February 16, 2024

A N AG E N C Y O F T H E J E W I S H F E D E R AT I O N O F O M A H A

The Jewish Press WWW.O M A H A J E W I S H P R E SS .CO M

INSIDE

|

WWW. J E W I S H O M A H A .O R G

SPONSORED BY THE BENJAMIN AND ANNA E. WIESMAN FAMILY ENDOWMENT FUND

FEBRUARY 16, 2024 | 7 A DA R I 578 4 | VO L. 1 05 | NO. 1 7 | CANDLELIGHTING | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 5 : 40 P.M.

Rekindle applications are open Page 5

The Deli Fundraiser

Beth Israel Pacific Street Building 20th Anniversary Page 6

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor f you have missed the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home’s Star Deli, you are not alone. The RBJH is pleased to announce the March 15 and April 12 Quality of Life Campaign Deli Fundraisers. We invite the entire community as well as non-Jewish past-Resident families to enjoy a limited menu, and help us grow and improve our Home. You can choose between Friday, March 15th at noon or Tuesday, April 2nd at 6 p.m. The meal, consisting of a full sandwich, chips, drink, coleslaw, pickles/tomatoes and dessert bar, is by pre-order at $18 per per-

I

Pope Francis denounces ‘terrible increase in attacks against Jews around the world’ Page 12

Omahans March for Israel: Part 7

son; a pledge to enhancing the Home’s Quality of Life Campaign is required. Choice of sandwich: smoked turkey, salami, corned beef, pastrami or roasted vegetables. The goal of this project is to provide a better quality of life for Residents of the Home, including private rooms.

Co-Chairs of the Home’s Quality of Life Campaign are Jan Goldstein, Bruce Friedlander and Norm Sheldon.

“The proposed improvements are vital to the long-term service the JFO provides to the seniors of our community,” Norm Sheldon said. “Our community expects us to provide the best home in Omaha and the addition and the renovations See Deli Fundraiser page 2

Journey to Poland: Part 4

Memorial prayer in front of cremetorium destroyed by Nazis.

REGULARS Spotlight Voices Synagogues Life cycles

7 8 10 11

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMPWRIGHT Jewish Press Editor On Nov. 14, approximately 290,000 people participated in the March for Israel on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Among them were members of our Omaha Jewish community, as well as the wider Omaha community. The Jewish Press asked some of those in See March for Israel page 3

HAZZAN MICHAEL KRAUSMAN On Shabbat morning a few of us attended the restored synagogue of the Rema – Rabbi Moses Isserless.

The Rema, in the 16th century, transformed Ashkenazi Jewish law with his monumental works including an annotation of the Shulchan Aruch, the seminal Jewish legal code. One of the highlights of this quaint old synagogue is the special spot on the eastern wall that is still reserved exclusively for Rabbi Isserless. Since the Rema is the only synagogue in Krakow of the seven that have been restored, that still functions as a house of worship, we were delighted to complete the minyan (quorum of 10 adults) so that a for-

mal service, including Torah reading, could be held. While a few of us were given Torah honors I was honored to lead Musaph, the additional Shabbat service. It is hard to articulate the awesome feeling of standing in that historic sanctuary, right beside the spot where the Rema once worshipped, leading prayers using the same ancient text and the same sacred music that was heard back in the seventeen hundreds. Perhaps it was the spirit of the Rema that guided me through the complex Orthodox liturgy I had not encountered for approximately 50 years.

Following services, we wandered about the Kazimierz district of See Journey to Poland page 3

2 | The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024

News LOC AL | N AT I O N A L | WO R L D

Goldstein Supporting Foundation Highlights

LINDA POLLARD JFO Foundation Endowment Assistant/Staff Writer The Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation is pleased to announce that the Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Supporting Foundation grants were recently awarded during their Fall 2023 semi-annual meeting. The Goldstein Supporting Foundation considers requests for funds that support local projects and programs of the Jewish Federation of Omaha and its agencies, synagogues and Jewish service organizations, where funding is unavailable through their respective annual operating budgets. Programs benefitting Russian Jewry in Omaha, the United States, Israel or the former Soviet Union are supported by the Foundation. They also consider applications from local and national Jewish and secular charities in the areas of medicine and medical research, rescue and relief, education and current events of Jewish content, and human rights.

This year it was decided to highlight one recipient organization and their project in the Jewish Press. The Institute for Holocaust Education was awarded a Fall 2023 grant for their Week of Understanding program. The IHE was established in 2000, and has been offering exceptional educational programming to the Omaha area and beyond since its inception. The Week of Understanding is an annual program open to public and private area schools and offers the opportunity to hear first-hand testimony from a Holocaust Survivor or 2nd or 3rd Generation Survivors. During the 2023 Week of Understand-

ing the IHE reached more than 8,000 students and community members, and hopes to increase this number to at least 9,000 people this year. Students who have come face-to-face with a survivor or a survivor family member will understand the history on a deeper level and will be better equipped to dismiss

those who deny the Holocaust ever happened.

Scott Littky, Executive Director of the IHE, stated, “The voices of those who witnessed the Holocaust, both the survivors and the liberators, are fading into history. The IHE feels it is imperative to make these ‘primary resources’ available to students as much as possible.” Scott added, “In this time of growing antisemitism, our annual Week of Understanding is even more important than ever.”

Scott continued, “Without the support and dedication shown to IHE through the Shirley & Leonard Goldstein Supporting Foundation, our annual Week of Understanding would not be as successful as it is year after year.”

“The Goldstein Supporting Foundation appreciates the opportunity to support IHE’s important and meaningful programming. We know their work reaches many people and makes a difference in our community’s understanding of the Holocaust and antisemitism,” stated Don Goldstein, Goldstein Board President.

ORGANIZATIONS B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS The award-winning B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS speaker program currently meets Wednesdays via Zoom from noon to 1 p.m. Please watch our email for specific information concerning its thought-provoking, informative list of speakers. To be placed on the email list, contact Breadbreakers chair at gary.javitch@gmail.com.

Deli Fundraiser

Continued from page 1 are leading-edge and fulfill what our community wants. Private rooms are the industry standard today and to keep our home occupied we need to provide them.”

The Fundraising Deli is chaired by Sheri and Mike Abramson and Tina and Joe Meyers.

“Joe and I definitely have missed Deli Day,” Tina said. “We have wonderful memories of Friday Deli Day lunches with Joe’s mom each week. This event is a great opportunity for those Deli Day ‘regulars’ who have missed the great food and social interaction with RBJH Residents and community members.”

“The Home is there for all of us,” Bob Goldberg, JFO CEO, said. “Whether we currently have a family member living there or not, the Deli has always been a perfect illustration of community. We all miss it, and this is such a great opportunity to come together, while supporting this great place.”

“It’s also going to be a great introduction to Deli Day for those who may not have attended in the past. Joe and I are also excited to share the plans for the RBJH renovation and expansion project! This important project will ensure that RBJH remains the finest facility for all of our loved ones.”

Last September, Jan Goldstein told the Jewish Press: “Since the beginning of my career as a Jewish professional in our community, I’ve worked first to raise dollars to build the new Blumkin Home on 132nd St., and later to do the first renovation nearly 14 years ago. My own husband, Howard, entered RBJH just a year ago, so this time it became much more personal. Now I spend hours, daily, seeing firsthand the need and challenges to the residents and staff that this fundraising campaign will change. I knew that along with my cochairs and our community leaders, this is a community that always says ‘yes’ to taking care of its elderly. This is a project long overdue that we will accomplish together.”

“Please sign up and join us for a great lunch or dinner,” Tina added, “and learn how much we need your help to be part of this amazing community project!”

There will be limited seating, so keep an eye on your mailbox; the invitations will arrive soon!

Visit us at omahajewishpress.com

The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024 | 3

Journey to Poland

Tritz Plumbing Inc.

Square. The square features 30 empty metal chairs symbolizContinued from page 1 Kraków which was once home to a thriving Jewish commu- ing the many thousands of Jews that were selected there for nity. As we passed through squares and open-air markets, we deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Also located in the could see remnants of area is the Pharmacy what was at one time a Under the Eagle. During vigorous community: Jewthe Shoah, Tadeusz ish-style restaurants, walls Pankiewicz, a Polish genthat exhibit marks where tile pharmacist, provided a mezuzah once hung and medicines and other clana hodgepodge of random destine assistance to Judaica for sale. Once countless Jewish inmates again, we came upon a of the ghetto. Before rebuilding that belonged to turning to our hotel, we the family of one of the viewed Schindler’s factory. members of our group.

Prominently displayed on Prominently displayed on the factory wall are photos a huge mural on one of the of all the Jewish people walls of that timeworn Oscar Schindler was able building was their family to save from murder at the name. We also explored a hands of the Nazis. Earlier magnificent museum that in the day, we walked is housed in what was down the street where known as “The Old Synasome of the scenes from gogue,” established in the Schindler’s List were 15th Century. Since The filmed.

