This year’s Symposium is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 3, and Monday, Nov. 4. The presentations cover a wide variety of topics, geographical features, and historical perspectives. The richness of these offerings is evident from an annotated listing of presenters and their anticipated coverage.
Shlomo Abramovich will be traveling from Israel to Omaha to speak on Rebuilding Amidst Ruins: The Jewish Community in Post-Holocaust Romania. His research explores the challenges faced by the Jewish community in Romania following the Holocaust. Jewish survivors found their communities in a state of severe economic hardship with little resources to rebuild their lives. Many lost their houses and suffered from hunger, while the Jewish organizations struggled to provide the support they needed to give to their members. Moreover, the promising opportunity of immigration to Israel and other countries, which provided a new beginning for many, posed a challenge to building a stable and active community.
His research is grounded in various scholarly sources, with a central focus on an in-depth interview conducted with a Holocaust survivor who returned to her hometown before eventually emigrating to Israel. Through her personal narrative the communal
struggles of post-Holocaust recovery are vividly depicted. This study adopts a micro-historical approach, emphasizing the importance of individual stories in understanding broader historical phenomena. Micro-history allows for deeper insight into the lived
A true upstander
SCOTT LITTKY
IHE Executive Director
One of the missions of the Institute for Holocaust Education is to teach our students to act as an upstander when the opportunity presents itself. We often say that one must say something and do something when the opportunity presents itself. In terms of Jewish ethics this is Tikkun Olam or the goal of repairing the world. In January of 2023, I learned of Suzanne Horwich and her
program Artists Giving Back when she spoke at the Jewish Community Center. I then introduced myself to her and knew that IHE needed to learn more from her. I next asked her if she would be the presenter at our November 2023, IHE 3rd Thursday Lunch and Learn program. While presenting I asked if she had ever displayed any of the work that the participants in Artists Giving Back had created. The conversation led to us planning for her visit to the Staenberg Omaha JCC on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 1 p.m. and an exhibition of refugee communities’ art. Founded in 2022, Artists Giving Back (AGB) was created to address the secondary needs of refugee populations around the world. While basic needs like food, shelter, and medical care are vital, the healing of the heart is equally essential. AGB See Artists Giving Back page 3
experiences of individuals, shedding light on how larger historical events impact personal and communal lives.
Nadav S. Berman, who teaches at the University of Haifa will invite attention to ‘Synagogue Judaism’ as Conceptual Tool for Examining Jewish
Peoplehood
One of the main dilemmas of the State of Israel as Jewish and democratic is the relationship between religion and state. Do all Israel’s citizens of all religions enjoy equal rights and
See Annual Symposium page 2
From October to October
RABBI ALEX FELCH
The prophet Jeremiah, whom we read on Rosh Hashanah, speaks to us. He buys land in Israel as the Jewish people are taken to exile while witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem. He says, as he quotes God, 31:2 I will build you firmly again, Israel! and then, 32:15 Houses, fields, and vineyards shall again be purchased in this land. We should remember that Jeremiah bought this land even as the people of Israel were suffering the loss of Jerusalem: It was 586 BCE and Israel was being destroyed by Babylon. Jeremiah planted the seed of hope that Israel would rise, that God would not abandon our people. Yes, there would be death and exile, but also the faith and the hope that recovery would come.
About fifty years later it did, and the Jewish people found a way to build Jerusalem and the Temple again. Even so, that second Temple and Jerusalem – again – would be destroyed in 70 CE. The Jewish people would cycle between despair and hope countless times for the next 1,875 years, all the way up to 1945. And then: The Jewish people began again in 1948. Since that time, there have been ups and downs. More ups than downs, in truth; we are always rising again. October 7, 2023 was the most painful day for Israel since 1945, but the effort to overcome and defeat those who have hurt the people of Israel is unstoppable. I was in Israel this summer visiting with my best friends of 30 years, See October to October page 3
Hana Waisserova Motti Zalkin Marzena Zawanowska
Menachem Keren-Kratz
Victoria Khiterer Aaron Koller Amir Segal Yossi Turner
Schlomo Abramovich
Nadav S. Berman Abraham David Paul Finkelman Motti Inbari
Annual Symposium
Continued from page 1 dignity? Are Diaspora Jews of all denominations treated equally by Israel’s government and its authorized institutions? The answer to both questions, for sure, is not straightforwardly affirmative. Many conclude that Israel should thus “separate immediately and completely between religion and state” according to the American or the French model, prevent any authority from the chief rabbinate and any other rabbinic governmental body, with the intention that a totally secular state will fulfill the desired egalitarian vision.
