Hadassah Magazine Sept/Oct 2022

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 SURVIVING GRIEF | ISRAELI HOLIDAY RECIPES | HMO’S NEW LEADER Welcoming the Season of Renewal SHA nAH TOVAH!

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OCTOBER IS GAUCHER AWARENESS MONTH

©2022 Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A, Inc., 300 Shire Way, Lexington, MA 02421. 1-877-TAKEDA-7 (1-877-825-3327). All rights reserved. TAKEDA and the TAKEDA logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. US-NON-8043v1.0 08/22 LEARN ABOUT DISEASE

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Takeda recognizes the importance of raising the profile of this rare genetic condition to help people receive an earlier diagnosis.

ABDOMENSWOLLENNOSEBLEEDSFREQUENT WHAT IS GAUCHER

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EXCESSIVEFATIGUEEASY BRUISING BONE

Symptoms vary from person to person and can develop at any age. Genetic screening can show you the risk of having Gaucher disease and is recommended if you are of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. It is often assumed that Gaucher disease is covered by standard screenings, but this is not always the case and specialized screening may be needed. Talk to your doctor if you think you have symptoms or to learn more about genetic screening. PAIN DISEASE? QR CODE

In the Ashkenazi Jewish population there are at least 19 times more cases of type 1 Gaucher disease than in the general population – that’s about one in every 600 Ashkenazi births.

Gaucher — pronounced GO SHEY — disease is caused when waste materials that are usually broken down cannot be, and instead slowly accumulate in different organs. Over time, this causes damage that can lead to a range of symptoms.

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WORLD’LOSTAFORSEARCHTHEANDLEVISTELLASATURDAYS:HUNDRED‘ONEFROMKALMAN.MAIRABYILLUSTRATIONBOTTOM)FROM(CLOCKWISE KRUTRAHELIOFCOURTESYHISTORY;JEWISHAMERICANOFMUSEUMNATIONALWEITZMANTHEOFGRUBER/COURTESYJOHNPRESS);READER(AVID 12DEPARTMENTSCOMMENTARY Elevating essential work through ritual 14 ESSAY Jewish girls are at the top of the class 32 TRAVEL Morocco’s Jewish story 40 36 FOOD Holiday fare from Israel 40 ARTS Museum of American Jewish history reopens 46 BOOKS • Recalling Jewish Rhodes • Religion and pornography addiction in ‘Shmutz’ • Maggie Anton’s ‘The Choice’3646 3SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

18 BRINGING LIGHT INTO DARKNESS By Rahel Musleah

16 ‘HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?’ By Myra Sack In fall 2018, the author gave birth to a beautiful baby girl whom she and her husband, Matt, named Havi Lev, the Hebrew words for “life” and “heart.”

Fifteen months later, on a cold, snowy December day, they learned that Havi had Tay-Sachs disease. Her daughter’s diagnosis—and fate— became a test of faith and a lesson in forgiveness.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 | VOL. 104 NO. 1 On the Cover Welcoming the Jewish New Year. Illustration by Donna Grethen. IN EVERY ISSUE 4 President’s Column 6 The Editor’s Turn 8 Letters to the Editor 10 Cut & Post 26 Hadassah Medicine 28 Hadassah News 45 Crossword Puzzle 63 About Hebrew 64 Question & Answer @hadassahmagazine@HadassahMagfacebook.com/hadassahmag Join the Conversation

Georgette Bennett counters hate, builds bridges and aids and rescues others through humanitarian diplomacy, most notably as founder of the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees. A master of people-to-people connections, Bennett corrals governments, organizations, entrepreneurs and donors to help people in need. She has crisscrossed the globe to raise awareness and funds, meeting with cardinals at the Vatican, representatives of the European Union in Brussels, Jewish funders in Miami, humanitarian activists in Israel and many more.

On Yom Kippur, Jews all over the world will recite Yizkor prayers in remembrance of those they have lost. The remembrance ritual comes as the emotional toll of Covid, gun violence, the war in Ukraine and tumultuous politics have contributed to the proliferation of discussions about loss and grief. At the same time, many gifted writers—quite a number of them Jewish— are turning inward to plumb the depths of loss, particularly personal loss, and their journeys from grief to healing.

22 THE JOURNEY TO HEALING By Carol Saline

Restoring the bedrock of Hadassah activism | By Rhoda Smolow PRESIDENT’S COLUMN All Generations Together

LET’S ALWAYS REMEMBER NOT ONLY WHAT WE OFFER TO YOUNG WOMEN BUT ALSO WHAT THEY BRING TO US. L ike much of the world, Hadassah has an additional generation of women to draw on, many of whom remain active at ages that their grandmothers and great-grandmothers barely dreamed of. It’s natural that we should take advantage of an entire generation’s rich experience and memory. But it’s unnatural to allow one generation’s strength to eclipse the energy and the longer horizon of younger generations. When we bring younger women into our organi zation, they are not only adding a new dimension to our ranks but also restoring the age profile that was once the bedrock of Hadassah activism.

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Just as the earth circles the sun, so does the Jewish calendar return to the same place every year. At the end of this High Holi day season, we will begin again, as always, with the reading of Bereishit, the first book of the Hebrew Bible. As the book’s English title, Genesis, indicates, the first chapters of our story have a lot to do with generations. Derived from our biblical culture, “from generation to generation” is a common phrase in Jewish discourse that describes how heritage is handed down through the ages. The phrase applies equally to our collective destiny and to individual families, as parents pass teachings and values to children, and then it becomes the children’s turn to lead.Real life, of course, often defies neat categories. In political, commu nal and cultural leadership, one generation doesn’t automatically withdraw as the next comes of age. At Hadassah, we recognize that it’s not one generation leading at a time, but members and leaders from vari ous generations working together. But something has happened in the last century that largely coincides with Hadassah’s history, a revolution unprecedented in human existence that we are all aware of on one level but that doesn’t always filter into our practical thinking. When Henrietta Szold gaveled the first Hadassah meeting to order, she was 52 years old. She was on the mature side of the group she led, but that same age would put her on the younger side of Hadassah’s national leadership today. The rest of Hadas sah’s first eight national presidents were under 50 when they assumed the highest office. Rose Halprin, who began her first term in 1932, was 36. The revolution I alluded to is at the heart of this story. It’s about longevity. When Hadassah began in 1912, life expectancy for American women stood at 55. Today, it’s 81. There’s a word for that 26-year gap: Generation. So let’s always remember not only what we offer to young women but also what they bring to us. This is why Evolve Hadassah, our program for engaging and empow ering young activists, is so critical. This is why it’s so important for us to take advantage of the strengths they have and also to train them for leadership. We’re all familiar with the saying, “There’s no better way to learn something than to teach it.” By training young leaders, our overall organization, advocacy and outlook becomeIncreasedsharper.longevity is such an incredible gift to humanity, but we must figure out how to share the benefits. This is not to knock my own generation (I am 69) but to challenge all of us to do more. No business, institution or philanthropy will survive if it allows one generation to define it by default, or because it doesn’t master the art of making itself relevant and attractive to newcomers.Bringing in larger numbers of young women not only ensures Hadassah’s future. It is also the opti mal way to operate today, harnessing the layered power of all ages to direct our projects and advocate for women’s issues, to support Israel, combat antisemitism and all forms of hate, and express our values. Let’s make sure in this New Year—which begins the evening of September 25, on Rosh Hasha nah—that that we don’t skip any generations. Let’s make sure we harness the power of all. Shanah tovah!

Take part in this exciting Tree of Healing opportunity commemorating the rebirth of Hadassah Ein Kerem’s Round Building.

360 of HEALING

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Please contact Miki Schulman, chair, 360° of Healing, The Full Circle Campaign, mschulman@hadassah.org or your Major Gifts Officer.

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19:16 (the phrase ends “while your neighbor bleeds”) that are read in Reform synagogues on Yom Kippur afternoon.Thisisalso the season of back-toschool, and just in time for the new academic year, a Tulane University professor shares her research on why Jewish girls and young women do so well academically (page 14), and the new chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary offers guidance on how to balance our academic and professional success with rituals that honor our whole being (page 12). As you look ahead to the new year, we help you get started on your 5783 to-do list: Plan a vacation, perhaps somewhere off the beaten path like Morocco, where Deputy Editor Libby Barnea found some new insights (page 32); expand your culinary horizons with some popular Israeli food bloggers (page 36); or visit a museum you’ve been meaning to—maybe the recently reopened Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadel phia (page 40). And of course, since you’ll want to add new books to your to-read list, we’ve got you covered with our brand-new column, “On Your Shelf: New Must-Reads” by Sandee Brawarsky (page 53) and with our bimonthly One Book, One Hadassah national book club (hadassahmagazine.org/books) Lastly, a hearty thank you to all our loyal donors to the Hadassah Magazine Circle (page 30). On behalf of the whole magazine staff, I wish you a sweet, healthy and meaningful new year!

CREDITS THE EDITOR’S TURN Season of New YearsCHAIR Marlene Post EXECUTIVE EDITOR Lisa Hostein DEPUTY EDITOR Libby Barnea SENIOR EDITOR Leah Finkelshteyn DIGITAL EDITOR Arielle Kaplan EDITOR EMERITUS Alan M. Tigay DESIGN/PRODUCTION Regina and Samantha Marsh EDITORIAL BOARD Roselyn Bell Ruth G. Cole Nancy Falchuk Gloria Goldreich BluDaraGreenbergHorn Ruth B Hurwitz Carmela AnneFrancineKalmansonKlagsbrunLapidusLernerCurtLeviantJoyLevitt Bonnie Lipton Marcie Natan Nessa Rapoport Sima Schuster Susan S. BarbaraSmirnoffTopol HADASSAH NATIONAL PRESIDENT Rhoda Smolow ADVERTISING Celia Weintrob, Advertising and Marketing Manager Phone: (212) 451-6283 Email: cweintrob@hadassah.org Randi O’Connor, Advertising Sales Associate Phone: (212) 451-6221 Email: roconnor@hadassah.org Sara Ruderman, Ad Sales Representative Phone: (585) 233-2050 Email: adsales.hadassah@gmail.com CHANGE OF ADDRESS/MEMBERSHIP INQUIRIES 800-664-5646 • membership@hadassah.org TO SUBSCRIBE DIRECTLY hadassahmagazine.org/subscribe • (212) 451-6283 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR letters@hadassah.org EDITORIAL INQUIRIES (212) 451-6289 • magazine@hadassah.org GENERAL HADASSAH INQUIRIES (212) 355-7900 Hadassah Magazine is published in print bimonthly. © Copyright 2022, Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. issn 0017-6516. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and addi tional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Hadassah Magazine, 40 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005-1387. Subscription: $36.00. Member American Jewish Press Association Magazine Publishers of America Hadassah does not endorse any products or services advertised in Hadassah Magazine unless specifically noted. The acceptance of advertising in Hadassah Magazine does not constitute recommen dation, approval or other representation of the quality of products or services, or the credibility of any claims made by advertisers in cluding, but not limited to, the kashrut of advertised food products. Use of any products or services advertised in Hadassah Magazine is solely at the user’s risk and Hadassah accepts no responsibility or liability in connection therewith.

Timely reflections for the High Holidays | By Lisa Hostein When i accepted the job as executive editor of Hadassah Magazine nearly seven years ago, my father-inlaw was curious, as he always was about my career. After I showed him a copy of the magazine, he was duly impressed.“Thisis very high quality,” he said, high praise from the most well-read person I knew. This special man, Norman Oshtry, z”l, passed away this summer, so my family is still experiencing a profound sense of loss. Which is why Carol Saline’s “The Journey to Healing” (page 22), about grief and mourning, really resonates with me, especially the insight that while loss is a universal experience, grieving is uniquely personal.

For Myra Sack, a young mother who lost her firstborn, Havi, to Tay-Sachs disease, telling her family’s tragic story and keeping her daugh ter’s name alive, as she does in “How Could This Happen?” (page 16), is part of her grieving process. Examining the journey from loss to healing is especially timely as the High Holidays approach. As we take account of our lives, and grapple with themes of repentance, forgiveness and renewal, we also confront that most haunting prayer, the Unetaneh Tokef, which asks: “Who shall live and who shallAnd,die?”of course, we also reflect throughout the chagim: How shall we live? Georgette Bennett, the subject of a profile by Rahel Musleah (page 18), does so with her humanitarian advocacy. The title of her recent memoir is Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By, words from Leviticus

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© 2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah is a registered trademark of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of Amer ica, Inc. The solicitation disclosure on page 56 is incorporated in this solicitation. Contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. In accordance with IRS tax laws, only the amount of your gift that exceeds the fair market value of goods and services received in consideration for your gift is tax deductible as a charitable contribution. The fair market value of the puzzle offered in connection with your contribution is $36. This value represents the portion of your gift that is not tax deductible. If you want the entire amount of your contribution to be tax deductible, you may decline the puzzle by checking the appropriate box on the form.

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LETTERS TO THE LANGUAGE MATTERS WHEN IT COMES TO ABORTION

Harvey Grad Seattle, Wash.

READ IT FOR YOURSELVES

COMPULSIVE OVEREATER? YOU ARE NOT ALONE Eating disorders affect people of all ages and genders, as related in “An Eating Disorder Pandemic” (July/

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I read with interest “Jewish Tradi tion’s Approach to Abortion” in the July/August 2022 issue. Rabbanit Adena Berkowitz makes it clear that tradition recognizes the difference between a fetus and a person and holds that a woman’s physical and mental health takes primacy. In the current political climate, it is critical that the pro-woman agenda reject the term “unborn person,” which has found its way into the most restrictive anti-abortion laws. Words matter, and unfortunately the pro-choice movement over the years has allowed the other side to hijack language. Those who support women’s choice should have spoken out loudly when the other camp first began to call itself “pro-life.” Rabbanit Berkowitz made the mistake of contrasting pro-choice and pro-life. We must all watch how we speak. None of us is anti-life, and there are no unborn persons. Nancy Sandweiss Bonita, Calif. No one, regardless of their gender, should be unmoved by the will of a minority to remove a woman’s right to make choices about her own body. I was therefore moved by two must-read articles in the July/August issue: Rabbanit Adena Berkowitz’s commentary and “Rather Than Live in Disgrace, I Decided to Kill Myself” by Letty Cottin Pogrebin. Berkowitz brings thoughtfulness in explaining away (political, not religious) conservative misconceptions about the historical Jewish view of pregnancy and abortion. Meanwhile, Pogrebin vividly and bravely shares the overwhelming angst and anxiety of dealing with two pregnancies in the pre-Roe era, which was marked by shame, anguish and lack of options. These articles put the issue of abor tion in a context that offers a powerful alternative to the “truthspeak” offered by those who do not think women are entitled to make choices over their own bodily autonomy.

After reading the interview with Amy Spitalnick in the July/August issue, I was impressed with her efforts that led to the judgment against some of the participants in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. However, I found her answer to the question about fighting white supremacy to be misleading.Spitalnick’s assertion was that the Florida Individual Freedom bill “ties the hands of educators to talk about white supremacy and racism.” When I actually read the bill, I saw nothing of the sort. The bill clearly states that these topics (among others) are acceptable for instruction. Topics for instruction include all aspects of Afri can American history and “slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination.”  The bill also features instructions on how Holocaust education and antisemi tism should be taught.  What the bill doesn’t allow are theories like “antiracism” and ideology that white supremacy has infected all the institutions in the United States. It seems reasonable that parents in Florida wouldn’t want their children to be indoctrinated in those false narratives. I urge all Hadassah readers to read the context of this bill and not be misled by hyperbolic rhetoric.   Estra Grant Cleveland, Ohio

RESPECTFUL DIALOGUE

The arts story “Are We in a Golden Age of Haredi Television?” (July/August) was fair in that it presented all points of view. This is a marked improvement from past articles elsewhere, where frequently only people who had left Orthodox Judaism were featured. However, I do have an issue with Julia Haart. While I would not call her antisemitic or hold her directly responsible for recent bouts of violence against haredi Jews, I would deem her an Orthodox basher. I would like to know if there is any form of Orthodox Judaism that she does not consider extremist or fundamentalist. Thereisalarger point to be made here. There is a group of authors— Shulem Deen, Deborah Feldman, Julia Haart and Abby Stein, among others—who wish to trash Ortho doxy on their way out. Can’t we have a more respectful dialogue?  Alan Levin Fair Lawn, N.J.

EDITOR

TERMS OF AGREEMENT

Nancy Golin Wiadro Naples, Fla.

Hasha P. Skokie, Ill.

Suzan D. Herskowitz Winchester, Va.

ONE LUCKY MODEL I was delighted to read “Doing Good Is Always in Fashion,” the article about Alembika clothing in the July/August issue. I was lucky to model for Hadassah Florida’s Alem bika fashion shows in the spring. Now, I wear and enjoy my Alembika dresses all the time.   Yael Edelist was a joy to work with and it was a privilege to support an Israeli company run by women who appreciate Hadassah.

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From simple to intricate designs, California Closets systems are custom designed specifically for you and the way you live. GREENVALE NEW YORK CITY WESTCHESTER NEW CITY 844.295.1402 californiaclosets.com ©2022 California Closet Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Franchises independently owned and operated. We’re hiring sales & design consultants. To apply email cc.jobs@caliclosets.com or scan QR code NY146_Hadassah_Brooks1_6.8x4.7_0822.indd 1 8/2/22 2:24 PM WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! We value your interest in Hadassah Magazine and welcome hearing from you. Please email letters to the editor to letters@ hadassah.org . To read more letters, visit us online at hadassahmagazine.org August). Furthermore, the isolation of the Covid era has seriously impacted those who suffer from these illnesses.  Compulsive overeating (or undereating) is specifically a disease of isolation and self-centered fear. I am a grateful member of Overeaters Anonymous, a 12-step program based on Alcoholics Anonymous. The first step of the program, “we admitted we were powerless over food…,” is the only step that deals with one’s drug of choice, whether it’s food, drugs, alcohol or gambling. The subsequent 11 steps offer a spiritual solution.  OA (oa.org) is free and open to all. You are not alone.

In the March/April 2022 issue, in the article “Envisioning the Rabbinate Through a Different Lens,” a person was referred to as a “Messianic Jew.” I think that most self-identified Jews agree that there are Jews and Christians. In a Jewish publication, a person who is a follower of Jesus should not be called a Messianic Jew.

Ninety-four-year-old Fran Penskar lost much of her usually boisterous demeanor during the pandemic. Living in a senior residence in West Bloomfield, Mich., hundreds of miles away from most of her family, she felt isolated and missed seeing her great-grand sons laugh, learn and play. Her grandchildren computer engineer in Austin, cobbled together a video book in November 2020 for their grandmother that played automatically as soon as it was opened—without WiFi or Internet.

Rahel

“GG” Fran, a Hadassah member, delighted in seeing Jack, then 1, toddle across the room, and Liam, then 4, pick out the words “cow” and “hat” in a book. “It was life-affirming for her,” said Kenny. “In videos, the person you love comes alive. She popped back up as this joyful, funny, pridefulKennyperson.”andBloom wanted to bring others similar happiness. They upgraded and refined the intergenerational product, called it Heirloom and launched their business in February 2021. Here’s how it works: Customers select up to 10 ($49) or 20 ($69) minutes of their own videos or photos and upload them to Heirloom’s website; the content is then transferred onto a slim, rechargeable video book with a custom cover that resembles a physical hardcover book.

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The family business has been featured on the show, Good Morning America and in oth er media. Kenny oversees social media, public relations and marketing; Bloom is in charge of Actress Jamie Lee Curtis is on a mission to help restore the only synagogue in Mateszalka, a tiny town in eastern Hungary where the parents of her father, acting legend Tony Curtis, wereTheborn.synagogue, now largely in shambles, was built in 1852. In 1888, the country’s first electric streetlight, made of iron, was installed next to it. Eighty years have passed since the synagogue possessed any kind of congregation. The vast majority of the 17,000 Jews in the Mateszalka Ghetto, which was comprised of local Jews as well as those from the nearby Maramaros district, were murdered in Auschwitz.JamieLeeCurtis has pledged to partner with municipal authorities to raise funds for the project. Also drawing attention to the building’s needed preservation is the increasingly popular Instagram account Abandoned Jewish Memories ( @abandoned_jewish_memories , with 15,000 followers), launched in 2018 by Hungarian graduate student Matyas Kiraly, who has Jewish heritage on his mother’s side.

