Life cycles

BAR MITZVAH

COLIN HERSHEL KELLN

Colin Hershel Kelln, son of Heather and Mark Kelln will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022 at Beth El Synagogue. Colin is an eighth grade Honor Roll student at Alice Buffett Middle School. He is a member of student council and National Junior Honor Society. He is a member of the No Place for Hate Club at Buffett, swims competitively for ACE and Buffett, plays violin in the Omaha Area Youth Orchestra, enjoys cooking and loves his time spent at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. For his mitzvah project, Colin is learning about ways to best support the needs of the Omaha refugee community. He has a brother, Peyton. Grandparents are Jody and Ray Goldstein of Rochester, MN, Don Kelln of Oconomowoc, WI and the late Kathy Kelln.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor, I am researching the phenomenal Omaha Jewish journalist and historian Ella Fleishman Auerbach (1894-1972). I invite any of your readers to contact me by phone 402-659-2455; email obpomni@gmail.com; or by mail, 1963 Northshore Dr. Richmond, California. 94804, if they have some memories, documents or photographs to share. Your assistance will be gratefully acknowledged. Thank you,

OLIVER B. POLLAK

CORRECTIONS

In a recent issue of the Jewish Press, the wrong phone number was inserted for RBJH Volunteer Coordinator Sabine Strong. The correct number is 402.334.6519. On our spotlight page, the Friedman family was incorrectly identified as the Friedland family. The Jewish Press regrets these errors.

Antisemitic threats continue in the wake of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search

MADELINE FIXLER

JTA When a Florida synagogue canceled its “Beach Shabbat” services amid threats against one of its board members, the judge who signed the warrant authorizing an FBI search of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, it felt to some like a pivotal moment in the history of American antisemitism. “The combination of a synagogue in Florida having to cancel Shabbat due to antisemitic threats against the Jewish judge who signed the Trump warrant, combined with right-wing media figures pointing out that Merrick Garland is Jewish, is making me very uneasy as an American Jew,” a doctoral student in American Jewish history named Joel Swanson wrote on Twitter. Many of the attacks on Judge Bruce Reinhardt have referenced his Jewish identity, from a viral tweet by retired baseball player Lenny Dykstra to chatter on pro-Trump message boards. So, too, has criticism of Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general who authorized the search as part of an ongoing investigation into whether Trump may have violated the Espionage Act. The torrent of antisemitic vitriol against them have raised concerns that Trump’s base, which has already shown potential for violence, could channel that rhetoric into action. “We know that U.S. extremists are willing to act on their beliefs. And we know, for some of these extremists, antisemitism is adjacent to their other ideologies,” said Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League. Segal and others who pay attention to extremism say it’s fair for Jews to be concerned, given their history in the United States and elsewhere — but they are also quick to emphasize that the danger posed by Trump’s supporters threatens a far wider swath of Americans. “I don’t think Mar-a-Lago means every Jewish person needs to keep their head on a swivel,” Segal said. “I just think we’re in a particular dangerous time in this country. And everybody should be concerned.”

This article was edited for length. Read the full story at www.omahajewishpress.com.

Trade scholarships available for the 202223 academic year

An anonymous donor in our community has created two trade school scholarship opportunities, up to $5,000 each, to go towards the 2022-23 academic year. Not every student who advances into higher education signs up for a four-year curriculum. Some high school graduates seek job training that lasts a year or two and then places them in the workforce. Such opportunities include, but are not restricted to: Information Technology, Construction, Industrial, Transportation and Horticulture. It is not too late to apply for this upcoming school year! Qualified students who have unmet needs regarding tuition for either a two-year trade school program or a trade certificate program can contact the Jewish Press at avandekamp @jewishomaha.org or jpress@jewishomaha.org for more information.

Now Abbas calls Holocaust the ‘most heinous crime’

RON KAMPEAS

JTA Under fire for accusing Israel of “50 Holocausts,” (see p.10) President Mahmoud Abbas walked back his statement, calling the Holocaust “the most heinous crime in modern human history.” Abbas released the statement August 17 through the Palestinian Wafa news agency. He had come under sharp Mahmoud Abbas, President criticism from U.S., Israeli and of the Palestinian National German officials for accusing Authority, speaks to the Israel of carrying out “50 Holo- media in Berlin, Aug. 16, causts” against the Palestini- 2022. Credit: Sean Gallup/ ans during a press conference Getty Images in Germany on Tuesday, standing alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. A German reporter had asked Abbas whether the Palestinian Authority would apologize on the 50th anniversary of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which is intertwined with the Palestinian Authority, carried out the massacre. Abbas’ statement came after Hussein Al-Sheikh, the current PLO secretary-general had a “difficult” conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, according to Israeli reporter Noga Tarnopolsky. Scholz drew criticism for not calling out Abbas in real time but subsequently decried the comment.

