The American Israelite, April 25, 2013

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THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013 15 IYYAR, 5773

Israeli Cultural Fest at the Mayerson JCC

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JFS presents national speaker on forgiveness

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The 2013 Jaguar XF

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Jewish learning taken to a higher power at JCC on Sunday, May 5 “Let My People Know,” a dynamic afternoon of Jewish learning, explores modern day issues at the Mayerson JCC on Sunday, May 5. The afternoon begins at 1 p.m. and is packed with engaging workshops, acclaimed speakers, lively conversation and an absorbing film.

Arna Poupko Fisher, internationally acclaimed Jewish educator, writer and speaker, will deliver the keynote address, “Keeping it Real: Jewish Life, Law and Lore” at 1 p.m. The entire event is free and open to the public.

In addition to the keynote, the afternoon offers three workshops from which to choose, as well as the Cincinnati premiere film screening of “Refuge: Stories of the SelfHelp Home.” Guests may come for the keynote, the workshops, the film, or enjoy the whole afternoon!

Advance registration is requested.

Arna Poupko Fisher has lectured in over 130 North American communities and is a member of the core faculty of the Wexner Heritage Program. She is on the faculty of the Judaic Studies department of the University of Cincinnati, where she teaches Bible and Jewish Thought.

She has dedicated her life to Jewish issues, including the challenges and opportunities of Jewish leadership and the capacity for the Hebrew Bible and Jewish philosophy to inform contemporary communal life. Her broad range and engaging style make her an especially popular speaker and educator in cities across the country.

In one of the Sunday, May 5 workshops, Rabbi Ariel Boxman discusses “God and Gun Control: What does the Torah Say about Pulling the Trigger?” Rabbi Boxman explores this controversial topic in an interactive discussion about contemporary tragedy and the opinions of politicians, pundits, everyday people, and most importantly, Jewish law. An HUC graduate, Jewish educator and active participant in Cincinnati’s young pro-

Arna Poupko Fisher, keynote speaker at “Let My People Know” on May 5.

fessional community, Rabbi Boxman brings a unique voice to this discussion about gun control and Judaism.

This workshop is hosted by Access, an initiative of The Mayerson Foundation for Jewish Young Professionals, and is open to all ages.

Another workshop option is “What Can We Learn from the Resilience of Holocaust Survivors?”

Participants will explore the incredible circumstances that survivors overcame to rebuild new lives.

Learn about the resilience of individuals in our own community through videos, documents and photographs, and delve into the lessons these stories provide. This powerful workshop is led by instructors Sarah Weiss, director for the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, and Gail

Ziegler, program director at Jewish Family Service.

Dr. Ethan Katz poses the question: How do Jews cope with pain and loss on a large scale, and what are the implications of such suffering for our faith? In this powerful workshop, “Where is God in the Face of Evil?” Dr. Katz explores classical and modern Jewish texts and discusses Jewish persecution, vitality and beliefs. Ethan Katz is a historian of modern Europe, with specialties in the history of modern France and its empire and modern Jewish history. His research interests include inter-ethnic relations; religion and the secular in modern life; and notions of diaspora and homeland. He spent the 2009-2010 academic year as a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and has received fellowships from, among others, the French Foreign Ministry, Hebrew University, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture.

“Let My People Know” will close with a 4 p.m. premiere film screening of “Refuge: Stories of the Self Help Home,” followed by an interactive discussion with Ethan Bensinger, the film’s producer and director. “Refuge: Stories of the SelfHelp Home” is a one-hour documentary revealing the origins and originality of a resourceful community that over generations has brought together testimonies of more than 1,000 Central European Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors. Interweaving archival footage with testimony by the Selfhelp Home’s residents and founders, Refuge reaches back 70 years to tell the story of this last generation, and was awarded “Best Documentary” and “Best in Fest” at the 2012 Sycamore Film Festival.

For more details or to register in advance for “Let My People Know” presented by the JCC, see the contact information for the Mayerson JCC in the directory of this issue.

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LOCAL • 3

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

AJC honors GE’s David Joyce at May 9 tribute dinner The American Jewish Committee Cincinnati Regional Office will present its 2013 National Human Relations Award to David L. Joyce, president and CEO of GE Aviation, at a tribute dinner on Thursday, May 9. The award recognizes Mr. Joyce’s outstanding professional achievements, community leadership, and dedication to excellence.

The global advocacy and human rights work of AJC, advances freedom, liberty, tolerance, and mutual respect worldwide.

David joined GE Aviation after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Michigan State University, and has held leadership roles in product development, Six Sigma quality, and product support. Currently, as President & CEO, he leads the $20 billion jet engine business.

David is an industry leader, serving on the Aerospace Industries Association and TriState Warbird Museum boards, and the National Air and Space Museum executive committee.

A strong advocate for math and science excellence, David has developed thousands of engineers and technologists, invested in

THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE’S ARCHIVES ARE NOW ONLINE. THE REST IS JUST HISTORY. It’s time for you to check out The American Israelite’s Archives Online.

research and development, and advocated for strong primary and secondary education in Cincinnati.

David led the successful 2012 United Way of Greater Cincinnati campaign, and co-chairs the Cincinnati Business Committee’s

Student volunteers receive AJC’s Lazarus Awards, May 1 American Jewish Committee (AJC) will present the 48th annual Simon Lazarus Human Relations Awards to 53 outstanding high school volunteers. Thirty-six area high schools nominated juniors and seniors committed to community service. The heart-warming awards ceremony, on Wednesday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m. at Rockdale Temple, is free and open to the public.

AJC will present certificates to every nominee and donate books to the libraries of all schools nominating students. In addition, 10 finalists will receive books and cash prizes presented by the judges, a panel of five community leaders: former NFL player Dhani Jones, Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, Hamilton County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco, Red Cross CEO Patricia Mann Smitson, and WDBZ talk show host Lincoln Ware.

A dessert reception follows the awards ceremony.

Jewish tradition teaches: “Whether Jew or Gentile, man or

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David L. Joyce

woman, rich or poor – it is according to deeds that God’s presence descends,” (from Midrash Seder Eliahu Rabbah 8). Simon Lazarus Awards Chairman Todd Schild says, “For 48 years, AJC Cincinnati has honored remarkable student volunteers from public, private and parochial schools, who organize their classmates to selflessly serve others, feed the hungry, help the homeless, and brighten the days of those in need.

Lazarus nominees are committed to doing deeds of loving-kindness, sharing a high value of Jewish tradition. AJC believes these students are shining examples of the best of our region.”

AJC thanks the 2013 Lazarus committee members, Heidi Bardach, Bree Bergman, Lilah Bloom, Julie Buckner, Michael Capone, Stefanie Clayton, Brooke Guigui, Heather Heldman, Jeremy Klotz, Ed Kuresman, Micah Max, Bobby Oestreicher, Lev Orlov, Josh Rothstein, J Shifman, Debbie Snyder, Brett Stern, Merrie Stillpass, Alexis Storch and Amy Sukin.

Education Task Force. He serves on the board of Xavier University, where he earned his M.B.A., and on the advisory board for the College of Engineering at UC, where he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Commercial Science.

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Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and the Blue Ridge to the Ozarks.

The entire community is welcome. There is no charge for members, and a nominal charge for non-members. For more information or to RSVP, please call the Synagogue office.

Wise Temple YoFI celebrates Havdalah in their jammies Grab your favorite jammies and head to Wise Temple on Saturday, May 4 for a Pajama and Game Night Havdalah! Wise Temple’s YoFI (Young Family Involvement) group is hosting an evening of creative games of all kinds, including Havdalah Twister. All games can be enjoyed in your footie pajamas!

This event will feature an age-

appropriate Havdalah ceremony, which marks the end of Shabbat and the welcoming of a new week.

As we say good-bye to Shabbat, we say hello to new friends, as we enjoy fun and laughter with other young families.

The creativity of the event cochairs, Debbie Horewitz and Susan Zimmerman, will ensure plenty of fun, unique games and

surprises. Kids and adults alike are encouraged to come dressed in appropriate bedtime attire. When our cheeks hurt from laughter and our voices are tired from song, we’ll settle in for some milk and cookies before heading home to bed… already dressed in our PJs, ready to be tucked in and fully prepared for the week ahead.

Pajama Party will start at 5:30

p.m. at Wise Center. There is no charge for this event, however, RSVPs are encouraged. Please contact Wise Temple for more information.

While the events are designed for children from birth to age 5, all of YoFI’s programs are geared for the family. Therefore, older siblings, parents, grandparents, and friends are welcome to participate.

Lag B’Omer festival honors Boston victims A Lag B’Omer parade will take place this Sunday, April 28.

The parade takes on an added dimension this year in recognition of the tragedy in Boston.

In addition to the usual festivities celebrating the Jewish holiday, the parade will also reflect the Cincinnati Jewish community’s support of Boston. “Boston Strong” signs will be displayed together with the other Jewishthemed signs and floats. There will be a pause in the festivities at 3:15 p.m., with a special candle-lighting ceremony in Boston’s honor.

Police Chief Chris Wallace and local community leader Dick Wieland will address the assembly.

“We hope this tribute will be a small show of support that the Cincinnati Jewish community can offer to Boston to show our solidarity, and that we are thinking and praying for the families of those who have injured ones or who have lost loved ones,” said Rabbi Avtzon, principal of Yeshiva High School. “A special thank you to the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati who is hosting the event.”

The event is being coordinated by the Yeshiva High School of Cincinnati. The Lag B’Omer Parade will be held at Losantiville Elementary School, on Sunday, April 28. The event starts at 1 p.m. with a children’s rally and magic show, then flows into the parade and concludes with a grand carnival, which will include amusement-park rides, carnival booths, face painting, grilled hot dogs, popcorn, snow cones, cotton candy, a moon bounce and more.

There is a nominal fee for the bigger rides.

“The Lag B’Omer festival commemorates the passing of a righteous individual, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who is the author of the ‘Zohar,’ the basis of Kabbalah,” Rabbi Avtzon explained. “Even though it is his day of passing, traditionally it has been associated with the revelation of Kabbalah and redemption, and is thus a day of rejoicing. We think it is an auspicious day to reflect on what happened, and to help Boston and our country grieve while at the same time moving forward with renewed strength.”

Experience firsthand what everyone is talking about “Chabad Hebrew School is a great gift for our kids because it builds a strong foundation of Jewish knowledge and, even more importantly, love and pride in being Jewish.”

Stephanie Jaffe This is precisely what makes CHS unique. It is a program that instills Jewish pride and creates spiritual connections that last a lifetime, where children don’t want to miss a day. Where students enter with a smile and leave humming a Hebrew song. A school where the halls are filled with the sounds of lively discussion, singing, prayer and laughter. Imagine a place where one can tangibly feel the warmth and spirit of Judaism.

Hebrew reading has become a popular part of the day at CHS. The Hebrew reading curriculum is

based on the internationally acclaimed Aleph Champ Reading Program, a motivational system that has been proven to be the most effective method of teaching Hebrew reading and writing to children. Says one CHS parent, “The Aleph Champ program is fabulous! Its ability to let my daughter learn at her own pace— however fast or slow that may be in a given week—is exactly the type of learning environment she needs. Her experience at CHS has been invaluable, and she will carry those benefits with her for

the rest of her life.”

“Our goal extends beyond the basic skills and knowledge students need in preparation for their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs,” says Rabbi Berel Cohen, principal. “We create a solid foundation of love for Jewish living and learning that will serve our students for the rest of their lives. And not only is it affordable, it’s one of the safest investments you can make in today’s economy.”

Chabad Hebrew School requires no membership fees or dues, only an affordable tuition for the year. The friendly and inclusive policy means every Jewish child is welcome, regardless of affiliation, religious observance, prior knowledge or current financial capability (ability to pay).

They also offer early bird discounts, additional child discounts, and refer-a-friend discounts to create more opportunities for families to save. This year the school is once again offering a half-price special for students ages 3-5.

For more information and to RSVP for the Open House, please contact Rabbi Berel Cohen.

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

VOL. 159 • NO. 40 THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013 15 IYYAR 5773 SHABBAT BEGINS FRIDAY 8:07 PM SHABBAT ENDS SATURDAY 9:08 PM THE AMERICAN ISRAELITE CO., PUBLISHERS 18 WEST NINTH STREET, SUITE 2 CINCINNATI, OHIO 45202-2037 Phone: (513) 621-3145 Fax: (513) 621-3744 publisher@americanisraelite.com editor@americanisraelite.com production@americanisraelite.com RABBI ISAAC M. WISE Founder, Editor, Publisher, 1854-1900 LEO WISE Editor & Publisher, 1900-1928 RABBI JONAH B. WISE Editor & Publisher, 1928-1930 HENRY C. SEGAL Editor & Publisher, 1930-1985 PHYLLIS R. SINGER Editor & General Manager, 1985-1999 MILLARD H. MACK Publisher Emeritus NETANEL (TED) DEUTSCH Editor & Publisher GABRIELLE COHEN JORY EDLIN MICHAEL SAWAN Assistant Editors ALEXIA KADISH Copy Editor JANET STEINBERG Travel Editor MARIANNA BETTMAN NATE BLOOM IRIS PASTOR RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN ZELL SCHULMAN RABBI AVI SHAFRAN PHYLLIS R. SINGER Contributing Columnists JOSEPH D. STANGE Production Manager ERIN WYENANDT Office Manager e Oldest Eng Th

ewish N h-J ew lis

Sundays, May 5 and 12, Chabad Hebrew School (CHS) will be hosting an Open House for parents and children in the Jewish community who would like to get a firsthand glimpse of what a day at Chabad Hebrew School is like.