Old Synagogue has been Sunday morning marked transformed into a muthe official end of our Polseum,;only the Bema and ish experience. After a few other original elethanking our outstanding ments of this once-thrivguides and bidding ing house of worship and farewell to our Poland tour study remain as they once “family,” we boarded the were. bus for the Krakow airport A highlight of our Shaband our voyage back to Entrance to the Rema Synagogue bat morning in Krakow Omaha. Our phones were was a visit to the stunning Galicia Museum. Beautiful photo- brimming with photos and music; our hearts were overflowing graphs depicting the history of Jewish life in this once central with memories and feelings that we are all still processing. area of the Jewish world adorn the walls of the museum. We Shabbat Shira is celebrated this year on Jan. 27, 2024. Many were guided by a terrific young docent who had taken part in times, in Poland I felt the speechlessness that Isaiah had arour Polish experience when she was in high school. After a de- ticulated so long ago. However, just as the singing of the Shirat licious lunch, we were extremely privileged to hear the testi- Ha Yam transports us back to a glorious moment in our bibmony of a woman whose mother had been inducted into Yad lical history each time I hear one of the songs on this list, deep Vashem as a righteous gentile. The story of how her mom, at emotions are summoned up from the depths of my soul and great personal peril, saved her Jewish friend was inspirational. once again given voice. While millions of Polish Jews were siAfter Shabbat, we made a joyful Havdalah, complete with lenced, their memories are kept alive by the Jewish musical singing and dancing, in a public square in full view of many heritage they cherished and that we continue to perpetuate bewildered Polish onlookers. At the heart of what was the Jew- and pass on to our children. ish Ghetto of Krakow, we passed through The Jewish Heroes Editors note: This is part four in a series of four.

www.tritz.com

402-894-0300 repair • remodel

commercial • residential

family owned and operated since 1945

TODD NEWBOLD

DEMOCRAT FOR SENATE O A marine war veteran O I have multiple sclerosis O I graduated in 1988 from Bergan High School O My wife Carrie and I raised four kids in Millard Paid for by Todd M Newbold for Senate

March for Israel Continued from page 1 attendance to describe the experience. This is the final part in that series.

ELEANOR DUNNING As soon as my mom Toba Cohen-Dunning and I learned about the event, we booked the ticket. On Tuesday, November 14, our Nebraska delegation stood amongst thousands of other people gathered to support Israel and the Jewish community.

Jews and proud allies of Israel filled the mall in Washington, DC, and unapologetically sang Israel’s National Anthem.

There were hundreds of supporters walking through the city that morning. Everyone in this crowd knew where they stood in response to the victims of the massacre – it was the feeling of a lifetime. G-d willing we never have to worry about another massacre like this, and that we will stand together as a Jewish nation more often.

At the march, we witnessed US leaders ( from both sides of the aisle), celebrities, and historical figures stand in support of the hostages and victims on Oct. 7. The march was an opportunity to grieve alongside thousands of other Jews and allies of Israel. We didn’t have to question who was listening, saw our Israeli flags, or our Jewish stars. We didn’t have to apologize for standing up for what’s right. Israel has continued to do right by the world and by its citizens – it’s time for college campuses to stop feeding generations of students, false information. As the Jewish people, Israel has been, and will continue to be, our rightful home.

There are still groups who aren’t sure where their support lies after Oct. 7. Like the Holocaust, the Pogroms, the Spanish Inquisition, and 5,000 years of other attempts to erase the Jewish community, Oct. 7 came from institutions wanting to see us dead. Again, we collect ourselves, teach the new generations, and educate those who don’t understand: antiIsrael is antisemitism – antisemitism should awaken the soul of every human being.

As we move further from the Oct. 7 massacre, remember who worked to support the Omaha and Nebraska Jewish communities during this time. Thank you to the Jewish Fed-

eration of Omaha, Scott Littky, Rabbi Ari ( from Beth Israel), and everyone who organized, attended, tuned in, or helped others attend the march.

On college campuses across the country, anti-Semitism has become more apparent. Thank you to Ari Kohen, who continues to advocate for Hillel ( Jewish) students on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s campus.

Remember the policy makers who have had the courage to speak out against anti-Semitism. At the march, we saw Congressman Don Bacon, his Chief of Staff, Mark Dreiling, and his DC Legislative Assistants in attendance. The Congressman made sure every Nebraskan (in DC) had a ticket to enter the march.

After Oct. 7, Governor Jim Pillen draped Nebraska’s Capitol Building in blue and white to show where Nebraska stood.

During our Omaha Jewish Community’s solidarity event, we heard from Senator (and former NE Governor) Pete Ricketts, his wife Susanne, Mark Dreiling (Congressman Bacon’s Chief of Staff), and numerous other community members standing in support. Congressman Mike Flood, Senator Deb Fischer, and Congressman Adrian Smith have also released statements. Please remember who advocated for our people and who called for our people’s demise as time goes by.

To the members of the Nebraska Jewish community who still feel “conflicted,” I’d like to say: please educate yourself beyond social media and start listening to your community members. Stop standing by those who call for the death of the Jewish people. Bring others (outside of the Jewish community) into the conversation – Hamas and its supporters are evil; there were not “two sides” to Oct. 7. Mourn for those taken hostage, those who lost their lives, and the children who will never forget what they witnessed.

Remember what you’ve seen, heard, and felt recently, in honor of our ancestors. The Jewish lives taken at the hands of anti-Semites over the last 5,000 years, must not be forgotten. These comments that “pro-Palestine” and “pro-Hamas” groups have made are infuriating, but they’ll never replace the voices of the 290,000 people who marched together on Nov. 14, 2023.

SUMMER INTERN THE JEWISH PRESS IS LOOKING FOR A SUMMER INTERN. If you are currently a high schooler age 16 and up, or college student up to 24 years old, and want to become more involved in our community, this is your chance.

If you are interested, please send your resume and cover letter to avandekamp@jewishomaha.org.

WE CAN’T WAIT TO MEET YOU!

The Jewish Press

4 | The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024

‘I want to get married before a rocket lands on my head’: War has amped up Israel’s passion for matchmaking Home Appliance

Heating & Cooling

402-391-4287

SALES POSITION PART-TIME FLEXIBLE HOURS

The Jewish Press is looking for a part-time sales person, with the following responsibilities: • Digital sales • Digital content development • Website development and management Requirements: • Previous experience in a sales-related role is • a plus • Great customer service skills • Excellent written and verbal communication • skills Interested?

Send your application to Avandekamp@jewish omaha.org today. We cannot wait to meet you!

The Jewish Press

nect the woman with a friend in the army, Arky Staiman, said DEBORAH DANAN on Instagram.

JTA Katie Silver had already mastered volunteering and racing “It didn’t end up working out but the message was very into safe rooms when she hopped on another Israeli wartime teresting,” Staiman said, before issuing a charge to his followers trend. Silver, a pilates instructor in Jerusalem, logged onto a to each identify three people to set up after the war. ”There are Facebook group called Secret Tel Aviv and announced that girls and guys, single people, who are alone right now alone in she was looking for love.

Israel, alone throughout the world. It’s probably very scary. And Like many single 30-somethings, Silver had tried dating I think that this is a perfect opportunity to try and set them up.” apps but felt burned out. But she saw something different in Actress Maya Wertheimer, one of Israel’s most widely folwhat was happening in the Secret Tel Aviv group, where di- lowed social media influencers, has peppered her accounts with verse residents of Israel’s hippest city — and, increasingly, oth- singles ads since the beginning of the war. She has used her Iners from elsewhere in the country — were furiously posting their personal details and romantic ambitions. In the flood of beach photos and biographies, she detected a national mood that matched her own.

“There’s a sense of urgency of creating togetherness, family, community and bringing more good people into the world with good values … not to let evil win out,” Silver told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “To celebrate life and have joy and simcha and weddings and bar mitzvahs and of course to make more Jewish babies so the population numbers can go back up.”

She added, “Plus, I want to get married before a rocket lands on my head.” Online matchmaking has become a national pastime for Israelis who want to envision According to Secret Tel Aviv’s ad- a life beyond war. Credit: Collage by Grace Yagel ministrator, Jonny Stark, the matchmaking trend began in the stagram platform to showcase soldiers who are looking for love, first weeks of the war amid daily rocket fire, with posts from sharing their basic details along with pictures of the men in and people seeking to find “the one to run to the bomb shelter out of uniform — often submitted by their sisters and friends. with.” Those soon morphed into more general personal ads, Other influencers, including the American-Israelis Kerry which peaked in December but have continued since, increas- Bar-Cohn, a dancer with almost 30,000 Instagram followers, ingly with humorous twists on the theme. and Aleeza Ben Shalom, the celebrity matchmaker, have Stark provided JTA with graphs showing a dramatic in- sought to highlight soldiers who are single, as well as comfort crease in engagement and comments as hundreds of posts the love-lorn. seeking partners poured into the group. Posters include new “These guys, our soldiers, who are out there and they are members like Liat Admati MacKie from Beeri, one of the “en- fighting — a lot of them are single. And when they come back, velope” communities near Gaza that was hardest hit on Oct. we’ve got male and female soldiers and they are looking for 7, and veteran members like Ben Raul Maizel, whose humor- soulmates,” Ben Shalom told her followers in December. “So ous post racked up more than 4,000 likes. Maizel’s post reads: if you are looking for your soulmate, it just might be a soldier, “I want to take my girlfriend to a B&B in the north. Can any- so hang in there, they are going to take care of everything and one recommend a girlfriend?” then they’re going to come back and marry you.”

Stark said that during past times of conflict, similar trends And in New York City, an Orthodox synagogue launched a have emerged in his group — but never on such a scale. matchmaking initiative in response to the war in November.

“People are looking for connection,” he said. “I’m super Hundreds of people signed up within days, and at least a few happy about it. The goal of Secret Tel Aviv is to help people relationships have started there, according to its organizers. connect and this is a great example of it happening.”

“Everyone’s trying to figure out what to do from here,” Avital The Facebook group is hardly the only example of wartime Chizhik-Goldschmidt, the congregation’s co-founder and rebmatchmaking on overdrive. In the days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 at- betzin, told the New York Jewish Week at the time. “I felt very tack on Israel, as soldiers massed on the border with Gaza, much that the best way to respond to darkness and death is pictures of soldiers flexing their “miluim mustaches” — using to bring in more light and more love and to bring people joy. the Hebrew word for reserve duty — punctured the somber Traditionally, that is the Jewish response to catastrophe.” mood. Some noted that they were single and would be availStark understands the impulse to find a partner well. One able once they were released from duty. of the reasons he founded Secret Tel Aviv — where anything Just a few days into the ground war, an Orthodox influencer from parking places (or the lack thereof) to the best ramen in who had been called up posted that his unit received, among the city is discussed — was to find a partner. He ultimately the letters of support from people at home and abroad, a note found one elsewhere and now has two children — but his from a young woman who was looking for love. group has taken on a life of its own since its launch in 2010. It The woman shared that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, an in- has exploded to nearly half a million members — exceeding fluential Hasidic rabbi from the early 19th century, taught that the size of Tel Aviv’s entire population — and at one point even wars “are about moving people around so that single people counted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg among them. can find each other.” The message may be apocryphal, but it The potential for pairing up is huge. left a mark on the unit and later that night, they tried to conRead more at www.omahajewishpress.com.

