

The lecture honors Ruth J. and Robert A. Conway, whose vision and generosity established the program in Catholic Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Steadfast opposition to public prayer took small-town litigant to Supreme Court

By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – The need for a firm barrier between church and state is as clear now for Susan Galloway as it was in grade school, when she was expected to sing carols at the Christmas show.

Galloway grew up in McHenry, Ill., a town northwest of Chicago with few other Jews, and the carols sung in school made ample mention of Jesus. Galloway refused to take part.

“It was against everything I was taught,” Galloway told JTA. As an adult living in the Rochester, N.Y., suburb of Greece, Galloway encountered a similar problem. Each town board meeting would open with a Christian prayer that mentioned Jesus. She and a friend, Linda Stephens, both became uncomfortable.

Now the effort by Galloway and Stephens to stop it has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Oral arguments were held last week in a case that could substantially redefine the scope of acceptable prayers in public venues across the country.

“They’re asking us to bow our heads, they’re asking us to join them in the Lord’s Prayer, they’re asking us to stand – all of this is in the name of Jesus Christ,” Galloway, 51, said in an interview last week. “This one guy went on about the resurrection.

We have preachers who stand there with their hands in the air.”

Galloway’s day in court is the culmination of six years of legal battles that began after she started attending board meetings regularly in a bid to save the local public access television channel. Initially she and Stephens appealed to the board supervisor, but they were relegated to subordinates who told them

to get over it.

“They basically told us we could leave or put up with it,” Galloway said. “I was offended.”

They sought backing from outside groups, but many turned them away. Especially hurtful for Galloway was the deaf ear from the Rochester Board of Rabbis.

“I presented the issue, and I hoped other rabbis would see it that way,” said Rabbi Simeon Kolko, a childhood friend of Galloway who agreed to make the case on her behalf. “There was not a willingness.”

Rabbi Larry Kotok, the board president, did not respond to a request for comment.

At first, Galloway said, she and Stephens felt ostracized; then it got worse. Threatening letters came in, some signed “666,” the Christian signifier of the devil. Stephens’ home was vandalized. Galloway believes hers was spared because she lives on a busy street.

But Galloway refused to be cowed – a product, she said, of an upbringing that stressed believing in the best of others. A soft-spoken rehabilitation specialist who works with the elderly – “I love bubbies!”

– Galloway concedes a stubborn streak.

“I wanted to believe if you have a conversation with people and you explain to them a point of view and they understand something, there’s a way to work the issue out,” she said.

“But they did not want to talk or negotiate or anything.”

With the assistance of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Galloway and Stephens pressed the issue. At first the town seemed responsive, opening up the sessions to prayers of other faiths four times in 2008. But

the sides couldn’t settle and the matter went to the courts.

The fact that the Supreme Court is taking the case is not necessarily good news for Galloway. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled on her behalf, but when the Supreme Court considers appeals from lower courts it mostly intends to reverse the decision.

Still, Galloway has accrued the support – from Jewish and nonJewish groups – she felt was missing in the case’s early days. An array of OPPOSITION on page 22

Wise Temple presents ‘Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust’ The little-known holocaust story with a Cincinnati a connection: Rescue in the Philippines, Refuge from the Holocaust will be presented on Sunday November 17 from 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM at Wise Center. The one-hour DVD documentary is the story of a fascinating “cast of characters,” the Frieder brothers of Cincinnati and their high-placed friends, including Colonel Dwight Eisenhower, who hammered out a plan to rescue Jews from Nazi Germany by using their cigar factory in the Philippines.

Set in Manila, the documentary tells the gripping story of a perilous humanitarian mission to save Jews from persecution. The story is told through interviews with historians and relatives of the key players.

Alice Weston, daughter of one of the brothers, Alex Frieder, will introduce the film and entertain questions after the film.

The program is open to everyone. It’s perfect for parents bringing their children to Sunday school who can stay for the program. RSVPs are encouraged but not necessary.

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Israel experience launches Brad Ausmus into job as Tigers manager

By Hillel Kuttler

Courtesy of Israel Association of Baseball

Manager Brad Ausmus

BALTIMORE (JTA) – Almost from the moment they met him, several officials and players with Israel’s national baseball team said they saw manager Brad Ausmus headed for the major leagues.

They cited his communication skills, command of the game and preparation – not to mention his 18year playing career as a catcher that included winning three Gold Gloves and reaching the 2005 World Series with the Houston Astros.

“We knew that even though he’d never had any managerial experience, he’d go and be a major league manager,” said Nate Fish, the

bullpen catcher for an Israeli squad that came up short in its bid for the World Baseball Classic. “The overall chemistry was at a very, very high level, and Brad was very professional. He created a very good environment in the clubhouse.”

Fish and the others proved prophetic: Ausmus, 44, was introduced Sunday as the manager of the Detroit Tigers, succeeding Jim Leyland.

Ausmus joins a short roster of Jews who have managed major league teams, which includes current Oakland Athletics manager Bob Melvin – both have Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers. The first was one of the earliest Jewish play-

ers, Lipman Pike, an outfielderinfielder who managed the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1877.

In the WBC qualifiers, Israel won its first two games before being eliminated by Spain in a 10-inning loss.

“Brad did a great job of managing the entire tournament, especially the [elimination] loss, which he handled with dignity and class,” said Gabe Kapler, who coached for Team Israel alongside Ausmus, his former Tigers teammate, and now is a Tampa Bay Rays consultant.

His age and long playing career helped Ausmus earn respect from the Team Israel players, officials and players said.

Ausmus was so refined in his attention to detail, said Peter Kurz, president of the Israel Association of Baseball, that the team practiced keeping on its caps for the playing of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, following Israeli custom.

In assembling the club, Ausmus compiled information on prospective players on his iPad and index cards. His recruiting effort also included calls to scores of candidates, as well as their parents.

His work not only before but during the WBC qualifying “made our team legitimate,” Kurz said. The experience apparently assured AUSMUS on page 21

With more dual-faith families ‘doing both,’ outreach groups reconsidering approach

By Julie Wiener NEW YORK (JTA) – When Susan Katz Miller’s Episcopalian mother and Jewish father married in the 1960s, they did exactly what most religious leaders advised intermarried couples to do: They chose one religion and stuck to it.

Katz Miller’s mother put her religious tradition aside, learning to make matzah balls and shepherding her four children through bar and bat mitzvah lessons.

But when Katz Miller married her Episcopalian husband, she didn’t want to choose. Instead, she and her husband raised their

two children with knowledge of both their Jewish and Christian heritages and left it up to them to decide how to identify.

In a recently published book and in an Op-Ed Friday in The New York Times, Katz Miller makes the case that this approach is good not just for interfaith families and their children, but for the Jewish community itself.

Children raised in this way are not “lost” to Judaism, she says.

Some grow up to practice Judaism exclusively, while others will “have an unusual knowledge of and affinity for Judaism” even as they practice other faiths.

“Both my experience and my

research tell me that we are turning out young adults who feel deeply connected to Judaism, not through coercion, but through choice,” Katz Miller wrote in the Times.

Jewish institutions have become increasingly accepting of intermarried couples and their children in recent years, but raising children in two faiths remains largely frowned upon. The established view has long been that the approach is confusing and waters down important distinctions between religious traditions.

But significant numbers of Courtesy of Interfaith Community

FAMILIES on page 20

An interfaith couple celebrating a baby naming organized by Interfaith Community.

Hillel at 90: The Jewish campus umbrella’s past, present, and future

By Alina Dain Sharon (JNS) – When recent rabbinical school graduate Rabbi Benjamin Frankel began a part-time clerical position in 1923 working with students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), little could he have imagined that within less than a century, the small Jewish student program would balloon into a national and international organization with a presence at 550 colleges and universities.

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life is celebrating its 90th anniversary in November, the organization confirmed. Under its first full-time national director, Abram L. Sachar, Hillel grew from a primarily religious organization to a center of cultural Jewish learning at a time when Judaism was still viewed with suspicion in academia, and when the existence of Jewish students on American college campuses was relatively new.

“In this dynamic and global environment, our young people will go off and pursue careers and oppor-

tunities all over the world, but the one time and place when we have the greatest critical mass of the future of the Jewish people is during the college years,” current Hillel CEO Eric Fingerhut, who assumed the position this summer, told JNS. Wayne Firestone, Fingerhut’s immediate predecessor and current president of the Genesis Prize Foundation, told JNS that Hillel is a “shining example in American Jewish life on why and how higher education has been good for Jews and why Jews have been good for higher education.”

While continuing to foster a community for American college students, Hillel also involved itself over the years in international causes such as bringing Jewish student refugees to the U.S. on education scholarships, freeing Soviet Jewry for emigration, and growing support for Israel, especially in the wake of the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. In the late 1980s, Hillel underwent another transformation under the directorship of Richard M. Joel,

who led the effort to “recognize the growth of Jewish life on campus and to greatly expand together with some extraordinary Jewish philanthropists the footprint of Hillel, to build the physical infasctructure of Hillel, and to enable to reach the campuses where a large percentage of our Jewish students are,” Fingerhut said.

Hillel became an independent non-profit organization in 1994 and eventually adopted a “big tent” policy to repesent its philosophy of inclusiveness. If in the early years Hillel had to find a way to hold minyanim across the Jewish denominations in the same venue respectfully, more recently the organization had to find ways to welcome students from homes with one Jewish parent or Jews who define themselves as part of the LGBTQ community.

In 2002, Hillel partnered with the Jewish Agency for Israel to create its Center for Israel Affairs.

Among its Israel-related activities, Hillel organized events, brought experts to speak on campuses, and

trained students in Israel advocacy.

Hillel also became involved with Taglit-Birthright Israel, bringing more than 10,000 Jewish students to Israel in the first three years of the program alone.

Via the Jewish Agency, Hillel also began to invite young Israelis to spend one or two years working at local campus Hillels in leadership roles. Today, 58 Jewish Agency Israel Fellows to Hillel serve 67 North American campuses, according to Hillel.

“It’s really hard for people to embrace governments or ideology, and yet to embrace a specific person who has a real narrative… makes it much more difficult to demonize Israel if you’ve actually met an Israeli and you see them as a human being,” Firestone said.

Few people can attest to the success of the Israel Fellows program more than Erez Cohen, the current director of UIUC’s Illini Hillel, who served as an Israel Fellow at the same campus from 2009-2012.

“What I learned most of all [as an Israel Fellow] is that there isn’t

one category of the most successful Jewish student. We need to to reach a lot of tastes by a lot of people,” Cohen told JNS. Of the 10 students who worked with Cohen directly on events and activities during his first two years as a fellow, today one works at a Hillel and another works for a pro-Israel organization. Three others have since made aliyah, one works for the Israeli consulate in Chicago, and the rest are also involved in Jewish organizations.

Yet Hillel’s work to connect American Jewish students with Israel has not come without controversy, often relating to the questions surrounding the group’s “big tent” policy.

Hillel’s official guidelines state that the group will not “partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers that delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel.” But a student campaign, Open Hillel, was recently founded by students who feel excluded from HILLEL on page 22

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

National Briefs

Courtesy of Washington Jewish Week

Nathan Lewin, left, and his daughter Alyza created headaches for major Jewish groups by persevering with a so-far unsuccessful lawsuit to get the State Department to recognize Jerusalem-born Americans as born in Israel.

Whither the Jewish macher?

Upstarts increasingly setting Jewish agenda

By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) – On Sept. 27, the conservative political blogger Ken Berwitz was enraged – not by Democratic malfeasance, his favored bugbear, but by the policies of an Oklahoma-based chain of craft stores.

Berwitz was bothered not only that Hobby Lobby was keeping Hanukkah tchotchkes off its shelves, but that a clerk at a New Jersey outlet had accounted for the omission by explaining that the store doesn’t “cater to you people.”

“I will never set foot in a hobby lobby. Ever,” Berwitz seethed on his blog. “I will be sure to tell everyone I know and, obviously, everyone who reads this blog, the reason why.”

The story quickly went viral.

Within a week, Hobby Lobby had apologized and announced that in time for the holiday season, it would be stocking dreidels and menorahs in certain locations. The AntiDefamation League posted the apology on its website while noting that not stocking Jewish items did not indicate bigotry.

A swift victory in the Internet age?

Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director, isn’t so sure. In fact, the whole experience left him uneasy.

