Life cycles

from September 24, 2021

BAR MITZVAH

SIDNEY ZACHARIA

Sidney Zacharia, son of Renee Zacharia and Jeff Zacharia, celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Aug. 28, at Beth El. Sidney is a seventh-grade honors student at Millard North Middle School. He received the President’s Educational Award of Excellence and the Beverly Fellman Best Hebrew Award. Sidney is interested in basketball and studying Torah. He has a sister, Evie. Grandparents are Barb and Larry Zacharia of Omaha and Marla Barry and Don Barry.

This announcement was originally published in the 8/27/2021 edition.

IN MEMORIAM

ELLIS BYRON GOODMAN

Ellis Byron Goodman passed away on Sept. 9, 2021, at age 81 in Sarasota, FL. Funeral services were held on Sept. 17 at Beth El Cemetery.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Linda Goodman; parents, Bess and Herman Goodman; and brother, Ralph Goodman.

He is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Kristopher and Franny Goodman; daughter and son-in-law, Heather Goodman and Kye Andersen, and daughter, Nicole Goodman; and grandchildren: Arthur and Quinn Goodman, and brother and sister-inlaw, Michael and Cherie Goodman.

Memorials may be made in his memory to Nate's Honor Animal Rescue in Sarasota FL, where he adopted his beloved dog Bella (nateshonoranimalrescue.org).

BERNARD OSTRAVICH

Bernard Terry Ostravich passed away on Aug. 8, 2021, surrounded by family at age 83. Services were held on Aug. 11 at Mt. Sinai in Simi Valley, CA.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Sarah and Phil Ostravich.

He is survived by his wife, Rita; daughter and son-in-law, Sherri and Mike Cohn, and daughter, Julie Ostravich; grandchildren: Becca, Josh, Benjamin and Paige; and brother and sister-in-law, Allen and Eden Ostravich.

Bernard, was more affectionately known to family as “Gumpa.” He was fiercely devoted to his family and friends. His laughter was infectious, his humor everlasting, his stories always remembered.

Memorials may be made to City of Hope, 1500 E. Duarte Road, Duarte, CA 91010 or online at www.cityofhope.org.

This obituary was originally published in the 8/27/2021 edition.

Burlington BDS resolution to be withdrawn

ASAF SHALEV

JTA The sponsor of a bill that would have made Burlington, VT, the first city in America to divest from Israel is withdrawing his legislation, citing concerns that it would promote antisemitism. Councilmember Ali Dieng, who sponsored the resolution, said that he would withdraw it at the council meeting scheduled for the same evening, and refer the resolution for reconsideration at the council’s racial equity committee. The city’s Jewish mayor also publicly expressed concerns about the resolution. Dieng told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that conversations he had with community members in recent days changed his mind and led him to believe that BDS is “onesided” and that it contributes to antisemitism. “Community members who are Jewish have been experiencing antisemitism for a very long time and I didn’t know about it,” he said in an interview. “We are a small community and I want to make sure everyone feels safe. Many people [who supported the resolution] are not happy with me, but I think it is the right thing.” Dieng also said that, going forward, he would like to avoid focusing on international issues at the expense of local concerns. Dieng’s reversal came moments after Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger came out with a statement opposing the resolution. Weinberger, who is Jewish, has the power to veto council resolutions, but he didn’t specify whether he intended to use it on the BDS measure.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor, I totally agree with Susie Silverman’s letter to the Press from a week ago, about the present state of “The Jewish Federation Library.” I agree with ALL she said. Imagine, we have two Olympic size swimming pools, just waiting to develop the next Mark Spitz.... We have a huge basketball area in hopes that among all the tall Jewish kids, some will make it to the NBA. Imagine, the “People of The Book” don’t have a library. The “Center For Jewish Learning,” as written in big block letters on an exterior wall of this beautiful new building, does not have a library. Imagine. I agree with everything Susie Silverman wrote. I miss the “J” too.

RICK ENGEL

Tritz Plumbing Inc.

402-894-0300

www.tritz.com

repair • remodel commercial • residential family owned and operated since 1945

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It’s time to revisit The Grey Zone

RICH BROWNSTEIN

JTA On Sept. 11, 2001, the greatest Holocaust film ever made, before or since, premiered at a festival — and quickly disappeared, largely unnoticed. The film’s cast included Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, David Arquette, Michael Stuhlbarg and Mira Sorvino, and it was written and directed by the acclaimed Jewish actor Tim Blake Nelson. Roger Ebert called it one of the best films of the year; later, he added it to his prestigious Great Movies series. The film was so extraordinary that Steven Spielberg considered distributing it himself, less than a decade after making Schindler’s List. This was the astonishing pedigree and support behind The Grey Zone. But it couldn’t translate into any attention for the beleaguered film, which had a quickly-forgotten premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and languished at the box office when it was released the next year.

The Grey Zone is not about righteous gentiles or good Nazis who redeem themselves by saving Jews. It’s not a happy-golucky film with a father and son prancing around Auschwitz playing games, or a cartoonish Adolf Hitler mugging for the camera. It lacks the other typical trappings of Holocaust movies: the lush musical score, the tortured accents, the melodramatic misdirections. The Grey Zone is, instead, about the moral and philosophical conundrums faced by the Sonderkommando: the Jews in the death camps who worked to dispose of the victims’ bodies in exchange for slightly better treatment from the Nazis. Drawing on the writings of Primo Levi and the true story of the forgotten rebellion at Birkenau by the Sonderkommando in 1944, where the Jewish workers destroyed two of the main four crematorium complexes on the deadliest spot in human

history, Nelson portrays real people living their reality — not with black or white choices, but with grey moral choices. And The Grey Zone tells its complex, layered story in an economical 108 minutes, with grace and humility. How did such an important film fall through the cracks? The Grey Zone was practically stillborn, set to premiere just after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while smoke was still rising from lower Manhattan. Yet even if the film’s release date had not itself been cataclysmic, it was still made by Nelson — best known at the time for playing a buffoonish ex-con in O Brother, Where Art Thou? — and starring a cast of American actors not known for weighty dramatic performances. Even though Nelson, basing the film on his own play of the same name, was himself the son of a Holocaust refugee and had traveled to Dachau and Auschwitz for research, he’d hardly seemed like the kind of filmmaker to pay the Holocaust sufficient reverence. In the 20 years since the film’s release, it has come to seem oddly prescient in the world of Holocaust cinema. More and more often, dramatizations of the Shoah, including Roman Polanski’s The Pianist and foreign-language films like Fateless and The Counterfeiters, favor more unsparing, morally complicated depictions of Holocaust victims. And in 2015, the Hungarian film Son of Saul drew from much of the same plot and setting as The Grey Zone for its own depiction of the Sonderkommando; that movie won the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, while its forebear suffered the fate of most pioneers, alone and forgotten. Nevertheless, Nelson remains proud of his contribution to Holocaust cinema. “There’s nothing I’ve done that’s more important to me than The Grey Zone,’’ he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a recent interview looking back on the film. “And it doesn’t matter that most people have never even heard of it. The great irony of my life is that more people know me from my cameo in Scooby-Doo 2 than will ever have heard about The Grey Zone. After 20 years, he thinks the film holds up: “I’m incredibly proud of it and my work as its writer and director. But I have so much gratitude to Avi Lerner for financing it, and also for the incredible people who taught me so much about filmmaking while I was making it. It was this great group effort. And I’m so proud to have had that team working on this project.” The Grey Zone is currently available to stream for free (with ads) on Amazon Prime, IMDB TV and Tubi, and for rental from various VOD services.