CHSchool has made a name for itself in Cincinnati in the past 23 years. With a curriculum that is fun and diverse, covering a wide range of Jewish traditions, heritage, and history, the dynamic program excites children while offering practical relevance to today’s day and age. The teachers bring Jewish traditions to life and share their own love and passion for Judaism, so that students don’t just love to learn about Judaism – they learn to love Judaism!

“You are not judged on how observant you are, all that really matters is we are all Jews. Jonah has blossomed at Chabad” – Shelly Tessel, parent.

“Chabad Hebrew School is a great gift for our kids because it builds a strong foundation of Jewish knowledge and, even more importantly, love and pride in being Jewish.” – Stephanie Jaffe, parent.

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girl, their program will feature “sister acts” – the music of sister groups such as the Andrews Sisters, the McGuire Sisters, and the Lennon Sisters. While based in Campbell County, Ky., the group performs at arts programs, festivals and other venues from the

Est. 1854

begin at 11:30 a.m.

Raison D’Etre is a “sister act,” as Roberta Schultz and Violet Rae Downey are actual sisters and good friend Vickie Ellis is a “sister in song.” While their repertoire includes many genres of music, including folk, swing, and cow-

• ca

The vocal trio Raison D’Etre will provide the entertainment when the Sisterhood of Northern Hills Synagogue - Congregation B’nai Avraham holds its closing luncheon of the programming year on Sunday, May 5. The event will take place at the Synagogue, and

r in Am ape er sp i

NHS sisterhood closing luncheon features Raison D’Etre

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

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

LOCAL • 5

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

JFS presents national speaker on forgiveness Cincinnati professionals gained new insights into forgiveness when Jewish Family Service presented “Don’t ask me to forgive you! A radical approach to healing from interpersonal wounds,” with national media guest expert and best selling author Janis Abrahms Spring, PhD, ABPP on Thursday, April 11.

Spring began her presentation by describing two unhealthy responses to interpersonal wounds. “Research says that hating and hurting is not good for you, but that does not translate into the fact that forgiveness is good for you,” said Spring.

She went on to describe how forgiveness, when it is given too easily, can lead to continual mistreatment or quash any opportunity for a relationship to grow closer. The other extreme, refusing to forgive, is a reactive response that prevents any future positive resolution of conflict. Spring cited scientific research that showed the correlation between non-forgiving and poor health.

“Refusing to forgive literally makes you sick. Research shows it can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, and compromise your immune system. This can make you more vulnerable to cancer, stroke and heart disease.

Living in a grudge state diverts you from making peace with yourself and it punishes you, not the offender,” she said.

Spring then offered two healthy ways to heal. Genuine forgiveness is one way, but the offender must be involved for that to occur. She asked what happens when the offender is unavailable or unwilling to earn forgiveness.

“What is your response when dealing with a parent’s suicide or losing a child to an act of terrorism?” she asked. “Forgiving can be too generous. Not forgiving is too destructive to your personal

Susan Shorr, Janis Abrahms Spring, Marcie Bachrach

well being.”

She presented what she described as an alternative radical approach to the emotional healing process, Acceptance. Acceptance was defined as “a responsible response to an interpersonal injury when the offender can’t or won’t engage in the healing process. It is a program of self-care, a generous and healing gift to oneself accomplished by the self, for the self.”

Spring explained that the goal of Acceptance is to resurrect your best self, “Never let the need for revenge be greater than the need for healing.” She also suggested ways to help stop obsessing, noting that “each time you go over it in your mind, you affect yourself physically and emotionally.”

In private practice for 35 years, Dr. Spring is a recipient of the Connecticut Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Practice of Psychology and the

COMMUNITY NEWS and they had three children: Rescue in the Peggy Jean Ellis in 1952 who resides in Virginia, was a Philippines airs now consultant on the documentary; on local public David William Ellis, III in 1955 and Morris James Ellis in 1958 broadcasting both live in Cincinnati.

The Frieder brothers, togethchannel er with Manuel Quezon, the “Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge From the Holocaust” is a one-hour documentary of the untold story of how the five Frieder brothers, Cincinnati businessmen making two-for-anickel cigars in World War II Manila, rescued Jews from Hitler’s gas chambers.

One of the brother’s daughters, Jane (Frieder) Ellis currently lives in Cincinnati. She married David Ellis, Jr. in 1951

charismatic first president of the Philippines, Paul McNutt, U.S. High Commissioner and former governor of Indiana (preparing for his own presidential campaign), and an ambitious U.S. Army Colonel named Dwight Eisenhower, helped 1,300 Jews escape the Nazis and immigrate to the Philippines.

The documentary airs in Cincinnati on Sunday, April 28 at 7 p.m. on a local public broadcasting channel.

Connecticut Association of Marriage and Family Therapists Award for Distinguished Family Service. Board Certified in Clinical Psychology, she is a former clinical supervisor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University.

“Don’t ask me to forgive you!” was Jewish Family Service’s 9th annual Miriam O. Smith Educational Series (MOSES) workshop. Susan Shorr and Marcie Bachrach were the volunteer cochairs. The annual workshop provides the opportunity for professional development as well as offers the community a chance to learn from nationally recognized experts on different mental health issues.

Jewish Family Service established the MOSES series to honor

the memory of Miriam O. Smith, who was a longtime social worker at Jewish Family Service. She provided extensive individual and family therapy, headed the adoption program and served as the interim director of the agency.

6 • NATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Muslim Brotherhood-linked Boston Marathon attack victims and suspects alike treated by Israeli doctors mosque’s imam replaced as speaker at service for Boston Marathon attack victims

By Yoni Hirsch JointMedia News Service Many of the injured in the Boston Marathon bombings last week were rushed to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Several days later, on Friday, the two suspected bombers, Tamerlan and Dzohkhar Tsarnaev, were admitted, separately, to the hospital’s emergency room after sustaining wounds from their shootout with the police.

The older brother, Tamerlan, later succumbed to his wounds.

Jewish immigrants founded the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston in 1916. Eighty years later, it merged with the nearby Deaconess Hospital.

Two of its most senior staff members are Israelis, both of whom were actively involved in the unfolding drama of the past several days.

Associate Professor Kevin (Ilan) Tabb has served as the medical center’s president and chief executive officer since September 2011. Tabb studied medicine at the Hebrew University, where he also got his bachelor’s degree. According to the Beth Israel Deaconess website, the U.S.-born Tabb “emigrated to Israel at the age of 18 and served in the Israel Defense Forces.” The site notes that Tabb completed his residency in internal medicine at the Hadassah Medical Center, and after 20 years in Israel, returned to the U.S. “Unfortunately, the way events unfolded was very similar to what we have become used to in Israel,”

By Jacob Kamaras JointMedia News Service

Courtesy of Aaron Tang/Wikimedia Commons

The aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing last week.

Tabb told Israel Hayom over the weekend. “It is difficult, but you check your emotions at the door and treat any patient that arrives.”

Tabb praised the hospital’s medical team for doing “an amazing job.” He noted that the suspected bombers were given the same level of medical care as their victims.

“One of the [Tsarnaev] brothers died shortly after his arrival; the other one arrived in serious condition and has since stabilized,” Tabb said. “Whenever an injured party arrives at the emergency room, at the trauma section, the doctors and the nurses do what they are trained to do, and forget everything else.”

Associate Professor Daniel S. Talmor, who is the director of trauma, anesthesia and critical care in the Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine Department of at Beth Israel Deaconess, echoed Tabb’s comments.

“There was a feeling of deja vu,” Talmor told Israel Hayom. Talmor was born in Jerusalem and studied medicine at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, graduating in 1991. He arrived in Beth Israel Deaconess 12 years ago as part of a fellowship and chose to stay in the U.S. “I can remember how, when I worked at the Soroka Medical Center [in Beersheba], we used to have injured soldiers lying next to terrorists,” he said. “Luckily, [before the bombing] all the hospitals [in the Boston area] had already been reinforced because of the marathon, but rather than dealing with dehydration, they had to treat trauma patients. The past 36 hours were pretty frightening, with sirens howling all the time, and I could even hear shots being fired near my house. I am pretty sure that people around here are now going to understand Israel a little better now.”

The imam of a mosque that is managed by the Muslim Brotherhood-founded Muslim American Society (MAS) was initially invited to speak at Thursday’s interfaith service in Boston to honor the Boston Marathon attack’s victims, but that invitation was later rescinded by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s office, JNS has learned.

The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center’s (ISBCC) Imam Suhaib Webb, according to a series of Twitter posts, was replaced as the representative of Boston’s Muslim community at the service – whose keynote speaker was President Barack Obama – in favor of Nasser Wedaddy, director of civil rights outreach for the American Islamic Congress and chair of the New England Interfaith Council.

Webb tweeted on Thursday, “Sorry, Muhammad Wedaddy from the American Islamic Congress will represent Boston Muslims.” Asked by another Twitter user who Wedaddy was, Webb wrote, “No idea. I was informed last night at 9pm that he was replacing me? lets focus on the service.” Webb later tweeted, “I was told the governor’s office made the call.”

According to the website of ISBCC, located in Roxbury Crossing, Mass., the mosque is “currently being managed administratively by MAS-Boston. As such, the board members of MASBoston are your board members!”

MAS, according to the research of watchdog organizations including the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel history that started with its founding by members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas.

IPT has noted that U.S. federal prosecutors identify MAS as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Former MAS Secretary General Shaker El Sayed told the Chicago Tribune in 2004 that “Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) members founded MAS, but MAS went way beyond that point of conception.”

The ADL states that MAS-affiliated Web sites “have featured articles advocating jihad and suicide martyrdom.” ADL also cites individuals involved with MAS including radical Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader and terrorism sup-

porter Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is the chairman of Islamic American University, an MAS subsidiary in Michigan, and the Islamic Society of Boston’s founding president Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is “serving a 23-year prison sentence for illegal dealings with Libya and his involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.”

Courtesy of Biruitorul/Wikimedia Commons

The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury Crossing, Mass., whose imam was replaced as the Muslim speaker for Thursday's interfaith service in Boston for the Boston Marathon attack victims.

In June 2009, Boston-based APT issued a press release expressing concern that Governor Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino accepted invitations to be honored guests at the ISBCC’s grand opening in Roxbury Crossing. APT noted that another Islamic Society of Boston mosque, in Cambridge, Mass., hosted a sermon by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, a Holocaust denier who has “claimed that Jews want to destroy Muslims, and called all non-Muslims (including Jews and Christians) a ‘spiritually filthy substance’ whose lives and property hold no value and are forfeit to Muslims during Jihad.”

“Civic leaders and the media participating in the ISBCC opening ceremonies must confront these very troubling facts,” APT stated in 2009. “We call upon Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino to reject the extremist leadership of the center, while continuing to reach out to the moderate Muslim community in Boston.”

Patrick and Menino did not back out of that appearance at ISBCC, but Patrick may have now changed his tune on the mosque based on his office’s apparent rescinding of Webb’s invitation to speak at Thursday’s interfaith service for the Boston Marathon victims, which also featured remarks

by Obama and by Jewish and Christian leaders.

SPEAKER on page 19

NATIONAL • 7

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

National Briefs

In Watertown, Mass., prepping for Shabbat after a night of gunfire and explosions

By Lisa Hostein Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Presidents Conference taps ADL’s Sugarman as chairman NEW YORK (JTA) – The Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has nominated Robert Sugarman, the immediate past national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, as its chairman.

The announcement of the nominating committee’s choice of Sugarman to succeed Richard Stone was made on Monday.

Stone is completing his second term as chairman.

Presidents Conference members will vote on Sugarman’s nomination in May. Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs giving $133 million for Cornell-Technion institute NEW YORK (JTA) – Irwin Jacobs, the founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, is making a $133 million gift to Cornell University and the TechnionIsrael Institute of Technology for a joint institute.

The gift announced Monday from Jacobs and his wife, Joan Klein Jacobs, will create the Joan and Irwin Jacobs TechnionCornell Innovation Institute. The funds will help support curriculum initiatives, faculty and graduate students, and industry interactions in a two-year graduate program.

State Dept. report raps Israel’s treatment of African refugees WASHINGTON (JTA) – The U.S. State Department in its latest human rights report elevated its criticism of Israel’s treatment of African refugees.

The report for 2012, issued April 19, said “the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants” was a “most significant” human rights problem. That was added to the three areas singled out by the department in the 2011 report: terrorist attacks against civilians, which the reports blame principally on Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip; Israel’s discrimination against its Arab citizens; and discrimination against women.

In the 2012 report, the “Protection of Refugees” section singles out the Israeli government allowing nongovernmental groups only limited access to the refugees – a practice the 2011 report does not mention.

(Jewish Exponent) – Shelly Levy and Ken Lebowitz had planned to bake their own challah for Shabbat on Friday, but then came the lockdown.

As residents of Watertown, Mass., ground zero for the citywide manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, they weren’t able to get out of the house to buy the necessary ingredients.

Levy was woken during the night by multiple explosions and gunfire down their street. Only later did they find out that the shootout that led to the death of the first suspect had occurred just a few blocks from their home.

Levy and Lebowitz, who first met as overseas students at Hebrew University, later lived in Israel for several years.

“This is nothing like Israel,” said Lebowitz, who was holed up with his wife and teenage son, Noah. “Can you imagine Israel shutting down a whole city looking for one 19-year kid?”

They had no indication when the lockdown would end. Their neighborhood had grown quieter than it had been overnight, when hundreds of law enforcement had swarmed the area.

“It looked like a war zone,” Levy said, with armored carriers plowing down their street.