Escape from Official Anti-Antisemitism
This expectation, though, has some shortcomings that many Israelis recognize, consciously or intuitively. Most importantly, it is not clear how Israel would sustain its character as a Jewish-democratic nation-state. Here are three enduring examples: the legal establishment of Shabbat as the default for the weekly national rest day (Hours of Work and Rest Law, 1951), the Rabbinic Courts Jurisdiction (Marriage and Divorce) Law (1953), and the Law of Return (1950).
Problematic, imperfect, and loosely enforced as these laws are (off-rabbinate marriage, e.g., are not criminalized), they indicate that a majority of Israelis wish to maintain Israel as Jewish and democratic.
It seems that a majority of Jewish Israelis feel that absent a minimal institutionalization of Judaism in Israel, it would be transformed sooner or later – due to work-seeking immigration pressures or mass Palestinian return immigration – into a Christian or Muslim state. This concern for a unification of “Church and State” or “Mosque and State,” I suggest, is the elephant in the Israeli room, which enables the ongoing collective democratic choice of Israeli society to approve the very limited status, and surely imperfect from a liberal perspective, that Rabbinic Judaism, or “Synagogue Judaism” (henceforth: SJ) has in Israel.
However, this very idea, SJ, is virtually absent from the scholarly field that investigates Jewish peoplehood, including the more pragmatic works (e.g., the books Israel and the Family of Nations and State and Religion in Israel). This lacuna is the jumping board for Berman’s paper, which will (1) propose a topography of several constitutive elements of SJ as it was formed in the Talmudic era and clarify how SJ is profoundly connected with Diaspora Judaism and thus often sidelined from the Israeli mainstream; (2) discuss how SJ indeed affiliates with religious Zionism, and (3) contend that SJ differs from secular autochthonous “Israelism” (e.g., Canaanism) on the one hand and on the other hand from the rising “neo-Sadducism” that wishes to build a Third Temple at all costs.
Abraham David is employed in the Jewish National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. He invites his audience to consider The Jews of Egypt and Their Ties with the Land of Israel in the Sixteenth Century
The sources and data, mostly from the Cairo Genizah documents, lead clearly to the conclusion that at the end of the Mameluk period and the beginning of the Ottoman period, namely, from 1517, the Jews of Egypt maintained firm ties with the Jewish community in the Land of Israel, especially in Jerusalem and Safed. These ties found factual expression in the massive and apparently continuous support that the Jews of Egypt provided for the welfare of the Jews in the Land of Israel, both the community and individual Jews.
It seems that although the links between the Jews of Safed and Damascus were reinforced with the rise of Ottoman rule in the Land of Israel, the connection of the Jews of that city with Egypt did not cease, but was reflected among other ways in reciprocal commercial ties and requests for financial aid.
The severe economic crisis that struck the Empire from the last quarter of the sixteenth century had some influence on the network of relations among the Jews of the countries in it, and therefore the heads of the Safed community observed in the first decade of the seventeenth century: “Egypt has lost our brothers who were a pillar of support to us and in it there is no Jewish Mua’llim or courtier.”
Paul Finkelman, Marquette University School of Law, features The Other Promised Land: The Golden Medina and the
Finkelman focuses on how the United States created an “alternative” to the biblical promised land. In the age of the American Revolution, the United States became the first nation in the world where Jews were equal citizens at the national level. Jews were officers in the Revolutionary army and later the Navy (both were impossible in England and elsewhere in Europe). Half of the first class at West Point was Jewish. They could vote in every state and faced no legal disabilities on account of their religion, although a few states maintained a religious test for officeholding after the 1790s. But at the federal level they held offices starting with the Washington administration. While Jews could not hold office in Maryland under state law until the 1820s, in 1821 President Jefferson appointed Reuben Etting to be the U.S. Marshal for the state. Jews were elected to public office on the eve of the Revolution and continued to be increasingly elected after that. They could not enter Parliament until the late 1850s, but in the United States they were never barred from federal offices and were elected to the House and the Senate in the 1840s and in state and local governments well before that. Jews could practice all professions in every state. Jews could not be barristers in England until the 1830s while they practiced law in the new nation shortly after the Revolution. They could not attend Oxford or Cambridge in England, but shortly after the Revolution a Jew served on the Board of Trustees of Columbia University. For most American Jews the United States was the “promised land.” Finkelman will briefly note the twentieth century evolution when leading American Jews, such as Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, were Zionists, although they could never imagine living anywhere but the United States, while other important Jews, such as Lessing Rosenwald and Rabbi William Fineshriber, opposed creating a Jewish state precisely because they believed the United States was the Promised Land.
