April 3, 2020: Passover Edition by Jewish Press

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The Jewish Press (Founded in 1920)

Abby Kutler President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Staff Writer Michael Ivey Accounting Jewish Press Board Abby Kutler, President; Eric Dunning, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen, Candice Friedman, Bracha Goldsweig, Jill Idelman, Andy Isaacson, Natasha Kraft, Andrew Miller, Eric Shapiro, Shoshy Susman 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: wwwjewishomaha. 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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Happy Passover

Welcome to the 2020 Passover edition of the Jewish Press... tenacious and we are so grateful that you’re willing to read and the celebratory issue! Our theme is, of course, the Jewish through the pages during the weekend when you could be Press Centennial. That means we created a collection of sto- doing other things. Any and all typos that remain are entirely ries from the past 100 years, dug through the archives, talked the editor’s responsibility. to people who contributed to this paper, researched people To Alan Potash, Diane Walker and my colleagues in the we remember and interviewed loyal, life-long readers. But we building: thank you for supporting us and putting up with all also attempted to create an impression of what the early years of us. Especially when we scream about deadlines. were like in this community. The very first Jewish Press was issued December 16, 1920. What did Omaha (a city only 63 years old at the time) look like back then? Who was around, who were the people and events included in that first edition? What did synagogue life look like? Which Jewish businesses existed then and are still around today? How do you summarize 100 years of stories about this community? It’s those stories, after all, that are the backbone of any functioning newspaper. Allow me to explain. When we use the term “story,” we don’t always mean the front-page, 800-words-or-so article, accompanied by a nice color photo, or two. We also mean: the synagogue page. Putting them side-by-side, throughout the years, shares the story behind congregational life in the Jewish community. Life cycle events, whether they are wedding announcements, births or obituaries, tell us a story. Advertisements from the early part of the 20th century tell us life has become much more expensive and the intimate details included in early issues about community members’ daily lives’ tells us social media may offer a new and faster format, but we still want to know (almost) everything about each other. That story Credit: Yoninah via wikimedia commons (en.wikipedia.orh/wiki/GNU_ hasn’t changed; it’s just wearing a different coat. As I’m writing this, in late January of 2020, the Jewish Free_Documentation_License Federation of Omaha is preparing for Super Sunday. I can To all the freelancers that contributed to this issue: Richard show you pages from the Jewish Press in the 1980s that an- Fellman, Sybil Kaplan, Mike Kelly, Sam Kricsfeld, Ozzie Nogg, nounce the exact same event. The people in the pictures are Oliver Pollak, Ariella Rohr and Teddy Weinberger: thank you familiar, albeit a bit younger; their hair is styled a little different for all your hard work. We’d be in a right panic without all of and they are wearing somewhat dated clothing. When an you helping us fill these pages! Omaha native sends us an engagement picture, there is a 50 To all our donors throughout the past years: I don’t even percent chance one or more sets of parents or even grandpar- know where to start. There are so many of you that I could ents have their own announcement in our archives. Needless not possibly mention everyone, but this agency would not to say, quite a few of us spent countless hours looking through exist without you. We are beyond grateful. old editions- many of them can be found in the Jewish FederThe Jewish Press Board, under the inspired guidance of our ation Library, if you ever feel like perusing them. There is President Abby Kutler: you are a fantastic group of people. I something really awesome about touching the actual pages cannot overemphasize how rewarding it is to sit around the and imagining all the people who have read about this com- table with all of you. I think one of the most important qualimunity throughout the years. ties for a board member is kindness—and you all have that in It is our sincere hope that you enjoy this issue. It’s a chal- spades. Thank you. lenge to summarize 100 years and, as with every special theme Finally, to the community as a whole: It’s been ten years but maybe even more so this time, it’s hard to choose the final since I first sat down in the editor’s chair. If I’m honest, I was articles. There are undoubtedly many additional pieces we terrified. I knew just enough to know I knew nothing. If I’ve could have written; after all, 100 years of community life is a learned some things over this past decade, it’s only because massive resource. so many people have helped me, explained things to me, We want to thank everyone who has come before us: board warned me about potential problems, stood up for me when members, staff, every volunteer who has ever given their pre- things were tough, encouraged me and welcomed me. I feel cious time, as well as all the readers throughout the years. at home in Jewish Omaha in a way I never could have preThere is no newspaper that can exist without readers, so as dicted and much of that is due to certain people back in 2010 you’re holding this page, know you are the very reason this taking a chance on me (even though I was so nervous during paper has survived and thrived for a century. the interview I poured salad dressing into my coffee). As editor, I want to thank my staff: Richard Busse, Lori Thank you all. It’s a privilege to be part of something as magKooper-Schwarz, Susan Bernard and Gabby Cohen Blair. Your nificent as the Omaha Jewish Community. tireless enthusiasm makes the Press office not only a great place to work, but a home away from home. Chag Pesach kasher vesame’ach, Our proofreaders: Pam Friedlander, Andi Goldstein, Margaret Kirkeby, Sylvia Roffman, Ann Rosenblatt and Dottie ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Rosenblum (and sometimes Jeremy Wright when we’re run- Editor, Jewish Press ning short; thank you for jumping in when needed): you are

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | A3

The Jewish Omaha story

Marty Ricks introduced me to the term mishpacha, and said with a smile that it means he and I are sort of relatives. We are? Sure. Marty’s son, Marc Ricks, married Elisa Strauss. Her brother, Eric Strauss, is the husband of my daughter, Bridget Kelly. So, explained Marty, former executive director of the Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation, he and I are -- mishpacha! Ha. If mishpacha in any way describes a distant relationship that is nonetheless warm and big-hearted, I’m all in. In my 48-year career with The World-Herald, I came to admire, respect and gain great affection for Omaha’s Jewish community. Without going out of my way to do so, I ended up writing lots of articles about Jewish folks, not because of their faith but because of their vibrant impact on greater Omaha. As a member of the secular news media, I also found myself on the mailing list for the weekly Jewish Press. My lifelong faith happens to be Catholic, and I appreciated receiving a copy of the Press, which I would read, well, if not religiously, then certainly with more than a glancing interest. And now the JP turns 100. Wow, Mazel tov on the milestone, and all good wishes. For a century, the Press has documented Jewish Omaha in thousands of ways, stories read primarily by those in the Jewish community. For nearly half a century, I wrote about the entire community, but I realized early that Jewish people played a large role. I learned that Father Flanagan’s Boys Town got its start largely with the help of a Jew, attorney Henry Monsky, who loaned the Catholic priest money to pay monthly rent (Boys Town today considers Monsky a founding father). At Rosenblatt Stadium, I learned that namesake Johnny Rosenblatt, a good semipro ballplayer in his youth, was a beloved former mayor. I soon was assigned to cover City Hall, led by Mayor Edward Zorinsky, later a U.S. senator. I sold a story to the New York Times with an irresistible angle -- the mayor’s father suing city hall. Hymie Zorinsky, who owned a downtown business and property in an area being taken by eminent domain for the future Central Park (Leahy) Mall, was unhappy with the city’s monetary offer. On a Saint Patrick’s Day in the early ‘70s, I had my first visit with the kind Dr. Paul Shyken, who became my dentist for

Passover

four-and-a half-decades. His patients call him “Painless Paul,” but he is known at Beth Israel by his Hebrew name “Paysie.” Like many other non-Jews, I attended B’nai B’rith sports banquets, which attracted nationally known speakers. I got invited to bar and bat mitzvahs, to “Breadbreaker” luncheons at the Jewish Community Center, and even to a JewMIKE KELLY Special for ish sisterhood event. The Jewish Press I came to know the synagogues, and enjoyed telling Jewish friends that we Catholics, in effect, have our own unofficial versions of Reform, Conservative and Orthodox -- just not in separate houses of worship. (Also, that my wife Barb’s maiden name was Ell, and that I have a Catholic sister-in-law named Beth Ell.) For 12 years, our family lived north of Memorial Park in an area whose historical nickname, I learned, was “Bagel.” It sat amid a triangle of synagogues, all of which later moved westward in Omaha. One of them, Temple Israel, became a leader in the Tri-Faith Initiative. On a 35-acre corner of a former Jewish country club golf course, Highland, it built Omaha’s unique Tri-Faith Commons, featuring a synagogue, a mosque and a church -- and soon, a fourth, interfaith structure. In 2014, attorney Steve Riekes spearheaded the first Omaha Jewish Reunion, celebrating the community’s accomplishments and relationships. The weekend drew many from out of town and featured tours, panel discussions and more. The first Jews arrived in Omaha soon after the city’s 1854 founding, and now number perhaps 6,000 -- a small percentage in a metro of more than 900,000. And yet that small portion has left an outsized imprint. As I wrote leading up to the reunion: “Jewish attorneys, physicians, store owners, politicians, business leaders, educators, journalists, musicians, philanthropists and others have made impacts far beyond the walls of their synagogues.” Imagine Omaha without the Simon and Blumkin families, who built, respectively, Omaha Steaks and the Nebraska Furniture Mart. Everyone remembers “Mrs. B.,” Rose Blumkin, who founded the Mart in 1937 and worked nearly until her death at 104. As then-executive vice president and grandson Bob Batt later quipped: “104 is our mandatory retirement age.” Less well known, but one of my favorite column subjects,

was Jack Diamond, who retired in 2012 at age 90 -- after 58 years at the Furniture Mart. Jack was not an executive but rather “the chairman.” You could call him that, at least, because he sold sofas, recliners and chairs. Most of his customers didn’t know he was a Holocaust survivor.

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In Poland in 1942, his mother, his sister, his rabbi and others were murdered. “Jack” was away, but later helped others escape. He and wife Mindl married in 1946, lived in a Displaced Persons Camp and came to Omaha in 1949. A three-paragraph story in The World-Herald reported their arrival. His name then was Zelik Dimenstein, later Americanized to Jack Diamond. On the day of his retirement, just before he and his wife moved to New York State to be near their two daughters, I See The Jewish Omaha story page A4

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Loyal readers: Sally and Maynard Telpner The Jewish Omaha story Continued from page A3 asked Jack/Zelik how he had survived. “I was young,” he said. “I was running, I was hiding. Lots of ways. You eat what you find. Grass is not only for cattle.” The stories of Holocaust survivors, especially those from concentration camps, remain compelling and must continue to be told, even after they are gone. My wife and I visited Dachau in 2005 and saw the cynical “Arbeit Macht Frei” wording at the front gate -- as if work in the camps actually made anyone free. Among Omaha’s many survivors was Sam Fried, who didn’t hide the prison ID A-5053 tattooed on his left arm at Auschwitz. He operated Master Electronics, spoke to thousands of students and raised money to start programs on genocide and other atrocities. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of concentration camps. At the 50th anniversary, I arranged a first-time meeting between survivor Carl Rosenberg, an Omaha tailor, and World War II GI George Miller, a retired forklift operator. On April 28, 1945, Nazis forced Carl and others to march out of Dachau. On April 29, Pvt. Miller drove a Jeep with his commanding officer into Dachau. At the tailor-shop meeting, the men exchanged sad memories, and Miller sympathetically placed a hand on the tailor’s shoulder. Through tears, Carl

Henry Monsky said, “God bless you.” I’m honored to have written occasional stories from Jewish Omaha in nearly a half-century, knowing they are the tiniest fraction of what the Jewish Press has reported throughout a century. But some are hard to forget. In 2010, Debbie Denenberg phoned me excitedly and said there was a wedding I needed to attend. I told her I couldn’t change my plans on two hours’ notice, but she insisted -- so I went, and I’m glad I did. A chuppa had been set up along 10th Street outside the Omaha Hilton down-

town, and the oldest of Rabbi Mendel and Shani Katzman’s 12 children, Estie, was married in a ceremony that included the sounding of the shofar. “As a ram’s horn blew,” I wrote, “drivers, who must have wondered what was going on, honked back.” It was a special, public moment in Omaha. I soon got to know the Katzmans, who co-direct the Chabad House. Since 1986, they have served all of Jewish Omaha and those outside the faith, including in prison ministry. I’ve enjoyed one of Shani’s annual pre-Rosh Hashana “Challah Bakes.” A festive occasion at the Rose Blumkin Home in 2001 drew a crowd for the 90th birthday of Helen Brodkey. Attending were her sisters, who had grown up with her in Sioux City, Iowa, twins Eppie and Popo Friedman -- better known as advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. “Helen tried to make ladies out of Eppie and me,” Dear Abby told me. “She failed miserably.” Quipped Ann: “My twin and I were always getting into mischief. Helen was always sort of bailing us out.” Everyone in Omaha, it seemed, once knew of dapper dentist Sol Kutler, who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2017 at his Suburban Rotary. Friends sang the 397-2323 phone number from his catchy See The Jewish Omaha story page A5

LOCAL ADVANTAGE.

Sally and Maynard Telpner in Bozeman, Montana.

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press From time to time, we receive emails from readers who no longer live in Omaha. We always enjoy hearing from “expats,” whether it’s because they write a letter to the editor, to tell us they didn’t get their Press that week (always a cause for concern) or because they have a question. Personally, I’ve exchanged emails with certain people for years—without having ever met them. One example: Sally and Maynard Telpner, respectively 87 and 91 years old, who I always love hearing from and who have been some of our most loyal readers. These days they live in Montana, but they stay in touch with our community and read the Press every week. “Sally lived in Omaha until she married me in 1951,” Maynard said. “Then we lived in Council Bluffs, until I retired from the practice of law in 2002. Although like Sally, I was born in Omaha, I never lived there. Except for my time in the army, I lived in Council Bluffs until I retired in 2002.” The only See Loyal readers page A6

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Central High

As the Jewish Press of Omaha celebrates its 100th anniversary, it adds to the memories to also celebrate some of the institutions that have contributed to the greater Omaha Jewish community. As everyone who knows anything about Omaha and its Jews agrees: Central High School stands at the forefront of that consideration. For years, Central High was the RICHARD FELLMAN school attended by the vast majority of young Jewish Omahans. Obviously, no specific records are available to document the exact number of Jewish students at any one time who attended Central, nor is there a single document which records the success of those students. But there are some records, and there are countless memories and stories, and taken together they tell a story of the intertwining of the lives of Jewish youth during their high school years and the record of Central High School of Omaha. Today Central High has more than 70,000 alumni, half of whom are still living and half are now deceased. Central remains one of the few high schools in the United States that stands in the middle of the downtown of its host’s city. Nearly all other “downtown” high schools have long been destroyed or moved to the suburbs. Central High has a Foundation which has more than $5.5 million in assets, a full time director with a paid staff, and ongoing activities supporting the school and assisting its students with grants and scholarships. All of this together would make a small college proud. During its long history, Central High had a series of principals who each served for just a few years, but there have been three dominate principals who each had long tenure. They were J. G. Masters, serving from 1915 to 1939; J. Arthur Nelson, serving from 1944 to 1968; and G. E. “Doc” Moller who served from 1968 to 1995. Currently serving as principal is Dr. Ed Bennett. The reputation of Central High School has been recognized nationally, making it one of the few institutions in Omaha with those bragging rights. In 1957 Newsweek magazine, then one of the major national publications, named Omaha Central High School among the top 38 high schools in the United States, and in 1964 the University of Chicago placed Omaha Central as “one of the top 12 high schools in America.” For a school whose origins date back to Nebraska Territorial years, Central stands today as a survivor. Nebraska became a State in 1867 and the Legislature moved the Capitol from Omaha to Lincoln. The State then turned the Capitol building in Omaha over to the city with the stipulation that it be used for education. The old building became a school. Within ten years it was determined that the original building was unsafe

and a new structure was built on Central’s present site. In 1900 plans began for construction of the new building, a year later the School Board ruled that the new building would be open to students from all parts of Douglas County, and the new building was built. It was constructed one side at a time, first the east, then the south, and then the west. With three sides built and in use, the old building in the middle was demolished and the north side was completed. Thus the “court” was erected, and it remained open for about 75 years but was eventually closed and is now used as a lunch room. The days when there was mud, and snow, and rain, and even birds flying in around when students crossed the court from one side to the other have finally vanished. From that time, and it was then that it began being called Omaha Central High School, the student body grew, the faculty improved, and what we today know as Central High began in earnest.

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Top: Central High School, bottom left: J. G. Masters principal from 1915-1939 and right: 1928 Le Cercle Français French Club. All photos are from the 1920s. Credit: Central High School Alumni Association Historical Committee

The school’s faculty, from its earliest days, achieved distinction. Sara Vore Taylor began teaching English in 1910 and remained until 1940. In 1915 she completed the first draft of the Style Book, and in 1921 had it copywrited. Still in use, it remains a guide to grammar. Every graduate of Central recognizes: “ P1(1), a comma before and, but, or, for, and nor” And “Neither could either weird sheik seize the day...” etc. And those are just the beginning. Central’s building has had additions, but not too many. The first came with major Federal funds during the years of the Depression, the 1930s, adding the “new auditorium” and gym. See Central High page A7

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The Jewish Omaha story

Continued from page A4 TV-radio commercial jingle: “Dr. Sol Kutler’s dental health clinic, 397-toothy-toothy.” I enjoyed being neighbors downtown with Don and Ozzie Nogg, and wrote about Don’s amazing knowledge of geography. Name any big city in the world, and he’d tell you its suburbs. Businessman Phil Sokolof spent millions in his national anti-cholesterol campaign, including a Super Bowl commercial. Before he died, Phil and estranged son Steve, who had rejected materialism, taken the name Siddha Vidya and become a Hare Krishna, somewhat eased their rift. At Phil’s 2004 funeral at Temple Israel, the congregation sat in tense anticipation, wondering if Steve -- Siddha -- would wear his Krishna robe. And what would he say? He wore one of his father’s suits and disarmed everyone with warmth and humor. “I’m Steve, Phil’s son,” he said softly. “Not exactly a chip off the old block.” Attendees laughed warmly, and the son spoke gently of a dad whose career and life were so different from his own.

In recent weeks, I made two visits to the library at the JCC to look through old bound volumes of the Jewish Press. Renee Corcoran of the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society, whom I first met in the 1970s when she was an assistant to Mayor Zorinsky, also printed out a copy of the first edition in 1920. So much history. With much more to come. Four years ago, I was honored to speak at the retirement dinner for Rabbi Aryeh Azriel of Temple Israel. Bob Freeman, a former Temple president as well as chair of the Tri-Faith Initiative, concluded his remarks by saying, “Rabbi makes Jews feel more Jewish.” I couldn’t resist opening my talk by ad-libbing: “I’m Catholic, and Rabbi makes ME feel more Jewish!” Jewish Press editor Annette van de Kamp-Wright asked to print my entire tribute to Rabbi Azriel, and of course I again was honored. A framed copy now hangs in my den, another treasured memory of my relationship with Omaha’s Jewish community. No, we are not related, But I hope we are mishpacha.

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Women with a Cause: Omaha Hadassah

tional Fund amongst others. GABBY BLAIR In the files, I also came across a small tatStaff Writer, Jewish Press While perusing the archives of the NJHS tered copy of the Hadassah Kosher Cook Book looking for interesting stories for our centen- full of recipes, including some Special nial issue’s “Roaring Twenties” throwback Passover selections that we, at The Press, have chosen to try out, theme, I stumbled almost 100 years across some fabuafter they were lous black and printed. Be sure to white pictures from look for some of the 1920s that these recipes elsecaught my attenwhere in this issue! tion. Women of the Tucked into this time, exuding cacookbook was a maraderie and June 2003 letter to glamour in a fun the editor from The mish-mash of cosForward entitled, tumes smiling and Hadassah’s First making faces. Cook Book, CornWomen prepared for travel husks ‘n All, written in neatly buttoned jackets by Dr. Oliver Pollak, and riding gloves. Women Professor Emeritus having fun and looking of History at the Unirelaxed at Peony Park. versity of Omaha, Upon further relawyer, and co-founder search, I found that of the Nebraska Jewish these were the women Historical Society. who helped establish Pollak wrote, “A May the now defunct 30 article in The Forward Omaha Chapter of incorrectly identiHadassah. The phofies the Hadassah in tos found in the Dorchester, Mass., NJHS archives as having been, in detail numerous 1931, the first chaptrips to Kansas ter in the United City and Des States and Canada Moines for reto publish a cookgional meetings book (Happy Holiin addition to days from holiday parties Hadassah). That disand social outtinction rightly beings. It is apparlongs to the 25 ent that through women of Omaha, this organization, Neb., who worked in Omaha’s Jewish Top: Hadassah Charter Bus, middle: Purim Jr. 1927 on the Hadassah women found Hadassah 1920 and bottom: Jr. Hadassah 1927. Kosher Cook Book that friendship and purpose beyond the confines of regular routine. appeared in 1928. The charitable cookbook Within this bountiful archive file, I learned raised funds for Hadassah’s worthy causes. that Omaha Hadassah was first established Advertisers included the National Laundry on May 13, 1919, when twenty-nine women Co.; Peoples Coal Co.; Butter-nut Coffee; came together in Omaha’s Jewish Federation Baker Ice Machine Co.; Omar Baking ComWelfare office to focus on what they could do pany; the local Reo Flying Cloud; Red Wolverto support Zionism and their Jewish brothers ine and Reo Speed Wagon car dealership; and sisters in the Holy Land. Within 6 Ernest Buffet Buy-Rite Grocer (a relative of months, the Hadassah women held their first Warren Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway), major event- a linen shower- in which they and Pittsburg Plate Glass Co. These were typsent large quantities of materials to Palestine. ical of the businesses catering to the houseBy 1924, Omaha Hadassah had grown to over wife. The women sold the cookbook for one 200 active members, and included women dollar. Ninety-three-year-old Saul Graetz has who lived in smaller communities throughout been married to Esther since 1934. He thinks Nebraska and western Iowa. Over the years, the cheese torte recipe comes from his grandOmaha’s chapters of Hadassah and Junior mother. Other recipes in this 87-page book inHadassah were strong in numbers and action, clude, in their 1928 spelling, Lukshen helping support numerous programs and fa- Taigachtz, Mandelbrait, Shaltanosis, Gefulte cilities in Israel such as Hadassah Hospital, Fish, Kreplach, Flomen Tsimas, Varenikes Young Judea, Youth Aliyah and the Jewish Na- See Omaha Hadassah page A7

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married a rancher.” Continued from page A4 They read the Jewish Press reason Maynard took his first “because we like it, we like to breath in Omaha is because his stay in touch with Jewish life in mother used an Omaha doctor. Omaha, Council Bluffs and In 2002, Sally and Maynard Lincoln and we like the special moved to Ashland, Oregon, issues at holiday times” Maywhere middle daughter Sari nard said. “We like stories lived. about the Jewish Community “Our other daughters, Heidi Center, about the synagogues, and Marci, lived in California at that time. We lived in Ashabout Jewish people we know land for 16 years. In June of (although not many are left) 2018 we moved to a retirement and about businesses we used apartment in Bozeman, Monto frequent, like the Dundee tana, where our oldest daughDell. We miss the Old Market. ter, Heidi, lived with her We miss watching the changes husband after they both re- Maynard at Ashland Chamber in Omaha and its growth, as tired. They moved there be- of Commerce well as the changes and cause their oldest daughter (our grandchild) growth in Council Bluffs.”

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | A7

Central High the number of Jewish students kept growing. This pattern Continued from page A5 A second came within the last few years, adding the football continued until the 1980s and 1990s when the Jewish popufield and a new lunchroom. And the most recent was a major lation of Omaha began moving farther and farther west, with addition, actually a new building, on the east side of the old children starting to attend schools in District Six, west of building. 72nd Street; then Burke High on 120th The question for us today as we Street; then on to the Millard area; and celebrate the 100th Anniversary of today as far west as Elkhorn. the Jewish Press in Omaha is for us During these same years the center of to look at the connection of CenOmaha Jewry which began in and tral High to Omaha’s Jewish comaround North 24th street, moved was to munity, to ask a few questions, Dundee, then farther west to “Bagel” and and to attempt a few answers. homes northwest of UNO, and then to all Jews were among Omaha’s earof the neighborhoods in the western liest settlers in the early years of areas of Omaha. the 19th century, but the first sigBut there remains far more of the Cennificant group of Jewish immitral High story with Omaha’s Jews. The grants came from Central story moves across the street to the JewEurope, from Germany, Austria, ish Community Center and the Czech Republic. They aron the northrived a few years before our Civil east corner of War and the years after. Their 20th and Dodge, children reached high school age directly across around the turn of the the street from century, and the Central High. records of Central High As the Jewish enshow enrollments of rollment increased students who have at Central, ultinames known to be part mately reaching of the early Jewish Comnearly 25 percent of munity of Omaha startthe student body, and ing in the early 1900s. the after school activThe big wave of Jewity with clubs and athish immigrants to letics and friendships Omaha arrived between grew more and more, Top: 1940 Central High School auditorium, bottom left: cheer1880 and 1921, and, Jewish students left leaders and right: Teacher Sara Vore Taylor and the Style Book once again, one today finds in Giving Society. All photos are from the 1920s. Credit: Central Central when their afternoon the official Central High High School Alumni Association Historical Committee” classes were completed, School 2003 Alumni Directory crossed 20th street to “the known Jewish family names of students starting in the early Center” and met their friends. There was really no separation 1900s, with each class having more and more obviously Jew- between the Jewish students at Central during the day and ish students year by year through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. the Jewish youth at the Center at the end of the school day. Then the numbers remained strong through the 1960s when See Central High page A8

Omaha Hadassah Continued from page A6 with Buckwheat Gritz, and Borsht. Most Hadassah cookbooks are kosher. Despite the small size of Nebraska’s Jewish population, it has produced over 25 Jewish charitable cookbooks, and has several Forward readers.” Leafing through the small book, I found it noteworthy that the first page of the cookbook begins as follows: “Hadassah means health in Palestine, to Jew, Christian and Arab. All funds collected by Hadassah chapters of which there are 262 located in every state in the Union, go directly to Palestine, without any deductions. With the funds, Hadassah maintains: Four hospitals and dispensaries; a system of visiting nurses for rural districts; fourteen infant wellness stations; maternity and infant care; preschools and school nurses; penny school luncheons; Meier Shefeye- care of 130 orphans supported by Junior Hadassah; Roentgen Institute furnishing X-rays in cooperation with American Jewish Physicians Committee; Nurse training school.” Additionally, Hadassah maintained something called the ‘Palestinian Supplies Department’, which furnished clothing and linens to Jewish orphans, Kuppat Holim sick rooms and convalescent homes throughout the country. The organization also supported working men’s settlements, The Jerusalem Institute for the Blind, the Jerusalem Insane Asylum, and other hospitals not maintained by Hadassah. Omaha’s Hadassah chapter remained active for 95 years. Esther Wax, Z”L, lamented the dissolution of the organization in a 2014 Jewish Press article. “Omaha Hadassah has been a very successful and prominent organization in the community for years... Due to changing lifestyles the chapter is being reluctantly dissolved.” While Omaha’s chapter is no longer, the hard work and vision of our community’s women helped to create a lasting legacy that lives on today.

Wishing the Omaha community

Happy Passover from

A8 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Jewish Press memories Central High Nobel Prize to its graduates: Continued from page A7 That symbiotic relationship with all the ...Lawrence Klein, Central ‘38, received the quality it created ended with the move of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1980. JCC to west Omaha ...Alan Heeger, and the slow but Central ‘53, resteady decrease in ceived the Nobel Jewish enrollment Prize in Chemistry at Central to the in 2000. point that as the ...Henry Pollack, Press celebrates its Central ‘54, re100th year the Jewceived the Nobel ish enrollment at Prize in Climate Central is today Change in 2007. less that a couple of The numbers of dozen students. men and women In its days of with success in dominance, when Credit: Central High School Alumni Association His- every field of the an estimated 95 per torical Committee” arts, sciences, and cent of Omaha Jewish youth attended Central commerce are far too many to list. Their conHigh School, graduates went from Central to tributions to the Jewish community, and to colleges all over the nation, including those the Nation, would fill its own book. But bewith the best reputations as well as the fine hind all of these success stories lies the excellocal universities. Central graduated young lent education each student of Omaha Central Jewish men and women who had high suc- High School, whether Jewish or not, received, cess while at Central as scholars, champions and the continuing existence of Central High in debate, decathlon, and chess, and even a stands as a monument to the community and few in athletics, where Central had winning to this high school which they attended. teams in every major sport (as well as some (ps... full disclosure. I graduated from Centotal failures). In 2008 Sports Illustrated wrote tral, as did my wife, one of our children and that Omaha Central had “one of the top ten one of our grandchildren with another grandhigh school athletic programs in the United child now enrolled there, my two sisters and States.” Jewish students participated in all of a brother, my mother, my wife’s three broththese events. ers, my mother’s two brothers and a sister, The peak of the success of Jewish students and more cousins and other relatives than I at Central came with three awards of the can name.)