At about 9 a.m., a member of the National Guard in full battle fatigues knocked on their door, Levy said. He

Courtesy of Spencer Platt/Getty

Members of a police SWAT team make a door-to-door search in Watertown, Mass., for 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on April 19, 2013.

searched their basement and wanted to make sure they were safe and weren’t being held against their will.

Levy, director of support services for the upper school of Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston, and Lebowitz, a software engineer, were spending the time fielding phone calls from friends and family and posting updates on Facebook.

One friend from Israel posted on their page that the Israeli news interviewed Boston’s consul gen-

eral, who had likened the deserted streets of Boston to what the streets in Israel look like on Yom Kippur, when few cars or people venture out.

As for Shabbat preparations, the family wasn’t going to let a lockdown get in the way of their Shabbat meal, which had become a sacred family tradition. They may not have had the ingredients to bake their own challah, but Levy said she was making matzah ball soup, which “I think of as comfort food.”

Noting that they bless their children each Shabbat (an older daughter is away at college), Levy said, “Blessing Noah this Shabbat will take on even more meaning given the events of last night and today in Watertown and the bombings on Monday at the Marathon.

When we kiss and hug Noah this evening, it will be a little tighter and longer,” she said.

And, she remembered, “we have half a challah left over from during the week. We’ll use that.”

8 • NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

The Birthright Israel flip side: Fewer high school students traveling to Israel

By Gil Shefler Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) – With the summer travel season fast approaching, providers of Israel programs for teenagers are bracing themselves for what several say could be a season of historically low travel in a year unaffected by major security concerns.

Over the past decade, Israel travel among those aged 13 to 18 has seen a dramatic falloff.

Though exact figures are difficult to come by, leaders of several leading North American teen programs say they have seen drops of 30 percent to 50 percent in participation in their Israel trips since 2000. Two recent studies point to a roughly 40 percent drop in the number of North American 13 to 18 year-olds going to Israel.

“I think every year [the overall number of high schoolers going to Israel] is getting smaller and smaller,” said Avi Green, the executive director of BBYO Passport, a provider of travel programs for teens. “And there’s no reason to believe this year won’t be the smallest.”

Though leaders of teen programs acknowledge the role of Middle East violence during the second intifada and the 2007 financial crisis in depressing participation, they unanimously point to one central cause of the decline: Taglit-Birthright Israel, a

Courtesy of Taglit-Birthright

Birthright participants visiting Masada, summer 2012.

program created to provide free Israel trips for Jews aged 18 to 26.

Founded in 2000 to counter the decline in Israel attachment and Jewish identity among North American Jews, the program has brought hundreds of thousands of Jewish young adults to Israel on the 10-day trips, including a projected 20,500 North Americans this year alone, which would be a record. Yet the promise of a free Israel trip seems to have had a flip side: thousands of parents of Jewish high schoolers deferring Israel travel until their children are eligible for Birthright.

According to an internal survey conducted in 2008 by BBYO Passport, 30 percent of parents whose children were BBYO

members said they preferred sending their kids on Birthright.

Another 28 percent said they preferred high school trips, while 40 percent were undecided.

“Birthright is an extraordinary experience,” said Paul Reichenbach, the director of Union for Reform Judaism’s Camping and Israel Programs. “We’re a big supporter of it. Yet at the same time it’s made it difficult for sponsors of high school trips to get traction.”

According to a 2010 report, the overall number of 13- to 18year-olds traveling to Israel from around the world dropped from a record 20,000 in 2000, the year of Birthright’s founding, to 12,000 in 2009. Elan Ezrachi, a fellow at the Center for Jewish Peoplehood

Education and the study’s author, said approximately half of those participants are North Americans.

Ramie Arian, who conducted a separate 2011 study focusing specifically on teen travel from North America, came to a similar conclusion: the number of high schoolers going to Israel has dropped 40 percent since 2000, though the numbers have since stabilized. Meanwhile, Birthright participation has surged, with the program struggling to keep up with demand.

Len Saxe, a Brandeis University professor who has done extensive research on Birthright, acknowledged that some programs have taken a hit, but claimed the overall numbers of teens traveling to Israel may have risen – particularly if one includes the Poland-Israel March of the Living trip, which the two studies did not.

“Based on the available data, I believe what’s happened is that there has been a shift,” Saxe said.

“The shift is toward shorter programs that engage younger people – middle school trips, in particular, have grown and there are other short-term programs, including March of the Living.

Instead of the normative programs [being] six weeks during the summer late in high school, there are more two-week trips.”

BIRTHRIGHT on page 19

Seeking Kin: Retrieving baseball memorabilia from attics and memory banks

By Hillel Kuttler Jewish Telegraphic Agency BALTIMORE – Josh Perelman is seeking kin – but not his own.

Rather, Perelman is on a quest for families and individuals who will share memories, artifacts and pictures that help tell the story of the American Jewish relationship with baseball.

As chief curator for the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, Perelman is mounting an exhibition that will open next March. Instead of focusing solely on American Jewish baseball icons such as Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, the exhibit is meant to be grass roots and personal, revealing how Jews connected to this country and to each other through America’s national pastime.

The connections need not be related to professional baseball, Perelman said. They could involve memories such as rushing through dinner to make Little League

Courtesy of National Museum of American Jewish History

A baseball signed by Sandy Koufax is displayed in the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

games, reminiscences of playing ball in Jewish summer camps and displays of team uniforms that were sponsored by Jewish businesses.

When a caller mentioned to Perelman a friend’s b’nai mitzvah at which guests were seated at tables named for Jewish Major Leaguers – including Lipman Pike, considered the first Jewish professional baseball player – Perelman expressed interest in obtaining a

seating card from the event.

On a website launched last week by the museum, fans are encouraged to alert the museum to what items they might want to donate or lend, as well as to stories about the person’s connections to baseball.

Some items to be displayed in the museum might not relate to Jewish ballplayers at all but will help illuminate the exhibit’s theme, “Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Jews in America.”

For example, Paul Newman of Philadelphia posted photographs of two baseballs that were signed long ago by Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, stars on the Reds’ championship teams in the 1970s. The players personalized their autographs for Newman’s late father, Rabbi Max Newman, of Cincinnati.

Another photo shows former Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine posing in 2011 with a smiling Rebecca Alpert, a professor of religion and women’s studies at Temple University. Alpert wrote in the post that she “grew up believing that

rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers was what Jews were supposed to do because the Dodgers integrated baseball and represented the working class.”

Erskine had been one of Alpert’s favorite players, and she said she was “thrilled” to meet him at a conference on the Negro Leagues held in Cincinnati, where the picture was taken.

Many of the items that respondents mentioned, posted or offered to the curators relate, of course, to Jewish Major Leaguers: a brilliant color image of a very young Koufax wearing his Brooklyn cap as he delivered a pitch against a backdrop of trees and a blue sky; photos from the 1970s of Washington Senators first baseman Mike Epstein fielding and sliding; and a black-and-white shot of Greenberg with boxing champion Joe Louis, under which the unidentified emailer wrote, “Jews have long regarded themselves as a people on the outside MEMORABILIA on page 22

International Briefs Turkey’s Erdogan disregards Kerry request to postpone Gaza visit (JTA) – Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will go ahead with a planned visit next month to Gaza, despite a request from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to postpone.

Erdogan reportedly refused Kerry’s request to postpone the visit during a meeting Sunday between the two leaders in Istanbul. The Turkish leader already had postponed his visit from April to May – after a scheduled meeting in Washington in mid-May. Erdogan reportedly plans to visit Gaza on or around May 31, the three-year anniversary of the Mavi Marmara incident in which nine Turkish citizens were killed when Israeli naval commandos raided the ship attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

Budapest anti-Semitism rally draws tens of thousands (JTA) – Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Budapest against anti-Semitism, as Hungarian police prevented a neo-Nazi demonstration for the third time in two weeks.

The march Sunday against anti-Semitism was part of the annual March of the Living, which usually draws a few thousand people who commemorate the victims of the Holocaust with a solemn walk along the Danube River.

This year, however, tens of thousands showed up with Israeli and European Union flags in what many said was a tour de force against the ideas promoted by the ultranationalist Jobbik party and neo-Nazi fringe groups, Reuters reported.

Over the past few weeks, several fringe groups have requested permission to hold a protest against the planned gathering next month of the World Jewish Congress plenary meeting in Budapest.

Canadian Jewish News to halt publication TORONTO (JTA) – Canada’s flagship Jewish newspaper, The Canadian Jewish News, is folding.

The newspaper, which has a circulation of approximately 40,000, announced Monday that its final print edition will be June 20. The closure will mean the loss of about 50 jobs.

“I never dreamed that I would be writing this,” CJN President Donald Carr wrote on the paper’s website Monday announcing the end of publication. “No nightmare of mine envisioned it.”

INTERNATIONAL • 9

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

Newly opened museum aims to show Jews not a ‘footnote to Polish history’

By Maxine Dovere JointMedia News Service

Courtesy of Cnaan Liphshiz

David Popovits, owner of the Matzah Soldier, sits down for a meal at his upscale restaurant in Budapest, March 2013.

Budapest bistro Matzah Soldier drawing trendy clientele with a fresh take on grandma’s cooking

By Cnaan Liphshiz Jewish Telegraphic Agency BUDAPEST, Hungary – On a corner in the heart of the former Jewish ghetto here, David Popovits sits down for some matzah ball soup and super-sized dumplings at his newly opened kosher-style restaurant.

A burly, 40-year-old Hungarian Jewish businessman, Popovits used to eat in the restaurant as a boy, when its former owners ran a “dirty little place that smelled like oil but had good Wiener schnitzel,” as Popovits puts it.

It wasn’t the memories but the location that convinced Popovits to gut the place and reopen it two months ago under the name Macesz Huszar, or Matzah Soldier, a gastronomic temple of Hungarian Jewish cuisine.

Planted in the now fashionable 7th District, the area draws enough traffic to provide a clientele for this upscale establishment boasting designer chandeliers, a VIP room and an ample bronze bar.

The restaurant has earned some flattering reviews, but the eatery’s budding popularity is more than good for business. At a time of mounting concern over the rise of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party, Popovits sees the restaurant’s promising start as a testament to Hungarian Jewry’s return to normalcy after long years of communist repression, when Jewish cooking and culture was the sole province of the elderly and the hard-core religious.

Popovits intended Matzah Soldier “to occupy a unique niche.”

Budapest, he says, has several kosher restaurants that serve the city’s small Orthodox community and kosher tourists. And there’s Rosenstein, which is something of an institution for Hungarian Jewry even though it serves pork.

“There was nowhere for people like me: nonreligious, kosher-con-

scious Jews with a bit of money, a refined taste and appreciation for tradition,” Popovits says.

The mix of old and new is a strong element of the bistro’s aesthetic, which marries the coziness of a living room with an attentive and professional staff, wireless Internet and other features that contribute to a business-lunch atmosphere.

Since the fall of communism, Hungary has seen a cultural revival driven by people like Popovits who are in sync with contemporary cultural trends yet still want to carry on the Jewish traditions of their grandparents. The group is key to the success of Limmud Hungary, a Jewish learning event that draws hundreds every year, and a bewildering array of other Jewish cultural and social offerings serving Budapest’s estimated 80,000 Jews.

“There are five synagogues within half a mile of us,” Popovits says. “Those synagogues used to be rather empty but are now packed thanks to people like me, who are not religious but are connected to tradition. It showed me a business like Matzah Soldier could take off.”

The name Macesz Huszar – an antiquated taunt meaning something like “little Jew boy” – was chosen as a symbol of the modern Hungarian Jew. “It has one leg planted in the Huszars, the 19th century AustroHungarian cavalrymen, and another in that most Jewish of foods and traditions, the matzah,” Popovits says.

Some patrons come for nostalgic reasons.

“I eat pork, no problem,” says Regina Szabo. “I came here because my brother told me the matzah ball soup tastes like our grandmother used to make it.”

Others, like Zsoltan Nagy, don’t even notice the words “Jewish bistro” emblazoned on the large window.

BISTRO on page 20

WARSAW – The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is built on the hallowed ground of the Warsaw Ghetto, literally on a site of genocide, at the intersection of Gesia and Nalewki Streets. The main entrance faces a plaza dominated by the Nathan Rapoport memorial, which commemorates the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“Where else would it be built?” asked H.E. Ewa JuncykZiomecka, Consul General of Poland in New York.

“I hope and believe this history will not be forgotten and the site itself is a place of great emotion [and] will create a zone that cuts across all ethnicity,” JuncykZiomecka told JNS. Along those lines, the museum —which opened to visitors April 19—aims to generate interest beyond the Jewish community by integrating the Jewish and Polish narratives as much as possible, rather than to present them as parallel, separate developments.

Chief Curator and New York University Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett told JNS that the 1,000-year history of Polish Jews, 3 million of whom were killed during the Holocaust, was an integral part of Poland’s history in general.

Jews are not a footnote to Polish history, KirshenblattGimblett said.

The museum is housed in a structure of green glass and stone, symbolic of transparency. The design, by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamäki and Ilmari Lahdelma, was chosen from among 200 submissions to Poland’s first international architectural competition.

The mezuzah mounted on the museum’s doorposts was chosen in an international competition sponsored by the Taube Foundation of San Francisco. The winning design was created by father-and-son team Andrze and Maciej Bulanda, and is made from brick salvaged from the ancient streets of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said the museum is a “storytelling museum,” telling history from the perspective of the people it chronicles, presented through a chronothematic series of eight core exhibits that “can be explored in any order.” One tangible exception to this is the reconstruction of the interior ceiling of the 17th-century Gwozdziec Synagogue, part of the museum’s core exhibition.