“In the good old days, when someone said something critical or nasty, you could ignore it,” Foxman said. “Now everyone has a megaphone. Your supporters come and say, ‘Did you hear?’You’re forced to deal and engage.”

From matters of state to determinations of what should and should not offend Jews, the major Jewish organizations have been forced to contend in recent years with individuals or small activist groups that increasingly determine which issues

dominate the communal agenda.

Recent controversies over religious freedom in the military and American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital have been driven not by the country’s largest Jewish groups but by individuals who bypass traditional channels of Jewish advocacy.

One of the more consequential recent examples was a lawsuit brought by Nathan and Alyza Lewin on behalf of Menachem Zivotofsky, an American citizen born in Jerusalem. The father-daughter legal team sought to force the U.S. State Department to hew to a 2002 law allowing Jerusalem-born Americans to list their country of birth as Israel – a law ignored by both President Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, citing presidential prerogative in shaping foreign policy.

The American Jewish Committee initially opposed the lawsuit, considering it dangerous to bring the issue of Jerusalem before the courts. But pressure from donors and right-wing activists ultimately persuaded the AJC and other major Jewish groups to sign on.

The lawsuit backfired. In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the president’s exclusive power “to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign,” enshrining in legal precedent the president’s preeminence in foreign policy matters over Congress, which has historically proved a pro-Israel bulwark at moments of tension between Israel and the White House.

“How far Congress has the power to rein in the executive is not trivial,” one regretful senior official at a group that backed the lawsuit said at the time of the ruling.

Freelancers “do a lot things that make short-term sense for the cause UPSTARTS on page 19

N.Y. superintendent defends school district against reports of rampant anti-Semitism (JTA) – The superintendent of a New York State school district that has been accused of anti-Semitic harassment said the district “has a long history of acceptance and tolerance.”

Joan Carbone, superintendent of the Pine Bush Central School District 90 miles north of New York City, acknowledged in a statement issued Sunday that the school is getting “much media attention” since a New York Times article published on Friday reported on the years of swastikas and anti-Semitic behavior on the part of students there.

The alleged behavior caused three Jewish families to file a lawsuit against the school district and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to order investigations into the allegations of antiSemitic harassment.

Citing depositions in the lawsuit, The New York Times reported that Jewish students have complained of anti-Semitic epithets and nicknames, jokes about the Holocaust, being forced to retrieve coins from dumpsters and physical violence. Fellow students are accused of making Nazi salutes and telling anti-Semitic jokes.

Parents of the students who say they have suffered from the antiSemitic incidents said that the school district did not take complaints seri-

ously and that the complaints of antiSemitic harassment were isolated, according to the Times.

In the 1970s, Pine Bush was the home of the grand dragon of a Ku Klux Klan chapter whose wife sat on the district’s school board, according to the Times.

Iraqi Jewish Archive goes on display in Washington (JNS) – The U.S. National Archives is now displaying 24 out of 2,700 Jewish books and ancient documents that were recovered in the basement of the Iraqi intelligence ministry (Mukhabarat) during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The exhibit opened Nov. 8 and will run through Jan. 5, 2014.

According to an agreement the U.S. signed with Iraqi authorities, the collection – known as the “Iraqi Jewish Archive” – will be returned to the Iraqi government when its restoration is complete. But the Iraqi Jewish community says the Saddam Hussein government originally confiscated the materials from a synagogue in 1984.

Stanley Urman, executive vice president of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), previously told JNS, “We (JJAC) believe the agreement is based on a flawed premise, that premise being that the archives are the property of the Iraqi government. Our question is – how did they get into the basement of the Mukhabarat?”

John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict comments blasted by top Jewish leaders (JNS) – Top American Jewish

leaders, in interviews published Sunday by The Algemeiner, blasted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for his comments last week on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

Kerry had said that failed IsraeliPalestinian conflict negotiations could lead to a third Palestinian intifada, and that the U.S. agrees with the Palestinian Authority’s position that Israeli construction beyond the 1967 lines is illegitimate and presents an obstacle to peace.

“Why would the Palestinians negotiate on anything when the secretary of state calls settlements ‘illegal,’ when he says Israeli troops have to leave West Bank, when he increases aid to the PA when their corruption infuriates the Palestinian street, and seems to make no demands for Palestinians to once and for all stop the attacks on their neighbor’s legitimacy?” said Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Future D.C. Bible museum likely to partner with Israeli museums (JNS) – A planned international Bible museum in Washington, D.C., slated for opening in 2017, will seek to partner with Israeli museums and others around the world to “share the history, story, and impact of Jewish and Christian texts.”

The Bible museum is an initiative of Steven Green, president of the national retail chain Hobby Lobby, whose Green Collection is the world’s largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts. Green plans to donate his entire collection to the future museum.

8 • INTERNATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

The French Jews who anticipated the Nazi onslaught

By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) – His hearing isn’t what it used to be, but Georges Loinger still remembers Adolf Hitler’s voice emanating from the radio at his Strasbourg home.

Growing up in the heavily Germanic Alsace region of eastern France, Loinger and his family tuned in regularly to broadcasts of Hitler’s speeches. They heard his “electrifying voice” and the plans he had in store for the Jews of Europe.

So when the Nazis’ anti-Jewish propaganda turned to deadly violence on Kristallnacht, the pogrom unleashed on the Jews of Germany and Austria 75 years ago this week, the Jews of Strasbourg were ready.

“We had read Nazi propaganda,” said Loinger, 103, who fought in the French resistance. “We spoke to hundreds of Jewish refugees from Germany. We knew what was coming.”

Historians say the knowledge, unusual for Jewish communities outside Germany and Austria, made the 20,000 Jews of Alsace and nearby Lorraine better prepared to face the forthcoming Nazi occupation.

The community was able to help German Jews, hide heritage assets and private possessions and, most important, survive. Ten percent of the Jewish population of Alsace and

International Briefs Pope Francis on Kristallnacht: Jewish people ‘big brothers’ of Catholics (JNS) – Pope Francis I called the Jewish people the “big brothers” of Roman Catholics as he marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the November 1938 looting and violence against German Jews and their businesses that is considered the start of the atrocities of the Holocaust.

U.K. and Iran re-establish diplomatic ties (JNS) – Despite the breakdown in talks between Western powers and Iran over its nuclear program, the United Kingdom and Iran have re-established diplomatic ties, ending two years of severed relations.

The U.K. severed ties with Iran in 2011 after Iranian protestors upset over British sanctions stormed its embassy in Tehran.

According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, both sides agreed to reestablish ties at the sidelines of the United Nation’s General

Lorraine perished in the Holocaust, compared to 22 percent elsewhere in France.

“From testimonies and the wealth of material we have, we see that Alsatian Jews were much more aware of what was happening in Germany than Jews in Paris,” said Serge Klarsfeld, a Nazi hunter and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Holocaust in France.

A key figure in the effort, according to Klarsfeld, was a Strasbourg physician named Joseph Weil, who used a vast network of contacts to help Jews flee Nazi Germany for Switzerland and southern France. One of the groups, OSE, is credited with rescuing 5,000 Jewish children.

Weil also began sounding the alarm as a volunteer instructor at Strasbourg’s Merkaz Hanoar youth center, telling his charges that Hitler was much more powerful than they had been told. Weill’s warnings went unheeded by Parisian Jewish leaders, who believed Hitler to be no match for the mighty French army.

Between 1934 and 1941, Alsatian Jews launched other groups to protect themselves and help others, including the Committee for Assistance to Refugees led by Raymond-Raoul Lambert.

Assembly gathering in September.

French President Francois Hollande, in change of heart, will speak to Knesset (JNS) – French President Francois Hollande, who initially said he did not intend to address the Israeli Knesset during his visit to Israel next week, announced Sunday that he changed his mind and will deliver a speech before the plenum after all.

Hollande at first planned to speak to Israeli university students rather than to the Knesset.

Iran sanctions relief proposal accentuates U.S.-Israel differences (JNS) – The latest P5+1 talks in Geneva ended with no deal between Western powers and Iran, but a U.S. offer to Iran of reduced sanctions in exchange for temporarily reduced uranium enrichment has accentuated America’s policy differences with Israel.

According to the U.S. deal, Iran would reportedly receive sanctions relief if it suspended high-grade uranium enrichment (20 percent) for six months. Iran would still be able to enrich to 3.5 percent.

France also opposed the U.S. deal, with its foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, telling France Inter Radio, “The security con-

Courtesy of Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum

Raymond-Raoul Lambert, seen in his Strasbourg office in the 1930s, founded the Committee for Assistance to Refugees.

Meanwhile, the Strasbourgbased Jewish magazine Tribune Juive “warned against the rise of Hitler to power – much more frequently and forcefully than Paris Jewish publications,” said Lucien Lazare, a historian at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

The level of mobilization was unusual in France, whose 300,000 Jews formed what then was the largest Jewish community in continental Western Europe outside

Germany.

“Jews in Paris were distant from Germany, they were not as aware of the threat,” said Lazare, 89. “In the minds of French Jews, who were very patriotic, the French army was the strongest in the world. They didn’t think the Nazis were an existential threat even after Kristallnacht.”

But the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine knew better thanks in part to what Yad Vashem describes as “riotous demonstrations” that erupted there in September 1938, two months

cerns of Israel and all the countries of the region have to be taken into account.”

status of the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic representation in Brussels from “general delegation” to “mission.”

“The raising [of status] reflects Belgian and European support for the two-state solution,” Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said Saturday during a visit to Jordan.

Typhoon Haiyan relief provided by Jewish groups (JNS) – Jewish groups organized relief efforts following Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded.

Authorities said it is possible that more than 10,000 people died from the storm.

Poll: Anti-Semitism prompts nearly one-third of European Jews to mull emigration (JNS) – Almost one-third (29 percent) of European Jews have considered emigrating over the past five years because they did not feel safe as Jews in their home country, according to a new survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

Twenty-one percent of respondents said they experienced antiSemitism through a physical attack or another form of harassment during the last year, and 52 percent said they fear their children will be subjected to a physical anti-Semitic attack.

Belgium upgrades Palestinian diplomatic status (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS) – Belgium is upgrading the

U.S., Israel lose voting rights at UNESCO over Palestinian dispute (JNS) – The United States and Israel have lost their voting rights at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) two years after the countries stopped paying their dues over the granting of membership to the Palestinians.

French NGO condemned for one-sided film on IsraeliPalestinian conflict (JNS) – AJC France last week condemned the French NGO Action Against Hunger (ACF) for distributing a film that solely blames Israel for the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.

“Broken Hopes,” whose bias was revealed through research by NGO Monitor, presents the views of three anti-Israel spokespeople who are in various ways connected to the anti-Israel Boycott,

before Kristallnacht. Though no one was hurt, Jewish shops were attacked in a precursor to the much larger and more deadly Kristallnacht pogroms.

“You have to recall that Alsace used to be German until 1918,” Lazare said. “So some locals considered themselves Germans. There was some virulent anti-Semitic propaganda there. There was Nazi agitation. It showed us just how strong the Nazi ideology was in the hearts of its supporters.”

Like many Alsatian Jews, Lazare’s family sold their home and other valuables months before the Nazi invasion. Within hours of the arrival of the German army in 1940, the family was prepared to go into hiding.

Their preparedness was due in part to the family’s exposure to Jewish refugees who had fled the Nazis. Lazare recalls hearing from his high school teacher “of the bands of Nazi thugs that would go around attacking Jews in Berlin” in 1939, a full year before the Nazis overran France.

But Alsatian Jewry’s high level of alert also may have been connected to memories of persecution that long predated the Nazis. In 1848, a series of pogroms erupted FRENCH on page 19 Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) movement or to organizations that oppose Israel’s existence.

Argentina anti-Semitism drops overall, grows online BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) – The number of antiSemitic incidents in Argentina dropped in 2012 compared to the previous year, though the number of physical assaults and online attacks rose.

Some 40 percent of the antiSemitic incidents occurred online, up from 33 percent the previous year. Of the online incidents, 40 percent occurred on Twitter, 20 percent took place on websites and 11 percent on Facebook.

German trade union leader opposes West Bank boycott BERLIN (JTA) – German trade union leader Michael Sommer vowed to stand up to unionists who want to boycott goods made in West Bank Jewish settlements.