I wasn’t connected to the Jewish community during my teenage years. My Hebrew school education ended shortly after my Bat Mitzvah, and the youth groups held no interest for me. Then in 1981, as a JILL KUSHNER college student study- BELMONT ing journalism, I took on several writing assignments for the Jewish Press’s Passover issue, and something inside me changed. I began to feel a surprisingly deep bond with our community; I felt that I found the place where I truly belonged. After interviewing Syd Osten, Johanna Bromberg, Lamberto Victtorica, Miriam ben Yaacov, Bea Karp, and my beloved grandmother, Dorothy Kushner, for that issue, I realized just how much I enjoyed crafting articles and sharing people’s stories. I spent the summer of ‘82 as a Jewish Press intern, working once again for editor Morris Maline. There was work to be done, luminaries to cover. Author Belva Plain came to town to speak, as did Hadassah’s national vice president, Ruth Popkin. The Livingston Plaza Apartments were dedicated. My boss even allowed me to write a counterpoint to his editorial, in which he voiced opposition to holding a weekly happy hour for Jewish college students at Rueben’s restaurant because it served alcohol. I was a college student, so of course, I was all for it. My connection with the Jewish community continued to grow, and, sappy as it sounds, every morning when I walked in to the JCC for work, I felt as if I were coming home. Now, here we are, in 2020, celebrating the Press’s 100th anniversary. With this mile-

stone, I’ve been reflecting on 39 years of writing articles for our Jewish community and how much it has meant to me. I’ve squirreled away several hundred yellowed articles that fill a bin in my storage room -- feature articles and publicity pieces for every agency under the Jewish Federation umbrella, as well as for the National Council of Jewish Women and Beth El Synagogue. Some of the community’s milestones I chronicled: Omaha’s first interfaith Holocaust remembrance service in 1985; longtime JCC athletic director Chuck Arnold’s retirement in 1991, and the dedication of Beth El Synagogue’s new building that same year; the opening of the Rabbi Myer S. and Dorothy Kripke Jewish Federation Library in 2000; the devastating Bagel Bin fire in 2010. There are many, many more events and personalities, but not enough space to mention them all. I’ve been asked about which articles are the most meaningful to me. That’s a hard one to answer, but one of the first that comes to mind is the 1998 Temple Israel-sponsored panel discussion that addressed gay and lesbian issues in the Jewish community. Several gay adult children and their parents were among those weighing in, some speaking publicly for the first time. The discussion was emotional and thought-provoking. In 2020, this topic may not seem like a big deal, but 22 years ago, it was a groundbreaking event that I was proud to cover. The 1989 Passover edition of the Jewish Press served as the kick-off of a series near and dear to my heart. Themed “The B’nai Mitzvah Class of 2001,” the children born in 1988 were spotlighted because they would celebrate their simchas in that (then) fantastical, futuristic year of 2001. The series updated their lives every few years, and ended See Jewish Press memories page A10

Happy Passover

MATT

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | A9

The Jewish Press in the classroom DR. LEONARD GREENSPOON Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, Creighton University In spring 1995, I came to Omaha to be interviewed for the position of Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University. The first holder of the Chair, established in 1988, was Israeli scholar Menahem Mor. Mor decided to return to full time teaching at the University of Haifa, which created this vacancy and what was for me a wonderful opportunity. I was interviewed by members of Omaha’s Jewish community, Creighton faculty in the humanities, and University administrators. I don’t recall whether it was “love at first sight,” but the attraction was mutual—and it continues today almost twenty-five years later. The Chair is best known for its co-sponsorship of a Symposium on Jewish Civilization, which takes places each fall at the end of October. Joining together with the Kripke Center, the Harris Center, and the Schwalb Center, we have enjoyed—and continued to enjoy—over thirty years of learning, teaching, and fulfilling what I would call the highest expectations of responsibly educating the general public. The Symposium itself lasts two days each year. Not surprisingly the planning—determining a new topic every year; soliciting presenters; arranging for travel, hotel accommodations, and food; providing logistical support; publicity and advertising; and editing a volume from each Symposium— is yearlong. The Jewish Press plays an integral part in our success. People read, and generally respond positively, to the stories I write. We include professional and personal data about our presenters. The Press generously also allows us to provide pictures of all of the participants, thereby enhancing the sense that our presenters, coming from far and wide, are actual people. Along with the stories, the Press features advertising and a full Symposium schedule. All of this is public and extraordinarily valuable in furthering one of the goals of the Klutznick Chair. But there is more. As holder of the Chair, I am also a professor, teaching classes in classics, theology, and honors. Not surprisingly, I regularly offer a course in Jewish Studies. When I first arrived on campus, Myer Kripke, emeritus rabbi at Beth El, was offering this course. His background and experience offered a unique teaching perspective, and I welcomed Rabbi Kripke as a colleague. He always arrived for his class at least an hour early, which gave me an unparalleled chance to get to know him better. After a few years, Rabbi Kripke stepped down from teaching. From that point on I have had pedagogical responsibility for this and related courses. Over the years the title of the course and its format have changed. But in essence the purpose has remained the same: to introduce undergraduate students to the religion, culture, and history of Jews and Judaism. Much of the course is arranged chronologically, beginning with biblical Israel and going through current events. But we also pay considerable attention to two cycles essential to an authentic experience of Judaism, namely, the life cycle and the regular occurrence of holidays, celebrations, and commemorations. For this, I ensure that students have access to one or more Hebrew/Jewish calendars. A selection of books I have used over the years will give a pretty good idea of some of the areas, topics, and approaches we cover. These include Bradley Artson, The Bedside Torah; Louis Jacobs, The Book of Jewish Practice; Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews; Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics; Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews; and Michael Strassfeld, The Jewish Holidays. Each one of these books, and any number of others I could choose, is useful on its own terms. But by their very nature they are secondhand accounts of actions and activities

of the past, from biblical times to the early 2000s. To encourage my students to develop a sense of what it is to live as part of a Jewish community, I include the following notice on every syllabus for a Jewish Studies course I teach: “Provided to students at no cost. Copies of The Jewish Press, weekly newspaper for the Omaha-area Jewish community.” I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only professor who makes use of The Jewish Press as a pedagogical tool. Or at least there can’t be very many others. I acknowledge with gratitude the generosity of the Press staff in making gratis copies available to my students. In what follows I want to share with readers some of the experiences I have had in the classroom over the years. The first few times I taught the class with the Press, I handed the students one or two recent issues and asked them to look it over, detecting what was of interest to them. Experienced teachers will quickly recognize that this was not a sufficiently focused assignment. Although a typical issue of the Press, at about two dozen pages in length, is relatively short, it can be overwhelming for those unfamiliar with its overall structure and contents. So I came to the awareness, perhaps a bit belatedly, that I should walk (or read) through an issue or two with the class before asking them to analyze it on their own. Seasoned readers of the Press come to expect certain features in roughly the same place in each issue. Among these are Synagogue notices; obituaries; birth, bar/bat mitzvah, and wedding announcements; letters to the editor; and editorial and opinion pieces. Most of what appears elsewhere consists of news and feature stories at the local, national, and/or international level. As we go through one or two issues, I also make sure that students are able to distinguish between types or genres of material, for example differentiating a news story from an opinion piece. With the dearth (if not death) of printed news sources, both the overall structure of a paper and differences in types of material become increasingly less easy to discern. Beyond that, I make sure that students pay attention to what might appear to be fairly mundane wording such as the masthead. The Jewish star, the word “Jewish” in the newspaper’s title, its sponsorship by a Jewish family endowment fund, and its status as an agency of jewishomaha.org—these items are identical at the top of the front page of each issue. But in class we stop long enough to make at least some preliminary observations about what this means. And then there is the date according to the Jewish as well as the secular calendar, along with candle lighting time for the nearest Shabbat. Working in tandem with a Jewish calendar, students begin to appreciate the rhythm of time that is integral to how our Jewish community is structured and functions. For this year, I also called special attention to the fact that the Press is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary—quite an achievement! In addition to news, features, editorials, etc., there is another feature in the Press, one that might seem basically incidental to its use in the classroom. I am speaking of advertisements. Although the business staff at the Press does everything it can to draw attention to these ads, nonetheless they could well be overlooked within a pedagogical context. As I strive to demonstrate to my students, this would be a major mistake. Roughly speaking, we can divide these notices into two categories: those announcing community events and ads by an assortment of for-profit businesses. Both of these merit notice from my students. For the purposes of this article, let us consider ads by businesses. Among the relevant questions we explore are these: Who advertises? What services or products See The Jewish Press in the classroom page A10

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The Jewish Press in the classroom

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Continued rom page A9 are their advertising? What demographic or age group comprises the target audience for these ads? Are there some sorts of advertising that seem characteristic of, in not unique to a Jewish newspaper? Does it look as if there are some categories of business or types of products that aren’t advertised? And so it goes. My students, as bright as they are, are not attuned to looking at ads in this way. And frankly that’s not surprising. But it can be revealing. You or I, as members of the Jewish community, will often recognize a name as “Jewish,” even if we don’t personally know the particular person or family. In my experience, the typical Creighton student has little, if any sense that a given name— for example, Cohen, Greenburg, Schwartz, and others—have traditionally been associated with Jews. Again, I don’t blame my students for this “lapse” in their knowledge. At the same time, our recognition of this phenomenon helps both to understand the Press and more broadly speak about Jewish communal history. Once we’ve gotten through the overall structure of the Press and the variety of material it publishes, we are in a position to look more closely at what it says. As every regular reader of the Press is aware, the Omaha Jewish Community, like most others, plays host to literally dozens of organizations, programs, and projects that aim to further the religious, cultural, and social life of its members. There are those that meet daily or weekly or monthly or semiannually or annually or on some other less formal timetable. There are religious services, fund raisers, social events, educational activities, sports programs. Some are for the community at large, others geared toward particular segments of the community. In my opinion it is this material, and the illustrations that often accompany these articles, that constitutes the “heart” of the Jewish community and of The Jewish Press. With the possible exception of the Federation CEO, the Press editor, and a few others, I doubt there’s anyone knowledgeable in the full array of these activities. But, to extend the metaphor I just introduced, they are the heartbeat of the community and their functioning is its life’s blood. I don’t expect or require my students to commit to memory the name of every communal organization. For sure I don’t know them all!! But as we look through our first issues, students do become familiar with the institutional structure of our community. Frankly, I think we are impressive in this regard (as well as in others), and I share my sense of pride in the community with students. If we think of each individual issue as a snapshot of the community at a particular point in time, we also come to realize that successive issues often present events from their initial announcement through the activity itself. Through this process, students experience in essentially real time what goes into, for example, maintaining a synagogue, organizing a fund raising campaign, or in my case structuring an annual academic Symposium. Although in this discussion I have empha-

sized, appropriately so I think, the local Omaha Jewish community, there are of course regional, national, and international developments that attract our attention as well. Where it’s useful, I will ask students to do at least a bit of research (what we call googling?) to place individual groups or projects within their larger contexts. I would characterize the efforts I have described thus far as formidable, challenging— and ultimately rewarding. But there is still one other factor I have yet to mention, and it turns out to be very significant for the educational use of the Press. In this regard, I would call our Press an “insider’s” newspaper. What do I mean? I mean that it is assumed, for the most part correctly, that its readers are familiar with the basic terminology, if you will, of Jewish life. For this reason, any number of terms are presented as is, that is, without definition or further explanation because readers know what they are. Well, at least most readers do. But not my students. Again, this is not a criticism, but an observation. Let me take some of the headlines from an issue of the Press from last fall to illustrate my point. So, for example, there’s As a Jew with autism, the mikvah is my glimmer of hope. Or, Don’t work on Hanukkah. Work on Yom Kippur. What about What we can still learn from the Lubavitcher Rebbe about climate change? Or maybe, Sukkot and the end of days? Or a frontpage story, titled Omaha Community Beit Midrash kick-off and schedule? And of course there are literally dozens of others within the stories and notices themselves. Above I spoke of this as essentially “insider’s” language. Or we might speak of it as a form of shorthand. Perfectly appropriate, we might say essential, for the target audience of the Press. Since my students are not the target audience, I call these instances to their attention, allowing for the fact that they regularly contain words or phrases with which my students are not familiar, and encouraging them to see this as yet one more opportunity for learning that the Press affords. What I’ve just been talking about is the experience of “foreignness” in our own language and my efforts to help to make such wording native, if you will, for my students. This reminds me of a somewhat similar situation in my own life. In 1992-1993, I was teaching at Oxford University. Like the “proper English gentleman” I was, I read the paper daily. I wasn’t much deterred by distinctively British spellings or lingo (like boot and bonnet, and the ubiquitous brilliant), but I was absolutely bewildered by the sports pages. Every word was more or less recognizably English, but I had no better idea in April 1993 than I did in August 1992 what a “sticky wicket” was and how someone might unstick it. Based on anecdotal experience, I came to recognize that sports writing, especially good sports writing, was jargon-filled, a perfect example of insider writing. In some sense, this parallels the outsider’s earliest encounters with the Press. Over the years, I would like to think that I have enhanced the value of The Jewish Press as a teaching and learning tool See The Jewish Press in the classroom page A12

Jewish Press memories Continued from page A8 with the 2006 Passover issue, themed, “The B’nai Mitzvah Class of 2001 Graduates High School.” As the parent of one of those children, it didn’t take much arm-twisting to get me to write about my hopes and dreams for my 21st century Bat Mitzvah baby. I’ve been honored to help write the history of our marvelous Jewish community. We should never take our newspaper for granted, especially when realizing it is one of country’s last Jewish weeklies still standing. Whether you agree or disagree with an issue’s content or political bent, be honest -- your head would explode if the Press didn’t show

up in your mailbox every Thursday afternoon. This newspaper is us. It shares our stories, chronicles our history, tells us who we were, who we are, and what we aspire to be. It celebrates with us and mourns with us. It connects us not only with each other in the local Jewish community, but also with Jews around the world. Cheers to another hundred years, and thanks for the memories. In addition to writing for the Jewish Press, Jill served on the Press board from 1987-1991, and from 1997-2003. She also served as interim editor in 2010.

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | A11

Meetings with the Rabbi ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press The greatest benefit of working on the Jewish Press staff is the people we meet. For several years after I started, I had the privilege of visiting Rabbi Myer Kripke every week. I would go to his room Friday morning and more often than not, the television would be tuned to one of two things: an episode of Bonanza, or a baseball game. Rabbi Kripke despised teatime, loved chocolate, was an enthusiastic poker player and whenever there was musical entertainment outside his room, he’d ask me to “please shut the door.” Sitting there for half an hour (unless he was talking about Joseph, he adored Joseph) I felt like I wasn’t really working. It was the calmest, most peaceful part of my week and I will miss those days for the rest of my life. It was 1946 when Rabbi Myer S. Kripke first arrived in Omaha, Nebraska. He was installed as rabbi of Beth El Synagogue and the rest is history. “A warm welcome is being extended this week,” the Jewish Press wrote at the time, “by the Jewish community of Omaha to Myer S. Kripke, newly elected rabbi of Beth El Synagogue. Rabbi Kripke, successor to Rabbi David A. Goldstein, who served Omaha and the Beth El congregation for 16 years, has within one short week endeared himself to those he as met by his charm and graciousness, his sincerity and enthusiasm.

“Rabbi Kripke’s background is one of varied interests and attainments which qualify him for the pulpit he assumes this week.” (JP, 11-8-46) In 1980, he began to write a long-run-

Dorothy and Rabbi Myer S. Kripke

ning column in the Jewish Press, called Sparks of the Word, in which he would discuss the weekly parsha. However, he’d started writing for our paper long before that; in 1952, to be precise. His Newsletter from Israel gave him the opportunity to share his experiences with the community back home. Here is an excerpt: “We have been in Israel a week now, and in Jerusalem a day; no quick impressions are accurate, but they may be interesting. “When we left the United States, the news of the change of currency had just

broken, as well as news of the compulsory loan to the government of 10 per cent of all bank accounts and all holdings of currency. In the U.S., a few Jews with whom we had discussed it considered it to be the admission of an extremely critical situation—with the very life of the State at stake. But here we have talked of it with many Israelis—and all accept it with a mere shrug of the shoulder. “It was a common reaction for people here to say, “The government needed it; they might very well have taken more.” “I was in the bank to get a letter of credit and to change a few pounds to the new currency, and no one in the bank seemed to be in the slightest disturbed. In the U.S. we would have reacted violently to any such proposal. I can imagine the editorials about an authoritative state and the end of democratic freedoms. But here people, coming from many different European countries, are used to having government ask for help of this kind from the people—and they consider that the government acted with great restraint.” (JP, need date) Rabbi Kripke died April 11, 2014 at the age of 100. The last parsha column the Jewish Press published appeared on April 18, and was accompanied by an editor’s note: Unfortunately, this is the last Sparks of the Word. It was adapted See Rabbi Kripke page A12

The Exodus story ARIELLA ROHR Sometimes I worry about two seemingly-unrelated issues I hear discussed: The horrific reality of the existence of Holocaust deniers, and the logical acceptance of the idea that the Exodus story is more myth than history. Please note: I am NOT claiming that those who do not accept the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt as historical fact are like Holocaust deniers. It’s just striking something within me. But isn’t the rhetoric similar? “Never Forget” and “You shall teach your child the story so that they will know it and know that we are all part of it”? As a kid, I remember thinking that the Passover story was so interesting, because, theoretically, this major event happened to some people, and then they were so insistent that it be remembered, so concerned that it could possibly be forgotten, they made a whole damn holiday centered around retelling the story. Every year! Imagine if your parents (as my mother in law does for her children) told you the story of your birth, in detail, every year on your birthday. Imagine if all your relatives gathered together, made a big dinner, and collectively told the story of how your parents met, courted, and married, every year on their anniversary. I’ll bet you’d remember and believe it! And of course the second generation, who didn’t experience or remember it themselves, would believe their parents and their older friends and relatives when they told this first-hand account of what actually happened to them. Well, then, when that second generation had children, they would retell that story with just as much conviction as if it had happened to them personally. After all, they’ve heard this story told from many different adults who they trust and believe, every year for their entire life. It would be quite a conspiracy to make that all up! And so, perhaps, as the generations went on, the storytellers would be a little See The Exodus Story page A12

A12 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Rabbi Kripke The Exodus story caust Deniers are effectively scum of the Earth. We have preContinued from page A11 less personally confident in the details, as they could no longer cious few living survivors, and there have been massive efforts trace back their personal knowledge to an actual participant underway for the last several years at least to document their in the event, but it’s such a foolproof method of keeping the stories, first-hand and often videotaped to make clear the reintegrity of and belief in the story strong. It’s a great chain of alities of their lives. Museums exist in many major cities to encustody of the information, sure that we “never forget”. from generation to generaMillions of dollars have tion, that could, theoretibeen funneled into procally, be traced back to grams to collect physical Sinai. So of course I beand verbal artifacts of the lieved this story was true. Holocaust to vanquish the Certainly more reliable to strength of the deniers’ arhear it from someone who guments. We say “how can heard it from the horse’s you possibly deny that this mouth ( five billionthhappened, when there are hand), than any other techstill those living who feel nologically-available the effects?”, but how long method I can think of. will that be the case? Then I read somewhere This past Sunday, I that there was no actual artaught Yom HaShoah, chaeological evidence for An image of a wood-engraving titled Exodus 1, found on page 51 of Holocaust Remembrance this story I had put so much A History of Wood Engraving by George Woodberry. Public Domain Day, in my classroom. Sevstock in. No great exodus, probably no Jewish slaves in Egypt eral of the students, unprompted, chose to share their families’ at all! This threw me for a bit of a loop. Not really sure what to Holocaust stories. Their grandparents or great-grandparents do with it, I filed it away and continued with my usual had personally lived through (or died in) the Holocaust and Passover observance for all the other good reasons to do so they felt that reality so strongly that they needed to share. In besides historical accuracy. my Tuesday evening class, I have students who are uncomIn recent years, as my career has become Jewish Eduation fortable even talking about the Holocaust in certain contexts and my friend group consists of many intelligent, inquisitive because it is too personally painful for them, though neither Jewish Educators, the discussion has shifted to “well obviously they nor their parents, nor possibly anyone they ever even this exodus story probably didn’t happen as told”. The lesson met, actually experienced the effects first-hand. is usually about what we can learn from it anyway, a totally So now, some sixty years from the actual events of the Holovalid one and one that I reach for often when students ask me caust, we feel the reality so, so deeply. Especially as Jews this if a Torah story is actually truly real. But now I’m concerned. is a personal event to us, whether we knew someone personAre we really ready to just completely let go of the idea that ally or not. We see the deniers as blind to the obvious truth, the Exodus happened the way that my parents taught me, that as intentionally malicious or evil. their parents taught them, that generations have been teachBut, to be honest, I don’t even know that my students’ stoing for hundreds of years? If it did happen the way I thought ries are 100% factual. It didn’t happen to them, it didn’t even as a child, then what a horrible disservice to those who happen to their parents. In a class of about a dozen students, worked so hard to maintain the story of their personal expe- a surprisingly high number have relatives who survived the rience. Sure, some pieces of the story may be a bit over-drama- gas chambers. There certainly seemed to be a subtle (okay, not tised, in the same way that I’m sure the actual versus subtle; one student said “I have an even crazier story than retold-to-children relevance of Tinder in “how we met” stories that”) one-upsmanship of trying to tell either the most tragic, will be skewed in the coming years, but surely there’s more the most heroic, or the most unbelievable story. Of course, I fact than fiction. Right? believe that the vast majority of their stories are true. I believe I have not yet met a person who doesn’t think that Holo- See The Exodus story page A13

Continued from page A11 from Rabbi Kripke’s book, Insight and Interpretation. Coincidentally, it was his Pesach column, so considering Passover is almost here, we will reprint it one more time. We all remember the question raised by the “wicked son” of the Haggadah: “What do you mean by this service?” In the Haggadah he is answered sharply, as though he had meant to distance himself from his parents and other Jews. In the Torah itself, there is no such implication. He is simply asking for information. And it is that situation, that a son of Israel would have to ask one day what the Passover service is all about, that arouses a “good news-bad news” response in the Midrash. It is seen as bad news that the day would come when the Torah would be ‘forgotten’ to such an extent that parents would have to explain to a child why they are observing Passover. Woe to us if the day ever comes when so central a Jewish doctrine as the enslavement and deliverance of our ancestors in Egypt has to be explained to an adult son of Israel. Bad news, indeed. But the Midrash goes on with good news. If it is implied that one day afar off even elementary and fundamental precepts will have to be explained, then it is also implied that Israel, the people and religious entity, will continue. For the implication is that there will be generation after generation of Jews.

The Jewish Press in the classroom Continued from page A10 for my students. On occasion, in my more creative moods, I have had students write their own editions of the Press. Material from the Press has also formed one or more questions on quizzes. And I ask the students to incorporate their insights from the Press in the major papers that they write for the class. All well and good. But beyond these specifics I hope that my students have gained an unparalleled sense of a lot of what it means to be a Jew in America in the twenty-first century. Of course, this is only a part of the story. But an important part. Allow me to conclude with words of thanks, from my students and myself, to all of those who contribute to making The Jewish Press the gem that it is.

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Henry Ford in The Jewish Press

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SAM KRICSFELD Automotive legend Henry Ford was a notoriously anti-Semite. Well known for his Models T and A at the time, Ford was publishing lies and hatred against Jews in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Throughout the 1920s, the Jewish Press covered Ford’s anti-Semitic acts, publications and quotes, as well as the court case that drove Ford to apologize. Henry Ford was the founder of Ford Motor Company, which is to this day one of the largest manufacturers of vehicles on the planet. He is largely responsible for the modern mass production of cars and was one of the most famous men in America in the 1920s. By 1927, 15 million Ford Model Ts had been built, cementing his place as an automotive tycoon. Ford built his cars in Dearborn, Michigan, and decided to buy the local newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, in 1918. According to Jewish Virtual Library, the Independent reached 700,000 people at its peak circulation. From 1920 to 1927, Ford used the Independent as a medium to disseminate anti-Semitic propaganda based on a hoax called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the Protocols were a forgery pretending to be secret minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders planning to take over the world. Ford was influenced by the popular distrust at the time of banks and bankers. The wellknown stereotype at the time was that Jews controlled the international banking system, so Ford directed his anger towards them. According to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, the Independent’s campaign blamed “’bankers’ and ‘the Jews’” for things Ford did not like, “from the world war to short skirts and jazz music... contemporary music, movies, theater, new dress styles, and loosening social mores.” Ford’s series of anti-Semitic articles in the Independent are collectively known as the International Jew. In them, writers for Ford said that Jews “control the machinery of commerce and exchange,” control the motion picture industry, and even that “if ‘fans’ wish to know the trouble with American baseball, they have it in three words – too much Jew.” According to them, Jews defending themselves were anti-Christian. The pogroms in Russia were fake. Jews were responsible for everything bad in the world. Ernest Liebold, Ford’s personal secretary,

was quoted as saying, “When we get through with the Jews, there won’t be one of them who will dare raise his head in public.” On Dec. 16, 1920, in the very first article in the very first issue of the Jewish Press, it was reported that the Dearborn Independent was investigated by the American Jewish Committee. The Committee released a statement calling Ford “a dupe” for making “rash statements without foundation.” Soon after, on Dec. 30, 1920, the Press reported that ex-president William Howard Taft attacked the Independent and said, “There is not the slightest ground for anti-Semitism among us. It is a vicious plant. It is a noxious weed that should be cut out... Why is it, if omnipotence belongs to the Jews, half of them are in direct misery?” On Aug. 4, 1921, the Press reported that President Warren G. Harding had spent three days as a guest of Ford, which was “being used by enemies of the Jewish race... to dignify the attacks of the Detroit manufacturer in his Dearborn Independent.” This happened after he had signed a statement calling people who talked about a Jewish conspiracy as “un-American, intolerant, and enemies of humanity.” On Jan. 12, 1922, the Press reported that Ford was going to drop his attacks on Jews and that the last defamatory article would be issued that week. Allie L. Benson quoted Ford as saying, “I have nothing against the Jews. I would not harm them... I have good will for Jews and for everybody else. I believe the matter we have printed about the Jews will do the Jews themselves good as well as everybody else.” Defamatory articles continued being published. In 1924, the Independent attacked attorney Aaron Sapiro, claiming he was controlling American and Canadian farmers and attempting to put Jews in charge of the nations’ food supplies. By 1926, after Ford refused to retract his statement, Sapiro sued. On Nove. 25, 1926, the Press said that “if [Sapiro] does succeed in bringing Henry Ford before the bar of justice, a new champion to be celebrated in history and legend will have arisen in Modern Israel.” The case came to trial in March of 1927. According to the May 26, 1927 edition of the Press, Sapiro came to the Omaha Jewish Community Center and said, “I dedicate myself to continue with the suit against the See Henry Ford page A15

The Exodus story Continued from page A12 that their relatives were in the camps if they say they were. I believe that there were camps with gas chambers, and that their relatives were at those camps. I believe that there were people who survived under unlikely, against-all-odds circumstances. I believe Holoaust narratives as a general rule. We put so much time, energy, and resources into ensuring that generations to come believe the stories of the Holocaust, but at the same time we’re so ready to drop the Exodus narrative. Why? What is the fundamental difference, a few thousand years

out? A thousand years from now, nobody will know anybody who knew anybody who was alive during the Holocaust. The chances of physical artifacts and taped stories surviving that long are minimal at best. Of course, we have the advantage of being able to record these things in the first place, and technology to preserve artifacts for as long as possible. Slaves travelling through the desert for 40 years? Not so much. There were no hermetically-sealed display cases, no archival-quality footage. All they had were their stories. And now we’re apparently not buying it.

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ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press In 1981, the Omaha Section of the National Council of Jewish Women published a volume titled Our Story, Recollections of Omaha’s Early Jewish Community, 1885-1925. In it, we find narratives of some Jewish Omahans who arrived in our community during the early 1920s, when this paper was born. “Between 1885 and 1920,” Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, “the Jewish population of the United States rose from 250,000 to 3.5 million. [...] If the Jewish community of Omaha is a microcosm of American Jewry, then the transitional generation which made the voyage from oppression to freedom requires study. Those who negotiated the paradox of being a Jew and ‘making a living,’ of achieving Jewish learning and secular expertise, of religiosity and modernity, as the world moved from horse-drawn to atomic-powered, are worthy of special attention.” They do, indeed. Who were they, those early immigrants that were still in the process of learning English and finding their way in early 1920s Omaha? Why, when there was such a heavy influx of eastern European immig r a n t s , “st a u n c h ly orthodox, Top: Carl Lagerman, secYiddish-speaking, ond row left: Fannie from small villages,” Rothenberg-Denenberg, was the first and right: Louis Friedman, only exclusively third row: Morris Epstein, Jewish weekly pub- and bottom two photos: lication in English Abe and Freeda Gendler. from the very beginning? Fannie Rothenberg-Denenberg, born April 11, 1902 in Monisti, Romania, arrived in Omaha in 1910. By 1920, she could probably read English quite well, especially considering her age—but could her parents? What about Rose Blumkin, who had only come to Omaha in 1917? Morris Epstein, who was born June 15, 1890 in Paritch, Russia and arrived in Omaha in 1922, at the age of 32? There was Louis A. Friedman, from Minsk, Russia, born in 1900, arriving in Omaha in 1923. And A. B. Gendler, from Belogorka, Ukraine, born in 1902, and who arrived in Omaha in 1922. Carl Lagman was born in 1903 in the Ukraine and arrived here in 1922. Dora Moreno-Kirshenbaum, born in Kipel, Gabernia, Russia in 1894, mother of Joe, Kevee, Phyllis and Rose, who arrived in Omaha in 1921. There were countless others, new to Omaha, trying to create a new life here, many of them speaking Yiddish, Russian, German. Language is a lifeline for new immigrants- as important as it is to learn the language of the new homeland, there is also the fear of assimilation. One wants to fit in, but how much is too much? On the other hand, had those early editions been in Yiddish, how many people would nowadays be able to look upon its pages and understand what life was like

back then? From Language and Learning: I couldn’t talk English. When I started school, I remembered the teacher used to have a stick, which she pointed when it was your turn to read. She pointed to numbers and I never could add them up. I could add them on paper and she couldn’t figure out how I got the answers. She came to the conclusion that I was copying from someone in front of me. One day I remember the principal came in. She was German. I could talk German. She took the pointer. She had a column with sevens and eights and sixes, and you know for my age that was pretty hard. She pointed and I read it in German. I knew it and I got the right answer. The teacher found out that I wasn’t so stupid! I just didn’t know English!”(Our Story, pp.50) The Nebraska Jewish Historical Society maintains countless files on many early Jewish Omahans; including many who are featured in Our Story. Louis Friedman arrived in Omaha July 10, 1923. From his 1989 obituary: “In a 1980 interview with the Jewish Press, Mr. Friedman said he and his wife [Rebecca] traded gold coins with soldiers to cross the border into Latvia and eventual freedom.” The day after they arrived in Omaha, he bought a pair of overalls for 59 cents and took a bus to the Swift meat packing plant. He didn’t speak any English, but was able to ask for a job in Yiddish to a German-speaking foreman who understood him and hired him. Next, Louis operated a pawnshop until, together with his sister-in-law Rose Blumkin (Rebecca Friedman’s older sister), he went into the furniture business. He sold his interest in 1947 and purchased Borsheim’s in 1948. The family ended up doing well in Omaha- attendees of the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting often find their way to Borsheim/s. It’s a far cry from the early days, when they lived with a total of 16 people in one house on 27th and Burt street. In their interview with Morris Epstein, Esther Simon and Marion Slosburg paint a picture of life in Russia, the complications of the Russian Revolution and the long and arduous process of immigration to America. Once in Omaha, Morris began working at Central Market, for $19 a week, which at the time was a living wage. On May 15, 1990, Morris Epstein turned 100 years old. The Jewish Press marked the occasion; long-time columnist Bert Lewis wrote an article titled Happy Birthday, Morris Epstein. See Jewish Omahans page A15

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | A15

Jewish Omahans Continued from page A14 Coincidentally, we published a similar article for Joe Kirshenbaum this past December. In an undated interview from the NHJS files, Joe’s mother Dora Kirshenbaum talked about what life was like: “We were four weeks on the boat. My father lived only on water and potatoes. He was so religious. My sister, Yetta, she was sick on the boat all the time. She and I were pregnant. “Coming to America was very important because you could not live in Russia anymore because of the nieketzens (bandits),” Dora said. “They put together several people, so they are the law. There was nobody to go to for protection. They were from the army. There was the Red Army, the White Army, but all was breaking down. It was the time of the Revolution and the soldiers just made up the law like they pleased. The Czar had been killed, he was very bad, he never did nothing for the people.” Once in America, Dora and her husband Meyer raised four children; both Joe and

Kevee served during WW II. “I read all their letters,” Dora said, “and I never went to school. I love to read newspapers, all newspapers. I wanted so much to go to school, but, first I came to this country, then my kids came one after another. How could I go to school? So, I got a little book. I bought it to learn about the constitution. I came into the immigration office for the

Dora Marino Kirshenbaum

citizenship papers. The immigration official asked me, ‘How many English lessons did you get?’ I lied, I said 16.” Yet Dora’s children went to college and her grandchildren ended up at Stanford, Harvard and Wharton—among other places. It’s a story that’s repeated many times over by descendants of those early 20th century immigrants.