Cabaret opening soon at Omaha Community Playhouse Cabaret opens at the Omaha Community Playhouse on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. The show will run in the Howard Drew Theatre through Sunday, March 30, with performances on Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.

Sundays at 2 p.m.

Winner of 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Revival, Cabaret is one of the most groundbreaking musicals of the 20th Century. Set in Germany as the Nazi party gains power, the iconic Emcee welcomes audiences (Willkommen) to the seedy Kit Kat Klub where performer Sally Bowles has a rendezvous with an American writer.

You’ll be transported to another time with iconic songs such as Maybe this Time and Cabaret.

Tickets are on sale now, with prices varying by performance. Tickets may be purchased at the OCP Box Office, by phone at 402.553.0800 or online at OmahaPlayhouse.com.

The Omaha Community Playhouse is supported in part by the Nebraska Arts Council, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and the Douglas County Board of Commissioners. Established in 1924, the Omaha Community Playhouse is the largest community theatre in the United States based on memberships sold and facility size, among other factors. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

SPONSORD CONTENT

Rekindle applications are open Equity Institute (which are fantastic, by the SHARON BRODKEY way and now accepting applicants for 2024 JCRC Executive Director The mission of Rekindle is to create mean- seminars). Before applying, we expect appliingful social change in Omaha by bringing cants to have already started their racial eqleaders from the African-American and Jew- uity journey and self-educating with books, ish communities together for friendly and challenging dialogue, face-to-face interactions, to break down barriers, and build new relationships. By rekindling the strong relationships and collaborative action between the Black and Jewish communities that were built here during the Civil Rights Movement, Rekindle Cincinnati Credit: Mariana Edelman Photography we can accelerate our collective impact and increase equity in courses, podcasts, etc.

• A “one and done” workshop that will sudOmaha and throughout the country.

The JCRC is seeking six to seven Fellows from denly change everything. Our four sessions each community who are ready and excited to are designed to build deep and lasting relachallenge themselves, expand their worldviews, tionships between Fellows that will bear fruit and take action to advance social justice and over the years to come. We’re not a class, we’re a community. racial equity in Omaha and Nebraska.

Rekindle is being facilitated by Bobby WHAT REKINDLE IS: Brumfield and Holly Pearlman. Fellows must • A platform for connection.

• An opportunity to learn, grow, break out commit to all four seminar three-hour sesof your bubble, and challenge yourself and sions on March 7 and 21, and April 4 and 18, from 6-9 p.m. at the Barbara Weitz Comyour beliefs.

• A launch pad for action, whether on your munity Center on the UNO campus. If this cohort’s dates don’t work for you, join our own or in collaboration with other Fellows. email list and we’ll let you know as soon as WHAT REKINDLE IS NOT: • Learning and dialogue simply for the sake the next cohort’s dates are announced.

Learn more and apply at https://www. of talking. We expect our conversations will jewishomaha.org/inspirechange/jcrc/r lead to real action.

• An “Introduction to Racial Equity” or DEI ekindle-fellowship/rekindle-fellowship101 course like those offered by the Racial application/.

The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024 | 5

News LOCA L | N ATION AL | WO RLD

Art Hour with David Finkelstein ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor All throughout our building, there are pieces of art, the vast majority donated by Michael Staenberg. It sets a tone, it livens up our building, but how often do we stop and stare? A small group of community members and Jewish Press board members gathered recently to take a closer look. They each selected one art piece, read up on the work and answered questions. Continuing with David Finkelstein, we’re sharing their stories in the Jewish Press.

David selected Red Cubes a painted steel installation by Shannon Hansen, which is located in the Schlessinger Family Lobby.

Shannon Hansen’s Sculptural concepts are conceived from mechanical, aerodynamic and industrial architecture as well as natural forms. Hansen works with carbon steel, stainless steel and aluminum. He embraces the creative process:”...the act of making and seeing—I leave the meaning to the viewer.”

What do you see?

Red boxes stacked in odd patterns, seemingly defying gravity.

What is the first word that comes to mind when you look at it?

Complex.

What’s the second one?

Shiny/glossy.

What would you ask the artist if you could?

Why did you use one color? Why not make

Red Cubes by Shannon Hansen

each cube a different color, or each side different?

How does this artwork relate to you personally?

It seems simple, but you need to look inside to find out how it works.

How would you connect this artwork to our Jewish community?

Unity of all the pieces; they fit together just right and make it work.

ł˗Ʉ ̛Ʉ̥ɥ˧̥ːǹ˗ȧɄ ȧǹ˗ ȧɴǹ˗ɪɄ ͔ɴɄ Έ˧̥ʳȳՐ DƧǗ ƛÈLĐbƛƍ ¤bƀbԋ

L˧ːːͣ˗ʇ͔Ζ ːɄːȠɄ̥̓ ǹ˗ȳ ɪɄ˗Ʉ̥ǹʳ ̛ͣȠʳʇȧ ǹ̥Ʉ ʇ˗΄ʇ͔Ʉȳ ͔˧ ɄΑ̛Ʉ̥ʇɄ˗ȧɄ ͔ɴɄ ʇ˗̛̓ʇ̥ǹ͔ʇ˧˗ǹʳ ͔̓˧̥Ζ ˧ɥ ¤˧ʳ˧ȧǹ͔ͣ̓ ̥̓ͣ΄ʇ΄˧̥ Ěʇ̓ǹ ċ̥ͣǹՏ Ƞ̥˧ͣɪɴ͔ ͔˧ ʳʇɥɄ ȠΖ ɴɄ̥ ȳǹͣɪɴ͔Ʉ̥Տ ĥ˧˗ǹ ˧ʳǹȠɄʫՐ LJʇ̥͔ͣ˧̓˧ ĥ˧˗ǹ ˧ʳǹȠɄʫ Έʇʳʳ ̛Ʉ̥ɥ˧̥ː ̓˧ːɄ ˧ɥ ͔ɴɄ Έ˧̥ʳȳԾ̓ ː˧͔̓ ̥Ʉ΄Ʉ̥Ʉȳ ̛ʇǹ˗˧ ȧ˧ː̛˧̓ʇ͔ʇ˧˗̓ ǹ̓ ̓ɴɄ ̓ɴǹ̥Ʉ̓ ɴɄ̥ ː˧͔ɴɄ̥Ծ̓ ̥ʇ΄Ʉ͔ʇ˗ɪ ͔̓˧̥Ζ ˧ɥ ̥̓ͣ΄ʇ΄ǹʳՐ ſͣɄ͔̓ʇ˧˗̓ԏ L˧˗͔ǹȧ͔ Ÿǹː ĥ˧˗̓ʫΖ ǹ͔ ̛ː˧˗̓ʫΖԝʣɄΈʇ̓ɴ˧ːǹɴǹՐ˧̥ɪ

ƛʇȧʫɄ͔̓ ӊӬӰր ր ȳͣʳ͔ ͔ʇȧʫɄ͔ ɴ˧ʳȳɄ̥̓ ːǹΖ Ƞ̥ʇ˗ɪ ̛ͣ ͔˧ өӨ ͔̓ͣȳɄ˗͔̓ ǹɪɄ̓ өӪԫөӲ ɥ̥ɄɄ ˧ɥ ȧɴǹ̥ɪɄ ͣ̓ʇ˗ɪ Ÿ̥˧ː˧ L˧ȳɄՓ ċ łөӲ

(&+2(6 5()/(&7,216

ƛɴʇ̓ ̛̥˧ɪ̥ǹː ʇ̓ ɪɄ˗Ʉ̥˧ͣ̓ʳΖ ̛̓˧˗̓˧̥Ʉȳ ȠΖ ͔ɴɄ ¤Ʉ˗̥Ζ Wǹ΄ʇ̓ ǹːʇʳΖ ˧ͣ˗ȳǹ͔ʇ˧˗Տ ƀʇȧɴ Ԋ ̥ǹ˗ ċ̥ͣ˧Տ ǹ˗ȳ ͔ɴɄ Ě˧ΩʇɄ̥ ˧ͣ˗ȳǹ͔ʇ˧˗Ր

6 | The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024

News

Join us for Havdalah

JESS COHN Shane and I have been involved in the Jewish Federation for the last few years. We have visited Israel (separately) with Momentum, proudly co-chaired the Annual Campaign kickoff with Josh Malina, co-chaired various roles in campaign and most recently worked to increase engagement and create programming for NextGen and Ben Gurion Society. Our goal in this role is to bring more young(ish) Omaha Jews into the fold.

LOC AL | N AT I O N A L | WO R L D

Beth Israel Pacific Street Building 20th Anniversary

MARY SUE GROSSMAN On Dec. 12, 1999, the congregation of Beth Israel Synagogue approved the building of a new synagogue on property owned at 126th and Pacific Street.

The groundbreaking ceremony took place in October 2002 and the first Shabbat service was held Feb. 14, 2004.

Next Shabbat, Feb. 26, 2024, the congregation will celebrate the 20th anniversary in the “new” building with a special Shabbat kiddush lunch. Memories about the journey to make the building a reality will be shared during the morning. Beth Cohen, who served as the synagogue’s Executive Director for over 12 years, was in that role before, during, and after the building project and shared some of her recollections leading to that first Shabbat.