A Family Business Creates ‘Heirlooms’Digital

Sample cover designs for Heirloom video books (above) and an open one playing a video of company co-founder Ashley Bloom Kenny and her grandmother Fran Penskar (left)

An JewishDocumentsInfluencerInstagramHeritage

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When Kiraly, 25, first stepped into the decaying landmark on a sunny afternoon last summer to pay tribute to the murdered Jews of Mateszalka, he sang Oseh Shalom and prayed amid the hauntingly beautiful walls decorated with floral and geometric motifs. The visit and subsequent photos posted to Instagram became one of more than 100 locations that Kiraly has documented and shared on social media in an attempt to chronicle forgotten

Matyas Kiraly stands in the ruins of a 200-year-old synagogue in Vil’khivtsi, Ukraine. Restoration work is now underway. technology and order fulfillment.  Their mother, Randee Bloom, a nurse and Hadassah member who is active in the Greater Detroit Chapter, tracks packages and helps with customer service. “Who knew when we followed our own disciplines that we would build a business to gether in which we complement one another?” said Kenny, who is also a Hadassah member. The family has worked with Detroit-area Jewish community groups and provided video books for the virtual celebration of the annual Bessie Spector Oldest Jewish Americans Brunch, which honors people over 95 in the Detroit area. “A lot happened during Covid that was very sad and unfair,” said Zack Bloom, a Hadassah Associate. “Our family is on a crusade to keep people connected and to help them know why they’re alive.” Musleah

“We created Mishe Bear as a way to spread love and unity in hard times. It symbolizes tikkun olam —fixing things when they areThebroken.”ideawas born of personal experience: When Horowitz’s aunt, Ellen Matz of Philadelphia, was hospitalized with Covid in January 2021, her family brought her a teddy bear and told her they were saying the Mi Sheberach for her recovery.

Mishe HealingBear’sHeartAtfirstglance,aMisheBear looks like any other teddy bear—brown and cuddly, with cute button eyes and an upturned smile. But this bear comes with a prayer. In the pocket sewn into its belly, a laminated heart features the traditional Mi Sheberach prayer—with the Hebrew script and transliteration—recited for those in need of physical or spiritual healing. Mishe Bear is the brainchild of Aden Horowitz and Audrey Singer, both seniors at the University of Pennsylvania, where they met on the executive board of Penn Hillel. “When Covid happened, we experienced a ton of despair and loss,” said Horowitz, 21.

Unfortunately, these sites will have to wait for now, but hopefully, they will be accessible soon.”

According to Kiraly, Abandoned Jewish Memories serves as a conduit for young generations already active on social media to discover the history behind the staggering number of decaying Jewish heritage sites in the region, and which today have practically no one to relate their history.

Rahel Musleah

Horowitz, who grew up in an active Reform home in Manhasset, N.Y., and attended a Reconstructionist synagogue, is a Hadassah member as are her mother, grandmother and aunt. She shared her idea to produce teddy bears that include a healing prayer with Singer, a New Orleans native who also grew up Reform. They pooled their bat mitzvah savings and launched the business in April 2021. Hillel provided encouragement and logistical support, mentorship, networking andCanpromotion.ateddybear really help someone“Absolutely,”heal?said Singer, 22. “In my academic study of the health care industry, I’ve looked at holistic care. The people around you are really crucial to your recovery. Mishe Bear is a physical representation of that love and support.” As he works toward his master’s degree in Jewish culture and history at the Budapest University of Jewish Studies, his Instagram mission has led him to explore cemeteries, Jewish quarters and synagogues in Poland, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He is often accompanied on his sojourns by his brother, Miklos, and father, Laszlo, who is Christian.

Audrey Singer (above, left), Aden Horowitz and their creation, Mishe Bear (far left)

BEARMISHEOFCOURTESY

— Orge Castellano Horowitz and Singer have sold over 170 bears ($24 each) and donate 10 percent of each sale to Jewish nonprofits and summer camps.“Mishe Bear,” said Horowitz, is a “message of hope and a little bit of divine goodness.”

KIRALYMATYASOFCOURTESYTOP)PAGE,OPPOSITEAND(ABOVE

“It is important to me to educate people so that a Jewish descendant can see and learn about their ancestral lands,” said Kiraly, whose grandfather survived the Holocaust in the Budapest Ghetto. “It’s just a mitzvah that I take pride in because I hope that in Hashem’s eyes, I’m doing everything possible to educate Jews and non-Jews alike on Jewish culture and history.”

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“After finishing my studies, I’d love to tell the stories behind the sites and places I’ve visited in a book,” said Kiraly, though he has no firm plans. “There are still numerous places I’d like to see, like Belarus, or returning to Ukraine.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis is partnering with municipal authorities to raise funds to restore the 170-year-old synagogue in Mateszalka, Hungary, the birthplace of her paternal grandparents.

Shuly Rubin Schwartz is chancellor and the Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

SHUTTERSTOCK COMMENTARY

By Shuly Rubin Schwartz Finding Balance

in 5783

I’m grateful to live in a century where my spiritual fulfillment does not depend on having the time or talent to serve home-baked challah every week. I’m thrilled instead to live in an era where women can find fulfillment in many ways, including leading tefillah in synagogue. But I equally love serving apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah and cutting up melon on Yom Kippur afternoon to prepare for the break-fast—just as my mother and grandmother did before me. As we begin 5783, let’s resolve to seek opportunities to strengthen this balance in our lives, embracing new traditions while sharing cherished longstanding ones, honoring our commitments to family and to work— whether conducted in the home or in a workplace, whether paid or unpaid. Let’s embrace rituals—whether centuries-old challah-baking prayers or new ones that we initiate—that will honor both our essential work and the spirituality that lifts us up. If we do, we will bring that sense of balance and wholeness to our lives.

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My favorite example of this impulse is this private 17th-century tkhine (women’s prayer) that was no doubt uttered in Yiddish by countless women in pre-modern Europe as they put their unbaked loaves of challah into the oven. Lord of all the world, in your hand is all blessing. I come now to revere your holiness, and I pray to you to bestow your blessing on the baked goods. Send an angel to guard the baking, so that all will be well baked, will rise nicely, and will not burn, to honor the holy Sabbath (which you have chosen so that Israel your children may rest thereon) and over which one recites the holy blessing—as you blessed the dough of Sarah and Rebecca our mothers. My Lord God, listen to my voice; you are the God who hears the voices of those who call to you with the whole heart. May you be praised to eternity. (From Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook, edited by Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton.) In the 17th century, challah was not available at a supermarket. If the loaf burned or failed to rise, the baker would have been unable to provide her family with the Shabbat staple. This prayer reveals women’s anxiety—what we might call their “fear of failure.” But it also illustrates how Jewish women chose to manage that anxiety by lifting up the holiness of everyday chores. The tkhine ties ordinary baking to two of our revered matriarchs and asserts that God hears sincere prayers wherever they’re recited, not only in synagogue. Through their care and devotion to challah making, and with God’s help, women could fulfill an essential mitzvah—keeping Shab bat—while also providing needed sustenance for their families.

Embracing rituals that honor our whole being

One of the joys of working in an academic setting is being able to experience in one season the excitement of both the Jewish New Year and the beginning of the school year. And yet, this season often triggers anxiety and ambivalence for me— and, perhaps, for you as well. As a professional, I give my all to the Jewish Theological Seminary community that I lead, and the workload at the start of the academic year is intense. I also love preparing for the holidays and strive to preserve sufficient time to do so. As a Jew, I take advantage of the liturgy of Elul to prepare spiritually and emotionally for the introspection and soul searching that the Days of Awe demand. At the same time, I strive to preserve the customs, foods and traditions that nourished our families and our ancestors at this time of year. I never manage to do it all, but inspired by the example of our foremothers, I’ve come to recognize the potential of ritual to help us live a balanced life in which we don’t have to compartmentalize work, family and spirituality. Generations of Jewish women who came before us did this by elevating essential work, demonstrating that anything has the potential to enrich our spiritual life.

together CELEBRATEKIBITZSHOPNOSHTOURKVELL Last Call — Registration closes on October 14! HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. ©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah, the H logo and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Register events.hadassah.org/100convention-magNow!

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It is therefore no surprise that in the most recent Pew Survey of Jewish Americans, conducted in 2020, men over age 65 are 15 percentage points more likely to have completed college than women over 65. But in the past few decades, this trend has reversed. Not only have Jewish women caught up to Jewish men, they have now surpassed them. Seventy-two percent of Jewish women ages 30 to 49 have completed a bachelor’s degree, compared to 63 percent of Jewish men. The same trend is evident with graduate degrees. Jewish women 30 to 49 are 10 percentage points more likely to have completed graduate school than men. Today, women account for over 54 percent of students in law school—just 66 years after Ginsburg and her fellow female classmates at Harvard made up .02 percent of the class of 1956. (Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School for her final year, graduating in 1959.)

IMAGESHOVLAND/IKONOIVIND ESSAY

Jewish girls reach new levels of academic success

By Ilana M. Horwitz Making the Grade What do you want to be when you grow up, Mikayla?” my father-inlaw recently asked my 5-year-old daughter at dinner. How she or her 9-year-old sister, Araya, answers his question reveals a great deal about their gender ideology, a term that sociologists like me use for a set of beliefs that guides various life choices, including education, career and family. These ideologies even encompass religion, something that was reinforced in the results of my latest research, published earlier this year in the paper “From Bat Mitzvah to the Bar: Religious Habitus, Self-Concept and Women’s Educational Outcomes,” in the American Sociological Review. For Jewish girls like my daughters, it turns out, being raised in Jewish homes (that are not haredi) will make them 23 percentage points more likely to graduate from college than girls with a non-Jewish upbringing. Furthermore, girls raised by two Jewish parents—and, to a lesser degree, by one Jewish parent—tend to graduate from more selective colleges than their non-Jewish peers.  We have come a long way from the 1950s, when the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one of 10 women, in a class of over 500, at Harvard Law School. The question for Jewish parents and researchers alike is, what’s so special aboutHere’sJudaism?ahint: It has to do with egalitarianism.Highereducation has long played a central role in the lives of American Jews, especially as they transitioned from a group of low-wage, bluecollar immigrants to one of highwage, white-collar suburbanites in the 20th Betweencentury.1910 and 1970, the American workforce changed drastically as people shifted to office work and management. However, Jews—overwhelmingly men—moved up the occupational ladder more rapidly than other ethnic and reli gious groups. By 1990, 67 percent were in high-level occupations, defined as either “professional” or “management” roles. dean of Harvard Law School.)

Looking back at the mid-20th century, there were a host of factors that channeled women into domestic responsibilities while men went to school, perhaps chief among them the G.I. Bill that sent millions of American men to college after World War II. Universities like Yale and Princeton didn’t admit women until 1969, and several universities limited Jewish enrollment, which made it even harder for Jewish women to access higher education.

NOT ONLY HAVE JEWISH WOMEN CAUGHT UP TO JEWISH MEN, THEY HAVE NOW SURPASSED THEM. This rapid rise affected women, too. By the third generation in America, Jewish women were nearly as well educated as Jewish men; a substantial propor tion had professional careers; and two-career couples had become the norm for young Jewish families. By the time Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986, women accounted for about 40 percent of all students in law schools across America. (In 2003, Kagan was the

with

How did my daughter come to believe that motherhood comes alongside something else rather than instead of something else? When I thought about the women whom Araya knew—myself, my mother, my sisters, my friends—I real ized that in addition to our parenting, we all have careers as professors, computer scientists, doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs. No one had ever explicitly talked to my daughter about balancing motherhood with a career, but she had observed that this is simply what we do. That balance may seem like an obvious choice for Jewish readers, but it is not necessarily what all women in America want. Many have jobs because they need the paycheck. But a career is not the same as a job. A career refers to a holistic set of experiences, training programs and jobs. Careers often require graduate degrees and education, such as law or medical school or Ph.D. course work.Isometimes feel guilty when I travel for business or work in the evenings. But studies, including my own research, show that girls admire their working mothers. Indeed, by demonstrating that women can have careers alongside motherhood, we encourage our daughters to transfer the success they have achieved in the classroom into the boardroom, or wherever their career aspirations take them. Ilana M. Horwitz is an assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Tulane University, where she holds the Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life.

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Learning vacations with first-classWell-craftedaccommodations.journeyswithrichitineraries. Ireland, Israel, Spain, program the Museum of Jewish Heritage with TravelHeritageJewishus. R eligious culture is a powerful force. In America, Judaism outside of ultraOrthodoxy tends to be more egali tarian than other religious groups, especially conservative Protestants. Jewish parents actively teach and model to their sons and daughters that they can have a career. I got some personal insight into egalitarian gender ideologies when I overheard my daughter Araya, who was 6 at the time, playing “family” with another girl. “You can’t just be a mommy,” she told her friend. “You have to do something else to help the world.”

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I n fall 2018, i gave birth to a beautiful baby girl whom my husband, Matt, and I named Havi Lev, the Hebrew words for “life” and “heart.” Fifteen months later, on a cold, snowy December day, we learned that Havi had Tay-Sachs disease. A fatal error had been made by Matt’s physician when he ordered the wrong carrier status test before we decided to haveHavi’schildren.Tay-Sachs diagnosis tested my faith, the faith I had built as a child in a warm, loving home surrounded by a strong Jewish community in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Matt, a physician-sci entist, and I had been screened for A fter havi’s diagnosis, against all advice and norms to “move on,” or to acquiesce to people’s comments about “silver linings” and “God’s plans,” we decided to cele brate what we knew would be her short life and to show her as much of the world as possible. We embarked on a three-week journey along the California coast, which we called our “Havimoon,” and then returned to our home in Boston, where we were surrounded by a core group of friends and family members who relocated to be in Havi’s orbit. We transformed Friday nights into birthday parties—“Shab birthdays”—to replace all those that Havi would never have. We celebrated 57 Shabbirthdays, each one with a warm challah, a special outfit for Havi, Shabbat candles and, most importantly, family and friends who held Havi so that she only knew love and comfort. Could This Happen?’

Tay-Sachs before Havi was even an idea. We had learned about the devastating neurodegenerative disease as young children; it was part of our education as Jews. We knew that Tay-Sachs had been historically prominent among Ashkenazi Jews, but that the success of prenatal screening for the faulty gene that causes it had reduced the number of cases to just a handful per year in the UnitedMattStates.andI had been relieved when Matt’s results showed that he was not a carrier. I am a carrier, but both parents need to be one for a child to be affected. Our future children, we were led to believe, would be safe from Tay-Sachs.

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‘How

Havi’s Orbit A beautiful little girl who only knew love and comfort; Havi with both her parents, Myra and Matt (top) and with her mom (opposite page)

SACKMYRAOFCOURTESYPHOTOSALL

Losing a baby to Tay-Sachs tests a mother’s faith By Myra Sack

ItDear9.16.21Beauty,rainedagain this Yom Kippur. Except you are not here and we are not at World’s End in Hingham. I participated in a Zoom Yom Kippur. Rabbi Shelly led a beautiful service. So many of the prayers and readings resonate differently now. “Please let your soul be bound up with the living in the continuum of life, and may your rest be honorable. Grant you abundant joy in my presence and sweet pleasures at your right hand for eternity.” I love imagining sweet pleasures in your adorable and precious hand. I’m thinking maybe lots of blueberries. I wish I could go back to last year’s today because I’d get to tuck you in. I love you beyond andMommore.

By her 29th Shabbirthday, Havi had a beautiful younger sister named Kaia, born on June 30, 2020, who grew our family and expanded our hearts. Without ever exchanging a word, Havi and Kaia knew and felt the power of sisterhood. The Jewish holidays the year after Havi’s diagnosis were especially difficult. “How could this happen?” played on repeat in my head. It is hard to find comfort or belief in the divine when your oldest child is diagnosed with a devastating fatal illness.When Yom Kippur arrived in September 2020, we bristled at the idea of a day of self-introspection in synagogue away from our oldest daughter. We had watched her steadily lose everything—movement, vision and hearing—and knew her days were numbered. As we listened closely for any direction from Havi, we felt the tug to be in nature and by the sea, the place where she seemed most at Whilepeace.Kaia stayed home with our nanny, Matt and I grabbed a blanket, tossed Havi’s stroller in the car and headed for World’s End, a pictur esque land preserve along the Atlantic in Hingham, Mass. A 24-hour fast didn’t feel right when our meals with Havi were numbered, so we decided to honor the holiday in a different way. Our picnic lunch included a few slices of cold pizza, dark-chocolate peanut butter cups and an apple. And for Havi, who could only swallow liquids at this point, a homemade smoothie with extra blueberries, her favorite, and a scoop of Madagascar vanilla ice cream. When we arrived, we headed for the carriage pathways that traverse the rolling hills and rocky shorelines of World’s End. We found a spot overlooking Hingham Bay, with a view of the Boston skyline and, beyond that, the ocean. Matt lifted Havi out of the stroller and laid her down to get a good look at the magnificent fall foliage around us. Matt and I each held a pizza slice in one hand and one of Havi’s perfect little hands in the other. She smiled as she tracked the afternoon light playing on the orange, red and yellow leaves and breathed in the blended scent of ocean air and red cedar trees. And when it began to rain, she’d scrunch up her nose and close her eyes each time a raindrop landed on her cheek. Just as the ominous name World’s End does not spoil its pristine beauty, Havi’s dazzling spirit was not suppressed by the ugliness of Tay-Sachs. T he following yom kippur, the first after Havi’s death on January 20, 2021, I wrote to her in a journal, which I continue to do every night.

As I anticipate Yom Kippur this year, nearly two years since Havi’s death, the question of forgiveness is swirling around my mind. Do I forgive Matt’s physician, who ordered the wrong confirmatory Tay-Sachs test, resulting in a misre ported negative carrier status? I wonder what difference it would make in my life if I forgive him—or if I don’t. And then I consider Havi’s bright hazel-green eyes with all their wonder, awe and warmth, and I imagine her telling me: “It’s O.K. to forgive him, Mom. I’m still with you.” As I hear that imagined message in Havi’s voice, a voice I never heard because of that cruel disease, I want to embrace the lens through which I believe she saw the world. And the one through which I know Kaia sees it every day. The one where deep compassion can emerge from the deepest hurt. This is faith. So, to the ordering physician, I say: You are forgiven. I hope with this forgiveness, you can continue to make the world a better place, in Havi’s name.

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Myra Sack is a senior adviser at SquashBusters Inc. She is a certified Compassionate Bereavement Care facilitator and is writing a memoir about her daughter Havi. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Mass., with her family.

G eorgette bennett holds up a yellow Star of David in a simple 5x7 picture frame. The Nazi-era patch emblazoned with the word “Jude” belonged to a cousin, one of Bennett’s few relatives to survive the Holocaust. “I keep this visible at all times on a ledge by my desk,” she says, sitting in the library of her spacious Manhattan apartment. “It reminds me of why I do what I do.” What Bennett does is counter hate, build bridges and aid and rescue others through humanitarian diplomacy. A master of people-topeople connections, she includes among her many careers author, sociologist, journalist and professor. She corrals governments, organiza tions, entrepreneurs and donors to help people in need. She has criss crossed the globe to raise awareness and funds, meeting with cardinals at the Vatican, representatives of the European Union in Brussels, Jewish funders in Miami, humanitarian activists in Israel and many others. Her activism is deeply personal. As a toddler, she fled with her parents from her native Budapest to France and then, at the age of 5, to Queens, N.Y. Today, at 75, she has turned her personal calling into a crusade to alleviate the suffering of Syrian war victims caught in their nation’s ongo ing civil war. Of the world’s 89 million displaced people, over 6 million are legally registered Syrian refugees, a number that has just recently been surpassed by the 7.7 million Ukrainian refugees. Many more Syrian refugees areInunregistered.2013,Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA), a nonprofit with more than 100 partner organiza tions, including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, IsraAID, Episcopal Migration Ministries and the Syrian American Council. MFA focuses on delivering humanitarian aid, food and medical supplies to hard-to-access parts of Syria. The alli ance also advocates for more refugee admissions and “humane and ratio nal” policies toward refugees and displaced persons in the United States and other countries. To date, MFA has provided close to $260 million in aid, from governments, organizations and private donors, benefiting more than 2.7 million Syrian war victims, most of whom are in Syria but also some in Iraq and Lebanon. “If I was to be true to the post-Holocaust admonition, ‘Never again,’ then ‘Never again’ had to include my fellow human beings in Syria. If I was to be true to Judaism, I had to make it my business to care for the stranger—even if that stranger was my enemy,” Bennett writes in Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By: How One Woman Confronted the Great est Humanitarian Crisis of Our Time Her recent memoir chronicles both the 11-year crisis in Syria as well as her mission to provide aid. Bennett has been widely recognized Georgette Bennett with Syrian refugees at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan

MFAOFCOURTESY

One woman’s crusade to aid Syrian refugees

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| By Rahel Musleah Bringing Light Into Darkness

Global Activism Network Bennett and her husband, Leonard Polonsky, in Jerusalem converse with the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres (left) in 2013. for her efforts. Among her many awards, Forbes last year named her to its first “50 Over 50: Impact” list and AARP awarded her its 2019 Purpose Prize for “tapping into the power of life experience to build a better future for us all.”