Happy Passover

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Henry Ford Continued from page A13 Arch-Semite, Henry Ford, and to bring this man on the witness stand to deny or affirm his charges against me and my people.” “I am not the kind of a Jew who will sit back and take it from this man, I am not the kind of a Jew who thinks it is a handicap to go through life being a Jew... it is no handicap to be a Jew,” Sapiro said to the Jewish community of Omaha. Shortly before Ford was supposed to testify, he ordered the Independent to be shut down. Sapiro and Ford settled out of court and Ford agreed to formally apologize. On July 14, 1927, The Press said, “The Jewish spirit of forgiveness, tried throughout the ages under all climes and conditions, was manifested in the attitude of the American Jewish community toward the apology of Henry Ford.” The apology read, “To my great regret I have learned, that Jews generally, and particularly those of this country, not only resent these publications as promoting anti-Semitism, but regard me as their enemy... Of course there are black sheep in every flock... it is wrong, however, to judge a people by a few individuals.” The Press was unimpressed and offended by the apology. An article, addressed to Henry Ford: “And so we say to Henry Ford. It is very well for you, Henry, to admit your wrongs; to say you are sorry, but all your regrets will not wash away a single tear... Experience has taught us that out of each misfortune we must take the lesson it teaches and build for the surer future.” “Therefore Mr. Ford, we are not interested in

your apologies nor in the reasons why you permitted for many years the circulation of such malicious slanders against us but we are interested in knowing if you are sincere. Do you at last realize the awful results of your intolerance?... Show us [your sincerity] by dedicating a devoting your billions, your influence, your life to a battle against all forms of intolerance which persecutes man because of racial or religious differences... Then will the world believe that Henry Ford is truly sincere.” Ford was indeed insincere. Though quiet about his anti-Semitism in the following years, he would later accept the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi Germany in 1938. He was one of Adolf Hitler’s heroes. Ford Motor Company has tried its best to distance itself from the anti-Semitic aspects of its founder’s legacy. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Henry Ford II, Ford’s grandson, “consistently supported Jewish charities and cultural organizations.” In 1997, Ford Motor Company sponsored the first screening of Schindler’s List on national television. Henry Ford’s legacy is marred by his antiSemitic beliefs. Though an industrial tycoon and engineering genius, Ford will forever be remembered by the Jews as an enemy. The International Jew is now publicly available on the Internet and can be bought as a well-formatted book on Amazon. Ford’s publications in the Dearborn Independent are still being read to this day – fomenting more anti-Semitism in an age where it is already plentiful.

A16 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

May the happiness you share this Passover remain all through the year! HAPPY PASSOVER OMAHA

B1 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Passover S EC T I ON 2

Jewish Press memories: Judy Marburg ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press For the 1972 Rosh Hashanah issue, someone on the Jewish Press staff interviewed the Marburg family. As was common during those years, there is no byline—no way to figure out who wrote the article. The Marburg Family: ‘We’re Here to Stay’, the headline read. Gerald Marburg moved to Omaha in 1971, the story tells us, accompanied by his wife Judith and their children Lenore, nine at the time, and Daniel, five. Gerald’s parents, Alfred and Sidonie, soon joined them: “The senior Marburgs find life in Omaha ‘much easier and more pleasant’ than they expected. They miss some of the cultural opportunities they had in New York, but agree that it is a small price to pay.” “The three generations of the Marburgs are delighted with Omaha and what it has to offer,” the story concludes. “They all agree: we’re here to stay!” They weren’t kidding. We caught up with Judy Marburg, because in 1974, she made the paper again; this time it was because she joined the Jewish Press staff when then-editor Richard Pearl hired her as his assistant. For the next 17 years, she was part of a close-knit group of people who had one goal: get that paper to the community every week. Today, it’s once again time for Judy to grace the page in honor of the Jewish Press Centennial, although, “You know I’ll deny it all, right?” she said. “I can’t for the life of me remember what my title

was,” Judy says, “but I know we changed it to assistant-Editor when Morris Maline became the editor in 1977.” A position that still exists and is held

When Richard Pearl left, “I briefly thought I’d make a good editor, but I really was better just working in the office and not being out and about

The Marburg family, top row: Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Marburg, front row: Leonore, left, Mrs. and Mr. Gerald Marburg, Daniel from the Jewish Press, 1972.

today by Lori Kooper-Schwarz. She worked part-time, about five or six hours per day, but when it was time to work on special holiday editions, those hours became considerably longer. “Putting a paper together was very different back then,” she said. “We did everything by hand, not like today when it’s all created on the computer and gets sent to the printer digitally.”

at all hours.” Enter Morris, who would be the Jewish Press editor for 19 years. She didn’t write any articles, but she edited and proofread everything. Ads were all created by hand, in-house, and laid out by Suzanne Singer. “I will never forget this one time when we had an ad for a kosher meat market. Instead of ‘Hot See Judy Marburg page B3

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B2 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Passover

Presidents of the 1920s GABBY BLAIR Staff Writer, Jewish Press Since its inception, the Jewish Federation of Omaha has been led by 44 presidents. These men and women have been pillars of our community, each a unique thread that has helped design and strengthen the fabric of Omaha’s Jewish community. During the decade of the 1920s, three men with shared vision, Morris Levy, Dr. Philip Sher and William Holzman, took turns as leaders of this organization, helping to create the basis for an enduring legacy. These men were part of an original group of approximately 20 families who helped form many of our community’s longest lasting and most visible institutions including the Jewish Association of Charities (which would later evolve into the Jewish Welfare Federation, and then the Jewish Federation of Omaha), The Jewish Press, The Jewish Community Center, and the Jewish Free Loan Society in addition to numerous other organizations and social services for the benefit of our people. These men, as Dr. Oliver Pollak succinctly puts it in his book, Jewish Life in Omaha and Lincoln: A Photographic History, were ‘communal philanthropists who saw the importance of tzedakah in everyday life. Their forward thinking towards the future of Jewry in Omaha was the beginning of what we have, with G-d’s help,

been able to build today. Morris Levy was the second president of the Jewish Federation of Omaha, serving from 1916 until his death in 1923.

of the Board of Education, is carved, to the less material but equally forceful agencies for human helpfulness, the many philanthropies of Omaha, Morris Levy’s name is

Born in the village of Ostrawa, in the Province of Posen, Germany, in 1844, Levy arrived in New York at age 22 where he got his start in the garment business. He moved to Omaha in 1886 and founded the Nebraska Clothing Company which he ran until 1912 before retiring to focus his energies on pursuits of philanthropy. As noted in a memorial column on the front page of the Jewish Press on July 23, 1923, “everywhere in this city are evidences of his presence. From the massive Central High School building upon the corner stone of which his name, as a member

seen and his influence felt. Beyond the boundaries of this city, in far-off places wherever there was suffering or want, in hospitals, orphan homes, in institutions for the care of the soul as well as of the body, his name was known. So quiet and unassuming was he in all work which he did for his fellow man that no record can be made of the extent to which his all — embracing love for humanity made itself felt.” It was Morris Levy who first called a meeting in 1913 of prominent Jewish citizens involved in the Association of Jewish Charities in Omaha in order to See Presidents of the 20’s page B3

Telling our Stories

“The more things change, the more they remain the same” On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to say Mazel Tov to the Omaha Jewish Press on the milestone of achieving 100 years of service to the Omaha Jewish community. The Jewish Press has been so much more than a newspaper for both our local community members and many who have JON MEYERS scattered around the country. Not President, JFO simply bringing us the news, the Press has been a documentation of our history, our philanthropy, our socialization, our simchas, and of course our times of struggle and sadness. It has chronicled the growth and change of programs and facilities of the community’s synagogues, agencies, schools and the JFO. When I look back at past issues from time to time, I am reminded that most of what we experience now our predecessors also experienced. Many of the stories written and problems reported on seem somewhat familiar to us today. We as Jews have absolutely succeeded in acceptance and assimilation yet anti-semitism remains in our world today. We were and still are indebted to the leaders and philanthropists that had and have the vision to keep our offerings vibrant and relevant. Through it all, the Jewish Press has been there to report, to inform, and to inspire us to continue to do the important work that has always made our community the amazing place it is. What has changed mostly is technology and the way the current generation gets it news. It is no secret that print media (newspapers, magazines, books) is an industry in flux. For 100 years we have all relied on the Jewish Press... the Press now relies on all of us as it re-imagines its future. Annette does a wonderful job as editor and Executive Director of the Jewish Press. Abby Kutler and the Jewish Press Board are there to support her and to ensure that the Press continues serving the community. I have no doubt; whether we continue to receive a printed paper, a digital paper, or whatever the future brings for the news media, our Omaha Jewish Press will be there in the format we need and want, continuing to tell our stories for years to come.

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B3

Presidents of the 1920s

MID-CITY J E W E L RY & L OA N

Happy Passover JCC 1926 Credit: NJHS

Continued from B2 create a special committee to adopt the Jewish Federation idea and assist in organizing the Federation of the Jewish Charities in Omaha. Levy was a longtime champion behind the concept of opening Omaha’s own Jewish Community Center. He saw the value in having a communal Jewish center – an intrinsically Jewish environment in which learning, social events and community unity could thrive. Three times in just over 10 years, fundraising campaigns began towards this goal only to be interrupted by natural disasters- such as the devastating tornado of 1913, which left miles of destruction and the death of 24 from the Jewish community alone- or by austerity measures brought on by war or economic downturns. Each time, the funds that had been collected were diverted to Jewish families hardest hit and most in need. In 1922, a year before his passing, Mr. Levy gifted $50,000 towards the construction of our city’s first JCC, with the condition that the community must raise the remaining $200,000 for the center’s completion. This gift gave the campaign an impetus that carried it through to raising a quarter of a million dollars. It was important to Levy and his contemporaries, including Dr. Sher and Mr. Holzman, that their building be owned by the community and not mortgaged to a bank; this wisdom saved our JCC during the Great Depression. While he did not live to see his dream of an Omaha Jewish Community Center come true, we are all the better for his vision and dedica-

tion to our community. His 1923 memorial stated “Morris Levy embodied the true spirit of Judaism… His whole life was dedicated to the well-being and advancement of his people.” Morris’ friend and successor was Dr. Phillip Sher who served as Federation president from 1923-24 and again from 1929-1930. A remarkable man who lived a life of true chesed, Dr. Phillip Sher was born in Pumpian, Lithuania, in 1875. After being ordained as a Rabbi by the Seminary of Telz at age 18, he immigrated to the United States in 1893, reuniting with his parents Levy and Bertha, who had arrived some years earlier. Shortly after arriving in the States, Sher set his sights on becoming a physician. In order to put himself through medical school, he worked long hours bookkeeping at night. He was adamant about keeping Shabbat, so he worked for less pay in order to do so. After earning his M.D. in 1902, Dr. Sher moved to Omaha to begin his practice the following year. As quoted from his biographical sketch “...a human being is a two-fold entity and having ministered to a man’s soul as a Rabbi, [ I ] now wanted to serve man as a physician…[ I ] studied medicine not for the purpose of making money, but to render service to humanity.” Indeed, Dr. Sher did much for the greater Omaha community over his life beyond professionally as a physician. From his self-published book, “From the Diary of Dr. Philip Sher,” it was truly astounding to learn about this man. In addition to running his own successful See Presidents of the 20’s page B4

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Judy Marburg Friday, “but I don’t think we ever truly stuck Continued from page B1 Dogs,’ the ad read ‘Hog Dogs.’ It just slipped to it in practice.” Some things, apparently, through, we all looked at it and nobody don’t change. caught it. I will always remember how angry She still looks closely at the layout when the advertiser was!” she gets the paper in the The way the work week mail. flowed was also different “It’s all very different, and back then; most families I find myself thinking: ‘we would receive the paper in never did it that way!’ That their mailbox on Friday— doesn’t make it wrong, just Thursday, the Jewish Press different. For instance, back staff would do the final laythen we couldn’t wrap text out and bring it to the around an image the way you printer. Once at the printer, can do with today’s software; “they would lay it out on their everything was by hand. The end,” Judy said, “and we’d photographs are such a woncheck it one last time before derful addition, we never did it was printed.” Most weeks, anything like big photo Judy Marburg Judy did that final proof herpages—the technology just self, but “for big issues, we’d all pile in the didn’t exist.” car!” After she left, she missed the camaraderie, “Monday and Tuesday we would decide she said. “But there is nothing that I was rewhat stories were going in the paper,” she lieved to leave behind—even deadlines continued. Eventually, we stopped using the didn’t really bother me. I was part-time, so Sun printer and I would meet a courier who if something didn’t get done, we’d just add would take all the materials and I would go in a little extra time.” over there the next day to proof. I probably Judy’s favorite part was the process from did more proofreading than anyone else. layout to actually seeing it on the page. Sometimes, I’d be at the printer and we would “Today, the software allows the staff to inhave to make last-minute changes, which stantly see what the page will look like—we was a very different process back then!” always had to wait to see the final result, and Technically, the deadline back then was it was exciting to see it take shape.”

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Presidents of the 1920s Continued from page B3 practice, any spare time was dedicated to providing decades of free or reduced cost quality medical care to whole families, outcasts of society and transients. He was also passionate about attending juvenile court and advocated for those in the system. He counseled troubled youths and families- broken and whole- and from a pure desire to help those in need. Sher managed hard and humbling situations with wisdom, integrity and dignity. A champion and founder for the Hebrew Free Loan Society in Omaha, Sher personally provided interest-free loans to almost anyone in the community in good faith and signed as a guarantor for countless others. He built friendships across faiths, races and socioeconomics and was on call to help place Jewish children referred to Boys Town with Jewish families. He wrote countless letters to the editors decrying injustices, such as publishing the names of minors who committed crimes on the basis they could yet have time to turn their lives around. He had no qualms sharing his moral outrage on Harry Ford receiving medals of Honor from Hitler. He stood for what he saw as morally right, even when it wasn’t easy, popular or of benefit to himself. Sher gave of himself in all ways possible and is Top: Sher Home Cherniack Pavilion, quite possibly one of left and right: Sher Home Synagogue the most exemplary Credit: NJHS human beings I have had the ever pleasure of reading about. Many of Omaha’s older generation may still recall The Sher Home, predecessor of the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home, as Omaha’s first Jewish Home for the Aged. The idea of creating an ‘Old Jewish Home’ had been considered by Sher and others in earlier years but interest and support were lacking and so the idea was shelved. By 1944, as World War II raged on in Europe, Omaha’s older Jews were finding it difficult to find suitable and affordable housing and demand for such a home increased. In response, Dr. Sher was appointed as Committee Chair by then Jewish Welfare Federation President Sam Beber to determine a path forward in creating a Jewish Home for the Aged. There was, of course, much dilemma regarding the creation of a home- with many debates regarding cost, location and the regular politics involved in a large undertaking. From Sher’s diary, an excerpt: “I felt an attempt should be made to find a safer home for our unfortunate old people instead of placing them in a fire trap, and thus violating human and state laws... I think you all will remember what happened in our city about three years ago when ten old people were housed in an old home – a fire started and eight of the ten were burned to death. I want to say right here that I do not fear any threats made against me. I am going to say the words that we orthodox Jews say every morning in our prayers, “So long as the soul is within me”... I will continue to plead the cause of our less fortunate people to you. We all have human hearts so let our human hearts find a safer home for our most vulnerable unfortunate elders before it is too late.” Much to Sher’s relief, the JWF voted for a state-of-the-art new build suited for the elderly rather than utilizing a less suitable older building. In 1948, The Sher Home opened on a 10acre site off 52nd and Grand Avenue at the cost of $450,000. It was considered to be one of the best Homes for the Aged in the country, of which Sher said “It is a living monument to our community of which we can all be proud.” Sher also held himself to a high moral code, unsurprising given his professional background. Detailed in his diary was an exchange with a soon to be resident of The Sher Home in which he explained why he, himself would never live in there. “I would never want to give the impression that my solicitation

for funds for its considerable construction were ever intended for my eventual use or benefit.” Always humble, and giving G-d all credit for work done through him, Dr. Sher has been described as one of the most self-sacrificing forefathers our community has ever had. A Jewish Press editorial written in honor of Sher’s 70th birthday; “Dr. Sher’s vision, farsightedness, devotion to Jewish values and unremitting labors for the social and cultural enrichment of young and old alike within our midst have left an indelible imprint upon Omaha Jewry. May G-d grant him many more years of energy in joyous labors for Israel and Omaha.”

William Holzman was the fourth President of the Federation, serving alternating terms with Dr. Sher- from 1925-28 and again from 1931-1941. From humble beginnings in New York’s Garment District as an errand boy working for $4 a week in 1888, Holzman’s business acumen and ability to not only make but sell clothing allowed him to become a master of the industry for over 50 years. He married Mildred Levy and moved to Omaha in 1911 to manage father-in-law Morris Levy’s Nebraska Clothing Company, of which he became president in 1929. In addition to his philanthropy, Holzman was quite an accomplished civic leader in Omaha and a well-respected ambassador of our Jewish Community. In addition to his leadership role at the Jewish Federation, he also served as the Director of the Nebraska Humane Society, the Director of the Community Chest, Director of the Omaha Retailers Association, State Chairman of the United Jewish Campaign, Commodore of the Sea Scouts, a board member of the Boy Scouts, a Shriner, and a dedicated member of B’nai B’rith. He also served as president of the Omaha JCC beginning in 1929, bearing fruit to the vision of father-in-law Morris Levy, who passed away four years earlier. When Holzman was selected as the Omaha Chamber of Commerce’s Distinguished Citizen, W. Dale Clark stated, “His business record in Omaha is amongst the finest. He is a leader who has been willing to follow and a man could not maintain such a record without deserving it. He has not sought honor or publicity. He is proud of his ancestry, his race and we owe much to him and his people. His heart and hands are always open and he has contributed to many charities about which we know nothing.” Holzman responded, “It gave me pleasure to do the civic work for which I have been honored, however I was actuated mainly by a sense of duty to Omaha. This city has been good to me and the least I could do was to reciprocate. We should all be very proud that we are residents of this city which is a bright spot of the United States.” These three leaders of the nascent Jewish Federation of Omaha and other Omaha Jewish institutions, along with the numerous community members and families who supported and trusted their leadership, helped to create long-lasting respected relationships that deeply rooted Omaha’s Jewry, allowing us to grow into a thriving community today.

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B5

Tom Cruise, you clean for Passover? If you were in Israel at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, you couldn’t miss the huge billboards advertising the third season of Yes television’s Fauda (“chaos” in Arabic). Each billboard featured a close-up of the grim, bloodied, unshaven face of Lior Raz, the star of the series, with three English words transliterated into Hebrew and indicating the set- TEDDY ting for the new season: “Velcome to WEINBERGER Gaza.” Fauda has been a runaway hit on Netflix (which is expected to air Season 3 this Spring), and so you will understand my special delight at three Passover commercials produced last year by the Supersol supermarket chain starring Lior Raz. Each commercial opens with Lior doing something connected to Passover. In one, an average Joe (“Yossi” in Israel) happens upon Lior as he is scraping something off his home’s front window, and Yossi says, “Lior Raz, you clean for Passover;” in another, Yossi sees Lior in a Supersol store and says, “Lior Raz, you shop for Passover?”; and in the third, Lior brings out a tray of baked salmon to his Seder guests, one of whom asks him, “you found such a fine salmon?” In all three commercials, Lior then says “Why, what are you thinking?”—and the scene in each instantly shifts. In the first commercial, two large white vans screech to a halt in front of Lior’s home, and a wet-suited SWAT Pesachcleaning team emerges, some using high-pressure water hoses and some rappelling down the front of Lior’s house to squeegee the windows. The second commercial has Lior hopping on a motorcycle in the supermarket and then sitting in a command center directing a SWAT Pesach-shopping team, taking a few precious seconds to speak in an ultrasweet voice with his wife in order to verify the exact kind of rice to buy (I guess he goes by the Sephardic custom), before engineering an escape from the store in an armored vehicle. The third commercial has Lior jumping out of a plane withSee You clean for Passover? page B7

Carol Katzman, Press editor 1996-2009

“You should apply for my job,” she said. ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT I thought she was crazy. What did I know about being an Editor, Jewish Press It’s taken ten years, but this Centennial presents us with the editor? But, the idea stuck in my head; after thinking about it perfect opportunity to catch up with my predecessor, Carol some more, I applied and I ended up exactly where Carol said Katzman. I remember when I started this journey in 2010, she I should be. Long story short, you have Carol to thank. Carol came to the Press after told me she wouldn’t breathe Morris Maline, who had been down my neck- and she hasn’t. the editor for a cool 19 years. She did leave behind a long “I was hired by Bob Eisenand detailed letter telling me berg, JP board chair in July of what I would face on a day-to1996,” she said, “and retired do basis, with lots of helpful when Bobbi Leibowitz was tips. I think of her often, sitting board chair, at the end of Dein that same chair; when I do, cember 2009. Every board ten years doesn’t seem so long. chairman was not only a menAlthough, maybe, it’s time to tor, but a friend. I was very replace that chair... lucky to have great chairmen, I first met Carol in 2006, and board members who were when my oldest child started involved and supportive.” at Friedel Jewish Academy and The biggest change that took the school asked me to volunplace during Carol’s tenure, she teer. Since I wasn’t exactly PTA said, “was the advance in techmaterial (don’t ask) I offered to nology. In 1996, we were still help in a different way. Yaffa using a hot wax machine to lay Podbilewicz, who had recruited our daughter, knew of “Kansan Bonnie Siegel, right, and me at AIPAC’s Policy Con- out the paper. Visitors to the my background and told me ference, 2019, on Lobby Day. Bonnie is a member of the Na- Press office would joke that we they needed someone to write tional Leadership Group; I’m on AIPAC’s National Council and were giving manicures in our also co-chair the Pro-Israel Political Network for Kansas and back room! Friedel-themed stories for the Western Missouri.” “The paste-up method,” she Jewish Press. “I can do that,” I said—and the rest is history. I learned about deadlines, about said, “also meant sending photographs down to the printer to thinking ahead, about not driving Carol crazy by submitting be reshot to the size we needed and printed on coated paper, things past the last minute and about not bothering with witty the same kind we used in house to print out columns of type. headlines that were much too long. Then, one evening, Carol Each ad, updated as needed, was also created on the coated emailed me and calmly announced she was retiring. See Carol Katzman page B6

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Notes for Passover

Carol Katzman Continued from page B5 paper and kept in alphabetical files. Then we would run everything through the hot wax machine, lay out the paper on blue grid 12”x18” sheets, schlep them back to the printer where the pages would be photographed, and plates made for printing. “The process was time consuming and laborious. It also meant driving to the printer in Papillion twice a week (or if we were lucky, delivering a stack of photos to the courier when he delivered the bundles of Press copies each week). “The advances in Quark Carol Katzman and inDesign changed all that. What used to take hours could then be done in minutes. And that also meant we could redesign the look of the paper. We can thank then-Board Chairman Joanie Jacobson for pushing us to do that. She wanted the graphic look of the Press to match our award-winning stories.” “Maureen LaPour our creative director at the time, and I were resistant, knowing that it would lead to extra hours beyond producing the Press each week. Then she moved out of town and we were lucky enough to hire Richard Busse away from our printer. Not only did he redesign the Press, we were so excited about the look that we asked Richard to do it again three years later!” There were more changes for Carol to process: “The other technological advance was in the way we received stories. In 1996, we had to retype stories we received on paper into our layout program. Even the JTA’s stories were sent in DOS in 1996... we couldn’t copy and paste them into Quark... they had to be retyped. There was very little interface between software products. That also added to the length of time it took to produce the paper each week... and meant many late nights producing the large New Year’s, Hanukkah and Passover issues.” When asked what she remembers from her predecessor, she said: “The best thing Morris Maline did for the JP was hire Larry Axelrod as an ad salesman. He blew up the budget and enabled us to print larger issues each week and ask for less funding from the Jewish Federation’s Budget & Allocation Committee.

In fact, there was one year, we asked for and received less than $5,000! Our goal was to be self-supporting, but that changed with the downturn in the economy in the fall of 2008.” That downturn hit newspapers far and wide. Big and small, local or national; the community of Jewish newspapers was not immune to the massive exit from advertiser money that happened in 2008 and 2009. During a time when a large segment of the population thinks they can find anything they need online, it has become harder and harder to produce newspapers and not operate at a loss. Newspapers began to disappear, and I wondered, how different was it back when there were so many more Jewish community papers in the country, vs. nowadays, when even the Forward doesn’t print anymore? “It was great having so many peers with whom I could consult about issues ranging from circulation and advertising to editorial content and graphic design. Sadly, most Jewish communities did not recognize the importance of having one vehicle that reached everyone in the Jewish community. The Press is very fortunate to have the support of the leadership of the Jewish Federation, both volunteer and staff. “Having a social media presence is important, and I understood that it was the future (which is one of the reasons I retired... I’m a dinosaur from the era of printed books, newspapers and magazines, and really didn’t want to manage an online presence), but it’s difficult to ensure that each community member will visit your site each week. At least with a printed paper, they’ll glance at the front page, and hopefully take a look inside.” Carol is right, and although we spend more time these days trying to maintain an online presence, the print edition continues to be the backbone of our publication (If we ever wondered whether the community is attached to the printed piece, we just remember the concerned phone calls and conversations that happened when we changed the thickness of the paper back in 2003 because it saved us $6,000 in bulk postage. For months, people brought it up). Carol’s favorite aspect of the job of editor is not so different from any of us, perhaps: “Everyone has a story,” she said. “I hoped to interview as many members of the Jewish community as I could in nearly 14 years. And we tried very hard not to repeatedly interview the same people. That’s why the themes of the big issues are so important. It’s an opportunity to interview newcomers, people with different occupations, hobbies or skills, or those with hidden stories — from serving in the military to surviving See Carol Katzman page B7

The best of Passover, clearly exclusive of matzah and the old fashioned wine that leaves red marks on table clothes and napkins and on every Haggadah, includes the telling of stories, not the complete story as told in the Biblical Book of Exodus, but the short stories, the Four Sons, the Four Questions, the stories the rabbis told late into the night, the ten Plagues, RICHARD FELLMAN and the foods, the songs, and the joy in the midst of the frightening story of the chase before the miracle of the crossing of the Sea. I want to tell a different story. My story tells about Passovers of one large extended family starting with the Seder of 1971. It has no conclusion except it continues to the first Seder in 2019, just shy of a half century. The story is written in notes and diagrams and brief interludes explaining where people are, who was born and who died, and what was taking place in the world at large and especially in the Jewish world. I admit to having written it in my own handwriting. It began when Bev and I were preparing our first Seder in our home at 122nd and Leavenworth Street in Omaha. It has a chapter for every single year since 1971, missing not a one. It lists in a diagram of our Seder table who attended each dinner, who was born and who died during the year gone by, and something about members of our family and almost always something about what was taking place in the world. What I’m now describing is a small, black three ring notebook measuring about seven by ten inches and now bulging with pages of rough drawings of tables with notes showing who sat at each place, names of parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends and guests, and, of course, and most importantly, our four children---how old they were when they were young, how one by one they came to the Seder table, how when they grew up they went away to college, and what college they were at, and where they went for the Seder, and then their friends, romantic and otherwise, and how some of these individuals a year or two later seemed to just become themselves part of the family. I have a three- ring notebook now bulging with inserts, where each year for 49 years I made entries with all of the information set forth above. The first page simply states “Notes for Passover” in my handwriting across the top of the page and in the lower right side corner my signature. I’m not sure if I thought of myself as the “author” when I began those notes. What I am sure about is that I needed a script in front of me to lead that first Seder in our home. Prior to 1971 Bev and I attended a family Seder at my mother’s or her mother’s or one of the many members of either of our families. My mother and father held large family See Notes for Passover page B9

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B7

The 5th Seder question: Was Max Baer Jewish or not? descent, on Christmas Eve of 1905. Jacob and OZZIE NOGG On June 8, 1933, at the age of 24, Omaha-born Dora eventually welcomed two daughters Max Baer entered the ring at Yankee Stadium and three sons, one of whom was Maximilian in the Bronx and — in front of 60,000 spectators Adelbert Baer, born on Feb. 11, 1909 in (30,000 of whom were reOmaha. Max’s younger ported to be Jewish) — faced brother, Buddy, said that off against German heavyJacob and Dora negligently weight and former world raised their children in the champion Max Schmeling. A Catholic faith, but allowed Star of David almost glowed them to practice whatever on Baer’s trunks, embroifaith they chose. dered by his Aunt Emma So fine. The Baer family Edelstein, and a small gold tree bore a mish-mash of Mogen Dovid hid in his left fruit. But back to Yankee glove. The fifteen-round Stadium and 1933. bout was billed as, “Nazi Bad Hitler had sent Max Guy against Wholesome Schmeling, Germany’s uberAmerican Jewish Boy Baer.” mensch, to the United Still, for many, Max Baer’s States to prove Aryan suclaim to Jewish ancestry was premacy. Baer was only half Max Baer, debatable. But why? Jewish, but he was Jewish Max’s grandfather, “The Butcher from Livermore” enough for Hitler. In Der Achille Baer, born in 1831, was an Alsatian Fuhrer’s mind, a Schmeling win over Baer was Jew from France. Family records claim the a win for the Third Reich. However, Jack Baer home and the synagogue Achille’s Dempsey, the fight’s promoter, made sure the mother (Max’s great-grand Bubbie) would American public saw “The Battle of the Maxes” have attended still stand in Alsace- Lorraine, as a crusade against right versus wrong, as a and a Jewish section of an area cemetery is fight between the United States and Jewish filled with Baer tombstones. Achille emi- people everywhere against Nazi Germany. grated to Wyoming Territory in 1864 and Jeffery Sussman, author of Max Baer and hired a matchmaker to find him a wife. A Barney Ross: Jewish Heroes of Boxing, wrote, photo of Frances ‘Fanny’ Fischl (a lovely, Jew- “During those years, Jewish boxers were seen as ess from Prague) caught his eye, after which symbols of courage and defiance, as gladiators the two married in Laramie in 1869. Relatives against anti-Semitism. The Star of David on suspect the couple could only communicate Baer’s trunks was a call to arms, a symbol of in Yiddish, since both came from different Jewish pugnacity, David’s shield against his encountries with different languages. emies. Jewish fans couldn’t wait to see their Fanny bore Achille seven sons and two handsome Jewish hero wallop the darling of the daughters. The sons, including Max’s father, Nazi fatherland.” During the fight, between Jacob (born in 1875), were named for the what sportswriters called “a blitzkrieg of tribes of Israel, and the children’s early educa- blows,” Baer reportedly snarled to Schmeltion was in Jewish schools. Jacob Baer mar- ing,“ That one’s for Hitler.” The referee finally ried Dora Bales, an Iowa girl of Scots-Irish See Max Baer page B8

You clean for Passover? Continued from page B5 out a parachute, diving deep into a river, and snaring a salmon bare-handed, as wild bears look on from the shore. In all three commercials the action scene abruptly ends and the viewer is returned to the opening scene, with Yossi saying: “Oh, nothing--can’t a guy ask a question.” (the third commercial ends slightly differently). Lior then wishes Yossi, “Happy Holiday,” and the commercials conclude with this voice-over: “Getting ready for Passover? No need to make a drama out of it. This holiday is ‘all’ Supersol’s” [playing on “kulo,” a key word of the beloved Mah Nishtana segment of the Passover Haggadah]. It’s hard to overstate the importance of such commercials for connecting Israeli identity with Jewish-holiday observance. In this case, the three commercials normalize cleaning and shopping for Passover in Israeli society. The incredible power of these commercials comes from playing off the surprise of “catching” Lior Raz preparing (or having prepared) for Passover with the imaginary “action” scenes. The punchline here is of an a fortiori nature: If in reality even the star of Fauda cleans and shops for Passover, then so should I. In a Jewish majority culture, the holidays of Judaism are the country’s national holidays. Because of this, business and advertising firms will utilize Jewish culture for their own interests, such as causing Israelis to feel that it is only natural to prepare for Passover. Not that Supersol or anyone else could convince Israelis that shopping and cleaning for Passover is fun (there are limits after all to advertising genius), but that Israelis are made to feel: this is what is done here. What a contrast to the diaspora Jewish experience. In most places in the diaspora, taking out a piece of matza in public can feel

unusual and sometimes even weird. In Israel, taking out a piece of matza on Passover is normal, and thanks to Supersol, Lior Raz, Fauda, and Yes TV, even cool. Teddy Weinberger, Ph.D., made aliyah in 1997 with his wife, former Omahan Sarah Jane Ross, and their five children, Nathan, Rebecca, Ruthie, Ezra, and Elie, all of whom are veterans of the Israel Defense Forces; Weinberger can be reached at weinross@netvision.net.il.