“These types of milestones give the opportunity to reflect, and I think about how long ago it seems that the synagogue moved to Pacific Street and yet how I still often refer to it as the “new building,” Beth chuckled. “One of the great pleasures in my career was the time I had working with the lay leaders of the Beth Israel building committee and design team from RDG to plan the Pacific Street building, ensuring that we honored the past while creating a welcoming new space. We traveled to Chicago to see ideas for mechitzas, we drove around Omaha comparing brick colors, we debated roofing materials, and we had lively discussions focused on the colors of the sanctuary art. Imagine decorating your house by committee! It

JEWISH FEDERATION OF OMAHA

Havdalah

After a successful Chiefs football watch party, Ben Gurion Society and NextGen are coming together again to close Shabbat. Havdalah will be celebrated on Saturday, March 2 from 7-9 p.m. at Luli Creative House with kosher bites catered by STAR catering and drinks. We hope you will join us for a casual evening with friends! The cost to participate is $18 which includes snacks and beverages. There is no cost for 2024 Ben Gurion Society donors.

Did you Know?

Beth Israel Ark Credit: Hadar Nachman

was quite a process but one that I shared with such an amazing group of caring, funny, insightful volunteers.” Beth concluded, saying, “On that first Shabbat, 20 years ago, when we saw it all together, we marveled at the work we had done and the lasting impact it would have on the Omaha Jewish community.”

One Beth Israel congregant was remembered saying “I purposely did not attend any of the ‘sneak previews’ as I wanted to see the building for the first time on that very first Shabbat. When I walked into the sanctuary, I was overwhelmed by the immediate feeling of ‘home’ and knew this was the right place, the right decision, and right feeling for Beth Israel to move forward.”

The anniversary kiddush is the first of

several other “Milestones Memories” that will take place in 2024. There is no charge for the anniversary kiddush however registration is requested and can be made at the synagogue website at orthodoxomaha.org. The events will culminate with a “Beth Israel Milestones Dinner” on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024.

Watch for more information on the events throughout the year.

For any questions about the kiddush or any other Beth Israel happenings, please call the synagogue office at 402.556.6288 or check the website at orthodoxomaha.org. To keep up to date on all Beth Israel events, subscribe to the synagogue’s weekly email by contacting the office or via email request to bethisrael@orthodoxomaha.org.

See full digital issues: omahajewishpress.com/eedition

The word ‘Shabbat’ literally means ‘cease’ or ‘rest.’ It is the most important Jewish holiday, even more important than Yom Kippur.

Maimonides stated that keeping Shabbat was equivalent in observance of all of the 613 mitzvahs recorded in the Torah. Cultural Zionist and writer Ahad Ha’am famously said that, “More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.” And Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel likened Shabbat to “a sanctuary in time.”

Shabbat is also the first holiday to be recorded in the Torah.

You are supposed to light candles exactly 18 minutes before sundown.

We eat two challahs to remind us of the double portion of manna in the desert. The braiding is actually only 500 years old—it is a reminder of the hair of the Shabbat bride.

Animals are obligated to rest on Shabbat as well.

About the Shabbat bride, or queen, who is she?

There is a notion that Shabbat is not merely a holy time but it is a personified entity, a queen, which the Children of Israel are wedded to every week. On Friday, we sing Lecha Dodi: “Come, my beloved, to greet the bride, the face of Shabbat we will receive.” At the start of the Shabbat meal, we sing Eishet Chayil. One explanation is that it is a metaphor for the perfect woman – Shabbat.

Sources: Aish.com; kveller.com.

2024 HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS PARENTS & SENIORS We will be publishing our annual High School Graduation Class pages on May 24, 2024.

To be included, fill out the form below with a photo and send it to us or you can email the information and photo to: jpress@jewishomaha.org by May 10, 2024.

HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR INFORMATION _________________________________________________ Name _________________________________________________ Parent(s)’ Name(s) _________________________________________________ Current High School _________________________________________________ College you plan to attend Send by May 10, 2024 to: The Jewish Press | 333 So. 132 St. | Omaha, NE 68154

The Jewish Press

The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024 | 7

Above: Beth Israel hosted an amazing dinner made by Ayelet Geiger and Rabbi Mordechai Geiger.

SP O TLIGHT

GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY

PHOTOS FROM RECENT JEWISH COMMUNITY EVENTS SUBMIT A PHOTO: Have a photo of a recent Jewish Community event you would like to submit? Email the image and a suggested caption to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org.

Left, above and below: January’s Jewish Business Leaders breakfast featured Joe Wees, EVP of Creative Advertising at Universal.

Above: Check out these ELC students having fun at Havdalah!

Above and below left: Different people learn differently. That’s why our teachers use a variety of methods to engage students. Here, kindergarteners are solving subtraction sentences in several different ways: using cubes, a number line, crayons, and fingers.

Above right and below: It is the 100th day of the school year! Our younger students have been adding a tally mark every day since August to get to today! Teachers celebrated by dressing up as something that is 100 years old - the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the popsicle, Kleenex, Dum Dum lollipops, Band-aids, and a few “old” friends.

Above and right: RBJH celebrates Tu B’Shevat. Residents made a delicious treat of chocolate bark with seeds and fruit. Plus, Residents in the SW neighborhood planted parsley and sunflower seeds, and hopefully, the parsley will grow in a sunny spot just in time for Passover.

Above: And he plays the guitar, too! Just a little rehearsal for Temple Israel’s Rabbi Benjamin Sharff before Shabbat Shira.

Below: You’re always the right age for Chabad’s Children’s Library and Cafe.

8 | The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024

Voices

The Jewish Press (Founded in 1920)

Margie Gutnik President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Howard Kutler Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Staff Writer Sam Kricsfeld Digital support Mary Bachteler Accounting Jewish Press Board Margie Gutnik, President; Abigail Kutler, Ex-Officio; Helen Epstein; Andrea Erlich; Seth Feldman; David Finkelstein; Ally Freeman; Mary Sue Grossman; Chuck Lucoff; Suzy Sheldon; Joseph Pinson and Larry Ring.

The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the JFO are: Institute for Holocaust Education, Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Community Center, Jewish Social Services, Nebraska Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Press.

Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: www.jewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment.

Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication.

E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org.

Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org.

Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events.

News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.”

The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf.

Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de Kamp-Wright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450.

Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422.

Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha.org.

American Jewish Press Association Award Winner

Nebraska Press Association Award winner 2008

National Newspaper Association

Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole.

Gratitude and Mourning ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor In the spirit of Clean Speech Month, I tossed my half-finished op-ed and started over. We are living in a strange time, when we have to make daily choices about how much we can stand, and how often we want to have the same conversations about how awful the world is.

Every once in a while, we have to pause and remember all that is good. It’s not an either/or choice; we can appreciate the good in life, the simchas and the celebrations, and simultaneously remember the hostages and the victims of the October 7 massacre, and those who have died since. We can pay attention to all of it—we have the attention span for both gratitude and mourning.

If we don’t feel much like celebrating, the calendar reminds us we must: Purim will be here in a little over a month, Shabbat comes every week, babies are born, weddings are planned and B’nai Mitzvah invitations land in your inbox on a regular basis. Should the parties be more modest, considering what we are going through, or should they be even bigger? It’s up to you, of course, as long as we celebrate the good things.

In this community, there is much to celebrate.

We have three vibrant synagogues and a beautiful Chabad House. We have a Jewish Community Center that is always bustling with programs and people; we have a fantastic day school (and it’s growing!) and we have a functioning Jewish Federation full of agencies and people who love coming to work. Moreover, we have opportunities for vol-

unteers in all shapes and sizes. We have a pre- recipes there are out there? Just visit Israeli Instaschool that is probably the best in the entire state, gram and you’ll be inspired, I promise. and we have a new museum that is so pretty, I fall This is important. Being Jewish is awesome and a little bit in love every time I walk past it. If you we should remind ourselves every day how lucky haven’t seen it yet, please come and ask Jane Rips we are to be Jewish. to show you around. You will be smitten, too.

Life is hard. Actually, there are a high number of things we are facing right now that, let’s be honest, stink. The only way we are going to make it through is to stick together and take advantage of the richness of this community.

Go talk to the clergy, go meet friends for a cup of coffee at the J (yes, our coffee maker is back upstairs), come take a walk around our building, visit the synagogue’s gift shop and buy yourself some- Credit: State of Israel, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share thing pretty. Check the Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Chabad website, and go down the rabbit hole (so I’m reminded of the video of the yeshiva boys on many great stories) and have lunch with someone the NY subway. A protester enters the car and beyou haven’t seen in a while at Bagel Bin. Find gins shouting about the war. Without missing a Friedel on Facebook and look at the smiles. Discuss beat, the boys break out into a messy, enthusiastic, Purim costumes with your (grand)children and happy rendition of Am Yisroel Chai, until they then take them shopping. Go to your kitchen and drown her out. bake something amazing and unapologetically JewLet’s all be like those boys, and flex our joy musish. Do you know how many awesome challah cles. It’ll be good practice for Purim.

Conservative movement is changing our approach to interfaith marriage RABBI JACOB BLUMENTHAL JTA At the recent convening of Conservative/Masorti movement leaders, we were holding a workshop on new approaches to engage intermarrying couples when a participant spoke frankly about her own family. She said she felt like a failure and was not sure what to do.

“We’ve raised our daughter with a thorough Jewish experience,” she explained. “But she recently told us she is going to marry someone of another background.”

A member of the workshop panel responded quickly and emphatically: “Mazal tov!”

Murmurs quickly spread throughout the room.

Some people echoed the hearty wishes of congratulations and wanted to give the parent permission to fully embrace the young couple. Others were more measured, reflecting a strong, traditional preference for marrying Jewish partners.

