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YOM HASHOAH
A return to being together
Purim at Friedel Page 2
SCOTT LITTKY Institute for Holocaust Education Executive Director ach year it is an honor for the Institute for Holocaust Education, along with our local congregations, to plan our annual Yom HaShoah commemoration. Over the past two years, due to the restrictions imposed because of the COVID-19 virus, we had to observe together virtually. This year we are very happy that we will be able to be live and in-person and will also provide a Zoom link for those who want to attend virtually. This year we will be holding our annual Omaha Holocaust Commemoration on Wednesday, April 27, at 7 p.m. in the Alan J. Levine Theater at the Jewish Community Center, 333 South 132nd Street. To register for the
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Additions to the Kripke Library’s collection Page 5
Play-Doh Passover at Temple Israel Page 6
Diaspora: The Jews of Iran
REGULARS Spotlight Voices Synagogues Life cycles
Gerald Steinacher
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ANNETTE VAN DE KAMPWRIGHT Jewish Press Editor For the past few months, the Jewish Press has brought you stories about various Jewish communities in the diaspora. We are timing our topic to coincide with lectures on April 5th by visiting scholar, Dr. Lior Sternfeld, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Penn State University. Dr. Sternfeld will speak here on the Staenberg Kooper Fellman Campus during a dinner program titled Iranian Jews in the Diaspora - The Making of Jewish TehrAngeles ( focusing primarily on Jews from Tehran who have created community in Los Angeles, CA). Dr. Sternfeld will also give a lecture at UNO at 1 p.m. titled, Jewish Histories of Iran: Transforming Communities in Times of Upheaval and Revolution.
This presentation is hosted by The Schwalb Center for Israel & Jewish Studies at UNO and the JFO and will include a 6 p.m. Persian dinner from
Lior Sternfeld
local restaurant Ahmad’s Persian Cuisine. Registration for the program is required and can be submitted by selecting the “Iranian Jews in the Diaspora” slider at www.jewish omaha. org. Dr. Sternfeld is a social historian of the modern Middle East with particular interests in Jewish (and other See Diaspora page 3
online option, please go to – https://tinyurl.com/y3avkmxs. The Institute for Holocaust Education is honored again this year to be working with our local Omaha clergy to plan the evening program. Along with clergy participation, we are honored to have Survivors, 2nd Generation Survivors and Liberator 2nd Generation Survivors participating in the candle lighting ceremony. Sivan Cohen, our Omaha Community Shalicha will also be reading a poem. Our featured speaker this year will be Dr. Gerald J. Steinacher, the James A. Rawley Professor of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who will speak on his recent exploration of the Vatican archives. Dr. Steinacher’s research focuses on 20th Century European History with an emphasison the Holocaust, National See Yom HaShoah page 3
Local author series: Sari and Cass ANNETTE VAN DE KAMPWRIGHT Jewish Press Editor Jan Schneider Lund is a retired adjunct assistant professor of French at Creighton University and a long-time high school French and English teacher. She has authored poetry and articles, is the winner of numerous teaching awards and an active community volunteer in the arts and education. In 1999, she received France’s highest education honor of Chevalier de l’Ordre Des Palmes Académiques. In 2013, she was promoted to the rank of Officier in the same order. She and her husband, Blake, live in Omaha. Her novel, Sari and Cass (2020), is a robust work, to say the least. The trilogy goes from Iowa City to Paris to Chicago, following two young women as they come of age during the 1960s. In 115 chapters, two epilogues and 765 pages, the author lays out the lives of her protagonists in tremendous detail. While the volume may seem overwhelming at first, the story pulls you in quickly. Lund’s ability to
develop characters means it’s easy to care about Sari and Cass’ every thought. Who hasn’t read a book too fast, only to feel dissatisfied at the end and wish there was more?
Jan Schneider Lund
Jan Lund gives the reader more. She knows these characters inside and out, and by the end, so will the reader. Sari and Cass come from very See Jan Lund page 2
2 | The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022
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Jan Lund
Continued from page 1 different backgrounds: Sari from a moderate Jewish middle-class family, Cass from a wealthy, gentile world with expensive cars, luxurious vacations and a closet full of brandname fashion: “Cass intrigued me with the childlike innocence of an overprotected china doll on one hand, and the worldlywise nonchalance of a sophisticated maven on the other. It was still amazing to me that they sent her to such a mundane place as the dorm of a state university without anyone to oversee her daily needs,” Lund wrote. “Doing laundry, for instance, had been new to her.” But all these differences don’t stop them from bonding on an intense level. We’re not giving too much away because on Tuesday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., Jan Lund will share her thoughts on her novel. The Community Engagement & Education arm of the Jewish Federation of Omaha and the Jewish Press are co-hosting the second installment of our Local Author Series on Zoom. You can submit questions as late as Monday, April 4, or you
can log on and field your questions during the event itself. To register for the program, visit tinyurl. com/ SariandCass or visit the homepage of the Jewish Federation of Omaha and click on the Local Author Series-slider at the top of the page. There is no cost to be part of this program, and if you cannot make it, you can watch the interview later online. In case you missed the first installment in February, when we hosted Brett Atlas, the link can be found on both the JFO website and the Jewish Press website. Although we remain on Zoom for April, we are optimistic that by June, we will be able to offer this program in person. On June 21, we will welcome Harold Mann, so mark your calendars! Jan Schneider Lund’s novel, Sari and Cass, can be purchased on Amazon. For more information about our Local Author Series, please contact Jennie Gates Beckman, Director of Community Engagement & Education, at jbeckman@jewishomaha.org or Annette van de Kamp-Wright, editor of the Jewish Press, at avandekamp@jewishomaha.org.
Purim at Friedel ISA WRIGHT Friedel Jewish Academy Volunteer At Friedel Jewish Academy, Jewish values, traditions, and the Hebrew language are woven into the daily curriculum—and holidays are special occasions to celebrate! Purim is many students’ favorite, giving them the chance to bake, dress up, and make some noise. Leading up to Purim, students learned about the story of Queen Esther saving the Jewish people. Festivities started with baking hamantaschen, Purim’s signature pastry, with the help of Karen Cohen and alumnae Eva Cohen and Sima Denenberg. Students got to choose between rainbow and traditional dough and a variety of fillings. On Purim itself, students participated in a costume parade through the JCC, culminating in a flash mob dance party by the main entrance. They also exchanged mishloach manot (gifts of food for friends), listened to Steven Denenberg read the the Book of Esther, played games, and did crafts in a school-wide Purim party. Friedel Jewish Academy is a community day school. Students come from families across the entire range of Jewish practice and affiliation, as well as non-Jewish students who attended the ELC. The school works to build respect and community among all students and their families, and celebrations like this are just one way this happens. Keep in touch with Friedel on Facebook and Instagram, @friedeljewishacademy on both platforms. For more information on Friedel Jewish Academy, visit www.friedeljewishacad emy. com or contact Director of Advancement Sara Kohen at skohen@fjaomaha. com.
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YOM HASHOAH Continued from page 1 Socialism, Italian Fascism, and intelligence studies. He has published four books, and edited ten more, and written over seventy book chapters and journal articles on these topics. Steinacher’s research has been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Jerusalem Post, and the German weekly Der Spiegel, among others. Steinacher’s current research project, under the working title Forgive and Forget: Vatican Responses to Nazi War Crime Trials, examines the attitude of the Catholic Church leadership towards war crime trials and the denazification of Germany in the first post-war decade. The project analyzes church alternatives to retributive justice as a way of dealing with guilt and responsibility after World War II and the Holocaust. Steinacher is also the co-editor of the series Contempo-
rary Holocaust Studies published with the University of Nebraska Press. He is currently working on the third volume in the series, Fascisms: Now and Then. Steinacher teaches classes on the Holocaust, Modern Jewish History, Modern German History, History of Immigration, and Intelligence and Espionage History. This year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration is supported by Beth El Synagogue, Beth Israel Synagogue, Temple Israel and the Murray H. & Sharee C. Newman Supporting Foundation, Gertrude T. & Albert B. Newman Endowment, Morton A. Richards Youth Program Fund (both of the Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation IMPACT Grant,) and the Jewish Federation of Omaha. For more information on this year’s commemoration, please contact Scott Littky at slittky@ihene.org.