The Jewish presence in Poland dates to the 10th century, when the Sephardic merchant Ibrahim ibn Yaqub established a Jewish con-

nection. Jews from Spain and the German lands settled in Poland during the Middle Ages.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said the museum is intended “to create a bridge across a rupture that can never be healed,” describing “a site-specific museum dedicated to the restoration of the connection of world Jewry to Polish Jewish history.”

Non-Jewish Poles who visit the museum, meanwhile, will “be surprised to see their past through a new lens,” KirshenblattGimblett said, adding that the museum is meant to show that the destruction of Polish Jewry was not inevitable.

“It didn’t need to end this way,” she said.

Nevertheless, KirshenblattGimblett acknowledged what has

Courtesy of Maxine Dovere

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw, as its building was nearing completion in the winter of 2012. The museum opened to the public on April 19, 2013.

been lost and cannot be recovered in Poland.

“What was, was, and will never be again,” she said. “The sense of loss will be far more profound if people, including young people, understand what was lost.”

10 • ISRAEL

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

What Boston hospitals learned from Israel

By Ben Sales Jewish Telegraphic Agency TEL AVIV (JTA) – Minutes after a terrorist attack killed three at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, doctors and nurses at the city’s hospitals faced a harrowing scene – severed limbs, burned bodies, shrapnel buried in skin.

For Boston doctors, the challenge presented by last week’s bombing was unprecedented – but they were prepared.

Many of the city’s hospitals have doctors with actual battlefield experience. Others have trauma experience from deployments on humanitarian missions, like the one that followed the Haitian earthquake, and have learned from presentations by veterans of other terror attacks like the one at a movie theater in Colorado.

But they have benefited as well from the expertise developed

by Israeli physicians over decades of treating victims of terrorist attacks – expertise that Israel has shared with scores of doctors and hospitals around the world. Eight years ago, four Israeli doctors and a staff of nurses spent two days at Massachusetts General Hospital teaching hospital staff the methods pioneered in Israel.

According to the New Yorker magazine, every Boston patient who reached the hospital alive has survived.

Courtesy of Flash 90/JTA

A paramedic treating a woman who was wounded in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market, November 2004.

“We had periods where every week we had an attack,” said Dror Soffer, director of the trauma division at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, who participated in the delegation. “It becomes your routine.”

Techniques that were “routine” in Israel by 2005, and helped save lives in Boston last week, began evolving in the 1990s, when Israel experienced a spate of bus bombings. Israeli doctors “rewrote the bible of blast trauma,” said Avi Rivkind, the director of surgery at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, where 60 percent of Israeli victims have been treated.

Much of what Israel has learned about treating attack vic-

tims was done on the fly. In 1996, a 19-year-old soldier arrived at the Hadassah hospital following a bus bombing with severe injuries to her chest and esophagus. Doctors put chest drains on her lungs and performed endoscopies twice a day to stop the bleeding. Both techniques are now regular practices.

“We were sure she was going to die, and she survived,” Rivkind said.

A riskier move came five years later when Adi Huja arrived at Hadassah with massive blood loss following an attack in downtown Jerusalem. Rivkind realized his team wasn’t controlling the bleeding, so he directed staff to administer a shot of NovoSeven – a stagger-

ingly expensive coagulant typically used for hemophiliacs that was not approved for a trauma situation. But it worked and Huja survived.

Rivkind is an internationally recognized expert in terror medicine and widely considered one of the great brains behind Israeli innovations that have been adopted around the world.

Trained at Hebrew University, the Hadassah Medical Center and the Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems in Baltimore, he has contributed to several volumes on trauma surgery and post-attack care, and authored a number of seminal medical studies. Rivkind was the personal physician for the late Israeli President Ezer Weizman, helped care for Ariel Sharon when the prime minister fell into a coma following a stroke, and has performed near-miraculous feats, once reviving a soldier shot in the heart who had been pronounced dead in the field.

But not everything Rivkind has learned about treating attack victims comes from a story with a happy ending. In 2002, Shiri Nagari was rushed to Hadassah after a bus bombing. She appeared to have escaped largely unharmed, but 45 minutes later she was dead. It was, Rivkind later wrote, the first time he ever cried after losing a patient.

HOSPITALS on page 22

Kotel compromise notwithstanding, Israel facing uphill battle over religious pluralism

By Ben Sales Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM – Natan Sharansky’s proposal last week to expand the space for nonOrthodox prayer at the Western Wall could be historic.

But for most Israelis, changes at the Western Wall are of only trivial interest. Far more pressing are state restrictions on marriage and conversion, Sabbath bans on public transit, and haredi Orthodox exemptions from Israel’s mandatory draft.

The haredi draft exemption was a central issue in January’s elections for the Knesset, and it has been a hot topic of debate for the last year or so. A comprehensive bill is now in the works to draft haredi men, providing financial incentives to those who enlist and penalizing those who don’t.

A few political parties – notably the large, centrist Yesh Atid – have promised reforms on marriage, conversion and public transportation, too. But with the government’s coalition agreement giving each party veto power over any change in the state’s religious policy, sweeping changes on marriage and conversion are unlikely because the

Courtesy of Creative Commons/Graphics by Uri Fintzy

An illustration of Natan Sharansky’s proposal, which will expand the Western Wall and create a permanent egalitarian space in the Robinson’s Arch area.

nationalist Jewish Home party is unlikely to approve such reforms.

The Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate nearly has a monopoly over marriage and conversion in Israel. Non-Orthodox wedding ceremonies, interfaith marriages and same-sex marriages are not recognized in Israel unless such couples wed and obtain a valid marriage certificate overseas.

When it comes to conversion in Israel, there is only one kind: Orthodox. Non-Orthodox converts

to Judaism from overseas may be granted citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, but the Rabbinate can prevent them from marrying, divorcing or being buried as Jews once they are in Israel.

Perhaps a milder issue by comparison, many secular Israelis chafe against Sabbath-day limitations on public transit and commerce. While not entirely banned on Saturdays, they are subject to severely restrictive laws.

There have been some reforms

in all three areas in recent years.

In 2010, the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which draws from a secular Russian immigrant support base, led a push for civil marriage. In a compromise, the watered-down bill passed by the Knesset legalized civil unions only for couples with no religious faith, not for Jews or interfaith couples.

Yesh Atid hopes to use that law as a template for allowing civil unions for any Israeli.

“We plan to work together on these issues,” Yesh Atid Knesset member Dov Lipman, an American-born rabbi, told JTA. “There’s already been significant discussion with all of the religious bodies on compromising on these issues. I do believe we can make significant changes.”

But Yesh Atid’s coalition partner, Jewish Home, reportedly opposes expanding civil unions.

Instead, Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben Dahan is proposing measures to streamline the Orthodox marriage process – for example, allowing couples to marry with the Orthodox rabbi of their choosing.

COMPROMISE on page 22

Israel Briefs Jordan opens airspace to Israeli drones, French newspaper reports JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jordan opened its airspace to Israeli drones monitoring the situation in Syria, according to a French newspaper.

Jordan’s King Abdullah reportedly made the decision to open the air corridors to Israel in late March during a visit from President Obama and following a secret meeting in early March with Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to Le Figaro.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees reportedly have poured into Jordan since the start of the country’s civil war.

Rocket and mortar fire believed to be related to the Syrian civil war have crossed the border into Israeli territory on the Golan Heights.

Home for lone soldiers dedicated in Ramat Gan JERUSALEM (JTA) — A home for lone soldiers in Israel opened in Ramat Gan. The home dedicated in an April 19 ceremony was a $5 million Friends of the Israel Defense Forces project headed by Elias and Lila Kalimian and family of Great Neck, N.Y. The Friends of the IDF also sponsors lone soldiers’ homes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israeli airlines end strike after agreement with Finance Ministry JERUSALEM (JTA) — Three Israeli airlines ended their two-day strike following a deal struck between the Finance Ministry and El Al. The ministry agreed to fund 97.5 percent of the airline’s security costs, up from 70 percent, in order to keep the domestic carrier competitive under the new “open skies” agreement with the European Union. The airlines also agreed to undergo a streamlining process in order to further cut costs.

El Al, as well as Israir and Arkia, on Sunday launched an open-ended strike hours before the European-Mediterranean Sea aviation agreement was approved by Israel’s Cabinet.

The agreement, which allows European airlines to increase their flights to Israel for five years, could substantially decrease the costs of airline tickets for Israeli travelers to Europe.

Ben Gurion Airport workers had been set to launch a sympathy strike on Tuesday morning.

SOCIAL LIFE • 11

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

ISRAELI CULTURAL FEST AT THE MAYERSON JCC

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Israeli Cultural Fest, on April 21, was the community’s commemoration of Israel Independence Day (Yom HaAtzmaut) at the Mayerson JCC. Photos continued on page 12.

Jennifer Singer and Scott Morris

ENGAGEMENT r. Len and Tova Singer are delighted to announce the engagement of their daughter Jennifer Singer to Scott Morris, son of Michael and Susan Morris of Framingham, Mass.

Jennifer received her B.S. in Art History from University of Wisconsin, Madison and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Massachusetts General Hospital, Institute of Health

D

Professions in Boston. She is currently employed in the Surgical/Trauma ICU at MGH. Scott earned his B.S. in accounting at University of Miami, Coral Gables and is currently enrolled in a Masters of Science program in taxation at Bentley University in Waltham.

He is a Senior Accountant in the firm of Morris and Morris in Needham, Mass.

A fall wedding is planned in Boston and the couple will reside in Boston.

12 • CINCINNATI JEWISH LIFE

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14 • DINING OUT

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Sukhothai Thai Cuisine—the everyday fusion destination

By Michael Sawan Assistant Editor Restaurants are like movie genres. Popcorn mass-appeal schlock?

That’s fast food. Fancy, “I want to impress my date” foreign film?

Anything with $35 entrées. It actually gets rather complicated, with Adam Sandler movies occupying their own universe: the new stuff is like an inner city McDonald’s, the old stuff is like a well worn diner, and Little Nicky is like a Louisianastyle fried chicken chain.

Asian restaurants are a whole universe in and of themselves. The first distinction is between traditional and fusion. A traditional restaurant is one that sticks to one culture: a CHINESE restaurant; a SUSHI bar; etc. Fusion restaurants combine cultures as they see fit, with the breadth of coverage differing from restaurant to restaurant. Let’s place this style element on the horizontal X-axis.

The Y-axis is quality. On the bottom is “Asian fast food,” the sort of restaurant you would never see in these pages. The upper limit is the sort of restaurant that you need a suit to go into.

Cincinnati is blessed with a rainbow of a range, with a restaurant for each and every point of the graph. Sukhothai Thai Cuisine manages to occupy its point without competition.

Sukhothai is a fusion restaurant with an ambiance that is ideal for everyday visits. The restaurant is unpretentious, a streamlined, clean-cut business without baggage. One can come in at any time of day dressed in whatever way is generally respectable and feel at home. The food is modestly priced and evenly organized, with no clear division between the different cultures that the restaurant represents. There is plain Pad Thai, Traditional Fried Rice, but such clean cuts are not the norm. For instance, many of the house specialties, appetizers and salads are not assigned a clear nationality, bringing the feel of “fusion” to the forefront of the menu.

The ambiance of the restaurant reflects this attitude. Sukhothai is well decorated with an assortment of culturally obvious items, art that simply LOOKS Thai. But at the same time there is obfuscation. For instance, there are two abstract paintings in the main room of the restaurant. If anything they must be western, I thought, or else maybe Japanese with a western influence.

But no. They were painted by an elephant, a THAI elephant, animalcreated pieces of art that Sukhothai’s owner, Toi, picked up while visiting his homeland.

“The frames cost more than the paintings,” he joked.

Toi has run the restaurant with his wife for 14 years now, and the pair remain the restaurant’s only cooks. When asked about this long-

Courtesy of Michael Sawan

(Clockwise) A Spring Roll with chicken and a side of Sweet and Sour Sauce—the carrot garnish was fresh and crunchy; The main room of Sukhothai Thai Cuisine; “Jerry’s Room,” one of the additions from nine years ago; A painting made by a Thai Elephant, bought by Toi in Thailand; Pineapple Fried Rice with Beef, a now commonplace Thai take on the Chinese-American classic.

term success, Toi explained that it has been Sukhothai’s reputation that has kept it afloat: “[It is] because of word of mouth. A lot of people come here because of [a suggestion] from their friends.” As to what these people might be saying to each other, Toi coyly suggested, “The food is excellent.”

The business has expanded over time, with an addition having been created nine years ago. This has allowed Sukhothai to seat around 120 at their peak hours, which is quite impressive in the three-room restaurant.

Not only the number of patrons, but their quality has also been maintained over the years. There is a plaque that reads “Jerry’s Room” on one wall of the restaurant, an honor bestowed upon one of the restaurant’s longest returning customers, who has been coming back since the restaurant has been in business. Such consistency is a

trend in the restaurant, with Toi noting that many customers return over and over and always for their tried and true favorite dish.

“The [usual] customers, every time they come back they have Pad Thai,” Toi said.

I would always have Pineapple Fried Rice and a Spring Roll, personally. I began with the Spring Roll, which was a museum quality representation of how the dish should be: a super thin, crispy shell, liberal greens, nice savory chicken and a side of sweet and sour sauce.

The spring roll and the sauce paired together like peanut butter and jelly, neither being whole without the other. The spring roll provided the full textured platform upon which the sweet and sour sauce lets loose its tanginess. In fact, the sauce would be better named as Tangy, Then Slightly Sweet and Sour. It was a pleasant change of pace from the run-of-the-mill SWEET sauces

that one usually receives in carry-out packets.