The tension in that room over how hearty our blessing should be reflects the tension we face in the Conservative/Masorti movement. That tension was addressed in a new report from our movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, which I lead, issued this week, exploring ways to better welcome interfaith couples.

I was brought up in the 1970s and 1980s to believe that if I intermarried, it meant I didn’t care about Judaism and the Jewish people.

But in more than two decades of my rabbinate, I have not found that to be the case. Some of the most beautiful things said to b’nai mitzvah in my congregation came from parents who are not formally Jewish. They have been full partners — and in some cases, the driving force — in organizing religious school carpools, hosting a Passover seder, lighting candles, putting a mezuzah on their door and taking trips to Israel. Some ultimately chose to convert to Judaism.

And let’s face it: there are certainly households with two Jewish parents who make far fewer intentional choices about creating a Jewish home.

Being a rabbi also proved different than I expected when I was ordained. In rabbinical school, my teachers taught me a lot about rabbinic authority. When I actually started at my synagogue, I dis-

covered that my influence with congregants was with all couples about creating a Jewish home; and based much more on trust and relationship than how we include everyone in our communities duron my title. ing lifecycle events, in worship, in Torah study and Given these experiences, it’s no wonder that our in acts of kindness and justice.

Conservative/Masorti movement is changing how This new invitation is also reflected in the estabwe engage intermarrying and intermarried couples lishment of a Joint Working Group between the RA and families. and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism A series of prohibitions — around officiation, (USCJ), which represents our congregations, on synagogue hiring, rituals and public roles — were developed in previous decades on the premise that intermarriage would inevitably lead to Jews leaving our people, and that religious authority could influence congregants’ choices.

But that culture of disapproval did not generally dissuade individuals in their marriage choices. It certainly did not draw people closer to our communities. Instead, too often, it pushed them away.

It is time for us to reconsider some of those practices.

These policies and prohibitions also The Conservative/Masorti movement is changing how it enmade it much too easy for rabbis and cou- gages with intermarrying and intermarried couples and famples to avoid hard conversations about ilies. Credit: JTA illustration by Mollie Suss what it means to create a Jewish home together. how we can better engage intermarrying couples.

Whether it was discussing what kind of wedding For more than 100 years, our movement has ceremony could have Jewish integrity for both the learned how to conserve tradition while evolving officiant and the couple, or what it would mean to with a culture of respect, inclusion and egalitarianraise Jewish children, our policies — and our atti- ism. I have no doubt we will continue to do so. tude — have meant we didn’t have the opportunity As I listened to the murmurs in the room when to engage. Why bother having these conversations the mother shared her feelings of failure, it was when our culture simply disapproved of intermar- clear to me that our movement has a duty not just riage? to love every Jewish person — but to love the ones The issue of officiation at a wedding ceremony by whom they love. I recognize this both as a parent a rabbi is a complex conversation, which our rab- and as a rabbi. This love inspires me to find the bis, and so many others in our communities, take words to congratulate couples and their families seriously. The Rabbinical Assembly report issued and then to to help them find a path toward a this week recommends that the prohibition around meaningful Jewish life. officiation at interfaith weddings be maintained at Rabbi Jacov Blumenthal is the CEO of the this time.

Rabbinical Assembly and the CEO of United But the report was clear that this standard of rab- Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ). binic practice does not need to be the start (or end) Previously he served for over 20 years as foundof our conversations. Our culture of welcoming and ing rabbi of Shaare Torah in Gaithersburg, engagement can start with how we announce all of Maryland. our weddings and lifecycle events; how we offer The views and opinions expressed in this article are blessings as a community in the days before and those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the after a wedding; the pastoral conversations we have views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024 | 9

In dark times, is a dystopian Jewish novel just what we need?

STEVEN BAYME JTA At some point during my reading of Zachary Solomon’s debut novel, A Brutal Design, I needed to look up Duma, the utopian city-state where the novel is set, and see if it is a real place.

It isn’t, but it is richly imagined: Duma is an “experiment in the desert” where “alternate ideologies could be put into practice without threat.” Its idealism is expressed in its architecture — modernist apartment blocks, plazas and factories that appear to draw on 20th-century movements like Bauhaus and “Brutalism,” the minimalist, utilitarian design trend that emerged in the 1950s.

But Duma is not what it seems, as Solomon’s Jewish protagonist, Zelnick, learns soon after he arrives hoping to take a job as an architect. Like Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Solomon’s novel is about the sinister side of social engineering. Duma turns out to be a place that recreates the evils of a world it is meant to replace — including antisemitism, racism and a strict caste system.

Set in what could be an alternative timeline, A Brutal Design joins a growing genre of Jewish “speculative fiction” — think science fiction without aliens, time travel or anything you couldn’t find in the real world. It’s a genre that ranges from Franz Kafka’s absurdist fables to Marge Piercy’s 1991 novel, He, She and It to Michael Chabon’s 2007 novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. More recently, the Israeli-born writer Lavie Tidhar has written novels about a future, post-Israel Tel Aviv (Central Station) and an alternative Jewish homeland in Africa (Unholy Land). Other Covenants, an anthology of Jewish alternate history stories, was published in 2022.

Solomon, 34, says he is obsessed with modern art, architecture and the Jewish condition. Writing about an alternative reality, he told me, allowed him to “experiment with these ideas and see where they take us in a way that’s much more difficult to accomplish than when you have characters that are strictly reality based.” He welcomed the challenge.

Solomon grew up in Miami and attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has lived in Boston, Brooklyn and Columbus, Ohio, and was a contributor to Jewniverse, an online almanac of Jewish culture and history. (Jewniverse was a project of 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company.) He received an MFA from Brooklyn College, where he was a fellow of the Truman Capote Literary Trust.

He lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife, the novelist Mandy Berman, and their two children, including a baby who arrived just weeks before Brutal Design was published on Jan. 30.

We spoke last week about the persistence of antisemitism, the failure of Holocaust memorials and how a particularly ugly library turned out to be the best place to write a dystopian novel.

The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

The typical debut novel is a bildungsroman — a coming-of-age novel. Or it is a realist novel set in college or the author’s early adulthood. What drew you to dystopian, speculative fiction for your first published book?

My first novel was, in fact, about a post-college student and neurotic Jew living in Brooklyn and encountering art and, you know, sexual frustration. But while I’m still proud of that, I couldn’t get an agent for it. My second book was my attempt to write the more mature novel, but it wasn’t great and I still couldn’t get an agent with it. So after six, seven years of writing books, I wrote what I think is the truest expression of who I am, which is a very strange book that wears its obsessions pretty nakedly. I love contemporary art. I love architecture. I can’t help but write about Jews. I can’t really get away from the Holocaust. For this book, I wanted to try to write a book that would make me feel the way that I feel when I see or read or experience a piece of art: I like to be freaked out. I like having a sense of the uncanny. I like the sense of the sublime.

Your book is set in an imaginary country in an unnamed decade, although it appears to be after the Holocaust. The main character is a Jew whose parents were killed when he was a child in what appears to be an antisemitic pogrom. My question is, what does a Jewish dystopian novel add to the accounts of real-life dystopias that Jews have lived through, whether it was Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union?

I wanted to write a book that was kind of historical, that has technology from the past, present and the future. It references Nazism, but it’s unclear whether it’s the same timeline. The book explores the inevitability of antisemitism that’s systemic and endemic, and I wanted to see what happens when that fact of life is not tied, for instance, to interwar economic problems for which Jews can be used as a scapegoat. I was experimenting with the idea of, what does antisemitism look like without history books?

I am also working through my own experiences of being a Jew in the world. My grandfather, who is a survivor, is still with

us. He’s an incredibly old man. There’s 245,000 survivors left in the world and every year that decreases by 10-15%. As the Holocaust becomes recorded history only, the book is a reminder to check some of the overconfidence I have about my position being alive as a Jew. It’s more tenuous than I think most people realize. I experienced it to be more tenuous. It feels like there are no guarantees, which I think is bearing out a lot over the last few months.

Your city of tomorrow, or whenever it is set, reminds me of Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region set up by the Soviets in 1928 to solve their own so-called Jewish problem. Except Duma appears to be an autonomous region for free thinkers rather than Jews.

Definitely, Birobidzhan was on my mind. Planned communities, kind of ersatz utopias, and even company towns were huge influences for me. The germ of this novel came from a New York Times Style Magazine essay called Utopia, Abandoned, by Nikil Saval about a town in Italy called Ivrea, which was the home of Olivetti typewriters. It was a planned socialist

Zachary Solomon’s dystopian novel, A Brutal Design, puts a Jewish protagonist at the center of a deceptive experiment in communal living. Credit: Lanternfish Press

company town that provided all of the amenities: free childcare, sports leagues, libraries and schools. They brought in these extraordinary leading modernist architects and so many of the buildings are hyper-modernist structures. In my head, I was kind of recreating this town.

I grew up going to Disney World, and Disney World itself is this kind of freakish, demented utopia. But there’s a town called Celebration outside of Orlando where Disney employees were going to live. Or think of Levittown on the eastern seaboard. The idea of these planned communities is so tantalizing. There’s a common goal and you have financial security and your kids are taken care of and you can experiment with new ideas, whether it is communism or an alternative governing. It doesn’t just have to be a capitalist society.

And these places have so much promise and they’re filled with hope and almost every single time they are destroyed from within, whether it is because of racism, like in Levittown, or greed or capitalism.

Your novel also made me think of another place meant to be a utopia in the desert, where people scattered across various countries all come to the same place to live and work and have to speak the same language, in what at first seems like a grand socialist experiment. I thought: That sounds like Israel. Did that cross your mind, that Israel was another kind of — I hate to say this — failed utopia?