Diaspora in the Jewish community itself saw such a distinction. Those Continued from page 1 minorities’) histories of the region. His teaching interests in- who did called themselves the ‘Organization of Iranian Jewish clude histories of modern Iran and the Middle East, Jewish Intellectuals’ and supported the Islamic Revolution and all it histories of the Middle East, and social movements in the Mid- entailed. The issue caused a rift within the Jewish community. dle East and beyond. He authored the 2018 book Between Iran According to estimates, between 30,000 and 40,000 Jews left and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran. Alessan- the country for the United States. Some 20,000 went to Israel dra Cecolin of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and another 10,000 to the United Kingdom and other Eurosaid: pean countries. Among those moving to the U.S., approxi“Between Iran and Zion is an important contribution to the mately 20,000 settled in Los Angeles. Estimates of how many current post-Zionist debate on the status and history of Mid- stayed behind and how many Jews live in Iran today vary, but dle Eastern Jews. More imIran’s 2012 official census portantly, it brings forth the reported 8,756 Jewish citihistory of Iranian Jews outzens, as opposed to 25,000 side of the context of Israeli in 2009. society and tries to deterThe Ayatollah’s words mine its legacy within the rang hollow even when he Iranian context”. spoke them, as much of A quick timeline shows what he wrote centered on that the first Jews existed in Jews being inferior and Iran approximately 2,700 even impure. He also acyears ago. While there have cused Jews of distorting been numerous challenges Islam, mistranslating the throughout the years, durKoran and taking over the ing the 1925-79 Pahlavi Dyeconomy. nasty, there was a sort of A Library of Congress ‘golden age’ for Jews in Iran. country study on Iran Muhammed Reza Shah stated that “over the censtarted the White Revolu- Above: Hamedan Jews, below: Gravestone of Aghababa Neydavood, turies, the Jews of Iran have tion in 1964 and this pro- an Iranian Jewish leader buried in Los Angeles. become physically, culturvided exceptional ally and linguistically indisopportunities to Iranian tinguishable from the Jews. non-Jewish population. The That all ended with the overwhelming majority of Iranian Revolution. At the Jews speak Persian as their time, roughly 80,000 Jews mother language, and a tiny called Iran home. From minority Kurdish.” schools to synagogues, The last remaining Jewish from businesses to social Iranian newspaper stopped and cultural organizations, printing in 1991 after critiJews had an established cizing the government for community. appointing government Jews had thrived under oversight in Jewish schools. the Shah’s rule, and they However, instead of exwere generally perceived as pelling Jews the way other pro-Shah, pro-America and middle eastern countries pro-Zionist. Yet, towards the end of his reign, the Shah showed have, Iran adopted a policy of keeping Jews in Iran. But in antisemitic tendencies towards the Jewish community, and order to stay, Iranian Jews have to denounce Israel and profess accused them of conspiring against him. Many Jews joined the loyalty to the Iranian regime. revolution when it came, with some 7,000 joining the protests; “The right to freedom of religion is respected,” Tziporah others stayed supportive of the Shah. The regime change that Gerami, Rebbetzin of Tehran, told Yeshiva World in 2021. eventually took place put the Jewish community in an awk- “Most if not all of the members of the Jewish community are ward position. [religious] – there are almost no people who are against reliFurthermore, starting with Habib Elghanian, the honorary gion. But unfortunately, there are people who aren’t knowlleader of the Jewish community who was arrested in March edgeable about religion, and we’re trying to change this of 1979, a total of 17 Iranian Jews have been executed for espi- situation.” onage since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution. But when in January of 2020, Iranian al-Quds Force comThe new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, a senior Shi’a Muslim mander General Qassem Soleimani was killed by the U.S., Iran’s cleric, told a Jewish delegation immediately after Elghanian’s chief rabbi had to publicly condemn the killing out of fear for execution: retaliation. He said the country’s Jewish community feared “We make a distinction between the Jewish community and physical attacks from some Muslim neighbors, and “the situthe Zionists—and we know that these are two different things. ation was very sensitive. We felt that sensitivity, not from the We are against the Zionists because they are not Jews, but government, but from the people. They talked about revenge.” politicians... but as for the Jewish community and the rest of At the same time, Gerami stressed, “Iran is the only place the minority communities in Iran—they are members of this where synagogues don’t need any security. But we have to use nation. Islam will treat them in the same manner as it does our wisdom, we are guests and we have to be diplomatic.” with all other layers of society.” Sources: MyJewishLearning.com, Israel Hayom, Zionist activity was declared a crime, causing more awkward- Yeshiva World, Times of Israel, the New York Times, The ness for Iranian Jews. Because while the Iranian regime officially Christian Science Monitor, Iran Census Report, Jewish distinguished between Zionists and Iranian Jews, not everyone Virtual Library.
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Wolfgang Moessinger visits Omaha SCOTT LITTKY Institute for Holocaust Education Executive Director On Monday, April 11, at 7 p.m., the Institute for Holocaust Education, along with Creighton Law School’s From Nuremberg to the Hague Program, is pleased to welcome Wolfgang Moessinger, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Midwest. The Consul General will be visiting Omaha as part of the partnership between IHE and Creighton Law School. Wolfgang Moessinger is based in Chicago. After school and military service, he studied German, French and History at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in
Freiburg. He joined the Federal Foreign Office in 1987. His first postings abroad were Dakar, Helsinki and Moscow. From 2008 to 2012 he was Consul General in Edinburgh; from 2012 to 2015 Deputy Ambassador in Baku, and from 2015 to 2019 he served as Consul General in Dnipro (Eastern Ukraine). On July 1, 2019 he joined the Consulate General in Chicago. Mr. Moessinger will be speaking at the Jewish Community Center on Monday, April 11. For questions or if you need more information, please contact Scott Littky at slittky@ ihene.org. Wolfgang Moessinger
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Ed. Note: This is part 6 of 6 of stories about Dick Fellman’s experiences with the Lincoln Star, Lincoln’s morning newspaper, during the 1950s. Working nights at the Lincoln Star during the mid-1950s meant either taking one’s “lunch” in a “lunch box,” as the men at the copy desk did, or finding a place for a late evening meal. RICHARD FELLMAN Jimmy Lawrence went out nearly every evening with his wife and the paper’s society editor, Nell, but that was too expensive for me working for one dollar an hour. For the times, and for my experience and position, the pay was acceptable. But finding a place for dinner was another question. That is until I realized that on the street level of the entrance to the Journal Star building there were three commercial entities. Next to the Journal Star was a pawn shop, owned and operated by Charlie Sherman, a middle-aged man who was a friend of mine, but I had no reason to spend much time with him. On the other end of the block was the downtown bus station, with Greyhound buses going in and out and a waiting room open to the street. In between the two was a small diner. Not at all fancy, but open each evening until about eleven, which made it work for the newspaper staff. I usually had a small dinner there about half past nine, and more often than not Bernie Rothenberg, the editorial page editor, whose brown fedora was always on his head at a charming angle, was sitting alone in the corner with a stack of newspapers from all over the country. I always said hello. It took many months but eventually he began to speak with me and then he asked me to join him at his customary table. Then, night after night, we had our meal and we talked. Every subject possible was discussed. Bernie expressed his opinions, sometimes asking for mine, but every night spelling out in some detail what would be his column
in the paper two or three days later. I enjoyed it all. Then, one day, after I had worked at the Star for more than two years, while I was writing something for the next day, Bernie came over to my desk. With him was Larry Becker, the News Editor. And with them was a third man, Odell Hansen, the Lincoln Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, which had their Lincoln office within the Star’s news room behind locked doors with glass see-through windows. I always said hello to Odell, but we never spoke. He was nearly revered by the entire Star staff. His primary job was to cover the Governor, the Legislature, the entire State Capitol and any breaking news story in Lincoln. He was considered an expert newsman. Odell began to speak, and the others stood silently. “The AP has an opening for about six months. My current assistant is leaving, and his replacement will not be available for at least a half a year. Dick, I’d like you to take that spot and work with me as my assistant for the next six months. Are you interested?” The two men with Odell each nodded and spoke, each telling me the advantages the job had and assuring me that I was qualified. Bernie Rothenberger even said that he had spoken to Jimmy Lawrence, who agreed and said to encourage Fellman to take the job. “It will work well for the AP and will give Fellman the basis for a fine career in newspapers if he wants it,” Lawrence told Bernie. I accepted and began. My beat was the second tier of offices in the Capitol and wherever Odell sent me, including the wholesale egg market. I struggled with the egg story, but I relished all the rest, typing my stories on the ancient AP typewriting macine. The Associated Press and Odell Hansen, with the concurrence of the News Editor of the Star and its Editor, had given me the finest “first job” a future newsman could have. As I read about the demolition of the Journal Star building at 9th and “P” in Downtown Lincoln, my mind, but much more my heart, returned to those days in my life at the Star and the AP in Lincoln in the 1950s when I was in my early 20s, now about 65 years ago.