“As long as I am head of this organization, there will never be a resolution that says ‘Don’t buy from Jews,’ “ said Sommer, 61, chair of the Federation of German Trade Unions, accepting the Arno Lustiger Award at the third annual German-Israel Congress on Sunday.

ISRAEL • 9

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Karnit Flug, first female Bank of Israel chief, targeting economic inequality

By Ben Sales JAFFA, Israel (JTA) – Andromeda Hill is a beachfront complex of luxury apartments connected by tree-lined pathways that features such amenities as a spa and business center. Five minutes down the road is Ajami, a low-income neighborhood profiled in the 2009 film of the same name that remains one of this city’s poorer districts.

Such gaps in income have been of mounting concern to Israelis and are high on the agenda of Karnit Flug, the newly appointed governor of the Bank of Israel and the first woman to hold the post.

In two recent presentations, Flug has drawn attention to income inequality in Israel and its potentially adverse impact on social cohesion.

“Our ability to continue existing as a society that is both multifaceted and socially cohesive depends, among other things, on how employment develops in Arab society in the next few years,” Flug said at a government conference on Israel’s minorities last month. “If we know how to maximize the potential for increased growth and how to reduce the gaps, we will all – Jews and Arabs – be able to enjoy the fruits of this process.”

The Occupy protests that swept the world in 2011, decrying the exploitation of the “99 percent,” demonstrated that Israel is not alone among developed

countries in facing large inequities in wealth distribution.

But among the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Israel ranked 30th in terms of wealth inequality.

A 2011 report from the OECD found that in 2008, Israel’s top 10 percent of earners earned 13 times more than the bottom tenth.

The report recommended “creating more and better jobs that offer good career prospects and a real chance for people to escape poverty.”

Flug agrees. Israel’s high income inequality, she says, is a function of low educational attainment and high unemployment among Israel’s poorest communities – Arabs and haredi Orthodox Jews. The explosion of Israel’s high-tech sector in the mid-1980s created many jobs for highly educated employees but left behind the poor and unskilled.

“Inequality in disposable income distribution rose until 2006 before stabilizing at a very high level,” Flug said last week in a presentation at the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel.

Growing the job market while maintaining a social safety net have been twin goals for Flug, who holds a doctorate in economics from Columbia University.

After a four-year stint at the International Monetary Fund, Flug joined the Bank of Israel in 1988 and became its deputy gov-

Courtesy of Miriam Alster / Flash 90

Karnit Flug was named successor to Stanley Fischer, right, as governor of the Bank of Israel.

ernor in 2011, serving under the well-regarded Stanley Fischer, who departed earlier this year.

After a lengthy selection process in which Flug was passed over multiple times, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed her to the bank’s top post in October.

Flug has served on government committees on the defense budget, market competitiveness and the National Insurance Institute. She also served on the Trajtenberg Committee, which was tasked with formulating a response to widespread protests

in 2011 over the rising cost of living.

The protests were partly a reaction to nearly a decade of privatization and cuts in public benefits. Founded on socialist values, Israel in its early years had a strong safety net and lionized the collectivist ideals of the kibbutz movement. But in the mid-1980s, Israel began to embrace free-market policies and privatize key state-owned companies. The outbreak of the second intifada by the Palestinians led to an economic crisis that prompted the government to cut entitlement

spending.

The 2011 demonstrations called on the government to restore the safety net. In its report, the Trajtenberg Committee recommended various measures, including raising the capital gains tax, increasing government aid for housing and free early childhood education.

In her presentation at the Taub Center, Flug recommended against direct government transfer payments to poor citizens, but she is in favor of Israel’s negative income tax, which provides a tax credit to low wage earners. Flug believes the measure incentivizes work.

As governor, Flug’s ability to implement such policies is limited. Like the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, the Bank of Israel’s function is to set the country’s monetary policy. Taxes, subsidies and incentives for job creation are determined by the Israeli government.

But Flug could still have an impact. Jack Habib, director of the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, a think tank that researches poverty in Israel, said Flug could advocate for reforms that bolster Israel’s minorities.

“There’s a lot more attention paid to social issues, social inequality, poverty and disadvantaged groups,” Habib said. The Bank of Israel plays “an important role in putting these issues on the agenda of the government.”

Israeli law could land rabbis in jail for flouting Chief Rabbinate

By Ben Sales TEL AVIV, Israel (JTA) – Advocates for religious pluralism in Israel thought they scored a minor victory last month with the passage of a law aimed at loosing the regulations surrounding marriage in the Jewish state.

For the first time, couples could choose an Orthodox rabbi from anywhere in Israel to marry them, not just one from their hometowns.

But a little-noticed amendment to the law could land some rabbis and newlyweds in jail for marrying outside the rabbinate system.

Under the law, anyone who fails to register an Orthodox marriage or divorce with the country’s Chief Rabbinate could face a twoyear prison sentence.

It’s not entirely clear to which marriages this would apply.

According to initial reports, Reform and Conservative marriages also could be subject to prosecution under the law. But sources in the Chief Rabbinate

and Israel’s Religious Services Ministry told JTA that because the Orthodox-dominated rabbinate does not recognize Reform or Conservative weddings as “marriages,” only Orthodox ceremonies that are not registered could be subject to prosecution.

Under this logic, if the Chief Rabbinate considers the wedding “unkosher” – for example, it includes liberal innovations like the bride presenting a ring to the groom – the couple would likely not be considered married by the rabbinate and thus not subject to penalties under the law, said a rabbinate source who wished to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to comment on the matter.

But the source said that if the wedding is considered valid according to standards of the Chief Rabbinate, including core features of an Orthodox ceremony such as a marriage contract and the recitation of the seven traditional blessings, then participants could face jail time if the marriage

is not registered.

“Every wedding performed according to Jewish law needs to be registered,” the source said.

“Every ceremony that is not according to Jewish law is not a wedding.”

Idit Druyan, spokesperson for Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben-Dahan, told JTA that the purpose of the law is to discourage husbands from remarrying without ritually divorcing their current wives.

The law’s main impact likely will not be on Reform and Conservative ceremonies but on marriages performed by Orthodox rabbis who do not register the ceremonies with the Chief Rabbinate.

Under Israeli law, only marriages performed by Orthodox rabbis and registered with the rabbinate are recognized by the state.

While unregistered weddings

by Orthodox rabbis are relatively few in number, religious pluralism advocates say growing numbers of Orthodox Jews are choosing that option, either in protest of the

Chief Rabbinate or because they feel the rabbinate is out of touch with their needs.

“Weddings are a private matter and the state is getting involved,” said Batya Kehana-Dror, who aids women undergoing ritual divorce.

She said couples are marrying outside the rabbinate “to break the monopoly.”

“That only rabbis who are approved can marry and divorce when most of the population is not religious is a third-world law,” Kehana-Dror said.

Two officiants who perform Orthodox weddings outside the auspices of the rabbinate told JTA that they intend to keep performing them, regardless of the amendment. Both requested anonymity so as to avoid arrest.

One officiant, who adds rituals for women to the ceremony and makes adjustments to the marriage contract for the protection of the bride, said she would be willing to serve as a test case to challenge the law in court.

“As long as the State of Israel

doesn’t allow its citizens to marry the way they feel is correct, in terms of their own sense of Jewish identity, then I have no problem taking the civil liberty of making sure that people can set up their intimate connection and mutual commitment to each other in the way they want,” she said.

“As someone who believes in the evolution of Jewish law, gender equality and continuing Jewish tradition, you can’t expect the current ultra-Orthodox monopoly on Jewish marriage in this country to meet the needs of how people live their lives today.”

The other officiant told JTA that transgressing the Chief Rabbinate’s restrictions does not necessarily mean breaking Orthodox Jewish law.

“I’m not saying that Orthodox people won’t raise their eyebrows,” he said. “I provide a solution to people who want a connection to their Jewish identity without coercion.”

10 • ISRAEL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Netanyahu in G.A. speech continues ‘bad deal’ mantra on Iran

By JTA Staff JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed his hard line against Iran’s nuclear program in an address to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Jerusalem.

Speaking Sunday on the opening night of the G.A., Netanyahu also repeated his demand that in order for Israel to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians, Palestinian leadership must recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

He finished by calling for a continued strong bond between Israel and the North American Jewish community.

On Iran, Netanyahu criticized the compromise proposed in recent

multilateral negotiations over its nuclear program, calling it a “bad deal” multiple times.

“What is being proposed now is a deal in which Iran retains all of that capacity” to build a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu told the representatives of Jewish communities across the United States and Canada. “Not one centrifuge is dismantled; not one.

Iran gets to keep tons of low enriched uranium.”

Western powers and Iran failed to reach agreement in negotiations last week on easing sanctions against Iran in return for the Islamic Republic freezing its nuclear program for six months. The sides are expected to meet again in 10 days.

Netanyahu said he would continue to criticize such an agreement and called on his audience to join him in

advocating against it. Later he suggested that Iran has plans to attack the United States.

“When it comes to Jewish survival and the survival of the Jewish state, I will not be silenced, ever,” he said to loud cheers from the crowd.

“We are the Jewish state. We are charged with defending ourselves and speaking up. All of us, all of us, have to stand up and speak up.”

Regarding ongoing IsraeliPalestinian peace negotiations, Netanyahu repeated his long-held conviction that the root of the conflict is Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state.

He also said that Israel must have “robust security arrangements” in order to be confident that a peace with the Palestinians will last, and referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s

“undivided capital.”

The Palestinians claim the eastern half of the city as their capital and have slammed recent Israel announcements of building in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, as have the United States and others.

“The minimum thing we can demand is that the official position of the Palestinian leadership recognizes the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said. “This will be a long process but it must begin with that.”

At the end of the speech, Netanyahu praised the strong relationship between Israel and the U.S. and Canadian Jewish communities.

He noted his government’s efforts to reach a compromise between feuding factions at the Western Wall, long a high priority of American Jewish leaders.

“The Kotel is in Israel, but the Kotel belongs to all the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said, using the Hebrew term for the wall. “We have to consult together and reach a solution together.”

Netanyahu appeared relaxed during the speech, cracking jokes, leaning on the podium and calling out audience members by name.

And conference delegates speaking before Netanyahu echoed his speech’s main points, especially on Iran.

Speaking at a reception for the Ruderman Family Foundation before Netanyahu’s speech, former Netanyahu adviser Dore Gold called for the Jewish people “to unite on this issue of Iran.”

NETANYAHU on page 19

With electromagnetics and metal caps, Israeli companies aim to zap brain diseases

By Ben Sales

Courtesy of Neuronix

The Israeli company Neuronix uses electromagnetic pulses to treat Alzheimer’s patients

Israel Briefs Israel’s Sodastream to air $4 million Super Bowl ad (JNS) – Sodastream, the popular Israeli carbonated drinks company, has announced that it will kick off its 2014 advertising campaign with a $4 million Super Bowl ad for the second year in a row.

Israel shuts down two suspected Hamas offices in Jerusalem (JNS) – Israel’s Shin Bet security force said it shut down two eastern Jerusalem offices “from which the Hamas terror organization had been conducting actions” on Thursday.

The offices belonged to AlQuds Development and Amara al-Aqsa, two charities based in the northern Israeli cities of Umm al-Fahm and Nazareth, AFP reported.

Wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS) – An Israeli man and woman were wounded Friday morning when a Palestinian assailant threw a Molotov cocktail at their car as they drove by the Jewish community of Tekoa in Gush Etzion. Their car was destroyed in the fire.

Friday’s attack came after Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian terrorist on Thursday at Tapuach Junction in Samaria, after the terrorist used a makeshift gun to shoot at Israelis, according to a witness and Israeli authorities.

Jonathan Pollard’s Mossad handler: I was promised he would be freed (Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS) – Former Israeli cabinet minister Rafi Eitan, the exMossad agent who operated Jonathan Pollard in the mid1980s, told Army Radio on Monday that he handed over

JERUSALEM (JTA) – It looks like a futuristic salon hair dryer.

Connected to a computer by a bright orange strip, the half-cube with rounded corners sits comfortably atop the head, a coil of wires resting on the skull.

As a doctor stands at the computer, the patient gets comfortable. A few seconds later, a brief electromagnetic pulse hits the head.