Yes, it absolutely did. I don’t write about Israel, but I think about it obsessively. But it stops there for me, and now especially it’s too painful for me. I purposely did not make connections in my fiction to Israel. I’m avoiding it pointedly.

Another echo of Jewish culture in your book is the theme of memorials. A character in your book, Miriana, is making these grand artworks — including one that specifically references Nazism —that all seem vaguely like memorials. At one point you describe what sounds like the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, and imagine a point in the future or an alternative history when it will be stripped of its meaning as a memorial to the murdered Jews. Do you distrust the intent of people who make these memorials, and maybe how they’re received?

I love memorials. I love them as architectural or artistic challenges. I love them for, at best, the feelings that they can fill me with: hurt and fear and everything else. And I also think they are almost uniformly all failures. There’s an element of fakeness to them. The idea of creating something whose sole and primary purpose is to remind you of something else is an impossible challenge. You know that cliche from Theodor Adorno: There’s no poetry after the Holocaust. To me, it’s the same principle. People can have really genuine experiences, really extraordinary emotional responses to them, but I’ve never really understood what the point of it is, other than to make oneself feel good about having that response. And I’ll be the first to say that’s also a really cynical take.

Your hero, Samuel Zelnick, is enamored with the memorial art he finds in Duma, until he becomes disillusioned

with their maker and realizes the motivations behind them are not what they seem.

He’s floored by them, in part because he wants to believe that his former professor, Miriana, is an ally in wanting to make the world a better place and is very anti-antisemitism, anti-fascism and when he looks at her art, there is evidence of it. There is this kind of duality to memorials: You could very easily look at a Holocaust memorial and say to yourself, “This is actually an homage to the Holocaust and how great the Nazis were at killing the Jews.” Granted, that’s not a typical person’s experience, but it is similar to the fine line between modernism and fascism. When it comes to extreme idealism about the way the world should be, it’s very easy to slip from one side to the other side.

Explain that a little bit more for me, where modernism and fascism come together and where they diverge. I know your protagonist moves to Duma in hopes of using his training as an architect to create “a truly equalizing architecture.”

I was struck by Le Corbusier, a kind of father of modern architecture, who designed a building in Marseilles called Unite d’ Habitation. And it’s not just an apartment complex. It’s got Architecture Classics: Unite d’ Habitation/Le Corbusier | ArchDailya rooftop garden, schools and doctors offices. Ostensibly, you could live your whole life in this building and never leave. But like fascism, these modernist ideals, these socialist ideals, have this really strong sense of the way the world could be. It’s a utopian sense. What if we were all equal? What if we all lived in a place where everybody had the same amenities available to us, the same resources but there was no hierarchy, there was no class stratification? What if it was all perfect? And then I think to myself, these buildings were designed for an ideal human type, and that gets you thinking about the Aryan ideal, the Nazis’ notion of achieving racial purity. When you consider equality while ignoring differences, then you’re veering very close to fascism.

Are you a reader of speculative fiction? Have you looked at some of the Jewish traditions of people writing science fiction? One of your characters has the nickname Samsa, which was the name of the main character in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, so can I assume that was an homage to Kafka?

I’m definitely a fan of Kafka, especially The Trial — and specifically the Orson Welles film adaptation of it that is just covered with Brutalist architecture. I saw that and thought, “This is exactly what I want my book to look like.”

But my love of speculative fiction comes from Etgar Keret, the Israeli writer. I was given a book of his short stories in high school or college, and it was my first experience with magic realism. Then I really got into Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, the heavyweights of that genre. And then I got to graduate school, and I moved to New York City, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. All of a sudden it felt like the fiction of my youth. I was being taught Raymond Carver short stories and John Cheever stories.

But I came back to it. Unrealistic writing has the capacity to make me feel in ways that that strictly realist writing can’t.

Another strong influence on this book was The Stranger by Albert Camus. In addition to the existential dread, you also have a character who is intentionally experimenting with evil, saying, “Well, I’ve tried being good for a while and I’m curious to see what it would feel like if I was bad.” That feels speculative to me. It’s actually real life, but it feels speculative to me.

In your acknowledgments you talk about writing some of the book in the “vast and terrifying” Ohio History Center in Columbus. Tell me more.

It’s an absolutely hideous, massive, monumental, Brutalist building.

Those are all good things to me. Sitting in their archive and writing in this cold, echoey, inhospitable, deeply uncomfortable space, with the archivists and librarians giving me dirty looks for no reason — everything about it was so perfect. I was able to write my book in a space that was exactly like the world I was trying to create.

And then I would go to Bexley, a neighborhood in Columbus with a lovely neighborhood library that was the complete antithesis of this Brutalist place — a homey, lovely, quiet room that would be like a palate cleanser.

Every building is a philosophy. Every building is an argument about the way architects think the world should be. And sometimes it seems like the architect wasn’t thinking about me at all.

Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor at large of the New York Jewish Week and managing editor for Ideas for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Visit us on facebook: www.facebook.com/ShalomahaPress

Synagogues

10 | The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024

B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE

618 Mynster Street Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 712.322.4705 www.cblhs.org

BETH EL SYNAGOGUE

Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California Street Omaha, NE 68154-1980 402.492.8550 bethel-omaha.org

BETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE

Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific Street Omaha, NE. 68154 402.556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org

CHABAD HOUSE

An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch 1866 South 120 Street Omaha, NE 68144-1646 402.330.1800 OChabad.com email: chabad@aol.com

LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: B’NAI JESHURUN South Street Temple Union for Reform Judaism 2061 South 20th Street Lincoln, NE 68502-2797 402.435.8004 www.southstreettemple.org

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE

Capehart Chapel 2500 Capehart Road Offutt AFB, NE 68123 402.294.6244 email: oafbjsll@icloud.com

ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME 323 South 132 Street Omaha, NE 68154

TEMPLE ISRAEL

Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 13111 Sterling Ridge Drive Omaha, NE 68144-1206 402.556.6536 templeisraelomaha.com

LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: TIFERETH ISRAEL Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Boulevard Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 402.423.8569 tiferethisraellincoln.org

B’NAI ISRAEL Monthly Speaker Series Service, Friday, March 8, 7:30 p.m. with our guest speaker, Gary Nachman.

Our service leader is Larry Blass. Everyone is always welcome at B’nai Israel!

For information about our historic synagogue, please visit our website at www.cblhs.org or contact any of our other board members: Renee Corcoran, Scott Friedman, Rick Katelman, Janie Kulakofsky, Howard Kutler, Carole and Wayne Lainof, Ann Moshman, Mary-Beth Muskin, Debbie Salomon and Sissy Silber.

Handicap Accessible.

BETH EL Services conducted by Rabbi Steven Abraham and Hazzan Michael Krausman.

IN-PERSON AND ZOOM MINYAN SCHEDULE: Mornings on Sundays, 9:30 a.m.; Mondays and Thursdays, 7 a.m.; Evenings on Sunday-Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: Six String Shabbat, 6 p.m.; On A Wing & A Prayer Dinner, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 10 a.m. at Beth El & Live Stream; Jr. Congregation (Grades K-12), 10 a.m.; Havdalah, 6:35 p.m. Zoom Only.

SUNDAY: BESTT (Grades K-7), 9:30 a.m.; Hebrew Reading for Adults, 10:30 a.m. with Hazzan Krausman; Adult B’nai Mitzvah, 11:15 a.m. with Hazzan Krausman.

WEDNESDAY: BESTT (Grades 3-7), 4:15 p.m.; Hebrew High (Grades 8-12), 6 p.m.; BESTT Joyful Adar (Grades PreK-7), 6 p.m.

THURSDAY: Miriam Initiative Night of Honor, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY-Feb 23: Nebraska AIDS Project Lunch, 11:30 a.m.; Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m.; Our Shabbat Tables in Homes.

SATURDAY-Feb. 24: Shabbat Morning Service, 10 a.m. at Beth El & Live Stream; Jr. Congregation (Grades K-12), 10 a.m.; Havdalah, 6:45 p.m. Zoom Only.

Please visit bethel-omaha.org for additional information and service links.

BETH ISRAEL FRIDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Candlelighting/Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat, 5:42 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat, 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class, 10:45 a.m.; Kids Kiddush Club, 11:15 a.m.; Soulful Torah: Unpacking the Or HaChayim’s Teachings, 4:45 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m.; Laws of Shabbos/Kids Activity, 6 p.m.; Havdalah, 6:43 p.m.

SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Kinyan HaMasechta, 9:40 a.m.; Men’s Spin & Torah Class, 11 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:50 p.m.

MONDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Monday Mind Builders, 4 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:50 p.m.

TUESDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:50 p.m.; Kinyan HaMasechta following Mincha/Ma’ariv.

WEDNESDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7

a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:50 p.m.

THURSDAY: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Character Development Class, 9:30 a.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:50 p.m.; Parsha Class, 6:10 p.m.; Kinyan HaMasechta following Mincha/Ma’ariv.

FRIDAY-Feb 23: Nach Yomi, 6:45 a.m.; Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Candlelighting/Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat, 5:50 p.m.

SATURDAY-Feb. 24: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat, 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class, 10:45 a.m.; Kids Kiddush Club, 11:15 a.m.; Soulful Torah: Unpacking the Or HaChayim’s Teachings, 4:50 p.m.; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:40 p.m.; Laws of Shabbos/Kids Activity, 6:10 p.m.; Havdalah, 6:51 p.m.

Please visit orthodoxomaha.org for additional information and Zoom service links.

CHABAD HOUSE All services are in-person. All classes are being offered in-person and via Zoom (ochabad.com/academy). For more information or to request help, please visit www.ochabad.com or call the office at 402.330.1800.

FRIDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: ochabad.com/Lecha yim; Candlelighting, 5:41 p.m.

SATURDAY: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 6:42 p.m.