Singapore to open embassy in Israel
rocco and Bahrain, it has imRON KAMPEAS proved existing diplomatic relaJTA tions with Egypt, Jordan and Singapore will upgrade its Turkey. The Biden administrapresence in Israel from contion is committed to expanding sulate to embassy, in the latest the Abraham Accords, one of its move reflecting thawing relafew areas of agreement with the tions between Israel and MusTrump administration. lim countries. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Israel and Singapore forged Bennett paid a surprise visit to diplomatic ties in 1965 and Egypt on Monday where he have enjoyed friendly relations Singapore skyline at dawn, showing the Marina Bay Sands and conferred with Egyptian Presifor decades. Israel sells Singathe Flyer. Credit: Martin Puddy/Getty Images dent Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and pore defense equipment and UAE’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. has had an embassy in the country since 1968. However, Singapore, mindful of its huge Muslim-majority neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia, has sought to keep the ties IN THE NEWS out of the public eye. The Times of Israel reported that Israel’s On Sunday, May 1, Deborah Greenblatt will be presenting defense minister, Benny Gantz, visited the country last year a free virtual Fiddle Contest Workshop, streaming from the but kept it quiet out of deference to Singapore. Homestead National Historical Park. During the workshop, Now, Singapore is openly boasting about its Israel relations. fiddlers will learn how to find fiddle contests, how to prepare Vivian Balakrishnan, the Southeast Asian city-state’s foreign for a contest, and how to choose appropriate tunes for each minister, made the embassy announcement Monday in category. Fiddle contest rules will also be discussed. Jerusalem where he was meeting with Israeli counterpart Yair Deborah was the first woman to win the Nebraska State FidLapid. The embassy will be in Tel Aviv. dle Championship, as well as the first woman to win the MidAmerica Fiddle Championship. She was inducted into the The advent of the Abraham Accords, normalizing ties beMid-America Old-Time Fiddler’s Hall of Fame and is past tween Israel and four Arab nations, has eased the stigma of open Presidet of the Nebraska American String Teachers Association. ties with Israel among nations sensitive to Muslim sensibilities. For more information, e-mail Amber Kirkendall at amber_ Since the launch of the Abraham Accords, not only has Israel kirkendall@nps.gov. normalized ties with the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Mo-
The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022 | 5
Update from the President
It has been almost three months since Phil Malcom, Marty Ricks and Jan Goldstein stepped in to lead our organization. The JFO staff have benefited from the individual leadership styles each has brought to the table, and we are continuing to implement our strategic plan. I am very grateful to all involved for the smooth transition. The CEO search is progressing well. MIKE SIEGEL Our search firm, Gabai Strategies, has President, JFO posted the updated job description and reached out to individuals across the country. The search committee will meet with Gabai Strategies in the next few weeks when they will be presented with several potential candidates. I am confident the process will result in the hiring of a dynamic CEO who will lead us boldly into the future. On March 6, the JFO Board and leadership staff participated in an on-campus retreat. The first part of the retreat focused on the Board’s roles and responsibilities to the organization, while the second part was a strategy session aimed at growing our community. Like other Jewish communities across the country, Omaha is facing various challenges with engagement. After some productive group brainstorming, we left the retreat with a list of innovative ideas and programs to help increase our community’s awareness of and involvement with the JFO and its agencies, as well as the broader Jewish community. We are fortunate to have many tools at our disposal to implement these ideas and programs. The JFO staff will review the list generated at the retreat and come back to the Board with an action plan and as resources needed to successfully execute it. I want to thank the Board members and JFO staff for their commitment and enthusiasm at the retreat (and for bringing that same passion to our organization every day). I also want to thank Richard Heyman for his guidance in planning this productive event. The entire JFO leadership team is committed to both celebrating our successes and learning from our past missteps. Ultimately, our goal is to provide engaging experiences that will give our community the natural opportunity to flourish. The future of Jewish Omaha is bright, and I look forward to you joining me on this journey!
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 the Press 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.
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Additions to the Kripke Library’s collection SHIRLY BANNER JFO Kripke Jewish Federation Library Specialist OLDER YOUNG ADULT: The Assignment by Liza Wiemer Inspired by a real-life incident, this riveting novel explores discrimination and antisemitism and reveals their dangerous impact. Would you defend the indefensible? That’s what seniors Logan March and Cade Crawford are asked to do when a favorite teacher instructs a group of students to argue for the Final Solution — the Nazi plan for the genocide of the Jewish people. Logan and Cade decide they must take a stand, and soon their actions draw the attention of the student body, the administration, and the community at large. But not everyone feels as Logan and Cade do — after all, isn’t a school debate just a school debate? It’s not long before the situation explodes, and acrimony and anger result. ADULT: Jacobo’s Rainbow by David Hirshberg Jacobo’s Rainbow is an historical literary novel set primarily in the 1960s during the convulsive period of the student protest movements and the Vietnam War. It focuses on the issue of being an outsider, or ‘the other,’ an altogether common circumstance that resonates with readers in today’s America. Written from a Jewish perspective, it speaks to universal truths that affect us all. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of a transformative event in Jacobo’s life — the day he is sent to jail — he writes about what happened behind the scenes of the Free Speech Movement. This provides the backdrop for a riveting story centered on his emergence into a world he never could have imagined. His recording of those earlier events is the proximate cause of his being arrested. Jacobo is allowed to leave
jail under the condition of being drafted; he engages in gruesome fighting in Vietnam, and returns to continue his work of chronicling America in the throes of significant societal changes. Jacobo’s Rainbow is a story of triumph over adversity (hypocrisy, loss, lies, murder, concealment, prejudice) that is told with vivid descriptions, perceptive insights, humor and sensitivity, which enables the reader to identify with the characters who come to life in a realistic fashion to illustrate who we are, how we behave, and what causes us to change. Golem Girl by Riva Lehrer What do we sacrifice in the pursuit of normalcy? And what becomes possible when we embrace monstrosity? Can we envision a world that sees impossible creatures? In 1958, among the children born with spina bifida is Riva Lehrer. At the time, most such children are not expected to survive. Her parents and doctors are determined to “fix” her, sending the message over and over again that she is broken; That she will never have a job, a romantic relationship, or an independent life. Enduring countless medical interventions, Riva tries her best to be a good girl and a good patient in the quest to be cured. Everything changes when, as an adult, Riva is invited to join a group of artists, writers, and performers who are building Disability Culture. Their work is daring, edgy, funny, and dark—it rejects tropes that define disabled people as pathetic, frightening, or worthless. They insist that disability is an opportunity for creativity and resistance. Emboldened, Riva asks if she can paint their portraits—inventing an intimate and collaborative process that will transform the way she sees herself, others, and the world. Each portrait story begins to transform the myths she’s been told her whole life about her body, her sexuality, and other measures of normal.