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The Hitler puppet stashed in Frank Oz’s Oakland attic

DAN PINE

J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA Long before Frank Oz gained fame as the puppet master behind such iconic characters as Miss Piggy and Yoda, he was Frank Oznowicz, an Oakland kid who attended Tech High, ate burgers at Kwik Way and watched movies at the Grand Lake Theater. And from time to time, he’d rummage through the attic of his home. One day he came across something that would prove to be extraordinary: a set of wooden marionettes, carved in the 1930s by his Jewish father, Isadore “Mike” Oznowicz, a Holocaust refugee from Antwerp, Belgium. The costumes were handmade by his mother, Frances. One of the puppets, with its Charlie Chaplin mustache and raised right arm, was unmistakably a mocking caricature of Hitler. “Every few years I’d see [the puppets] and not think twice,” Oz recalled of his youth. “When I was an adult, I moved to New York and I realized, ‘My God, look what we have here.’” Long before storing the puppets in an Oakland attic, Mike Oznowicz had buried them in Antwerp for safekeeping before fleeing the Nazi invasion, then retrieved them after the war. They remained in the attic until his son, by then fully aware of the historical importance of his parents’ handiwork, transported them to his Manhattan apartment, where he has kept them for more than 30 years. The puppets have never been on public display until now. They are the centerpieces of a new exhibition, Oz is for Oznowicz: A Puppet Family’s History, open now through Nov. 27 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The exhibit consists of the Hitler figure, as well as a puppet cabaret band decked out in swanky satin jackets, along with a raven-haired chanteuse in a red dress. Also included are archival photographs, reflections from Oz and his siblings and a video account from Mike Oznowicz recounting his harrowing escape from Nazi-occupied Belgium. “The wear and tear is very evident,” Heidi Rabben, senior curator of the CJM, said of the treasures. “The costumes are faded and torn. The Hitler costume is broken down the front seam. I asked Frank why he thought his parents buried [the puppets] and did not destroy them. He said if someone creates something with one’s own hands it becomes meaningful. This [Hitler] marionette was for his parents a form of resistance.”

Frank Oz, 78, is best known as the puppetry genius who partnered with Muppets founder Jim Henson. He was the voice of Miss Piggy, Burt, Cookie Monster and, as recently as 2019, the voice of Yoda in the Star Wars series. As a filmmaker, he directed The Dark Crystal, Little Shop of Horrors and What About Bob, among others. But his puppeteering began at home, under the influence of his parents. When Germany invaded Belgium in 1940, possessing a subversive marionette like the Hitler puppet posed a danger to both Mike Oznowicz, a sign painter by trade and an amateur puppeteer, and Frances, a dressmaker. The couple buried it and several other marionettes in their backyard, then fled the country, wandering from Portugal to North Africa. While hiding in Casablanca, it was Frances who supported the family with tailoring work. After the war, they returned to Antwerp, retrieved the puppets and eventually brought them to Northern California, where they built a new life for themselves and their three children. They continued to make puppets and performed shows in the region, including at Children’s Fairyland at Lake Merritt. Oz told J. his father never liked to talk about the war, which claimed the lives of many of his relatives. Nor did he divulge the origins of the Hitler and cabaret band puppets or whether he ever performed with them. Mike Oznowicz, who died in 1998, was “very scrappy” and had an “attitude of rebelliousness,” according to his son. That may explain why he crafted a puppet that ridiculed Hitler. The tradition of mocking the German dictator continued for decades, from Bugs Bunny to Chaplin’s Great Dictator to Mel Brooks’ The Producers. “It’s part of our cultural fabric,” said Rabben of the CJM. “The Jews have always been an oppressed people who found ways to fight back, implicitly or more subtly. When you think of the legacy of Jewish humor in the U.S., that was a way for Jews to reclaim power and agency over how their stories were being told and who was telling them.” Oz said he sees the CJM exhibit as a way to honor his parents for their creativity and resilience. “I see it as beautiful folk art,” he said of his parents’ handiwork. “[My father] didn’t go to woodcarving school. He just did it, and [the puppets] are representative of so many people who just appreciate the core of humanity.”

A version of this piece originally ran in J. The Jewish News of Northern California and is reprinted with permission.

Mike and Frances Oznowicz at the Children’s Fairyland Puppet

Fair in 1956. Credit: San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild and Children’s Fairyland Archives

GENERAL ELECTION