Carol Katzman Continued from page B6 the Holocaust, from founding a business or organization to participating in political campaigns or creating an original piece of art or music. Frankly, meeting what appeared to be ordinary people who told extraordinary stories was the best part of the job!” She’s proud of the amazing stories she’s been able to tell and, in the process, added a great story of her own: “The Press won a lot of awards when I was editor, not just from the Nebraska Press Association, and the American Jewish Press Association, but one from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, which included a $1000 prize. We won for special issues, individual stories, layout/design and special categories. There used to be a wall of awards opposite the bound volumes of the Press; I don’t know if they’re still there, but it did serve as a source of pride for all of us on the JP staff and board.” One last question: What is the most difficult thing about being an editor? “Haha. Not gonna answer that, and you can quote me!”

B8 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

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So too, Baden reminds us, in the Holocaust. “Hitler didn’t Continued from page B7 ended the slaughter in the tenth round. stop at those who refused to eat pork. He couldn’t have cared In post-fight coverage, Baer’s new embrace of Judaism raised less about religious practice. Every Jew was the same, from the questions. Though he insisted the Magen David on his trunks most observant to the most thoroughly secular. Jews died in showed his Jewish pride, some observers considered it a PR concentration camps and gas chambers who had never spostunt, dreamed up by Dempsey to both encourage anti-Nazi ken a word of Hebrew in their lives, who had never been to a sentiments and to make Max more popular with New York’s synagogue, who had never even known that they were Jewish.” Jewish fans. “I think it did start After Max Baer won the as a publicity ploy,” said Baer’s heavyweight crown from Italy’s son, Max Baer, Jr., “but over Primo Carnera in 1934, he time my father might have conwrote a letter to the Yiddish vinced himself that he was delanguage Der Tog newspaper, fending the Jewish people.” explaining why his sense of reAfter the fight, The New York sponsibility was so great. “I am Times reported that Baer, “wore the product of a marriage like the insignia because I thought that described in ‘Abie’s Irish I should, and I intend to wear it Rose’. The only difference is that in every bout hereafter.” my father’s name is Jacob, and I Jeffrey Sussman’s father witshould like the world to know nessed the Baer-Schmeling that I am a Jew if I am anything. bout and had his own take on If I were in Germany now I the “is he or isn’t he Jewish” should readily admit that nadust-up. tionally I am a Jew first of all. It’s “We hated everything the true that my mother belongs to Nazis stood for,” the elder Sussthe ‘Aryan race.’ But I can boast man told his son, “especially Max Baer, left, with the Star of David on his trunks battles Max not only of a Jewish Grandtheir propaganda about Jews. Schmeling in 1933 mother but also of a Jewish faWe were looking for a Jewish hero, someone who could take ther. You can imagine what the Nazis would have done with me....” on the Nazi strongman and beat him. Schmeling seemed like Max assured readers that “so long as I can raise a hand I’ll just such a target. We knew he was Hitler’s favorite boxer, and do everything to keep the title here in our country,” and said he was a champ in Germany. So Jews all over New York rallied he took pleasure in the fact that the newspapers are writing a to Max Baer, who was only half Jewish. As far as I was con- great deal about him and his Jewishness. “My father was one cerned, he had Jewish fists that could pummel Schmeling. of the Jewish cattle merchants of Omaha, Nebraska. He was That was enough for me and for lots of others. Even if Baer never pious and isn’t today. But he’s a very honest person with were only pretending to be Jewish, that would have been a lot of experience learned in the school called life. enough for me.” “People wonder why I wear a Star of David on my fight Perhaps. But according to the accepted interpretation of ha- trunks,” he continued. “My explanation is very simple: I’m lacha, Max Baer wan’t Jewish. The ring’s ethnic scholars, in- proud I’m a Jew, a child of the people that always helped othcluding the late Nat Fleischer, never considered Baer a ‘Jewish ers. I want to show the world that in the fight ring we Jews fighter’ — an affront that infuriated his mother, Dora. From excel just as we do in other fields of human activity. If I could her California home she admonished reporters, “You can tell just get Adolph Hitler in the ring for one minute I’d settle the those people in New York that Maxie has got a Jewish father, whole Nazi question in two punches. and if that doesn’t make him Jewish enough for them, I don’t “I have the honor of being the first Jewish heavyweight know what will.” (How prescient of Dora. To anticipate that champion of our time. That imposes upon me the duty of the Reform and Reconstructionist movements would one day keeping my record as high and clean as possible. I owe that to recognize patrilineal descent...) my country and to the Jewish people.” As we celebrate Passover, let’s consider these words from Max Baer was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame Joel S. Baden, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Yale Di- in 1984 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995. vinity School. “The question of ‘what makes someone Jewish’ Baer was included in the Israel-based International Jewish goes back all the way to the Exodus from Egypt. It is perfectly Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. According to boxing historian safe to say that Pharaoh did not enslave and try to kill the Jews Mike Silver, Baer’s wearing of the Star of David and his paterbecause of their religious practices: the laws were not given nal Jewish grandfather were enough for him to qualify. until the Israelites left Egypt, at Mount Sinai. No, it had nothing In a November 2019 article in the Jerusalem Post, columnist to do with practice: everyone descended from Jacob was, by Alex Winston wrote, “Whether or not one takes Baer’s Pharaoh’s definition, to be enslaved and, eventually, wiped out.” See Max Baer page B9

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B9

The first issue ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press Dec. 16, 1920 was an exciting day for Jewish Omaha. At least, we should assume it was: it marked the day the first exclusively Jewish newspaper was published. “Introducing the Jewish Press,” reads the main headline. The story states:

This is the first issue of the Jewish Press. We hope you will like it. No expense has been spared in putting this publication on a first class basis and it is the hope of the publishers to keep it on as high a plane as any other periodical of a similar nature in the United States. The Jewish Press is being published by the Jewish Press Publishing Company, a corporation composed of fifteen Jewish men of Omaha, who have in the past taken an active interest in Jewish communal affairs. See The first issue page B10

Max Baer Continued from page B8 declared Jewishness as a publicity stunt or a desire to fight for something meaningful has been up for debate for six decades. A practicing Jew he certainly wasn’t. But Baer’s willingness to stand up for something he believed in should be admired and applauded.”

Notes for Passover Continued from B6 Seders for many years, starting in the ‘50s and running till my mother’s death in 1967. And Bev’s mother had Seders throughout that entire period. But there was a blank period in the late ‘60s, and Bev and I decided to hold a Seder in ‘71. We purchased 20 copies of the Haggadah written by Mordechai Kaplan, the great Reconstructionist Rabbi. They were written in 1941 and made reference to the battle for freedom which was then taking place in the world. They omitted parts of the traditional service, like the Ten Plagues. After a year or two using this Haggadah, I wrote an insert with the Plagues, and everyone seemed pleased to tip a drop of wine for each plague. From year to year other small parts were added. Today, a reader of “Notes for Passover” can see a primitive diagram of the dining room table and, in those years when we had twenty or more extended tables going into the living room, but never a children’s table. We wanted everyone, young or old, at one large and often long table. Our children always sat by either Bev or me, and in the early years some were not yet old enough to even be at the table. But as they grew they began to

take part in the service, starting with the Four Questions. There are aunts and uncles, present for many years and then disappearing. They had passed away during

the previous year. After many years when the children began to go away to college, where each child was and what they were doing that year to celebrate Passover was listed. With this description we can trace where each child went to school and what, if anything, they were doing to lead their own Seder. Placed within each year are references to world events... the Exodus of Soviet Jews, the emergence of women and the orange on the Seder plate are two examples. Readings inserted from Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, Edmund Fleg, Anne Frank, and Albert Einstein.

And as I read my “Notes” today, I smile at those years when instead of a diagram of a table with family members names written at the places they sat, simply states “Primary Election” and nothing else. There are many notes to myself on what to do in the next year to make the Seder better. And near the end there are monologues I wrote, often stating “I don’t know if anyone will ever read this” about Bev, for she was the kingpin who held these Seders together. There is a description of her illness and last days and of what I felt at Seders after she died. There are even statements in many years of how many silver dollars I needed to bring to the table so each child could have a small prize after they each tried to find the afikomen, the hidden matzah. And there are notes where it was hidden... obviously my memory was no better then than now, even though I was many years younger. From time to time, especially after someone died and was no longer present at the family Seder, I mention that a “tear came to my eye.” One year at the recitation of the prayer “keeping us alive until this day” there is a statement that I could not finish the brief paragraph, so well known to everyone. I think my “Notes for Passover” might be my favorite book of all time.

Happy Passover

W I S H I N G T H E E N T I R E J E W I S H C O M M U N I T Y A

MARY ANN BORGESON Douglas County Board District 6 Paid for by Mary Ann Borgeson for County Board, 12503 Anne Street, Omaha, NE 68137, Treasurer Linda Love

B10 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

William Castleman, Printer to the Jews? The first issue Continued from page B9 In organizing this paper, these men have only one object in view: To furnish a high class representative organ for the various Jewish organizations in the city and a medium with which to promote Jewish communal activities. Money goes to charity. The forming of the corporation was a culmination of a series of conferences which have been held over a period of several months.

This newspaper is not being operated for personal profits. The men, who invested their money to make this newspaper possible, have no assurance of having their investment returned, if the newspaper is not financially successful. If the newspaper makes a profit, and from present indication it is evident that it will, all surplus not used in the expansion of the newspaper will be divided among worthy communal institutions. The mere mention of the names of the founders of the Jewish Press, without further comment, will be sufficient to introduce The Jewish Press to this community as an institution calculated only to accomplish good for the community and not one for personal aggrandizement or profit. See The first issue page B11

OLIVER B. POLLAK The Jewish Bulletin (1916-1920) and the The Jewish Press (1920-) may have been preceded in 1910 by the Jewish Western Journal or Western Jewish Journal, edited by William Castleman. The two titles are mentioned in front page stories of the Omaha Bee and Omaha World-Herald in the buildup to the November 1910 midterm election. It may have been only an idea or a short lived journal. My 1987 inquiry to the New York Public Library drew a blank as did the gold standard for library searches, WorldCat. After more than three decades of sporadic searching for Omaha’s first Jewish newspaper the quest remains an enigma. Newspaper morgues, organized alphabetically by individuals and subjects, have been replaced by fine grained revolutionary electronic text searching of digitized newspapers. The data base is ever encompassing additional newspaper titles, with increasingly sophisticated search engines. Chronicling America sponsored by The Library of Congress, begun in 2005, contains 3,127 newspaper titles. Genealogybank, a Newsbank affiliate, launched on line in 2006, has over 11,000 newspapers; and see also NewspaperArchives.com and Newspapers.com. Some newspapers appear on more than one websites. Using searchable online digitized newspapers facilitated some brushstrokes in Castleman’s 1910 Omaha Jewish newspaper story. Digitized newspapers offer access to printed accounts that may have eluded the scissor yielding newspaper morgue clerk. Caveat, electronic searches underreport the newspaper name appearances. William Castleman (1883-1972) was born to Rebecca (nee Lerner) (born in 1864 in Romania and died in 1930 in Omaha), and Jacob Castleman (born 1861 in Germany, died 1906). Castleman started in the printing trade in 1902 as a press operator at Omaha Paper Box Co and a printer at Robert Dempster Co. Castleman opened his own shop in 1906. Castleman and Nathan Yaffe met in the printing trade, at Jewish events and socially. They were entrepreneurs and competitors. Castleman offered calling cards in 1905, 25 cents for a hundred. Yaffe in 1909 offered 500 for 99 cents. Omaha World-Herald, September 30, 1906 William appeared to be gregarious and socially conscious. He was named a delegate in June 1906 to the state Socialist

party convention. In 1907, at 23, he married Sarah Schwartz, 18. He was active in the Omaha Jewish community, including in 1909 the Hebrew Sick Benefit Society, in 1910 as treasurer of the Young Folks’ Dramatic Club (Nathan Yaffe was secretary), and raising funds for the Wise Memorial Hospital established in 1901. Castleman and Yaffe ads exhibited ambitious business aspirations. Their first want ad on Oct. 2, 1909 called for “Ad solicitor for daily paper.” They placed three Omaha World-Herald want ads on June 26, 1910 and July 5, 1910, and introduced confusion identifying the newspaper as Western Jewish Journal and Jewish Western Journal. The ads were telling; “Wanted-Young Lady for advertising dept” and “Wanted-advertising man on paper.” Apply to 307 Old Boston Store. Castleman’s newspaper plan was a high risk start up. If it materialized no known copies survived. Nathan Yaffe entered the printing business in 1906. From August 1909 to August 1915 William Castleman and Nathan Yaffe were partners at 307 and 310 Old Boston Store. During their partner-ship Castleman and Yaffe placed help wanted ads in the World-Herald including Office girl, High school boy to work after school hours and Saturdays, Gordon Pressman and feeder, Boy to learn printing trade, Boy wanted – To learn trade and run errands. These ads reflect general printing labor needs. The partnership ended in 1915, future advertisements were solely in the Yaffe name. Was there a Jewish Vote? Ethnicity played a role. Omaha Daily Bee, Sunday, July 18, 1909 The bottom two lines, “We are prepared to translate the same into the Hebrew language.” By Hebrew they meant campaign literature in Yiddish. We do not know how many daily, weekly, or monthly issues were printed, if at all; when it started, when it terminated. But it seems to have been on the lips of newspaper “influencers.” Bottom line, there is no evidence of the newspaper’s existence other than the help wanted columns and the Monday, Nov. 7, 2010 Daily Bee and Omaha World-Herald “dirty tricks” kerfuffle. As newspapers go, the Bee inherited by Victor Rosewater from his father Edward Rosewater, and the World-Herald owned by Gilbert Hitchcock, were on the worst of terms. They had a history of vitriolic character assassination, heightened by the election season. See William Castleman page B12

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B11

The first issue Continued from page B10 The names are as follows: N.P. Feil, Master Sales Company; President. Harry Lapidus, Omaha Fixture and Supply Company; Vice President. William L. Holzman, Nebraska Clothing Company; Treasurer. Samuel Schaefer, Superintendent Jewish Welfare Federation; Secretary. Henry Monsky, Lawyer. H. A. Wolf, H.A. Wolf Company. Morris Levy, retired. Dr. Philip Sher. City Commissioner Harry B. Zimman. Saul Levy, Broker. Edward Simon, Simon Brothers Company. Sam Leon, Leon Brothers Company. Emil Rothschild, Rothschild Grain Company. Herman Auerbach, H.A. Wolf Company. Harry Malashock, Jeweler. Nathan Yaffe, Printer. Morris E. Jacobs is Manager.

The Jewish Press will be published every Thursday and delivered by mail in the city Friday morning. Offices are in the Baird Building. Communications from Jewish organizations, society news, and personal items should be telephoned to Douglas 2372 or mailed to Four, Baird Building, not later than Monday of the week of publication. It will surprise no one that every single business represented in the founders’ list bought advertising in the fledgling paper. What is maybe a little bit surprising is that that first issue also included quite a few Christmas ads. Whether advertisers hoped this paper would be read by those outside the Jewish community, or whether non-Jewish businesses simply wanted to support it, is hard to decipher this many years later. We can assume that gift giving on December 25 wasn’t high on the list for most Jewish community members. “Far-off Lands and Near Contribute to Our Christmas,” the Burgess-Nash Company stated in their advertisement. “Gift suggestions at the Christmas Store for Everybody!” And then it urges the readers to remember there are “Only 7 Shopping Days Left.” The Nebraska Power Company reminds them that “A Hoover for Mother this Christmas” is a great idea, because “Electrical Gifts Bring Joy and Comfort!” My favorite is probably the Brandeis ad. “Women who desire the unusual,” it stated, “the somewhat finer than ordinary type of apparel (don’t we all? Ed.), will find the wraps, suits and frocks, and in fact any other type of merchandise sold at this store to be exactly to their liking.” That was followed by a complete list of anything these women could desire, including “Fine Undermuslins” and “Apparel for the South.” The paper featured a proud Mogen David in its masthead and some wise words to either side: “The other day the remark was made: “I am a poor Jew; I am the poorest Jew in this room, but I am rich—I am richer than any Jew in Russia,” was printed to the left. In the right hand corner, it stated: “Americanization is the preparation of the hearts of the native born to receive into full fellowship the foreign born.” It is obvious: this is a paper largely of and for recent immigrants. There is even a story announcing the imminent arrival of 473 more, all from Eastern Europe. Over 150 Jews already living in Omaha had relatives among them; the Jewish Welfare Federation (the predecessor of today’s JFO) prepared affidavits for the new immigrants. “The Federation,” the article states, “will hold classes in Americanization for these newcomers.” And if any readers weren’t so sure Omaha needed more immigrants, the Jewish Press was willing to drive the point home when it wrote this headline: Girls Assaulted; Aged Men Killed; Women Tortured in Fastov. (Special to The Jewish Press) New York, Dec. 15.—The most pathetic, tragic, heart-throbbing story of pogroms was contained in a report made by a professor in a Jewish school at Fastov. The report was sent to the Petrograd headquarters of the revolution, but as usual nothing has been done. The pogrom, according to the professor’s report, which is considered very authentic. Followed the arrival of General Denikin’s army in Fastov.

My fate would bewail.

Young girls were assaulted and brutally mistreated in other ways by the soldiers; parents were put to death while their children were forced to sing; aged men and women were massacred. Scavenger pigs and dogs disfigured corpses of men and women in the street. Other news includes Hanukkah parties, synagogue schedules and stories about anti-Jewish propaganda in the U.S. as well as the Alien Bill, which the U.S. House of Representatives had recently passed to curtail immigration—which is a whole other story that we will save for a different time. I want to leave you with one more piece of text from that first edition which perfectly illustrates why to these recent Jewish immigrants, Omaha was a paradise of sorts. A Ghetto Melody By Philip M. Raskin

If only the blades with my speech were acquainted, To them I my pain would appeal; The pain of an errant, the pain of a vagrant, That no one can heal. If only the roses my tongue could have mastered, My tears they would drink ‘stead of dew; The tears of a child of the fields and the flowers, With grief of a Jew. If only the roses, the blades, and the breezes, Could feel the sad note of my song, The rose would be trembling, the Breeze would be moaning, Like me all day long! --From Songs of a Wanderer.

If only the trees could have learned my language, To them I would tell my sad tale; And willow, and chestnut, and oak in the forest

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B12 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

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OZZIE NOGG In 1948, shortly after Israel was recognized by the United Nations, Hannah Logasa began to question whether the country’s barren soil could support a growing population. Logasa was almost 70 at the time, but still remembered facts she’d learned in an agronomy course taken decades earlier. The soil in Palestine, she recalled, is similar to the land in New Mexico and Arizona, and castor beans and soy beans grow abundantly in those states. So Hannah Logasa sat down and wrote a letter to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, suggesting that beans would make a perfect food crop for Israel. Ben-Gurion passed the idea to his agricultural experts, the country planted fields of beans and a grateful Ben-Gurion later said, “Hannah Logasa saved Israel from starvation.” Quite an accolade. So, who was this feisty woman, anyway?

Hannah Logasa was born in 1878 in Ukraine, the daughter of Seth and Ida Logasa, Sephardic Jews who arrived in Omaha when Hannah was three years old. Seth Logasa opened a small grocery store on Capitol Avenue between 10th and 11th St. Hannah worked in the store, cooked the family meals and stayed out of high school to help raise her brother and two sisters — even teaching them how to play baseball. She overcame her lack of formal education by reading on her own, and in 1904 landed her first job at the Omaha Public Library. In 1906, Hannah attended summer school classes in library science at the University of Iowa. Her career rise was rapid. By 1908 she was a head librarian, and in 1914 Hannah was put in charge of the Omaha library’s Department of Statistics and Accounts. See Hannah Logosa page B13

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Continued from page B10 Nov. 7, 1910 page one center morning edition of the Daily Bee headlines proclaimed World-Herald Slander Against Jews Recalled Paper Printed Insult Against Race, Apologized, Then Repeated the Slurs. Hitchcock was a false friend of the Jews based on a letter allegedly signed by William Castleman and four other prominent Jewish citizens. The Bee endorsed the incumbent Republican Elmer Burkett who had served in the House of Representatives from 1899 to 1905 and the Senate from 1905 to 1911. Later in the day the World-Herald responded with a vehement full column on the front page: JEWISH PEOPLE RESENT ATTACK ON HITCHCOCK Bee’s Charge That He Has Not Been Friendly to Them answered by Fact Former Secretary of B’nai B’rith Recalls Instances of Matter of Immigration JEWISH FOLK SIGN NAMES AS VOTING FOR HITCHCOCK IN THE FACE OF ATTACK And as to William, Castleman NAILS A FALSEHOOD Editor William Castleman Tells of Hitchcock as Foreigners’ Friend Both the Bee and the World-Herald identified Castleman as a Jewish newspaper editor. Election day was Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1910. Gilbert Hitchcock owned the World-Herald. He served in Congress from 1907 to 1911. He ran for the Senate as a Democrat in 1911 and defeated incumbent Burket. Hitchcock served until 1923. The Hitchcocks were a Republican family, but Gilbert was a Democrat. When Gilbert died in 1934, the World-Herald became a Republican paper. The November 1910 midterm election during Howard Taft’s presidency also saw the election of the first Socialist to Congress, Victor Berger from Wisconsin. Omaha World-Herald, Sunday, March 31, 1912 In 1915 the Omaha Western Laborer fell afoul with the Omaha Labor Council leadership giving Max Dezettel from Kansas City the opportunity to start the Unionist, a weekly newspaper. David Coutts and William Castleman associated with the labor newspaper in 1916 but similarly fell into “warm” and “hot” exchanges and fell from union leadership favor. Castleman then sought his fortune in Chicago. The Omaha Daily Bee wrote on Nov. 28, 1918, “William Castleman, editor of The Unionist in Chicago, is passing the week with relatives in the city.” The newspaper was the social media of the day. William died in Chicago at the age of 89 in

July 1972. His Chicago Daily News obituary extolled his virtues: Labor movement leader; editor-publisher of the Unionist, Chicago’s first labor newspaper; retired in 1946. He became

interested in Senior Citizen issues. AARP was founded in 1958. In 1960, Castleman was the Midwest representative of the National League of Senior Citizens. He received several awards including from Mayor Richard Daley in 1969. He was president of the American Federation of Senior Citizens. His Omaha World-Herald obituary included the names of several relatives including the Bleicher family of Council Bluffs and Omaha. Incidentally, Nathan Yaffe, William’s printing partner, 1909-1915, died in Omaha in May 1971 at the age of 85. William’s daughter, Marian, born in 1921, graduated from the University of Chicago, was an editor for Viking and Dutton and worked with John Steinbeck, Jorge Luis Borges and Andrea Dworkin, among others. Marian married Ralph Skedgell. She became a Deacon of the Roxbury Congregational Church. In 1990 she contacted the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society for information about her father. Marian died in May 2007 at the age of 86 in Roxbury Connecticut. Her obituary reported a rich literary life as editor and author, and two surviving children. Each generation rewrites its history. Change is now so rapid that rewriting does not wait a generation. Witness the discovery of new documents, technologies and methodologies that transform understanding. For instance, in 1991 I published The Omaha Hebrew Club, 1892-1953: The Immigrant Search for Security, in Memories of the Jewish Midwest. I relied on the weekly Jewish Bulletin, Omaha Jewish Press, and the WorldHerald clipping file at the Douglas County Historical Society. Genealogybank, far superior, contains 442 items from 1894 to 1968. Chronicling America lists 52 items from 1894 to 1922. How these almost 500 newspaper articles modify what I wrote prior to the electronic revolution I leave to younger historians. In 1998 Lynda J. Mirvish and I wrote Nathan S. Yaffe and the Early Years of the Yaffe Printing Company. To some extent, this article is an update.

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B13

Seder with Bertha Many years ago a sociologist who was Jewish wrote a piece about Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the Exodus from slavery in Egypt as set forth in the Biblical Book of Exodus, and one of his main propositions was about the Seder, the festive meal that begins the celebration. He said that the single event celebrated by more Jews than any other RICHARD FELLMAN was the Seder with the possible exception of Hanukkah, the eight day holiday where children receive gifts each day. Clearly, children favor the gift giving to the lengthy dinner where an entire book, the Hagadah, is read aloud. The claim was even made that the most secular Jews, that is the most non-observant, often admit that they, too, have been to a Seder. And almost everyone says that though the Seder is long they thoroughly enjoyed the evening. It was even argued that identification as a Jew might reasonably be pinned to whether or not the person has participated in a Passover Seder I’ve celebrated Passover by attending Seders nearly every year of my long life, and this year would be my 85th Seder except for the two or three missed when I was obviously too young. But my distinct memory of Passover and the extensive preparation for the Seder goes back to the exciting trip I took with my mother Frances Fellman who picked up my grandmother Bertha Green and took me along at about age four or five to Crounse’s Fish Market to buy fresh fish for my grandmother to use in the elaborate ceremony of making “gefilte fish.” Crounses’s store was on North 24th Street in Omaha, Nebraska, a street running from Cuming on the south to Lake on the north, close to two miles, and filled with every imaginable commercial venture. There were bakeries, all kosher, and delis. Fully stocked meat markets and groceries from the “mom and pop” variety to the earliest version of a “supermarket.” Some stores sold only fresh produce, or poultry, or milk and cheese, what is now called a dairy. And there were clothing and dry goods stores, pawn shops and primitive jewelry stores, barber shops and beauty parlors, and drug stores. And on one floor above the pharmacy a fully licensed Jewish doctor held his practice. But the day I remember best, a few days before the eight days of Passover, the sole mission of my mother and grandmother was to purchase fresh fish. Carp and pike, or whitefish and pike, were the ideal in the Midwest, too far from the coasts for greater varieties of fresh fish that included trout and even buffalo. I loved Crounse’s. The smell... I can still recall the smell, See Seder with Bertha page B14

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Hannah Logasa Continued from page B12 But our bookish heroine’s life wasn’t confined to the stacks. In March of 1914, the Omaha Daily Bee ran a story headlined, Omaha Library Workers Are Going Abroad to Study. One of the workers was Hannah Logasa. According to the article, Miss Logasa will sail from New York for Le Havre and expects to be gone four and a half months. Before sailing, Miss Logasa will attend the annual convention of the American Library Association in Washington D.C. She will also attend the annual sessions of the Library Association of the United Kingdom which will be held at Oxford, England. Her time abroad will be given over entirely to travel and recreation in the British Isles, France, Germany, Switzerland and other countries. In Paris she will meet her brother, Charles, Hannah Logasa who is studying art there. The photo that accompanied the article shows a rather dour Hannah, her hair pulled back severely, a stiff crocheted collar at the neck of her dress. Still, this is the woman who played baseball with her siblings, so you really can’t tell a book by its cover... Not surprisingly, Logasa’s library skills attracted national attention. In 1914, fresh from her European adventure, she was appointed librarian for the University of Chicago Laboratory High School after the first person hired to run the facility resigned, claiming the job was more taxing than she’d anticipated. Logasa, on the other hand, embraced the challenge, building up the library collection while improving student morale and supervising the study hall. Hannah’s colleagues in Chicago described her as a woman of great imagination and flexibility, kind and selfless and of fine character. “She did no advertising,” a co-worker said, “but was recognized for her quiet efficiency.” During her years in Chicago, Logasa became internationally known as the pioneer “who professionalized children’s school libraries.” With few examples and no books on how to run a high school library, Logasa worked intuitively, then wrote prolifically on that subject. Her textbook, The High School Library:

Its Function in Education, was among the first professional materials created for librarians serving teens. An innovator and experimenter, Logasa urged librarians — if they wanted to work more effectively with students — to understand the psychology of adolescence, and maintained that the school library was “not an ornament in the educational process, but a necessity.” Logasa advocated student feedback and encouraged librarians “to help students discover their own creative abilities and aptitudes.” She considered the library “an opportunity room.” At the University of Chicago High School, Logasa continued her lifelong interest in sports. She delivered rah-rah speeches at pep rallies, coached the track team, produced a newspaper — The Daily Exhaust, — to promote awareness of reading and current events with the students, and rooted for the Chicago White Sox. In her spare time she picked up a Bachelor of Philosophy degree and a Phi Beta Kappa key. Logasa’s work earned her a position as an instructor of Education at the University of Chicago. Never married, she retired as Professor Emeritus in 1939 and returned to Omaha to spend her last years. “This is my home, my roots are here,” she often said. Hannah Logasa died in the winter of 1967. Her funeral was held at Temple Israel. But that’s not the end of the story. In a tribute published after her death, Omaha World-Herald columnist Robert McMorris wrote, Hannah Logasa, who died at a local hospital last week at eighty-eight, lived the last dozen years of her life in publicity-shunning obscurity. Yet in library circles she was a national figure, and work published in her name fills nearly three feet of shelf space at the Omaha Public Library. McMorris continued, Miss Logasa lived in an efficiency apartment at the Commodore Motor Inn and Hotel on 24th and Dodge, where she meticulously pecked out her manuscripts on a typewriter at the kitchen table. A tiny, frail woman, five feet tall and eighty pounds, she was shy and retiring and wore drab, mostly gray clothing. According to the McMorris tribute, except for a few close friends, Hannah Logasa’s accomplishments were largely unknown in Omaha. So, too, was her support of worthy causes, much of which was anonymous — a scholarship fund of $10,000 given to the Omaha Hebrew Academy at a time when it seemed the school would have to close; gifts to the Omaha Public Library, the University of Chicago, to her Hadassah study group, to American Friends of The Hebrew University and Mu Sigma Study Group — an Omaha women’s reading club founded in 1893. She also left 20 modernist paintings by her brother, Charles Logasa (who had become an artist of some prominence) to the Joslyn Art Museum. But Hannah See Hannah Logasa page B14

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Hannah Logasa Seder with Bertha Continued from page B13 though it is beyond my vocabulary to try to explain it. No modern fishmarket smells the same. And there was a huge tub filled with fresh water sitting in the center at the extreme front of the fish market. Most of all there were the fish swimming around with their tails flapping one against the other, and while one of the store’s owners stood by watching, my grandmother carefully selected the choice fish she intended to buy. It seemed to me at age four or five that the selection process took forever, and I wondered how my grandmother could tell one fish from the other. But at last she selected her favorites which were then taken out by Mrs. Crounse with a basket mounted on the far end of a long pole and wrapped in fresh paper cut from brown grocery rolls lined with a sort of water resistant material. The fish were still alive, bouncing around on a table while everything around them became slightly damp, maybe more accurately almost totally wet. The fish were weighed, wrapped again, and my grandmother paid Mrs. Crounse. She took the live fish home. Everything was now ready for the preparation of gefilte fish. The odor during the preparation is strong and to many, quite unappealing. I loved it. Gefilte fish is a traditional Jewish dish. Recipes call for onions, fresh fish, eggs, matzah meal, carrots, celery , some-

times sugar, but always salt, pepper, and water. The fish and onions are chopped, the remaining items are added, and the mixture is formed into balls, simmered, and served either cold or warm. It is traditionally served on Friday night at the commencement of the Shabbat dinner and routinely served at the beginning of the Seder dinner. By custom it is served with pungent horseradish, either the red type or the white. The next scene of this story moves to Bertha’s kitchen which by today’s standard was small, maybe even tiny. At one end stood her stove, gas burners which she lit with a long wooden match to a flame, and, standing near her, I Credit: tomertu/Getty Images could smell the gas. It smelled “icky” to me. I think there was more than one burner, maybe two. Next to the burners, and sitting on the same level, was the oven. It looked like a big box set on half of the white porcelain base with four shapely legs. That was it. The entire appliance measured not more than four or five feet in length and about three feet in width. And from this my Grandmother made the dinner for Seders of two separate nights, serving at least 15 immediate members of her family and usually a few invited guests. There was a counter of about five feet by three feet, a large sink with one tub and hot and cold running water, and in the corner an “ice box” which was really a box with ice, a small See Seder with Bertha page B15