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Play-Doh Passover at Temple Israel
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Leaving Ukraine
DINAH SPRITZER JTA Before this month, the last time Evgeny Pavlovskiy left the Kyiv area was during World War II, when his Jewish family hid from the Nazis in Russia’s Ural Mountains. At 95 and suffering from several serious ailments, he was content living alone just two houses away from the entrance to Babyn Yar, where the Nazis killed and buried more than 33,000 Jews on two days in 1941. When his son moved to Israel earlier this year, he decided to stay in his native land. And when rumors of war began to swirl earlier this year, he was unmoved, like so many other Ukrainians who could not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would attack their country. “My father did not want to leave Ukraine no matter how hard I pressed,” said Mykhailo Pavlovskiy, who also goes by Moshe. “By the time I finally persuaded him, no one was around to help.” Evgeny Pavlovskiy ultimately made three solo attempts to flee the Russian shelling and artillery. His journey to Poland, a drive that would have normally taken eight hours, lasted three days. Pavlovskiy’s great escape represents the wartime resilience of both Jews and Ukrainians, two groups he identifies with full-heartedly. It also makes him likely to be the oldest refugee to have fled the war in Ukraine on his own, rather than alongside younger family or friends. “I would like my story to help people and to inspire them,” Pavlovskiy said. “And I have another message, I want Russians to stop killing Ukrainians.” he pleaded. “They started World World III without realizing it, and now they are destroying the homes and lives of peaceful people. They should stop!” After war erupted in February, Mykhailo persuaded his dad that Russian saboteurs might invade his home and murder
him. So Pavlovskiy made an 11-hour journey by train from Kiev to Lviv, a trip that normally takes roughly six and a half hours. Evacuation train cars from Kiev intended for six people are typically packed with twice as many passengers, who wait for hours and sometimes days with the hopes of boarding. They only have the clothes on their backs and personal items they can stuff in a small backpack or purse. “The most difficult and heroic thing, for which I thank him every day, is that my father got on that evacuation train,“ said Mykhailo. “Before the trip, my father tried not to drink or eat anything, because there was no toilet. He sat for 11 hours without moving.” Then things got worse. Upon trying to leave Lviv for Poland, Pavlovskiy had to stand in a line for seven hours in the hopes of finding safe transport. “He had a serious mental breakdown,” said Mykhailo. “He felt that everyone had abandoned him; he was crying.” Mykhailo wanted to rescue his dad himself but could not easily leave Israel because he only recently immigrated there. “I am now going through the process of repatriation [or making aliyah]. This is only the second month for me, so I didn’t have a passport with which I could travel,” Mykhailo explained. “By the time I received permission to leave Israel, 15 days had passed since the start of the war. As soon as I had a passport, I immediately bought a ticket and flew to Poland to meet my dad.” Meanwhile, strangers in Kyiv took pity on the ancient refugee and found him a hostel. He tried again to leave from Lviv to Poland via bus, but logistical obstacles and concerns about Russian shelling thwarted his journey. Mykhailo was then able to reach friends who helped his father get on a bus to Poland that was operated by Caritas, a Catholic charity. When he crossed the border, he became one of nearly 3 million Ukrainians to leave their country since Feb. 24. Read more at www.omahajewishpress.com.
CASSANDRA WEISENBURGER Temple Israel Director of Communications Join Temple Israel for a fun, interactive Passover Family Seder on Saturday, April 16, at 5:30 p.m. Who says you can’t bring toys to the table? Join us as we retell the Passover story through our hands and our imaginations as we build, color, and squish our way through the desert to freedom using Play-Doh! It will be fun for kids and kids at heart, ages 1-100! The Passover Seder is a treasured tradition that allows us to retell the story of our history with creativity, joy, laughter, and hope. Chef Hattam will be preparing a wonderful Passover meal including a brisket or salmon entree, charoset (no nuts), matzah ball soup (contains gluten), potato kugel, mixed vegetables, and macaroons. The cost for dinner is $27 per adult, $14 per child ages 6-12, and no charge for children ages five and under. RSVPs are due Friday, April 8! Visit templeisr aelomaha.com for more information.
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Above: Our receptionist, Jolene, was Central Services’ employee of the month. Mazal tov, Jolene!
A visit from Israeli Consul General Yinam Cohen brought a captivated audience to our Staenberg JCC. Above: Benjamin Justman and Dr. Jeannette Gabriel with Yinam Cohen, below: Dr. Joel Schlessinger, Rabbi Mendel Katzman, Sharon Brodkey and Nancy Schlessinger, below: Steve Levinger and Chuck Lucoff, and bottom: Kevin and Linda Saltzman, Bob Wolfson and Melissa Shapiro.
Above: Purim Royalty at RBJH: Queen Faye Ruback and King Milt Moskovitz.
SP O TLIGHT 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.
Above, right and below: The dance department of course had the most fun dressing up for the Purim holiday.
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8 | The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022
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Margie Gutnik President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Sam Kricsfeld Staff Writers Mary Bachteler Accounting Jewish Press Board Margie Gutnik, President; Abigail Kutler, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen; David Finkelstein; Bracha Goldsweig; Mary Sue Grossman; Les Kay; Natasha Kraft; Chuck Lucoff; Joseph Pinson; Andy Shefsky and Amy Tipp. 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 Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Life, Jewish Social Services, 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 KampWright, 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.
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It’s time to RSVP
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor Two years ago, we invited you all to come to our Centennial Gala. Now, we are ready to welcome you for real — On May 1, from 4 to 7 p.m., we will host the Centennial Press Gala by our beautiful Goldstein Aquatic Center’s outdoor pool. Musical entertainment will be courtesy of singer Kyle Knapp, who is performing a portion of his (mostly) mellow and familiar tunes, and we will serve kosher appetizers and cocktails. We will use some of the original decorations, even though we’ll be outside this time and not in the Community Engagement Center. The change of venue is deliberate; although the world is looking a lot better, we still prefer to be outdoors, mostly because it is hard to predict whether the numbers in Omaha will stay low or increase again. The Board and staff of the Jewish Press hope you all come. We’d like you to RSVP by April 20, so we know how many people to expect, but don’t let that stop you if, at the last minute, you decide to come after all. If you bought tickets last time, you can simply send an email to avandekamp@jewish omaha.org and let us know how many guests you will bring; if you didn’t sign up in 2020, you can sign up here: tinyurl.com/JewishPressGala The speeches will be short (we promise), and we will focus on the simple act of catching up and
spending time together—something we all still lack, even as the world is slowly opening back up. As a community, we’re running a deficit when it comes to social contact; you can feel it anytime there’s an opportunity to meet others—we’ve missed this. We have missed each other, seeing the faces, hearing news from the grapevine, not just hearing from each other how life is, but seeing it for ourselves. The agencies of the Jewish Federation of Omaha will focus much of our energy this year on engagement, on bringing us together, and we’ll collaborate as much as possible with staff, volunteers and other organizations in Omaha and beyond to do so. For the Jewish Press, our May 1 gala is another step
in creating spaces and opportunities for our community to participate in a variety of programs. To be honest, as an agency, the Jewish Press occupies a unique position: we talk to you every week and bring you the paper in print and online, but unless we are intentional about it, our relationship can be a one-way street. It’s why in past years we organized exhibits in the gallery (heads up, we have another one coming in 2023) and why we are so excited for May 1. It’s why we’re working with Jennie Gates Beckman on the local author series (see front page) and why we have various other initiatives in the works. It’s not enough to just tell the story—although that is very important. At the same time, we have to remind ourselves that we are part of that story. We help write it, we get to show up and insert ourselves in it, we get to be there with you and grow the relationships. On May 1, please join us. Let’s come together, let’s eat, drink, and celebrate this paper and the visionaries who started it long before us. We can toast to all the stories that have been told, to the ones we as a community are currently writing, and to all the ones still to come. We cannot celebrate without you. The biggest reason we get to celebrate in the first place is all of you, reading this paper, week after week. We can’t wait to see you!
