8 | The Jewish Press | April 1, 2022
Voices
The Jewish Press (Founded in 1920)
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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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.
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.