Do this every weekday for six weeks, doctors tell Alzheimer’s patients, and you’ll feel your brain incriminating information about Pollard because the U.S. had promised Israel that Pollard would serve no more than 10 years in prison.

Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat (Likud) said Monday that the Israeli government should condition any further gestures to the Palestinians, including the release of terrorists, on the U.S. freeing Pollard.

Israel beats Guinness record for donating hair to cancer patients (JNS) – Israel broke the Guinness world record for donating the most hair to cancer victims in a single drive, producing 53.1 kilograms (117 pounds) on Monday, Israel Hayom reported.

The previous Guinness record was 48.7 kilograms (107 pounds).

List of acceptable Diaspora rabbis does not exist, Chief Rabbinate says JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel’s Chief Rabbinate said it does not have a list of Diaspora rabbis

come back to life.

The technique, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, uses electromagnetic waves to penetrate the brain and activate underused neural connections.

Two Israeli companies are hoping it will change the way brain diseases are treated.

“This is the first time in neuroscience that we have a noninvasive tool to directly penetrate and influence deep structures of the brain in a targeted way,” said Ronen Segal, the chief technology officer of Brainsway, based in Jerusaslem.

“No shocks, no hospitalization. You come into the clinic, you sit in the chair for 20 minutes, you get a series of electromagnetic zaps.”

Unlike electroshock therapy, now known as electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT – a risky and controversial procedure long used to counteract severe depression and other disorders – TMS targets specific regions of the brain rather than the whole organ and at a much lower intensity. Unlike ECT, Brainsway’s clinical trials show TMS carries

whose testimony it accepts on clarifying one’s Jewish or marital status.

Responding to a request made in September by the Tzohar rabbinical organization to see such a list, a spokesman for the Chief Rabbinate told The Jerusalem Post that “no list exists either hidden or public.”

Meanwhile, the Knesset Caucus on Religion and State is scheduled to hold a hearing on Wednesday to discuss the Chief Rabbinate’s rejection of letters certifying the Jewishness of immigrants to Israel by North American Orthodox rabbis.

Yachimovich both advocated for the loosening of Orthodox control of Israel’s religious laws.

Lapid and Yachimovich at G.A.: Loosen Orthodox grip on religion in Israel JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Labor Party Chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich called for greater religious pluralism in Israel.

Speaking in separate appearances Monday at a plenary session of the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly in Jerusalem, Lapid and

ELECTROMAGNETICS on page 19

Israel to build Jewish communities in Negev on Bedouin-claimed land JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel will demolish unauthorized Bedouin villages in the Negev Desert and replace them with newly built religious Jewish communities.

The demolition of Umm alHiran under the Prawer plan, which would destroy unrecognized Bedouin communities and relocate the residents to planned communities, is the subject of an Israeli Supreme Court case that is scheduled to be heard next week, according to Haaretz.

Liberman returns as Israeli foreign minister JERUSALEM (JTA) – Former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman returned to his post a week after being acquitted on a charge of fraud and breach of trust.

SOCIAL LIFE • 11

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

ANNOUNCEMENTS MISSION TRIP articipants of The Transition Mission, including Daniel Schimberg of Cincinnati, just returned from a high-impact trip to Israel (October 26-November 1, 2013), aimed at exploring the challenging issues that confront modern-day Israelis and American Jews. Participants traveled to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Technion-Israel Institute in Haifa, and met a cross-section of Israelis, including start-up entrepreneurs. Schimberg traveled with his uncle, Edward R.

P

Bonnie Juran Ullner, President of Cincinnati Chapter, Holly Corbin Wolfson, Sherri Kim Symson, David “Dush” Barashi, Carol Ann Schwartz, Ali Socol Bernstein and Tracy Levine.

HADASSAH OPENING MEETING Hadassah Opening Meeting and Dinner was held on Sunday, September 29, 2013.

David Barashi (also known as "Dush the Clown") spoke about the "Dream Doctors" Project, and Hadassah doctors Shelly Negari and Gilad Hamdani, were also in attendance, along with their families. The event was chaired by Holly Corbin Wolfson, Sherri Kim Symson, Ali Socol Bernstein and Tracy Levine.

More photos on Page 12

Daniel Schimberg

Goldberg of Westport, who created and led the 16-person journey.

12 • CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

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Michelle Kohn, Dr. Shelly Ben Harush Negari and her husband Amit Ben Harush.

Lori Frisher, Paige Mezibov Silver, Deb Zehetmaier, Andrea Schmerler Shapiro and Molli Tobin Monk.

David Barashi, Dr. Gilad Hamdani and his wife Maya Hirsh.

Bobbie Signer (in back), Ilana K. Liss, Jaime Abel Goldstein, Amy Fox Fisher and Marci Blachman.

Lesley Krellen Podberesky, Francie Mallin Davis and Sherri Kim Symson.

Charlotte Hattenbach, Cara Shapiro and LeeAnne Galioto.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

Gayna Bassin, Sharon Casper and Karen Silverman.

CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE • 13

14 • DINING OUT

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Kanak India gives Jewish diners Ambar quality in a Montgomery location

by Bob Wilhelmy Did you know that of the 25 or so Indian restaurants in the Greater Cincinnati area, three of the most popular are owned and operated by the same group?

The granddaddy of that group is Ambar India, perhaps the most patronized of all Indian restaurants in Greater Cincinnati, located on Ludlow Avenue in Clifton. The same folks operate the Kanak India restaurant in Montgomery, across from the Kroger store at 10040B Montgomery Road, at the north end of the strip-center located there.

While Kanak India opened five or so years ago, its heritage goes back decades. Most of the cuisine offered at Kanak is North Indian and curry based. Another fact about the foods of Northern India is that dishes are heavily influenced

by Afghanistan and points north and east of that bordering country.

The Punjab area of India is more westerly, and historically was less affected by the push of Afghani and European influences that shaped the culinary habits of the north region. These influences came into the North of India and never really went beyond that area of the country.

“That area” is primarily farmland that produces a cornucopia of fresh vegetables, including baby eggplant, squash, spinach, potatoes, okra, and a wide variety of other less-well-known vegetables indigenous to India.

The food (of the north) is richer in content, with more cream and butter used in its preparation. In the south, there is more fish and the food is coconut based. There are more rice dishes and wheat breads in the north and the flavors of that region of India are more subtle.

There is strong demand for Indian food in the Montgomery area, according to Gurpreet Atwal, manager of Kanak. “We have people from this area visiting our other restaurants in Clifton (Ambar) and on Madison Road (Baba India in Oakley),” he said, and having a restaurant in Montgomery serves those same people, but closer to home.

So what will you find at Kanak India, beside the aforementioned curry dishes? Luncheon diners will find a buffet selection, or the regular menu from which to order.

The buffet is $9.50 (see photos of buffet and wings platter). On it there are three to four entrée selections each in the vegetarian and meat categories, along with up to three appetizers, a couple of soups, and three desserts. Atwal emphasized that while the buffet lineup changes daily, the food quality is high and many of the most popular items are featured.

The kitchen crew, from left, chefs Artar Singh, Faarog, Paramjit Kainth and Kashmir Basra.

The chicken-wing platter, also part of the buffet.

The menu offers the usual wide range of choices, with about 60 entrée selections from which to choose. There are more than 20 vegetarian selections alone, including mater paneer, the cheese, peas and spices combo; and saag paneer, the ubiquitous Indian spinach dish cooked with cheese cubes and cream, for $11.49; and the NAV rattan korma, which is a mixed veggie dish, with nuts and raisins, for $11.99.

In the chicken specialties section, there is the aforementioned chicken curry, mildly spiced and in sauce, for $11.99. In addition, two

of the most popular dishes in the restaurant are the chicken tikka masala, and the chicken makhani, each $12.99. The former features broiled chicken, cooked further in a savory tomato and onion sauce.

The latter is chicken pieces cooked in a marinade and smothered in onions and tomatoes, with nuts and raisins added as well.

For those of us who prefer lamb dishes, there are eight from which to choose, and my favorite of the lot is the lamb curry, although the lamb do piaza is a close second.

The curry features the lamb chunks cooked slowly, at a simmer, in the

A portion of the luncheon buffet.

thick curry sauce that is fairly mild, for $13.99. The do piaza features the lamb, but smothered in onions tomatoes and peppers, and spiced according to the diner’s wants. Of course, if you want a hot one in the lamb category, vindaloo, which is a specialty of Goa, is the answer. It features chunks of lamb and potato, cooked in a thick, hot curry, for $13.99.

Those wanting dinner specials where complements to the entrée are offered, including the naan, try the Kanak India special for $17.99.

The diner includes the following: aloo tikki, or mildly spiced deep

fried potatoes; pakora, or fresh veggie fritters; chicken tandoori (the red chicken roasted in a clay oven); lamb curry; dal, or lentil soup; mater paneer; naan, a traditional tandoori style Indian bread; and a dessert. The whole deal is served on a silver platter—no kidding! There are three other dinner specials of the above type.

Kanak India 10040B Montgomery Rd Montgomery, OH 793-6800

DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

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16 • OPINION

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Turning to poetry, 75 years after Kristallnacht

By Janet R. Kirchheimer Let us remember… that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both. — Christian Wiman NEW YORK (JTA) – It was evening and it was morning, Nov. 9 and 10, 1938. Those days that became known as Kristallnacht, with its deceptively beautiful and poetic sounding name, “Night of Crystal,” – or, more commonly, “The Night of Broken Glass.”

Kristallnacht was a two-day pogrom unleashed by Nazi party officials and carried out by storm troopers and the Hitler Youth.

About 100 Jews were killed, almost 270 synagogues destroyed and 7,500 Jewishowned establishments looted.

Tens of thousands of Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. My father was one of them.

After hiding for the night in the family basement in Niederstetten, a small village in southern Germany, my father was ordered to report to the town hall on the morning of Nov. 10, 1938. When he asked what he had done wrong, he was told if he wanted to go home, they would arrest his father instead.

The police had a quota of 10 men to arrest. So along with nine others, my father was loaded onto a truck and taken to Dachau. He was 16 years old.

It has been 75 years since that day. My father and I have talked many times about his experiences in Dachau. He told me how he stood in line to be photographed, fingerprinted and have his head shaved, how he stood naked before SS guards who aimed fire hoses at prisoners and then gave them a striped cotton uniform.

“If you were lucky,” he said, “you got a hat.”

My father passed away two years ago. Other survivors of the Shoah are dying every day. How will we remember when the last survivors are gone? And what form will that remembrance take?

As the child of two survivors, I have given much thought to what will happen after the survivors are gone and the next generation assumes responsibility for sharing the Holocaust narrative. There have been many efforts to ensure Holocaust

remembrance, including academic study, recorded survivor testimonies, memorial services, museums and Holocaust education.

While all of these are invaluable, the disappearance of firsthand witnesses will require new ways to transmit the moral lessons and wisdom that can be gained through remembering.

“After the death of the last witnesses, the remembrance of the Holocaust must not be entrusted to historians alone,” the novelist Aharon Appelfeld observed. “Now comes the hour of artistic creation.”

In 2007, I published a book of poetry about the Holocaust and my family, “How to Spot One of Us.” Working with director Richard Kroehling, I am now producing “BE•HOLD,” a performance film that explores Holocaust poetry from the rise of Nazism to the present day.

Highlighting poems by wellknown and lesser-known poets, we are creating a deep well of voices responding to evil and its aftermath.

Poetry, like all great art, provokes us. And poetry about the Holocaust in particular can provoke us not only to remember, but to live more fully and with more meaning.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti called poetry “the shortest distance between two humans.”

Though nothing can take the place of the survivors themselves, the poetry left by victims and survivors can shorten the distance between survivors and succeeding generations, helping to ensure that the Shoah is remembered. It can also help us internalize the Shoah and use its moral lessons for our personal lives.

Toward the end of his life, my father was concerned that everyone in our family knew the stories of his family members who were murdered in Auschwitz. I told him I will always remember their stories and pass them down.

There are many ways to remember. I choose to remember through poetry.

Janet R. Kirchheimer is the author of “How to Spot One of Us” and producer of “BE•HOLD.” She is a teaching fellow at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

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

To the Editor, I have thought about my issues with Cedar Village for a long time.