My heart breaks for Ukraine and the Ethiopian Jews HAFTAM YIZHAK-HEATHWOOD JTA The past few days I couldn’t stop crying about the situation in Ukraine. Watching the news, reading articles and hearing reports took me to dark moments in my past. My heart broke to see people being victims again in a war that they did not choose to be part of. I don’t remember the experience of escaping civil war and famine in Ethiopia as a child. However, I heard and learned about it over the course of my childhood through my father, my family and my community. With very limited information, I began to piece together the true history of my people. I only had a few years of happy home memories before everything changed forever. This was after my family and I escaped, in 1990, from a war-torn Ethiopia where Jews were targeted, and settled in Israel, in the town of Beit She’an. My fondest memories are of gathering around the dinner table, talking about our days and laughing at my father’s jokes. I was too young to realize the realities of being a refugee and the racism around me. I was in a naive reality, before the horrors of the world were to enter my life. My father got sick. I was around 10 years old when I heard him cry for the first time. I didn’t understand why, but the more I listened carefully, the more I started to hear him. He repeated one name so often that I had to ask someone in my family who it might be. It was his nephew, who was killed in front of my father by agents of the Derg junta as my father watched. The world around me shattered. I learned that the world is a cruel place, and that there are people who are meant to suffer unfathomable things when they don’t deserve it because of disconnected leaders with selfish agendas. I was overwhelmed and overjoyed, then, to see how the world came together in condemning and isolating Russian President Vladimir Putin for what he is doing to Ukraine. The way Israel and the world acted so quickly to help Ukrainians to escape, and to help others to fight the war alongside them, was nothing short of extraordinary. When people started to advocate for Ukraine, I joined. I changed my profile picture on social media to the Ukrainian flag.
A few days later, however, someone from my aren’t shared on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Ethiopian community asked why I didn’t post the War in Ethiopia and other countries is not as apEthiopian flag, when the government there has re- pealing to the international media. cently and regularly targeted civilians in a 16But it’s up to each one of us to be their voice. We’re month-old war against rebellious forces of the seeing big companies, sports teams, celebrities and Tigray People’s Liberation Front. governments boycotting Russia and blocking Putin I was ashamed. I had done what many white in every way they can. But my wish is that the world people do: I had brushed off what happened to my people, to Africa, to the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America. Why does the survival of one country matter more than another’s? Why does one group of people have more value than another? When I realized my mistake, I felt rage and the urge to do something about it. I started to do research, make phone calls, ask questions. I reached out to everyone I knew in order to find out more about what is happening in Ethiopia and what Israeli officials, including Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, center, greet refugees from Ukraine as they arwe are doing about it. There is clear evidence of a racial im- rive at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, March 6, 2022. Credit: Mucahit Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images balance in how we respond to tragedies, not just in Israel, but throughout the world. Many will also treat Black and dark-skinned people the way countries have opened their doors to the Ukrainian they treat those who are white. A world, for example, people, but not to refugees from Ethiopia, or other that won’t stand for border guards in a war-torn countries with populations of color. Despite a Ukraine preventing brown students from fleeing the pledge to speed up its evacuations of some of the country while allowing white Ukrainians to get out. relatives of Ethiopian Israelis who remain in the What is happening in Ukraine is appalling, and country in the midst of an escalating civil war, the we should all absolutely unite to fight oppression Israeli government seems to be making it more dif- and murder any time it happens, but we can’t only ficult for Ethiopian Jews to make it into Israel. Case do this when it is appealing to our racial or ecoin point: The Israeli High Court has frozen the nomic biases. Ethiopia is worthy of our time; all sufplanned entrance of 7,000-12,000 Ethiopians into fering around the world is worthy of our time. If we the country for more than a month. Meanwhile, the cared about human life more than we care about oil same government is preparing to receive several and military spheres of influence and our own racial thousand Jewish Ukrainians, and to take in 5,000 biases, there would be less suffering in this world. non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees. Let’s be a megaphone for the voices that have Preventing these Ethiopians from entering Israel been drowned out. keeps them in harm’s way while their case gets reHaftam Yizhak-Heathwood is studying childviewed by the High Court, and it’s all because of hood education at City College and serves on those in Israel who question the Jewishness of those the Board of Directors and is co-chair of the Diindividuals. Ukrainians of any faith are rushed in, versity, Equity, and Justice Committee of the while Ethiopians of Jewish heritage are kept out. Jewish Women's Foundation of New York. She’s The Ukrainian conflict is a perfect example of the also been involved with JCC Manhattan and world’s hypocrisy. It shows how little Black and Be'chol Lashon and is currently a fellow for the brown skin matters. The voices of other refugees Jews of Color Initiative.