(Her first marriage ended in divorce. Polonsky and Bennett also have homes in Westchester County, N.Y., andElegantLondon.)ina navy silk-crepe blouse and matching jacquard-patterned jeans, Bennett’s hair is swept away from her face, highlighting a beaded navy necklace and earrings that pick up the azure of her eyes. She is barefoot, as she often is at home. Her mother, a successful lingerie designer, influenced her sense of style, she says. She still keeps some of her mother’s pieces in the soiled and battered beige suitcase her family brought to the United States, a reminder of her journey from stateless displacement to safe haven. In addition to her refugee work, the improbable partnerships that Bennett helped craft between Israelis and Syrians, mostly sworn enemies, are among her most notable achievements. Beginning in 2014, her maneuvering helped create a channel in the Golan Heights that allowed food, medical supplies and other aid to be delivered to the area of southwest Syria that was surrounded by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The Israel Defense Forces, which had already been providing medical treat ment for injured and sick Syrians who showed up at the border, officially launched Operation Good Neighbor in 2016 and expanded the mission by partnering with MFA to get humani tarian aid directly into Syria.  When that Golan Heights channel closed in 2018 because of a deconflic tion agreement between Russia, Iran, Turkey and Israel, MFA rerouted deliveries to northern Syria, through Turkey and Iraq, where it continues to operate today.

ver the years, bennett has seized every oppor tunity to network with those who can advance her cause. At a 90th birthday party for the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres that she attended in 2013, she watched a video that featured a greet ing from a mysterious Syrian refugee. Though his face was blurred inten tionally to protect him, Bennett was so moved by his words that she was determined to find him. And she did. That refugee, Shadi Martini, the scion of a prominent Syrian family, was a former hospital administrator in Aleppo who was forced to flee to Bulgaria after his network for aiding injured civilians was discovered. He

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MFAOFCOURTESY

Photos of her family line the windowsill of the library. The photos include many with her British husband, Leonard Polonsky CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), who was granted the highest-ranking award before knighthood for his charitable work; her son, Joshua-Marc Tanenbaum, 30, an investment banker at Citigroup, from her second marriage to the late Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum; her three stepchildren; five step-grandchildren and two step-great-grandchildren.

B ennett’s expansive apart ment with its panoramic views of Central Park is a vast change from the home in which she grew up as a poor immi grant in the Kew Gardens section of Queens. “I never take for granted the good fortune I’ve had,” she says. “It’s a terrible cliché, this idea of giving back, but it’s very real for me.”

One of the ongoing recipients of MFA aid is the Women’s Relief Program, which distributes chemo therapy drugs for breast cancer patients, estrogen medication, personal safety whistles, menstrual supplies and ob-gyn equipment to medical facilities and mobile clinics in northern Syria and Iraq.

(RIGHT)MFAOFCOURTESY accepted Bennettcontactsandtheofwork.anSoonconferenceFundersainvitationBennett’stoaddress2014JewishNetworkinMiami.after,hebecameintegralpartofherHisknowledgethesituationongroundinSyriahisextensiveenabledtopenetratecircles to which she would not otherwise have had access. Today, he is MFA’s executive director, based in New York City. Martini describes Bennett as “honest, compassionate and hard working.” As a Muslim growing up in Syria, he says he was inculcated with a lot of “bigotry against the Jewish faith. Georgette knew a lot more about Islam than I knew about Juda ism. For me it was a learning curve and an eye-opener to see how much Muslims and Jews have in common.”

B ennett says all her work stems from her longstanding desire to always “get behind the headlines and go where the action is.” With a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and an advanced degree in banking from the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at the University of Delaware, she embarked on a diverse career path, spanning criminology, marketing, teaching, broadcast journalism, philanthropy, conflict resolution and interfaith relations.

In the 1970s, Bennett headed New York City’s Criminal Justice Task Force, pioneering the first federally funded crime victim service center, where she coordinated the training and evaluation program for the city’s police department. Her time as a journalist included stints as a correspondent for NBC News tele vision and radio and as consultant and writer for ABC’s 20/20, CBS’s 60 Minutes and PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer

NewsHour. She has authored six books and over 50 articles. In her 1987 Crimewarps: The Future of Crime in America, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, Bennett predicted that cybercrime and white-collar crime would be a major threat and wrote about the link between religious extremism and violence. After publishing her memoir, her next book, Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Reli gious Violence, due to be published in November and co-authored with social entrepreneur and activist Jerry White, proposes a new legal category of atrocity—religion-based violence— that currently falls through the gaps in international law. Bennett first read about the Syrian crisis in a 2013 report from the Inter national Rescue Committee (IRC) that had sat unopened on her desk for five months. Her late husband, Tanenbaum, a human rights activist who pioneered numerous multifaith coalitions, had served for 25 years on the IRC’s exec utive committee, where he organized rescue operations, for, among other groups, the Vietnamese “Boat People” and Cambodian refugees. Deeply influ enced by his work, Bennett joined the IRC board after his death in 1992.

Bennett’s memoir not only show cases her networking genius but also her formula for success: Find an entry point and a gap that no one has addressed and stay tightly focused on what’s doable rather than the totality of the problem. In the case of Syrian refugees, she first mobilized the Jewish commu nity through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which brought together 16 Jewish organi zations to form the Jewish Coalition for Syrian Refugees in Jordan, which raised money for organizations already involved in assisting victims of the war. In fact, the creation of MFA was an outgrowth of what started as a Jewish initiative, she writes in her memoir. Then, she cata lyzed a positive response from Israel, partnering with the IDF to allow aid through the Golan Heights. “If you focus on the big picture in any of these overwhelming crises you just get paralyzed into inaction. If all you feel is helplessness, then you can’t do anything to repair the world,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many people have asked me, ‘What are you doing about Ukraine?’ I’m writing personal checks, but I need to stay focused on the Syrians.”

Shared Purpose Bennett personally recruited Shadi Martini (left), a Syrian refu gee who had fled to Bulgaria, to join her cause. Today, they co-lead MFA.

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“And the silence of the world was deafening,” Bennett writes in Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By. “I felt commanded to act.” More than 80 percent of those displaced by the war were women and children, who were left squatting wherever they could find shelter. Many were repeatedly raped, accord ing to the IRC report. “It was the gender violence that gripped me and wouldn’t let go,” she writes, revealing in her book that she herself survived a sexual assault at the age of 18. Bennett considers herself “a very serious Jew,” committed to the values of tikkun olam and helping the stranger. She is not observant, but she belongs to B’nai Jeshurun and Park Avenue Synagogue, both in Manhattan. Her childhood spurred her early interest in religion. Her father died at age 52 of cancer, a year after they had immi grated to Queens. A kind Christian Scientist neighbor took the new immigrants under her wing: Bennett attended Sunday school with her daugh ter, and at summer camp, performed with a choir at churches throughout New England. As a teenager, she went to Hebrew school for a year and sometimes attended Shabbat services. When Tanenbaum passed away at age 66 of complications from open-heart surgery, Bennett was 45 and eight months pregnant with their only child. Four months after Josh ua-Marc was born, Bennett founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interre ligious Understanding to combat religious prejudice and violence in schools, workplaces, health care settings and areas of armed conflict. She is still the president of the group.

B ennett inherited a legacy of harrowing loss and intrepid rescue from her parents, Ignatz and Sidonie Beitscher. Her father’s first wife and two children were shot in front of him during selections in the Tarnow Ghetto in Poland. Ignatz and his sister escaped to Budapest and met Sidonie, who gave them shelter. A year and a half later, before Sidonie and Ignatz married, a neighbor reported blonde, blue-eyed Sidonie, who was passing as a non-Jew, for hiding Jews. She was sent to prison—the same prison as resistance fighter Hannah Szenes, who was awaiting execution, and Szenes’s mother. There, Sidonie passed messages between the mother and daughter. Sidonie was then sent to a Hungarian concentration camp, Kistarcsa.

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Bennett’s friend of 47 years, Andrea Berger, an attorney for New York City, describes her as the most extraordinary person she’s ever met. “She is brilliant, exuberant, fearless, unfailingly generous, creative and visionary,” Berger says. “Her rare combination of personality traits and her ability to network has allowed her to do things that have a real impact on the world. And she does it all with dignity and poise.”

When she finally read the report, she says, she was appalled by the “unspeakable horror” the Syrians were fleeing—torture, civilian bombings, mass displacement, sexual violence and starvation. Massive amounts of aid were coming into Syria via the United Nations and other channels, but Assad’s regime controlled its distribution, diverting the supplies to supporters or selling it for profit.

There appears to be no end in sight for Bennett’s activity and list of projects. To give her brain a rest from all her work, she says, she watches a lot of television dramas and reads thrillers and whodunits. She intends to resume playing the piano, which she did competitively as a teenager.

Bennett treasures a plaque that is displayed prominently in her study, a gift from retired IDF Major General Yoav “Poly” Mordechai, a key player in the Israeli-Syrian negotiations. Inscribed on the plaque are the words from the Talmud: “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” Mordechai added his own inscription: “Thank you for your contribution to bringing light intoLookingdarkness.”atthe plaque always brings tears to Bennett’s eyes. “It’s my reminder,” she says, “that one person can do something real to alleviate massive suffering.”

Rahel Musleah leads virtual tours of Jewish India and other cultural events and has scheduled her first post-pandemic, in-person tour for November 2022 (explorejewishindia.com)

Bennett recounts in her book the dramatic story of how Ignatz rescued his soon-to-be wife after killing a German solider and stealing his uniform, and how they made their way from Budapest to Paris. Sponsored by a relative, the family was then able to immigrate to New York. When Sidonie applied for citizenship 10 years after Ignatz’s death, she tasked Georgette with choosing a new last name devoid of anything that sounded German, like their original name, Beitscher. “I went to the Queens phone book and narrowed it down to Bentley, Bender and Bennett,” she recalls. A classy neighborhood dress shop called Sylvia Bennett clinched her decision. “I’ve always asked myself if I would have had the courage to do the things my parents did. I’ve always put myself in situations where I’ve had to test myself,” Bennett says. “Earlier in my life, it was driving too fast. I loved horror movies because I needed to see how I dealt with fear. The older I got, the more of a coward I became. I realized I had so much to live for.”

IMAGESWELLS/IKONLEIGH HEALTH Loss is a universal experience; grieving is uniquely personal By Carol Saline

Rebecca Soffer is CEO and cofounder of Modern Loss, an online community for those dealing with grief, and author of The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience

On october 5, the day of Atonement, I will join Jews all over the world in reciting Yizkor prayers in remembrance of those we’ve lost. It will be the 41st time I’ve said these prayers for my father, the most important man in my life. He took me to parades and double-feature movies in two differ ent theaters on the same afternoon. He instilled in me a love of books and language and a duty to give back to my community. He taught me to stand up straight. I’ve recited Yizkor 17 times for my mother, and I still want to call her every time I come home from a trip to report that I’ve returned safely. And for the last 12 years, I’ve prayed for my beloved baby sister. We had vowed to spend our old age in the same nursing home, side-by-side in our rocking chairs, but breast cancer prevented her from keeping her end of the Evenbargain.afterall these years, when the service ends, I will once again be sobbing into my very wet handker chief, still surprised at how I can be overwhelmed by grief. How true it is that death ends a life, but it does not end a Theserelationship.lastfewpandemic years have draped the entire world in a black cloak of mourning. The emotional toll of Covid, gun violence, the war in Ukraine and tumultuous politics have all contributed to the proliferation of discussions about loss and grief. At the same time, many gifted writers—quite a number of them Jewish—are turning inward to plumb the depths of loss, particularly personal loss. I spoke with three of them as well as a few friends about their different journeys from grief to healing.Pulitzer prize-winning jour nalist and author Kathryn Schulz builds her exquisite new memoir, Lost & Found, on the passing in 2016 of her beloved father, Isaac Schulz, a man she describes in the book as “part Socrates and part Tevye” as well as on her finding a new love who dropped serendipi tously into her life.

The Journey to Healing

. She says she wrote the guidebook that she wished she had had over a decade ago, when both her parents

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When Schulz was mourning her father, she found it helpful to push herself to be out with people, when her instinct was to crawl into bed.

Welcome to the widow’s club.’ ”

In The Modern Loss Handbook, Soffer suggests that simply grounding your remarks in the moment can be comforting: “How are you today?

On the other hand, Rubel, then a 48-year-old widow with three children, found solace in isolation. “I had never been alone,” she said. “At 19, I’d gone directly from my parent’s home to my marriage. I felt smoth ered by everyone wanting to help me. I missed being loved and loving. I realized I needed to find out who I was without my adoring husband and what I could do by myself, with out him or my children.”

HOPE EDELMAN who in the depths of mourning can’t believe they won’t always feel as awful as they do right now. The last thing they want to hear are platitudes that are more likely to offend than comfort: Life goes on; everything happens for a reason; you can’t live in the past; at least so and so is in peace and has gone to a better place.

‘EACH PERSON’S GRIEF IS AS DISTINCTIVE AS THEIR THUMBPRINT.’—

While every culture has its own rites of mourning, the Jewish ritual of shiva, which includes seven days of calls and visits from friends and acquaintances, is often singled out as among the most helpful in tran sitioning from the mind-numbing burial to the long and tortuous road of grieving.Unfortunately, loss puts many people at a loss for what to say during these visits to the bereaved, Sue rubel, a successful inte rior designer in Philadelphia, still shudders 44 years later when she recalls the stinging words of an elderly woman who attended the shiva for her husband, Rick, who tragically died at age 50 when he was drawn into the wind force of a speeding tractor trailer while changing a flat tire on the shoulder of a busy highway. “She grabbed my cheeks and rocked me back and forth screeching, ‘Oy vey. Oy Vey. Oy vey.

EDELMANHOPEOFCOURTESY died before her 35th birthday—her mother in a car accident and her father of a heart attack just four yearsHopelater.Edelman was 17 when cancer took her mother, which led to her writing her first book, Motherless Daughters, a No. 1 New York Times best seller. The realization that her grief was still sewn into the fabric of her life produced her latest work, The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Grief. Grief, these writers note, is a universal experience. But grieving is uniquely personal and idiosyn cratic. We can’t turn to science for guidelines. “Each person’s grief is as distinctive as their thumbprint,” Edelman said in an interview. For her part, Schulz debunks the myth that there are normal stages of grieving. “Grief,” she told me, “is made in the shape of the person you lost. It depends on the nature of your relationship.” In early grief, for exam ple, you might be purely, deeply sad, or angry or awash in disappointment, nursing old hurts and unresolved guilt. “I was surprised to learn that allowing these awful, horrible, no-good feelings have their way with me was exactly what allowed them, over time, to start diminishing,” Edelman writes in The AfterGrief “Only through surrender did I regain myAngerpower.”resonated deeply for a friend of mine whose bright, gradu ate-school-bound granddaughter died of a drug overdose during a weekend of casual partying. “For a long time, I was furious at everything,” she told me. “At her for dying, at the world for allowing such an unnecessary loss, at the sun for rising every morning.”

“Mourners don’t need advice and wisdom,” said Schulz. They need help: Run an errand or drop off a meal or some cookies. Invite them out for a walk. Give them attentive kindness. Offer support with words like, “If you want to share, I am here to listen whenever and however you need me.”

Against everyone’s advice, for three months she relocated to a small vacation apartment the couple owned in Aspen, Colo. “It was hell at first. I was horribly lonely,” she recalled.

What’s going on for you now?”

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CEPCASEY(LEFT);ROTHENBERG-WAREK.EMMA HEALTH

MAGAZINE DISCUSSION Join us on Thursday, September 8, 2022, at 7 p.m. ET, when Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein moderates “Loss, Grief, Healing—the Journey,” a timely discussion in advance of the High Holidays on moving from profound sorrow to meaningful healing. Panelists will include Kathryn Schulz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lost & Found ; Rebecca Soffer, CEO and co-founder of the influential resource Modern Loss and author of The Modern Loss Handbook; and writer Hope Edelman, whose most recent work, The AfterGrief , is her sixth title that examines the universe of sorrow and healing. To register, go to hadassahmagazine.org

If you missed the live event, you can find a video recording at hadassah.org under Virtual Programming. “But slowly, a good therapist, a lot of journaling and the beauty of the mountains helped me separate myself from Rick and his death and learn that I could be alone without being lonely.”

SHAPE OF THE

and disposing of your loved one’s possessions, keep some things that will trigger good memories: a handwritten note, pages torn from their favorite book, a scarf or a bracelet, ticket stubs for an event you attended together. I still have a little spiral notebook where my father kept a log of his Coast Guard watches during World War II. Seeing his hand writing always makes me smile. A recurring theme among the authors I spoke with was storytelling as a balm for easing the emptiness of mourning. “We grieve through telling our story and sharing it,” said Edelman.Initially, your story will be about the how, when and where of what happened. Over time, it will expand to how your life was affected by your loss. Storytelling builds bridges with other mourners, explained all three of the writers I spoke with. It attracts the support team that will assist your journey and opens new pathways to healing. Talking about your grief helps make sense of it. It leads to the day when you wake up and are surprised to notice that the world is no longer draped in gray. I still remember the day, eight bleak and dreary months after my father died, when I noticed the tulips were in bloom. I’d begun to heal.

A piece of advice I often heard after my sister passed away is to find a grief counselor who will listen and not judge your progress. Should your malaise and lethargy sink into ongoing depression, that’s the sign that a therapist is not merely suggested but strongly advised. Another valuable tool is finding an anchor outside yourself to pull you from despair. IN THE PERSON KATHRYN SCHULZ

‘DEATHAVERSARIES’ ARE THE HOLIDAYS, BIRTHDAYS AND THATANNIVERSARIESTRIGGERABOUT OF GRIEVING.— REBECCA SOFFER ‘GRIEF IS MADE

YOU LOST.’—

In dealing with grief, a piece of advice I have heard is to remem ber the wonderful person you lost rather than remembering that you lost a wonderful person. One palliative way to deal with memories is to make what Soffer calls in The Modern Loss Handbook “a memory box.”In the painful process of culling

Carol Saline is a journalist, speaker and author of the photo-essay books Sisters and Mothers & Daughters

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I have settled into the desired destination of all who grieve. It’s a place Edelman described, where grief has become a ghostly traveling companion, but no longer an unbear able burden. I can be sad, but I am healed.

NEW TOURS FOR 2023 FEATURING: • A BG Purim Celebration | March 5–16, 2023 • Israel’s 75th Anniversary | April 18–29, 2023 • A Family Tour with Bat/Bar Mitzvah options | December 22, 2022–January 1, 2023 and December 20–30, 2023 and more! Experience the magic of Israel’s sacred places … the famous Chagall windows … the sights and smells of outdoor markets. Visit Hadassah Israel Travel at events.hadassah.org/travel-fall22 for 2023 itineraries or call 1.800.237.1517. Register by October 14 at events.hadassah.org/convention-fall22 to celebrate Hadassah’s 100th Convention this November in Jerusalem! The doors are open. Come in! HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC. ©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hadassah, the H logo, and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Ayelet 1/2Pg Ad for HMag Sept Oct Issue_F3.indd 1 8/9/22 3:45 PM

Schulz believes that healing won’t come until you manage to get out of yourself and attach to something literature, yoga, nature, whatever—and focus on what you have, not what you’ve lost. “Life is full of surprises,” Schulz said, “and we must never give up on the possibilities of discovering joy and gratitude, love and generosity, in theAworld.”grandmother who’d lost a grandson to leukemia told me that not until she realized that she needed to be present for her remaining grandchildren was she finally able to start putting one foot in front of the other and begin her journey. While the intensity of grief diminishes with time—that most dependable of healers—it never completely disappears. It morphs into long-term bereavement, or, in Edel man’s lexicon, “Aftergrief,” which she imagines as a black spot of misery in the middle of a white circle repre senting life. The spot doesn’t fade or shrink, as is commonly believed. But as the months and years pass, the white circle of life expands, making grief much smaller and less influential by Still,comparison.therewill always be moments when the stab of heartache surfaces. “Deathaversaries” is what Soffer calls the holidays, birthdays and anniversaries that trigger a bout of grieving. Milestones you had expected to share—a wedding, a bris, a graduation—can be especially hard. Even a favorite song on the radio can evoke a pang of sorrow.

When my book Sisters hit The New York Times best-sellers list, my joy was briefly pierced by the sorrow that my father wasn’t alive to celebrate with me. But I have to welcome those reminders, because I never want to lose my attachment to those I’ve lost or the memories they’ve left behind.

else—friends,

HMOOFCOURTESY

Hadassah’s present and future ‘look bright’

HMO’s New Director-General

Dr. Weiss, 63, who is married and has two adult children, earned his medical degree from the Technion Medical Faculty in Haifa and devoted his early career to critical care medi cine and anesthesiology. He first came to HMO in 1991 as a resident in anesthesiology.WhileDr.Weiss is a native Israeli, his mother, Marie Louise, spent World War II as a hidden child in Toulouse, France, and his father, Jacob, fought as a partisan in Czechoslovakia. This heritage, he said, “underlays my becoming an Israel Defense Forces paramedic, and later choosing to specialize in intensive care.” That specialization led to him heading surgical critical care at HMO during the second intifada. In 2000, he received a prestigious European Critical Care Research Network Basic Science Award from the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine for research into lung injury. When an interest in new method ologies for managing hospital care redirected him to hospital adminis tration, Dr. Weiss pursued an MBA in a joint program administered by the NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and the London School of Economics. He then obtained medical administration specialization from Israel’s Health Ministry. He served as director of Hadassah Ein Kerem from 2014 to 2021 and became acting director-general of HMO in 2021. In June 2022, he was appointed direc tor-general, a position he feels deeply privileged to hold. “With my heart and mind,” he said, “I believe that the Hadassah Medical Organization is one of the world’s greatest centers of healing, compas sionate treatment and research.” This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Leading HMO in the 21st century is complicated and multifaceted. What do you see as the chief challenges? Let me divide them into two broad categories—challenges from without and challenges from within. The external challenge is maintain ing Hadassah’s financial stability, which has become critical in the past decade. The challenge from within is to sustain our acknowledged excel lence in clinical medicine and foster its continuing advance. How are you addressing these challenges? The news about both is good. An eight-month campaign by our board of directors, vigorously led by its chair, Dalia Itzik, has resulted in a Knesset amendment that requires Israel’s government to cover all manpower and maintenance costs in our two hospitals. This support is long overdue. As a public hospital, we’re mandated to provide the same services as Health Ministry hospitals and should therefore receive similar funding. This welcome change brings Hadassah very close to financial stability.Asfor Hadassah’s level of excel lence, present and future look bright. [Both hospitals were awarded top scores in a recently published report on health quality indicators from the Health Ministry.] With several of our research groups on medicine’s front lines, we’re attracting giant biotech multinationals. We recently reached an agreement with one such company to develop medical robotics and are about to sign with another to inves tigate molecular cancer diagnosis. I fully expect international ventures in other fields in which we’re prom inent: precision medicine, stem cells, nanotechnology, immune-modulating treatments and proton therapy for cancers. This is good not only for Hadassah but also for Jerusalem, making it a technological hub that draws young people to live and work.