Contined from page B13 Logasa willed the bulk of her estate to David Ben-Gurion. Here’s the backstory as revealed by McMorris in his column. After Hannah offered Ben-Gurion her ‘bean tip,’ the Prime Minister urged her to visit him in Israel. In 1961, Logasa made the trip, but with characteristic modesty didn’t tell Ben-Gurion where she was staying. Magically, however, flowers were delivered to her room at the King David Hotel, followed by an invitation to the Ben-Gurion’s home in Tel Aviv. Logasa declined, saying she didn’t want to ‘bother’ them, so the Ben-Gurions came to the King David to see her. After a warm conversation, Logasa found herself assigned to the

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hotel’s Royal Suite with a helicopter and secretary at her disposal for the rest of her tour. Hannah and the Ben-Gurions met again in 1967, when the former Prime Minister and his wife Paula were touring the United States. After much arm-twisting, Logasa agreed to meet the Ben-Gurions in Chicago where the former Prime Minister greeted ‘the little woman from Omaha’ with a hug and a kiss. It was, for Hannah Logasa, a highlight of her life. The McMorris tribute prompted a letter to the World-Herald from Cantor Aaron Edgar’s wife, Ethel — both of blessed memory. “I knew Hannah Logasa as a member of B & P Hadassah,” Ethel wrote, “and visited with her several times after her retirement. She told me about writing to Ben-Gurion, but gave few details and, of course, did not mention the fact that she left most of her estate to him for agricultural research. When I went to Kibbutz Sde Boker, to see the graves of Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula, I was told about a building put up with funds given by Hannah. It is used for agricultural experimentation and bears a plaque with her name.” Ben-Gurion’s response to the news of Logasa’s death is part See Hannah Logasa page B15

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | B15

Seder with Bertha

Continued from page B14 wooden box with three or four shelves and room for a large cake of ice which melted and dripped into a container down below which caught the water. Fresh produce, eggs, dairy, milk and meat were thus refrigerated. There was a small table in the corner with three or four chairs, and that was my Grandmother’s kitchen. Once home from the fish market the work began. It was cool spring weather, so off came the coats and on came long white aprons. Knives were removed from the cupboards, long and sharp knives, the fish were laid upon the counter top, and off came the tails, then the heads, then the fish were split down the middle and deboned. A surgeon could not have done it any better. The fish were then again wrapped, placed in the ice box, and the heads and tails were separately wrapped. I never saw what happened to them. My mother and I went home. The next time I was at my Grandmother’s home the Seder meal was entirely prepared and in the oven and the ice box ready to be emptied and served. The house was immaculately cleaned, string was strung across the cupboards in the kitchen to prevent any one from using the regular everyday dishes while the special Kosher for Passover dishes, one for dairy and one for meat, were piled high on the counter and the table for use during the eight days of Passover. All bread, everything made with flour, had been removed, and boxes of matzah, the dry nearly tasteless cakes made without leaven were piled in boxes, each box marked “Kosher for Passover.” Many in the family called her Bubee, the Yiddish diminutive for grandma. Her name in Hebrew was Brocha, which literally means blessed. When she entered America she was given an English name, Bertha. Her maiden name was Shafton, and her married name was Green. She and her husband Meyer had eight children. Meyer was killed in a traffic accident by a drunken driver, leaving her with six children still at home. The time I’m referring to was about 1940 when her four daughters were each married, and only two sons remained living with her at home. By 1940, Bertha Green lived in a small duplex on the southeast corner of 38th and Dodge. Upstairs were three small bedrooms and a partially closed porch, and on the first floor was a living room, a dining room, and the kitchen. She had a favorite chair, a black wooden rocker, which always stood in the corner of the living room at an angle facing the front door. There were chairs all around the room. In the dining room was a large table with seats at both ends. For Seder dinners the table was pushed

against a wall and folding chairs were pushed together on three sides. And in the middle of the living room a second and small table was always set with at least six or more chairs. This was the “children’s” table.

the kitchen so my grandmother could sit while she spoke with any of her children, would ring. Only once, for Uncle Eddie who always sat by the phone, would pick it up after the first ring, and everyone at the table would hear him

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I sat at the children’s table with my sister, and an accumulation of cousins. When it was my turn to recite The Four Questions, traditionally done by the youngest person at the Seder, I was moved to the adults’ table and placed between my mother and father who had each spent time with me studying the questions in Hebrew so I could recite them perfectly. The food at the Seder was strictly Kosher for Passover. And the seder service itself was short, though the main parts were always included, the Kiddush to start with Passover wine, and after The Four questions, the traditional answers, the stories, the recitation of The Ten Plagues, and the explanation of the Seder Plate with the traditional symbols, including the shank bone, a roasted egg, matzah, bitter herbs, parsley, and haroseth, a mixture of nuts, apples, cinnamon, and raisons all finely chopped and mixed with wine. Aunts and Uncles filled the adults’ table, and it seem to me that there were too many to count. Most of my grandmother’s children and their spouses were always there. But one of my grandmother’s daughters had married a student from Pittsburgh while he was in Medical School, and when he graduated they moved “back East.” A some point in the Seder dinner, but always after the liturgical portions had been finished, the phone rang. Recall that in those days, then 1940, long distance calls were expensive, so they were always limited. The phone, placed in a corner shelf in the dining room and next to the door to

answer in a loud voice, “Hello.” There would then be a pause of not more than a few seconds, and Eddie would announce to the entire family, “It’s Ethel.” Everyone knew who it was. Then the joy of a long distance call began, and Eddie handed the phone to his mother, then she passed it around to Anne and her husband Iz, to Nate and then to Art and his wife Dorothy, then to my mother Frances and my father Leon, I would be skipped, then to Phyllis and her husband Lew, then to the next to the youngest, Each. It was back to Eddie. The children were omitted, and it was usually time for dessert. My mother and father would whisper to me that I had done beautifully in reciting The Four Questions, and usually one or two uncles or aunts would also compliment me. I lost that honor about three or four years later when my sister Janie, three years younger than me, became the youngest in the family, and it was her turn. There were a number of younger cousins, Marvin, Shelley, Michael, Betty, Roger, and more coming who would take their turns, and their were three older than me, Lorraine, Alvin, and Myra, but their time had come and gone. Except for the War years, when my grandmother had a flag in her window showing that she had five men away in the Army, the Seders went on for many more years. And when Eddie returned from the Army at the end of the war, his announcement of the call from Ethel became stronger for by then he had spent three years listening to an Army bugler playing Reveille and Taps.

that an unknown person from far away sends thousands of dollars for the Negev. I was even more astonished when a few weeks later I received again a new check. “Then she came to Israel and I saw I have before me an extraordinary personality. We exchanged letters all the time, and last I had the privilege of meeting her again in the States. She was already very weak but still mentally very much alive. She was a great and extraordinary personality, and some lady, who knew her, should write her biography. Our people should know what a great

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Hannah Logasa Continued from page B14 of the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society archives. “I have your letter of Dec. 27 with the tragic news that the dear Hannah Logasa is not any more with us,” Ben-Gurion wrote. “I can hardly express what I feel. She was one of the most remarkable of all the women and men I know in my life. I was astonished when several years ago I received a letter and a check of several thousand dollars for the development of the Negev. I never before heard the name Logasa, and I was amazed

Let freedom ring and peace endure as we remember the Exodus and celebrate Passover.

woman American Jewry had given us. “I am deeply grateful to you for the picture you sent me of my friend. It is a great treasure for me. Yours, David Ben-Gurion.” Until someone does write a biography of Hannah Logasa, consider these words by Newbery Medal-winning author Neil Gaiman: “Librarians are the coolest people out there doing the hardest job out there on the frontlines. And every time I get to encounter or work with librarians, I’m always impressed by their sheer awesomeness.”

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Passover S EC T I ON 3

Where we come from: Excerpts from Carol Gendler’s Master’s thesis ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press It’s important to remember how young the Omaha Community was the year the Jewish Press first appeared. Omaha was only incorporated as a city in 1857; Nebraska officially became a state on March 1, 1867. The Jewish community, in turn, certainly experienced growing pains during those first years of statehood. In The Jews of Omaha: The First 60 Years, Carol Gendler wrote: “Because their community was small, the practice of Judaism often presented problems for pioneer Omaha Jews. Most of the German-Jewish immigrants were young people who had experienced a traditional Jewish upbringing. The long sea voyages to America made very difficult the observance of such Jewish customs as kashruth, and often the immigrants had parted from some of their Jewish ways even before they arrived on United States soil. Those who settled in larger eastern cities were able to join existing Jewish communities, but those who chose to settle on the frontier sometimes found themselves hard put to retain their identity as practicing Jews. As far as it is known, there were no Jewish religious services in Omaha until 1867,and those Jews who had settled in Omaha prior to that time found it necessary to

practice their faith within the home as best they could. It was entirely up to parents to provide a Jewish education for their children, as no religious schools were available for several years.” “Young men, and indeed most of the early settlers were bachelors, had to find their wives else-

where, as there were few eligible Jewish girls in Omaha. Marriage brokers, who maintain an important position in Jewish tradition, often were responsible for the weddings that did take place. In 1870 a local paper noted such a “marriage of short See Where we come from page C2

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Where we come from Continued from page C1 acquaintance.” A Miss Adler, who had arrived in Omaha from Chicago, was married to Abraham Israel after an acquaintance of but two days. The wedding was performed by a judge, and “solemnized according to the Jewish ritual by Mr. L. Frudenheim, a dry goods merchant on Douglas Street. “Until the Omaha Jewish community was able to support a rabbi, Jewish marriage ceremonies were performed either by judges or by rabbis brought in from out of town. The Reverend Dr. Isaac Schwab of St. Joseph and Reverend I. Fall of Davenport, Iowa, came to Omaha to carry out such duties on various occasions. When it was not possible to bring a rabbi from out of town, a judge would perform a civil ceremony and the proper Jewish prayers would be recited by a knowledgeable member of the community.” “The keeping of the Jewish dietary laws was also very difficult for Omaha Jews until about 1881 when the first permanent shohet came to Omaha. Prior to this, Jews who observed kashrut had meat brought from Des Moines where it was killed in the proper manner by a Jewish butcher.

“The rite of circumcision also presented a problem. For a time in 1873 a reverend Hertzmann apparently served the Jewish community of Council Bluffs, and at various times he performed circumcision and marriages for Omaha Jews. When the Meyer Hellmans had a son in 1884, a mohel was brought in from Chicago to circumcise the boy. By the late 1880s, however, when considerable members of east European orthodox Jews began arriving in Omaha, it was no longer necessary to import such practitioners.” Source: Carol Gendler, The Jews of Omaha: The first sixty years, pp 27-29. Times could be rough during the late 19th century, not just in Omaha. Members of the community did not always get along so well. Carol Gendler’s writing speaks for itself: “The Congregation of Israel did not officially affiliate with the Reform movement until 1889, and at least through the early 1880s an attempt was made to accommodate the religious services to all who attended. Dissent was inevitable, and in 1876 there took place in the congregation a major incident, which received considerable publicity. See Where we come from page C4

I have been included as ‘news’ at least once in six of the ten decades the Jewish Press has been operating. My birth announcement in the ‘60s, my Bar Mitzvah and Israel trip in the ‘70s, my work in cultural arts and Israel in the ‘80s, our wedding announcement and the birth of our sons in the ‘90s, my work at the ADL in the ‘00s, more of my work at the ADL and the Feder- ALAN POTASH ation in the ‘10s and now, the ‘20s. I Chief Executive mention this because this isn’t unusual Officer, JFO for a local Jewish paper. I would guess most of us can find mention of ourselves in the Jewish Press. As a weekly paper covering local, national, and global events, the Press has a front row seat to our Omaha Jewish community. It has also been a constant presence in most of our homes since its first printing. Back in 1983, I even found my first professional job in the Jewish Press. I was working as a contract employee for Internorth (Enron), saving up money to move to New York to pursue my passion for the arts. One day I saw an advertisement in the Press for an assistant director for Jewish Cultural Arts at the JCC. Since my first trip to Israel in 1977, I knew I wanted to combine my interest in the Arts and Judaism. I pursued this interest in college and was ready for this opportunity. As with so many of us, the JCC was central to my youth and I knew it would be a great place to hone my skills as a young Jewish professional. Those years working at the JCC, as an adult in the Jewish community, shaped who I am today and are instrumental in why I continue as a leader in the Jewish world. Our Omaha Jewish Press is one of the few remaining local weekly Jewish papers. Being mindful of the current state of newspapers in general, the leadership of the Press is exploring ways to remain relevant and meaningful. In the Rosh Hashanah issue, which focused on environmentalism, I addressed the idea of the paper becoming totally digital. I have since learned that would not be a good move! It is a fine line – remaining cognizant of who our readers are and how they want to receive local Jewish community news. A number of younger community members mentioned podcasts as their See Alan Potash page C5

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From the archives: A Bar Mitzvah for the ages MORRIS MALINE August 23, 1985 There are Bar Mitzvahs and Bar Mitzvah parties, but this one has got to be a first—and the entire Jewish community is invited. Charley Fellman, Abraham L. Krantz and Abraham B. Gendler will become Bar Mitzvah during Shabbat services on Oct. 5 at Beth El Synagogue. Fellman, Krantz and Gendler are not 13year-old boys. They are not 14 or 15 either. Try 83 years of age. “We’re all going to be called up to the Torah and have a first class Bar Mitzvah with all the trimmings,” they said. The trimmings include a Kiddush luncheon with herring, two kinds of kugel and assorted delicacies, the trio proudly proclaim. The three dedicated synagogue-goers decided to have a big party a few years ago. “We were in Shul and we were talking about the fact that none of us had the type of Bar Mitzvah and party that the youngsters enjoy today... God willing, let’s have a big to-do to celebrate our 83rd birthdays.” Mr. Fellman, the youngest of the three, was born in Wolyn, Russia and came to this country when he was three. He recalls that his father who had served four years in the Russian army decided to leave that country because of the bad treatment Jews received there. “I recall having some type of Bar Mitzvah in a little Shul located in a house somewhere around 21st and Charles,” Mr. Fellman said. Mr. Krantz, the next eldest, was born in Shimsky, not far from Mr. Fellman’s place of birth. He came to this country when he was 20. “I had a Bar Mitzvah in the old country during the week and we had a small bottle of vodka and a little cake for the ten men who were there,” Mr. Krantz said. Mr. Gendler, also 20 when he arrived, came from his place of birth, Belegorowdka, in the same province as his two friends. “They wanted my father for the army, but he didn’t want to serve because they

wouldn’t make kosher food available. So we tried not to be too visible and public displays such as a Bar Mitzvah were avoided,” Mr. Gendler said.

Mr. Krantz, also a Synagogue regular, was in the scrap metal business before retirement. He now “plays a little cards,” exercises and participates in a variety of

Bar Mitzvah by Édouard Brandon Mr. Gendler is still active in the oil business and continues with a daily office routine. He also reads from the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays, exercises at the Jewish Community Center and fishes. He still retains his post as president of the Omaha chapter of Zionists of America. Mr. Fellman, who was in the grocery business before retirement, spends a good deal of time playing bridge and attending bridge tournaments. He also participates regularly at the Synagogue and is a regular at the Old Timers club sponsored by the Bureau for the Aging.

older-adult activities. In providing information for this article, Mr. Gendler made a special point of asking the writer to mention A. B. Alprin, his mother’s cousin. “My mother gave him money to escape from Russia, and he paid her back by making it possible for me to leave.” The trio of pre-Bar Mitzvah ‘boys’ attribute their good health and high energy levels to “always having something to look forward to.” Oct. 5 will be here soon. Vos noch? (What’s next?)

St. Louis radio station telecasts first television Seder in the United States JTA Archives | April 10, 1947 Radio station KSD-TV here telecast a Seder service Monday in what is believed to have been the first Seder ever sent out by television. The service, conducted by Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman of Temple

Israel, was performed at the broadcast station where a table and the other necessities were set up and a choir from the Temple’s Sunday school sang Passover hymns and a pupil asked the four questions.

Happy Passover F R O M C I T Y C O U N C I LW O M A N A I M E E M E LT O N

This Is Our Passover

Bloomberg Challenge Coronavirus Victory Gardens #016 in this Sponsored Series

Dear Mike, Repeating what I said last time, we need your 5:1 match of our Benson Plant Rescue fund at Midlands Community Foundation by April 30. Your pledge will guarantee we can close on our lease-purchase agreement, upgrade the heat/AC system, finish remodeling, and even put up the shell of our much needed Green House. We’re at a crossroads, Mike. We have to know your help is on the way, or I need to spend all this month with bankers until I get assured we’re not going to get tossed out on the street come May 1. That could still happen, though it’s unlikely. If it’s not you, then somebody else like you will understand that our Omaha experiment may be one piece of the complex puzzle needed at the national level to respond to COVID-19. We just hope it’s you because we like your track record on the environment and want to contribute to it. And by “our Omaha experiment” I mean not just the Benson Plant Rescue but the network of other organizations with whom we collaborate: Omaha Permaculture, Big Gardens, No More Empty Pots, City Sprouts, Big Muddy Urban Farm, Lauritzen Gardens, Gifford Park Community Garden and other community gardens, neighborhood associations, and civic groups. As for our being a part of “the complex puzzle” solving the Coronavirus pandemic, I’m talking about the as-yet-unknown consequences of the behavior shifts necessary in the coming months to confront this invisible killer. We may be facing interruptions in our food supply at the same time as we see new mental and physical illness bred by increased isolation and social distancing. Only this past weekend at the Benson Plant Rescue one of our members made the observation that this year we really need to remind people how therapeutic gardening is by uplifting people’s spirits through floral gardens and improving their health with organic produce grown in vegetable gardens. So today, in this Passover Edition of the Jewish Press, we challenge you to assist us in promoting a new generation of Victory Gardens as once flourished during World War II. Doing so will help stabilize our food supply while giving people stuck at home the chance to get outside to fresh air and sunshine instead of being cooped up inside in front of screens. Together let’s guide America to Victory over this silent assassin and the isolation we must endure to kill it. Make it so. READ MORE at BensonPlantRescue.Org by Dr. D, Co-Founder & President Benson Plant Rescue/Community Produce Rescue (BPR-CPR) 7224 Maple, Omaha, NE 68134 (402) 933-3867

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NOTE: This column was intended to run on March 27 but was delayed a week when that issue of the Jewish Press was cancelled due to complication arising from closure of the Jewish Community Center in response to the Coronavirus.

C4 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Where we come from

Continued from page C2 “At this time the congregation, in accordance with its attempt to conciliate all factions, observed two days of Rosh Hashanah, whereas the Reform custom required the observance of but one day. In absence of a rabbi, reader for the services was Morris Adamsky, a shoemaker who professed to be a Reform Jew. Adamsky was assisted in his duties by a peddler named Forman. Services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah were uneventful. On the second day, however, before coming to Peyke’s Hall at Twelfth and Farnam where the services were held, Adamsky “opened his shop as usual and began business the same as on any other secular day.” When the more pious members of the congregation learned that Adamsky had gone to work on a holy day, they regarded his actions as “a grave

breach of Mosaic Law... and they were in a state of great in-

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dignation that Adamsky should profess to be a good Israelite and yet openly violate the religious law.” Two men, Abraham Bernstein and Jacob Meyer, determined that Adamsky was not fit to lead the congregation in prayer. A skirmish ensued, and both Adamsky and Forman were forcibly driven from the hall. According to a local paper, the Reform Jews “came out of it with only a few physical bruises and a greatly damaged peace of mind.” That local paper, according to Gendler’s notes, was The Daily Herald of Sept. 21, 1876. Had there been a Jewish publication, one can only guess what they would have made of it— but those days were still a few decades away. “Perhaps one of the most interesting facets of this factional dispute,” Gendler wrote, “was the treatment accorded it by the three daily Omaha papers. The Daily Herald covered the affair in full, but the report was preceded by a lengthy explanation of the social and religious differences among Jews.” From that same Sept. 21 Daily Herald: “The idea, however, that the disputes and bickerings of some of the more ignorant and unpleasant members of this congregation need reflect upon the many intelligent men of education and high social position of the same synagogue is wholly without reason, and the reader will readily comprehend that the difficulty occurred among the lower class of society and is probably more personal than religious in its origin.” Thus the editor attempted to defend those Jews whom he accepted more acceptable socially than the orthodox members. The paper went further, and in a separate notice informed the public that Jacob Meyer, who had been involved in the dispute, was totally unrelated to the prominent and reputable Jewish citizen Max Meyer. “The Daily Republican carried no report of the dispute whatsoever, with the exception of a brief notice that the facts about the unpleasantness at the Hebrew service on Wednesday were suppressed in The Republican at the earnest request of leading Jewish citizens. No good would be accomplished by such publication, and it would work injury to many, therefore we willingly consented not to publish the particulars in our possession. The Herald, however, did not look at the matter in the same light.” (Daily Republican, Sept. 22, 1876) The admission that the paper knew the facts but would not share them, while at the same time delivering a dig at a rival paper, is perhaps a sign of the times. Gendler added: “The Bee made no mention of the events at all, save for a brief notice of the impending court action. Presumably The Bee, too, was requested by “leading Jewish citizens” to suppress the incident.” Source: Carol Gendler, The Jews of Omaha: The first sixty years, pp 39-41. The Evening Bee, according to Gendler’s writing, was led by Edward Rosewater. “On August 30, Edward Rosewater was found dead of apparent heart failure in the Bee building. The Bee was conducted by Edward Rosewater’s sons, Victor and Charles, until 1920, when it was sold to Nelson Updike. A merger was effected with the Omaha News in 1927, and the following year the Bee-News was purchased by the Hearst syndicate, which maintained the paper until its demise in 1937. (World Herald, Feb. 20, 1966) “As a Jew, Edward Rosewater was something of an enigma. He never affiliated with a synagogue, nor did he participate in the social affairs of the Jewish community. Among his few publicized connections with Jewish causes was his work on behalf of Wise Memorial Hospital and an occasional appearance at a public function. Rosewater was on some occasions criticized by his opponents in the newspaper world for his apparent indifference to his religion. The Daily Republican once commented that it is noticeable that Mr. Rosewater’s devotion to the Jews consists solely of an attempt to stir that race of people into indignation against The Republican. In other ways he fights very shy of them. He has never been remarkable for upholding the Jewish faith or Jewish customs, nor has he ever said anything in his paper favorable to his race. His associates have never been Jews, and in no way has he ever appeared to hold any sort of communion with the people whom he affects with such indignation to defend whenever he is alluded to as one of them. The Jewish people need no defense at the hands of Mr. Rosewater, first because the Republican has never attacked them, secondly, because Mr. Rosewater has no authority to speak for them, and, thirdly, because he is about the worst thing that ever happened to them. (Daily Republican, May 22, 1883.) Source: Carol Gendler, The Jews of Omaha: The first sixty years, pp 68-69. We can only imagine what people thought when they read that. Eventually things would calm down somewhat. In her epilogue, Carol Gendler wrote: See Where we come from page C5

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | C5

Alan Potash Continued from page C2 choice for news and cultural information. There certainly are a prolific number of podcasts available, many from newspapers expanding their reach. Should the Jewish Press venture into a podcast series for our community members who may have shifted away from newspapers? Feel free to email me your thoughts – alanpotash@jewishomaha.org. The Jewish Press is also a remarkable reference tool. It is easy to go back through past editions and find community stories that help determine decisions as leaders of our community. A good example of this is the 2017 Community Study. Because of stories in the Jewish Press we were able to learn about previous surveys – when they were done, why they were done, and their findings. There is no better permanent record of Jewish Omaha. The Press remains vital in continuing to record our past. How we use it in the future is up to us.

Where we come from Continued from page C4 “By 1915, Omaha Jewry had to a great extent stabilized and unified. The social and cultural divergence between the pioneer and the immigrant had begun to fade. Jews of disparate backgrounds and representing various degrees of religious practice found themselves working together for the good of their own people and of the entire community.” Source: Carol Gendler, The Jews of Omaha: The first sixty years, pp 137-138). Against this backdrop, Jewish Omaha began to form into what it is today. Morris Levy started the Jewish Press in 1920, the country club came, so did AZA and by 1926, the first Community Center opened its doors. Remembering those first generations, imagining what life was like for pioneers and new immigrants who literally started with nothing is a helpful lesson. When we look around us and celebrate all we have in this community, we know whom to thank.

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1920s advertising: Kosher salami sandwiches, ten cents each OZZIE NOGG What with ads popping up non-stop on our computers and smart phones, it may surprise you to learn that the 1920s and ‘30s are considered the Golden Age of Advertising, a time that brought new ways to separate customers from their money. An era — says Roland Marchand, history professor at UC Davis — that focused less on the product for sale and more on the consumer who would do the buying. Usually, that consumer was a woman. And though the Twenties were supposedly roaring, Madison Avenue mavens decreed that “most American women lead rather monotonous and humdrum lives, and the advertising pages should become the magical carpets on which they may ride out to love.” For Omaha jeweler, Harry Malashock, this was an a-HA moment. In the December 23, 1920 edition of the Jewish Press, Malashock Jewelers crowed, “We promise wedding engagements galore! We know, for we sold seven diamond engagement rings during the past week. High quality platinum jewelry and engagement rings — OUR SPECIALTY.” One can only hope Malashock’s message led some foot-dragging swains to propose to their love-starved girlfriends, which then resulted in a magical carpet ride to the chuppah. For nostalgia nerds, in 1920 you could visit Harry Malashock Jewelers at 1516 Dodge, or book

an appointment to view the baubles by calling Douglas 5619. A short walk from Malashock’s got you to J. Katleman and Sons Clothiers, on South 16th Street in the Securities Building. Their early ads in the Press stressed the importance of a good first impression when looking for a job. To wit: Katleman’s offered silk crepe men’s shirts for $6.95; Stetson hats, five bucks; silk ties, two for $1.50, and union suits at $3.49 (though surely a fellah wouldn’t be asked to show his underwear at an interview.) Dapper Dans could snag a snappy worsted three piece suit at Katelman’s for around $25.00 complete with extra trousers. Such a metzseeyah. Fashionistas who frequented Kilpatrick’s French Room might swan out with an Art Deco inspired drop-waist chiffon bias-cut chemise trimmed with crystals or metal sequins. (Price on request.) Women of more modest means were encouraged to visit Brandeis and check out the frocks. “These favorite Fifth Avenue styles will delight you with their becomingness and startlingly low price.” Like, say, “a sweet, hand-embroidered voile dress in either white, lavender or rose. Only $4.98.” Before heading home, a shopper might walk through the brass trimmed glass doors of Napier’s Booterie, 309 So. 16th. Street ( furnished in jade and amethyst with smoking See 1920s advertising page C6

C6 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

1920s advertising Passover Seder plates and Afikomen SYBIL KAPLAN The home ceremony, known as the seder, is based upon the Biblical injunction, “And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8). The Mishnah gives the formula for the four questions, and the Haggadah is based on the seder service prescribed by the Mishnah. Where does the idea of seder plates then originate? The origin is not clear, although there is mention of a special plate in the time of the Mishnah. Obviously, these were designed to hold the symbolic foods for the seder. Ashkenazic haggadot from Medieval times show tables with large round plates, while wicker baskets are shown in some Sephardic and Italian manuscripts. Plates which are still in existence date from the Renaissance and, we know these and those which were after were made of all types of materials. The oldest seder plate in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is from 15th century Spain, probably ordered from a pottery shop in the town of Murviedo by a merchant around 1480. Whereas Spanish plates were most often ceramic, this one is majolica in brown, blue and yellow with the words Pesach, matza and maror. There is also a hole in the edge where it was hung after glazing. Majolica plates were made through a process of firing earthenware and applying a tin enamel. When dried, it formed a white opaque, porous surface on which the design was painted then a transparent glaze was applied and it was refired. This resulted in a richly colored, ornamented glazed pottery. Majolica plates were also produced in 16th century Italy. The majolica seder plates of the 17th century were produced by the Azulai and Cohen families. The Cohen plates were identified by a crown on the back as the manufacturer’s mark to denote priesthood. They were deco-

rated with text from the haggadah and vignettes. Seder plates with special indentations for the symbols were first made of pewter, probably because they shone like silver, were easy to keep and could be engraved upon. These appear in 19th century Austro-Hungarian Europe and in Eastern Europe. They were most frequently decorated with the paschal lamb or with a star in the center. Late 19th century seder plates were made of silver and were decorated with scenes from the Passover story, the order of the ceremony and Hebrew inscriptions. Originally three matzot were put in an embroidered bag. This then led to seder plates with three tiers attached so the three matzot could be accommodated as part of the actual plate. These probably originated in the 18th century and are visible in some preserved in Germany. Moroccan Jewish craftsmen produced seder plates of brass or copper with the names of the symbols but not with specific indentations. See Passover Seder plates page c8

Continued from page C5 stands) and walk out in stylish blonde kid Dainty D’Orsay pumps with Cuban heel (the very last word in shoe smartness) for $2.95. And when those pumps needed mending, another Press advertiser assured readers that, “Quality Shoe Repairing on 24 and Cuming means economy,” and suggests you, “Ask your neighbor about our work. Signed, H. Lazarus.” April of 1921 saw an uptick in competition for Omaha’s kosher deli business. “Announcement,” read one Press ad. “Mrs. S. Mantel is no longer connected with the Kosher Restaurant and has now re-opened at 1919 Burt Street. Serving strictly Kosher meals twice a day. Attention given parties, weddings, etc. We rent kosher dishes. Phone Douglas 5883.” Further down the page we find, “Mrs. N. Meiches and Company wish to announce that we will open on or about May 1st. A First Class Kosher Delicatessen and Dairy Products Store to be known as THE NORTH SIDE KOSHER DELICATESSEN COMPANY, located at 1618 North 24th Street with a full line of strictly fresh and Kosher delicatessen and Dairy products.” Right above the Meiches ad, this announcement appeared. “The name of the E. and H. Bakery, 1722 North 24th Street, has been changed to that of the Adler-Forbes Bakery. The owners are M. Adler and M. Forbes. The bakery is still under the same management that it was before the name was changed.” By 1924, Mrs. Mantel’s twice-a-day kosher meals and the Meiches North Side Kosher Delicatessen Company (if still in business) were probably fighting off Steinberg’s Deli, 516 So. 16th Street, opposite the Rome Hotel. The menu offered See 1920s advertising page C7

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | C7

1920s advertising Continued from page C6 Saturday and Sunday Specials of Kosher wieners, franks and knockwurst, 25 cents a pound; corned beef and pastrami, 75 cents a pound; smoked white fish or smoked kippered salmon, 30 cents a pound; and kosher salami sandwiches, ten cents each. Be still my heart. While we’re talking food, let’s talk Passover. On April 19, 1929, the Press ran an ad for Fairmont’s Better Butter. “Sweet, made under the direction of Rabbi M.I. Braner packed in half-pounds for your convenience. Your grocer or marketman has Better Butter churned especially for Passover or can get it for you.” In the same issue, Stoller’s Fish Market, 1708 North 24th Street, claimed, “Your Passover Seder is not Complete Without Some Good Gefilte Fish.” To aid the balabustehs, Stoller’s advertised, “The best RIVER CARP and BUFFALO obtainable, at the lowest price in town. Fifteen cents a pound and up.” Stoller’s also sold eggs (direct from the country, 25 cents a dozen) and chickens (the kind you need for Passover, extra fat at lowest prices, dressed free.) If you couldn’t make it to Stoller’s, their products were also available at Soskin & Kozberg Meat Market, 1552 North 20th with no charge for delivery. Other Passover advertisers included American Upholstery Company, opposite the Castle Hotel on South 16th, who, in April of 1921, alerted readers, “In time for your Seder, new slipcovers of striped creton and Belgian Damask. Any size three-piece set. $21.50 and up. Old furniture reupholstered like new. We don’t care how bad the upholstering part is. We make it like new.” The Passover edition in April, 1925, ran ads by two painters. “Don’t Wait Till Erev Pesach,” warned J. Feldman of 2424 Burt Street. “Do your painting and decorating NOW. Save 25% of the cost. Work guaranteed.” Not to be outdone, Sam Newman Painting and Decorating ad read, “Let us bid for you. Our work is guaranteed. 214 South 18th Street.” No phone numbers were included in either advertisement, so the chance of attracting customers seems slim. Then again, most potential clients lived in the neighborhood of 24th and Burt and even South 18th Street, so perhaps both Feldman and Newman made a good living from walk-ins. Various 1920s Jewish Press issues turned up ads from M. Somit Jewish Book Store, 2429 Decatur, selling talaysim (silk and wool), tephilim, mezuzos, silver shabbbos candlesticks, matzos baked in America and Eretz Israel and soap kosher for Pesach; L. Kneeter, 1916 Farnam. High Class Merchant Tailor, suits made to order; Himelbloom’s Health Whole Wheat Bread, 1616 North 24th Street. Flour ground the old-fashioned way. Eliminates stomach trouble. H.A. Wolf Company. Merchandisers of real estate. 18th and Douglas in the SaundersKennedy Building. Selling a two story frame at 1816 Corby Street. Two stores below and four 5-room apartments above. Asking $2,850.00. Brings in a gross rental of $870.00 per annum; and Rev. E. Fleishman, The Mohel. Place of business,

1000 N. 90th St., Suite 100 Omaha, Nebraska 68114 2415 Cuming Street. (Does that mean parents brought the new-born to Fleishman? Oi...) Let’s close with this well-meaning ad that ran in the first issue of the Omaha Jewish Press. The content is verbatim, but the name and address of the advertiser have been changed to protect the innocent.