The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022 | 9
The Ukrainian Jew who saved Yiddish music from oblivion ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL JTA Late last year, months before a Russian missile landed near the Babyn Yar memorial outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, the site’s foundation announced plans for a new museum to honor the 33,771 Jews slaughtered there by the Nazis in September 1941. Natan Sharansky, chair of the memorial’s supervisory board, described Babyn Yar as a “symbol of attempts to destroy the memory of the Holocaust,” and that the new institution would be called the Museum of the History of Oblivion. “The History of Oblivion” would make an appropriate alternative title for Song Searcher, a new documentary about Moyshe Beregovsky, the Jewish folklorist and ethnomusicologist who traveled his native Ukraine in the 1930s and ’40s collecting Yiddish folk music and klezmer songs. Before World War II, Beregovsky shlepped primitive recording equipment on his visits to then still vital shtetls throughout the region. During and after the war, he found and interviewed residents and survivors of ghettos in Chernivtsi and Vinnytsia. The voices that he captured are heard on 1,017 scratchy wax cylinders that for a long time many feared were lost. The film details how they and other material were recovered and made their way to the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (where they have been digitized). “Nobody else did any projects like this, of collecting that much music and writing that much about it,” Mark Slobin, an American ethnomusicologist, says in the film. Slobin’s collections of Beregovsky’s work were key to the klezmer revival of the past 40 years.” “Nobody did a project like that in Poland when the culture was alive. Nobody did it in these other places where the Jews lived. So it stands as a monument not just to where he worked in Ukraine, but for the whole population of Eastern European Jewish culture.” Various klezmer musicians are seen in the film, playing the songs that Beregovsky collected. Many of the songs reflect the misery of the Jewish experience under the Soviets, the Nazis and the Soviets again. Even a so-called “humorous” song – sung here by Psoy Korolenko, a puckish Yiddish singer from Russia – is a revenge fantasy about confronting Hitler after the war. The film never loses sight, however, of the incalculable human toll of the Holocaust in Ukraine. Survivors who were children during the war tell of the horrors of the forced marches, the suf-
fering in the ghettos and the grim fate of the Jews in Transnistria, who were spared the concentration camps but were starved and shot to death by German and Romanian occupiers. There are also rare color photographs of the slaughter at Babyn Yar, one of many moments when the pictures and stories of trapped civilians and desperate refugees blur with this morning’s headlines out of Ukraine. But the history, like today’s headlines, is head-swirling as you try to keep track of the shifting occupations and the various degrees of villainy. The Soviets are celebrated as the lib-
Moyshe Beregovsky is seen with various documents and sheet music collected in his vast archive of Yiddish folk and klezmer songs. Credit: Jewish Music Forum
erators of Auschwitz, but almost immediately turn on the Jews. Their targets included Beregovsky, who by this time had founded or led a slew of important and perfectly legal academic institutions in Russia and Ukraine: a Cabinet for Research on Jewish Literature, Language, and Folklore; the Archives for Jewish Folk Music; the Cabinet for Music Ethnography and Audio Recording at the Kiev Conservatory. He had even received his Ph.D. from the Moscow Conservatory, with a dissertation on Jewish instrumental folk music. By 1949, such Jewish ethnic activities were considered “cosmopolitan” by the Soviets, and Beregovsky was shipped off to Siberia, where he joined other slave laborers in building a railroad. Already a grandfather, he found some solace in leading the prison camp’s choir, and the film includes snippets of letters he wrote home to his wife Sara in Kyiv, asking her to send – what else – sheet music. Beregovsky was able to return to Kyiv after the death of Stalin, where, before cancer would kill him in 1961, he was
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able to arrange his private archive. What was preserved? What was lost? And what might still be lost as the current war grinds on? Much of the film was shot in Ukraine in 2019 and 2020, with the camera lingering on Kyiv’s pastel-colored academic buildings, the lazy Dnipro River and the waving wheat in the country’s bread basket. You recall this is a “pre-war” Ukraine, and then realize you are thinking back about three and half weeks. Jews have a complicated history with Ukraine. (How complicated? The filmmakers acknowledge the “generous support” of Roman Abramovich, the Russian Jewish oligarch who is being hit with a slew of international sanctions thanks to his close ties with Vladimir Putin.) Perhaps one and a half million Jews were killed there. They were the victims of the Nazis, but also of the Germans’ local collaborators. Once home to the second largest Jewish population in Europe, and still a place where over 40,000 Jews live, the country can also be seen as a vast Jewish graveyard. And yet its Jewish culture was as central to the country’s identity and self-understanding as it was to the Jews’, as scholars in the film explain. As I write this, Ukrainian culture as a whole is literally under fire. A museum was razed in Ivankiv. Kharkiv’s Central Square is a war zone. Lviv is bracing for the worst by packing sandbags around public sculptures and hiding museum collections. “The heritage war for identity means that the target is not only territory or some military or civil objects,” Ihor Poshyvalio, the director of the Maidan Museum in Kyiv, told PBS NewsHour Thursday. “The target is our historical memory, our cultural traditions, our national and individual identity, our memory and identity as a nation.” The historical memory of the Jews was only saved from oblivion by the survivors, and by a dogged little man who was rewarded for his troubles with a prison term. Song Searcher ends on a note that is neither hopeful nor despairing – or maybe it is both: Igor Polesitsky, a violist and klezmer from Florence, sits near the graves of his slain Jewish relatives in Kalinindorf, once a Jewish agricultural colony in southern Ukraine. “Look around here, there’s nothing Jewish remaining,” he says, after playing a requiem preserved by Beregovsky. “The one thing that truly remains is what was saved by Moyshe Beregovsky. So his archive is what brings us here, and we become a link with the spirit of people who are no longer with us.”
Congrats, Rachel! We are so proud of your achievements – membership in NHS, varsity letter in tennis and a Merit Award from the Band.
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Synagogues
10 | The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022
B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE
618 Mynster Street Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 712.322.4705 email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com
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 rbjh.com
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 Join us on Friday, April 8, 7 p.m. for evening services with a guest speaker. The service will be led by Larry Blass. For information on COVID-related closures and about our historic synagogue, please contact Howard Kutler at hkutler@hotmail.com or any of our other board members: Scott Friedman, Rick Katelman, Janie Kulakofsky, Carole and Wayne Lainof, Mary-Beth Muskin, Debbie Salomon and Sissy Silber. Handicap Accessible.
BETH EL Virtual services conducted by Rabbi Steven Abraham and Hazzan Michael Krausman. VIRTUAL AND IN-PERSON MINYAN SCHEDULE: Mornings on Sundays, 9:30 a.m.; Mondays and Thursdays, 7 a.m.; Evenings on Sunday-Thursday, 5:30 p.m. FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Services and Bat Mitzvah of Sima Denenberg, 10 a.m. at Beth El & Live Stream; Jr. Congregation, 10 a.m. at Beth El; Havdalah, 8:25 p.m. Zoom only. SUNDAY: Siddur 101 with Hazzan Krausman following morning minyan; BESTT (Grades K-7), 9:30 a.m.; Torah Study, 10 a.m.; Torah Tots (Ages 3-5), 10 a.m. MONDAY: Passover Seder Registration Due, 5 p.m. TUESDAY: Mussar, 11:30 a.m. with Rabbi Abraham at Beth El & Zoom. WEDNESDAY: BESTT (Grades 3-7), 4:15 p.m.; Hebrew High (Grades 8-12), 6 p.m.; Community Beit Midrash, 7 p.m. via In-person at the JCC or Zoom. THURSDAY: Revisting the Classics, 7 p.m. with Hazzan Krausman. FRIDAY-Apr. 8: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. SATURDAY-Apr. 9: Shabbat Morning Services, 10 a.m. at Beth El & Live Stream; Jr. Congregation, 10 a.m. at Beth El; Havdalah, 8:35 p.m. Zoom only. Please visit bethel-omaha.org for additional information and service links.
BETH ISRAEL Virtual services conducted by Rabbi Ari Dembitzer. Classes, Kabbalat Shabbat and Havdalah on Zoom, WhatsApp or Facebook Live. On site services held outside in pergola, weather permitting. Physical distancing and masks required. FRIDAY: Nach Yomi — Daily Prophets, 6:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (WhatsApp); Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Deeping Prayer, 7:45 a.m.; Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat/Candlelighting, 7:31 p.m. SATURDAY: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Torah Class/Kids Class, 10:30 a.m.; Tot Shabbat, 10:45 a.m.; Kiddush, 11:30 a.m.; Daf Yomi, 6:50 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha, 7:30 p.m.; Shalosh Seudos/ Laws of Shabbos/Kids Activity, 7:50 p.m.; Ma’ariv/ Havdalah, 8:33 p.m. SUNDAY: Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Daf Yomi, 7:10 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 7:40 p.m. MONDAY: Nach Yomi — Daily Prophets, 6:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (WhatsApp); Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Deeping Prayer, 7:45 a.m. (Zoom); Daf Yomi, 7:10 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 7:40 p.m. TUESDAY: Nach Yomi — Daily Prophets, 6:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (WhatsApp); Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Deeping Prayer, 7:45 a.m. (Zoom); Kids Class, 3:45 p.m.; Daf Yomi, 7:10 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 7:40 p.m.