You’ve said that you see Hadassah’s role as extending beyond that of a national hospital. Is that why HMO personnel went to the PolishUkrainian border to help refugees? Of course. Our teams go all over the world: to Haiti, Armenia and Nepal after earthquakes, to South east Asia after the tsunami. We’ve sent over 100 staff members to the Dr. Yoram Weiss

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By Wendy Elliman

HADASSAH MEDICINE

It is still dark at 4:30 a.m. when Dr. Yoram Weiss, 11th directorgeneral of the Hadassah Medical Organization, leaves his Tel Aviv home for the one-hour drive to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem. “Luckily, I’m a morning person,” he said of his commute to his office. “I do my best thinking early in the day.” But, he noted, with his professional respon sibilities, he has learned to be “an afternoon and evening person, too.”

Wendy Elliman is a British-born science writer who has lived in Israel for more than four decades.

Hadassah was among the early supporters of digital transformation.

Today, we use and develop artificial intelligence programs to ensure the smooth running of our medical and surgical wards, operating rooms, labor and delivery suites, clinics and emer gency departments. AI programs are also used to ease hospital patient flow, promote pharmaceutical innovation, keep and [rapidly] analyze patient data and, with that, help with early diagnosis of illnesses such as cancer.

What do you see as Hadassah’s place in an unpredictable and rapidly changing medical world?

It’s a world in which Hadassah has been a leader for decades, and I don’t see that changing. I fully expect our three-pronged foundation of healing, teaching and research, and our core mission of providing the very best to all patients, to guide us surefootedly into the future, just as it has led us in the past.

The September episode features Dr. Gal Goldstein, head of the pediatric hematol ogy-oncology department, talking about childhood cancer. Catch up on recent episodes, including a discussion of hip, joint and knee care with Dr. Gurion Rivkin, head of Hadassah’s joint replacement unit and orthopedic department, and a talk about allergies with Dr. Yuval Tal, director of the allergy and clinical immunology unit. Sign up for new episode alerts at hadassah.org/hadassahoncall Polish-Ukrainian border—15 teams of physicians, nurses, medical clowns and medical and dental students. The missions [which have now ended] treated literally tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in the camps at Przemysl and Korczowa and estab lished an infrastructure that supports medical services. The World Health Organization, the Polish and Inter national Red Crosses and Doctors Without Borders have all applauded our efforts. Another current health crisis is, of course, Covid. What has been the pandemic’s impact on Hadassah and how has it helped prepare the medical center for future viruses? While we hope not to see anything like this coronavirus for a long time and pray that the variants still around remain tame and nonvirulent, we are vigilant. We were able to meet the pandemic head on while larger medi cal centers worldwide were brought to their knees. We gained enormous experience and developed essential tools, foremost among them the rapid development of telemedicine. This technology has been around for a while, but we’ve made long-dis tance patient diagnosis, monitoring and clinician contact efficient and routine, safely enabling us to treat many hundreds of patients remotely. Will Hadassah continue using telemedicine now that the Covid threat has eased? In the Hadassah of the future, only the very sick and those needing complex diagnostics and therapeu tics will be in hospital beds. Those who don’t require tertiary-level care [specialized equipment or exper tise] will be “hospitalized” at home, treated remotely via multidisciplinary telehealth teams. Telemedicine is also a central tool as we engage with health care in other countries, sharing our experi ence, proficiency and protocols with medical institutions worldwide. We regularly consult in areas in which we excel, for example, advanced cancer treatments and management of immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Does that mean face-to-face care at Hadassah will become a thing of the past? Hadassah will provide tertiary care and help with home hospitaliza tions, but more and more, diagnosis and treatment—from colonoscopies to cataracts—will be in community clinics. [In Israel, these clinics are run by national health funds, and some HMO personnel have shifts at the clinics.]Hadassah itself will also be expanding. By the end of next year, we’ll have a fully operational satellite medical center in Beit Shemesh, a city 22 miles southwest of Jerusa lem, whose population of 120,000 is expected to triple by 2035. Among the new satellite’s facilities will be an emergency medicine center, specialist and outpatient surgery units, imaging and dialysis units, daycare hospital ization and an oncology center. Hospitals have changed significantly in the past decades. Where will they go next? As with phones, homes, cars and thermostats, artificial intelligence will be used in Hadassah and other hospitals to connect in real time the vast amounts of data about patients, hospital environment and health care information to improve the two core hospital processes: personalized and safe patient care, and efficient high-performance operation.

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HADASSAH ON CALL Go behind the scenes at Hadassah Medical Organization with the Hadassah On Call: New Frontiers in Medicine podcast.

HADASSAH NEWS

The Collaborative Approach 5783WelcomingTogether

Finding strength and resilience in our shared work Personal Highlight Naomi Adler speaking at the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice in Washington, D.C., in May

Participants on the full-day outing will also explore Zichron Yaakov, a European-style village with a rich winemaking history, and the Nili spy museum, which honors the Jewish spy network that assisted Great Britain against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The day will end in Tel Aviv with a visit to the Agam Museum to view the kinetic artworks of the legendary sculptor Yaacov Agam. Sign up for Convention and register for this or any of the other special tracks at hadassah.org/100th-national-convention GET ON THE RIGHT TRACK(S) AT CONVENTION

Want to see Hadassah’s work with some of the Ukrainian teens who now make their home at the Meir Shfeyah Youth Aliyah Village? Among the many exciting tracks being offered during Hadassah’s convention in Israel in November is an ex cursion to Meir Shfeyah that will include a tour of its farm, winery and music classes.

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By Naomi Adler A t this time of year, the chanting of the Hashivenu prayer reverberates through my head: Hashivenu Adonai Eilekha v’nashuvah Hadesh yameinu k’kedem (Return us to You, Adonai, and we will return. Renew our days as of old). Jews all over the world will sing these words many times before the High Holiday season is over, reflecting on the past year while seeking to reboot our moral compasses. It’sbeen just over a year since I became CEO of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. I am even more proud to partner with you as we’ve responded in such a meaningful way to crises and challenges. Together, we have significantly advanced medical inno vation and expanded our capacity at our hospitals in Israel and helped at-risk youth—including 55 new Ukrainian refugees—at our Youth Aliyah villages. And we continue to mobilize and empower our members throughout the country. This work has attracted world wide media attention as collectively we have been speaking out—for Israel, for religious pluralism, for gun safety, for the protection of women’s reproductive health and against antisemitism. One personal highlight includes representing all of you in May as a speaker at the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice, attended by thousands in person in Washington, D.C., and online. The Hadassah community has given me strength and resilience. It’s been exhilarating to see the passion and purpose everyone brings to our work of healing—and no one more than our national pres ident, Rhoda Smolow. I’ve been a nonprofit professional for nearly 20 years, but never have I had so many strategically important meetings with incredibly dedi cated volunteers and professionals. I couldn’t be more grateful and excited by the warm welcome, whether meeting with Hadassah leaders and philanthropists or repre senting Hadassah with community leaders and donors. Every time I’ve gone to speak to someone, they’ve had a Hadassah story they’re excited to share, partic ularly about how they were inspired by others to get more involved. I hope that in 5783, everyone reading this will commit to inviting others to our table. Together, we can ensure Hadassah is welcoming and inclu sive to all. As we set our intentions for 5783, I hope you’ll consider joining Rhoda and me in Israel in November for a powerful Hadassah family reunion that I believe will be a historic and rewarding journey: Hadassah’s 100th National Convention— Together in Israel: Our Pride. Our Purpose.

“We seek to create a community of empowered educators who share a passion for learning and teaching with the tools needed to support the future and stability of Judaism, Zionism and Israel through education, networking, engagement and advocacy.” —Karen Bloom and Gail Hammerman, co-chairs of Hadassah’s new Educators Council. Similar in design to existing professional councils for Attorneys and Judges, Nurses and Allied Health Professionals, and Physi cians, this new council—which will launch officially at a virtual event on January 31— is specifically aimed at uniting Hadassah’s many valued educators so that they can bring their expertise to the organization’s vital work of healing our world. Indeed, some members who are educa tors have already taken important action, most recently by opposing proposed anti-Israel positions at the National EducationEducatorsAssociation.atalllevels and in all types of settings and roles are encouraged to participate in the new council. And for educators who are not yet members, this is an excellent way to join Hadassah in a meaningful way. Email educatorscouncil@ hadassah.org for registration details.

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Yasher Koach to Our Winners

DIDZIONISM…YOUKNOW?

—Arielle Kaplan

NOW YOU KNOW… MORE ABOUT MIZRAHI ROSH HASHANAH CUSTOMS

Enjoying traditional foods is part of any Jewish holiday celebration. In Israel, where a majority of the Jewish popula tion is of Mizrahi descent, don’t look for tzimmes or potato kugel on Rosh Hasha nah tables on the evening of September 25. The customary Mizrahi Rosh Hashanah dinner, often called a seder, begins with a series of “ Yehi ratzon /May it be Your will” blessings made over prescribed foods that symbolize different hopes for the new year. The foods (referred to as simanim , or signs, in Hebrew) include dates, beans, leeks, beets, gourds, pomegranates, apples and honey, and a fish or sheep’s head—or head of lettuce.

Longtime Hadassah Magazine contributor Rahel Musleah won an Honorable Mention in the category of Excellence in News Story for “Child hood Abuse, Adult Reckoning.” Maxine Rose Schur likewise won an Honorable Mention, in the cate gory of Excellence in Personal Essay, for “My Cousin Fritz Was Married to aAndNazi.”finally, Beth Kissileff won second place in the new category of Excellence in Writing About Jewish Thought and Life with “Something Is Happening,” which offers a

CALLING ALL EDUCATORS

Talmudic solution to countering the rise in antisemitic acts in the United“LiftingStates.women’s voices is so much of what Hadassah Magazine is all about,” Lisa Hostein, executive editor of the magazine, said, noting that “several of the winning entries give voice to women’s experiences— from navigating the pandemic, reliving childhood sexual abuse, confronting antisemitism and even discovering that your relative was married to a Nazi.”

Hadassah magazine has won six Simon Rockower Awards, the annual prizes for excel lence in Jewish journalism handed out by the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA). The magazine was recognized for its work done in 2021 during the AJPA’s 41st annual conference presentation on June 27 in Atlanta, Ga.  Hadassah Magazine won first place in the category of Excellence in Special Sections or Supplements for “The Pandemic Issue—Covid’s Collateral Damage: Women.” Praised by the judges for its “excellent writ ing and diverse and comprehensive coverage,” the January/February 2021 issue featured articles by Deputy Editor Libby Barnea (“My Panic Pandemic”), Debra Nuss baum Cohen (“Covid’s Collateral Damage”), Uriel Heilman (“Israel in a Time of Pandemic”), Carol Saline (“Covid-19 and Me”), Sarah Yahr Tucker (“Giving Adults Their Best Shots”), Aayisha Ruby Gold (“Baking the Blues Away”) and Robert Goldblum (“Turning Muse ums Inside Meanwhile,Out”).another Sarah Yahr Tucker feature, “A Rallying Cry for Menstrual Justice,” on fighting period poverty, won in two categories: first place for Excellence in Writing About Women and second place for Excel lence in Writing About Health Care.

$1,000PATRONand up Devorah Koster $250SPONSORand up Judith RachelBarryBlimaRenateTerryIreneStahlTheGloriaRoseannJudithMarciaRoseInaCatherineMiriamShelleyLorettaCathieEmilyWendyCarolJesseAnneWilliamIrenaCherriHannahBarbaraMiriamSaraBeatriceAppelbaumAronBravermanBronkeshBrownCohenDorrisEdwardsFenstonGormanGrossmanHamiltonHauserHoffmanJacobsKesselLeibowitzNeustadterNorsworthyPorthReissRobbins-WilfSitkinSpevackSpitzerNormanandCarolFoundationStundelWalowitzWassermanWellekWohlWolkowitz $180BENEFACTORandup Martha Abeles Beth BobbeBergerBridge Hadassah Magazine Circle Fran BethRobinPhyllisSharonRosePhyllisJudithRobinDorisGlenBarbaraDaphneRoselynSusanCaroleMarcieBethPatriciaBerniceDinaStaceyGloriaSharonPatriciaBettyJessDorothyEliezerJodiStaceySusanSharonJillSuzetteNinaJacquelinePhyllisMyraRitaMarianneRobertaMarilynCarolWynndiChvalaDahlinDavisDukoffEbertFlamFriedmanGlansbergGoldmanGordonGordonGrayGreenbergGroh-MintzGrossmanHaderEpsteinHandinGoldmanHaviviHoffmanHordesAnnIsraelitJacobsKliegmanKramerKrugerBirndorfKruzanskyMarkindLangnerMendelsohnNakhaiNatanNedvinOchmanPlotkinPoltorakRobertsRortnerRosenRubinSaxeSchiffSchiffSchubachVictorsonWanderWaterman Laura Weiss Susan Weiss-Shannon Suzy Ziegler $100SUPPORTERandup Rita VardaArleneMargaretBarbaraCarolRachelleNancyCarolKarenNogahLenoreHelenLorettaRachelCorlissJeannetteAnneCaroleMiriamJaniceNaomiFredLynnSusanPeggyLesleyTobyMiriamBarbaraBobbiNancySandraDebraSueJudyBarbaraEleanorRachelAllenBashevkinBonderCallahanCohenCohenFinebergFirstFogelsonGoldsteinGrantGrossmannHollenbergIsraelKabakowKatzLevineLevinsonLownMargoliusMargoshesMeshilMillerMillerMulqueenNeuwirthNosanPollackPopickReveszRoebRosenstockSambulSandersSchneiderSchnipperShainbergSimonSolomon Nancy MayerTeriMarthaAudreyPamelaroseSorkinSternUngerWhittakerEllenWilnerWolf $54FRIENDand up Judith Aaron Whisler Rosemary Abrami Sue BarbraCarolRoseRosalyeIleneEmmerichCarolSusanNuriteNancyJudithClaudiaEllenHowardRhodaRuthSuzanneSigridFernGailEdwardBabetteMaxineEdieZellBarbaraSusanDeborahHeleneMicheleYvonneNancyElaineBergmanBlumenthalBluthCheyneyClarkCuomoDeWinterEhrlichElkinsFriedlingFriedmanGoldsmithGoodmanGottliebHammermanHarrHessKasanoffAnnKurzbauerLevineLevinsonLewisMangelObstfeldPicusRosinRubensteinRubinSandraSchneiderSchwartzSeidmanShackmasterSher Selma Sladek Ruth V Spector Laurie AnonymousJoyceButsieLenoreJuliaMarleneTamresThomasWalshWeinsteinWeinsteinWishnick $36CONTRIBUTORandup Meryl ZandraMarilynAnnetteJeriAmyJudithMeredithRuthMyriamJanaDeborahVeraTobyJodieRobbinMarilynBarbaraSuzannePaulaLouiseSharonRoseRossanaKarenMarthaRobertaSarettaWilmaSuzanneNancySheilaVitaliaAlpertAronsonAskenasAugustAxelBassBerlinBernsteinBinderBloustineBogoradBrownCarterChatlynneCohenCohenCohnCollinsDanzigDiamandDolinkaDombcikDorwittDruxmanEisenFastFeigFeinmanFineFrankGettlemanGitlinGoldberg T he Hadassah Magazine Circle is an appeal to our readers to join us in our ongoing effort to meet rising publishing costs and still maintain the journalistic excellence you have come to expect—and deserve— from your favorite magazine. We are pleased to present our annual honor roll of donors who have contributed to our campaign from June 2021 through May 2022. This list is also available on hadassahmagazine.org. Our heartfelt thanks to all who have donated, and we thank you in advance for your continuing support of the magazine. To make your new contribution or join our loyal Circle, please visit hadassahmagazine.org and click “Make a Gift,” or use the donation coupon on page 7. 30SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

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The Abderrahman Slaoui Foun dation Museum is a hidden gem on a bougainvillea-lined side street in Casablanca. Displayed over three floors, the late businessman and benefactor Abderrahman Slaoui’s stunning collection of vintage North

Making Connections in Morocco

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As the sun began to set on a glorious blue-sky spring afternoon in Casablanca, I approached the sprawling complex of the Hassan II Mosque that, from afar, achieves the illusion of floating on its promontory on the city’s Atlantic coast. I wasn’t there for a peek at the sumptuous prayer hall lined with marble walls and floors, or to tour its art museum devoted to traditional Moroccan crafts. No, I was there to indulge in Mosquesself-care.inMorocco frequently contain hammams—public baths and steam rooms—on their premises. This is no doubt an evolution of the Islamic practice of Wudu, which involves ritually purifying the face, arms, hands and feet prior to prayer. My evening would be spent in the elaborately tiled, single-gender subterranean baths of this mammoth, magnificent mosque inaugurated by the late King Hassan II in 1993. Beyond monumental structures like the mosque, King Hassan II left his mark in other notable ways, including planting the seeds of ties between his nation and Israel. Indeed, even before Morocco and Israel signed normalization agree ments in December 2020 under the United States-orchestrated Abraham Accords, the two countries had for decades been moving toward greater economic, cultural and tourism coop eration. Since 2000, an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 Israelis of Moroc can descent—of which there are nearly one million—annually make pilgrimages to their hometowns and cities, and to visit graves of revered rabbis on the dates of their death, a custom known as hiloula. But with formal diplomatic relations now in place, that initial seeding by King Hassan II during his reign from 1961 to 1999 has turned into a flowering of Jewish heritage preservation often funded by his son, King Mohammed VI. It was a chance to witness those efforts to restore Jewish sights and promote religious understanding that brought me to Morocco.InCasablanca, a northern hub of international business, a number of encounters reinforced the common alities between people of Abrahamic faiths—beginning with the hammam experience that I shared with two fellow Jewish journalists. Clad modestly in one-piece bathing suits, we tried our best, in an environment of Arabic and French speakers, to comprehend the process of soaping, washing off and vigorous scrubbing that our bodies were to endure. Peering around at the dozens of local women bathing and socializ ing—for the most part, comfortably in the nude—I wondered at any similarities between Jewish women who ritually immerse in the mikveh and Muslim women who regularly cleanse in the hammam, and whether some element of faith unites the two customs.Thatsense of familiarity, even of kinship, with Muslim Moroccans stayed with me throughout our weeklong circuit of the North African nation, home to more than 250,000 Jews prior to 1948 but today hosting a community of about 2,000.