Writing them a letter of apology concerning my litigation seven years ago during the High Holidays and offering to volunteer in whatever capacity. I think it is well known that I volunteered for years at the Orthodox Jewish Home for the Aged. My grandfather, Rabbi Eliezer Silver z”l, and Mr. Lashkow of Cleveland led the campaign to build the home.

When all of the nursing home beds were dedicated from the Orthodox home to Cedar Village our family donated time and effort for this beautiful new campus for the Jewish elderly. I personally volunteered and my mother chaired Friends of Cedar Village Welcoming Committee for new residents.

Perhaps I was wrong in bringing the matter to court. I conferred with Dr. Sidney Peerless z”l, and listened

to his advice to pursue litigation.

First I presented the case to Rabbi Gedalia Schwarz of the Chicago Rabbinical Council and Rabbi Zelig Sharfstein to review for the possibility of a bet din. They ruled that due to the complexity of the case it should go to regular civil court.

I regret pursuing this and it has deeply affected me emotionally. I hope that those in leadership at Cedar Village realize I was contesting a discharge that I knew was too early as I had no one at home to take care of me. I loved the care I received at Cedar Village. We all make mistakes and I have verbally apologized over the years to the CEO. I used to visit my family and friends at Cedar Village but now am not allowed on the property. Many have passed away. Others keep asking me to visit. After recent illnesses I was referred to Cedar Village outpatient physical therapy and was

denied services.

Recently my doctors wanted me to rehab at Cedar Village but I am denied service. From the bottom of my heart I regret the lawsuit which I did lose. I have never spoken about Cedar Village in a negative way and during the suit was quiet because of my great respect for the care the organization offers.

I hope anyone reading this letter, inlcuding the board and administration of Cedar Village, have pity on my situation and realize the toll this has taken on myself and not being able to go to the facility is a constant reminder how I was wrong in the pursuit of the case. I need Cedar Village as an observant Jew and I hope that I will be able to receive services from a facility that myself and my family has always held close to our hearts.

Barry Silver Cincinnati, OH

On Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama Administration is spineless

By Ben Cohen (JNS) – Here, in a nutshell, are the principles driving the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy. Screw the Syrians. Don’t upset the Iranians. And stop those damn Israelis from wrecking Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations.

We are coming to the end of a year marked by shameful climbdowns in the face of our enemies and utterly unreasonable demands made of our allies. In Syria, Obama temporarily toyed with the idea of launching air strikes against the regime of Bashar alAssad, before being seduced by a Russian proposal to have that same regime dismantle its own weapons of mass destruction.

There were lots of good reasons to attack Assad. For example, his military reliance on the Iranian regime and the terrorists of Hezbollah, as well as the moral imperative of combating the sheer evil of chemical weapons, but Obama, buoyed by isolationists on right and left, placed his faith in Vladimir Putin instead.

On Iran, the Geneva talks bringing together the mullahs and the P5+1 (the five members of the U.N. Security Council along with Germany) are a massive boost to the faux moderates around President Hassan Rouhani. The whole spectacle, frankly, was pathetic: as Iranian state television

aired a video that depicted an imaginary missile strike against Israeli cities like Tel Aviv and Dimona, western negotiators were busily figuring out how to ease the sanctions on the Iranian regime.

But it’s on the front of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that this Administration’s lack of backbone really shines through. Step forward Secretary of State John Kerry, who had the temerity to visit Israel this week in order to lecture Israeli voters about their government’s supposed lack of commitment to negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

It’s worth revisiting what Kerry said. “If we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel and an increasing campaign of delegitimization of Israel,” Kerry declared in a joint interview with Israeli and Palestinian broadcasters. “If we don’t end the presence of Israeli soldiers perpetually within the West Bank, then there will be an increasing feeling that if we cannot get peace with a leadership that is committed to non-violence, you may wind up with leadership that is committed to violence.”

This is such arrant nonsense that it’s hard to know where to begin. For one thing, it’s news to me that the Palestinian leadership is committed to non-violence.

Hamas, which rules Gaza and is absolutely a part of the fractured

Palestinian leadership, is not only committed to violence, but to violence with the sole purpose of destroying Israel. As for Mahmoud Abbas and the PA, they continue to glorify violence in their statements, refuse to abandon the so-called “right of return,” and are actively fanning conspiracy theories around the death of Yasser Arafat, perhaps in order to trigger a third intifada that Kerry says Israelis should be worried about.

Even more absurdly offensive is the idea that Israeli policies are to blame for the delegitimization campaign against Israel. Yes, Mr. Secretary, if only the Israelis would dismantle West Bank settlements, everything would be fine and dandy. Never mind the century-old Arab war against the Zionist movement. Never mind that these same Arab countries gave refuge to Nazi war criminals while promoting Holocaust denial and ethnically cleansing their own Jewish populations. Never mind that the efforts of your predecessors to deliver a solution were routinely frustrated by the Palestinian refusal to concede that Israel has a legal and moral right to live in peace.

Kerry’s statements remind me of a famous poem by Bertholt Brecht, entitled “Die Lösung” (“The Solution”). In it, Brecht CONFLICT on page 22

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

us to become circumcised, we will take our sister and leave” (34:17).

From this last phrase, it is clear that the meeting of the potential inlaws took place under the cloud of Dinah’s captivity; the sweet-talking Hamor was holding Dinah hostage.

To the surprise of Jacob’s sons, Hamor accepted the condition of circumcision. Simon and Levi took their swords on the third day after the mass circumcision; they slew every male in the city, including Shekhem and Hamor. They then rescued Dinah.

Father Jacob chides Simon and Levy: “You have sullied me, causing me to stink among the inhabitants of the land… I am few in number, and should they band together and attack me, I will be annihilated – I and my household” (34:30). But the last word of the chapter – and what gives final closure to the incident – is the statement of Shimon and Levi: “Should they be allowed to make our sister into a harlot?” (34:31).

It is especially important to note that Jacob does not charge his two sons with moral opprobrium; his condemnation is on political rather than ethical grounds. Plus, the Bible itself informs us that Jacob’s fears had no real basis. Much the opposite: “[Jacob and his entourage] traveled on, and there descended the fear of God upon all the cities roundabout, and no one dared to pursue the sons of Jacob” (35:5).

Maimonides, the great Jewish legalist-philosopher, offers a startling post-script to this incident. He rules (Laws of Kings 9:14), “The Gentiles are commanded to keep the Seven Noahide Laws, the seventh being the establishment of law courts and judges to rule on and enforce the compliance to the first six. Any Noahide who transgresses any one of these is to be killed by the sword.

And it is for this reason that all the householders of Shekhem were guilty of death. “Shekhem stole (and raped Dinah); the Shekhemites saw and they knew and… they did not bring them to justice”.

Nachmanides disagreed, interpreting the Noahide law to establish law courts and judges to mean to legislate the details of a civil legal system; he does not hold every Gentile responsible for the proper execution of each criminal. (Ramban to Genesis 34:13).

But Maimonides has a most compelling argument – especially in

light of recent history. Shekhem would never have permitted himself to rape Dina, had she not been a Hebrew maiden, a stranger who was isolated from the rest of the city.

Once you are dealing with people who believe that it is power which gives one the right to dominate, then you must use even more power if you hope to survive. Germany and Japan became very different nation-states after the Second World War, but only after they were convinced that they could not beat the allies militarily.

And remember, it was the residents of Gaza who brought Hamas into power!

Allow my position to be made very clear: I’m very proud of Israel for doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, often even at the risk to the lives of our own soldiers. This is what makes us so different from our enemies.

But we cannot allow this sensitivity to be the means by which we hand victory to our enemies. As long as the enemy is a Jihadist, that would be the ultimate immorality.

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T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: VAYISHLACH (BRAISHITH 32:4—36:43) 1. What gifts did Jacob give to Esau? a.) Cattle b.) Money c.) Land 2. How did Jacob refer himself to Esau? a.) Brother b.) Friend c.) Servant 3. Which river did Jacob cross? a.) Jordan b.) Euphrates c.) Yabok nations, but after the Mashiach comes we will be known as Yisroel, the minister who fought and prevailed. Sforno

EFRAT, Israel – Israel’s military operation “Pillar of Defense” was greatly successful in ending the rocket attacks on the residents in the South whose lives were constantly being threatened by rocket fire from Hamas, the same Hamas which is now threatening another Intifada.

That war gained a great deal of moral support from the neutral bloc of nations because we have engaged exclusively in aerial strikes, directed with pincer-like precision, against specific terrorist killer-leaders as well as the major Hamas buildings of operation, media and banking. A ground invasion would have brought in its wake Israeli losses as well as more Palestinian civilian casualties.

This would have removed Israel from the moral high ground, and might very well have caused us to lose the support we now enjoy from our “friends”.

Still, many Israelis are concerned that our army did not “finish the job”.

They would have preferred a much more forceful ground attack, which would have destroyed Hamas’ ability to attack Israel while bringing about a significant number of Palestinian civilian casualties. It would have prevented Hamas threats today. Would such an attack have been morally and religiously justified?

This week’s Biblical portion of Vayishlach contains a fascinating precedent in the form of the military operation by Jacob’s sons, Shimon and Levi against the civilian population of Shekhem. A debate in legal theory between Maimonides and Nahmanides about the legitimacy of their action will certainly provide much fuel for our discussion.

First, let us review the facts (Genesis 34). Jacob has left Labanland, and returns, together with his “tribe,” to his ancestral homeland, Canaan. He purchases a piece of land in the city of Shekhem from Hamor, the Prince of the city, and erects an altar to God. Shekhem, the son of Hamor rapes Jacob’s daughter Dina, leaving Jacob and his sons outraged.

Shekhem and his father come to meet the Hebrew clan. Prince Hamor announces that his son desperately wishes to marry Dinah, and that they are willing to give an exorbitant dowry payment for Dinah. Jacob’s sons answer “with subterfuge” that only if every male resident will circumcise himself can Shekhem marry Dinah and the two large clans join together; “But if you will not listen to

Once you are dealing with people who believe that it is power which gives one the right to dominate, then you must use even more power if you hope to survive.

4. What time of day did Jacob fight with the angel? a.) Day b.) Night c.) Day and night 5. What was Jacob's new name after fighting the angel? a.) Peli b.) Yisroel c.) Yakov and Yisroel

3. C 32:23 4. B 32:25 5. B,C 32:29 Yakov is for the time of exile when The Children of Israel are like the heel of the

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT VAYISHLACH GENESIS 32:4 - 36:43

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. A 32:14-16 “What was in his hand” could refer to jewels also.

2. C 32:19

Sedra of the Week

JEWISH LIFE • 17

18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist At the Movies/On TV “Charlie Countryman,” stars SHIA LABEOUF, 27, as a nice American whose late mother appears to him in a vision and tells him to go to Rumania. On the plane, he talks to another passenger, who dies mid-flight. Charlie then conveys his body to his daughter, Gabi (EVAN RACHEL WOOD, 26). He falls totally in love with Gabi, but she’s claimed by a vicious gangster, and he has to descend into the gangster’s violent world to try and rescue her. At one point, Charlie has to take LSD and LaBeouf, a method actor, recently said he filmed the “acid” scenes while really on LSD. The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, saying its mix of romance, comedy, and action was “gratifyingly” outside strict genre classification.

The Nov. 11 episode (9th week) of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” saw a shocker when actress ELIZABETH BERKLEY LAUREN, 41, was eliminated in the 9th week of the 11-week competition. Lauren lost despite judges’ scores, on Nov. 11 and before, which were far higher than other couples still in the competition. However, as the TV audience for “DWTS” has shrunk, it appears that the power of voters who vote based on “an affinity” to a celeb has grown and it’s become more a popularity than a dance contest Lauren (“Saved by the Bell”) wed artist GREG LAUREN, 43, the nephew of RALPH LAUREN, 74, in a lavish (2003) Jewish wedding. After being eliminated, Lauren said she “felt a little sucker-punched,” but added that the silver lining was being able to spend more time with her son, who was born last year. See if you agree that she got a raw deal: past episodes of DWTS are on the ABC website.

Boychik, I Gotta Take You Out of the Game When the Detroit Tigers recently named BRAD AUSMUS, 44, their new manager, readers asked me: who were the other Jewish MLB managers?