WEDNESDAY: Nach Yomi — Daily Prophets, 6:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (WhatsApp); Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Deeping Prayer, 7:45 a.m. (Zoom); Daf Yomi, 7:10 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 7:40 p.m. THURSDAY: Nach Yomi — Daily Prophets, 6:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (WhatsApp); Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Deeping Prayer, 7:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (Zoom); Character Development, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (Zoom); Daf Yomi, 7:10 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha/ Ma’ariv, 7:40 p.m. FRIDAY-Apr. 8: Nach Yomi — Daily Prophets, 6:45 a.m. with Rabbi Ari (WhatsApp); Shacharit, 7 a.m.; Deeping Prayer, 7:45 a.m.; Mincha/Kabbalat Shabbat/Candlelighting, 7:39 p.m. SATURDAY-Apr. 9: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit, 9 a.m.; Torah Class/Kids Class, 10:30 a.m.; Tot Shabbat, 10:45 a.m.; Kiddush, 11:30 a.m.; Daf Yomi, 7 p.m. with Rabbi Yoni; Mincha, 7:40 p.m.; Shalosh Seudos/Laws of Shabbos/Kids Activity, 8 p.m.; Ma’ariv/Havdalah, 8:41 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/Zoom hybrid (Ochabad.com/classroom). 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, 5:45 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: ochabad.com/Le chayim; Candlelighting, 7:31 p.m. SATURDAY: Shacharit, 10 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 8:32 p.m. SUNDAY: Sunday Morning Wraps, 9 a.m. MONDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Personal Parsha Class, 9:30 a.m. with Shani Katzman; Advanced Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen. TUESDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Virtual Pirkei Avot Women’s Class, 7 p.m. WEDNESDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Mystical Thinking (Tanya), 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Katzman; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Introduction to Hebrew Reading, 11:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen. THURSDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Advanced Hebrew Class, 11 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Talmud Study (Sanhedrin 18 — No advance experience necessary), noon with Rabbi Katzman; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) Class, 7 p.m. FRIDAY-Apr. 8: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Inspirational Lechayim, 5:45 p.m. with Rabbi and friends: ochab ad.com/Lechayim; Candlelighting, 7:39 p.m. SATURDAY-Apr. 9: Shacharit, 10 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 8:40 p.m.
LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: B’NAI JESHURUN & TIFERETH ISRAEL Services facilitated by Rabbi Alex Felch. Note: Some of our services, but not all, are now being offered in person. FRIDAY: Kabbalat Shabbat Service, service leaders/music: Rabbi Alex, Nathaniel and Steve Kaup, 6:30 p.m. at SST; Shabbat Candlelighting, 7:33 p.m. SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Alex at TI; Torah Study on Parashat Tazria, noon; LJCS Havdalah, 8 p.m.; Havdalah, 8:34 p.m. SUNDAY: LJCS Classes, 9:30 a.m.; Men's Jewish
Bike Group of Lincoln meets Sundays at 10 a.m., rain or shine, to ride to one of The Mill locations from Hanson Ct. (except we drive if it’s too wet, cold, cloudy, windy, hot or humid) followed by coffee and spirited discussions. If interested, please email Al Weiss at alb ertw801@gmail.com to find out where to meet each week; Tifereth Israel Board Meeting, 1 p.m.; We will put pickleball on hiatus while we are not holding inperson services. When we start up again, remember that everyone is welcome; just wear comfortable clothes and tennis or gym shoes. If you need a paddle, contact Miriam Wallick by email at Miriam 57@aol.com or by text at 402.470.2393 before Sunday. TUESDAY: Tea & Coffee with Pals, 1:30 p.m. via Zoom. WEDNESDAY: LJCS Classes, 4 p.m. FRIDAY-Apr. 8: Kabbalat Shabbat Service, service leaders/music: Rabbi Alex, Leslie Delserone and Peter Mullin, 6:30 p.m. at SST; Shabbat Candlelighting, 7:41 p.m. SATURDAY-Apr. 9: Shabbat Morning Service, 9:30 a.m. with Rabbi Alex at TI; Torah Study on Parashat Metzora, noon; Havdalah, 8:42 p.m.
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE
FRIDAY: 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 Brian Stoller, Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin and Cantor Joanna Alexander. DAILY VIRTUAL MINYAN: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. via Zoom. FRIDAY: Drop-In Mah Jongg, 9 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat Shirah, 6 p.m. via Zoom or In-Person. SATURDAY: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. via Zoom or InPerson; Shabbat Morning Service and B’nai Mitzvah of Lucy and Knox Pocras, 10:30 a.m. SUNDAY: Blood Drive, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; Temple Tots, 9:30 a.m.; Youth Learning Programs, 9:30 a.m.; Words of Wisdom, 10:15 a.m. MONDAY: Jewish Law & the Quest for Meaning, 11 a.m. via Zoom. . WEDNESDAY: Yarn It, 9 a.m.-noon; Youth Learning Programs: Grades 3-6, 4-6 p.m.; Community Dinner, 6 p.m.; Grades 7-12, 6:30-8 p.m.; Grade 12 Confirmation Class, 6:30 p.m.; Community Beit Midrash, 7 p.m. via In-person at the JCC or Zoom. THURSDAY: Thursday Morning Class, 10 a.m. with Rabbi Azriel via Zoom or In-Person; Rosh Chodesh Event, 7 p.m. FRIDAY-Apr. 8: Drop-In Mah Jongg, 9 a.m.; Shabbat B’yachad: Scrolls of the Season, 6 p.m. via Zoom or In-Person. SATURDAY-Apr. 9: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. via Zoom or In-Person; Shabbat Morning Service and Bat Mitzvah of Mia Simon, 10:30 a.m. Please visit templeisraelomaha.com for additional information and Zoom service links.
Borys Romanchenko, may his memory be for a blessing JTA A 96-year-old non-Jewish Holocaust Survivor who lived through four different Nazi concentration camps was killed Friday in a Russian airstrike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation announced Borys Romanchenko’s death on Twitter on Monday, March 21, 2022. “Survived Hitler, murdered by Putin,” Ukraine’s foreign minister tweeted Monday, March 21, 2022. Romanchenko’s former concentration camp uniform, which he wore through stints at the Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen camps, featured a red triangle. That symbolized that he was likely either a political prisoner or a gentile who assisted Jews, among other non-Jewish categories. Romanchenko was at one point vice president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee and worked “intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes,” the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Institute said. He attended multiple ceremonies that commemorated the liberation of Buchenwald, one of the Nazis’ largest death camps. His granddaughter told the Institute that he was at home when his building Borys Romanchenko at the former Buchenwald concentration camp. Credit: Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation was hit by Russian fire.
Life cycles BIRTH SIERRA ROSE LEWIS Dr. Travis Lewis and Dr. Emily Echevarria, of New York City, announce the Jan. 18, 2022, birth of their daughter, Sierra Rose. Grandparents are Lisa Lewis and the late Denny Lewis of Elkhorn, NE, Susan Feuerstein of Beacon, NY, and George Echevarria of Pleasantville, NY. Great grandparents are Irene “Missy” Feuerstein of New York City, the late Audrey and Morrie Shapiro, and the late Libby and Harry Lewis of Omaha.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Dear Editor, In the March 11, 2022, “Letters to the Editor” column, my friend Sen. John McCollister replied to my Feb. 2 article in the Jewish Press of Omaha regarding the Anti-Discrimination Against Israel Act. First, I appreciate the hours he and I have spent discussing this important issue regarding Nebraska’s trading partner and ally, Israel. (Nebraska annually does in excess of $50 million a year in business with Israel.) Within the proposed act, there is a specific provision that prevents anything within the LB 845 bill from infringing upon the free speech rights in America’s First Amendment. That is where we differ. All that said, I appreciate his recognition of the positive intent of the bill. For that reason, I would take him up on his proposal to sponsor and push through a legislative resolution which “would be tangible evidence of the Unicameral’s increasing support for Israel.” All my best, Gary Javitch
Photographer wanted at Camp Sabra
Camp Sabra is looking for a photographer for the 2022 summer sessions, which take place from June 12-July 7, and July 10-Aug. 4. Those interested can contact Michael Parsow at mparsow5@aol.com (this will be Michael’s 26th year at Camp Sabra, so he knows his way around) or visit the website at https://www.campsabra.com/staff/open-positions/. Camp Sabra is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Sabra will recruit, hire, train, and promote people in all job classifications without regard to race, color, marital status, religion (unless religion is a bona fide occupational qualification), national origin, age, disability or history of disability (except where physical or mental abilities are a bona fide occupational requirement and the individual is not able to perform the essential functions of the position even with reasonable accommodations), or sex (unless gender is a bona fide occupational qualification), status as a veteran or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state and local law.