AGEFOTOSTOCK/ALAMY(LEFT);SHUTTERSTOCK TRAVEL Could this be the restart of a beautiful friendship? | By Libby Barnea

The mellah, or Jewish quarter, derives its name from similar words for salt in both Arabic and Hebrew. The neighborhood is carved out of the southern section of the larger old town, or medina, which means city in Arabic and shares the same linguistic Aramaic heritage as the modern Hebrew word medina, or sovereign state. And souk, like the Hebrew shuk, means street market; in Marrakesh, a teeming web of souk alleys line both the mellah and medina. Leaving Casablanca and Marrakesh behind, our group zigzagged through dizzying switch backs in the High Atlas Mountains in search of the once rich Judeo-Ar ab-Berber culture in the south of Morocco. (Berbers refer to themselves as Amazigh, which means “free man” in Tamazight, one of their native languages. Moroccans generally use the term Amazigh as well.) However, despite the atmospheric magic of a sojourn through this region, finding physical vestiges of Berber Jews south of Marrakesh, let alone accurate information for several sights of purported historical significance, proved challenging. Our first stop was the Draa Valley city of Ouarzazate, where a tour of Kasbah Taourirt, an earthen-clay and mud-brick defensive stronghold built by the local Berber ruler in the 17th century, and the mellah erected in its shadow later that same century, hint at the onetime closeness of the Jewish Divine Splendor (from opposite page, left) The Hassan II Mosque; Marrakesh’s must-see mellah; the Slaoui museum and, from its collec tions, a golden kohl flask emblazoned with a Magen David

MUSEUMFOUNDATIONSLAOUIABDERRAHMANTHEOFCOURTESY(TOP);HEMIS/ALAMY

African travel posters, Moroccan jewelry, ceramics and paintings by luminaries Muhammad Ben Ali Ribati and Jacques Majorelle is a delight—but not a Jewish delight, I assumed, since nowhere in the muse um’s literature was there a mention of Jewish pieces. But as I lingered over a case of elaborate Moroccan “bijoux” and other gold ornaments, my eye caught a Magen David etched into a kohl flask, a vessel used for holding the black eye makeup once favored by women. The flask had been manu factured in Fez more than 120 years ago for a Jewish client. Even more surprising, I recognized a ceremonial Jewish wedding ring—an oversized gold ring topped with a gabled house. The museum’s placards provided few clues to these treasures’ backstories, or how and why the Muslim Slaoui added them to his collection. Yet the symbolism of a golden Jewish presence, albeit a small one, set against the splendor of Morocco is an apt description of Jews’ historically warms ties to this land, which they’ve inhabited since at least 70 CE. The link between Judaism and Islam may even extend to designtoarchitecturemosqueuniqueMorocco.Theofthe yamurs, or minaret spires, crowning several of the larg est mosques in the country feature three spheres of graduated sizes. The largest, at the bottom, is said to signify Judaism, considered by many the oldest monotheistic religion; the middle, Christianity; and the smallest, Islam. Zakarya, our guide, explained the symbolism when pointing out the yamurs of the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca—whose minaret, at 689 feet, is the tallest in the world—and the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakesh that dates to the 12th century. Is it possible, or even likely, that such formidable and grand Islamic spaces credit Judaism so promi nently? According to one of many legends about the yamurs, maybe. Marrakesh lies at the center of any traveler’s map of Morocco. It remains as popular a spot for well-heeled vaca tioners, backpackers and wandering Jews as it was in the 1950s, when the likes of beat poet Allen Ginsberg and food writer Paula Wolfert—who helped popularize North African cuisine in her cookbooks beginning with the groundbreaking 1973 Cous cous and Other Good Food From Morocco—relocated there. For me, it was in Marrakesh that the proximity of Arabic and Hebrew, both Semitic languages, crystallized. Where three of the must-see desti nations are the “mellah,” the “souk” and the “medina.”

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The city’s sprawling Jewish cemetery under went restoration in 1995. A Muslim caretaker now walks visitors around the approximately 3,000 tombs, including one belonging to tzaddik Rabbi David Ben Baruch Cohen Azugh, also known as Baba Dudu, who died in 1953. The most recent grave dates to 1960.

Ait Benhaddou

The majority of Morocco’s 2,000 Jews live in Casablanca, so this is where one will find the most robust Jewish services, from more than 15 synagogues to kosher food to the Museum of Moroccan Judaism . Touted as the only one of its kind in the Arab world, the museum recounts the history of the country’s Jews through synagogue replicas, costumes and Travelartifacts.back to the dawn of European tourism to North Africa via the Abderrahman Slaoui Foundation Museum ’s striking collection of Orientalist posters advertising exotic desert destinations, transatlantic passages from Bordeaux and Michelin driving routes through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, among other atmospheric illustrations. For the museum’s few Jewish treasures, head to the jewelry gallery on the first floor. For a break from sightseeing, consider a spa day at the Hammam at the Hassan II Mosque . Curious to tour the prayer hall? This lavish mosque, the seventh largest in the world, is one of very few in Morocco that admits non-Muslims.

OUARZAZATE At first encounter, the UNESCO World Her itage Site of Ait Benhaddou , a fortified Berber village 30 minutes northwest of Ouarzazate whose origins date to the 11th century, astonishes for the pristine condition of its earthen-clay structures. But the area’s continued preservation is due almost entirely to its frequent stand-in for desert landscapes in dozens of films and television series, some of the most recent being Game of Thrones and Gladiator. Stroll through Ouarzazate’s mellah , whose entrance lies adjacent to Kasbah Taourirt and across the street from the Cinema Museum , to get a sense of the very close quarters that Jews would have shared with their neighbors beginning with the area’s construction in the 17th century. The Old Synagogue is being maintained as a house of worship, school and residence of a onetime Berber Jewish family.

TAROUDANT Aladdin Treasure , a high-end Moroccan fur niture and interior design emporium, occupies space in the mellah that was once the house of a rabbi, with a synagogue located at the rear of the building (and off limits to tourists).

On the outskirts of Taroudant near the village of Oulad Berhil lies the tomb of another Rabbi David Ben Baruch Cohen Azugh —an Azugh family tzaddik who died circa 1785. Legends abound as to the rabbi’s origins and holiness (he may have possessed a facial birthmark that could turn those who saw it blind), but the upshot is that his hiloula, held on the 3rd of Tevet, annually attracts more than a thousand Jews of Moroccan descent from overseas.

Twenty minutes north of Taroudant, the Palais Claudio Bravo is the picturesque home, gardens, studio and burial place of the late Chilean hyperrealistic and surrealist painter. The palace today operates as a mini-boutique hotel and restaurant with majestic views of the Atlas Mountains, with tours available for day-trippers.

Taliouine, more than an hour’s drive east of Tar oudant, is the saffron capital of Morocco. Learn about the growing, harvesting and certification process of the world’s priciest spice—and pick up shockingly affordable jars to bring home—at Dar Azaafaran (House of Saffron).

Pilgrimage Site Rabbi Sholom Bel Hench’s tomb in Ourika, south of Marrakesh

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MARRAKESH AND OURIKA After a $20 million restoration project ordered by the king in 2016, Marrakesh’s mellah , or Jewish quarter, the second oldest in the coun try after the original in Fez, is one of the city’s top tourist attractions. Pick up spices like cumin, coriander and turmeric or purchase one of the ubiquitous argan oil products as you wind through narrow shopping alleys to one of the mellah’s star attractions, the blue-and-white tiled Slat Al Azama Synagogue , arranged around a courtyard in a style evocative of a riad. From Marrakesh, an hour’s drive south through the High Atlas Mountains leads to the verdant Ourika Valley and the tomb of Rabbi Sholom Bel Hench , a religious leader from Jerusalem who, according to most legends, died in the region 500 years ago while on a fundraising mission. The site had been maintained for decades by Hananiyah Alfassi, thought to have been the last Berber Jew in the mountains when he died in 2013. Since his death, Alfassi’s long-term housekeeper and quasi-adopted daughter, Fatima, who is Muslim, acts as care taker and guide for the busloads of Israeli and Diaspora Jews who arrive regularly.

TRAVEL WHAT TO CASABLANCASEE

EDMOND J. SAFRA PLAZA 36 BATTERY PLACE, NYC WHAT HATE CAN DO HOLOCAUST THE CLOSES NOVEMBER 6 OPENS SEPTEMBER 18 NOW ON VIEW Sur vivors: Faces of Life Af ter the Holocaust PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARTIN SCHOELLER and Berber populations. In the mellah today, Muslim brothers Ayoub, Lhasen and Haoussine have taken over their father’s role as custodian of a sight that they refer to as the Old Synagogue—a warren of rooms stuffed with brass Judaica, tribal jewelry and metalware objets d’art of unclear provenance. In what’s become a familiar reality throughout the Mizrahi Diaspora, the caretakers of Jewish cemeteries in Morocco are also usually Muslim. Such is the case in Taroudant, several hours west of Ouarzazate in the Souss Valley. With its three-and-a-half-miles of crenellated stone ramparts, the city of Taroudant resembles a smaller, and less chaotic, Marrakesh. The main Jewish cemetery here is a sprawling dirt field with rows of more than 3,000 white-washed tombs; it lies adjacent to the mellah and is over seen by a Muslim who inherited the responsibility from his father. One of Taroudant’s synagogues likewise possesses a Muslim care taker—the proprietor of a home furnishings store situated in the former synagogue and rabbi’s home in the mellah. Wander beneath the rainbow-hued Moorish chandeliers and through the maze of brassframed mirrors, handwoven rugs and inlaid wooden furniture for sale and try to conjure up the ghosts of Tarou dant’s Jews, who numbered around 1,000 in the 1950s before almost all emigrated.Now,post-Abraham Accords, Jews traveling to Morocco may feel more comfortable than their parents and grandparents to reconnect with Jewish ghosts and legends, rediscov ering an enchanting, fascinating land redolent with Jewish heritage. Libby Barnea, deputy editor of Hadassah Magazine, visited Morocco in May 2022 as a guest of the Moroccan National Tourism Office.

SHUTTERSTOCK(TOP);BARNEALIBBY The High Atlas Mountains over Taroudant Taroudant’s sprawling Jewish cemetery and its Muslim caretaker

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7. Bring the pot to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer, cover the pot with a lid and cook until the peppers are soft, about 1 hour 15 minutes.

5. Using a cutting board and sharp knife, cut off and reserve the tops of the peppers. Remove the cores and seeds and discard.

FOOD Israeli women who launched their food careers online

| By Adeena Sussman

A Recipe Blog of One’s Own E frat lichtenstadt was out of ideas. The year was 2010, and after the birth of her second son and the shuttering of her Tel Aviv clothing boutique, she found herself on what she labeled an “endless maternity leave,” searching for her next career move and feeling unmoored.“Ihadnothing to return to,” Lichtenstadt said. “I didn’t know where I was headed.”  What she did know was that she was spending a lot of time cooking, seeking guidance and companionship on pioneering food blogs, such as the ones authored by Parisian-American baker David Lebovitz and home cook Deb Perelman, better known as Smitten Kitchen.    On a lark, and with no formal culinary training, Lichtenstadt put her college degree in graphic design to use and launched a site of her own (lichtenstadt.com), shooting photos on her smartphone and publishing informal kosher recipes. “I thought it would be fun, but that no one would read it,” Lichten stadt, 46, said by phone from her home in Jerusalem, which doubles as her studio and where she lives with her husband and two teenaged sons. Was she ever wrong. From the very first post, people paid atten tion. Lichtenstadt morphed from amateur to pro, developing content and honing a visual language that includes stop-motion animation,

3. To the onions add the drained quinoa, lentils, parsley, cilantro, garlic, salt, cumin, ginger, baha rat, cinnamon and black pepper. Mix until incorporated.

Serves 10 FOR THE SAUCE 4 cups boiling water 3 molassespomegranatetablespoons 2 tablespoons silan (date syrup) 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon baharat spice blend 5 whole garlic cloves 1. Make the peppers: Place the quinoa in a large bowl, cover with several inches of cold water and soak for 30 minutes; drain and rinse. (If using rice, follow the same procedure.)  2. While the quinoa is soaking, in a large skillet heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring until soft and then scatter the garlic cloves in the pot.

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4. Make the sauce: In another large bowl combine the water, pomegranate molasses, silan, to mato paste, salt, garlic powder and baharat. Mix until incorporated.

PeppersQuinoapeppersStuffed

FOR THE PEPPERS 2 cups quinoa (white, red or a combination) or 1 1/4 cups rice 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 large red onions, finely chopped 2 cups uncooked green lentils 1 cup chopped parsley 1 cup chopped cilantro 3 garlic cloves, minced 2 teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon baharat spice blend 1/2 teaspoon cinnamonground 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 9-10 multicolored bell

6. Arrange the cored peppers, standing upright, in a large pot, close enough that they are touching. Stuff the peppers three quarters of the way with the filling, then pour the sauce over and around the peppers. Cover the peppers with their tops,

8. Uncover the pot: If any liquid remains, raise the heat to medium and cook until the liquid reduces, 3 to 4 minutes. Serve warm. lightly golden, 11 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and cool slightly.

ChickenPersianflakesSaffron

4. Transfer the batter to the cake pans. Bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes in pans, then release cakes and finish cooling completely on a rack. Dust with consugar.fectioners’

ParevecinnamongroundAppleCake

2. Combine the oil, eggs, brown sugar, honey and coconut milk in a large bowl and mix until smooth.

4. Place the chicken legs back into the skillet, then add the 3/4 cup water and bring to a boil.

3. Add cinnamon, flour and bak ing powder to the wet mixture just until combined, making sure to not overmix. Gently fold in the apples.

KRUTRAHELIOFCOURTESY(LEFT);PEREZDANOFCOURTESY

bright primary colors and kitchen accessories she likes to buy at Anthropologie, a clothing chain also known for its casual yet chic house wares, while visiting New York. As the impact of social media influencers burgeoned in food-ob sessed Israel, so did her career. 183,000feedguageHebrew-lanLichtenstadt’sToday,Instagramhasoverfollow

CARMELSHIRANOFCOURTESY Efrat Lichtenstadt 37SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

Serves 6 to 8 12 saffron threads 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water 8 chicken legs, skin-on Kosher salt to taste Freshly ground black pepper to taste 5 tablespoons olive oil 2 large onions, finely chopped 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 teaspoon cinnamonground 1 teaspoon cardamomground 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1/4 teaspoon dried chili

Serves 4 to 6 1. Combine the saffron and the 2 tablespoons water in a glass and let the saffron infuse into the water while you begin the recipe.  2. Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the chicken and sear, turning occasionally, until golden on all sides, 12 minutes total. Transfer the chicken to a plate.  saffron water, lemon juice, tomato paste and chili flakes and stir to incorporate.

5. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover, and cook until the sauce has thickened and is bright orange, 35 minutes, adding more water as needed if the sauce begins to dry out. Season with more salt and pepper.  2 cups flour 2 tablespoon baking powder 3 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and forConfectioners’choppedsugar,dustingthecake

3. Add the remaining 2 table spoons olive oil to the skillet, then add the onions and cook, stirring until lightly golden, 7 to 8 min utes. Add the garlic, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cumin and turmeric and cook, stirring until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease the bottom and sides of two standard loaf pans with oil.

ers. She writes a weekly food column for the Makor Rishon newspaper and pumps out near-daily recipe posts for her feed, several in collaboration with brands like Quaker Oats, StarKist, Tnuva dairy products and Elite choc olate. Many of her Instagram reels for one-pot pasta dishes have accu mulated more than 1 million views. (The recipe she shared with Hadassah Magazine, for peppers filled with quinoa and lentils, is perfect for Sukkot, when it’s traditional to serve stuffed“Let’sfoods.)justsay I am turning down work at this point,” she said. L ichtenstadt is not alone. A number of Israeli women have harnessed the power of social media and other virtual spheres to launch and grow their careers in 1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for greasing the pan 3 large eggs 1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar 1/2 cup honey or silan (date syrup) 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk 1/2 teaspoon

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Raheli Krut, with close to 200,000 followers of her Hebrew-language Instagram account, is also, by her own admission, far too busy. Krut, who grew up a shy kid in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, said that she learned everything about cooking by watching her mother and grand mother in the kitchen. She came into her own just as Israeli online food media was taking off. The 42-year-old Krut, who today lives in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon, has worked in the field for nearly 20 years, creating content and marketing strategies for clients including, most recently, celebrity chef Israel Aharoni. At the same time, she has maintained her own prolific kosher recipe website (krutit.co.il) and has overseen two others focused on cooking with kids and healthy eating.

KRUTRAHELIOFCOURTESY FOOD “We are all beneficiariestheofsuchapowerfulwitness.”—FergalKeane,authorof Wounds: A Memoir of War & Love Available September 6 wherever books are sold 22_163_Hadassah_Auschwitz_Blue.indd 1 2022-07-27 11:40 AM TRAVEL WITH US IN 2023! Ariel Goldstein has over 20 years experience organizing and leading tours to more than 30 countries. www.tiyuljewishjourneys.com • 510.847.4519 ariel@ tiyuljewishjourneys.com Mexico City • February 6-13 Scholar: Dr Jehon Grist Morocco • March 3-13 Scholar: Rabbi Yoel Kahn Israel @ 75 • March 15-26 Petra Extension: March 26-28 Scholar: Rabbi Peretz Wolf Prusan food. And while some have pursued prestigious culinary training, the democratizing force of the internet has created opportunities and a plat form for homegrown chefs as well.

“I wasn’t seeking to become a better cook, I was seeking more connection and affirmation from people,” Krut said of the appeal of a career in food tethered to a virtual community. During the pandemic, aided by viral recipes like two-ingredient tahini bread, her site would regularly crash under the weight of more than three million virtual visits per month. Her eclectic mix of recipes runs the gamut from rainbow layer cakes that, when cut, reveal a cascade of multicolored candies to more KrutRaheli

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B’teyavon v’shanah tovah! Adeena Sussman is the author of Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen and co-author of Gazoz: The Art of Making Magical, Seasonal Sparkling Drinks. She lives in Tel Aviv.

Yahrzeit Ad_onethird_2022.indd 2

PEREZDANOFCOURTESY

HADASSAH, THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC ©2021 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hadassah, the H logo, and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. The solicitation disclosure on page 56 is incorporated in this advertisement.

PERPETUAL YAHRZEIT Kaddish will be recited annually for your loved one in perpetuity in the Fannie and Maxwell Abbell Synagogue at Hadassah Medical Center beneath Marc Chagall’s iconic stained glass windows.

HADASSAH’S PERPETUAL YAHRZEIT PROGRAM ENSURES THAT KADDISH WILL BE RECITED IN JERUSALEM FOR YOUR LOVED ONES. EVERY YEAR. FOREVER. hadassah.org/yahrzeit For further information, or to establish a Yahrzeit, call 877.212.3321 or email yahrzeit@hadassah.org.

Rottem Lieberson

THINKING OF YOUR LOVED ONES DURING THE HIGH HOLIDAYS?

ADVANCE YAHRZEIT A reservation to ensure Kaddish will be recited for you and your loved ones upon their death. Available in standard and Enhanced Perpetual Yahrzeit. 7/28/22 4:05 PM traditional fare like the dairy-free apple cake recipe shared here, for Rosh Hashanah. Many are global in flavor but simple to prepare, like a tahini-dressed slaw and mush room-and-chestnut arayes (Lebanese pitas usually stuffed with spiced ground meat). Krut also shares many one-pot meals—a current trend in Israel—like Israeli couscous risotto as well as an endless supply of pastas, lasagnas and desserts.   “I try to have something for every one while staying true to myself,” said Krut, who is currently working on her first cookbook, which she hopes to publish in the United States after its initial release in Israel. She also writes the food column for Isra el’s largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.  For popular recipe devel oper Rottem Lieberson, 54, the United States was where her passion for food transformed into a potential career path. Born to Persian immigrant parents in Israel, Lieber son grew up steeped in a food-centric home, married young and moved to New York with her husband and two young daughters in 2001. There, he pursued a career in real estate while she earned a degree in business and economics before enrolling and graduating with high honors from what was then the French Culinary Institute.“Those were some of the best years of my life,” said Lieberson, who worked in the kitchens of several notable New York chefs, including DanielAfterBoulud. moving back to Israel in 2010, Lieberson began teaching cooking classes around the enormous marble counter in her spacious kitchen in Ramat Aviv. The menu could feature French and Italian classics or full Persian feasts with crispy rice tahdigs filled with chicken and dried fruit as well as date-stuffed gondi, or chicken meatballs. Her talent for writing and formal culinary training set her recipes apart, and in 2016 she began her website (rotteml.com), which now garners hundreds of thousands of unique visits per month. “My recipes are creative and simple,” said Lieberson. “I want them to excite and comfort people at the sameHertime.”spice-heavy saffron chicken, made with chicken legs braised in a rich sauce, meets both criteria. Enjoy them with a jeweled Persian rice dish and the apple cake from Krut for a sumptuous Rosh Hashanah meal.

PERPETUALENHANCED YAHRZEIT Kaddish will be recited for your loved one daily for 11 months after burial, after which Kaddish will be recited annually.

JESSIBYPHOTOGRAPHYORK;NEW(ARS),SOCIETYRIGHTSKASS/ARTISTSDEBORAH2022©2015,‘OY/YO’ HUFKENSXAVIERANDHQCOLESSADIEARTISTTHEOFCOURTESYHOROWITZ,JONATHAN©(TOP);MELCER

Challenges and Triumphs The ‘OY/YO’ sculpture by Deborah Kass sits in front of the museum (top). Jonathan Horowitz‘s tarpcovered statue of Robert E. Lee (right) and rainbow-glitter American flag (opposite page, top) highlight Jewish and national issues.

In a similar melding of Jewish and contemporary concerns, the Stars and Stripes that represented freedom for European Jewish refugees get a rainbow-glitter makeover—an LGBTQ symbol—in Horowitz’s “Rainbow American Flag for Jasper in the Style of the Artist’s Boyfriend.” The piece references pop-artist Jasper Johns’ famous series of flag paintings as well as the glittery artistic style of conceptual artist Rob Pruitt, who is Horowitz’s partner. With exhibits like these, the renewed museum trains a Jewish lens

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ARTS

The rebirth of the national Jewish history museum By Hilary Danailova Engaging a Different America Yo!” shouts the 8-foot-high yellow sculpture of the two letters standing outside the newly reopened Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. “OY!” it groans when viewed in reverse, as visitors snap selfies alongside Brooklyn-based artist Deborah Kass’s wry nod to the intermingling of different cultures in urban America. The Yiddish “oy” is that favorite expression of dismay, while “yo,” a common slang greeting that also means “I” in Spanish, may bring to mind the city’s famous fictional son, boxer Rocky Balboa, yelling “Yo, Adrian!” in the first RockyKass’smovie.piece, a hit in numerous cities, will spend a year in Philadel phia—just one example of how the newly reopened museum is engaging with a very different America than the one to which it had closed its doors in 2020. “Our challenge was to take account of what we have all been living through these past two years,” CEO Misha Galperin said, referring not only to the pandemic and Ameri ca’s racial reckoning, but also the rise in antisemitism.Hemightaswell have been refer encing the museum’s own journey to insolvency and back. The museum filed for bankruptcy in March 2020 and shut down weeks later for the Covid pandemic, furloughing much of its staff. Many feared the national show case for the story of American Jewish success might succumb to failure. But in May 2022—Jewish Ameri can Heritage Month—the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History reopened with a new name and a clean balance sheet, thanks to the generosity of supporters. The museum’s core exhibition and permanent galleries still illuminate the American Jewish story, from colonial-era Sephardi pioneers to 20th-century heroes like Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold. And on display through December is “The Future Will Follow the Past,” from artist Jonathan Horowitz. The installation of works—some his own, others by noted artists who are both Jewish and non-Jewish—explores the social issues this country has wrestled with since 2020 and their relationship to the American Jewish experience. Both racism and antisemitism figure in Horowitz’s large-scale work “Untitled (August 23, 2017-February 18, 2018, Charlottesville, VA),” a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee draped in a black tarp. It refer ences the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, ostensibly gathered to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Lee and where protestors chanted “Jews will not replace us.”