Here’s my list, vetted by Jewish Sports Review magazine. All except Phillips were, like Ausmus, former MLB players: LIPMAN PIKE (1845-1893). The first player of any faith to sign a pro contract, he was a player/manager of three teams in the 1870s, including the Cincinnati Reds. He played for the Reds in 1877-78 and was their manager in 1877; ANDY COHEN (1904-88), Pittsburgh, one game, 1960;

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NEWZ

HAROLD “Lefty” PHILLIPS (1919-72), Angels, 1969-71; NORM SHERRY, 82; Angels, 1976-77; and JEFF NEWMAN, 65; 10-game interim manager, Oakland, 1986.

The following managers had one Jewish parent, but were raised Christian: Lou Boudreau, Larry Rothschild, and current Oakland manager Bob Melvin.

On Paula You’ve probably heard that singer/dancer/ and former American Idol judge PAULA ABDUL, 51, visited Israel last week and had a bat mitzvah ceremony. Here are a few things about her background and the trip you may not find in most sources: While she didn’t really speak about her father’s Jewish background before 2006 (He was born in Syria, raised in Brazil, moved to California) – she did a radio interview with a Chabad rabbi more than a decade ago in which she said she was a “believing Jew.”; A rabbi presided when she married the Jewish son of the head of “Starter” clothes in 1996.

They split-up in 1998; Her mother, LORRAINE, was born and raised in a small town in Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Before she left for California, Lorraine dated ISRAEL “Izzy” ASPER, a member of the only other Jewish family in town. Asper later became famous as a politician and media mogul. A profile says that his family and Lorraine’s family were “ostracized [in that town] because they had accents and discriminated against because of religion.”; While in Israel, Adbul visited the Western Wall (Kotel); the Holocaust museum; and met with President SHIMON PERES., 90.

Plans to have her bat mitzvah at the Kotel were changed, probably to avoid a media circus. Instead, it was held in the city of Safed (also known as Tzfat), a famous center of Jewish mysticism. Presiding over her bat mitzvah was Rabbi EYAL REISS, director of the Center for Tzfat Kabbalah, a joint venture of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach. Its visitor center aims to provide an authentic introduction to Kabbalah to Safed visitors and it maintains an extensive and informative website; Here is one comment Adbul made about her trip: “Beyond being Jewish, I’ve always found myself to be very much in tune with spirituality. I feel very grateful coming to Israel now, where as a woman I know who I am a lot more than even 10 years ago.”

FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO We have been favored this week with some new music, just published

by John Church Jr., No. 66 West Fourth street, one of the most prolific publishers of good music in the United States; a genuine German waltz by Karl Merz, entitled “Sounds from Over the Rhine,” dedicated to his “benevolent friend,” Dr. Joseph Lefevre. Also, “General Burnside’s Grand March.” Those in search of new and popular music will always find it at No. 66 West Fourth Street.

A certain Mrs. Harriet Hamilton, of Loraine Cottage, Holloway, who died on the 11th of June last, has bequeathed the sum of $2,500 to the Treasurer for the benefit of the Home for Lost and Starving Dogs. We hope the canine race will remember this kindness, and appoint a starving, bigmouthed bulldog to keep up a continual howling on the anniversary of her death in front of the Treasurer’s study, in honor of the deceased lady, and to assist the memory of her agent in recollecting his charge. – December 11, 1863

125 Y EARS A GO Mr. Abe Mayer, of Moorman Avenue, passed the fifty mark last Sunday. A number of his relatives and friends gathered at his home in the evening to show their remembrance of the day. A handsome collation ws served and a very pleasant evening was spent by all who had the good fortune to be present.

Miss Edith Lowenstein of West Seventh Street, one of Cincinnati’s most charming young ladies, left Sunday night to visit her sister, Mrs. Isaac Deutsch, of Atchison, Kansas.

– November 16, 1888

Litz, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Litz, to Mr. Lawrence Pilder, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Pilder, will take place Sunday, November 20th with Rabbi Silver officiating. The young couple will spend two weeks in Florida.

The Business and Professional Group of Hadassah regrets the passing of its past president, Miss Minnie Grad. Her name will be inscribed in the “Golden Book”. Anyone interested in contributing to this memorial is asked to contact Miss Leah Kasfir. – Novmeber 10, 1938

50 Y EARS A GO Five Roselawn boys, aged 7 to 9 years, raised $4 for the Hamilton County Unit of the American Cancer Society through a neighborhood carnival. They solicited donations from neighborhood merchants, awarding the merchandise as prizes at their booths. Taking part were Fred Abramowitz, Amir Kalmar, Andrew Gilgoff, Gary Malof, and Bill Tobler.

Mr. andMrs. Norman Weiner, 1735 Bella Vista, announce the forthcoming Bas Mitzvah of their daughter, Diane Elyse, Friday Nov. 22 at 8:15 p.m., at Adath Israel Synagogue, Lexington Avenue and Reading Road. Relatives and friends are cordially invited to worship with the family and attend the Kiddush following the service. Diane is the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Weiner of Long Beach, L.I., and Mrs. Abraham Danziger of Tenafly, N.J., and the late Mr. Abraham Danziger.

Dr. and Mrs. Fred Elkus (Judy Stein), 4100 Rose Hill Avenue, welcomed a daughter, Monday, November 4. – November 14, 1963

25 Y EARS A GO

100 Y EARS A GO Mr. and Mrs. Sig. Wise of South Crescent Avenue, Avondale, announce the engagement of their daughter, Hazel, to Arthur M. Spiegel. All of Cincinnati, O. At home Sunday, November 16th, 1913.

Because his bride-to-be was his first cousin, Leon G. Levy of Paris, France - who crossed the ocean to marry his fiance, Miss Cecile Block - was unable to secure a license in the State of Ohio. The young couple therefore were married by civil ceremony across the river in Covington, KY, and immediately thereafter returned to Cincinnati where a religious ceremony was performed at the Sinton Hotel, on Tuesday of last week, by Rabbi Jacob Mielziner.

The bride is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leon Block of Walnut Hills. – November 13, 1913

75 Y EARS A GO The marriage of Miss Geraldine

Mr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Rothchild announce the marriage of their daughter, Natalie Ruth, to Scott Allen Wolf, son of Paula Wolf of Sante Fe, N.M. and the late Dr. Frederick Wolf of Cincinnati.

The wedding took place Oct. 23 at Adath Israel Synagogue. Rabbi Sidney Zimmelman officiated. A brunch and reception followed at the synagogue.

Claire Rothchild, sister of the bride, was maid-of-honr. Mark Wolf, brother of the groom, was best man. Bridesmaids were Dawn Rothchild of Columbus, Jolie Wolf and Sandy Wolf of Ft. Pierce, F.L., and Cheryl Zak of San Diego, C.A. Groomsmen were Barry Rothchild of Columbus, Jeffrey Wolf, Jeffrey Bakst, Mark Weisser, and Allen Schwartz. Michelle Wolf, niece of the bridegroom, was flower girl.

Natalie is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Scott is a graduate of Denver University and the University of Dayton College of

Law. Following a California honeymoon, the couple will reside in Golf Manor.

The B’nai Brith Youth Organization recently installed officers for 1988-1989.

Installed to lead the Mishpocha AZA Chapter 490 were: Jason Tockman, president, Martin Fish, vice-president; Zachary Ratzman, membership; Matt Zawadski, corresponding secretary; Eric Mills, recording secretary; and Larry Gellen, treasurer.

Installed for Simcha/Shalom BBG Chapter 879 were: Teri Eckber and Julie Jacobson, co-presidents; Erin Fish, vice-president; Karen Lerhaupt, membership; Dafna Kalish, Jewish Heritage; Caryn Eckber, recording secretary; Jenny Schwam, corresponding secretary; and Alena Shlechtechman, treasurer.

Also, 10 Cincinnati BBYO members recently attended the regional Leadership Training Institute in Zionsvile, I.N. The weekend convention focused on the problems of the homeless and needy. Cincinnati youth in attendance were Teri Eckber, Erin Fish, Martin Fish, Carolyn Garner, Julie Jacobson, Karen Lerhaupt, Jenny Schwam, Jason Tockman, Molly Traxler, and David Young. – November 24, 1988

10 Y EARS A GO Congratulations to Aaron Binik-Thomas for being The American Israelite Teen of the Month for November 2003. A senior at Sycamore High School, Aaron said his three loves are photography, Israel, and computers.

He’s in the Hebrew Club at school and after school he participates as a counselor at an after-school day camp..He said he loves photography and is planning on going into the field of photojournalism. he also is very handy at the computer.

“I consider myself a computer geek in training,” he said.

Aaron is co-chair of the Jewish Federation’s Israel Teen Council.

He describes himself as a Zionist and pro-Israel activist He hopes to attend a Young Judea Year Course in Israel next year. While he’s there, he will participate in Marva, a two month army course. He will also volunteer with the MDA, Magen David Adom Aaron has been to Israel four times already - for his Bar Mitzvah, on a Solidarity Movement, in the program called Alexander Muss High School, and for March of the Living. he can’t wait to go there again this coming spring on an Activism mission with local teens to learn about Israel first-hand. – November 20, 2003

COMMUNITY DIRECTORY / CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

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

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp Chabad (513) 731-5111 • campchabad.org Camp Livingston (513) 793-5554 •camplivingston.com Cedar Village (513) 754-3100 • cedarvillage.org Chevra Kadisha (513) 396-6426 Cincinnati Community Kollel (513) 631-1118 • kollel.shul.net Cincinnati Community Mikveh (513) 351-0609 •cincinnatimikveh.org Eruv Hotline (513) 351-3788 Fusion Family (513) 703-3343 • fusionnati.org Halom House (513) 791-2912 • halomhouse.com Hillel Jewish Student Center (Miami) (513) 523-5190 • muhillel.org Hillel Jewish Student Center (UC) (513) 221-6728 • hillelcincinnati.org Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati 513-961-0178 • jcemcin.org Jewish Community Center (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org Jewish Community Relations Council (513) 985-1501 Jewish Family Service (513) 469-1188 • jfscinti.org Jewish Federation of Cincinnati (513) 985-1500 • shalomcincy.org Jewish Foundation (513) 214-1200 Jewish Information Network (513) 985-1514 JVS Career Services (513) 936-WORK (9675) • www.jvscinti.org Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 Shalom Family

ELECTROMAGNETICS from page 10 almost no risk of seizure.

Brainsway is working on using TMS to combat a range of diseases. The company received approval this year from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat depression with TMS, and has European Union permission to use the technique to treat 10 diseases or disorders, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and autism, even tobacco addiction. Other drug addictions and obesity are next on the company’s list.

Another Israeli company, Neuronix, focuses on Alzheimer’s, which affects 5 million Americans – a number sure to rise as the baby boomer generation ages.

“Every emotion, thought or action starts with electric activity in the brain,” Segal said. “The problem is if you have too much or too little activity, you get a brain disorder.”

In a person suffering from depression, for example, the section of the brain that regulates mood isn’t as active as it should be.

Electromagnetic pulses targeting

(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 CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net B’nai Tikvah Chavurah (513) 284-5845 • rabbibruce.com Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org Congregation Ohr Chadash (513) 252-7267 • ohrchadashcincinnati.com Congregation Sha’arei Torah 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

that section stimulate brain cells to fire, restoring them to a normal level of activity, Segal says, and teaching them to be more active in the long term.

For Alzheimer’s patients, treatment entails an additional step.

Patients who receive Neuronix’s electromagnetic pulse have less than a minute of increased brain activity. During that window, a computer screen flashes a simple task meant to exercise the affected region of the brain – asking patients, in one example, whether two sentences mean the same thing.

Affirming that “The salad has tomatoes” equals “There are tomatoes in the salad” helps sustain the short-term benefit of TMS therapy.

“To understand [the sentences], to process them, to understand whether they have the same meaning, is a challenge,” said Orly Bar, Neuronix’s vice president for marketing. “We want to get to a point where the mechanism improves.”