The Spring Roll had that one truly magical quality inherent in its kind: As soon as it was done I wanted another.

The Pineapple Fried Rice with Beef was another great take on a now ubiquitous dish. I was at first taken aback, my server asked me what spice level I wanted on a scale from one to ten, but with anything up to 100 possible. I was terrified at the prospect, and so opted for a “two or a three, the lower side of medium, medium-mild.”

I have never seen a spice level more accurately achieved. The spice was pleasant at first, just a slight tingle in the aftertaste, a nice buzz to accompany the savoriness of the fried rice, beef, pineapple, eggs and various veggies. As it normally goes with spice, the heat picked up as I ate, but NEVER became overpowering. It kept enhancing the flavors,

making the egg pop more sharply, the beef taste more meaty. The sweet of the pineapple stayed a minor player in the proceedings, but easily could have won best supporting actor. Its fruity, juicy addition caused a tasty uptick in the spice, which the return of rice and veggies soon calmed back down to normal.

This is the sort of balance that is the hallmark of a restaurant that knows its turf inside and out. And, with the same cooks for 14 years now, it’s no wonder that Sukothai retains such control effortlessly.

Their lunch hours are Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Their dinner hours are Monday through Thursday, 5 - 9:30 p.m.; Friday, 5 - 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 4:30 - 10:30 p.m.

Sukhothai Thai Cuisine 8102 Market Place Lane Cincinnati, OH 45242 (513)794-0057

DINING OUT • 15

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

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16 • OPINION

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Civil marriage in Israel: The time has come

By Susie Gelman Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Washington Jewish Week) – With all of the many issues confronting the state of Israel – the Iranian nuclear threat, the challenges of renewing meaningful peace talks with the Palestinians, the increasing social divisions in Israeli society, an unconventional and somewhat precarious coalition government, serious deficits in the educational system, insufficient employment opportunities for Israelis with advanced degrees and an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable neighborhood – one might assume that the Jewish state has more than enough on its collective plate.

For the first time since 1977, there are no ultra-Orthodox parties in the recently-formed governing coalition. The ascendancy of two new parties, in particular Yesh Atid (There is a Future), reflects an increasing restiveness in Israeli society, amply demonstrated during the summer of 2011, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis literally took to the streets to protest the growing unaffordability of Israeli life and the unfairness of not requiring all Israelis to share in protecting the country.

But there is an additional critical issue facing Israel today – civil marriage. Israel shares the lack of a civil marriage option with the following countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Libya – as well as Mauritania, Indonesia and Iran. In Israel, only religious authorities, specifically, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate and rabbinical courts, and the Islamic and Christian authorities have the power to officiate at marriages in their respective religious communities.

This arrangement, which dates back to the Ottoman Empire, was continued during the British Mandate (1918-1948). In June 1947, David Ben Gurion, then chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency (the quasi-government of Israel before it became a state), offered a set of guarantees preserving the “status quo” regarding marriage and other matters of personal status to two religious parties, Agudath Israel and Mizrahi (later the National Religious Party), so that they would join the first elected government of Israel in 1949, thus entrusting to the Orthodox Rabbinate the authority to determine all such matters according to the laws of Halacha.

This accommodation became problematic almost immediately, when the Law of Return was passed in 1950 guaranteeing to all Jews the right to make aliyah, therefore inviting the question of “Who is a Jew?” – an issue that remains controversial to this day.

Moreover, by failing to separate religion and state at the inception of Israel’s existence, Israel has continu-

ously had to contend with challenging issues concerning religious identity, citizenship, marriage, divorce (including the status of thousands of agunot, women deserted by husbands who will not divorce them and who are therefore unable to remarry), and burial. The situation was further exacerbated by the aliyah of over a million Jews from the Former Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Today, approximately 300,000 Israelis who otherwise fully participate in Israeli society, including serving in the army, are not considered Jewish according to Halacha (since the “Jewishness” of their mother or grandmother is in question) and are therefore not eligible to marry in Israel (or be buried in Jewish cemeteries). Other categories of Israelis who cannot be married in modern-day Israel include: a kohen who wishes to marry a divorcee; a kohen and a convert; same-sex couples; Israelis who wish to be married in a non-Orthodox ceremony; and those who wish to marry a “person of no religion” or of “questionable Halachic background.”

Increasingly, Israelis are voting with their feet in response to such untenable restrictions and to a religious authority that is perceived as irrelevant at best to their daily lives and to their Jewish identity.

Approximately 20 percent of Israelis choose to marry outside of Israel (including the son of Michael Oren, the current ambassador to the U.S.) to avoid marriage under the authority of the Orthodox Rabbinate.

Cyprus is the venue of choice for most, due to its proximity; in fact, there is a booming “marriage business” for Israelis, with great package deals. (Ironically, Israelis who marry in civil marriages outside of Israel can be registered by the Ministry of the Interior as a married couple; however, such couples must go through the Orthodox Rabbinate if they wish to obtain a divorce.) Moreover, a growing number of Israelis are choosing not to marry at all, rather than subject themselves to the requirements of the Rabbinate, which include intrusive questions about personal religious observance that many secular Israelis would prefer to avoid.

Why does this matter to those of us who live outside of Israel? First and foremost, Israel presents itself (and many of us regard it) as the nation-state of the Jewish people. If Israel is to represent the entire Jewish people, then it cannot discount 85 percent of Diaspora Jews who subscribe to a different interpretation of Jewish tradition than the traditional Orthodox version. By rejecting Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist marriages in Israel (and conversions by all three streams outside of Israel), Israel is rejecting the majority of Diaspora Jews who follow a different Jewish path.

MARRIAGE on page 22

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

Dear Editor, AJC applauds introduction in the U.S. Senate of new bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform legislation (S.744). Eleven million prospective new Americans can strengthen America’s economy and democratic pluralism.

At last we can permanently fix America’s broken immigration system by creating a much-needed path to earned citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the

U.S., while offering critical reforms to the legal immigration process.

We hope that in the debates ahead, lawmakers will separate the issue of a path to earned citizenship for hardworking immigrants already living in the U.S. from the issue of benchmarks related to border security.

Since its founding in 1906, AJC has been outspoken in support of fair and generous immigration policies, characterized by the rule of law. AJC Cincinnati is

part of a local interfaith immigration coalition. As American Jews, we recall how our parents and grandparents made their way to this country seeking a better life, and know that we have prospered in and contributed to this country. That same opportunity should be available for others.

Sincerely, Michael A. Safdi, M.D. President, AJC Cincinnati Regional Office

Korea, Iran, and the dual-loyalty myth

By Ben Cohen JointMedia News Service Here’s a term that rarely crops up in discussions of American policy toward northeast Asia: the Korea Lobby.

And as for the pejorative term “Korea Firsters,” that isn’t one I’ve come across.

It’s not as if a cluster of organizations working to enhance our relationship with South Korea, or highlight the danger posed by the communist North, doesn’t exist.

There’s a group called Korean American Civic Empowerment, whose website boasts a photo of its supporters with the refreshingly combative U.S. Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen (R-FL). The group works on a range of mainly domestic issues, like registering KoreanAmerican voters and commemorating the ordeals of so-called “comfort women” – girls and women in Korea and other Asian countries who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during the Second World War. Then there’s the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which works to expose the truly gruesome humanitarian situation in the only country in the world that manages to be both a sovereign state and a concentration camp.

The committee’s board includes an impressive array of former foreign policy officials, policy wonks and wealthy philanthropists.

And don’t forget Liberty in North Korea, or LiNK, a truly wonderful organization that endeavors to bring comfort and aid to the thousands of refugees who have fled the living hell that is North Korea.

In addition to citizen-based groups, the South Korean government is an active participant in the Washington, D.C. lobbying scene, along with private corporations doing business in South Korea.

According to the Sunlight Foundation, a think tank whose stated goal is to increase “transparency and accountability” in the

U.S. government, Washington lobbyists and PR firms earned a handsome $100 million in Korea-related contracts during 2009 and 2010.

This picture will be very familiar to those who follow the endless debate about the influence of the “Israel Lobby” on American policy. When it comes to style and substance, there are many similarities between Korean advocacy groups and their pro-Israel counterparts – a national agenda that is strongly focused on issues like immigration and integration, a cultural and historical agenda that seeks to raise awareness of past suffering and past triumphs alike, and a foreign policy agenda that hones in upon the North Korean threat.

Yet no one of any significance is accusing Korean Americans of putting the interests of South Korea above those of the U.S. A Korean equivalent to the pack of lies contained in the book The Israel Lobby, by academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, has yet to be written, let alone make the New York Times bestseller list.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not seeking to apply the “dual loyalty” accusation to Korean Americans.

Like American Jews, they have every right to lobby and campaign on the issues they care about, and to do so free from the ignorant bigotry that has stained the “Israel Lobby” controversy.

My point is a completely different one: Lobbies do influence government policy, but they are only one of several factors that contribute to the legislative process. And when it comes to foreign policy, whether the issue is South Korea or Israel, national interests will prevail, as they always have done.

What pro-Israel and Korea democracy advocates have in common is the fact that they work in a benign environment. Especially when compared with Europeans, Americans have a far greater appreciation of the importance of democratic allies and of the imperative of maintaining warm rela-

tions with these allies. We support South Korea and Israel not because some shadowy lobby cajoles us into doing so, but because the centrality of both countries to the security and wellbeing of the U.S. is self-evident.

The perennial question that’s faced successive U.S. administrations is how far to take that support. In military terms, our relationship with South Korea has always been very close. Between 1950-53, we helped defend the South from the invasion launched by the North. We still maintain nearly 30,000 troops on the Korean peninsula, and we supply the government in Seoul with cutting edge military technology, such as F-22 stealth fighters.

And while the U.S. has never had to deploy a single soldier in an offensive capacity on Israeli soil, the bilateral defense relationship between Washington and Jerusalem is just as strong.

Crucially, both South Korea and Israel are facing existential threats from their neighbors. Few believe that North Korea, now led by the bellicose Kim Jong Un, poses a direct threat to the U.S. mainland. But its nuclear program and its arsenal of long-range missiles like the Nodong-B could devastate South Korea, and also inflict terrible damage upon Japan and on American military bases in the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile, Iran shows no sign of abandoning the nuclear program it has developed with the active assistance of North Korea. It was no coincidence that just as North Korea’s warlike rhetoric reached the point of hysteria in early April, talks in Kazakhstan between the Iranian regime and international negotiators over the nuclear program collapsed. As Catherine Ashton, the gullible European Union foreign policy chief, put it, “…all sides will go back to their capitals to evaluate where we stand on the process.”

MYTH on page 22

JEWISH LIFE • 17

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

Sedra of the Week

SHABBAT SHALOM: PARSHAT EMOR LEVITICUS 21:1-24:23

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for each generation.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, all of the Roman populace wore white shoelaces; the rabbis decreed that Jews wear black shoelaces in mourning for the Temple. The Romans were anxious to make us forget our national sovereignty and the dream of our Holy Temple. Hence it was crucial, even to the point of giving up our lives, that we wear black shoelaces so that future generations would never forget Jerusalem.

Rav Soloveitchik said then, and it is even truer today, that after the Holocaust, the most significant event in Jewish history was the declaration of the State of Israel and Israel is the most important means for securing the Jewish future. Anti-Semites realize this; hence their ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state.

Giving up one’s life for the State of Israel is eternalizing one’s life for Jewish future.

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

T EST Y OUR T ORAH KNOWLEDGE THIS WEEK’S PORTION: EMOR (VAYIKRA 21:1—24:23) b.) Regular daily sacrifice c.) New meal offering

1. What is an “omer”? a.) Measure of grain b.) Name of a city in the desert c.) Name of an animal 2. Which agricultural mitzvah is mentioned in the middle of the holidays? a.) Tithing grains to the Levi b.) Leaving corner of a field for the poor c.) Shmittah 3. Which type of sacrifice is brought in the Holy Temple on Shavout? a.) Thanksgiving sacrifice

4. When is a “remembrance of a trumpet blast”? a.) Beginning of Sabbatical year b.) Sukkot c.) Rosh Hashanah 5. How many days does one use a Succah? a.) One b.) Seven c.) Eight

for the poor, it is as if he rebuilt the Temple and made sacrifices. Rashi 3. C 23:16 “New” means the first time this year's harvest can be brought as a sacrifice. Rashi

4. C 23:24 “Remembrance” means to say in Musaf the 10 verses about Hashem as King and remember his promises to the people.

5.B 23:42

18:5) is followed by 30 verses prohibiting sexual immorality.

Each of these laws falls under the rubric of adultery, one of the sins which we may not transgress, even on pain of death. Why does the Bible present a ringing declaration of the importance of living by our laws and follow it with a list of laws that demand death rather than transgression?

To understand this, we must first understand how our sacred texts view life. There is an amazing dialogue in the Talmud between Alexander the Great and the rabbis.

Alexander asked, “What must a person do in order to live?” They responded, “He must kill himself.”

He further asked, “What must a person do in order to die?” They responded, “He must preserve his life” (B.T. Tamid 32a).

Our sages are teaching a crucial principle: The only life truly worth living is a life consecrated to an ideal that is greater than any individual life. No one lives forever. If a person lives his entire life only in order to keep on living, he is bound to fail. However, if someone gives up his life for an ideal that is greater than himself, he succeeds in continuing that ideal – and something of himself – into the future.

This idea is also found in the biblical story of the Binding of Isaac. G-d teaches Abraham the greatest paradox of life: only if we are willing to sacrifice our future will our nation continue into the future. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader of African Americans’ struggle for equality in America, said it very cogently: “If a man has not found a value for which he is willing to die, he is not fit to live.”