Sol Messinger and his family were passengers on the St. Louis, the ship carrying German Jewish refugees that was turned away from numerous ports, including the United States, and returned to Europe. Guy Stern came to America from Germany as a teenager and later fought in the United States Army against the Nazis. Daniel Mendelsohn, whose grandparents were immi grants living in New York during the war, wor rying about their relatives back in Poland, talks about the confusion he felt at the emotional reaction from his family because of his uncanny resemblance to a relative killed by the Nazis.

Fittingly, the museum was itself founded in 1976 by members of Philadelphia’s Congregation Mikveh Israel, which was established around 1740. Decades later, having secured a space on Independence Mall, the institution took on substantial debt to finance the 100,000-square-foot glass edifice designed by James Stew art Polshek of Polshek Partnership (now Ennead Architects). With balconies overlooking the National Constitution Center, the museum, with a $150 million price tag, instantly became a Philadelphia landmark when it opened in 2010.

“We are careful to point out that America is not responsible for the Holocaust,” said Novick. However, the film “does not shy away from the antisemitism and white supremacy that are a part of American history.”

Four years before Anne Frank’s family went into hiding, her father, Otto Frank, applied for a United States visa. The application was lost when the United States Consulate in Rotterdam was bombed. He applied again, but red tape and a long waiting list made it impossible to emigrate.

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Tourists and school groups marveled at the world’s largest collection of Jewish Americana. Locals embraced the building as a fixture of cultural life. The museum hosted annual Passover seders, Hanukkah parties and cocktail parties, and the much-lauded gift shop was a Judaica destination in itself.

The film is “coming out at a time which felt extraordinarily relevant,” said Novick. “How hard it is to maintain institutions of democra cy—we are seeing that play out in front of our eyes today.”

MÜLLERTHOMASBYPHOTOHQ.COLESSADIEOFCOURTESYHOROWITZ,JONATHAN©

Bankruptcy came as a shock to many. While the museum generated enough revenue to support operations, its remaining $30 million debt burden had become so untenable that the board decided Chapter 11 was “the best chance to resolve the issue while continuing to operate,” said August.

The filmmakers interviewed leading scholars who dispel myths around American ignorance of what was happening in Europe and discuss how governments before, during and after the Holo caust responded to the rise of totalitarian regimes. But it is the accounts from living witnesses, the children and grandchildren of survivors who share a range of stories of survival and es cape, that are at the center of the documentary.

Immigration policy, white supremacy and a devastating war in Europe once again dominate news headlines. Indeed, noted Burns at a media event for the film, “what is disturbing— and illuminating—is that the film is resonat ing in a very fraught, very fragile moment.”

PBSOFCOURTESY

During the pandemic shutdown, the bankruptcy filing rendered the museum ineligible for the government Hadassah Magazine . “There are many books and films about the Holocaust. But to look at it through the lens of how Americans understood what was happening, how it was reported here, and to put that into a film, felt new.”

on the age-old idea of American freedom—not only the explicit theme of the museum, but also that of Philadelphia’s Indepen dence Mall just outside. Many Americans, noted Emily August, the museum’s chief public engagement officer, “can relate to a minority immigrant group navigating the opportunities and challenges of New World freedom.”

Frank’s unsuccessful attempt to come to America with his family was not unusual. While the United States accepted more Jewish refugees than any other country, its restrictive immigration policies, motivated by xenophobia and the eugenics movement, closed the door to millions of European Jews. The Franks’ story is one of many portrayed in the new documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust, directed and produced by famed docu mentary filmmakers Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, and written by Geoffrey Ward. The three-part documentary, which premieres on PBS from September 18 to 20, examines these stories in the context of American attitudes and politics of the 1920s through the 1940s. “One of the challenges was to make a film about something that many people think they know about,” Botstein said in an interview with

Members of the Mendelsohn family in 1939 Poland

—Alexandra Lapkin Schwank

DOCUMENTARY CONFRONTS AMERICAN REACTION TO THE HOLOCAUST

Now that the repository of those stories is back in business, August said, “we want to shout it from the rooftops.”

A new free-entry policy, subsidized by donors, “invites people of all backgrounds to think about how our story connects to their own stories,” she observed, “which is increasingly important as our society becomes moreOnedivided.”newexhibit with artifacts from last January’s synagogue hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, encap sulates those tensions and divisions.

There’s the teacup with which Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker welcomed a British-Pakistani stranger to the congregation—and the chair the rabbi later threw to escape that stranger, who, in yet another example of rising antisemitism, turned out to be a Thehostage-taker.Colleyvillesynagogue story is, like so many American Jewish accounts of challenge and triumph, an important piece of shared heritage.

ARTS aid that sustained other cultural orga nizations through prolonged closures. The museum was forced to downsize, pivoting to online exhibitions. In September 2021, longtime museum benefactor Mitch Morgan bought the building for about $10 million, leasing it to the museum for a nominal $1,000 a month as it emerged from Chapter 11. That December, celebrated shoe designer and Jewish philanthropist Stuart Weitzman donated what museum officials will only identify as “an eight-figure gift,” allowing the museum to buy back its building from Morgan and create an endowment. “It sounds cheesy, but it was like our own Hanukkah miracle,” August said.

Hilary Danailova writes about travel, culture, politics and lifestyle for numerous publications.

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CENTERARCHAEOLOGICALMOSAICLODLEVYLEONANDWHITESHELBYTHEOFSTEPANSKY/COURTESYPENPETER

The Lod mosaic is unusual for several reasons, explained museum director Rocio Meneri. One is its excellent preservation. Another is the use of relatively small tesserae, the cubes—in this case made of glass—that form a mosaic. It is also unusual for combining animal hunting and maritime scenes as well as for its lack of human figures. But it is, perhaps, the mosaic’s location that excites Meneri most. “It was found in a low-income mixed neighborhood,” she said. As a focal point for developing tourism in Lod, she added, “it gives hope to the city.”

A MOSAIC OF RETURN

—Esther Hecht

The atmosaicelaboratefloortheLodmuseum 43SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

Visitors to the Shelby White and Leon Levy Lod Mosaic Archaeological Center (lodmosaic.co.il) will see the approximately 1,650-square foot mosaic surrounded by pebbles like those that formed its foundation. Also on view is a large mosaic that was in the mansion’s courtyard. All texts in the museum are in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Six digital stands surround the main mosaic, offering videos, descriptions and games for children and families. One, for example, explains the stages of an archaeological dig.

Guests invited to the mansion of a wealthy merchant in the fourth century C.E. Roman province of Syria Palestina were treated to a feast for the eyes: a sumptuous mosaic floor depicting elephants, tigers, giraffes, a rhinoceros, rabbits, dolphins, fruits and ships, set in an elaborate frame of cable patterns. This magnificent mosaic, dating to around 300 C.E., was discovered in 1996 during road work in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod, which is near Ben-Gurion International Airport. After being on display since 2010 at different museums around the globe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and Paris’s Louvre, the mosaic is now on permanent view at the discovery site, the centerpiece of a dedicated new museum designed by Israeli architect Amit Nemlich.

THENOWBUILDERS.ISRAEL’SWETOGETHER,CANHELPANDFORNEXT74YEARS. Over more than 74 years, ordinary men and women devoted their lives to help build a new Jewish state. Many of these pioneers are now aging, frail, impoverished and alone. They need our help. With more than 7,000 volunteers and 120+ branches throughout Israel, Yad Sarah is dedicated to helping to provide for Israel’s less fortunate — especially those who have sacrificed so much, who have dedicated their lives to build a nation. We provide home and health care support services that enable people in Israel to remain independent at home and in their own communities despite illness or frailty. Return the favor of service to Israel's Builders by supporting Yad Sarah today. Eva H. Nurse, Mother,YadGrandmother,Sarahclient shalom@friendsofyadsarah.org866.YAD.SARAH 445 Park Avenue, Suite 1702 New York, NY 10022 Tel 212-223-7758 FriendsOfYadSarah.org @Friends_Of_YadSarah@YadSarahFriends

ACROSS1.Savoir faire 7. Lip or in follower 11. “Dear” ones 15. Chiang Kai-shek’s capital 16. Solemn pledge 17. First fill-in on some IRS forms 18. Quote part I 20. Discriminationagainstelders 21. Warner creationBros. 22. Cape Town’s country: abbr. 23. Show sudden joy or start to smoke 25. Quote part II 28. Doc bloc 31. Building designers’ org. 32. “Shape ___ ship out!” 33. Satisfy one’s appetite 34. Quote part III 37. It was dropped in the 60’s 38. Stomach soother, briefly 39. After expenses 40. This minute 43. “If music be the food of love, play on” speaker 44. ___ Garten of Barefoot Contessa fame 45. Even (with) 49. Opposite NNE By Jonathan Schmalzbach Spiritual Prep for the New Year 123456 789 10 11121314 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2324 25 2627 282930 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 404142 43 44 45 464748 49 50 51 525354 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67686970 71 727374 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 Across Savoir faire Lip or in follower "Dear" ones Chiang Kai-shek's capitalSolemn pledge First fill-in on some IRS formsQuote part againsDiscriminationI t WarnereldersBros. creation Cape Town's country: abbr.Show sudden joy or to Quotesmokepart II Doc Buildingbloc designers' org. "Shape ___ ship out!" Satisfy one's appetite Quote part III It was dropped in the Stomach soother, briefly After expenses This minute "If music be the food of love, play on" speaker ___ Garten of Barefoot Contessa fame Even actorresonates:Machiavelli'sBorgiaTearOpposite(with)NNEwhoinspired"ThePrince"PartofHRHThetimeoftheJewishwhenthisquotemostvar."Wildblueyonder"org."Stopthat!"___asinWallachtheorCohenthespyStaffQuotepartIV 71. Bring upon oneself 72. ___ Salanter (author of quote) 76. Beauty pageant wear 77. Mayberry lad 78. Navy builder 79. "I'm all ___" 80. Oversee the bar 81. Quote finish 1.Down Rat tail? 2. El ___, Texas 3. Disney's "___ & Stitch" 4. Cockney's invitation to climb aboard 5. What boys will be 6. Yellow tomato with red swirls 7. "What a pity" 8. China's Sun ___-sen 9. ___ degree 10. Hockey hall-of-famer Chris ___ 14. Tried this and that at the smorgasbord 17. Falls behind 19. Hit ___ (run into trouble) 24. UN member since 1949 25. Memorial mounds of stones 26. Some minstrels 27. It's often written in stone 28. Benedictine poet Cernuus 29. Sierra Club founder John 30. Missile trajectories 35. River nymph 36. Shackled 40. Names on it are off limits to telemarketers 41. Baby outfit 42. Come clean? 46. The Jack before Johnny 47. River under the Ponte 53. It independenceregainedin 1991 54. Caboose, for instance 55. Tree trauma 56. Chinese province near Beijing 58. Prepares for baking, in a way 59. They result in two outs: abbr. 63. Pre-shekel dough in Israel 64. Under the covers 67. Way around London, once 68. Keira Knightley plays her in "The Phantom Menace" 69. Quick-witted 70. Winter flyer 73. Mimic 74. Trash holder 75. How marketers improve website visits: abbr. 50. Tear 51. Borgia who Prince”Machiavelli’sinspired“The 52. Part of HRH 55. The time of the Jewish year when this quote most resonates: var. 57. “Wild blue yonder” org. 59. “Stop that!” 60. ___ as in Wallach the actor or Cohen the spy 61. Staff 62. Quote part IV 65. Featured chorus member 66. “___ Blu, Dipinto di Blu’’ 67. Sounds disapprovalof 71. Bring upon oneself 72. ___ Salanter (author of quote) 76. Beauty pageant wear 77. Mayberry lad 78. Navy builder 79. “I’m all ___ ” 80. Oversee the bar 81. Quote finish DOWN1.Rat tail? 2. El ___ , Texas 3. Disney’s “___ & Stitch” 4. Cockney’s invitation to climb aboard 5. What boys will be 6. Yellow tomato with red swirls 7. “What a pity” 8. China’s Sun ___ -sen 9. ___ degree 10. Hockey hall-of-famer Chris ___ 11. They’re taken in by tourists 12. Monogram part 13. Test outcomes 14. Tried this and that at the smorgasbord 17. Falls behind 19. Hit ___ (run into trouble) 24. UN member since 1949 25. Memorial mounds of stones 26. Some minstrels 27. It’s often written in stone 28. Benedictine poet Cernuus 29. Sierra Club founder John 30. Missile trajectories 35. River nymph 36. Shackled 40. Names on it are off limits telemarketersto 41. Baby outfit 42. Come clean? 46. The Jack before Johnny 47. River under the Ponte Vecchio 48. Try for a part 52. Follower of religious reformer Jan 53. It independenceregained in 1991 Spiritual Prep for the New Year 54. Caboose, for instance 55. Tree trauma 56. Chinese province near Beijing 58. Prepares for baking, in a way 59. They result in two outs: abbr. 63. Pre-shekel dough in Israel 64. Under the covers 67. Way around London, once 68 . Keira Knightley plays her in “The Phantom Menace” 69. Quick-witted 70. Winter flyer 73. Mimic 74. Trash holder 75. How visits:improvemarketerswebsiteabbr. CROSSWORD 58pageonAnswers 45SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

WORLDLOSTAFORSEARCHTHEANDLEVISTELLASATURDAYS:HUNDRED‘ONEFROMKALMAN.MAIRABYILLUSTRATION BOOKS

Exploring lost worlds and unsung heroines Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World By Michael Frank. Illustrated by Maira Kalman (Avid Reader Press) In asheRhodesthethetraveldeterminedLeviwaswhen1937,she14,StellawassotobeyondJuderiaonislandofthatpackedsuitcaseto take with her when she grew old enough to attend college. At that point, although Mussolini’s Fascist regime ruled Rhodes, Italy’s racial laws against the Jews were not yet in full force. That only happened the following year, when all Jews were expelled from school. By 1943, the Nazis had occupied Rhodes, where Jews had resided in the neighborhood of the Juderia for generations, stretching back to Spain’s expulsion of the Jews in 1492. On July 23, 1944, Levi was one of the 1,650 Jews forced to leave Rhodes under very different circum stances than she had envisioned, on an excruciating journey to Auschwitz that included a boat transfer to the mainland and then a cattle car. Of those Jews deported from Rhodes by the Nazis, only 161—Levi among them—survived.Nowavibrant 99-year-old resid ing in New York City’s Greenwich Village, Levi reveals the many varied passages of her life in One Hundred Saturdays. As recounted by author Michael Frank in the form of 100 conver sations taking place over six years, Levi’s tale is as captivating as it is devastating, as unflinching in its truth-telling as it is affectionate in its enduring warmth for a family and way of life that she carries with her to this day. The conversations begin with Levi conjuring the traditions, customs and foods of the Juderia. Living across the street from the synagogue, her family observed the rhythms of the Jewish calendar. Levi absorbed the routines that her mother and grand mother also followed. “You took your dishes to be baked in the communal oven and spent the hour gossiping with your friends while you waited for them to finish baking,” Levi says in the book. “You didn’t bathe at home because there were no baths at home, or showers either, but at the Turkish baths, once a week, before Shabbat…. You learned to prepare your grandmothers’ sweet and savory dishes; you walked with care across the uneven cobblestones; and you fell asleep inhaling the perfume of the courtyards with their intense, unforgettable brew of jasmine and rosemary, lavender and roses and rue.”

OneNONFICTIONHundredSaturdays:

Women’s Stories 46SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

Scattered throughout the book, Maira Kalman’s Matisse-like illus trations, evocations of the lost world of Jewish Rhodes, are enchanting. At the same time, her darkly metaphori cal representation of the Holocaust is horrific and her portrait of Levi reso nates with wisdom and endurance. In Auschwitz, while some female prisoners would try to stave off starvation by reminiscing about their favorite foods, Levi focused solely on the present and the survival of herself, her sister, Renée, and their small band of friends. “We stole, we cheated, we orga nized, we slept with our bread under our pillows,” she tells Frank. After their liberation from the Nazis, Levi and her sister went to Italy and then to Los Angeles, where family members who had left Rhodes before the war had settled. In 1948, she decided to make a life for herself in New AlreadyYork.fluent in Italian, French and Spanish, she took night classes in English and embarked on a successful career in the import-export textile business. She traveled the world— including periodic visits to Rhodes, starting in the 1970s—married, raised a son, divorced, and today remains

By Natalie Livingstone (St. Martin’s Press) An inspir ing account of a forgetlargelygenerations,multiplepowerwealthimmensethat,familydespiteandthroughdidnottheir roots, The Women of Rothschild is an exceptional work of scholarship. Spanning roughly two-and-a-half centuries, the book is filled with illuminating anecdotes and details— clothing, grand homes, art and politics—about the unsung women of the illustrious Jewish family whose financial prowess and influence is not only legendary but also the fodder of antisemitic conspiracy theories. The Rothschild banking dynasty was founded in Frankfurt by Mayer Amschel Rothschild in the 1760s. He had five sons, each of whom he assigned a territory—Vienna, Paris, Naples, Frankfurt and London. But there was a stipulation in “the will of the bank’s founder [that] explicitly forbade his female descendants”— including his five daughters—or the wives of any male descendants from having any shares in the bank’s business or say in its decision-mak ing process, writes author Natalie Livingstone.Butdespite these restrictions, as it becomes clear in the book, it was the women who by force of their intelligence, strength and persever ance led their families to new heights. Livingstone does an exemplary job of sharing their stories, starting with Mayer’s wife, Gutle, who fielded questions from the police during the Napoleonic occupation and hired a philosopher, a disciple of Moses Mendelssohn, to educate her children. Livingstone also describes how Nathan, the founder of the bank’s British branch, found a way to grant his wife some authority after his death. He stipulated in his will “that when his sons voted as sub-partners, they were also bound to give weight to [their mother] Hannah’s opinions.”

For the most part, Livingstone limited her research to this British branch of the family, considered among the most successful. Today, it is headed by Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, the fourth Baron Roth schild, who goes by the name Jacob. Even here there was a lot to cover, so much so that it is occasionally diffi cult to keep track of the daughters, wives and cousins. That’s compli cated even further because cousins frequently intermarried and offspring received the names of deceased relatives. There are a lot of Hannahs, Louisas and Charlottes. Among the achievements of later generations, Louisa de Rothschild was instrumental in funding the Jews’ Free School for residents of London’s impoverished Jewish population. In the mid-19th century, Emma Roth schild offered workers on her estate

ONE BOOK, ONE HADASSAH actively involved with her many friends and in organizations such as New York’s Centro Primo Levi. Although she never managed to receive the higher education she had looked forward to when she was 14, she pursued her own studies in subjects such as Jewish history, even embarking on courses in biblical Hebrew in her mid-90s. “She is one of the best models I’ve ever found of how to age with grace and grit,” Frank writes. Readers will agree.

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icon Letty Cottin Pogrebin, one of the founding editors of Ms. magazine, about her new memoir Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy . In this deeply intimate account, Pogrebin reveals the fear of shame and stigma that indelibly marked her upbringing in an immigrant Jewish family in Queens, N.Y. With wit, humor and affection she describes an extended family that was “torn between loyalty to their own kind and longing for American acceptance.” Chapter by chap ter, Pogrebin, who states that “happiness lies in a secret-free life,” slowly uncovers family secrets and deceptions, both big and small, and shares a few of her own, capturing universal truths about families, truth-telling and the price of guilt. This event is free and open to all. To register, go to hadassahmagazine.org/books .

“Quietly, tactically, and in a way that likely went unnoticed by his own brothers,” Livingstone writes, “Nathan had smuggled the opinion of his wife into the decision-making structure of the family business.”

—Diane Cole Diane Cole is the author of a memoir, After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges, and writes for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other publications.

Join us on asatOctoberThursday,20,7p.m.ET, MagazineHadassah feministinterviewsHosteinEditorExecutiveLisa

The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty

Dame Miriam Rothschild on British late night show ‘After Dark’ Hadassah is truly emerging into the digital age and is changing how our Keepers of the Gate are recognized at Hadassah Hospital. Keepers will now have their names displayed in a prominent area near the lobby elevators at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, on one of three beautiful digital displays. If you’ve been on the path to becoming a Keeper of the Gate, now is the perfect time to step up and join us for this fabulous opportunity! more information about the new Keepers of the Gate digital displays, please contact annualgiving@hadassah.org

For

Indeed, it was a Rothschild who funded construction of the Knesset building.Livingstone’s extensive research and journalistic skills bring many of these extraordinary women to life.