While both companies emphasize that treatment should complement existing medication, not replace it, clinical trials show that

Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Kulanu (Reform Jewish High School) (513) 262-8849 • kulanucincy.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org Sarah’s Place (513) 531-3151 • sarahsplacecincy.com Yeshivas Lubavitch High School of Cincinnati (513) 631-2452 • ylcincinnati.com ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 BBYO (513) 722-7244 • mayersonjcc.org Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati.hadassah.org Jewish Discovery Center (513) 234.0777 • jdiscovery.com Jewish National Fund (513) 794-1300 • jnf.org Jewish War Veterans (513) 204-5594 • jwv.org NA’AMAT (513) 984-3805 • naamat.org National Council of Jewish Women (513) 891-9583 • ncjw.org State of Israel Bonds (513) 793-4440 • israelbonds.com Women’s American ORT (513) 985-1512 • ortamerica.org

TMS can be more effective in counteracting Alzheimer’s than current medications. And unlike pills that enter the bloodstream, the electromagnetic zaps have no side effects.

“We know there’s medicine that works on the same mechanism,” Bar said. “There’s no contradiction. They can work together great.”

Neuronix and Brainsway were both featured at Braintech Israel 2013, a conference in October highlighting Israel’s growing brain technology industry. Along with medical advancements, the conference showcased innovation in fields such as brain modeling and mind-control gaming.

“It’s widely accepted that we’ve made a lot of progress in heart disease and cancer,” said Miri Polachek, executive director of Israel Brain Technologies, the nonprofit that organized the conference. “The one area where we need to make a big push is the field of brain research.

“It’s no longer science fiction.

You can see these things becoming real.”

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

business@ americanisraelite.com or call 513-621-3145 UPSTARTS from page 7 and long-term very little for the Jewish people as a whole.”

Alyza Lewin disputed the suggestion that the Zivotofsky case had done long-term damage to Jewish interests, telling JTA she is petitioning for a Supreme Court review and is confident her position will prevail.

Steven Cohen, a sociologist who directs the Berman Jewish Policy Archive, said the pressure on Jewish organizations has increased in part because of the convergence social media and a resurgent activist temperament that has been dormant since the 1970s.

“There’s the decline of mainstream Jewish organizations as the nonOrthodox committed Jewish population shrinks,” Cohen said. “There is organizing in the postmodern age, the ability of social media to link people and to push issues that have resonance to the forefront very quickly. It’s not much different from the Arab Spring in Tunisia.”

Two top establishment figures FRENCH from page 8 amid claims that Jews in Damascus were responsible for the ritual murder of a French priest in the Syrian city. The false espionage conviction of the Alsatian Jew Alfred Dreyfus in 1894 generated a fresh wave of anti-Semitic hostility.

An impressive testament to the caution of Alsatian Jews was discovered last year in Dambach-laVille, a small town southwest of Strasbourg, where construction workers found a Jewish archive that had been masterfully concealed in the late 19th century inside a dummy ceiling at a synagogue.

NETANYAHU from page 10 And introducing the prime minister, Jewish Federation’s Chairman Michael Siegal said the international community must oppose the Iranian nuclear program.

“A nuclear Iran is an unacceptable position,” he said. “It is unacceptable to Israel, it is unacceptable to the U.S., it is unacceptable to the world.”

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(513) 531-9600 speaking on background noted the case of Mikey Weinstein as another example of the ways major groups have lost unfettered control over the communal agenda. A former military lawyer, Weinstein founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation after hearing reports from his sons that they had been exposed to Christian proselytizing as cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Several establishment groups took up the gauntlet and negotiated reforms with the Pentagon, but the reforms did not go far enough for Weinstein, who now derides establishment groups as milquetoasts. Weinstein remains influential, scoring his own Pentagon meetings.

Whether the phenomenon results from failures by establishment groups or is a symptom of larger shifts in the culture is in dispute. What is clear is that the landscape has dramatically changed.

“We are confronted more to take positions we’ve never taken before, things we’d ignore or phase out, but now it’s harder to do so,” Foxman said.

The concealment was so perfect that it went undetected for more than a century. Jewish families that survived the war and briefly returned to Dambach never told the locals about the cache in the old synagogue, which was sold to the municipality several years ago.

Other Alsatian towns may have similar caches, according to JeanCamille Bloch, the president of the SHIAL historical society, which focused on the Jewish presence in the Alsace-Lorraine region.

“The 1930s were a lesson that I have not forgotten to this day,” Loinger said. “You always have to face reality and be prepared.”

On Sunday morning, at the start of the Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu called the deal on the table between the world powers and Iran “bad and dangerous.”

“It is dangerous not just for us, it is also dangerous for them [the world powers],” he said

20 • FOOD

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Zell’s Bites Zell’s Bites

by Zell Schulman Miracles happen everyday.

This month, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving both arrive on the same day! So do we make turkey and latkes? It is a dilemma but I’ve decided to have both items on my menu for our family Thanksgiving celebration, but just create a new way of serving them together.

The days of having the Thanksgiving celebration at my home are no more. Thank goodness all three of my sons are great

cooks and my daughter Karen and her husband Avi, who is an absolutely fabulous baker, have taken over the entire celebration and the only things I am responsible to bring are myself and the flowers for the table.

If the truth be told, turkey isn’t one of my favorite foods, but latkes are a year round favorite.

After my husband Mel passed away, (It has been ten years now, and I’m not sure where the time has gone.) my children took over and I’ve become a guest.

There’s a lot of preparation when one is responsible for the main celebration. It isn’t just the cooking. The house needs to be readied, the holiday china and crystal come out of their boxes, shopping and cooking are high on the “to-do list” and let’s not forget the decorations. After all, Thanksgiving’s emphasis is usually on the cooking but our Hannukah celebration comes with presents and more.

This year will be a good time to place emphasis on the thankful-

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ness part of the celebration rather than the presents. The menorah can be another way to bring both holidays together. Light is a gift we take for granted. We just switch on a button and we have light. This year, as we light our menorahs we need to express out loud how thankful we are for the things which light up our lives.

Our good health, our families, our friends and this wonderful country we live in, where we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion and can even be President of the United States, if we know the right people and have enough funds for the campaign trail. In the meantime, I’m thankful I have the opportunity to share my thoughts and recipes with my readers. I wish you all a wonderful holiday celebration !

Potato Latkes from a Mix Makes about 2-dozen Potato pancakes, or “latkes,” are popular year round. They never change with the season or time of FAMILIES from page 6 families do it anyway. The recent Pew Research Center study reports that 25 percent of intermarried Jews are raising their children “partly Jewish by religion and partly something else.”

Jewish groups that advocate greater outreach to the intermarried are reassessing how they deal with families like Katz Miller’s.

Ed Case, the founder and CEO of InterfaithFamily, said he initially declined to cooperate with groups like Interfaith Community and Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington, both of which serve families raising children in two faiths. But Case has changed his mind once he learned that Katz Miller and others like her weren’t blending Judaism and Christianity but teaching elements of both.

“We’re willing, happy and even eager to present the Jewish side of things to couples that want to do both,” Case told JTA. Groups that cater to dual-faith families say they are respectful of religious differences, offering classes jointly taught by Jewish and Christian instructors. They say the children who complete their programming have the knowledge and skills to make informed decisions about the role of faith in their lives.

Sheila Gordon, founder and director of New York’s Interfaith Community, said that while the established Jewish community remains wary of raising children in both faiths – her group has had

year. There are several brands of packaged kosher potato pancakes, so you may wish to try different brands, until you find the one you like or is easest for you to make.

Ingredients 2 medium potatoes, grated 1 tablespoon- freshly grated onion 1/2 teaspoon of a breakfast pancake mix 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper 2 large eggs 2 cups cold water One 6-ounce package Kosher Potato Pancake Mix. Method l. In a one-quart bowl, combine the grated potatoes, onion, breakfast pancake mix, and salt and pepper together.

2. In a four-cup measure, beat the eggs with the water. Fold in the contents from the box of kosher potato pancake mix to the grated potato mixture. Allow this to thicken for 3 to 4 minutes. difficulty raising money from Jewish sources, she said – the idea has become more acceptable among individuals.

“We do workshops for couples, and 10-12 years ago we spent all the time talking about the angst of the [couples’] parents; now that doesn’t exist as much,” Gordon said. “Many of the couples are themselves children of intermarriage and they’re different because of that. It’s changing right under our feet.”

Just as many Jewish leaders have concluded that they are powerless to stop intermarriage and should focus instead on welcoming the intermarried, some are now arguing they can’t turn back the tide of dual-faith families and should direct their energies toward offering such families positive Jewish experiences.

A number of mainstream Jewish leaders are on Gordon’s advisory board, including Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein of Manhattan’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, and Carol Ingall, an education professor at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary. The group also has recruited rabbinical students from the liberal Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and JTS to teach in its Sunday school.

Bronstein acknowledged that raising children in two religions is controversial, but insisted that it’s nevertheless a reality that demands a response.

“It’s a new landscape,” he said. “My response is we should reinforce as much as we can the Jewish identity wherever the Jews are.”

3. Cover the bottom of a medum skillet with 1/8 inch of vegetable oil. Over medium high heat, place a tablespoon of the potato pancake mixture into the hot oil. Fry 2 to 3 minutes on each side until the pancakes are crisp and brown on each side,.turning each latke over only one time. It is important tht you only turn them once or they will be soggy, not crispy. Drain the latkes on paper towels and serve.

Zell’s Tips: If you plan to freeze the latkes, do not drain them. Place them in a single layer on a cookie sheet in the freezer for 2 hours. Remove the latkes from the cookie sheet and place them in an air-tight plastic freezer bag.

Keep no more than one month.

When ready to serve, re-heat the latkes by placing them in single rows on a cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to 400˚F and heat the latkes 5 to 6 minutes. Place on a serving platter in single rows. If you pile one latke on another, they will get soggy.

Michelle Dardashti, who taught for Interfaith Community as a rabbinical student at JTS, acknowledged she is unsure whether the organization’s approach “produces in kids more questions than grounding,” but insisted that “showing their kids the values of both their faiths is better than not showing the value of either.”

Leaders of Jewish outreach efforts were loath to condemn dual-faith families; neither would they embrace them outright.

Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, the Jewish Outreach Institute’s executive director, said it “doesn’t help anyone to stand in judgment.” And Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which in 1995 recommended that its religious schools not accept students receiving formal instruction in another religion, similarly declined to take a firm position on the matter.

“Decades ago Rabbi Alexander Schindler overturned all previous Jewish communal assumptions about interfaith families by insisting that we embrace them and draw them close in all aspects of Jewish life,” Jacobs said. “How congregations do this holy work varies, but it is an axiom of Reform Judaism that we do this holy work of inclusion every day.”

AUTOS • 21

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013

2014 Audi A4 and A6 Quattro sedans When looking for an automobile with style, substance, and sophistication, an Audi Quattro sedan is a sure thing.

Whether you are looking at the 2014 Audi A4 or the A6 Quattro premium sedan, you’ll definitely get a car with class.

The Audi A4 sedan offers this precise combination of style and substance that keeps it highly competitive within its class.

With Audi’s legendary quattro all-wheel drive or FrontTrak front-wheel drive, the 2014 A4 sedan has minimal changes after its major refresh last year. Now outfitted with a 220-hp, 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, you can also choose available transmissions that include a six-speed manual, an eight-spped automatic with Tiptronic manual shift mode, or a Multitronic CVT. All A4’s come with a power sunroof, 17inch aluminum wheels, fog lights, leather upholstery, automatic climate control, Bluetooth wireless connectivity, a Homelink universal garage door transmitter, an Audi music interface with iPod integration and satellite radio.

Available upgrade features include 18-inch aluminum wheels, Xenon adaptive headlights, heated front seats, threezone climate control, Advanced Key passive entry/start, Bang & Olufsen premium sound, and a

AUSMUS from page 6 Ausmus that his post-playing career inclination was accurate.

“He told me he felt that he was not just the manager, but the general manager – that it was a lot of fun choosing his own players. It gave him the feeling he could do it,” Kurz said.

Ausmus is replacing a successful manager in Leyland, who at 68 was the oldest skipper in baseball.

Leyland guided the Tigers to two American League championships in his eight seasons. In 1997, he had managed the Florida Marlins to the World Series crown.

Several members of Leyland’s staff will be staying on with Ausmus, including bench coach Gene Lamont.

With Team Israel, Ausmus leaned on Kapler and Shawn Green, both former major league outfielders. It was an arrangement that developed unusually.

At a November 2011 meeting in Cypress, Calif., Kapler peppered team officials with questions, while Green and Ausmus “were very quiet,” Kurz recalled. The three explayers were offered playing and field leadership roles and asked to select their preferred jobs.