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“To the Jewish Press. Congratulations! Every new industry in the city helps to make a bigger and better Omaha. Amalgamated Bank and Trust welcomes the Jewish Press and wishes you every success. We are glad to call the attention of your readers of this first issue to the fact that a savings account in the Savings Department at Amalgamated Bank and Trust makes an ideal Christmas gift. A savings account may be opened with a dollar or more and we will gladly deliver the pass book, packed in a holly trimmed box to any address on the day you wish it presented. Make someone happy with an Amalgamated Bank and Trust Savings Account this Christmas. Amalgamated Bank and Trust. Omaha, Nebraska. N.E. corner, 20th and Harney.” A sign of the times. Today, a kosher salami sandwich at 2nd Avenue Deli in New York costs $18.50 (hard) or $16.50 (soft). Add another buck fifty if you want your sandwich on club bread, roll or bagel. Bring your own Gaviscon.

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C8 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Passover Seder plates Continued from page C6 In Jewish Family Celebrations, Arlene Rossen Cardozo writes that the six items placed around the plate constitute a “mini history” of the development of the seder. Originally, only bitter herbs, reminiscent of the bitterness as slaves in Egypt, and a roasted bone, a symbol of the Temple sacrifice, were eaten, along with the matzah. Although this is not certain, then the haroset, for the mortar and bricks used by the Hebrews was added. The roasted egg, another symbol of the Temple sacrifice, and greens, reminding the Jews of a new season and freedom, were derived from Greco-Roman times. This is also the period when each symbol was given a specific meaning which pertained either to the Exodus or to a more recent exile after the destruction of the Temple. About the Afikomen Ask any young child what is the best part of the seder, and the answer will probably be—looking for the afikomen.

The afikomen is the name of the middle of the three portions of matzah which accompany the seder plate. As part of the seder, the leader breaks the middle matzah into two pieces. The larger portion is known as the afikomen. Several interpretations of this word have developed over the years. One is that it is of Greek origin, possibly from the word epikomas or epikomios, which could mean after-meal songs and entertainment or dessert. This meaning would then Credit: myjewishlearning.com

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be the basis for the custom that one is prohibited from eating or drinking after eating the afikomen to prevent emulation of the Greek custom of going to parties after eating and drinking. This is based on considering that afiko means remove and mane means dishes. In other words, we have finished, so let’s go to another place and continue celebrating. Abraham Chill, in his book The Minhagim (customs), writes that in ancient times, after concluding a meal, people would call out afikomen, a combination of the words afiko, meaning to take out, and man, meaning the sweets. Since the afikomen matzah symbolized the paschal lamb, this referred to the idea that by eating the afikomen, it would be the last taste in our mouths after the seder, and one would continue to think and talk about the Exodus. The Mishnah says, “One may not add afikomen after paschal meal.” Chill relates that the lamb was the last portion of food eaten on seder night. Since the destruction of the Temple, the afikomen became the symbol of the paschal sacrifice which took place in Temple times on Passover night. Before the end of the seder, it is customary for the leader to hide the afikomen. After the meal, the children try to find it and ransom it back for money or presents. Tradition also says the idea was a gimmick to encourage children to stay awake during the seder. Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, Greece, Kurdistan and Bukharia keep a piece of the afikomen matzah to protect against the “evil eye,” and for good luck. Pregnant women, among some Jewish groups, carry a piece of the afikomen with salt and coral to hold during delivery. In Iraq, children have the afikomen wrapped in a piece of material tied to their backs. They leave the room and pretend to be travelers. When they return, the seder leader asks: where are you from, and they reply, Egypt. The leader then asks, where are you going, and they respond, Jerusalem. Some Sephardic groups and others do not follow the custom of “stealing.” Yemenites also do not participate in this custom. They say the Hebrew letters in the word afikomen are aleph, peh, yud, kaf, vav, mem and nun. They stand for the following words: aleph for egozim (nuts); peh for payrote ( fruit); yud for yayin (wine); kaf for keliyot (granules of grain); vav for uvasar (and meat); mem for mayim (water); and nun sofit for nerd (spices). Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer, food writer and author (Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel), nine cookbooks (including What’s Cooking at Hadassah College.) She lived in Israel from 1970-1980; she and her husband, Barry, came to live in Jerusalem in 2008, where she works as a foreign correspondent for North American Jewish publications, lectures to senior citizen residences, leads walks in English in Machaneh Yehudah, the Jewish produce market and writes stories about kosher restaurants in Janglo.net for which Barry photographs. She has been book reviewing for 40 years.

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | C9

Matters of life and death: My years with the Press

Jewish Press editor Morris Maline encouraged me to write for the Press in 1981, and I have ever since. I have reviewed books, played travel writer, and had a column, The Historian’s Footnote. I served on the Board from 1984 to 1991, and as a one term President. The books I reviewed for the Omaha Jewish Press involved Jewish history, biography, literature, whatever was in- OLIVER B. POLLAK teresting and should be brought before the eyes of OJP readers. Four stories continue to reverberate the immediacy of life and death. I observed the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Nov. 22, 1963; Malcolm X, 1965; George Lincoln Rockwell, 1967; Martin Luther King, Jr, April 1968; Robert F. Kennedy, June 1968; Harvey Milk, 1978; Alan Berg, 1984; Huey Newton 1989; and unfortunate others. Civil Rights leaders, journalists, Nazi leaders and music celebrities were targets. This was before the school shootings virus. No one is prepared for assassination. It freezes the moment for a lifetime. Meir Kahane. In March 1983 editor Morris handed me Listen World, Listen Jew (1978) by the controversial Rabbi Meir Kahane. His words were as powerful as his deeds. I wrote, “Many will find it insulting. However, it will certainly clarify personal values.” Kahane’s solution to 2000 years of victimization was a “the total commitment and embracing of Zionism by Jews moving to Israel.” While the rhetoric and hyperbole could be “offensive to many Jews” it would provide insight into Kahane’s militant far-right political views. He cofounded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, the Kach party, and served in the Knesset from 1984 to 1988. Kahane, born in Brooklyn in 1932, was assassinated by an Egyptian, an American citizen, in Manhattan in 1990 My review of A Plain Pine Box. A Return to Simple Jewish Funerals and Eternal Traditions (1981) by Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman of Minneapolis appeared in August 1983. It contrasted the vulnerability of loved ones at a funeral home selecting wood, interior linings and elaborate fixtures for a

casket. Goodman’s mantra is simplicity. There was pushback from the profit conscious funeral industry. This useful book has guided my thoughts and actions for four decades. Yitzhak Rabin. The Oslo Accords expectations, diplomacy, and negotiations met with push back, resistance, and failure. Yitzhak Rabin was assasinated by Yigal Amir, a 25 year old commiting a despicable act on Nov. 4, 1995 at a Peace rally in Tel Aviv. From his perspective Rabin was a traitor. The shot was heard around the Jewish world. The Omaha Jewish Press rushed to respond. My title, Community Mobilizes to Mourn A Death in the Family and first paragraph were scrapped by the editor, and are reprinted here: “The news that something dramatic and terrible appeared during the football halftime shows on Saturday. Something happened in the middle east. Quickly the facts took shape. Shots had been fired in Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been shot. Another report said he was uninjured. Tune in CNN and NBC. He had been shot. He was rushed to the hospital. He was in serious condition. By 5:30 the news was the worst, he was dead.” Instead Morris, editor in chief, chose the title Community Mourns Death of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for the Nov. 10, 1995, co-authored with Maureen LaPour. Back then the Press appeared in the mailbox on Fridays, a nice start for Shabbat. There is a curious and sickening post assassination phenomena. The assassin of Gandhi in 1948 and Rabin’s assassin are being shown respect, veneration, exonertion, and in Israel, requests for early release. Who speaks well of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin. Extremism is romanticized, fostering cults, conspiracy theories, politically selfserving rewriting of history or denying history, such as the Holocaust denier’s Institute for Historical Revision founded in 1978. On Nov. 14, 1997 I reviewed Fragments, Memories of a Wartime Childhood (1995) by Binjamin Wilkomirski, a highly praised and publicized childhood account of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), the touchstone of Holocaust childhood memories endorsed the book. In August 1998 the book, to the embarrasment of many, was revealed as a fabrication. See Matters of life and death page C10

JDC ships Passover parcels to Ussr, North Africa, Europe

JTA Archives | March 14, 1973 Close to 600,000 pounds of matzo and matzo meal and 41,000 bottles of Passover wine have been shipped to Europe and North Africa by the Joint Distribution Committee to help needy Jews in those areas celebrate the Passover holiday. It was announced this week by Samuel L. Haber, JDC executive vice-chairman. In addition to the 300 tons of Passover supplies, which cost about $145,000 Haber said, JDC allocated $100,000 to finance the shipment of thousands of Passover parcels to needy Jews in the Soviet Union. “About 75 percent of the Passover shipments, close to 400,000 pounds, went to Rumania, Haber said. “In addition, JDC has allocated another $180,000 for supplementary Passover relief in Rumania. This includes cash grants of $5 to $15 to 11,000 persons, special Passover food packages to 11,500 and Passover meals for about 2500 in community canteens.” Other countries receiving Passover shipments in addition to Rumania, were Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Spanish Morocco and Tunisia, Haber said. Special Passover relief grants in Iran, Morocco and other countries will enable needy Jews in those countries to purchase Passover supplies locally. Funds for Passover relief in other JDC health, welfare and rehabilitation programs come mainly from the campaigns of the United Jewish Appeal.

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Matters of life and death: My years with the Press Continued from page C9 Thirty years earlier Weisel endorsed The Painted Bird (1965) by Jerzy Kosinski (1933-1991). Controversy followed Kosinski. Duplicity, the confused distinction between fiction and autobiography, accusations of plagiarism and failing health ended with his suicide in 1991. I wrote of Fragments, Wilkomirski’s “memory is blurred and tinged with incredulity,” a cautious way of saying it was suspect. I conclude in 2020, that sometimes things are too good to be true, and sometimes things are too bad to be true. We recently remembered the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with museum, musical and book events. Nebraska Holocaust Survivors and the Second Generation have industriously produced a literary canon about the sacred pursuit of life. Shirly Banner, Scott Littky, Renee Corcoran and Kael Sagheer produced the following list of books by “local” authors. These undying indelible memories grace library shelves. Hannie Wolf ( from Albion, NE), Child of Two Worlds (1979) Ben Edelbaum (Helen Kay’s father; Kansas City, MO) Growing Up in the Holocaust (1980) Lilly Boin (Joe Boin’s wife), My Story (1989)

Carl Rosenberg, As God is my Witness (1990) Theo Richmond, Konin: A Quest (1995), a chapter in the book on IG and Miriam Grossman. Cantor Leo Fettman, Paul M. Howey, Shoah: Journey from the Ashes (1999) Hannie Wolf (Albion), Days of Hope and Sorrow (2000) Louis Leviticus (Lincoln), Tales from the Milestone: My Life Before and During 1940-1945 2003) William E. Ramsey and Betty Dineen Shirer, Doorway to Freedom: The Story of David Kaufman, Merchant, Benefactor, Rescuer (2008) Rachel Rosenberg with Robert Urban, MD, The Holocaust Scream (2013) Bea Karp, My Broken Doll: A memoir of survival of the Vichy Regime (2014) Milton Kleinberg, Bread or Death: Memories of my Childhood During and After the Holocaust (2014) Judy Stone, MD, Resilience: One Family’s Story of Hope and Triumph over Evil (2019) Niece of Kitty Williams, writes about her family’s experience. All the above books are in the Kripke Federation Library. I first wrote for the Passover edition in 1981. Chag Sameach.

Jews throughout world mark Passover tonight; many celebrating for first time in decade

JTA Archives | April 15, 1946 Passover will be ushered in tomorrow night by millions of Jews throughout the world, including tens of thousands of refugees and DP’s for whom this will be the first Passover celebration in over a decade. The Joint Distribution Committee has announced that over 2,000,000 pounds of Passover supplies have already been distributed to refugee and displaced Jews in Europe, North Africa, the Near East, and Shanghai. More than 1,600,000 of this total was shipped directly from the United States, and the remainder was purchased with American funds. American serviceman will observe traditional Passover services and will be provided with Passover food due to efforts by the Jewish Welfare Board. The organization prepared and shipped cases of Passover food, haggadist, greeting cards, leaflets, and recorded greetings, which will be distributed by Army and Navy chaplains and by J.W.B. field representatives. In addition to matzohs and wine the servicemen will receive canned gefilte fish, canned chicken, matzoh meal, salami, cheese, borscht, potato pancake flour, and macaroons. In a special Passover message to the Jews in DP camps in Germany and Austria, which will be broadcast tomorrow morning, Dr. Israel Goldstein, in behalf of the American Jewish Conference, will pledge the determination of American Jewry “to do everything in our power to bring about a positive solution of the problems which face you.” Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, president of the Zionist Organization of America, has issued a Passover message to American Jewry saying: “Not for decades has the great commemoration of our escape from the house of bondage in Mizrayim been so profound a personal experience of every true Jew still alive in the world as in this year.” See Jews mark Passover tonight page C12

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | C11

Carol Gendler’s Master Thesis: A history of Jewish Omaha ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press Visiting Carol Gendler is a lot like going to a great art gallery, including the private tour. Full disclosure: I would have happily only focused on Mrs. Gendler’s amazing collection and forgone the actual reason I was there. Fortunately, I do have some self-control and we were able to discuss her dissertation about our Jewish Community, which she published in 1968. Carol grew up in New Haven, CT and first came to Omaha in 1955, after marrying Lee Gendler, who was an Omaha native. Her husband finished Yale and then went into the armed services, after which he joined the family oil business. In 1978, Lee founded Marathon Realty company, which the family still owns. It started as a commercial and industrial real esCarol Gendler tate development company and originally specialized in build-to-suit for single tenant occupancy. Eventually, Marathon extended its development from the corner service station to shopping centers and hundred-plus acre business parks. “Kids came fairly early,” Carol said, “and all three of them, David, Steve and Amy, attended Hebrew school. I felt Omaha was welcoming then, as it is now. I joined a very diverse group of women and remember being extremely busy with the Beth El Sisterhood.” But volunteer work was not all she kept busy with: she went back to school and one of her professors at what was, at the time, the Municipal University of Omaha, suggested she write her Master’s Thesis on the history of Jewish Omaha. “I immediately felt enthusiastic about the idea,” she said. “There weren’t that many Jewish students to do this. I also knew right away it would take more time than I had initially planned for, but time was something I had. “When I started on this, I really didn’t know what to expect,” Carol said. “It’s such a big topic! Limiting it to Omaha helped. I read a lot about American Jewish history in general, went to conferences and visited archives.” And so, Jewish Omaha: The First 60 Years, one of the most comprehensive pieces of writing on early Omaha Jewish history, was born. Reading what historical events transpired during the latter part of the 19th century transforms one to a time of pioneers, unpaved roads and sky-is-the limit opportunities— and attitudes to match. Compared to the services, organizations and synagogues we have today, it’s interesting to think back to a time when there were none. Gendler paints a vibrant picture of what life was like before organized Jewish life existed. Once graduated, she heard from an attorney friend that the District Library had an opening. “They had been remodeling the courthouse,” she said, “and the library had been moved across the street. The first thing I ended up doing was move all the books back! I had my hands on every single book so I learned the contents of that library

very well! We started that move on a Monday morning at 8 a.m., by 2 p.m. Tuesday, we were open for business. I had a great run at the courthouse and really enjoyed myself there.” While working as Director of the Douglas County District Court Law Library, legal information began to show up online. “We began to do research for attorneys and we would charge for that. I thought to myself: I can do this from home! So I did: Legal Information Services was born.” “Years ago,” the Omaha West Rotary’s website states, “Carol completed a Masters degree in History at UNO and used that knowledge to create a history of the local Jewish Community, in her work with the Douglas County Historical Society over the last 50 plus years, in the 14 years she served as Director of the Douglas County Law Library, and as a major donor to the Omaha World Herald digital library. Her OWH gift enables current historians the luxury of digital records instead of spending hours turning the crank of a microfilm reader. In 2006, Carol completed a historical account of our own Rotary club

spanning 50 years.” She’s also worked tirelessly to promote the arts and literacy and served on the Nebraska Humanities Council as well as the Omaha Public Library. Together with her husband, she established GEMS, the Heartland Family Service Gendler Emergency Medication Service, which assists low-income individuals in purchasing medication. This fund has been a lifesaver to hundreds of people since its inception 15 years ago. She’s shared her time, talents and passion with countless places and organizations, from the Joslyn Art Museum to the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and Heartland Family Service. As she is stepping back from many of her volunteer roles, she finds herself surrounded by a lifetime collection of art— much of it created by local artists. It’s the perfect backdrop to a woman who made her mark in more ways than one. Read excerpts from Jewish Omaha: The First 60 Years elsewhere in this paper, or find the full text at the UNO library or the Jewish Federation of Omaha library.

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infected ones. This virus respects no borders, walls or oceans. Today it is fear that “others” have brought on the coronavirus. Tomorrow it may revert to antiSemitism, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ, or other minority cohort. All are unacceptable and must be condemned unequivocally by leaders and peers alike. The only remedy, the only antidotes are education and to lead by example. There is also the concepts of hope, acceptance of others, and compassion that can also go viral. In these times of fear, we have the opportunity to present the best in ourselves. To care for those in greater need, the vulnerable and those without access. To pay forward in a way that is selfless because it is the right thing to do. May we all be infected with these qualities.

Jews mark Passover tonight Continued from page C10 The Synagogue Council of America in a Passover message emphasized that “this year we have good reason to be thankful for the victory of the Allies over the Nazi beast who defied human decency, challenged the laws of God and men, and endeavored to revive the most degrading practices of savagery and paganism.” American participation in the Jewish National Fund, which is expected to amount to $24,000,000 in investments in Palestine lands this year, was stressed by Judge Morris

Rothenberg, president of the J.N.F. in America, as an important factor in resettling Europe’s liberated Jews in Palestine. “Celebrating Passover, the first festival of freedom in recorded history, American Jews must rededicate themselves” to this task, he declared. Editors Note: The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.

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Horseradish SYBIL KAPLAN What food is an essential component of the traditional wedding dinner in southern Germany and served with cooked beef ? It is also used as salad served with lamb dishes at Easter in Transylvania and other Romanian regions; in Serbia, it is an essential condiment with cooked meat and freshly roasted suckling pig; in Slovenia, it is a traditional Easter dish, grated and mixed with sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or apples; in southern Italy, it is a main course with eggs, cheese and sausage. It is probably indigenous to Eastern Europe but has been cultivated since antiquity and was known in Egypt in 1500 BCE. If I give you the final hint, you will know immediately. According to the Haggadah, we are to eat it to symbolize the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. “And they embittered their lives with hard labor, with mortar and with bricks and with all manor of labor in the field; any labor that they made them do was with hard labor” (Exodus 1:14) Maror is one of the foods on the seder plate which we bless then dip into haroset to symbolize the mortar which the Israelites used to bind the bricks. Shaking off the haroset, we eat the minimum amount of maror, the volume of an olive. Yes, horseradish. The English of the 1590s coined the word combining horse meaning coarse or strong and the word radish. According to John Cooper in Eat and Be Satisfied— A Social History of Jewish food, “the Mishnah enumerated five vegetables that could be utilized as the bitter herb for the Seder service, all of which should have leaves. The five are: chazeret, ilshin, tamcha, charchavina, and maror. See Horseradish page C14

Passover sermons JTA Archives | April 8, 1934 “Immortality is a persistent human idea, but the twentieth century men and women must be contented, not with ironclad guarantees, but with poetic abstractions regarding the future life,” said Rabbi Louis I. Neuman in a Passover sermon to Congregation Rodeph Shalom Friday morning. Rabbi Newman counseled full development of innate capacities. In this way, he said, by leaving behind us the memory of our works, we may become immortal. “Merely to have existed, merely to have an integer in the great universal system is also a form of eternality with which modern men and women may consider themselves satisfied. Whatever follows need not make us anxious. Life contains its own purgatories for punishment, and its own heavens for rewards. We must not demand that they exist unendingly.” THE SERVICE OF WOMEN “In supporting the synagogue as well as in the rebuilding of Palestine the woman has been conspicuous,” said Rabbi Jacob Katz in a sermon to the Montefiore Hebrew Congregation in the Bronx Friday. “The woman,” Dr. Katz explained, “was given a position of recognition in Jewish history. Her contributions have been inestimable. In ancient days, Moses sang first and Miriam followed. Today she has the opportunity of leading in the victory of spiritual life through the institution of the synagogue and the school.” “Would that all religions might stress things they hold in common with emphasis equal to that placed upon the things they have in difference!” Rabbi Israel Goldstein declared in his

Friday morning sermon before Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Eighty-eighth street, west of Broadway. “Let it be said for Judaism,” Dr. Goldstein went on, “that it has been the first of the great world religions to have sounded the values of human brotherhood and to have conceived of the whole of humanity as one great family under the Fatherhood of God.”

A PLEA FOR PEACE Sharp criticism of the Army Day celebration and a plea for discontinuance of “the practice of parading under false pretenses” marked the Friday evening sermon of Rabbi William Margolis at Congregation Ohab Zedek, 118 West Ninety-fifth street. “In the face of our country’s outward manifestations of peace planning, the perennial proclamations of ‘Army Day’ seem bitterly absurd!” Rabbi Margolis said. “What do we celebrate? What do we commemorate? Is is an anniversary of some constructive American contribution? Is it in joyful remembrance of America’s part in world progress that we parade with a festive fanfare of trumpets, flaunting our American flag in patriotic pride? “What a mockery! We celebrate in this colorful fashion the entrance of our army into a war that drenched the world in human blood. That day should truly be a ‘red letter’ day, set aside for mourning, self-seeking and atonement for America’s shame!” Editors Note: The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.

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Horseradish Passover in Israel JTA Archives | April 19, 1976 An unusual heat wave swept through the country on the eve and during the first day of Passover. The accompanying sand storms and near zero visibility marred the holiday festivities of picnickers and forced the suspension of inland air traffic. The airports at Eilat and Tel Aviv were closed down for several hours and pilots encountered difficulties landing and taking off at Ben Gurion Airport. Hundreds of cars on their way to Eilat and Sharm el-Sheikh crawled along the highway bumper to bumper because the sand storm made the road invisible. Despite this, there were no traffic accidents in the area, but many tourists were prevented from reaching Sharm el-Sheikh. In the northern part of the country, wind storms uprooted trees and several traffic signposts. In spite of heavy traffic and poor visibility there was only one fatal road accident. Police reported 16 other road accidents in which a number of people were slightly injured. In Jerusalem, thousands of Christian pilgrims streamed into the city yesterday to mark the Eastern ceremonies. About 10,000 Christians walked past the 14 Stations of the Cross on their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Christians mingled with Jews going to the Western well for Passover services. Israeli troops and policemen guarded the Christian procession from roofs and doorways of the Old City, but no incidents were reported.

Continued from page C13 Chazeret refers to lettuce; ulshin is either endive or chicory or both; tamcha was a leafy, dull green herb also known as horehoud which has none of the Talmudic characteristics and is used in cough medicine and liqueur; charchavina was either field eryngo or sea eryngo. Maror may be wormwood or a thistle. Sephardim interpret chazeret as Romaine lettuce. Rabbi Alexander Suslin of Frankfurt, who died in1394, was the first authority to permit the use of horseradish, where lettuce was not available, although this vegetable was primarily a fleshy root that did not strictly conform with the halahic requirement of eating leaves. The Talmud also says, besides leaves, maror should have latex sap and dull green foilage, neither of which is in horseradish. The medieval German rabbinic authorities appear to have identified horseradish incorrectly, Merretich in German with merirta, the Aramaic form of maror, the Hebrew for bitter. Prior to this, according to Gil Marks (z”l) in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, Eliezer ben Nathan of Mainz who lived from 1090 to 1170, mentions chrain to make charoset. Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms in Sefer ha-Rokeach (published around 1200) included it in his charoset ingredients.” Germans used whole pieces of horseradish for maror while Eastern Europeans grated it. It was not until Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Ben Nathan Heller (1579-1654) of Moravia, in his commentary on the Mishnah considered it to be one mentioned in the Talmud, tamchah. In Central and Eastern Europe it is called khren which is also Yiddish. Red horseradish is mixed with red beet root and white khren contains no beet. In Hebrew, it is called chazeret, which is on the Talmudic list of accepted types of maror.

Michael Halsted, MD Peter Whitted, MD, JD Mark Emig, MD Teri Geist, OD Martin Mizener, MD Scott Greder, OD Mindy Dickinson, OD David Ingvoldstad, MD Jill Grennan, MD

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Horseradish is actually a root vegetable in the same family as mustard, wasabi, broccoli and cabbage. When this plant grows, it can reach 4.9 feet and is cultivated for its root which has hardly any aroma. When the root is cut or grated, cells break down and produce an oil which irritates the nose and eyes. German immigrants in the late 1800s began growing it in Collinsville, Illinois, a Mississippi River basin area adjacent to St. Louis. The self-proclaimed horseradish capital of the world has been hosting the Horseradish Festival since 1988 since this is where most of the world’s supply is grown. Six million gallons are produced here annually. The first American Jewish cookbook, published as Jewish Cookery in 1871, included a recipe for “Horseradish Stew.” When the Settlement Cookbook was published in 1901, “Horseradish Sauce” and “Beer and Horseradish Relish” were included. H.J. Heinz processed and bottled horseradish in 1869. In 1932, Hyman Gold and his wife, Tillie, processed and bottled horseradish in

their Brooklyn apartment. Today, Gold’s and other private labels, produce 90,000 bottles a day of the classic plain and grated beet horseradish without sugar. My husband likes to tell the story of coming home from school one day before Passover, at the age of eight, and going into the kitchen where his grandmother (z”l) was grating the horseradish. She would make horseradish almost every week. He jumped up on a chair, took one big whiff and fell over backwards! Thank goodness his father was in the room and caught him. Think about some of this history when you take a piece of horseradish for the blessing over maror this Passover or place some on your gefilte fish. Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machaneh Yehudah, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

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It takes a village

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press During the past century, countless volunteers have stepped in and helped out the staff at the Jewish Press. One important way for lay leaders to have an impact at the Jewish Federation of Omaha is by serving on an agency board. The Jewish Press is no different; we are lucky to have a group of people who are willing to share their time and talents and who have a passion for this paper. Joanie Jacobson is a past board member and served as President. Full disclosure: she was on the hiring committee for the current editor. “It was one of my very best volunteer experiences. The subject matter was always interesting and important, even at times compelling, and working with Carol Katzman was a pleasure,” she said. “I’m very proud of the fact the Omaha Jewish Press might be the only, if not one of very few Jewish newspapers in America to publish weekly. Jewish newspapers are closing their doors because Jewish communities can’t support them. What means the most to me to this day is that not only does the Press give us news we don’t get in mainstream media, but more important, the Press is the one and only means of communication we have to know what other local synagogues and Jewish organizations are doing. It keeps us a united and informed Jewish community, which I believe to be central to our success. Imagine what Fridays would be without it. On second thought, don’t!” Lisa Lewis said: “I’ve contributed to the JP in the past. Mickey Gerelick published my story of a visit to the Anne Frank House in 1966 when I was 18 and lived in the Netherlands for the summer. I was even a summer intern before it became a job. I later served on the board, and enjoyed helping with ethical and journalistic decisions. If a story wasn’t in the Jewish Press, it didn’t happen!” Lloyd Roitstein served as President for two years: “Serving on the Board was a very rewarding experience as we tried to communicate with the Jewish Community and figure out what they wanted to know and what we wanted them to know, which is not always the same, but both vital!” Amy Cassman Friedman said: “Fridays wouldn’t be Fridays without the Jewish Press! It’s been a constant in my life as long as I can remember and I always look forward to its arrival. It serves as the glue that connects us to the community and that community extends from Omaha to Israel and everywhere else that Jews live.” Amy’s husband Sandy also served on the board: “My term was a very rewarding one,” he said. “and a great honor. As the treasurer, it was very rewarding to see our financial results soar as our sales rose. It was also a challenge to get the contribution of $50,000 to the endowment but persistence and determination prevailed! I’m sure you remember that situation (ed. Note: I do!) Most of all, it was very satisfying to be on a board that had a great mix of background expertise and age. Omaha is fortunate to still have the Press. I

think the significance can be summed up as follows: my brother in California didn’t get the Press one week. He called me in a frenzy, worried that it had been canceled. When I explained that all was well, he said: ‘Thank goodness.’ It’s what keeps him connected to Omaha. That says it all! And last of all, the Friedman name continues on the board as my daughter in law Candice now serves.” Jane Rips served as a Press Board member

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during a time of editor transition. “It was an interesting experience!” She said. “The Press is an important and vital part of the Omaha Jewish community. We are fortunate to have a weekly newspaper that literally ties us all together!” Patricia Newman added “it is useful, practical, makes a difference in our community and keeps us in touch with people and points of view we might not otherwise be aware of. It’s a great deal!” The current board consists of President Abby Kutler, Treasurer Eric Shapiro, Andy Isaacson, Jill Idelman, Natasha Kraft, Candice Friedman, Amy Tipp, Danni Christensen, Bracha Goldsweig and Shoshy Sussman. In addition, Diane Walker takes our notes and does a fabulous job, even when we all excitedly talk at the same time. We meet about ten times a year, the entire board gets an update via email every Friday so when we meet, we don’t have to rehash much, which makes our meetings on average shorter than what many of us are used to. Meeting with the board is much like getting together with a group of friends; people who are passionate about the work we do, supportive, funny and kind. People who are willing to show up at the end of the work day to discuss Press business, rather than go straight home—I don’t think we can ever thank them enough for that.