©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah, the H logo and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

VIA3.0,BY-SACCLTD.,MEDIAOPENBY19882,JULY PRESSMARTIN’SSTOFCOMMONS/COURTESYWIKIMEDIA

BOOKS medical care for a one-pound annual fee. Miriam Rothschild became a respected natural scientist and world expert on, of all things, fleas; in 2000, she was made a Dame of the British Empire for services to nature conser vation and biochemical research. The family was split on Israel. Most, RishonYaakovincludingpre-statesettlementsprojectsTheytheeffortssupportedhowever,thetobuildJewishstate.fundedandacrossIsrael,ZichronandLeZion.

—Curt Schleier

Curt Schleier, a freelance writer, teaches business writing to corporate executives.

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Hebrew Matters: 110 Hebrew Roots. The Roads They Take. The Stories They Tell By Joseph Lowin (GCRR Press) I’ve columnsHebrew”“AboutandinformativeLowin’sreadingbeenJosephdelightfulin

Now, with Lowin’s latest book, Hebrew Matters, we have 110 of his imaginative columns and gatherings of Hebrew roots and words in one volume.Thetitle itself is a two-pronged pun: The book is dealing with issues and subjects that pertain to Hebrew “matters.” Used as a verb, the title notes that Hebrew is important, significant—this language really matters.Both readings are correct. And the humorous titles for each pairing of roots, or shoreshim, lure the reader in. For instance, “Goodbye and Good Riddance” deals with the Hebrew root ר ט פ, which yields both “open ing,” as in the Torah phrase, petter rekhem, “opening of the womb,” and also closing, as in the concluding aliyah to the last part of the weekly Torah portion, the maftir. To enhance his explanations, Lowin relies on a breadth of Jewish texts, starting with the Bible. He continues through the Middle Ages, with examples from Rashi and Maimonides, and concludes with cita tions from modern Israeli novelists, language scholars and Israeli slang. Hebrew Matters is the third book in a series devoted to roots, preceded by HebrewSpeak and HebrewTalk, also based on Lowin’s 30 years of writing for Hadassah Magazine. Reading this gem of a book is like compressing time. Normally, a new column shows up once every few months, with each magazine issue. But here, in page after page, the months just fly by. —Curt Leviant Curt Leviant recently published a translation of a long-forgotten Sholom Aleichem novel, Moshkeleh the Thief, as well as his 12th novel, Me, Mo, Mu, Ma & Mod; or, Which Will It Be, Me and Mazal or Gila and Me?

This High Holiday season, as we seek spiritual and physical renewal for ourselves and our loved ones, let us also remember those in Israel who nurture and renew life every day. Whether it’s treating civilians wounded in terror attacks or responding to any number of at-home medical emergencies, no organization in Israel saves more lives than Magen David Adom. No gift will help Israel more this coming year. Support Magen David Adom by donating today at afmda.org/support or call 866.632.2763. Shanah tovah. up with new ideas for every issue.

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“To save one life is to save the world entire.”

— The Talmud afmda.org/support

Tackling everything from small hurts to abuse to larger societal and institutional violations in one volume may seem overbroad, but the author is determined to lay a path for any sort of repentance. For this, she turns to Jewish scholar and philoso pher Maimonides and his Laws of Repentance: naming and owning harm; starting change; restitution and accepting consequences; apology; and making different choices. Maimon ides and Jewish tradition generally are victim-focused, she notes. “Any attempt to address harm that does not put the victims of harm and their needs straight in the center will neces sarily come up

American society, she writes, is not good at the work of repentance, over focusing on the victim’s “letting go of grudges” rather than the perpetrator’s accountability. Ruttenberg, scholar in residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, is not only addressing everyday interpersonal transgressions but also the challenge of reconcilia tion for assault, homophobia, ableism and racism—concerns that are the focus of national debate.

Beautifully illustrated with artworks from the Jewish Museum collection, these 16-month calendars include Jewish holidays, candle lighting times, coordinating Hebrew dates, and more. the auspices of the Jewish Theological theEvery212.423.33335thShop.TheJewishMuseum.orgSeminaryAveat92ndSt,NYCpurchasesupportsJewishMuseum BOOKS FOR THE HIGH HOLIDAYS On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World By Danya Ruttenberg (Beacon Press)

there must be a distinction between addressing abuse and minor hurts, between individual perpetrators and societalRepentance,wrongs.or teshuva, “is like the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold,” Rutten berg writes. “You can never unbreak what you have broken. But with the sincere and deep work of transforma tion, acts of repair have the potential to make something new.”

BOOKS

tosheherbreadththeshort.”Despiteambitiousoftopic,iscarefulnotethat

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Under

When it comes to forgiveness, repentance and reconciliation, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg boldly asserts in her new book, “most of the time, we’ve gotten them very, very wrong.”

Plan for a Sweet New Year

—Leah Finkelshteyn Leah Finkelshteyn is senior editor of Hadassah Magazine.

Indeed, Arnow notes that the traditional Yom Kippur liturgy concludes with the desire for “Next year in Jerusalem”—a hope today tied to the tangible realities of the thriving modern Israeli state.

Support RefugeesUkrainian Make a gift for refugees this High Holiday season at hias.org

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Arnow casts a wide net in choos ing his sources. Discussions of the first two—repentance and tikkun olam—include classic Jewish ideas around individual strivings and social change for good. He calls tikkun olam “a commitment to seeing an alternative, improved reality” and quotes leading 20th-century Jewish philosopher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel about the connection between prayer and teshuva: “Prayer clarifies our hope and intentions. It helps us discover our aspirations….”

By David Arnow (The Jewish Publication Society) What is hope? What does centralThesebettertodeterminationienceabouttraditionJewishsayresilandtheimagineafuture?arethequestions that psychologist David Arnow unearths in Choosing Hope. Judaism is a “reservoir of hope,” he writes, taking readers through a list of nine topics he dubs “Jewish sources of hope.”

Other sources stem from the Bible: Abraham and Sarah, models of faith and promise, and Job, thought to be the most pessimistic book of the Bible but which, in fact, contains many expressions of hope. Arnow also looks at Jewish humor, investigating the role it played in self-preservation during the Holocaust.

And, of course, he includes Israel, “the central component of Jewish hopes for millennia,” touching on Zionist yearnings, pre-state history and contemporary challenges as well as the many usages of tikvah (Hebrew for hope) in Israeli society.

Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism

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connected by the Civil War. Lily is a Jewish abolitionist in New York City, and Stella is a slave in New Orleans, living among other “light-skinned women, the so-called favorites of wealthy White men.”

Lily’s husband, Jacob, a Union army musician, is stationed in Louisiana, where he sounds his cornet to lead soldiers into battle. Stella’s secret lover, William, is also a gifted musi cian. He flees his owner to join the Louisiana Native Guard, the first Black troops to fight for the Union, clutching one unusual possession— a flute.Stationed in the same battalion, the two men are brought together by music. But it’s their mutual sense of otherness that cements their bond. The only Jew in his regiment, Jacob “wore his background quietly, never fully revealing himself, but his sense of vulnerability and foreignness was always with him,” write the authors. William risked being caught by the slave catchers in order to fight for freedom, but he and the other Black volunteers find themselves far from the battlefield, relegated to digging graves for fallen white soldiers. Only when playing music together do the two men feel at Unknowingly,home.Lilyand Stella are also joined by the arts—in their case, needlework. Stella repurposes bits of cloth and salvaged threads to embroi der detailed maps to help escaping slaves, drawing upon information gleaned from her master when he comes to her bed. Lily rolls bandages and sews quilts for Union soldiers at the behest of her idol, real-life Jewish abolitionist and suffragist Ernestine

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The two also share the fervent desire for their beloved men to come home safe. The Thread Collectors weaves together familiar themes: the ravages of war, the disparities in treatment of white and Black soldiers, antisemi tism in the South and racism in the North. When Lily stops receiving letters from Jacob, the plot takes a compelling turn as she sets out to find him, with the begrudging help of Jacob’s brother, Samuel, who owns a successful mercantile emporium in the South and lost a leg fighting for theInevitably,Confederacy.there is an imbalance between the stories of Lily and Stella.

The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon (Pantheon) Historian Joseph Sassoon researches the trajectory of his own family, known as “the Rothschilds of the East.” With access to pre viously untapped material, he explores his relatives’ beliefs, business, feuds, influence, marriages, children and more. He profiles many prominent family members, including Rachel Sassoon, the first woman to edit a national newspaper in England.

Rolling bandages in the comfort of

Welcome to Hadassah Magazine’s first “On Your Shelf”—a selection of new and upcoming books that we recommend find their way to your bookshelves or library hold list. These titles, both fiction and nonfiction, are being highlighted for their fine writing, timely subjects and compelling stories. These are books to dive into, ponder, discuss and enjoy.

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott (Anchor) GennaRose Nethercott’s debut novel is an adventure and modern fairy tale inspired by Eastern European folklore. As a pair of once-estranged siblings travel across the United States with a surprising Ukrainian inheritance, there are magical and haunted moments. The author’s previous book was an award-winning poetry collection and her tour for that collection, along with her family’s history, inspired this one.

The Prophet of the Andes: An Unlikely Journey to the Promised Land by Graciela Mochkofsky. Translated by Lisa Dillman (Knopf) With a reporter’s passion for truth and a novelist’s sense of storytelling, Graciela Mochkofsky reveals a story of religious pilgrimage: How a Peruvian carpenter led his followers from the Andes to the Land of Israel, and from Christianity to Orthodox Judaism. This is the Argentinian Mochkofsky’s first work to be translated into English.

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Sandee Brawarsky is a longtime columnist in the Jewish book world as well as an award-winning journalist, editor and author of several books, most recently of 212 Views of Central Park: Experiencing New York City’s Jewel From Every Angle. Rose, “a female figure who was brim ming with courage and conviction.”

Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro (Knopf) Dani Shapiro’s first work of fiction in 15 years opens with a fatal car accident on a summer night that reverberates in the lives of those who survive and witness the tragedy. Probing deep, she revisits themes explored in her previous novels and nonfiction: family secrets, loss, the nature of memory and how the past can penetrate the present.

The Only Woman in the Room: Golda Meir and Her Path to Power by Pnina Lahav (Princeton University Press) According to Israeli law professor and author Pnina Lahav, Golda Meir had the gift of knowing what she wanted, and she dared to pursue it. Lahav’s multidimensional portrait demonstrates how the only woman yet to become prime minister of Israel broke the glass ceiling long before the term was coined.

To Fall in Love, Drink This: A Wine Writer’s Memoir by Alice Feiring (Scribner) A self-described introverted yeshiva girl from a family who couldn’t tell a merlot from Manischewitz, Alice Feiring is now an outspo ken, funny, passionate writer with a fine nose for wine and great ear for stories. In her new memoir, she connects love, loss and life with her adventures in the world of wine.

By Sandee Brawarsky

Hadassah Magazine ’s One Book, One Hadassah pick for October, the intimate and witty memoir by Letty Cottin Pogrebin looks at the long-suppressed deceptions and guarded secrets in the pioneering feminist’s extended family.

ON YOUR SHELF: NEW MUST-READS

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Shmutz By Felicia Berliner (Atria Books) Felicia Berliner’s debut novel isn’t for everyone—a fact made clear from the cover image, a raspberry hamantaschen set between lines that suggest a pair of legs. Peppered with Yiddish, with sometimes stilted writing, the novel tells the story of Raizl, an ultra-Orthodox 18-year-old living with her parents and siblings in Brooklyn and working part-time as a bookkeeper who goes on arranged dates to find a husband. She is also in college—which flies in the face of her Hasidic community’s norms—after receiving a scholarship to finish an accounting degree. Her father has allowed her enrollment on the condi

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The CollectorsThread is enriched by the two Edwardshistories.diverseauthors’familygrew up surrounded by African American folk art and textiles. Richman’s Jewish great-great-great-uncles fought on different sides in the Civil War. Together, these authors explore underrepresented points of view on a frequently novelized piece of Ameri can history. —Elizabeth Edelglass Elizabeth Edelglass is a fiction writer, poet and book reviewer living in Connecticut. BOOKS 10 Year Level Premium Policies * 20 Year Level Premium Policies * Issue Age $100,000 $250,000 $1,000,000 Issue Age $100,000 $250,000 $1,000,000 30 Male $ 85 00 $ 112 50 $ 220 00 30 Male $ 104 00 $ 150 00 $ 370 00 Female 79 00 100 00 170 00 Female 95 00 132 50 300 00 40 Male 100 00 137 50 270 00 40 Male 131 00 207 50 590 00 Female 92 00 127 50 250 00 Female 117 00 177 50 490 00 50 Male 171 00 285 00 830 00 50 Male 257 00 480 00 1,580 00 Female 146 00 235 00 680 00 Female 210 00 365 00 1,140 00 15 Year Level Premium Policies * 30 Year Level Premium Policies * Issue Age $100,000 $250,000 $1,000,000 Issue Age $100,000 $250,000 $1,000,000 30 Male $ 92 00 $ 120 00 $ 250 00 30 Male $ 145 00 $ 225 00 $ 650 00 Female 86 00 112 50 220 00 Female 131 00 192 50 520 00 40 Male 109 00 152 50 400 00 40 Male 203 00 337 50 1,110 00 Female 103 00 147 50 390 00 Female 178 00 282 50 890 00 50 Male 212 00 372 50 1,230 00 50 Male 425 00 812 50 2,890 00 Female 171 00 287 50 900 00 Female 342 00 622 50 2,120 00 *Annual premiums shown are for preferred plus nonsmoker class (preferred nonsmoker class for $100,000 face amounts) Equivalent premiums are available for other underwriting classes, ages, face amounts and payment modes. Trendsetter® Super 10, Trendsetter® Super 15, Trendsetter® Super 20, and Trendsetter® Super 30 are term life insurance policies issued by Transamerica Life Insurance Company, Cedar Rapids, IA 52499. Premiums increase annually starting in year 11 for Trendsetter Super 10, in year 16 for Trendsetter Super 15, in year 21 for Trendsetter Super 20, and in year 31 for Trendsetter Super 30. Policy forms and numbers may vary, and these policies may not be available in all jurisdictions. Insurance eligibility and premiums are subject to underwriting. In most states, in the event of suicide during the first two policy years, death benefits are limited only to the return of premiums paid. Suicide is no defense to payment of life insurance benefits, nor is suicide while insane a defense to payment of accidental death benefits, if any, under this policy where the policy is issued to a Missouri citizen, unless the insurer can show that the insured intended suicide when s/he applied for the policy, regardless of any language to the contrary in the policy.

(5326)**No quotes are final until underwriting is completed. a wealthy New York home hardly compares to stitching escape routes amid the hunger, desperation and fear of slave life in the South. Crucially, Lily and Jacob manage to commu nicate through letters, while Stella and William are denied all means of contact. Ultimately, Lily’s trip south brings both couples together in a resolution made possible by one of Stella’s hand-sewn maps.

55SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

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—ARI SHAPIRO , Host of NPR’s All ings Considered tion that she help support her family financially.Thescholarship provides her with a laptop with internet access— another violation of her community’s strict laws—that she initially uses for her work and studies. But she finds herself becoming addicted to online pornography—the titular

entranceThefallsroomwhoherherthevideovideowatching“shmutz”—afterundercoversofbedaftersisterGitti,sharesawithher,asleep.videosher, and she sees them as entrees into a new and fascinating world. Disturbed by her fascination (“Raizl, daughter of Israel. Porn addict,” she calls herself) and fearful that she will not make a good wife, she tells both her mother and the local matchmaker that she wants no more set-ups because she’s afraid of sex. They send her to a therapist. Wary and resentful, Raizl only shares bits and pieces of her life with the therapist. “Had sex always been behind everything, and she just hadn’t seen it?” Raizl wonders to herself. “The way people who aren’t religious don’t see the G-d in every thing. The way for some people an apple is just an apple, a subway pole just a thing to grab when the brakes screech.”Asher consumption of porn increases, Raizl breaks other rules: She hangs out with non-Jewish students, eats a non-kosher egg roll bought from a street vendor, wears pants and a low-cut shirt. The guilt and shame she experiences with each transgression compete with her curi osity and the thrill of the forbidden. This is the central struggle Raizl faces: Will she be able to denounce these temptations, meet a husband and remain a part of the Hasidic community that she loves and values? In this coming-of-age story, Raizl’s voice is one that most women will recognize: the struggle to have one’s needs fulfilled and be able to express oneself while trying to live up to societal norms and expectations. Indeed, Raizl doesn’t want to reject her upbringing or community.

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BOOKS Berliner has written a humorous, thought-provoking and unique book about Judaism, Orthodoxy, human urges and addiction. She avoids stereotypes, which makes Shmutz a welcome alternative to stories of rebellion and leaving the Orthodox fold. Instead, it’s a nuanced and tension-filled story about the competing appeals of religious and secular life.

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The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith, and the Talmud By Maggie Anton (Banot Press) In rereading two of her favorite Jewish books, Chaim Potok’s classic The Chosen, and its sequel, The Promise, acclaimed author Maggie Anton noticed that the women in the text are nameless, silent characters. So for her newest novel, The Choice, she decided not only to create characters based on older versions of Potok’s protagonists but also, she explains in the preface to The Choice, to add a female protagonist

—Jaime Herndon Jaime Herndon is a writer and avid reader. Her work can be found on Book Riot, Undark, Kveller, Motherly and other places.

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Family & Bar/Bat Mitzvah Tours 13-DA Y & 16-DAY TOURS • JUN 14 – 26 JUN 14 – 29 • JUN 28 – JUL 10 JUN 28 – JUL 13 • JUL 19 – 31 JUL 19 – AUG 3 • AUG 2 – 14 AUG 2 – 17 • AUG 16 – 28 AUG 16 – 31 • DEC 20 – JAN 1, 2023 2022 Tour Dates Adult Group Tours 13-DA Y & 16-DAY TOURS • MAR 22-APR 3 MAR 22-APR 6 • MAR 29-APR 10 MAR 29-APR 13 • MAY 10-22 MAY 10-25 • MAY 17-29 MAY 17-JUN 1• SEP 6-18 SEP 6-21 • OCT 18-30 OCT 18-NOV 2 • OCT 25-NOV 6 OCT 25-NOV 9• NOV 1-13 NOV 1-16• Re-Visitor Tours 13-DA Y TOURS SMALL GROUP ADULT TOURS MAR 29 or NOV 1 Private Tours TWO OPTIONS 1. Take Our Scheduled Group Tour by Private Car 2. Create your own completely customized tour For your detailed brochure visit margaretmorsetours.com or call (954) 458-2021 OurIsrael—ExperienceCreatesYours! FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED SINCE 1980 *Free Land Tour for the Bar/Bat Mitzvah *RESTRICTcelebrantIONSAPPLY 40 Wall Street New York, NY 10005. as a way of giving a voice to the women in 1955,Brooklynnovels.ofbackgroundthePotok’sSetinin

A Talmudic scholar in her own right and author of the award-win ning trilogy Rashi’s Daughters, Anton wrote The Choice, she explains in the preface, to comment on and criticize “Jewish women’s unequal and inferior legal status” in halacha. She wants to expose the many ways the Torah and Talmud have been interpreted unfavorably toward women. Indeed, threaded through out The Choice are mini-Talmudic lessons on sex, mikveh, candlelighting

57SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

ChoiceThebegins as Columbia University-trained journalist Hannah Eisen interviews Orthodox Talmud scholar and former childhood classmate Rabbi Nathan Mandel, a professor of rabbinics at a Jewish college, for her column in the Yiddish social ist newspaper The Daily Freiheit She convinces him to teach her Talmud, which is forbidden at that time to women in Orthodox circles. Through secret study sessions, their relationship blossoms. As it grows, their devotion to each other, their communities and their faith is tested. Early in the book, Hannah cham pions women’s rights in Judaism. “The Sages’ arguments against women studying Talmud were merely an excuse,” Hannah concludes after one of their study sessions. “It was a matter of power. If women didn’t know how halacha was formulated and established, then they couldn’t challenge it or change it.”

Nathan Mandel as an adult version of Reuven Malter, the narrator from The Chosen who eventually becomes a rabbi. Nathan’s confidant, Benny Stockser, a psychologist treating victims of child sexual abuse in the yeshiva world, is based on Reuven’s friend Danny Saunders, whose Hasidic father raised him in nearAntonsilence.sets her sprawling saga against the backdrop of real-life events—the McCarthy hearings; Salk’s polio vaccine; the Peekskill Riots of 1949 incited by the Ku Klux Klan; the Yankees-Dodgers 1955 World Series. The drama plays out as Hannah and Nathan contend with their own inner turmoil and conflicts with a host of relatives, colleagues and friends who span the Hasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Zionist and non-Jewish worlds. Hannah earns her place among the ranks of Anton’s female characters who are guiding their communities toward a more sustainable, equitable and less rigid Judaism.

58SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

LOOKING FOR MORE TO READ? of Out of the Corner , a memoir from actress Jennifer Grey, and An Affair of Spies , a new thriller set in Nazi Berlin by National Jewish Book Award Winner Ronald H. Balson. Go to hadassahmagazine.org/books for these reviews and other great book content. Hanukkah and Shabbat parallel the the Talmud itself

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becomes a Readerscharacter.mightrecognize

—Rahel Musleah Rahel Musleah leads virtual tours of Jewish India and other cultural events and has scheduled her first post-pandemic, in-person tour for November 2022 (explorejewishindia.com)

and more. With lessons that

events in the book,

during

COMMENTARY & TRANSLATION BY RAB BI ADI N EVEN SRAEL STEINSALTZ JUDAISM the Tanya work, Rabbi the author’s In doing so, love, awe, metaphors from our of worldhasidimoftheconceptsin Tanya Sha’ar section of interacts with the God enlivens section does absolutewondrousnotdivinecreationon Tanya con exploration of the path to the initial higher level of the penitent, groundbreaking One Steinsaltz’sdoesall. STEINSALTZ www.maggidbooks.com $34.95/CAD $43.95 THE STEIN SALTZ THE MAGERMAN EDITION TANYA SHA’AR HAYIĤUD VEHA’EMUNA IGGERET HATESHUVA ותושעל ך ב ב ךובלהדברמאדבפי ך י ל א בורקיכ SHA’ARVEHA’EMUNAHAYIĤUD IGGERET HATESHUVA SSTEIEHTNALTZAYNAT ד י ג מ MAGGID

ADVERTISEMENT Guide to Jewish Literature Order these books directly through the Hadassah Magazine website! Just go to Hadassahmagazine.org and click on Guide to Jewish Literature. daughterS of the h oloCauSt Rhonda WhitmanFink#1 NEW RELEASE ON AMAZON! BE SAVAGE, NOT AVERAGE! POW! Not your grandkid’s comic book! Real-life daughters of Holocaust survivors morph from real housewives into superheroines to battle antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and Holocaust denial from the halls of Congress to the local classroom and beyond. Watch these powerful ‘women who do’ kick antisemitism’s a$$! Author of the wildly popular 94 Maidens, Rhonda Fink-Whitman is a Hadassah favorite with certificates of appreciation from U.S. chapters for her empowering presentations. An approved Hadassah speaker, this educator/advocate for mandated Holocaust education never disappoints! www.94maidens.com Book her: 94maidens@gmail.com. o n 174th Street : the World of Willie m ittleman Mel Weiser Days are bad in the Great Depression of the 1930s. But for little Willie Mittleman and the Mittleman clan in their Bronx, NY neighborhood, life is still good, proving that laughter and love will always be the lifesaving forces to rescue us from adversity and pain. A big-hearted gem. Funny, touching and insightful. For readers of all ages. Available on Amazon. the o nlY Woman in the room Pnina Lahav In this biography, Pnina Lahav re-examines the life of Golda Meir through a feminist lens, focusing on her recurring role as a woman standing alone among men. The Only Woman in the Room is the first book to contend with Meir’s full identity as a woman, Jew, Zionist leader, and one of the founders of Israel, providing a richer portrait of her persona and legacy. Purchase at press.princeton.edu.

painful J oY: a h oloCauSt familY m emoir Max J. Friedman A family saga set in Poland, Sweden and the U.S., hidden from view for nearly a lifetime, is resurrected through six years of meticulous research as a son struggles to understand the effects of surviving the Holocaust on his parents, himself, his sister and future generations. He uncovers startling surprises as we meet two people who discover a complex kinship in the midst of unbearable pain. Kirkus Reviews notes its “engaging readability” and calls Painful Joy “a sweeping and nuanced story of living with the effects of trauma.” Available on Amazon. aWake , aWake d eBorah! Rabbi Nancy Myers Awake, Awake Deborah! is about a woman coming of age during the tumultuous Iron Age in Israel. As witness to rape, kidnapping, and murder, Devash transforms into Deborah, to help save her people –forging an unusual marriage, and an alliance with an attractive warrior, as she rises to lead her people in a climactic fight. Available on Amazon.com. h ip S et Michael Fertik “Fast paced with an original, exotic setting, Hip Set is an unstoppable read from fi rst page to last,” Faye Kellerman, best-selling author. A noir thriller set in modern-day Tel Aviv, Hip Set begins with what appears to the police to be a simple murder but swiftly takes our heroes through the hidden lives of Sudanese refugees and the violent underground economy of Russian gangsters, in search of an ancient mystery, lying untouched in the desert for millennia, that has been troubling scholars since it first appeared in the Old Testament itself. Available on Amazon. half i n Felice Cohen What if your fi rst love was a forbidden one? Author Felice Cohen, known nationally and internationally as the woman who lived in one of the world’s smallest apartments, reveals her first love three decades later, with a woman 34 years older. In this candid coming-of-age memoir— as compelling as a novel—Felice chronicles the happiness and heartbreak of an age-gap love affair while struggling to figure out the direction of her future. Ultimately, this is a story about navigating life’s unpredictable path while following one’s heart and finding acceptance.

Available on Amazon. CradleS of the r eiCh Jennifer Coburn Based on untold historical events, this novel brings us intimately inside the women’s homes that existed during World War II, when thousands of babies were taken from their mothers to be raised as part of the new Germany. In Cradles of the Reich three women’s fates are irrevocably intertwined and their stories prove that in a dark period of history, the connections women forge can carry us through, even driving us to heroism we didn’t know we had within us.

Available on Amazon.

In this fiplanstwelve-year-oldmiddle-gradeaccessiblehigh-interestnovelforreaders,ElsietodressupastheerceandsmartQueen Esther, who saved all the Jewish people. But when fi nancial hardship and a terrible incident of hate-inspired vandalism threaten not only the party but the synagogue too, Elsie, like Queen Esther, takes action to bring her entire community—Jewish and nonJewish alike—together. Available from Orca Book Publishers.

the Book of e lSie Joanne Levy

A powerful autobiographical account of the loss of the author’s husband at an early age and how she managed to move forward through her grief. Then when a second chance at romance appears, Goldblum must maneuver blending two families together.

Available by e-book and Amazon. paSSionS of the g rande dame h otel Deby Eisenberg Palm Beach’s glorious Breakers Hotel became an army hospital in WWII, where over a dozen babies were born. Passions and fires, both figurative and literal, will forever change the lives of three women whose heartrending journeys weave through the timeline of the resort, beginning with Rebecca, an alluring Russian Jewish immigrant in the 1920’s whose fiance disappears when she follows him to America. A compelling historical fiction tale of love and loss, separations and reunions, guilt and absolution –the story of the American Dream and the power of passion. By the author of Pictures of the Past. Available on Amazon.

volodYmYrZelenSkY–i n h iS oWn WordS An intimate look at the awe-inspiring president of ofZelensky,Ukraine—VolodymyrthenewherotheWest—through an expansive book of his quotations covering his stance on a wide variety of issues, from acting and climate change to war and peace. A nuanced picture of this man who has enthralled and inspired people around the world, edited by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Rogak and award-winning translator Daisy Gibbons. Available wherever books and ebooks are sold and at www.pegasusbooks.com. Sukkah -doodledoo! a h olidaY to CroW aBout Margie TammieIllustratedBlumbergbyLyon “It’s much too soon for dreidels. The shofar has been blown. But look—Sukkot is coming! Let’s eat—say yes by phone.” Shelley and Jimmy help to build and decorate a sukkah, prepare a holiday lunch, and handle four unexpected (green) guests with care. A mitzvah, a lost tooth, and a note from the tooth fairy add warmth and charm to this rhyming tale. Includes a glossary, an “All About Sukkot” page, sheet music, and recipes. $12.95 (paperback); $19.95 (hardcover). Available online and in bookstores. www.MBPublishing.com/sukkah-doodle-doo.

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Readers who wish to experience this potent work can purchase “A Young Widow’s Twenty-Year Journey: Navigating the New Normal” at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iBooks Store, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble. the aSSignment Liza Wiemer Inspired by a real-life incident. When a favorite teacher gives an assignment requiring students to pretend they’re Nazis and debate the Final Solution, two brave teens speak up and refuse to participate. The situation explodes, forcing the school and larger community to confront antisemitism and bigotry. What does it take for tolerance, justice, and love to prevail? Find out in this riveting, fast-paced, multi-award-winning novel. Available in hardcover, e-book, paperback, and audio wherever books are sold. Free curriculum guide through Penguin Random House. Liza will speak to Hadassah chapters, synagogues, schools, and other groups. Visit lizawiemer.com for more information. m alkah ’S n oteBook Mira Z. Amiras This is the story of Malkah, when she starts to learn her Aleph-Bet letters and how to read the Torah. As Malkah reads, her questions multiply. These questions take her on a journey deeper into the Hebrew letters, Jewish mystical texts, far-off places, archaeological digs, and ultimately, the nature of existence itself. Told in short verse and coupled with highly evocative illustrations, the book takes readers on a journey through mystical Judaism. Guided by the Hebrew AlephBet, Malkah begins to understand her creation story, and that of the entire universe. Available on Amazon.

ADVERTISEMENT the lonelY tree Yael Politis Palestine – 1944. Gold Dust Magazine, London: “… refuses to demonize or propagandize … fast-paced … vivid … you won’t find a dull paragraph in this work.”

thou S halt n ot Stand i dlY BY: h oW o ne Woman

Despite her love for Amos, Tonia longs to flee Palestine, not sharing her father’s confidence that: “the world that has trampled us into the dust will someday wonder at – and no doubt resent – our strength. The strength into which our mad illusions will forge themselves. Would you, with the Gentiles, believe that we’re too weak, too unworthy, to seize for ourselves a common destiny?”

ConfrontedthegreateSthumanitarianCriSiSofourtime Georgette F. Bennett, Ph.D. This is the largely untold story of unprecedented and improbable partnerships between Syrians and Israelis, sworn enemies, who rose above mutual suspicion and hatred to alleviate terrible suffering. That human story is told against the backdrop of geopolitical obstacles that threatened their work at every turn. This is a guide for anyone who wants to fi nd ways to help, but doesn’t know how to get started. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and local booksellers. a Young WidoW ’S nJtWentY-YearourneY:navigatingtheeWnormal Carol NathensonGoldblum

Elaine Serling

A musical story celebrating and honoring the special relationship between grandparents and a grandchild. This new re-designed hardcover edition features fresh lyrics, a toe-tapping memorable melody and colorful illustrations that mirror moments of joy this special bond brings. Use the digital download code printed inside the book to download the song. Reading, listening and singing together, will create memories that will last a lifetime! Available from www.elaineserling.com. 800-457-2157; $19.95 + $3 shipping.

S hrink Wrapped Irene Silvers A delightful romantic comedy set in New York City. Sophie’s boyfriend abandons her at a time of crisis. Meanwhile, her widowed mother has become a femme fatale, acquiring a lover on the internet who may be spending all her money. So Sophie sees Dr. Kisselstine, as bland and beige as his office, who nevertheless has the capacity to surprise her and complicate her life. Recovering from a broken heart, Sophie is not alone: her irrepressible mother, two amusing best friends and the enigmatic Dr. K. are with her every step of the way. Available on Amazon. To advertise here, please call Randi O’Connor at (212) 451-6221, or email Spaceroconnor@hadassah.org.islimited.

Available from Orca Book Publishers. e itheaxpulSion:novelofSpaniShnquiSition Sherry V. Ostroff As the daughter of a powerful man who wielded influence with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Basseva thought she was safe. But without warning, she is arrested, accused of a capital crime, and is thrust into a terrifying world of lies, bigotry, torture, and execution. Expulsion is an historical novel about the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, the Edict of Expulsion, and one woman’s attempt to survive them both.

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Author is available for book groups and as a speaker; contact svostroff528@gmail.com. Information at www.sherryvostroff.com. Available in paperback and e-book at Amazon.com. Audiobook soon.

62SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

Available from Orca Book Publishers. the Sun Will Come o ut Joanne Levy The Sun Will Come Out is a funny and heartwarming account of a shy girl’s first summer away from home. When Bea meets a friend named Harry and finds the courage to take part in the camp production of Annie, she learns she really can do anything and that silver linings can be found just about anywhere.

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Joseph Lowin’s columns for Hadassah Magazine are collected in the books HebrewSpeak, HebrewTalk and the recently published Hebrew Matters Our new website is just like Hadassah. Bold, powerful action-oriented.and SEE YOURSELF.FOR hadassah.org

In a biblical story filled with the יִעְבִט-לַע (al-tiv’i), supernatural, God chas tens a doubting Job by reminding him that he has no standing to debate; after all, Job was not present when the foundations of the world וּעָבְּטָה (hotba’u), “were fastened.” Royal decrees in the time of Queen Esther were sealed ךְֶלֶמַּה תַעַבַּטְ בּ (be-taba’at ha-melekh), with the king’s signet ring. During the Bar Kokhba revolt against Roman rule, there was the striking of תעֵבְּטַמ (matbe’ot), coins, bearing images of Jewish national sovereignty. In Samuel ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of Maimonides’s Guide to the Perplexed, originally written in Arabic, languages are described as תוֹיִּעְבִט אׂל (lo tivi’iot), “not inherent,” to humanity. Looking into the history of Hebrew usage, a scholar could make a case that ibn Tibbon ַעיִבְּטִה (hitbi’a), coined, today’s widespread Hebrew adjective יִעְבִט (tiv’i), natural. Twentieth-century Israeli author S.Y. Agnon analyzed with empathy one of his character’s inclination הֶקְשַׁמְבּ יִרֲעַצ ַעיִבְּטַהְל (le-hatbi’a tsa’ari be-mashkeh), “to drown my sorrows in drink.” Modern Hebrew uses our root in a host of terms and idioms. Today, dinner guests are often יִנעְבִט (tiv’oni), vegan, and a place that’s damp and boggy may be called יִנָעְבט (tovani), swampy. A biologist studies עַבֶטַּה יֵעָדַּמ (mada’ei ha-teva), natural sciences, and one’s תוּעיִבְט (tevi’ut), natural inclina tion, is to follow עַבֶטַּה ךְֶרֶדּ (derekh ha-teva), the way of the world.

Finally, there are Israel’s universally venerated nature reserves, עַבֶטַּה תַרוּמְשׁ, (shemurat ha-teva), literally “protection of nature,” under the supervision of SPNI, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. When personified into a new ןוֹשָׁל ַעֵבְּטַמ (matbe’a lashon), “word coinage,” reports Israeli language maven Ruvik Rosenthal, whose book on Hebrew slang was a best seller in Israel, the idiom becomes a metaphor for expressing admiration, as in, “Israeli volunteers at disaster sites abroad are truly shemurat ha-teva!” It is their יִנֵשׁ עַבֶט (teva sheni), second nature, never to stop giving.

ABOUT HEBREW RESERVE/SHUTTERSTOCKNATUREGEDIEIN

63SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

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Back to Nature

Coins, rings and natural splendor By Joseph Lowin Some things never stop giving. take the example of the Hebrew root ע-ב-ט (tet-vetayin). As a noun, it gives us nature, of the physical world, and human nature as well as coins and rings. As a verb, the root “sinks,” sometimes “drowns” and often “embeds.” And as an adjective, it describes properties that can be “inherent,” “imprinted” or “coined.” In Exodus, after the Egyptian soldiers pursuing them are drowned, Moses and his people break into jubilant song. Finding this scene problematic, a later midrash rewrites it, using our root to paint the portrait of a compassionate God who admonishes the Israelites, “Humans created by Me םָיַּבּ םיִעְבט (tov’im ba-yam), drown in the sea, and you recite poetry?”

ANSWERQUESTION

Sandee Brawarsky is an award-winning journalist, editor and author of several books, most recently of 212 Views of Central Park: Experiencing New York City’s Jewel From Every Angle.

Getting Through It, the author says, might be her most important book, since she believes that it can save women’s lives by encouraging them to go to the doctor at early stages of endometrial cancer. This interview had been edited for brevity and clarity.

What was the impact of the pandemic on your experience? Getting treatment in 2020—tests, biopsy, surgery, chemo, radiation, follow-up—was terrifying because it involved so much personal interac tion when there was no vaccine, no treatment and hospitals did not admit significant others. I went into all my appointments alone, and despite the precautions, I was afraid of getting sick every time. The virus was such an unknown that it dwarfed my cancer, which at least had an estab lished treatment protocol. How important is attitude in the healing journey—your own attitude as well as those of your loved ones and medical professionals? Very important. First, like CNN broadcaster Christiane Amanpour, I decided to go public with my diagnosis because gynecological cancer is silent (does not show itself with clear symp toms) and because there continues to be a shame about these types of cancer. My attitude was: This is not a personal tragedy but a collective experience. My journalistic training also influenced my attitude. I’m accustomed to asking questions and obtaining answers.

What advances have been made in the treatment of endometrial cancer? Unfortunately, there is nothing women can do to prevent endome trial cancer. But there have been improvements in treatment, which is now much shorter and less difficult than in previous years. You may detect it earlier by paying attention to changes in your pelvic area and abdo men, and insisting on routine pelvic ultrasounds. Don’t ever ignore a telling symptom like spotting (blood on your underwear), especially post-menopause. Never cancel your diagnostic exams—especially not annual physicals. Many women did that during Covid. You have been declared cancer-free. How are you feeling these days? Pretty good! I tire more easily than I used to and I have some neuropathy in my toes from the chemo. But I will be 75 in November, and I figure that’s not too bad. I think the silver lining of cancer is that I had to slow down, keep quiet and to triage people and things in a way that I did not before. I don’t stress about most things now and I’ve developed a better sense of humor. I learned a lot from cancer.

In many of your books, you write about survivors. In what ways does Getting Through It connect with your previous writings? Since the 1970s, when I wrote Children of the Holocaust, I’ve been writing in one way or another about survivors. I’m the daughter of two Czech Jews who survived the war, returned to their homes, fled the Communists, became immigrants in New York City and rebuilt their family. My parents’ life strategies—reliance on clear thinking, relationships, grit and hope—helped me during my cancer treatment. When I was so weak and I could not sit up, I thought: “My mother almost died in Bergen-Belsen and didn’t. I’ll get through this.”

EPSTEINHELENOFCOURTESY

Not all cancer memoirs have happy endings, but writer helen epstein’s new one is full of hope and even humor. In Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer During Covid, Epstein writes powerfully and intimately about her experience of being diagnosed with endometrial cancer—among the most common gynecological cancers—at the beginning of the pandemic, when fear and uncertainty were spiraling.

Epstein, 74, lives with her husband in Lexington, Mass., and has two sons and two grandchildren. She is the author of 10 previous nonfiction titles, including the groundbreaking Children of the Holocaust, the first work to be published about the intergenerational transmission of trauma. In October, she will be opening an exhibit at the Terezin Memorial in the Czech Republic that she curated about her father, Kurt Epstein, who was a Czechoslovakian army reserve officer, Olympic water polo player and Holocaust survivor.

Helen Epstein 64SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 I I hadassahmagazine.org

A silver lining: ‘I learned a lot from cancer’ | By Sandee Brawarsky

©2022 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hadassah, the H logo, and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

Sheila and Stanley Schwartz have built lifelong friendships through Hadassah. With family in Israel, they’ve also seen Hadassah’s work on the ground and believe in its mission. The Schwartzes have now established four 1.800.428.8884 plannedgiving.hadassah.orggiving@hadassah.org

July

The solicitation disclosure on page 56 is incorporated in this advertisement. Charitable deductions are allowed to the extent provided by law. Hadassah shall have full dominion, control and discretion over all gifts (and shall be under no legal obligation to transfer any portion of a gift to or for the use or benefit of any other entity or organization). All decisions regarding the use of funds for any purpose, or the transfer of funds to or for the benefit of any other entity or organization, shall be subject to the approval of the Board or other governing body of Hadassah.

The information and content contained herein are intended for educational purposes only and are not intended to provide legal, tax or other professional advice or to be relied upon. For such advice, please consult with an attorney, tax advisor or accountant. Figures cited in any examples are for illustrative purposes only. References to estate and income taxes include federal taxes only and are subject to change. State income/estate taxes and/or other state laws may impact your individual results.

Rates are fixed when annuity is established. Rates are also available for two-life gift annuities. If you reside in New York, please contact us directly as your rates may vary slightly. Minimum age: 65 | Minimum contribution: $5,000. ONE-LIFE RATES * Age Rate Age Rate 65 4.8% 80 7.0% 70 5.3% 85 8.1% 75 6.0% 90+ 9.1% “If you want to make a gift which will benefit Hadassah in the future, while also earning some income ... [you] might as well do it through a charitable gift annuity. It’s a simple win-win decision.” —Stanley Schwartz, Atlanta, Georgia A Win-Win Way to Support Hadassah charitable gift annuities (CGAs) to support Hadassah’s work. You can make a lasting impact and receive lifetime income, too. Contact us to learn how a CGA could benefit you. Charitable Gift Annuity Rates Stanley and Sheila Schwartz Check out our new and higher rates!

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Like Sheila and Stanley, you can help make a lasting impact on Hadassah’s work and receive lifetime income for you or someone you choose. Contact us today to learn how a charitable gift annuity could benefit you. Free Personalized Example