Many years ago, my revered teacher Rav Soloveitchik explained that it is very difficult to assess the relative importance of any one of our commandments; each is important in and of itself, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. However, there are certain commandments that assume special importance in certain historical periods. The descendants of Amalek who attempt to destroy the Jewish people are the ones with the best sense of which commandment is most significant

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. EFRAT, Israel – “I shall be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel…” (Leviticus 22:32).

Neither the Bible nor Jewish law has ever seen martyrdom as an ideal to be courted. There is the commandment that “G-d must be sanctified,” however, prior to this commandment for martyrdom, we find in last week’s portion the words: “You shall guard My statutes and My laws which person shall do and live by” (Leviticus 18:5). As our sages teach, “You shall live by My laws – and not die by them.”

Fascinatingly, Maimonides begins his discussion of the laws pertaining to sanctifying G-d’s not with the occasions when we must give up our lives, but rather with the times that we must live: “All of the House of Israel is commanded concerning sanctifying the great name of G-d… and are warned against desecrating His name… How so? When an idolater comes and forces an Israelite to transgress one of the biblical laws or be killed, the Jew must transgress the law rather than be killed; as it is written ‘You shall live by them and not die by them.’

And someone who allows himself to be killed rather than transgress the law is considered culpable for his [own] soul” (Laws of the Fundamentals of the Torah 5).

Maimonides cites the Talmudic passage which states that one must give up his life rather than commit idolatry, adultery or murder. In all other cases, one must transgress the law rather than accept martyrdom. This Talmudic approach is encapsulated by the phrase, “it is better to desecrate one Sabbath and remain alive so that you can keep many more Sabbaths” (B.T.Yoma 85b). However, our Talmudic sages further ruled that during a time of persecution, a Jew must be willing to give up his life rather than commit the most minor transgression “regarding his shoelaces” (B.T. Sanhedrin 74).

So the value of a human life is heavily emphasized, and martyrdom seems to be only a position of last resort, but in times of persecution we must be willing to give up our lives rather than change the smallest detail of how we tie our shoes. How can one’s shoelace be so consequential?

The very verse that teaches us to live by our laws (Leviticus

STATE

Written by Rabbi Dov Aaron Wise

ANSWERS 1. A 23:10 An Omer is a measure of grain that was offered in the Temple after the first day of Passover.

2. B 23:22 If one leaves the corner of his field

by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

If a man has not found a value for which he is willing to die, he is not fit to live.”

18 • JEWZ IN THE NEWZ

JEWZ

IN THE

By Nate Bloom Contributing Columnist MAJOR LEAGUE HEBREWS The following players are on a big league roster (active or disabled) as of April 16. All have at least one Jewish parent and were raised secular or Jewish: RYAN BRAUN, 29, outfielder, Milwaukee; CRAIG BRESLOW, 32, pitcher, Boston; IKE DAVIS, first base, NY Mets; SCOTT FELDMAN, pitcher, Chicago Cubs; NATE FREIMAN, 26, first base, Oakland; SAM FULD, 31, outfielder, Tampa Bay; IAN KINSLER, 30, second base, Texas; JASON MARQUIS, 34, pitcher, San Diego; MICHAEL SCHWIMER, 27, pitcher, Toronto; KEVIN YOUKILIS, 34, third and first base, NY Yankees.

Freiman is the only rookie this season. He may be the tallest big leaguer ever (stands 6’8”). He played for Israel (2012) in the World Baseball Classic qualifier and his mother is on the faculty of Hebrew College, a Boston-area, Reform-affiliated school.

In addition to the players, above, Jewish Sports Review magazine also lists Ryan Kalish, 25, outfielder, Boston, as Jewish.

Kalish’s father is Jewish, but he was raised in his mother’s Catholic faith. The Review lists him because, about two years ago, Kalish said he is no longer a religious believer and was okay with being identified as a Jewish athlete. I leave his “status” up to you, the reader.

AT THE MOVIES ONE NIGHT ONLY! On Thursday, April 25, 550 theaters nationwide (including the Springdale Showcase Cinemas and Western Hills 14 in Cincinnati) will show a two-part episode from “Star Trek: Next Generation” remastered into a feature-length film called “The Best of Both Worlds.”

The episodes (often judged the best in the series) feature an epic battle between the Enterprise crew and their enemy, the Borg.

BRENT SPINER, now 64, costars as “Data.” There will be some extra, related short films as well as the feature. Check these theaters for showtimes.

These two episodes were written by MICHAEL PILLER, who died tragically young (57) of cancer in 2005. He was, by the way, a huge baseball fan and had an enormous card collection. His mother, RUTH ROBERTS, born Ruth Mulwitz, was a songwriter with one local hit: the official NY Mets team song, “Meet the Mets.”

MICHAEL BAY (“Transformers”), 48, is the direc-

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NEWZ

tor of “Pain and Gain,” a new action comedy. Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson play personal trainers who get caught up in a criminal enterprise. (Opens Friday, April 26.) Bay, by the way, is a cousin of SUSAN BAY, 70, the wife of “Star Trek” icon LEONARD NIMOY, 82.

Opening the same day is “Big Wedding,” a romantic comedy about nuptial tensions that threaten to spin out of control. It’s directed and written by JUSTIN ZACKHAM, 42, who is best known for writing “The Bucket List” (Zackham actually coined the term “bucket list”). The allstar cast includes Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton and Amanda Seyfried. The groom is played by Brit actor BEN BARNES, 31, the son of a non-Jewish father and a South African-born Jewish mother. He’s best known for playing Prince Caspian in the last two “Chronicles of Narnia” films.

ON TV Comedian AMY SCHUMER, 31, a cousin of NY Senator CHUCK SCHUMER, stars in the new Comedy Central series, “Inside Amy Schumer.”

(Starts Tuesday, April 30, at 10:30PM). Schumer provocatively explores topics, like sex and relationships, through scripted vignettes, stand-up bits, and street interviews. (Schumer was previously mis-identified as the Senator’s niece in online sources and in this column.)

The episode of the hit CBS comedy, “How I Met Your Mother,” that airs on Monday, April 29, at 8PM, is entitled “The Bro Mitzvah.” Whether it has any Jewish content, beyond the title, is not known to me. What I do know is that it features Barney’s bachelor party (he is engaged to marry Robin, another lead character). It also features the return of Quinn, Barney’s ex-fiancee.

SHALOM, LUMPY FRANK BANK, who died on April 13, age 71, wasn’t exactly a household name. But virtually everyone over 40 will remember him as teenager Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford on the hit sit-com “Leave it To Beaver.”

Lumpy, who was more than a bit of a dolt, was a close friend of Wally Cleaver, Beaver Cleaver’s older brother. The son of a Los Angeles butcher, Bank went on to a career as a highly successful financial advisor and helped some “Beaver” cast members with their investments. A close colleague reports that he was very proud of being Jewish and had memorized the names of virtually every Jewish baseball player and film star.

FROM THE PAGES 150 Y EARS A GO Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Conway, two deservedly most favorite artistes, opened an engagement at this theater last Monday evening, after a considerable absence from this city.

They have appeared mostly in the classic and higher walks of the drama, to very fair audiences. Mrs. Conway by her admirable conception of the characters she portrays, combined with a very graceful and attractive person and manners, has won her way into universal favor.

Mr. Conway, is very natural and forcible in his performances, and is gifted with a very prepossessing appearance. They are announced in the grand, romantic drama of the “Peep O’Day” in which they have gained great celebrity, and a new and thrilling drama, written especially for them. We have no doubt the utmost capacity of Wood’s Theater will be tested. – May 8, 1863

125 Y EARS A GO Mr. Mo. Isaacs, of Kansas City, but a former Cincinnati boy, is betrothed to Miss Ray Polasky, daughter of a prominent merchant of Newport, Ky. His many friends will be pleased to hear of his alliance with this charming and popular young lady.

Pot plants, climbing vines and evergreen decorations of all kinds for weddings, balls, parties and receptions, Stage settings and hall decorations, public dinners, evening receptions, etc. All work promptly attended to. Huntsman, Walnut Street, opposite Gibson House.

Coleman Blach, Exq., son of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Blach, of West Seventh Street, who is now located in Birmingham, Ala., was in the city on a combined business and pleasure trip. His object in coming was mainly to pay a visit to his parents, family and friends.

Dr. Charles Blach, City Physician of San Francisco, Cal., accompanied by his daughter, Miss Rosalie, is visiting his brother, Mr. Julius Blach, 363 West Seventh Street. The Doctor will extend his tour to the principle Eastern cities and stop in Cincinnati en route home. Miss Rosalie will remain in the city during the summer, the guest of her uncle and aunt. – April 27, 1888

100 Y EARS A GO Mr. Paul Victor Loth and Miss Stella Himmelreich were married on Monday, April 14. The young couple are now enjoying their honeymoon visiting various Western cities. A previous announcement that they would be at home in honor of their betrothal on May 4, 1913 has naturally become void.

The Cincinnati Zionist Society will hold an open meeting at the

Grand Hotel, Fourth and Central avenues, on Sunday, April 27, at 2:30 p.m.

Miss Jennie Mannheimer, who has recently returned from Palestine, will deliver an address relative to her experiences in the Holy Land, and giving her impressions of present conditions and future prospect. The public is cordially invited to be present.

The young ladies of the Art of Arts Club held an initiation at the home of Miss Helen Levy at Hyde Park, with Miss Helen Frank presiding. After the meeting a very interesting program followed the initiation, which in turn was followed by an enjoyable luncheon.

– April 24, 1913

75 Y EARS A GO Dr. Louis A. Safer was host recently to the members of Phi Delta Epsilon, medical fraternity, at the Summer home of his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. A Hoodin, at North Bend. The party was given in honor of Robert Garber, Jules Klein, Morris Moel, Nathan Silver, Harry Schneider, Louis Soloway, Louis Izenstein, Herber Shane, Nathan Aranoff and Irwin Alber, who soon will complete their studies at the University of Cincinnati Medical College.

The Daughters of Israel have elected the following officers for the upcoming year: President, Mrs. Albert Russak; vice president, Mrs. Bert Mason; recording secretary, Mrs. Moe Greenberg; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Fred Levor; treasurer, Mrs. Ben Schwartz. New members on the executive board are Mrs. Morris Levy and Mrs. Morris Eichel.

Mrs. Jeanette Katz, Blair Avenue, entertained at a birthday party Saturday, April 30th in honor of her daughter Shirley.

Miss Julia Shor and Mr. Louis Kirschner were married Sunday, May 1st. – May 5, 1938

50 Y EARS A GO Mrs. Martin M. Cohn, new president of the Craft Shop of the Handicapped, presided at her first board meeting Monday, April 22, at 10 a.m., in the conference room at Shillito’s.

Officers include: Mrs. Simon L. Leis, first vice president; Mrs. Wendell Pierce, second vice president; Mrs. James L. Magrish, third vice president; Mrs. Daniel G. Fries, Jr., financial secretary; Mrs. Stanley S. Steinharter, recording secretary; Mrs. Fred R. Rauch, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Howard Hess, treasurer; Mrs. Kenneth B. Little, immediate past president; Mrs. Joseph D. Heiman, parliamentarian.

Kartan M. Mailender has been nominated for the presidency of the Jewish Community Center.

Harold Raab is completing his third term as president.

Nominated with him are: Albert J. Butchkes, first vice president; Victor Youkilis, second vice president; Charles Stix, third vice president; Mrs. Robert Grayman, secretary; Narvin I. Emden, financial secretary; Troy Kaichen, treasurer. – April 25, 1963

25 Y EARS A GO Dr. Jerrold M. Kirzner and Arlene Solomon are serving as cochairmen of the Jewish Community Center’s 49th annual Day of Fun scholarship endowment festival, announced Harry Sudman, JCC President.

Members of the planning committee include Jenny Acherman, Gary Albert, Marlene Albert, Jill Better, Stan Better, Nancy Enneking, Evelyn Fisher, Roni Greenberg, Ed Hattenbach, Mary Heltzer, Arlene Hines, Ken Hiudt, Shelley Holtzman, Gwen Heilbrun, John Heilbrun, Michael Kadetz, Marjorie Kessel, Harold Kirzner, Anne Klein, Annette Levine, Diana Margolis, Melissa Markowitz, Bert Menachof, Charles Naparstek, Rosalyn Richards, Laura Rinsky, Barbara Schwartz, Stanley Schwartz, Debbie Sturm, Marcella Valin, Patti Walters and Howard Wolkoff.

Members of the development sub-committee are Steve Juran, chairman; Stuart Ackerman, Chuck Brinn, Bob Cohen, Gary Fisher, Greg Franklin, Eddie Gallop, Sheldon Kahan, Marty Mandell, Lloyd Perlman, Bonnie Juran-Perrin, Paul Solomon, Walter Solomon and Barry Wagner. – April 26, 1988

10 Y EARS A GO Na’amat, Cincinnati Chapter will honor two longtime members of the organization at its donor luncheon Wednesday, March 14, at noon at the Losantiville facility of The Ridge Club. Ollie Tunick and Mary Levenstein will be the joint honorees at the event.

Murray Guttman will be honored at the Jewish Community Center’s ninth annual JCC Adams Golf Classic, Wednesday, June 4, at Shaker Run Golf Club. The event includes a buffet lunch at noon, golf beginning with a “shotgun” start at 1 p.m., and the tribute and awards dinner at 7 p.m.