SUNDAY: Sunday Morning Wraps: Shacharit, 99:30 a.m., Video Presentation, 9:30 a.m. and Breakfast, 9:45 a.m.; Torah and Tea, 10:30-11:15 a.m.

MONDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Personal Parsha, 9:30 a.m.; Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Parsha Reading, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

TUESDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 7 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

WEDNESDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Mystical Thinking (Tanya), 9:30 a.m.; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Parsha Reading, 11:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen.

THURSDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Advanced Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 11 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Talmud Study (Sanhedrin 34), noon; Introduction to Alphabet, Vowels & Reading Hebrew, 6 p.m. with Prof.

David Cohen; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) Class, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY-Feb 23: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: ochabad. com/Lechayim; Candlelighting, 5:49 p.m.

SATURDAY-Feb. 24: Shacharit, 9:30 a.m. followed

by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 6:50 p.m.

LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: B’NAI JESHURUN & TIFERETH ISRAEL Services facilitated by Rabbi Alex Felch.

All services offered in-person with live-stream or teleconferencing options.

FRIDAY: Offices Closed; Shabbat Candlelighting, 5:44 p.m.; Erev Shabbat Service with Rabbi Alex, 6:30 p.m. at SST. SATURDAY: Offices Closed; Shabbat Morning Serv-

ice, 9:30 a.m. at TI; Torah Study, noon on Parashat Terumah; Potluck Dinner and Family Game Night, 6 p.m. at SST. Adults and kids of all ages are welcome.

Please bring a dish to share; Havdalah, 6:45 p.m.

SUNDAY: Offices Closed; No In-Person LJCS Classes; Men’s Bike/Coffee Group, 10:30 a.m. in the Conference Room at Rock 'n Joe (5025 Lindbergh St.). For more information or questions please email Al Weiss at albertw801@gmail.com; Pickleball, 3-5 p.m. Anyone interested in playing or learning how to play can text Miriam at 402.470.2393. If there are enough interested people; we will play in the Social Hall at TI. MONDAY: Offices Closed TUESDAY: Offices Closed; Jewish Themes Through Jewish Films: The Women’s Balcony, 6:30 p.m. at SST. WEDNESDAY: Offices Closed; LJCS Hebrew School, 4:30-6 p.m.; Richard Kohn Improv Practice, 7-9 p.m. at SST. FRIDAY-Feb 23: Shabbat Candlelighting, 5:52 p.m.; Erev Shabbat Service with Rabbi Alex, 6:30 p.m. at SST. SATURDAY-Feb. 24: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. at TI; Torah Study, noon on Parashat Tetzaveh; Havdalah, 6:53 p.m.

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE

FRIDAYS: Virtual Shabbat Service, 7:30 p.m. every first and third of the month at Capehart Chapel. Contact TSgt Jason Rife at OAFBJSLL@icloud.com for more information.

ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home’s service is currently closed to visitors.

TEMPLE ISRAEL

In-person and virtual services conducted by Rabbi Benjamin Sharff, Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin, and Cantor Joanna Alexander FRIDAY: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat B’yachad Service, 6 p.m. In-Person & Zoom.

SATURDAY: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. In-Person & Zoom; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. In-Person & Zoom.

SUNDAY: No Youth Learning.

WEDNESDAY: Yarn It, 9 a.m. In-Person; Grades 36, 4:30 p.m.; Grades 8-12, 6 p.m.

THURSDAY: Shared Society in a Time of War: Interreligious Voices from Israel, 11:30 a.m. at UNO. In-Person.

FRIDAY-Feb 23: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. InPerson; Musical Shabbat Service and Q&A, 6 p.m. InPerson & Zoom.

SATURDAY-Feb. 24: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. In-Person & Zoom; Shabbat Morning Service, 10:30 a.m. InPerson & Zoom; Interfaith Panel on Shared Society in Israel and Musical Performance, 7-8 p.m. at Tri-Fatih Center Please visit templeisraelomaha.com for additional information and Zoom service links.

Argentina will move its embassy to Jerusalem JUAN MELAMED JTA On his first day of his visit to Israel, Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, told Israeli authorities that his country would move its embassy to Jerusalem. Milei had vowed during his campaign to move the embassy from its current home in Herzliya, in a sign that Argentina recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

It would make Argentina the sixth country, and only the second major country, to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem. Since then-President Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy in 2017, four countries have followed: Papua Guinea, Kosovo, Honduras and Guatemala.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, met Milei on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport, where Milei arrived on a commercial El Al flight. Katz applauded Milei’s announcement, writing on X, “Thank you, Mr. President, @JMilei, for his statement about the transfer of the Argentine embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.” He ended with Milei’s campaign motto: “Viva la libertad, carajo!” or “Long live freedom, damn!”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also applauded the announcement during a meeting with Milei.

Netanyahu also spoke with Milei about their countries’ shared enemy in Iran, which is widely understood to have been responsible for bombings at the Israeli embassy and AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that together killed more than 100 people in the 1990s. And they spoke about their shared belief in free-market capitalism, according to the transcript. Milei is a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who has moved to slash spending in Argentina.

“This is something that we both champion, and you are leading this in Argentina,” Netanyahu said.

“We have led this in Israel. We can do a lot more together.”

Milei, an avowed philosemite who studies with a rabbi and has expressed interest in converting to Judaism, had vowed to visit Israel early in his presidency. He was close to tears as he made his first comments after arriving.

“It’s an honor for me to be here. I’m fulfilling my promise: My first diplomatic visit is to Israel,” he

said before emphasizing that Argentina supports Israel in its current war against Hamas in Gaza.

Milei was wearing a “Bring Them Home” dog tag necklace that has become a symbol of the movement to free the roughly 100 living hostages who remain in Gaza. His trip includes a visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz, where dozens of Argentinean nationals were killed, injured or abducted on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked.

Milei traveled to the Western Wall, where he appeared tearful while praying at the holy site. On Wednesday, he visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, whose chairman, Dani Dayan, was born in Argentina.

“Where is the voice of the free world demanding for the release of the kidnapped?” Milei said there.

“We shouldn’t remain silent in the face of modern Nazism today disguised as the terror group Hamas.

Choosing life is fighting terrorism.”

Milei’s support for Israel stands out in his region.

His counterparts in neighboring Brazil and Chile, Lula de Silva and Gabriel Boric, both leftists, have condemned Israel for its military response to the Oct. 7 attack.

The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024 | 11

Life cycles Rabbi Geiger’s Weekly Torah Expedition PARASHA TETZAVEH From when I was in 9th grade until just a few years ago, I always had the same type of phone. It was a basic phone with a slide keyboard. I loved that phone; with its full keyboard, I could text almost as fast as I could talk.

Better yet, the thing was indestructible!

I can’t tell you how many times I dropped it on concrete.

RABBI Then, I got my first smartphone. It MORDECHAI was one of those cheap ones that GEIGER comes free with your cellphone service. Beth Israel Many people asked why I hadn’t bought a case for it. This was a really good question, but there was a simple answer. A case would have cost more than the phone itself. Fast forward a year (with a 1-year-old getting her hands on it), and the screen was a kaleidoscope of cracks. So this year, when I bought the Google Pixel 8, I had a plan. I would not use my new phone until I had purchased a child-throwing-proof case.

In this week's parsha, tremendous time and attention is spent discussing what the Kohen would wear when serving G-d in the Temple. But who cares what he wore? Shouldn’t

the intention of the Kohen during service be all that G-d cares about? How I relate to my new phone sheds light on the Kohen. When I value something, I ensure it has all the necessary accessories. When the Kohen donnned his priestly garb, he sent a message. Not just to the world, but to himself. My self-esteem requires the finest of clothes. If I show value to my phone, how much more should I show value to all of G-d’s children, including myself ? Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Geiger.

Pulverent e

Having the facts can give you confidence.

Over 60 Years Experience With Jewish Lettering and Memorials

For more information, call

MONUMENT CO.

Family Owned and Operated

1439 So. 13th

1-800-648-4444

402-341-2452

ROOFING

GUTTERS

IN MEMORIAM BERNARD JEROME TURKEL Bernard Jerome Turkel passed away on Feb. 4, 2024 in Omaha.

Services were held Feb. 7, 2024, at Mount Sinai Cemetery and were officiated by Rabbi Sharff.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Sam Turkel, Sylvia Turkel Greenberg, and Elmer Greenberg; his brother, Floyd “Buddy” Turkel; and his beloved wife, Tevee.

He is survived by his daughters and sons-in-law, Julie and Brian Hughes and Jennifer and Dan Goaley; son and daughter-in-law, Jeff and Didi Turkel; grandchildren: Lauren and Sammy Hughes, Jake and Josh Militti, and Olivia and Ella Turkel; and sister, Randi Nanfito and many special nieces and nephews and friends.

Special thanks to his angels on earth, Tonja Bunner and her husband, Steve and Greyson and Creighton. Bernie was a special husband, father, papa, brother, and friend.

IDF rescues 2 hostages from Gaza BEN SALES AND ELIYAHU FREEDMAN JTA The Israeli military has rescued two hostages in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the second such rescue since Hamas took hundreds of Israelis captive on Oct. 7.

The overnight rescue operation, which was announced in the early hours of Monday morning, Israel time, comes as the Israel Defense Forces are shifting their focus to Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt where there are currently more than a million Palestinians. The rescue operation also comes as negotiations toward a ceasefire and hostage release have hit obstacles.

The two rescued hostages, Norberto Louis Har, 70, and Fernando Simon Marman, 60, were taken captive from the border community of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Hamas took some 250 hostages in total and killed approximately 1,200 Israelis in its attack, which launched the current war.

Three of their relatives were also taken captive: Clara Marman, Har’s wife and Marman’s sister; and Gabriela and Mia Leimberg, Marman’s sister and niece, respectively. All three of those relatives, in addition to Mia Leimberg’s dog, were released together in late November during a weeklong ceasefire when Hamas released more than 100 hostages, nearly all of them women and children, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.

At Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Monday, protest organizer Hovav Shemi celebrated the rescue as a “ray of light in all this darkness.” He removed posters bearing their photos from a display of those still held in Gaza, and moved them to a display of captives who have been released.

Before someone offers you alcohol or other drugs, decide what you are going to say.

“Every sign and every picture that I take down, and every number that I update from the kidnapped square to the release square makes me feel a little better,” he said, standing in front of a large poster showing the number of people killed, captured and freed from each community on the Gaza border.

The hourlong rescue operation, which had been planned in advance, took place on the second floor of a building and involved airstrikes as well as ground combat, according to the Times of Israel. One Israeli soldier was lightly injured.

“Fernando and Louis, welcome home,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “I salute our brave fighters for the daring action that led to their release.

Only continued military pressure, until total victory, will bring about the release of all of our hostages. We will not miss any opportunity to bring them home.”

The IDF previously rescued an additional hostage, soldier Ori Megidish, in late October. An estimated 134 hostages remain, including dozens thought to be dead. Israeli forces unintentionally killed three hostages in December, and Hamas has claimed that more have died in Israeli airstrikes.

Relatives of the captives have led protests in recent weeks pushing Israel’s government to reach another hostage release deal, but Hamas and Israel have yet to agree on terms. Nir Yitzhak resident Zair Haimi, whose nephew Tal Haimi was killed on the kibbutz on Oct. 7, told JTA at Hostage Square that the news of the rescue was outweighed by the reality that “just two out of 136 that were kidnapped were freed — there are still 134 to be saved.”

Shira Odeh, a volunteer for the Hostages Families Forum, which advocates for the captives’ release, said, “I am happy, but joy is a big word, you know?”

SIDING

INFORMATION ANTISEMITIC/HATE INCIDENTS If you encounter an antisemitic or other hate incident, you are not alone. Your first call should be to the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) in Omaha at 402.334.6572, or email JCRCreporting@ jewishomaha.org. If you perceive an imminent threat, call 911, and text Safety & Security Manager James Donahue at 402.213.1658.

NEBRASKA STATEWIDE CLASSIFIEDS

ANNOUNCEMENT CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING works! Place your 25 word ad into thousands of Nebraska homes for $225. Contact the Jewish Press or call 1-800-369-2850.

HELLO NEBRASKA! Introducing www.nepublicnotices.com, a new public notice website presented as a public service by all Nebraska newspapers. Free access, fully searchable – because democracy depends upon open government and your right to know.

AFFORDABLE PRESS Release service. Send your message to 155 newspapers across Nebraska for one low price! Call 1-800-3692850 or www.nebpress.com for more details.

FOR SALE - SATELLITE DIRECTV Stream - Carries the Most Local MLB Games! CHOICE Package, $89.99/mo for 12 months. Stream on 20 devices in your home at once. HBO Max included for 3 mos (w/CHOICE Package or higher.) No annual contract, no hidden fees! Some restrictions apply. Call IVS 1-855-763-0124.

FOR SALE - SENIORS PORTABLE OXYGEN Concentrator? May be covered by Medicare!

Reclaim independence and mobility with the compact design and long-lasting battery of Inogen One. Free information kit! Call 855385-3580.

FOR SALE - UTILITIES PREPARE FOR power outages today with a Generac Home Standby Generator Act now to receive a FREE 7-Year warranty with qualifying purchase* Call 1-402-899-2584 today to schedule a free quote. It’s not just a generator. It’s a power move.

HELP WANTED FARM/FEEDLOT Maintenance person needed with experience in welding and shop work. 401K and Group Health Insurance. R Lazy K, Inc., Glenvil, NE. Call 7a.m.-5p.m. (402)771-2394.

FREY PIVOT Service, Stapleton seeks a hands-on individual for daily operations, gearbox lubrication, pivot checks. Mechanical knowledge required. Welding/electrical experience a plus. Full benefits, starting at $18/hr. Housing available. 308-636-2327.

HOME SERVICES DOES YOUR basement or crawl space need some attention? Call Thrasher Foundation Repair! A permanent solution for waterproofing, failing foundations, sinking concrete and nasty crawl spaces. FREE Inspection & Same Day Estimate. $250 off ANY project with code GET250. Call 1-844-958-3431.

ELIMINATE GUTTER cleaning forever! LeafFilter, the most advanced debris-blocking gutter protection. Schedule a FREE LeafFilter estimate today. 20% off Entire Purchase. Plus 10% Senior & Military Discounts. Call 1-855-671-2859.

SERVICES - PUBLISHING BECOME A Published Author. We want to Read Your Book! Dorrance Publishing-Trusted by Authors Since 1920 Book manuscript submissions currently being reviewed. Comprehensive Services: Consultation, Production, Promotion and Distribution Call for Your Free Author’s Guide 1-877-858-2822 or visit dorranceinfo.com/Nebraska.

12 | The Jewish Press | February 16, 2024

News LOC AL | N ATI O N A L | WO R L D

Pope Francis denounces ‘terrible increase in attacks against Jews around the world’

JACKIE HAJDENBERG JTA In an open letter addressed to the Jewish community in Israel Friday, Pope Francis decried the “terrible increase in attacks against Jews around the world” in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, calling it a “piecemeal world war” that has created “divisive positions, sometimes taking the form of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism.”

“Together with you, we, Catholics, are very concerned about the terrible increase in attacks against Jews around the world,” Francis wrote. “We had hoped that ‘never again’ would be a refrain heard by the new generations, yet now we see that the path ahead requires ever closer collaboration to eradicate these phenomena.”

In the United States, reports of antisemitic incidents have increased rapidly since Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Anti-Defamation League, with two-thirds of the incidents including “verbal, written, or contextual references to Israel or Zionism.” Over the course of one weekend in December, hundreds of synagogues received bomb threats, and college campuses have become a major flashpoint for federal civil rights investigations over their handling of antisemitism.

In Europe, too, antisemitic events have been on the rise since Oct. 7 — Holocaust memorial plaques in Italy were repeatedly vandalized between October and November; a Holocaust research center in London was vandalized in November with the word “Gaza,” and a synagogue in Portugal was defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti.

Francis called for prayers for the return of the approximately 100 remaining hostages, and said, “I would also like to add that we must never lose hope for a possible peace and that we

must do everything possible to promote it, rejecting every form of defeatism and mistrust.”

In recent weeks, Francis called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian aid, as well as a hostage release.

Pope Francis, seen at a Holy Mass in Vatican City in June 2019.

Credit: Grzegorz Galazka/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

“No to arms, yes to peace!” he wrote on X in December. “May this enormous suffering of the Israelis and the Palestinians come to an end.”

In November, Francis had drawn criticism from Jewish groups after he appeared to accuse both Israel and Hamas of acts of terrorism.

“This is what wars do,” the pope said at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Nov. 22. “But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.”

Those comments followed separate meetings with the families of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians with family

in Gaza. It also followed an open letter signed by hundreds of Jewish academics and leaders calling on the pope to use his considerable influence to urge Catholics to advocate for the hostages and show solidarity with Jews.

“Together, Jews and Catholics, we must commit ourselves to this path of friendship, solidarity and cooperation in seeking ways to repair a destroyed world, working together in every part of the world, and especially in the Holy Land, to recover the ability to see in the face of every person the image of God, in which we were created,” he added in his Friday remarks this week.

Francis echoed similar sentiments as he marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the end of his weekly general audience on Jan. 27.

“The remembrance and condemnation of that horrific extermination of millions of Jews and of other faiths, which occurred in the first half of the last century, help us all not to forget that the logic of hatred and violence can never be justified, because they deny our very humanity,” Francis said.

The day before, Noemi de Segni, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, criticized unnamed Catholic leaders who had “minimized the recognition of what happened on Oct. 7 as a terrorist act compared to the right of Israel to defend itself.”

An annual marathon in multiple Italian cities to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day was canceled due to security reasons, de Segni said.

“Of course security was organized, but for this year it seems impossible to think of running in the streets of Italy,” de Segni told an Italian outlet. “Those who raise their arms in a fascist salute … are almost protected by constitutional freedoms.”

FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL J JEWISH EWISH A ACADEMY CADEMY • IISRAEL SRAEL • JCC JCC DAY D CAMP MP • JEWISH JEWISH PRESCHOOL P HOOL • JEWISH JEWISH SUMMER SUMMER CAMP EDUCATION C AMP • POST-SECONDARY POST-S SECONDARY E DUCATION • F FRIEDEL RIEDEL J JEWISH EWISH A ACADEMY CA ADEMY • ISRAEL ISRAEL • JCC JCC DAY DAY C CAMP AMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION •

SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS

ARE AVAILABLE TO HELP PAY FOR THESE GREAT FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCCJEWISH DAY CAMPEXPERIENCES! • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER

CAMP C AMP • POST-SECONDARY EApplications due March 4, 2024MY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH JEWISH PRESCHOOL PRESCHOOL • JEWISH JE SUMMER SUMM CAMP • POST-SECONDARY PO OST-S SECONDARY E EDUCATION DUCATION • F FRIEDEL RIEDEL J JEWISH EWISH A ACADEMY CADEMY • IISRAEL SRA • JCC D DAY AY CAMP • JEWISH HP PRESCHOOL RESCHOOL • JEWISH EW WISH S SUMMER UMMER C CAMP AMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • FRIEDEL JEWISH ACADEMY • ISRAEL • JCC DAY CAMP • JEWISH PRESCHOOL • JEWISH SUMMER CAMP • POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION • For more info and applications, visit the Jewish Federation of Omaha’s website at

www.jewishomaha.org or contact Diane Walker at dwalker@jewishomaha.org or (402) 334-6551.