Motti Inbari is Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. His presentation is titled What Do American Jews Think about Israel Compared with Evangelicals and Catholics? A Study Based on Three Surveys
He will present the result of a large survey on the attitudes of American Jews toward their views on Israel, conducted in May 2023, among 1100 respondents. This survey is part of a larger research investigation on the views of religious communities in America toward Israel, including evangelicals and Catholics. Thus, the American Jew’s numbers would be compared with evangelicals and Catholics.
The results show that Jews are the strongest supporters of Israel in the US, while Catholics exhibit the lowest support. While evangelicals based their support for Israel on the Bible, Catholics and Jews are the least likely to use biblical narratives.
The study also shows that there is a segment of Jews (around 20%) who are disconnecting from the core, and this segment tends to be more critical of their Jewish identity, including less support for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Menachem Keren-Kratz is an independent scholar from Israel who will present Independent scholar, Israel, State of Israel, Eretz Israel, or the Diaspora: Jewish Orthodoxy’s Debate Over the Settlement in Palestine
The concept of Jewish Orthodoxy emerged in the early nineteenth century. It sought to differentiate between Jews who were fully committed to the centuries-long religious lifestyle and the new sort of Jews who adopted modern norms, pursued broader general knowledge, no longer obeyed halachah, and sought religious reform.
A second trend that developed in that century was nationalism, namely, the collectivity of people who shared the same values and cultural heritage. It was manifested in the 1848 Spring of Nations, a series of failing rebellions that eventually led to the downfall of the old empires and the rise of nationstates. At the same period, Jews also began considering themselves a nation worthy of their own territory. Facing this new
See Annual Symposium page 5
Artists Giving Back
Continued from page 1 brings dignity, fosters community, and instills hope through art programming and exhibitions, partnering with organizations that provide these primary needs.
AGB spent 2022 in Krakow, Poland, offering art programs to Ukrainian refugees and was the first NGO on the ground to do so. Currently, AGB operates in Lesvos, Greece, in partnership with Parea Lesvos and Europe Cares, serving refugees from Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Syria, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan—many of whom have risked their lives fleeing human rights violations, war, and political oppression. These refugees often endure dangerous journeys across the Aegean Sea, and those who survive end up in camps on Lesvos, sometimes for as long as four years, with no available programming. Boredom is the most common complaint.
AGB founder and internationally exhibited artist, Suzanne Horwich, believes in creating hope through art by engaging refugees in both personal and collaborative works, culminating in exhibitions to raise awareness. These programs not only nurture creativity but also build a sense of community, returning dignity as refugees work together at the art table, equally contributing.
AGB provides professional-grade art supplies, ensuring all participants have access to high-quality materials that reflect their worth.
Suzanne has continued to grow her impact and her program and now through a new initiative generously sponsored by Michael Staenberg – “Love From Afar.”
“Love From Afar,” a program designed to bridge the distance between global supporters of Israel and their families. Through this initiative, they aim to send messages of compassion, solidarity, and hope to the those displaced, letting them know they are in the hearts and minds of Jews worldwide, even when face-to-face support isn’t possible.
This program highlights the power of art and connection, bringing love and support to those in need, regardless of distance.
To learn more about Suzanne Horwich and Artists Giving Back we hope you will come to the exhibition on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 1 p.m. To learn more about this amazing program and the work Suzanne is doing, please visit her website - www.artistsgivingback.org. You can also visit the website if you would like to make a donation to this amazing program.
Suzanne will also be speaking at Beth El Synagogue on Saturday morning, Nov. 9, and I encourage you to attend both programs to learn about this amazing program and amazing person.
Suzanne Horwich’s visit to Omaha is generously supported by a 2024 Anything Grant, Beth El Synagogue and the Institute for Holocaust Education.
For more information, please contact IHE executive director, Scott Littky, slittky@ihene.org
October to October
Continued from page 1 Uri and Yedida. They live in the south of the country, and even though they themselves were not in the direct line of fire on Oct. 7, the terrorists did come very near to their home. While visiting with them, I saw clearly what had happened, not just by being there, but also by directly witnessing through the eyes and words of friends and beloved ones.