Coming in April: Community and Special Events
Pinwheels for Prevention Jewish Family Service will join Prevent Child Abuse Nebraska’s Pinwheels for Prevention® campaign to promote healthy child development and positive parenting. The blue pinwheels on the JCC front lawn represent “innocence”, and are the national symbol for child abuse prevention. JCC Book Club Tuesdays: April 5, May 3, June 7 from 5–7 p.m. Cost is $45 | code:16-0405 The JCC Book Club combines older books with new ones, snacks, and great conversations. Love reading or maybe just need a nudge to get yourself back into it? We are the perfect club for you! The next session of the Book Club will start April 5. We will be reading The Boys in the Boat, a non-fiction novel by Daniel James Brown. For more updates on what’s on the calendar, please visit www.jewishomaha.org or www.om ahajewishpress.com.
THANK YOU To everyone in our community who reached out and showed support after the passing of my wife, Jeanne Shechet, and my son, Stanley Shechet, I want to say thank you. I am grateful for family and friends like you at this time of sorrow and appreciate having you in my life now, and always. Sincerely, Rabbi Maximo Shechet
The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022 | 11
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April Speaker at B’nai Israel synagogue Steve Kaniewski will be the guests speaker at B’nai Israel in Council Bluffs, Friday, April 8. His talk will discuss Valmont's working relationship with Israel, and he will talk about his career at Valmont leading up to his becoming the President and CEO. In his role, Steve is responsible for day-to-day operations for the company’s four operating segments. Valmont operates with 85 manufacturing facilities in 22 countries and Steve Kaniewski more than 10,000 employees and has been in the international markets for more than five decades. In addition to his work at Valmont, Steve currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Board Committee for the United Way of the Midlands and as Chairman Emeritus of the Board for the AIM Institute where he has served since 2011. The AIM Institute in Omaha is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building vibrant communities through technology. Steve also served on the Board of Advisors for the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s College of Information Science and Technology from 2010-2013. Steve is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is a graduate of Santa Clara University in California.
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12 | The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022
News LOC AL | N ATI O N A L | WO R L D
Israeli medical staff help Ukrainians cope
minary who inspired the Breslov Hasidic movement. CNAAN LIPHSHIZ Several hundred Jews, most of them Israeli, had moved JTA Israeli physicians and Jewish groups are assisting to Uman in recent years amid an annual pilgrimage of thousands of non-Jews across Ukraine deal with the efabout 30,000 Jews from all over the world to the fects of the Russian invasion into that country. gravesite. Near Lviv in Ukraine’s west, a field hospital set up this The center offers clothing and other assistance as week by the Israeli government with physicians and well free tea and coffee and shelter to internally-disnurses from the Schneider Children’s Medical Center placed persons, the Jewish News of Ukraine website near Tel Aviv has treated at least 160 patients, most of also reported. them children, since it opened on March 22, according In Bila Tservka, a small city near Kyiv, the small Jewto the Jewish News website on Ukrainian Jewry. ish community pooled their resources to buy and doThere are 66 beds and dozens of staff and volunteers nate diapers, wet wipes and hygiene products for working alongside the medical staff from the Schneider mothers and children, as well as blankets and deterCenter at Israel’s Kohav Meir hospital — a name that gent, according to the Jewish News of Ukraine. means “shining star” in Hebrew but is also a reference The Jewish community of Zaporizhzhia near Dnipro to Golda Meir, an former Israeli prime minister who A staffer of the Israeli field hospital Kohav Meir plays with children outside the struc- is also collecting products and medicines from its was born in Kyiv and is seen as an inspiration by many ture near Lviv, Ukraine, March 23, 2022. Credit: Schneider Children’s Medical Center members for the general population. consulted experts at the Schneider Center in Israel, using Ukrainians. Before the invasion, Ukraine, which has a population of Israel and the United States are among a handful of coun- telemedicine video equipment, to arrive at a diagnosis and about 40 million people, had about 43,000 people who selftries that have set up field hospitals in Ukraine. The Israeli one treatment. The inspection was interrupted by sirens that sent identified as Jews, according to a 2020 demographic study of is set up to treat about 150 patients daily, according to Israel the patients and medical staff running toward the nearest European Jewry, and up to 200,000 people who are eligible to shelter, the Israeli paper reported. Hayom. immigrate to Israel under its law of return for Jews and their In Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine with many Jews, the Jew- relatives. At least 4,000 of that group have immigrated to Israel Most of the patients have issues unrelated to the fighting ish Medical Center clinic, which was set up with the primary over the past month. but have lost access to medical treatment because of it. The hospital’s first patient was a 12-year-old girl with a heart goal of treating members of that community, has shifted its In other Ukraine-related news, Patrick Desbois, a Catholic problem who fled with her mother from Mariupol, a city dev- focus, dispatching its staff of about 10 medical professionals priest who coined the phrase “Holocaust by bullets” in his writing astated by Russian bombing. She arrived with a rapid pulse across centers for internally displaced persons in Ukraine, the about the murder of Jews in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern and chest pains and her condition was stabilized at the field Jewish community of Dnipro wrote on its website Thursday. Europe by Nazis and local collaborators, announced his intenhospital, which operates outside of a school and partly under The Russian invasion, which began on Feb. 24, has resulted in tion to document alleged Russian war crimes on Wednesday in a sturdy white tent opposite a church in a town near Lviv, thousands of casualties and a wave of refugees — about 3.5 a joint statement with the Babyn Yar center, which said it would million Ukrainians are estimated to have moved into the Eu- assist him. Yedioth Acharonoth reported Wednesday. Another, a 2-year-old girl named Alisa, came in with a ropean Union alone — and many more internally displaced. And on Friday March 25, Valentyna Veretska, a Ukrainian athIn Uman, a city in central Ukraine, local Jews set up an aid lete who fled with her daughter as Russia attacked her country, chronic skin condition that had worsened following weeks in which it was not treated. The physicians at the field hospital center near the grave of Rabbi Nachman, an 18th-century lu- won the women’s race in the Jerusalem marathon.
OMAHA COMMUNITY
Holocaust COMMEMORATION Includes a candle lighting ceremony with local Holocaust survivors FEATURED SPEAKER:
Dr. Gerald J. Steinacher James A. Rawley Professor of History University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who will speak on his recent exploration within the Vatican archives
OPEN TO ALL Photo Credit: Cynthia J. Kohll Photography
Wednesday, April 27th • 7:00 PM Alan J. Levine Theater at the JCC • 333 S. 132nd St. • Omaha, NE WE INVITE YOU TO ATTEND IN-PERSON OR VIA ZOOM Attending via Zoom?
Please scan QR Code with a smart phone to to register for the link or go online to https://tinyurl.com/y3avkmxs
For more info visit www.ihene.org Beth El Synagogue, Beth Israel Synagogue, Temple Israel, Murray H. & Sharee C. Newman Supporting Foundation, Gertrude T. & Albert B. Newman Endowment, Morton A. Richards Youth Program Fund (both of the Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation), Foundation IMPACT Grant, Jewish Federation of Omaha