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA) will host “The Presidents of the United States and the Jews,” a lecture presented by Rabbi David G. Dalin, Tuesday, May 13, at noon at Mayerson Hall on the campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. – April 26, 1988

CLASSIFIEDS • 19

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

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

(513) 761-3200 • bigbrobigsis.org Camp Ashreinu (513) 702-1513 Camp at the J (513) 722-7258 • mayersonjcc.org Camp 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) 985-0515 • jvscinti.org Kesher (513) 766-3348 Plum Street Temple Historic Preservation Fund (513) 793-2556 Shalom Family (513) 703-3343 • myshalomfamily.org The Center for Holocaust & Humanity Education (513) 487-3055 • holocaustandhumanity.org Vaad Hoier (513) 731-4671 Workum Fund (513) 899-1836 • workum.org YPs at the JCC (513) 761-7500 • mayersonjcc.org

CONGREGATIONS Adath Israel Congregation (513) 793-1800 • adath-israel.org Beit Chaverim (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Beth Israel Congregation (513) 868-2049 • bethisraelcongregation.net Congregation Beth Adam (513) 985-0400 • bethadam.org Congregation B’nai Tzedek (513) 984-3393 • btzbc.com Congregation Ohav Shalom (513) 489-3399 • ohavshalom.org

Congregation Ohr Chadash (513) 252-7267 • ohrchadashcincinnati.com Congregation Sha’arei Torah shaareitorahcincy.org Congregation Zichron Eliezer 513-631-4900 • czecincinnati.org Golf Manor Synagogue (513) 531-6654 • golfmanorsynagogue.org Isaac M. Wise Temple (513) 793-2556 • wisetemple.org Kehilas B’nai Israel (513) 761-0769 Northern Hills Synagogue (513) 931-6038 • nhs-cba.org Rockdale Temple (513) 891-9900 • rockdaletemple.org Temple Beth Shalom (513) 422-8313 • tbsohio.org Temple Sholom (513) 791-1330 • templesholom.net The Valley Temple (513) 761-3555 • valleytemple.com

EDUCATION Chai Tots Early Childhood Center (513) 234.0600 • chaitots.com Chabad Blue Ash (513) 793-5200 • chabadba.com Cincinnati Hebrew Day School (513) 351-7777 • chds.shul.net HUC-JIR (513) 221-1875 • huc.edu JCC Early Childhood School (513) 793-2122 • mayersonjcc.org Kehilla - School for Creative Jewish Education (513) 489-3399 • kehilla-cincy.com Mercaz High School (513) 792-5082 x104 • mercazhs.org Kulanu (Reform Jewish High School) 513-262-8849 • kulanucincy.org Regional Institute Torah & Secular Studies (513) 631-0083 Rockwern Academy (513) 984-3770 • rockwernacademy.org Sarah’s Place (513) 531-3151 • sarahsplacecincy.com Yeshivas Lubavitch High School of Cincinnati 513-631-2452 • ylcincinnati.com

ORGANIZATIONS American Jewish Committee (513) 621-4020 • ajc.org American Friends of Magen David Adom (513) 521-1197 • afmda.org B’nai B’rith (513) 984-1999 BBYO (513) 722-7244 Hadassah (513) 821-6157 • cincinnati.hadassah.org Jewish Discovery Center (513) 234.0777 • jdiscovery.com Jewish National Fund (513) 794-1300 • jnf.org Jewish War Veterans (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

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 Erin at 621-3145 SPEAKER from page 6 Both Patrick’s office and the ISBCC did not immediately return requests for comment from JNS. Wedaddy, speaking on behalf of the Boston Muslim community, referenced both Islamic and Jewish scripture in his remarks at Thursday’s service, saying, “Whoever kills a soul, it is as if he killed mankind entirely. And whoBIRTHRIGHT from page 8 With no central body tracking data, it’s hard to evaluate such claims. But several academics said the move away from longer term high-school travel is both clear and detrimental.

Experiencing Israel as an adolescent rather than as a young adult, Ezrachi said, is more impactful.

And teenagers have more followup opportunities through synagogue youth groups or Jewish day schools than those who return to college campuses, a drawback Birthright has belatedly sought to address.

“It’s not enough for the Birthright people to say this is not my problem,” said Jack Wertheimer, a history professor and former provost at the Jewish Theological Seminary. “The question is whether they are willing to invest their resources to maintain these teen trips. The summer teen trips are much longer, much more impactful, and may end up bring-

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

(513) 531-9600 ever saves a life, it is as if he saved all of mankind.”

The American Islamic Congress (AIC), which Wedaddy works for, is a “nonprofit, nonreligious, civil society development organization serving Muslims and Non-Muslims by promoting civil and human rights through advocacy, engagement and education,” according to its website. ing teens to Israel to study and work there. Something ought to be done.”

Proponents of teen travel have offered a number of ways to level the playing field, including distributing philanthropic dollars more equally between trips for adolescents and young adults, or creating an Israel voucher that could be used for any number of travel options.

Gideon Shavit, the head of Lapid, a coalition representing 30 providers of teen programs to Israel, said the Israeli government should be supporting teen travel as it supports Birthright – to the tune of $40 million in 2013. But sending kids on a costly multiweek Israel summer trip in high school is a tough sell when there’s a free trip in the offing a year or two down the road.

“Given the choice of spending $7,000 or $8,000 on a two-week trip or nothing on a 10-day trip,” Reichenbach said, “it’s a nobrainer.”

Courtesy of Taglit-Birthright

Birthright Israel participants visiting Yad Vashem, summer 2012.

(Photo of Taglit-Birthright Israel participants taken with permission inside Yad Vashem.)

20 • BUSINESS / FIRST PERSON

WWW.AMERICANISRAELITE.COM

Cincinnati USA Partnership hosts panel to bridge gap between Israel and Cincinnati USA The Cincinnati USA Partnership, the local organization responsible for attracting, retaining and growing new business, jobs and investment in Cincinnati and the Greater Tri-state Area, hosted a panel to inform the public of its most recent efforts to attract Israeli businesses to the Cincinnati region. The event took place Friday, April 19, in downtown Cincinnati.

Israel’s highly regarded international reputation as a leader in innovation and technology made it one of six select countries the Partnership chose to target as part of an international attraction strategy. The Partnership has taken three trips to Israel since their initial outreach to the country, and continues to build upon existing relationships between Israel and Cincinnati businesses in order to

capitalize upon Israel’s innovative and entrepreneurial culture. The Partnership’s key industry clusters are strategically aligned with those also present in Israel, such as high tech manufacturing, life sciences, digital technology and water technology. According to a recent report, a combination of fast population growth, robust exports and sound monetary policy has allowed Israel to create

jobs faster than the European Union, Poland, Brazil and the United States.

“Cincinnati’s consumer marketing and branding intellect provide for unparalleled go-to-market expertise for complementing growing Israeli companies that are seeking to enter the U.S. marketplace,” said Denyse Ferguson, senior vice president and executive director of the Cincinnati

USA Partnership.

“Cincinnati USA’s central location provides a significant advantage to Israeli companies looking to penetrate U.S. markets,” said Marc Coles, CEO of Ridgeback Business Development, Ltd. “Cincinnati’s strong connectivity, pro-business culture and low operating costs, significantly support a growing company’s go-tomarket strategy.”

Israelite community” accentuates the importance of these basic laws of behavior. G-d does not tell Moses to simply say these words to the people of Israel, as G-d does at many other points within the Torah. Rather, everyone is to be included: young and old, men and women, sick and healthy, and looking from a modern perspective, people living within Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora.

Some examples of what often is called the Holiness Code, include: 1) Leaving the corners of the field unharvested, providing for the hungry in the community (Leviticus 19:9-10).

2) Dealing honestly in personal and business matters (Leviticus 19:11, 13, 35, 36).

3) Respecting physical differences, including not taking advantage of one who is blind or deaf (Leviticus 19:14).

4) Making fair decisions without favoritism (Leviticus 19:15).

5) Interacting with people in respectful, tolerant, accepting ways (Leviticus 19:16-18).

6) Showing respect to elders (Leviticus 19:32).

7) Loving your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18).

It is not these acts of holiness, however, that piqued my interest about parshat kedoshim, even though they are all values that I’m confident each and every one of us grew up with and agree they are very important. It is more that Hashem emphasizes the fact that the execution of the mitzvot and desire to reach the highest level of holiness is a responsibility that falls not only upon the People of Israel but rather on the entire Community of Israel.

I could not have asked for a more perfect parsha to help explain my connection to Israel and why I made Aliyah and joined the IDF. If I got a nickel every time someone asked the question: “So

why did you make Aliyah?” I’d be making millions. Every time someone new asks the question I always think to myself, “Alright Lainey, today’s the day you actually come up with a decent answer.”

It’s not as easy as you might think, but I believe this parsha, at least, might just help me out with why I joined the army.

In terms of Aliyah, let’s be real, why wouldn’t anyone want to live in Israel?! I have honestly been living the life – living with my best friends on a beautiful kibbutz in the north of Israel, traveling and hiking across the country, visiting friends from throughout the years, and now, being officially considered a member of Tzvah Haganah L’Yisrael (Israel Defense Force). Obviously I miss my family like crazy and it’s safe to say the hardest part of making Aliyah is knowing they’re here while I’m there. But thank G-d they make it to Israel a decent amount!

And I made it home after only three months in the army!

In terms of the army, I strongly believe that protecting the Jewish State is not only the responsibility of the Jews who live within Israel’s borders, but of the Jewish community as a whole, stretching all over the world. Just as Hashem described the task of obtaining holiness is a demand of the community of Israel not just the people of Israel, I feel that if the Jews want to continue living with the confidence of a Jewish State in existence, then they (“we”) need to take an active role in ensuring that it still exists for our children and our children’s children.

However, I don’t mean to say that the army is a place for a bunch of idealistic Jews who want to show their support for Israel by enlisting.

As one of my friends very well puts it in one of his blogs, “The Israeli Army is not a Zionistic summer camp. We don’t get up every morn-

ing singing Hatikvah and thanking G-d to be serving in the holy army after a week of being in the shetach sleeping in holes and eating peanuts.” Now that’s not 100 percent what I’m going through, but I can definitely relate.

The army has certainly been an interesting experience, and “enjoying” is a relative term. It’s hard, tiring, annoying, demanding (physically and mentally), and I’m not going to lie, I’ve had enough of speaking Hebrew! But, at the end of the day, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. I’m with truly amazing people, I couldn’t have asked for better commanders, and all in all, I’m doing some really amazing things (that unfortunately I can’t go into too much detail about) that people would never in their lifetime even dream about doing.

Last week during the siren that went off all around Israel on Yom HaShoah, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “This is the first time in history Israel has an organized way of protecting herself and her borders, and I’m part of making that history.” That’s what gets me through day-to-day – knowing that I’m fulfilling my responsibility as a Jew fighting to protect the Jewish State; history in the making.

Wearing my uniform to the Kotel on Erev Yom HaZikaron, or to Har Herzl the next morning, was just an experience I can hardly put into words. It became so much more real, the fact that I’m actually in the army, when I was surrounded by other soldiers in uniform mourning their lost family members and friends. Everyone has a story about someone they know, or at least has one degree of separation with, who’s been killed, and it scares me that that may too become my reality at some point (G-d forbid). Yom HaZikaron is truly the one day the entire Jewish commu-

nity, religious and secular, those living in Israel and those living outside of Israel, can bond as a nation and recognize those who gave their lives for the state to exist.

One of the most amazing parts about Yom HaZikaron, however, is how quickly the country changes from extreme sadness to extreme happiness as Yom HaAtzmaut comes in. If anyone here has not experienced Yom HaAtzmaut in Israel, start planning your trip for next April! This year I stayed in Jerusalem where there is not a shortage of fun activities – from concerts to Israeli dancing to parties.

Unfortunately I was returning to the army the next day so I couldn’t party too hard, but it was still an amazing experience.

At the end of the parsha, Hashem says: “But I have said unto you: ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the LORD your God, who have set you apart from the peoples.” What a fitting parsha for the Shabbat after Yom HaAtzmaut. Every year we should strive to remember that though the Land of Israel was promised to us, we were unfortunately only able to obtain her through thousands of people giving of their lives in the pursuit of finally having a Jewish State, a land flowing with milk and honey, to call our own.

I opened with speaking about a way to obtain holiness and specific examples Hashem laid out. I want to add something very important that I think was left out – love and support Israel. Recognize what a blessing it is each day to be living with the insurance of a Jewish State in this day and age. I am honored to be personally carrying on the legacy of protecting to attempt to obtain my personal holiness.

Shabbat Shalom.

scene from Macesz Huszar, which the publication described as “delicious proof of the renaissance of Hungary’s once vibrant Jewish culture.” And the Nepszabadsag daily’s food critic praised the restaurant for “reinventing simple Jewish foods as delicacies.”

The daily was critiquing the stuffed goose neck, the duck breast

filled with chopped liver and creamy cholent. But Popovits is most proud of the matzah ball soup and the brisket, which is smoked especially for the restaurant according to an old Eastern European Jewish recipe unavailable commercially anywhere in Hungary, according to Popovits. “[We] try to reinvent the old recipes without departing from the

tradition upon which they were based,” says Popovits, who operates two bars in addition to Matzah Soldier. “I often just buy a fresh piece of lamb, bring it to the kitchen and then we begin to experiment while consulting the old recipes until we get it just right.”

The next step for Popovits is compiling a cookbook of his own,

which he says he may well name after the restaurant.

“Writing this book would be making a statement, reaching a milestone that says this is where we are,” Popovits says. “I would like to stake that claim: This is the place that Jewish East European food occupies right now, in the great culinary democracy of our times.”

Lainey’s Blog: D’var Torah Live from Israel

by Lainey Paul I made it back to Cincinnati for a two week furlough after only being in the army for three months!