A few years before this most recent visit, Uri and I had spent Shabbat with friends Levi and Carmela in Moshav Netiv Haasara. We had gathered at that time for Erev Shabbat dinner, warmly hosted in a beautiful place…just about three kilometers from Gaza. Since its founding in 1982, Netiv Haasara had continued to grow and flourish. The people accomplished this by staying aware and alert about the “activities” of their neighbors in Gaza while still living their lives to the fullest. Israeli style. Why do I tell you this? Carmela and Levi woke up on Saturday morning, Oct. 7, together with many other residents of Netiv Haasara. People were taking morning walks and enjoying a festive weekend in Israel. Levi and Carmela heard shots in their backyard. Levi took his gun and went to check as he saw his son-in-law and a tenant shot to death. Levi (not a youngster anymore) was able to shoot and kill two terrorists. Carmela and Levi, together with most of their Netiv Haasara neighbors left the community following October 7, resettling in Ashkelon for the time being. Slowly they are now going back, with the hope and conviction that no matter what, Israel will recover.
Again, Shabbat dinner with Uri and Yedida: this time, this past July. Yoav, the son of Uri and Yedida, was serving in an Elite unit of the Israel Defense Forces. His platoon entered Gaza with the first wave of Israeli troops in November, 2023. He
lost a leg after being shot with a rocket while in action in Gaza that month. He described the experience, “I flew like a doll without a rope. Smoke was coming from my body, I was feeling no pain because of the adrenaline. Mom says I was born twice. In 1993 and 2023. Now, I am moving mentally from the ‘fighter’ mentality to ‘wounded man’ mentality. But I will not quit. This will not break me. I’m not going down; I am still here. New stage: I am in a new fight. To be able to walk, that is the task of my life. I am undergoing physical therapy and I’m OK, getting stronger every day. What do I want to do when I finish my treatments? People ask me if I would want to go drinking coffee in Tel Aviv or have a beer with a friend? No! I want to go back to the reserves and serve my country! October 7 changed the rules of the game: That is where we want to be. Where we need to be. With a prosthetic leg or even with my wheelchair. I’m asking my officer in charge to put me in the list to go back and serve with my unit. I won’t be the first one after the injuries I suffered to do it. It has been done. That is where
we want to be. Where we need to be.”
That is Israel. Those are her children!
My third story is about Maayan, whom I haven’t met. His story comes from Israeli TV. He has been living for the past seven years in India with his wife and three children, and he has developed a very successful business there. He said after October 7, “It was clear for me that I couldn’t stay there and watch Israel from afar. I decided immediately that I’m flying to Israel. Suddenly in a minute everything in my life changes. I go from being a businessman to becoming a soldier again. From wearing a suit to wearing fatigues. From holding a pen to carrying a weapon. From communicating through a cellphone to using a walkietalkie”. In the expat community where Maayan and his family lived in India, their Russian peers look incredulously at these Israelis who are eager to return to serve their country. They can’t understand the Israelis. When Russia got into a war, Russians ran away to India. When Israel had to go to war, Israelis all went back to Israel to fight for their country!
See October to October page 4
Jerusalem Damaskustor Credit: Berthold Werner, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
Insured to be enshrined:
Arnold Joffe and John Lehr
JAY
KATELMAN
JFO
Director of Community Development
On Friday, Nov. 22, Jewish Business Leaders is returning to the Staenberg Omaha JCC. We will honor Arnold Joffe and John Lehr. The event will be from 7:30-9 a.m.
Please use the QR code to register.
Arnold Joffe worked for HA Wolf until 1977, at which time he started his own insurance agency with two partners, Bill Kully and Paul Grossman. They operated Joffe Kully Grossman Insurance Agency from 1977 through 1982. At that time, they merged with Grace/Mayer Insurance Agency, partnering with Marty Lehr and Gary Kaplan. The company became Grace/Mayer Joffe Kully Grossman Insurance. They quickly realized the name was too long, so they reverted to Grace/Mayer. As a community leader, Arnold served as president of Beth El Synagogue, Highland Country Club, and the Omaha Insurance Association.
Arnold is the patriarch of his family, having been married to his wife, Sheryn, for 58 years. The couple have two daughters and sons-in-law, who all live in Omaha – Andrea and Mike Siegel and Suzanne and Hap Pocras. Sheryn and Arnold are the proud grandparents of six.