“I thought for sure Gabe would

Audi Quattro A6 TDI®

MMI navigation system with internal memory for digital media storage. Standard safety features include electronic stability and traction control systems, four-wheel anti-lock disc brakes with brake assist, front side-impact airbags, overhead curtain airbags for front and rear passengers, and a tire pressure monitor. Audi Side Assist blind spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, parking assist with rearview camera and rear out-

be the manager because he’d managed one year in the minors,” Kurz said.

In a February 2012 conference call, the trio revealed to Israeli baseball officials their division of labor: Ausmus, manager; Green and Kapler, player-coaches.

“From then on, Brad came into his own” on the job, Kurz said.

That May, Ausmus and his wife, Liz, visited Israel, where the new manager ran baseball clinics for children, held a news conference, donned tefillin for the first time and went surfing in Tel Aviv.

Ausmus took great pride in meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres, said the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, who accompanied Ausmus to the meeting.

“The opportunity to lead the team struck him as fun and also novel,” Shapiro said of his conversation with Ausmus, who wracked up 1,579 hits – fifth among Jewish players – while playing for four teams in the majors.

One player on the Israeli team might even rejoin Ausmus in Detroit: Ben Guez, an outfielder for the Tigers’ AAA Toledo club. Three Team Israel members played in the major leagues in 2013: Nate Freiman of the Athletics, the Astros’ Josh Zeid and Josh Satin of the New York Mets.

board side-impact airbags are also offered. In addition, Audi Connect with online services is now available, while a new Black Optic Package offers unique 19-inch aluminum wheels, along with a high-gloss black grille.

More interested in something a little more distinguished?

Then the 2014 Audi A6 is for you. This vehicle stands out with available intelligent technologies like Audi MMI® touch

and Audi connect®*. It’s gratifying performance is a real crowd-pleaser and with efficiency through available Audi 3.0liter TFSI® and 3.0-liter TDI® clean diesel engines**, there is no better ride on the street.

The sensuous, leatherappointed interior features a three-zone automatic climate control, four-spoke multifunction steering wheel, tilt and telescopic manually ajustable steering column, power windows

with one-touch up/down operation and pinch protection, decorative interior inlays, a sunroof, dual front sun visors with lighted vanity mirrors, auto-dimming interior rear-view mirrors, and aluminum doorsill inlays.

You’ll also enjoy the safety and security you expect from Audi, with drive and front passenger dual-stage airbags, front thorax side airbags, knee airbags and Sideguard® head curtain airbags. There is also a power central-locking system with safety unlock feature if airbags deploy. This sedan also features an Anti-lock Brake System (ABS) with Electronic Brakepressure Distribution (EBD) and brake assist, plus Electronic Stability Control (ESC) with traction control (ASR).

Complete with an anti-theft alarm system with immobilizer, tire pressure monitoring system, safety belt reminder for driver and front passenger, lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren (LATCH) in rear seats, and electromechanical parking brake, the A6 sedan is a perfect family vehicle. Just take the driver's seat: this is the feeling of success.

The Audi A4 Quattro sedan starts at $33.800. The A6 starts at $43,100.

22 • OBITUARIES D EATH N OTICES KALLENBERG, Helene, age 95, died on November 8, 2013; 5 Kislev 5774.

KALTMAN, Simon, age 86, died on November 10, 2013; 7 Kislev 5774.

LEOPOLD, Sonia R., age 95, died on November 10, 2013; 7 Kislev 5774.

O BITUARIES MARMER, Adele Cohen Adele Cohen Marmer (nee Abowitz) was born in Royal Oak, Michigan on August 26, 1930 to Solomon (Sam) and Fanny Abowitz (nee Siegel). She moved to Avondale as a child and graduated from Hughes High School in 1948. She spent one year at University of Cincinnati where she met her husband, Leon Cohen, whom she married in 1951.

She worked for many years in an administrative capacity at Standard Textile until she retired and moved to Deerfield Beach, Florida in 1983.

Adele was a long-time member of Golf Manor Synagogue and of the Cincinnati chapter of Hadassah.

She was also a member of Red Hats.

Adele had a passion for crafts.

She was the Treasurer of the South Florida Hand Craft society. She knitted, crocheted, made her own paper, built dolls, created stuffed animals, made cards, and also woodcrafts. She made lap blankets for veterans, which she donated to the Veterans Administration, and knit caps for newborns that she donated to local area hospitals.

Adele Cohen Marmer (Abowitz) passed away on October 29, 2013 at the age of 83. She was pre-deceased by her husband Leon Cohen and her ex-husband Ralph L. Marmer. Adele is survived by her children Marlana Kempheus of Cincinnati, Paul (Debbie) Cohen of Cincinnati, Cheryl (Robert) Kraft of Grass Lake, MI, and Eileen Cohen of Cincinnati. She was the

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

loving grandmother of Lee (Cincinnati) and Nathan (Katie) Kempheus (Chicago), Isaac (Cincinnati) and Micah Cohen (Mesa, Arizona), Lindsay (Cincinnati) and Samatha Kraft (Seattle), and Seth Cohen (Cincinnati). She was the great grandmother of Aviva Kempheus (Lee).

Funeral Services took place on November 3, 2013 at Weil Funeral Home with Rabbi Pinchas Landis of Golf Manor Synagogue officiating. Interment was at the Kneseth Israel cemetery. Memorial contributions can be made to Hospice of Palm Beach County, 5300 East Ave., West Palm Beach, FL. 33407.

CONFLICT from page 16

sarcastically asked the communist leaders of East Germany, given their disappointment that the people “had forfeited the confidence of the government,” whether they should “dissolve the people and elect another?” In Kerry’s view, the Israelis are stubbornly refusing to accept his version of reality, and therefore they must either change accordingly or accept what’s coming to them.

There’s another, more persuasive version of reality out there.

A recent poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute reveals that 73 percent of Israelis do not believe Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations will lead to peace. Another poll, conducted among Palestinians by Arab World for Research and Development, shows that 40 percent of residents in both the West Bank and Gaza don’t feel their leadership has given them sufficient information about the current round of negotiations.

If the Obama Administration had any courage, it would use these sobering statistics as the starting point of its approach.

But as we know only too well, it doesn’t, and that’s why its increasingly bitter entreaties are doomed to fail.

OPPOSITION from page 5 major organizations – including the Reform movement, the National Council of Jewish Women, the AntiDefamation League and the American Jewish Committee – have filed friend-of-the-court briefs on her behalf.

“It sends a message to people who are coming that maybe they don’t belong, maybe they will be treated differently,” said Sammie Moshenberg, the Washington director for the NCJW. “It creates a climate that makes folks feel like they’re not necessarily part of the political process.”

The concern going into the oral hearing was that the court would substantially expand the definition of permitted prayer in a 1983 case, Marsh v. Chambers. That decision, based on a case related to prayers in the Nebraska Legislature, has been widely interpreted as allowing nonsectarian prayer in legislative bodies.

The Town of Greece is arguing that the ban on prayers should be limited to those that proselytize or defame other faiths. If the Supreme Court agrees, sectarian public prayer would be permitted.

Jewish organizations were heartHILLEL from page 6 Hillel because they believe their critical views about Israel are not accepted. Open Hillel held its first national campaign meeting in September.

“There’s a difference between a big tent and an open tent,” Firestone said. “We’ve never claimed that anything goes inside Hillel… To hold out to any individual student the notion that [he/she] would be welcome is separate from saying what kind of programs could be co-sponsored at Hillel or in collaboration with Hillel.”

Others have raised concerns about the need for Hillel to enforce its official guidelines on Israel amid antiIsrael activity on some campuses.

“Contrary to some reports that anti-Israel activity is all but non-existent, there are real problems on many campuses, with groups and speakers – and sometimes faculty members – spreading falsehoods about Israel,” Aviva Slomich, director of student programming for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, told JNS in July. “For that reason the role of Hillel leaders in educating and protecting impressionable students is essential.”

Fingerhut said, “There’s no question that Hillel loves Israel, Hillel is a pro-Israel organization, Hillel is about building Jewish identity… and at the core of Jewish identity is that Israel is the home of the Jewish people.”

Apathy about Israel and Jewishness in general is another issue that many campus Hillels encounter, said Michelle Blumenberg, executive director of the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation since 1992.

Nevertheless, she said after graduation

ened that during oral arguments, the lawyer for Galloway and Stephens, Douglas Laycock, moved the court to consider a different issue: Whether a publicly attended town board meeting should be considered as equivalent to a legislature.

In legislature cases, the argument goes, the affected parties – the lawmakers – willingly entered a system with existing rules and traditions that could include prayer. In a town board meeting, the affected parties are ordinary citizens going about their daily business. “[The Marsh case] is adults elected by their constituents to go into a legislature where there’s a history of prayers being offered at every session,” said Michael Lieberman, the ADL’s Washington counsel. “This is different. The town council is the place where ordinary citizens must go to get a zoning variance or complain about cable service.”

For Galloway, it was a thrill to see Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan challenge the Town of Greece’s lawyer, Thomas Hungar, by imagining a hypothetical in which the court proceedings had been preceded by the same benediction recited at Greece’s board meetings.

“Suppose that as we began this session of the Court, the chief justice had called a minister up to the front of the courtroom, facing the lawyers, maybe the parties, maybe the spectators,” Kagan said. “And the minister had asked everyone to stand and to bow their heads in prayer and the minister said the following: He said, we acknowledge the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. We draw strength from His resurrection.

Blessed are you who has raised up the Lord Jesus. You who will raise us in our turn and put us by His side.

The members of the Court who had stood responded amen, made the sign of the cross, and the chief justice then called your case. Would that be permissible?”

“I don’t think so, your honor,” said Hungar, who then attempted to distinguish between legislative prayer and prayer in a courtroom.

Galloway believes that Kagan seized on that account of a Town of Greece prayer opening because she also is Jewish and has faced similar incidents in the course of her career.

“We’ve all had experiences that have been difficult,” Galloway said.

“These are things common to Jewish people.”

many students who had participated in Hillel, especially those who went on a Birthright trip with Hillel, continue to engage with their Jewish communities.

“I hear back from alumni and am just blown away with what they’re doing,” Blumenberg told JNS. The key to Hillel’s success has been changing its roster of options as the students change, Blumenberg said.

Since 2008, students have been heavily focusing on professional opportunities and academics in an effort to secure jobs despite the recession. The Arizona Hillel has been particularly focused on helping students build their resumes and find internships, and making them feel confident of finding post-graduation employment.

UIUC’s Illini Hillel also started Hire U, a student initiative dedicated to providing professional development to college students from a Jewish perspective. On Oct. 10, the program brought Phyllis Tabachnick, managing director at J.P. Morgan and co-chair of The Hillels of Illinois, to speak about the long-term benefits of her involvement in the Jewish community and in business.

The Hire U event was also attended by Fingerhut, who at a later reception for the Jewish community of Champaign, Ill., presented Cohen with a plaque celebrating Illini Hillel’s 90th anniversary.

“I think that the fact that Hillel was born at [UIUC] is not accidental. I think that our campus has been over many years pioneering in a lot of things. That hasn’t changed. When the Israel Fellows project started, our Hillel was one of the first to get a fellow,” Cohen said.

Though it may have begun as a small organization at the UIUC campus 90 years ago, Hillel has also branched out to more than 55 international centers in Israel, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, Russia, and Former Soviet Union (FSU) nations.

In 1994, Hillel opened its first branch in Moscow with the support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Schusterman Foundation. There are currently 18 Hillels in Russia and the broader FSU region.

Universities in the FSU aren’t based around campuses, so Hillel branches in the region are more central and community based, said Yasha Moz, associate director of Hillel’s international operations.

“It’s a little like a JCC for students,” Moz told JNS. More than 14,000 people are now registered in the FSU Hillel database.

Hillels in the region sent 1,000 students on Birthright trips this year, a number that has doubled since 2010, Moz said.

Firestone is hopeful that Hillel’s global presence “will be better known and more embraced,” but Hillel “will need to continue to innovate in order to be relevant, to understand and to be an authentic dialogue with the young adults that are on campus today,” he said.

Fingerhut wants Hillel to be as proactive and creative as possible “to make sure our programs are in fact linking this generation of Jewish students to Jewish life, learning, [and] Israel.”

“We’re up to the challenge,” he said.