Highly unusual, but I am excited!

Unfortunately, it took me 38 hours to get home, with cancellations, delays and layovers. The army, however, has toughened me up!

I had prepared a D’var Torah for Shabbat which I gave at my shul, Adath Israel. I would like to share it with you as part of my blog this week.

Holiness—exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness and devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity. According to the credible Miss Miriam Webster.

Acharei Mot, the first of the two portions for this week, refers to the death of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, the process for Aaron to enter the Holy of Holies, the rituals of a sin offering, Yom Kippur and concludes with a listing of prohibited sexual relationships.

Kedoshim opens with some of the most famous words in the Torah: “Kedoshim tihiyu, ki ani Adonai Eloheichem” (you shall be holy, for I, the Lord your G-d am holy). G-d tells Moses to speak these words to “kol-adat b’nai Yisrael” (the whole Israelite community). The commentary Sifra teaches that “the whole BISTRO from page 9 “Now that you mention it I see it, but I come here for business meetings cause it’s a cool place,” he told JTA. But the Jewish element was not lost on local and even international media. Earlier this month, Time magazine opened an article about Hungarian Jewry with a

AUTOS • 21

THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013

All about food Zell’s Bites

BAILEY’S IRISH CREAM FUDGE Makes 3 dozen pieces Ingredients 1 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick unsalted) 4 cups Ghirardelli (or Nestle) chocolate chips

by Zell Schulman I’ve been home from Arizona for two weeks and there are still several stacks of “Things To Do” waiting on a table in my office which I haven’t gotten to or had the time to think about. I had a wonderful adventure in Scottsdale. Everyone tried talking me into staying another month, but after five weeks, I couldn’t wait until I got home, even though the weather was 75 degrees the day I left. As they say, “Home is where the heart is.”

The refreshment table was covered with delicious treats and tasty homemade baked goods. Two of my favorites were the Walnut Chews and the best Bailey’s Irish Cream Fudge I’d tasted in a long time.

Tackling my suitcases, I made piles for the cleaner, the washer and gifts I had purchased for myself, family and friends.

One evening, Judy Lucas and I drove to Phoenix for a musical program, sponsored by Brandeis women’s organization. The refreshment table was covered with delicious treats and tasty homemade baked goods. Two of my favorites were the Walnut Chews and the best Bailey’s Irish Cream Fudge I’d tasted in a long time. Both were made by Ellen S. Tuckman. The fudge only has four ingredients and can be prepared very quickly. It would be the perfect item to take to a food swap, bake sale or benefit.

Ellen was kind enough to mail the recipes to me and I am happy to share them with you.

Method 1. Grease an 8 inch square pan.

Melt the chocolate chips and butter together over medium low heat, stirring constantly until melted. You may also do this in a microwave safe container and microwave on full power 1 minute. Remove from the microwave, stir well until smooth.

They may need to microwave another 15 to 30 seconds more until all the chocolate chips are melted.

2. Sift the powdered sugar into a large bowl. Add the Bailey’s and mix well. Slowly stir in the melted chocolate-butter mixture until it becomes smooth.

3. Pour into the greased pan.

Flatten the mixture so it sits evenly in the pan. Place a large sheet of wax paper on top and using the flat of your hand, smooth the fudge evenly in the pan. Score and mark the fudge into six lengthwise strips and six wide strips. You should get 36 pieces. Refrigerate until firm, about two to three hours.

Zell’s Tips: You may also prepare the fudge earlier in the day, mark it into squares, then cover well and refrigerate it overnight.

WALNUT CHEWS Makes 16 bars Ingredients 1/2 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/3 cup butter 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 large egg, beaten well 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup coarsely chopped, walnuts Method 1. Grease an 8 inch square pan.

Preheat the oven to 350.

2. In a large bowl sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

Set aside.

3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, remove from the heat.

4. Add the sugars, egg, butter and vanilla into the sifted, dry ingredients. Mix together well.

Fold in the chopped walnuts.

5. Spread the batter into the greased 8 inch pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Insert a tip of a knife into the center of the batter, to make sure it is well baked.

6. Cut into bars.

Zell’s Tips: These may also be cut into small squares.

The 2013 Jaguar XF The Jaguar XF takes the luxury sedan to a whole new level. With Instinctive All Wheel Drive, the Jaguar XF is boosted with turbocharging for an optimal performance.

The XF model features a 2.0liter V4 supercharged engine that helps the Instinctive All Wheel Drive. It employs an active power transfer control technology that enhances traction while retaining the sports agility and steering feel well known in Jaguar cars. This system incorporates a choice of three selectable driving modes to fit road conditions. The three different modes include normal, winter and dynamic. Each of the modes affects how the system operates.

When Normal Mode is selected the system varies traction from front to rear, sending up to 100 percent of torque to the rear wheels in normal driving conditions for an enhanced perfomance experience. In Winter Mode, the all wheel drive system is more preemptive, defaulting to a 30 percent torque distribution to the front wheels, to ensure optimal grip on snow or other low-traction surfaces. Dynamic mode offers a more dynamic version of Normal Mode, ensuring a refined drive at higher speeds in low-traction conditions.

High-pressure direct fuel injection delivers fuel precisely to the center of the combustion chamber,

2013 Jaguar XF

maxmizing air and fuel mixing for optimal power and efficiency.

The inline 4-cylinder Jaguar engine delivers outstanding driveability and strong performance across all engine operating speeds.

The new and improved engine is only one of the exciting features of this car. For safety and security purposes, the Jaguar XF has a protective body shell, advanced airbags and seatbelts, the power to stop, adaptive cruising and much more. This advanced technology helps the passengers have a safe and comfortable ride.

Expressed in figures, the Jaguar XF accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds, has a top speed of 121 mph and returns a fuel consumption of 23 miles per gallons.

Standard features include streamlined front fenders with side power vents, slim headlight units

and a power-bulge hood. Inside the vehicle, there is a large glovebox and storage pockets in each door and and on backs of the front seats.

The in-car entertainment isn’t sparse either. With a 7-inch fullcolor touch screen, entertainment, information, communications and navigation sytems are always at your fingertips.

The Jaguar 250-watt sound system includes a 10-speaker array, with a woofer and tweeter in each door. For excellent bass reproduction, the woofer is mounted higher than in most conventional systems.

In that sound system, there is advanced Bluetooth technology. It can wirelessly connect compatible cell phones to the vehicle’s built-in hands-free telephone system.

This vehicle is aesthetically pleasing and alluringly quick. This luxury sedan is top notch.

MSRP starts at $46,975.

22 • OBITUARIES D EATH N OTICES KOHN, Dorothy, age 91, April 16, 2013; 6 Iyar, 5773.

MILLMAN, Bernice, age 81, died April 16, 2013; 7 Iyar, 5773.

HIBSHMAN, Rhoda, age 85, died April 17, 2013; 7 Iyar, 5773.

BRODOF, Michael A., age 54, died April 20, 2013; 10 Iyar, 5773.

FRANKEL, Bennett, age 59, died April 20, 2013, 10 Iyar, 5773.

TARSCHIS, Marian, age 94, died April 23, 2013; 13 Iyar, 5773.

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MEMORABILIA from page 8 looking in. African-American heroes like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson have been part of ‘our crowd.’”

“The story of Jews in baseball has typically been told by focusing on Major League Baseball, and counting up how many Jews played in Major League Baseball and disputing who’s a Jew and who’s not a Jew: Was Elliott Maddox Jewish? Was Rod Carew Jewish?” John Thorn, the lead consultant for the exhibition, said by telephone. “To me, the far more interesting story was on the other side of the television set: What was the ordinary Jew’s experience with baseball? How

MARRIAGE from page 16 Moreover, the “status quo” regarding marriage has a direct effect upon aliyah. As long as Jews who immigrate to Israel have their authenticity as Jews questioned or even denied (sometimes years after such individuals have made aliyah, married and raised a family), then fewer Jews will be encouraged to align their future with that of the Jewish state.

For American Jews who have depended upon the separation of religion and state as the keystone to our acceptance and prosperity in this country, the stranglehold that the Orthodox Rabbinate has on our Israeli brethren is simply untenable.

Fortunately, the growing sentiment in Israel is trending toward civil marriage. Hopefully, Israelis will take advantage of the current political situation to liberate themselves and set a course of inclusiveness for all Jews. Such a move toward freedom of choice in marriage will increase Israelis’ religious options and strengthen Jewish identity in the Jewish state.

HOSPITALS from page 10 “She seemed fine and talked with us,” he told JTA. “You can be very injured inside, and outside you look completely pristine.”

Organizing the emergency room, Rivkind said, is as important as treating patients correctly.

During the second intifada, Hadassah developed what he called the “accordion method,” a method of moving patients through various stages of assessment with maximal efficiency. The process has become standard in hospitals across Israel and around the world.

COMPROMISE from page 10 By some measures, the conversion issue has been thornier.

In 2010, a Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset member, David Rotem, proposed a bill meant to give would-be converts more leeway in choosing where and how to convert in Israel. But the bill also would have consolidated control over conversions under the office of the Rabbinate, further weakening Reform and Conservative con-

did baseball become a binding, integrating, assimilating force in Jewish life?”

Aside from his professional qualifications as Major League Baseball’s official historian, Thorn is in a unique position to examine the issue. Thorn, who is Jewish, was born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany after World War II and settled with his parents in New York. Baseball, particularly the experience of collecting baseball cards, was how the young Thorn made his way in his adopted country – his “visa to America,” Thorn said.

“The story of baseball being more than a game, which is a cliche, of course, resonated for me particularly,” he said.

Up to 200 artifacts will fill the 2,400 square feet on the museum’s fifth floor. After closing at the end of the 2014 baseball season, the exhibit will tour nationally, with smaller versions visiting Jewish community centers, synagogues, historical societies, libraries and stadiums, Perelman said.

Besides the general public, items will come from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the American Jewish Historical Society and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, is among those serving on the advisory committee.

What item would Perelman

most like to acquire for display?

A bat, glove or personal item relating to Pike would be nice, he said.

The ultimate catch, though, would be the High Holy Days ticket that Koufax didn’t use after making his celebrated decision to sit out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series against the Minnesota Twins because it fell on Yom Kippur.

“As many shuls as there are in Minnesota, that’s how many claim he was there” to observe the day, Perelman said.

The ticket, Perelman added – his slyness detectable even over the phone – is something “I know doesn’t exist because he didn’t go to services.”

Some of what distinguishes Israeli trauma doctors are qualities that are hard to teach. Rivkind has said he keeps two beepers and a cell phone on him at all times, even in bed. Even when calls come in the middle of the night, a small army of medical professionals can usually be relied on to arrive at their posts within minutes, sometimes even ahead of the ambulances carrying the wounded.

“Whenever there was an alarm, we jumped, ran and called our homes, and then got ready to absorb patients,” said Liora Utitz, the mass-casualty coordinator at

Avraham Rivkind, the chief of surgery at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, has pioneered several medical techniques, including several that helped save victims of the Boston Marathon attacks.

Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

“I felt very safe. The volunteerism of everyone gave me strength.”

Israel continues to export its trauma expertise. Rivkind has taught medicine in Melbourne, Australia, and Southern California. Delegations of doctors from New York and Los Angeles have visited him in Jerusalem. This week, he will speak with Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is visiting Israel, about strengthening connections between Hadassah and hospitals in Baltimore.

“We have tens of years of cumulative trauma experience,” he said.

“We’ve learned not to give up.”

versions.

Following an outcry from Jewish leaders in the United States, the bill was shelved. Sharansky was tasked with finding a solution to the dispute, but nothing has materialized. In the meantime, Israel’s Supreme Court was subject to a freeze on hearing any cases relating to conversion.

The high court freeze expires at the end of April.

“Who is a Jew is an issue that will come back,” predicted Uri Regev, a Reform rabbi and chairman of Hiddush, an Israeli nonprofit that advocates for religious pluralism. “The courts making it a

headline issue will happen within a few months.”

Public transit may be the issue most conducive to compromise because it does not involve questions of Jewish identity or continuity.

Public buses long have run on Shabbat in Haifa, Israel’s thirdlargest city, and private shared taxis run in Tel Aviv on the Sabbath. Lipman said Yesh Atid backs running buses on Shabbat in non-Orthodox neighborhoods on a limited schedule.

The one wild card in Israel’s religion and state debate is David Stav, a Modern Orthodox rabbi who will run for the position of chief rabbi in

June. If he wins, supporters of the reform-minded rabbi say he will put a friendlier face on the Rabbinate and help unite a divided society.

But in an interview last year with JTA, the reforms outlined by Stav were mostly procedural. For example, he supports the drive to allow couples to marry under a rabbi of their choice.

Regev says the best chance for bringing about far-reaching reforms lies outside the country – in the form of the American Jewish community.

“At this point it’s all a question of applying sufficient pressure,” Regev said. “This subject can’t be pushed under the rug.”

MYTH from page 16

Any evaluation will have to acknowledge the painful truth that

negotiations have failed and that the specter of war looms. That’s true for both Korea and Iran. Both North Korea and Iran have been hit by punishing sanctions – indeed, it was a new round of sanctions that triggered North Korea’s latest bout of hostility – but, as I and others have argued in the past, the sanctions have not succeeded in grinding the nuclear activities of these rogue states to a halt.

And that’s why, if the terrible prospect of military confrontation becomes a reality, the blame won’t lie with “Israel Firsters,” “Korea Firsters” or any of the other ludicrous notions cooked up by conspiracy theorists. It will lie squarely with the tyrannies in Pyongyang and Tehran.

Courtesy of Hadassah Medical Center

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