Happy Passover May your cup overflow with health, happiness, peace and prosperity this holiday season and throughout the year.

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50,000 slated for Passover aid in Warsaw JTA Archives | April 8, 1935 Not less than 11,000 Jewish families in Warsaw alone, totaling 50,000 persons, will receive aid from the Jewish Community for Passover, it was announced today by the community. In addition thousands of families will receive Passover food from private relief organizations. The number of Jews who depend upon charity for their Passover food is estimated at over a million throughout the whole of Poland. The miserable situation of Polish Jewry is pictured in the tens of thousands of applications filed with the Jewish communities asking for matzoh in connection with the approaching Passover.

Most of the applicants are asking for nothing more than matzoh and potatoes. All of them will celebrate the Passover with hardly anything but chese bare necessities. In view of the withdrawals of government subsidies from the Jewish communities, Jewish leaders are totally at a loss as to how to accommodate the tens of thousands of applicants. The poverty in the provincial cities is even greater than in Warsaw. Editors Note: The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.

HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS AND PARENTS

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Passover S EC T I ON 4

The world in 1920

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Editor, Jewish Press What did the United States and the wider world look like, back when the Jewish Press first saw the light of day? It was an exciting year on the world stage. At home, New Jersey Democrat Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, with Thomas R. Marshall, an Indiana native, as his Vice President. Speaker of the House was Frederick H. Gillett and Henry Cabot Lodge was the Senate Majority Leader. Both were Republicans. Samuel R. McKelvie was the Governor of Nebraska, Pelham A. Barrows was his Lieutenant Governor. In January of 1920, the Volstead Act went into effect, so it is safe to say when the first Press rolled off the printer, there was no celebratory toast (at least not officially). Unofficially, that’s possibly a different story and we won’t get into Above: Women with that here. Church League for Babe Ruth was traded to the Yankees. A total Women’s Suffrage of 4,025 suspected communists and anarchists banner and right: were arrested during the Palmer raid; George Pol- Lobby card for the ley, also known as “the Human Fly” attempted to American film climb the Woolworth building and made it to the The Hunch (1921). 30th floor before he was arrested for climbing The caption is without a permit. The United States Census “Here’s to the marked the first time the population was over Volstead Act 100 million. It also introduced the “one drop rule:” down with it.” mixed race citizens were not counted separately; instead, ‘one drop’ of black blood was enough. Although it was never codified

into federal law, its discriminatory effects continue to be felt to this day. Also in January of 1920: the American Civil Liberties Union was founded. Barely one month later, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago women could finally vote in August, making 1920 the first Presidential election in which women could participate. White women, that is. Later that same year, America saw the birth of the NFL. There were more bizarre events as well that year: the U.S. Postal Office ruled that children could no longer be sent via parcel post. I don’t know if that was an actual problem to be dealt with? Were people really mailing their kids? In April, the Belgian city of Antwerp hosted the Summer Olympics. The victims of World War I were honored, as was the reconciliation between the nations. The newly introduced Olympic flag with the five circles became a symbol of unity and universality. And: doves were released to symbolize world peace. The United States took 95 medals home, Sweden earned 64 and Great Britain 43. Author Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia (he came to America in 1923) and the same year, the Canadian Mounties were established. In July, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa surrendered after See The world in 1920 page D2

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Passover

The world in 1920

Continued from page D1 reaching a peace agreement with Mexican President Adolfo de la Huerta, effectively ending the Mexican revolution. The League of Nations came into being in Paris, but the US Senate voted against joining. Meanwhile, in the not-soRight: Pancho Villa, United Kingdom, the Irish sculptural set BicenRevolution was blowing up. tennial Park, Mizael November 31 marked the Contreras and below: first ‘Bloody Sunday,’ (not to A hospital in Kansas be confused with the one in during the Spanish 1972) when an IRA operative flu epidemic in 1918. assassinated a team of undercover agents in Dublin. In retaliation, the Royal Irish Constabulary opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, killing fourteen civilians. December 10th, Martial law was declared in the Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary Counties. The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and received Royal Assent from George V providing for the partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland with separate

parliaments, granting a measure of home rule. And then, there was the flu pandemic. And suddenly, from reading about long-ago events, we’re confronted with something that very much resonates. Also known as the Spanish Flu, this pandemic lasted from January 1918 until December 1920. Three long years, 500 million people infected worldwide and a death toll estimated anywhere between 17 and 50 million. While most flu outbreaks disproportionately harm the very young and the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in between, the Spanish Flu pandemic resulted in a much higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. Many of those young adults fought in WWI, and with the massive troop movements as well as malnourishment caused by the War, spread of the virus was practically unstoppable.

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Passover in a pandemic: Families on Zoom, solo seders and broken traditions

BEN SALES JTA Rena Munster was looking forward to hosting a Passover seder for the first time. In past years, her parents or another relative hosted the meal. But this year she had invited her parents, siblings and other extended family to her Washington, D.C., home. Her husband, an amateur ceramics artist, was making a set of dishes for the holiday. And she was most excited for her family’s traditional day of cooking before the seder: making short-rib tzimmes, desserts that would pass muster year-round, and a series of harosets made by her uncle and tailored to each family member’s dietary restrictions (one with no cinnamon, another with no sugar, another without walnuts and so on). Then came the new coronavirus. Now the family is preparing to scrap travel plans and hold the seder via video chat, like so much else in this new era. Munster expects to enjoy her family’s usual spirited discussions and singing. But she will miss the meal. “The hardest thing to translate into an online platform is going to be the food,” she said. “The family recipes and all the things that we’re used to probably won’t be possible. ...We always get together to help with the preparations, and that’s just as much a part of the holiday as the holiday itself.” In a Jewish calendar packed with ritual observances and religious feasts, the Passover seder is the quintessential shared holiday experience. It is perhaps the most widely observed Jewish holiday ritual in the United States, according See Passover in a pandemic page D4

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | D3

He wanted to encapsulate Beijing’s Jewish community in a Passover Haggadah. ALAN GRABINSKY JTA Unlike Shanghai or Hong Kong, which received Jews fleeing from World War II, Beijing does not have a robust Jewish history. In the words of Joshua Kurtzig, former president of the Reform congregation there, the massive Chinese capital is a “very transient city,” especially for Jews — meaning that many pass through without putting down generations of roots. Some 1,000 Jews now live in Beijing among its 20 million residents, and the congregation, Kehillat Beijing, has no permanent clergy. “There are no Jewish tours here,” said Leon Fenster, 33, a London-born artist who is active in the Beijing Jewish community. In an attempt to give the community some defining character — and intertwine it with the city’s millennia of rich history — Fenster has illustrated a Beijing-themed Haggadah in which the Exodus story takes place in the modern-day capital. The images are lush and full of meaning in both the Chinese and Jewish cultural contexts. Fenster planned to inaugurate the Haggadah by using it to lead a massive seder in Beijing, but the rapid spread of the coronavirus, which is keeping all of China under a draconian lockdown, has complicated the effort. After the outbreak picked up steam, Fenster traveled to Taiwan, which is seen as a safer territory because of its effectiveness so far in containing COVID19. The Beijing community, according to Fenster, will not celebrate a physical seder this year and is holding virtual Shabbat services. Fenster has been interested in illustrating the essence of the Jewish Diaspora since he was in college. Trained as an architect at University College London, he won a Presidential Medal Award given by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2014 for his drawings on how synagogues should reflect the Jewish di-

asporic condition. In 2015 he moved to Beijing as a scholar in residence at Tsinghua University, where he drew his first non-architectural drawing: a Haggadah concept.

China as a place where they found their Judaism,” he said. Kurtzig, now the president of Kehillat Shanghai, echoed that feeling. “You feel like a minority because

JANET THOMAS

Happy Passover Leon Fenster, above, dedicated the Haggadah to his late friend, Michael H.K. Cohen. Credit: Fenster

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The Four Children are depicted with different Beijing Opera-style masks. Credit: Leon Fenster

He laid this idea aside and continued painting hypertextual drawings depicting life in the city, eventually exhibiting works in galleries in Beijing, the United Kingdom and Israel. But the idea for a Beijing Haggadah returned as he came to experience the transient nature of the Beijing community firsthand. “There is a Diaspora of Beijing Jews who moved out of the city and think of

you’re not Chinese, and then feel like a minority because you’re Jewish,” he said. The 180-page Haggadah is written in Hebrew, English and Chinese. According to Fenster, he needed to be careful not to incorporate too much Chinese because the government could see the project as proselytizing, which it does not permit. See Beijing’s Haggadah page D5

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Passover in a pandemic Passover staples. Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the OrContinued from D2 to the Pew Research Center’s 2013 study of American Jewry. thodox Union’s Kosher Division, said that due to social disAnd the story of the journey from slavery to freedom, along tancing, some kosher supervisors have been supervising food with the songs, customs and food, have become a core part of production plants via a livestreamed walk-through. But he Jewish tradition. said the food is still being produced. But all of that has been upended by COVID-19 and the re“Most of the kosher-for-Pesach production began a long strictions necessary to contain its spread. Israel has limited gatherings to 10 people — smaller than many extended families — and President Donald Trump on Monday asked Americans to do the same. Countries are shutting their borders, making Passover travel near impossible. Hotels and summer camps that have held Passover programs, as well as synagogues that hold communal seders, are canceling. And families are scrapping traditions as Passover, like so much else in Jewish life, is remade for the current moment. “Something like a Pesach seder A Jewish man reads the Passover Haggadah during a seder in Ontario, Canada, April 19, 2019. has a lot of people in a pretty Credit: Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images close space,” said Mari Sartin-Tarm, who is immunocompro- time ago,” he said. “There’s not going to be any problem at all mised due to medications she is taking following a January in terms of availability of products for Pesach.” kidney transplant. “I’m concerned that if things are the way On the other end of the supply chain, Alfredo Guzman, a they are right now, if people are still kind of self-quarantined manager at Kosher Marketplace in Manhattan, said two deor schools are closed or businesses are closed... I don’t know liveries of Passover food that were slated to come Monday had that I could justify taking the risk of being at a Pesach seder. canceled, though the suppliers hoped to arrive later in the It’s really hard to say that as a Jew.” week. Guzman was worried as well that because of social disKosher food professionals say shelves of kosher grocery tancing measures, he would only be allowed to let in a limited stores will probably still be stocked with matzah and other number of customers at a time during one of the busiest times

of the year. “I really don’t know what we’re going to have, what is coming, what is not coming, regarding products for Passover,” he said. “A lot of people are going to get nervous. … It’s not good for business, this situation, and it’s not good, I believe, for the people.” Even if the food does make it to the shelves and into people’s kitchens, the limitations on large gatherings could be a problem for people like Alexander Rapaport, who runs the Masbia network of soup kitchens in New York City. Masbia hosts two seders every year for the needy, usually drawing around 40 people per night. Rapaport stressed that because many observant Jews having little trouble finding an invitation to a family or communal seder, those who come to a Masbia seder truly have nowhere else to go. “We are hoping for the best and we will definitely follow the Health Department guidelines on how to operate a seder — spread out the seating, limit capacity,” he said. “It depends how severe it will be three weeks from now. I hope we don’t have to cancel.” As Passover nears amid the coronavirus outbreak, some Jews would find any kosher grocery store a luxury. Rabbi Ariel Fisher, who is living in Dakar, Senegal, for the year while his wife conducts field research for her doctorate in anthropology, hopes to return to New York City to officiate at a wedding and spend the holiday with his parents. But if travel becomes impossible, he may be stuck in the West African city, where he estimates that the nearest kosher store is more than 1,000 miles away in Morocco. Now he is scrambling to make sure that they will have enough matzah and kosher wine for the holiday. He is hoping the local Israeli diplomats will be able to get a shipment of matzah, and also asked a good friend in the local U.S. embassy — which has access to Amazon Prime — to order some for him online. Barring that, he will try to import matzah all the way from South Africa. And if all of that fails, he plans to make matzah himself — starting with the actual wheat. In any case, if Fisher and his wife end up in Senegal for the holiday, they plan to host a seder for the tiny community of Jews there who also would be unable to travel. “If we are actually here for Pesach, it will be the first Pesach in my life that I won’t have a Pesach store to go to to buy my Pesach supplies,” Fisher said. “While it’s not an ideal situation, the prospect of sharing Pesach with the friends and Jewish community that we’ve built here over the past few months is exciting.” Others now face the unusual prospect of conducting the communal meal alone. Efrem Epstein, who lives alone in Manhattan, planned to join with friends or family, or a synagogue, for the seders. Now he’s wondering whether he’ll end up hiding the afikomen and finding it himself. See Passover in a pandemic page D5

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | D5

Beijing’s Haggadah

choice of how they want to apContinued from page D3 The book situates landmarks proach Jewish observance and and cultural markers of the city prayer. Kehillat Beijing exists in the myth of the Exodus. Jews for those who come from a libwalking through the parted Red eral, conservative, reform, reSea are dressed like Beijing constructionist approach and schoolchildren. The Four Chilfor the many ‘mixed families,’” dren wear different Beijing she wrote for the website of opera masks — an ancient custhe Jerusalem Unity Prize. “On tom born in the city — that desthe other hand, there are now ignate certain character types. many people who live in or “The more you know Beijing, frequently visit our city who the more this will have an emoare more comfortable at tional meaning for you,” he said. Chabad services. We all celeWith 40 to 50 core members, brate the diversity we share Kehillat Beijing’s Reform comand find it fulfilling that there munity (Chabad only opened a are options.” branch in the city in 2001) is The Haggadah project was made up of expatriates from the sponsored by Stephen M.L. United States, England, AusCohen and Carol Fishman tralia, Canada, France and the Cohen in memory of their son, United Kingdom. Members lead Michael H.K. Cohen, who was the prayer services. Passover is involved with Kehillat Beijing one of the biggest events, Fenand the Beijing Moishe House ster said, drawing more than 80 but died of suicide upon his reparticipants to seder and taking turn to the United States. The place in the congregation’s main news sent shockwaves across venue, a ballroom of a social Beijing’s Jewish community, club. Top: Artist Leon Fenster says this page of his Beijing-themed Haggadah said Fenster. Kehillat Beijing was estab- aims to capture the traditional Haggadah’s “curiously non-chronological In one of the Haggadah imlished by an American business- form of storytelling.” Credit: Fenster and above: In this image from his Hag- ages, Fenster drew Michael woman, Roberta Lipson, who gadah, Fenster depicts the Israelites as children dressed in Beijing school seated with Roberta and other came to Beijing in 1979 with an uniforms. “They are accompanied by the trains and ships that have carried local leaders at a seder table. MBA from Columbia University. Jews to safety in China, escaping European anti-Semitism,” he said. Credit: Fenster originally wanted to She would go on to found the Leon Fenster print 600 copies of the book in Chinese hospital company United Family Members had to teach the club’s kitchen staff Beijing. But now he will lead a seder in TaiHealthcare and become its CEO. She’s now how to make gefilte fish. wan and inaugurate the Haggadah in an onOver the years, Lipson has established a line forum. He’ll wait for the seder next year married to Ted Plakfer, the Beijing bureau warm relationship with the more Orthodox to do a real celebratory launch in Beijing. chief for The Economist. One of the group’s first communal events Chabad community that has moved into the “This will be a soft inauguration,” he said. was a Passover seder, Lipson has written, at city. “I’m excited about the idea. It will be nice for “I appreciate that people now have a people, wherever they are in the world.” the city’s Foreign Service International Club.

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Passover in a pandemic

Continued from page D6 “Throughout the Haggadah, we read about many accounts of our ancestors, whether it be in Egypt or whether it be hiding in caves or any other times, that are going through some very challenging times,” Epstein said. “I’m an extrovert. I like being around people, but I also know that there are sources saying that if one is doing seder by themselves, they should ask the Mah Nishtana of themselves. If that’s what I have to do this year, I accept it.” If people are limited to small or virtual seders on the first nights of Passover, they might have a kind of second chance, said Uri Allen, associate rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn, New York. Allen is in a group of rabbis pondering the renewed relevance of Pesach Sheni, literally “Second Passover,” a day that comes exactly a month after the first day of Passover. In ancient times, Pesach Sheni was a second chance to make the paschal sacrifice for those who had been unable to on the holiday itself. Allen said that in any event, Jews should have a seder on the first night of Passover. But if they are looking for a chance to make a communal seder with friends or family, then depending on the coronavirus’s spread, they might be able to do so on Pesach Sheni — without the blessings or dietary restrictions. See Passover in a pandemic page D6

D6 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Passover observed on Korean battlefront; Christian clergymen join in Seder ceremony JTA Archives | April 23, 1951 Jewish men and women in the American armed forces fighting in Korea took part in Passover services in Pusan, Seoul and Taegu, while Protestant and Catholic soldiers joined the Jews in Passover celebrations in field hospitals and wherever the calebrations could be held under battle conditions. The Passover services were conducted in various sections of the Korean battlefront by four Jewish chaplains with supplies furnished by the National Jewish Welfare Board. Passover services were also held for Jewish servicemen in the U.S. armed forces stationed in Japan. The four Jewish chaplains who officiated in Korea are Milton Rosen, Garson Goodman, George Vida and Oscar M.. Lifshutz. A Catholic priest and a Protestant chaplain participated in the Seder conducted by Chaplain Lifshutz at one of the field hospitals. Lt. Gen. James A, Van Fleet, commander of the Eighth Army, issued a Passover message of greetings to all the Jews serving under him in the United Nations forces. Editors Note: The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.

Passover in a pandemic Continued from page D5 “I’m imagining both for my family and also probably many other families who are used to a certain kind of seder, larger gatherings and things like that, that probably won’t happen a lot this year,” Allen said. “I would definitely encourage and advocate, if your seder got interrupted or disrupted because of the coronavirus, why not have the seder that you wanted on Pesach Sheni — provided everything is clear and people can resume some sort of normal life.”

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‘I’m mentally preparing for a few months’: Meet an Israeli doctor on the coronavirus front lines

our control center. We also have tablets for the patients that URIEL HEILMAN measure their temperature and can serve as a stethoscope. JTA When it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would Students and faculty from the engineering department at reach Israel, Elli Rosenberg was one of a small number of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are building a telemedimedical professionals at the Soroka Medical Center in Beer- cine robot to our specifications. sheva to answer a call for volunteers to treat the sick. What is the course of treatment? Rosenberg, a clinical immunologist who works as an inThere is no evidence-based treatment yet. There’s a lot of ternist at Soroka, now runs the coronavirus unit there. As of research being carried out right now around the world on March 19, his hospital — various forms of medicathe largest in southern Istion that interfere with the rael — had 14 confirmed virus’s ability to impede the coronavirus patients. inflammatory response the Rosenberg spoke with virus may cause, or the the Jewish Telegraphic virus’s ability to attach to Agency about the unique DNA. We’re basing what we elements and challenges do on developing supportof caring for coronavirus ive care, usually with oxypatients, Israel’s handling gen, and waiting for the of the pandemic and the patient’s own immune rechanges that ordinary sponse to kick in and elimipeople should make in nate the virus. their lives to reduce the How long does it typirisk of infection. cally take for patients to This conversation has get through coronbeen edited for length. avirus? Between several days JTA: Were you preDr. Elli Rosenberg, right, with colleagues in the coronavirus unit of and a few weeks. That’s the pared for this? Rosenberg: We imag- Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva, Israel. Credit: Elli Rosenberg challenge with this disease. ined this day might come, but we never really translated that If there’s an influx of patients that require hospitalization for into operational contingencies. Everything is new here. Set- long stays, that might overwhelm the health care system’s cating up an isolation unit for patients with this disease has def- pacity. There won’t be enough beds, there won’t be enough initely been a challenge. The last two weeks have been a staff, there won’t be enough respirators. That’s the real conlearning process and a training process for something that cern. We’re trying our best to prepare for an uncontrollable might get much worse very quickly. wave of patients. What did you do on Day 1? How are the patients managing the emotional burden When the first patient was admitted to our unit, I remem- of isolation with coronavirus? ber suiting up and getting into all the layers of protective gear It’s very difficult. The uncertainty is very intense. They don’t and entering an airlock that separates the clear zone from know what the course of their disease will be. They don’t the infected zone. It was an astronaut-like experience. As I know how long they will be hospitalized. Every cough, every held the door of the airlock, I felt, wow, I’m stepping into the fever, every change in their oxygen saturation level is usually unknown and taking part in something that’s a worldwide a cause of a lot of stress. The cough and shortness of breath challenge. It was a mixture of fear and excitement and a re- are nasty. The isolation from family is very difficult. They’re minder of why I chose to do what I do. Then I walked into the essentially locked in. It’s a very unsettling experience. Using unit, approached the patient and introduced myself. telemedicine, they speak daily with a social worker to try to How do you provide care given the risk of contagion? vent their feelings, their concerns, their fears. Our unit is divided into two sections: the confirmed corona We understand the emotional impact of being there with section, where everyone who has the same disease can inter- them is crucial, and that’s why we see every patient every day act, and another unit for patients with high suspicion of co- face to face even if there’s not a medical necessity for it. I think rona where each patient is isolated in his or her room until they feel much more secure when we’re in there with them. they receive test results. The human contact, putting a comforting hand on their What we’re trying to do is maximize patient care with min- shoulder, has a psychological impact. imal staff exposure. Technology helps. A coin-sized monitor We’ve been blessed with patients who are very positive. taped to their chest — developed by an Israeli startup com- They eat their meals together in a common dining room, pany — continuously transmits vital signs by Bluetooth to See Coronavirus front lines page D8

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | D7

What Jewish life looked like in March NEW YORK | JTA The spread of COVID-19, a new coronavirus, is reshaping Jewish communities. We’re collecting the news flowing in from across the globe here. FRIDAY, MARCH 20 8:20 a.m. Florida rabbis warn against Passover travel Dozens of Orthodox rabbis and medical professionals in Florida have issued a letter urging Jews in no uncertain terms not to travel to the state this year for Passover. “To all those from out of state considering spending Pesach here in Florida,” the letter says in bold, “it’s halachically prohibited and medically irresponsible to come.” Among the signatories is Sholom Lipskar, a prominent rabbi who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. 8 a.m. Jewish farmers pitch in People who work with Urban Adamah, a Jewish farm in Berkeley, California, are delivering fresh produce to seniors who are shut in their homes, according to the Jewish News of Northern California. Urban Adamah is one of the flagship sites of a growing Jewish farm movement. 7:30 a.m. Israel’s cycling team wants company Israel’s professional cycling team was supposed to participate in the Tour de France for the first time this June. With that event and so many others up in the air, the team is offering supporters a chance to train with its members today at 3:25 p.m. EDT from their homes on a digital cycling platform called Zwift. “A group ride in uncertain times like this, with the Covid19 crisis, is a great opportunity for cyclists who love our team,” Israeli cycling champion Guy Sagiv said from quarantine in his home in Israel in a press release announcing the event. 7 a.m. Brandeis calls off commencement Brandeis University has announced that it will not have a graduation ceremony this spring. The historically Jewish university in Massachusetts is among the growing number of colleges calling off commencement ceremonies that had left open the possibility that students might reconvene in May after studying remotely this spring. With the pandemic likely to stretch on for months, that window of possibility is closing. THURSDAY, MARCH 19 3:30 p.m. Israel tightens stay-home guidelines Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Health Ministry guidelines to slow the spread of the coronavirus will be tightened and will be enforced by police and security services, as the number of Israelis diagnosed climbed to 573. 2 p.m. British Jews begin distancing Until this week, the United Kingdom stood out for not implementing many restrictions meant to curb the coronavirus’ spread. Now that that’s changing, British Jews are set experience the same end to communal Shabbat services that many American Jews faced the previous week. 12:13 p.m. A tribute to doctors and nurses Throughout the country tonight, Israelis went outside their homes or on their balconies at 6 p.m. and applauded for two minutes to salute the medical teams treating coronavirus patients. Israel now has more than 500 confirmed cases. 9:18 a.m. Cellphones on Shabbat Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef told religious Jews to leave their cell phones on during Shabbat in case they receive coronavirus updates from the Health Ministry. The decree surprised many because Orthodox religious leaders in Israel have never before permitted electronics to be used on Shabbat, but the need for people to understand whether they may have been exposed to the coronavirus outweighs any prohibitions, Yosef said.

intense prayer for today to ask God to intercede and stop the coronavirus pandemic. The council also said in an open letter that the community should adhere to directives such as closing synagogues and yeshiva study halls and remain at home. 8:30 a.m. Israeli president reads to children from a distance Israeli President Reuven Rivlin read the classic children’s story “Dira Lehaskir,” or “Apartment for Rent” online for Israeli youngsters sheltering at home. He said in a message to parents: “I know that this not an easy time and that children are home, and even though we all love being together as a family, this is a challenge. So, I decided to give you a short break, to be with you – from afar – but with you.” The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, designed by the Russian Jewish architect Morris Lapidus, normally a popular kosher Passover getaway.

9:04 a.m. Fasting to combat coronavirus Several Orthodox groups called for a half-day fast and day of

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 2:45 p.m. Eurovision 2020 canceled The Eurovision song contest scheduled to be held in See What Jewish life looked like page D11

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Coronavirus front lines

what I’m involved in. My 12-year-old daughter Continued from page D6 they’re playing board games together, build- specifically pointed out that she’s proud of ing puzzles, helping each other pass the time. me, which moved me greatly. Are you well-staffed for coronavirus? What do you tell your family about how Staff is a weak point. We started this epi- to stay safe? demic when the Israeli Wash hands very frehealth care system is generquently. Don’t touch your ally understaffed. Right now face. Try not to come into our unit is based on volunphysical contact with other teers — people that expeople. Try to limit your pressed a willingness to distance to anybody outtake part in this. We’re not side of the family to 2 meforcing anybody. There is a ters (about 6 feet). In my lot of concern among all house, there have been exlines of work in the hospital tensive changes in dining — ranging from doctors etiquette. There’s no more and nurses to radiology drinking straight from the technicians and orderlies Dr. Elli Rosenberg, a clinical immu- milk carton or sharing and maintenance staff. nologist at Soroka Medical Center spoons. That’s been a major In the beginning, there in Beersheva, Israel, is managing change in our household. were no maintenance his hospital’s medical response to I have been limiting myself workers willing to enter the the coronavirus. Credit: Elli Rosen- to very little physical conunit to mop the floors, clean berg tact with my wife or my the bathrooms, empty the garbage cans. Only children. They’ve decreased their social conafter I lectured them and promised to go in tacts extensively. We don’t let them have with them and help them out did two workers sleepovers with friends, even though theoretagree to go into the unit. They were petrified ically it is allowed. I feel they should take the in the beginning, but once they were inside required actions a step further because of my and met the patients and saw that it’s not as exposure. I’ve told my 16-year-old daughter bad as they imagined, they did their job very and her boyfriend to stay 2 meters apart. well and agreed to volunteer to join our team. What’s your take on Israel’s handling of What are the greatest risks to you and the pandemic? I’ve gone through a swing of the pendulum. your staff? The true front lines are the people working In the beginning, I thought this was handled in emergency rooms. Any patient that walks way too aggressively and that the measures in potentially has corona, and the staff there the government decided on were extreme. As doesn’t have the ability to protect themselves time progressed, especially with examples from every single patient. That uncertainty coming in from different countries around increases the risk of accidental exposure. In the world of how governments responded our unit, there’s no uncertainty. and what the consequences were — for better and for worse — I slowly shifted to the point Do you check yourself or your staff for right now where I hope we’re not too late with the virus? No. The protocol is that as long as we feel the actions we’re taking. If we want to beat well we’re not tested on a routine basis. If any this, social distancing and personal hygiene of us develops fever or respiratory symptoms and increased testing have to be implesuggestive of the disease, we’ll obviously test. mented and enforced at the highest level, and The consequence of positive results among I feel we’re not there yet. any of our staff would be quarantine for How long do you think this will last, and everybody. And that has extensive repercus- how bad will it get? sions, so we’re hoping we all stay healthy. Nobody really knows. I’m mentally preparI have extensively limited my exposure to ing for a few months. I’m also preparing for a other wards in the hospital. I canceled all my situation where it gets worse before it gets outpatient clinics. Our unit has to be specially better. We’re trying to make the most out of cared for so as not to expose to potential in- the resources we have, to maximize our abilfection. I’m also limiting my exposure to ity to provide care in the event that this turns places where I might contract the virus. I out to be very significant. Will we be overhaven’t been in stores, I haven’t gone to shul. whelmed, will we find ourselves in a similar We’re also developing written protocols for position to what’s happening unfortunately in how the unit should function if I am neutral- Italy, where doctors are making horrible ized because of illness or quarantine. choices of who to treat and who to turn away? I dread that possibility. We’re trying to What does your family say about your do the best with what we have to avoid that work? I think they understand the importance of situation.

Anti-passover campaign opened by Godless league in Russia

SPENCER HEAD Candidate for Omaha Public Schools Board of Education Sub District 5

PAID FOR BY SPENCER HEAD FOR OPS

JTA Archives | March 12,1930 The anti-Passover campaign was officially launched here today by the Godless League which is not, however, a government institution. Instructions issued by the League to all its branches explain that this year Passover coincides with Easter and that therefore the Godless Jews and nonJews should establish a united anti-Passover front with anti-religious torchlight street demonstrations on the night of April 19 and anti-Passover mass street demonstrations the following day. All this will be accompanied by radio speeches and antiPassover placards. The League orders its members not to fail to report for daily work during the week of

Passover. “The entire Passover campaign should be utilized for strengthening the propaganda for the closing of synagogues and churches,” says the notice. At the same time, the central committee of the Godless League has issued a circular urging the provincial branches not to go to extremes in closing places of worship. “Closings shouldn’t be carried out by administrative force when the majority oppose it because insufficient propaganda has been carried on.” Editors Note: The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.

See full digital issues at https://issuu.com/jewishpress7

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | D9

HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY

PASS OV E R B’nai Israel Synagogue Wishes the Community a Happy Passover! National Register of Historic Places A Century of Tradition 618 Mynster Street, Council Bluffs, IA

712-322-4705 You’re always welcome at B’nai Israel!

Congratulations

National Council of Jewish Women Nebraska

NCJW extends its warmest wishes to the Jewish community for a Joyous Passover.

to The Jewish Press on 100 successful years

Wishing the entire community a

Happy Passover

Freedom is the incessant human drive to draw on one’s divine, infinite potential and reach beyond the self.

Chag Sameach

Rabbi Mendel Katzman, Chabad Board, Staff and Volunteers

Happy Passover

from the LOVE Board

League Offering Volunteers for the Elderly

Send Best Wishes for a Happy Passover with a Love tribute card

The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home Auxiliary

Available from Sabine Strong 402-334-6519

It is an obligation to tell the story.

Wishing the community a Happy Pesach!

B’nai B’rith

Henry Monsky Lodge 402-334-6443

JEWISH WAR VETERANS of AMERICA Epstein Morgan Post 260

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful Passover. We invite all Jewish veterans to join us Contact: Jay Benton, Commander 402-250-6133 We welcome any and all new members

Beth Israel Synagogue and Sisterhood wishes you and your family a happy and healthy Passover.

With Your Help We’ll Have A Great Past Ahead Of Us

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Happy Passover From the staff of

Synagogues

D10 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

All services and classes have been canceled for the foreseeable future. For information about virtual services and learning opportunities, please contact your synagogue.

B’NAI ISRAEL 618 Mynster Street Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766 712.322.4705 email: CBsynagogue@hotmail.com For information on 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 and Sissy Silber. Handicap Accessible.

BETH EL

Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California Street Omaha, NE 68154-1980 402.492.8550 bethel-omaha.org WEEKDAY SERVICES: Morning Minyan, Mondays and Thursdays at 8 a.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us/j/175441554, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 175441554; Evening Minyan, Sunday-Thursday at 5:30 p.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us /j/835844247, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 835844247; Kabbalat Shabbat & Ma’ariv, Fridays at 6 p.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us/j/937363086, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 937363086. Shabbat Morning Services, Saturday mornings at 10 a.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us/j/388040397, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 388040397. WEDNESDAY: First Seder, April 8, Shacharit/Siyyum B’khorim, 8 a.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/389226345, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 389226345; Mincha-Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/835844247, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 835844247. THURSDAY: First Day of Passover, Second Seder, April 9, Shacharit, 10 a.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/ 986231766, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 986231766; Mincha, 5:30 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/835844247, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 835844247. FRIDAY: Second Day of Pesach, April 10, Shacharit, 10 a.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/753590665, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 753590665; Kabbalat Shabbat/Ma’ariv, 6 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/937363086, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 937363086. SATURDAY: Chol HaMoed Shabbat, April 11, Shacharit (Yizkor is said), 10 a.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us/j/ 388040397, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 388040397. SUNDAY-TUESDAY: Chol HaMoed Pesach, (Intermediate Days), April 12-14, Shacharit, Monday, 8 a.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us/j/175441554, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 175441554; Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/835844247, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 835844247. TUESDAY: April 14, Mincha/Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/835844247, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 835844247. WEDNESDAY: April 15, Seventh Day of Pesach, (Anniversary of the Crossing of the Red Sea), Shacharit – 10 a.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/701296600, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 701296600; Mincha-Ma’ariv, 5:30 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/835844247, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 835844247. THURSDAY: April 16, Eighth Day of Pesach, Shacharit, 10 a.m., Zoom Conference Link: https://zoom.us/j/467844796, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 467844796.

BETH ISRAEL

Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific Street Omaha, NE. 68154 402.556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org SUNDAY: Laws of Pesach, March 29, 10:30 a.m. with Rabbi Ari. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/253119453, Phone: 346.248.7799, Meeting ID: 253119453. MONDAY: Preparing Seder Delicacies, March 31, Noon with Rabbi Yoni. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/366501960, Phone: 346.248.7799, Meeting ID: 366501960. TUESDAY: Preparing Seder Delicacies, April 1, 7 p.m. with Rabbi

TO SUBMIT ANNOUNCEMENTS Announcements may be e-mailed to the Press at jpress@jewishomaha.org; mailed to 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154. Readers can also submit announcements -- births, b’nai mitzvahs, engagements, marriages, commitment ceremonies or obituaries -- online at the Jewish Federation of Omaha website: www.jewishomaha.org. Click on “Jewish Press” and go to Submit Announcements.

Yoni. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/463193112, Phone: 346.248.7799, Meeting ID: 463193112. SUNDAY: Seder Run-Thru, April 5, 10:30 a.m. with Rabbi Ari. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/253119453, Phone: 346.248.7799, Meeting ID: 253119453.

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

CONGREGATION 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

TIFERETH ISRAEL Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Boulevard Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 402.423.8569 tiferethisraellincoln.org WEEKLY: Shabbat Morning Zoom-Minyan, join us MAR. 28-MAY 9, 10 a.m. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/316800499. You do not need to be a member of Zoom but may be asked to download the software. Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 316800499. FRIDAYS: Evening Kabbalat Shabbat Zoom-Minyan, 30 min. every week on Friday, until May 8, join us at 6 p.m. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom. us/j/383649631. You do not need to be a member of Zoom but may be asked to download the software. Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 383649631. WEDNESDAY: April 8, First Night Seder, the seder will begin at 6 p.m. This link will allow you to participate remotely with Nancy Coren leading your seder. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/ j/173527557. Meeting ID: 173527557, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 173527557. THURSDAY: April 9, First Day of Passover Shacharit, Service, 10 a.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/342514908. Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 342514908; Second Night Seder, the seder will begin at 6 p.m. This link will allow you to participate remotely with Nancy Coren leading your seder. Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/590789025, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 590789025. Neither seder will require a password. WEDNESDAY: April 15, Seventh Day of Passover Mincha, Service, 7:30 p.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/ 342514908, Phone: Call 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 342514908. THURSDAY: April 16, Eighth Day of Passover Shacharit, Service and Yizkor, 10 a.m., Zoom Conferencing Link: https://zoom.us/j/ 778338496, Phone: 929.205.6099, Meeting ID: 778338496. Lifecycle or health Concerns: Call Nancy Coren anytime of day or night. 402.770.4167 or email corenancy@gmail.com. Need to speak to the office? Call Nava at 402.423.8569. Leave a message if no answer or email tifethisraeloffice@gmail.com.

Here are some resources for our readers JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE

We at Jewish Family Service (JFS) are thinking of you and your families. We realize that these are uncertain times, for all of us, yet there are many things that you can do to take care of yourself and your families. The following links from our most reputable resources are listed below: https://www.networkjhsa.org/featured/corona-virusresources-updates/ https://www.apa.org/practice/programs/dmhi/ research-information/social-distancing https://emergency.cdc.gov/ Thankfully, JFS was already forward thinking, launching our Tele-mental Health (Virtual Counseling) capabilities on March 1. We are attaching below all of the information you need to access our services. JFS staff are prepared to do these sessions from our homes to your home as the JFO Campus shifts to employees working remotely. This will begin on Tuesday, March 17. EAP sessions for Campus Employees and designated sessions for CNAs from RBJH can still be served through Tele-mental Health. Feel free to call the JFS Office with any questions that you have about accessing our services at 402.330.2024. (our phones are being transferred to a JFS staff person working remotely). Please remember to take this one day at a time, one task at time, one thought at a time. And try to find the silver lining of taking this opportunity to slow life down a bit and go back to the basics of quality family time. For those of you who live alone, this is the time that Social Media can be your friend, allowing you to connect to others.

ROSE BLUMKIN JEWISH HOME

The Rose Blumkin Jewish Home is closed for visitors. For more information, please contact the Home at 402.988.1110

STAENBERG KOOPER FELLMAN CAMPUS

All facilities and buildings on the Staenberg Kooper Fellman Campus are closed to the public until further notice. The Jewish Federation of Omaha and its family of agencies have amended operations to best protect our community – residents, members, and staff. While the Jewish Federation of Omaha Campus is closed to the public, we are exploring new meaningful ways to bring the community together through virtual programming, distance learning and other offerings. Find out more at http://www.jewishomaha.org/. It is the JCC’s intent to re-open April 1. Given the uncertainty of these times, if we are unable to do so, we, with the support of our leadership, have established guiding principles for membership dues, tuition/enrollment fees, and program registrations: Visit https://www.jccomaha.org/ for details.

Visit us at jewishomaha.org

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | D11

What Jewish life looked like Continued from page D7 Rotterdam, Holland, in May has been canceled due to the spread of coronavirus. Israel had been set to be represented by Eden Alene, an Ethiopian Israeli who planned to sing Feker Libi, which features verses in Amharic, Hebrew, English and Arabic. 2:39 p.m. Israel closes its borders to foreigners Israel has completely closed its borders to all foreign nationals, effective immediately. Prior to Wednesday, travelers who are neither citizens nor residents were permitted to enter only if they could prove they had a place to self-isolate for 14 days. 2:28 p.m. Rivlin reaches out to Abbas Israeli President Reuven Rivlin reached out to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in light of the coron-

avirus crisis. “The world is dealing with a crisis that does not distinguish between people or where they live,” he said in a statement from his office. “Our ability to work together in times of crisis is also testament to our ability to work together in the future for the good of us all.” 2:17 p.m. Iconic Brooklyn synagogue closes its doors The century-old Shomer Shabbos shul in Borough Park for the first time in its history closed its doors indefinitely Wednesday after a tripling of coronavirus cases in the area. 1:59 p.m. New Rochelle attorney wakes from coma Lawrence Garbuz, the attorney at the center of the coronavirus outbreak in New Rochelle, New York, “is awake and alert and seems to be on the road to full recovery,” his wife, Adina, wrote on Facebook. “Now that we, as a family, can see

NEBRASKA STATEWIDE CLASSIFIEDS a light at the end of the tunnel, my family — even children — are all on board to offer what we can to medical research to see if it can help bring a cure or stop the damage of this virus. I truly hope we can be of help.” 1:20 p.m British synagogues ordered closed British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis ordered the closure of all synagogues affiliated with United Synagogue, the largest network of Orthodox synagogues in the country. Until this week, the U.K. has not advocated extensive social distancing, and houses of worship have remained open. 12:10 p.m. Last man flying Ilan, a 21-year-old from Argentina, was the only passenger on a flight out of Israel’s Ben Gurion airport to Barcelona earlier this week, following the exit of most tourists from the country and the near shutdown of air travel.

Anti-passover campaign slow as leaders lack incentive JTA Archives | April 11, 1930 The anti-Passover campaign in Russia is proceeding very slowly this year because American Jews are not sending matzoth into Russia as they did last year, complains the Charkov “Shtern.” The paper points out that last year the anti-Passover campaign was stimulated by campaigning against the American matzoth but this year “many leaders think it does not pay to bother with the campaign because there is nothing to

campaign against.” Pointing out that religious Jews are very active with Passover preparations even though no matzoth is coming in from abroad, the “Shtern” calls for greater anti-Passover activity on the eve of Passover and urges the artisans in particular not to observe the rituals. The Moscow “Emes,” which is now under partial government control, is obeying the instructions not to mock at religion and is practically silent on Passover.

This is the first Passover since the Revolution that the “Emes” is refraining from a furious anti-Passover campaign, restricting itself for the most part to carefully written and mild anti-Passover articles. Editors Note: The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.

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D12 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

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FOOD T H E

P A S S O V E R

E D I T I O N

A supplement to The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

E2 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Food

From My Kosher Jerusalem Kitchen SYBIL KAPLAN In Jerusalem, as soon as Purim is over, everyone begins to get ready for Pesach. Two and a half weeks ahead, macaroons are already in the stores as well as the various products for the holiday. Here are some various desserts to try from traditional to unusual.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, author, compiler/editor of 9 kosher cookbooks and food writer for North American Jewish publications, who lives in Jerusalem where she leads weekly walks of the Jewish food market, Machaneh Yehudah, in English. See more recipes at My Kosher Kitchen page E3

CLASSIC ALMOND MACAROONS This recipe is adapted from an American food magazine (not sure which). Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups blanched almonds 1/4 cup sugar 2 egg whites 1/4 tsp. almond extract 3/4 cup sugar 4 tsp. confectioners’ sugar Directions: Place almonds in a pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil 10 seconds. Remove one almond and see if it almond slips out of its skin. If not, boil a few seconds more. Spread on paper towels and pat dry. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper. Grind almonds with 1/4 cup sugar in processor. Add egg whites and extract and blend 20 seconds. Add remaining 3/4 cup sugar in two batches, blending 10 seconds after each addition. Roll 1 Tbsp. mixture between moistened palms into ball. Repeat until all mixture is used, spacing cookies 1 inch apart. Flatten each to 1/2 inch high. Brush each with water. Sift confectioners’ sugar over each. Bake in preheated 325 degree F. oven 25 minutes. Lift one end of paper and pour 2 Tbsp. water onto baking sheet. Lift other end and pour 2 Tbsp. water under. Tilt to spread water. When water stops boiling, remove macaroons. Makes 20 macaroons.

Read it and eat SHUK | EINAT ADMONY & JANNA GUR (ARTISAN, $35) Open the cover to discover shuk: an open-air market, a lively maze of stalls and stands selling all manner of vegetables and fruits. The shuk is the bustling heart of Israeli towns and cities and the cross- LOIS FRIEDMAN roads where people jostle alongside many of all ages in their quest for nourishment, community and the foods of their childhoods. The author Einat Admony shared trips to the shuk to shop with her dad (their family are “mizrachi” Jews of the Middle East; those of with roots in Spain (Sephardic) or elsewhere in Europe (Ashkenazi). Her multicultural childhood was shopping at shuks, cooking with her mom and neighbors and eating the incredible variety of foods they prepared; all of which led to her career as a chef/restaurateur in New York City. Co-author Janna Sur liked the food of her new homeland and followed a literary career which led to magazine publishing. This duo blends into a wonderful “read,” complete with an inviting conversation in both words and photographs. The stuff of the Pantry, Spice Rack and Blends and table is covered... watch out for “hareef ” which means hot or spicy in He-

brew. S’chug, if it is green, is a ground condiment with cilantro; the red version is less spicy. Brief recipes, lists of unique ingredients, detailed instructions are accompanied by vivid photos of people, places and eats! Think three pages of preserved lemons. Visit favorite markets, eight shuks and spots where and when to go to with promises of music and colorful characters. The food experiences begins with Salad All Day, inspired by the array of fresh veggies and herbs available. This is followed by the chapters Cauliflower and Eggplant: our Vegetable Heroes, Tahini and Chickpeas: Our National Obsession, Dairy and Eggs, for Breakfast and for Dinner, Mad About Chicken, All About Rice, Ktzitzot: Patties, Latkes and Meatballs, Soups to Comfort and Refresh, Deliciously Stuffed, The Couscous Table, The Flavor of Fire, Flatbreads, Traditional Breads and Savory Pies, and Sweet Endings. Stories and food features are scattered through the recipes. Hummus for Beginners is loaded with helpful and eye opening details... use the freshest quality (stale chickpeas have a dusty flavor, check expiration date on the package) preferably of Spanish chickpeas (the smallest size) and serve promptly (or freeze). Don’t forget to check out the yogurt tips and ideas. See Read it and eat page E3

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | E3

My Kosher Kitchen Continued from page E2

TOFFEE MATZO

Read it and eat

This is my favorite sweet for Pesach but this version is an Andrew Zimmern contribution from Food & Wine magazine internet columns with a few of my changes. 1 cup salted butter or margarine 5 pieces of matzo 1 cup packed brown sugar 2 cups chocolate chips 1 cup mixed chopped nuts Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with vegetable spray. Line with parchment paper and spray with vegetable spray. Arrange a layer of matzo on the sheet. Melt butter or margarine with brown sugar in a saucepan. Cook 5 minutes. Pour over matzo. Bake in preheated 350 degree F. oven 5-8 minutes until bubbling. Remove from oven and spread chocolate chips on top, letting them melt for 5 minutes. Sprinkle nuts on top. Let cool or refrigerate to cool. Break into pieces.

MARILYN’S CHOCOLATE BRANDIED CANDY Marilyn is a friend of mine for many years who came from the Boston area and has lived in Israel since 1949. Ingredients: 3 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate (a candy bar works fine) 1 cup raisins, soaked in cherry brandy 1 cup chopped walnuts 1 cup matza pieces Directions: Melt chocolate in a saucepan. Add raisins, walnuts, and matza and mix well.

Continued from page E2 From Amba (spicy mango sauce) to Za’atar (a wild oregano that is a “rare and protected plant” blend) the recipes feature headnotes, paragraphs of instructions and variations. For those of us who love reading cookbooks this one is a vicarious romp through Israel bite by bite and A to Z through 140 well chosen recipes from this culinary duo. The recipe

CHOCOLATE BISCOTTI Ingredients: 3/4 cup margarine or butter 2 1/8 cup sugar 6 eggs 2 Tbsp. vanilla extract 3 1/2 cups matza flour 1 1/4 cups potato flour 3/4 cup cocoa 1 Tbsp. Passover baking powder 5/8 cup ground almonds 2 cup chocolate chips Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet. In a bowl, cream margarine or butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, combine matza flour, potato flour, cocoa and baking powder. Gradually add to batter. Add nuts and chocolate chips and combine. Form into two logs and place on cookie sheet. Bake in preheated 375 degree F. oven for 30 minutes. Let cool. Slice. Return slices to cookie sheet and bake 15 minutes.

below could be added to your Passover Seder or any gathering of family and friends. (Full disclosure: I read this cookbook on a very cold, winter morning and immediately decided to make the Weeknight Lentil and Carrot Soup... absolutely delicious for lunch!) Lois Friedman can be reached at ReadItAndEat@yahoo.com

CHILLED YOGURT SOUP WITH FROZEN GRAPES Ingredients: 7 medium garlic cloves, unpeeled 2 cups plain whole-milk or low-fat yogurt 2 cups plain kefir 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil 1 tsp. honey 1 tsp. kosher salt, plus more as needed To Serve: 1 1/2 cups seedless grapes (a mix of red, black, and green will look pretty), halved and frozen 1/2 small jalapeno or other medium-hot fresh chili, cored, seeded and sliced paper-thin (optional 1 small red onion, finely chopped (optional) Extra-virgin olive oil Tiny sprigs of fresh dill, tarragon, oregano or mint for garnish Directions: Put the garlic cloves in a small saucepan and add water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for about 1 hour, or

until the cloves are completely soft. Drain and let cool. Pour the yogurt and kefir into a blender. Add the oil, honey, and salt. Squeeze about 5 of the garlic cloves into a small bowl (discarding their skins), and add them to the blender. Blend until smooth. Taste and decide if the flavor is garlicky and salty enough. If not, squeeze out more garlic cloves and season with more salt. Give it another quick pulse, then pour into an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, pour the chilled soup into small serving bowls and sprinkle with the frozen grapes and a few chile rings and a little bit of chopped onion (if using). Add a generous drizzle of oil and garnish with some fresh herb sprigs. Variation: If you can’t find kefir, use whole milk instead, in which case you may want to squeeze in a bit of lemon juice to add some tang. Serves 6 to 8.

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Absolutely Fresh Seafood Market What’s new and fresh at Absolutely Fresh Seafood Market? The better question might be “What isn’t? 2018 was a banner year for our business which is entering it’s 40th year of operation, and we are looking to continue our growth into 2019. For starters, we completed the installation of a brand new, state-of-the-art smokehouse for the production of our smoked fish, along with other items used for our expanding catering services, including smoked prime rib, turkeys and more. In addition, we are producing items such as briskets, pastrami and and roast beef for the other restaurants in the Absolutely Fresh Family. As prepared food items have been our largest growing sector, we have decided to continue our focus on this area. Not to worry though: there is still plenty of new fresh and frozen seafood coming to our door daily! We are now featuring some second-to-none wildcaught gulf shrimp from Louisiana that has been very popular amongst our customers. Also, Omaha’s “addiction” to our Faroe Islands Salmon continues to set new benchmarks for sales, and we couldn’t be happier that so many people are enjoying it on a regular basis. We hope that anyone who has not yet visited our store takes a moment to stop in and see what we have to offer. And, anyone who has not been in for a while might be surprised at all of the new tasty offerings we have. Thanks again for all of your support over the years.

Shucks Fish House & Oyster Bar All 3 of our Shucks locations had a very prosperous 2018, and continue to develop their own distinct identities. From a business standpoint, it fascinates us what a difference 6 miles can make in what customers are looking for in their dining choices. Nevertheless, its a fun challenge for us to “Keep it Fresh” for Downtown, Midtown and West Omaha. New menu items like the Angry Crab Pasta and the return of Shrimp & Grits have been very popular amongst our new and long-time customers.

In the upcoming year, we plan on continuing to provide a consistent and top notch variety of the best seafood in Omaha. We are also placing renewed emphasis on our daily and weekend specials thanks to the exceptionally talented culinary team working in the kitchens of all of our locations. We encourange everyone wanting to know “What’s Fresh Today?” to sign up for our weekly email newsletter at shucksfish house.com where we also post our specials daily. Not to mention, we have very active so-

cial media profiles on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Finally, we also look forward to being able to utilize the smokehouse purchased by our fish market to expand our smoked offerings, both surf and turf. We also have been getting a little more creative behind the bar with our drink specials, and continue to find new varieties of oysters to appease the masses. Thanks to everyone who helped get us to this point, and we enjoy being your neighborhood fish shack.

restaurant, we have brought on a new head chef, Josh MacDonald, to provide some new ideas and some superb culinary skills to our kitchen. His house-smoked pastrami that goes on our Big Easy sandwich is like nothing you’ve ever had, and he also has been instrumental in incorporating more Absolutely Fresh Seafood into the specials and core menu. How do you find out what Chef Josh has planned for lunch today? Visit our newly updated website

at dundeedell.com. Plus, he does a fantastic job catering in one of our two party rooms. Our Skye Room is great for groups of up to 12, the ultimate back room experience, and our Pine Room can accommodate up to 60 guest for sit-down dinners, or casual gatherings with appetizers and drinks. Stop in and see what’s new with your old neigborhood friend, The Dundee Dell, at 50th and Underwood.

The Dundee Dell Finding a balance between the old and the new has been our quest since The Dundee Dell joined the Absolutely Fresh Family a few years ago. We have found that subtle changes are the best - a little brighter lighting, a few new colors and a handful of new friendly faces on our staff. But some things at The Dell will never change like our famous fish & chips and our Wall of Scotch. In our effort to add a little “freshness” to Omaha’s second oldest operating

Bailey’s Breakfast & Lunch It’s getting competitive in the Breakfast scene in Omaha, so we are constantly working to stay on the top of the list of best places to enjoy a nice homestyle breakfast with a little flair. In the past year, we added a few “South of the Border” items to our menu including Breakfast Enchiladas and Barbacoa Tostadas which have been extremely popular amongst our guests. And, our featured flavored coffees and signature drinks, including Mimosas and Bloody Mary’s, have been gain-

ing popularity with an increasingly younger crowd that enjoys the ability to have breakfast into the afternoon. We also have had great success in our Dinner After Dark and Dinner With The Market events in partnership with Absolutely Fresh Seafood Market and Shucks Fish House. These reservation-only, five-course meals are unlike anything else in Omaha, and have gained quite the regular following. Plus, we encourage everyone to check out our cater-

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The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | E5

1927 Hadassah Cookbook Passover in Omaha takes quite a bit of forward planning. The Hadassah cookbook of 1927, put together by the women of the Omaha chapter offered some recipes we decided to try out at the Press.

PRAKAS (CABBAGE AND MEAT ROLLS) Filling and delicious, these Prakas are just like Bubbie used to make in the 1920s... if your Bubbie was Mrs. J. Winetroub of Omaha, that is! Please note this recipe is for those who consume kitniyot on Passover as it includes rice, although this ingredient could be omitted or crushed matzo could be substituted. Ingredients: 2 lbs. ground shoulder steak 3 eggs 1 small can tomatoes 5 Tbsp. Chicken fat (schmaltz) 1 large onion, grated 2 Tbsp. raw rice Salt and pepper to taste 1 medium head cabbage Directions: Mix meat, eggs, 2 Tbsp. schmaltz, rice (or matzo crumbs), onion and spices together. Select best whole cabbage leaves and pour boiling water over them, cover and let stand 30 min, then drain.

WHALE WATCHERS COOKBOOK, VIEWS FROM THE GALLEY | SHARON NOGG

Spoon meat mixture into cabbage leaves and roll them into oblong rolls. Line roaster or stew pan with finely cut onions, 3 Tbsp. schmaltz, 2 Tbsp. sugar and juice of 1/2 lemon and remainder of cabbage. Place meat filled cabbage rolls on top. Pour tomatoes in juice over pan and boil 3 hours over slow fire.

MARMALADE Don’t fret if you can’t find KP jams or jellies locally- make your own! This quick and simple marmalade recipe from a Mrs. J. Rosenberg is just as tasty now as it was then and is an excellent topping for matzo brei. Ingredients: 2 oranges 1 lb dried apricots 2 cups pineapple 1-2 cups sugar- sweeten to taste Directions: Simply grind mixture and add sugar. Cook until thickened to jam stage. Enjoy!

Read it and eat Time flies when you’re having fun right? Especially when it comes to cookbooks! The Jewish Press Anniversary celebration is a stroll down memory lane for me and my previews of hundreds of hot-off-the-press LOIS FRIEDMAN cookbooks which have appeared in the Press, several other newspapers and several Edible magazines over a couple of decades. The majority of these cookbooks found their way to the Kripke Library and the Omaha Library collections. This has led to a decade of the “Read It And Eat” Culinary Conferences, the first Saturday in November at the Downtown Branch. It’s been an incredible, free, all-day event featuring local chefs, experts, food purveyors, restaurateurs... foodies one and all!

My very first cookbook previewed was in 1990 borrowed from Beth Brown at the Bookworm was written by Omahan Sharon Nogg, Whale Watchers Cookbook, Views from the Galley (Media Publishing, $9.95... her mom has a few). Sharon writes a pots and pans journey of her various experiences via a tiny galley kitchen. The recipes are quick and easy. One suggestion is to use glacial ice to cool your picnic cooler because it is incredibly dense and melts slowly. A portion of the royalties from the cookbook will aid conservation groups and is especially timely because of our awareness of the plight of the whale and our environment is so important. Below is a sample recipe workable in your galley kitchen. Lois Friedman can be reached at Read ItAndEat@yahoo.com

BAKED CREAM CHEESE WITH SESAME SEEDS

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Ingredients: 8 ounces cream cheese Sesame Seeds Directions: Roll cream cheese into a ball then roll in sesame seeds to “frost” to coat. Bake on an un-

greased cookie sheet at 325 degrees for one hour until the seeds are lightly browned. The cheese will puff as it bakes and will be creamy. Serve with crackers. Serves 4-6.

Happy Passover

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E6 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Vintage Passover dishes

From My Kosher Jerusalem Kitchen: International meat dishes after the Seder SYBIL KAPLAN This Italian-influenced dish was created by Hillary Sterling for Vic’s, her New York City restaurant. Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, compiler/editor of 9 kosher cookbooks (working on a 10th) and food writer for North

American Jewish publications; she lives in Jerusalem where she leads weekly walks of the Jewish food market, Machaneh Yehudah, and writes restaurant features for Janglo.net, the largest website for English-speakers. For another recipe see My kosher Kitchen page E7 Credit: thejewishkitchen.com

BRISKET MEATBALLS IN TOMATO PASSATA*

Ingredients for Meatballs: 1 1/2 cups crumbled, unsalted matza 2 1/2 Tbsp. water 1 1/4 pounds ground brisket 1 large egg 1 Tbsp. olive oil salt to taste 1 1/2 tsp. ground fennel seeds (optional) 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper pepper to taste Ingredients for Tomato Passata: 1/4 cup sliced garlic 1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil 1 28-ounce can crushed, drained plum tomatoes 1/8 cup fresh marjoram leaves 2 1/2 4x1-inch orange peel strips salt and pepper to taste Directions: Preheat oven to 425 degree F. Set a wire rack inside a large baking sheet and coat with vegetable spray. Combine crumbled matzo and water in a bowl. Add brisket, egg, oil, salt, fennel (if using) red pepper and black pepper. Mix with hands until combined. Shape into 8 meatballs. Arrange meatballs on sprayed wire rack. Bake in preheated 425 degree F. oven until browned, about 22 minutes. Meanwhile, in a frying pan, cook garlic and oil for passata, stirring often, a minute and a half.

SPONGE CAKE NO. 1

Ingredients: 8 eggs 1 lb. granulated sugar Grated rind of lemon 6 ounces of matzo meal Directions: Beat egg, sugar, until very light. Add lemon rind. Add meal, stirring in without much beating. Bake in moderate over over 1/2 an hour.

MRS. CHARLES LEVINSON I am not sure what “moderate” means in this context. My husband suggested the oven should be hot, which is totally not helpful. Let’s try it at 350 degrees and we’ll see what happens? Credit: Christopher Testani/foodandwine.com Add crushed tomatoes, marjoram leaves, orange peel strips, salt and red pepper. Bring to a boil then remove from heat. Transfer meatballs to tomato passata in frying pan. Garnish with crumbled matzot, fresh marjoram leaves and chile oil. Serve warm. Makes 4 servings. *Passata is an Italian word meaning “go through,” because the cooked tomato puree goes through a special machine.

PASSOVER SANDWICH

Ingredients: Use 1 egg to 2 sandwiches Beat egg Add salt and matzo meal as for pancakes Directions: Pour water over a whole cake of matzo. Spread egg mixture over matzo. Fry in fat with matzo side down, then when set, fry on other side. Fold in half and serve.

MRS. H. SILVERMAN

C E L E B R AT I N G

1OO

YEARS The Jewish Press

The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020 | E7

Read it and eat

And what is my favorite cookbook? Over the years my shelves have held cookbooks of every size, shape, theme, cuisine, ethnicity with glorious photographs for every part of the day from beginning to end for home- LOIS FRIEDMAN makers to professional cooks... a glorious array to say the least. So, what is this over the top extravaganza from my collection of first editions, autographed treasures, 1959 Joy of Cooking and recipe boxes of family favorites? Follow along with me for a moment to the

creative, over the top Temple Israel Sunday School class project by Mollie Delman. Our daughter Nancyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Holiday Cookbook is used, falling apart and spotted with grease. The wallpaper cover is coming apart as well. The recipes inside are listed by holidays and feature construction paper and crayon illustrations. Of note: the Yom Kippur illustration and recipe are blank ( fasting). The Potato Latkes recipe is my go-to for Hanukkah. From the Purim page is this recipe. illustrated by three raisins glued on a yellow triangle (the glue alone has passed the test of time). Enjoy this celebration of a stroll down memory lane! Lois Friedman can be reached at Read ItAndEat@yahoo.com

HAMENTASCHEN Ingredients: 3 eggs 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup mazola oil 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 orange, juice and rind (grated) 1/2 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. baking powder 2 cups flour Directions: Beat eggs. Add sugar and mix well. Add mazola, salt, orange juice, grated rind and vanilla. Sift flour and baking powder together. Add to mixture and mix well. Batter should be like a soft cookie dough. Roll out on floured board about 1/4â&#x20AC;? thick, a small amount at a time. Cut into 4 inch circles. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of filling on each. Bring edges together to form a triangle,

pinching the seams together, from top down to corners. Bake on greased cookie sheet 375 degrees until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.

My Kosher Kitchen Continued from page E6 After eating all the wonderful seder dishes of our families, I find it fun to try dishes that are unusual and not from our backgrounds. Here are some you might want to try. Egyptian-born Claudia Roden is the master of Middle Eastern Food and author of 20

cookbooks. Now 84 years old, she lives in London. I met her in the 1970s when she came to Israel and we had a wonderful visit. This is hers recipe from the New York Times Passover Cookbook, adapted from The Book of Jewish Foods which she wrote, characteristic of the Middle East.

MATZOH-MEAT PIE

1 large chopped onion 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil 1 1/2 pounds ground lamb or beef salt and pepper to taste 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/2 tsp. allspice 2 Tbsp. raisins 2 Tbsp. pine nuts or walnuts 1 cup warm beef stock 5-6 matzot 1 small beaten egg Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a pie plate with vegetable spray. Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a frying pan and fry onion over medium heat for 10 minutes until golden. Add ground meat, salt, pepper, cinnamon and allspice. Cook, stirring until meat has browned but is still moist, about 10 Credit: dishnthekitchen.com minutes. Add raisins. Press 2 or 3 softened matzot into a pie plate. In another pan, fry the nuts in 1 Tbsp. oil for 1 minute, stirring until nuts are lightly colored. Place meat mixture on top of matzot. Cover pie with remaining matzot. Brush top with Add to meat mixture and stir. Place beef stock in a large, shallow rectan- beaten egg. Bake in preheated 375 degree F. gular pan. Soak matzot one at a time, pressing oven 30 minutes or until top is golden. Makes 4-6 servings. them gently to absorb the liquid.

Happy Passover

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PAID FoR BY HoUlIHAn FoR nRD, 19114 T ST., omAHA, nE 68135

E8 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020

Happy Passover! You can ﬁnd everything for your Seder feast at Baker’s. BakersPlus.com