John Lehr followed his grandfather Alfred Mayer and father Martin Lehr as the third generation of his family to work for and ultimately lead Grace/Mayer Insurance (est. 1917), prior to its 2012 merger with Arthur J. Gallagher and Co.
At Grace/Mayer, Marty, John, & Arnold started a Life Insurance and Financial Planning Division, an Employee Benefits Division, and a Safety and Loss Control Services Consultancy to round out its core Commercial Property and Casualty specialty. Along the way they broadened their real estate, food, logistics, and construction expertise to include technology, livestock, and financial services.
While working and attending to his family, John also spent many years on the boards of the Jewish Federation, the Jewish Community Center, Jewish Social Services (RBJH and JFS), and 20 years on the Temple Israel Board. His role at Temple Israel culminated with the fundraising, planning, and construction of its Sterling Ridge home. John was the fourth Temple President of his family, following his grandfather and both parents. John is happily spending time with his wife of 37 years, Sandy, in both Omaha and Frisco, Colorado. John’s daughter and son-in-law, Avery and Alex, live in Denver while his son, Jacob resides in Seattle with his girlfriend, Natalie.
We offer special thanks to our Platinum Sponsors, Bridges Trust, Valmont, OMNE Partners, and Jet Linx Omaha. We also thank the Hall of Fame Event Sponsors, Flood Communications, CFO Systems LLC, and Alex Epstein.
October to October
Continued from page 3
An explosive device injured Maayan, but he refused to be evacuated. A doctor held him and tried to move him, and Maayan resisted. He tried to ignore the medic and finish his mission: to evacuate his partner. That’s the Israeli spirit! These are the Israelis! They are our family, our brothers and sisters. They believe in each other and in their mission of recovery for Israel. So should we! As the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles”. Israel has a Divine purpose: to be the nation state of the Jewish people. It is our spiritual homeland, and we all want Israel to be secure and strong. During Shabbat services, when we return the Torah to the Ark, we sing Psalm 29, “Adonai oz l’amo yiten, Adonai yivarekh et amo bashalom”: “May Adonai give strength to His People, May Adonai bless us with Shalom”. So, we plead with You, Adonai: Please Avinu Malkenu, continue to give Israel strength, so that a strong Israel will be enjoying (sooner in our days) a life of Shalom, in this New Year that has just started.
ORGANIZATIONS
B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS
The award-winning B’NAI B’RITH BREADBREAKERS speaker program currently meets Wednesdays via Zoom from noon to 1 p.m. Please watch our email for specific information concerning its thought-provoking, informative list of speakers. To be placed on the email list, contact Breadbreakers chair at gary.javitch@gmail.com
TO SUBMIT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Announcements may be e-mailed to the Press at jpress@jewishomaha.org; or 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 www.omahajew ishpress.com/site/forms/. Deadlines are normally nine days prior to publication, on Wednesdays, 9 a.m. Please check the Jewish Press, for notices of early deadlines.
HANUKKAH
Arnold Joffe John Lehr
Continued from page 2
Annual Symposium
concept of Jewish nationalism, three major trends emerged within Jewish Orthodoxy. Each justified its stands using biblical, Talmudic, and kabbalistic reasoning.
The first was voiced by rabbis who claimed that Jews could fully accomplish their national, religious, and spiritual quests only in Eretz Israel. This trend led to the establishment of the Mizrachi movement. Today, over a century later, this concept is known as Religious Zionism, which encourages all Jews to settle in Israel.
Another trend regarded Jewish nationalism as heresy and totally condemned it. The contemporary groups that follow this claim today include anti-Zionist communities such as Satmar and Neturei Karta. They claim that save for a symbolic group of devout Jews who serve as guardians of the holy land, the Jewish people should remain in the Diaspora until the coming of the Messiah. The third group consists of Orthodox Jews who denounced Jewish nationalism and particularly Zionism, but encouraged observant Jews to settle in Palestine for religious and practical reasons. This group, which today is known as Haredi, was represented by the social and political movement of Agudat Israel.
Victoria Khiterer from Millersville University has been a frequent Symposium presenter over the years. The title of her presentation this fall is Let My People Go: The Struggle of Kyivan Jews for Immigration to Israel. She will analyze the struggle of Kyivan Jews for immigration to Israel and the support of Israeli diplomats for their efforts, as well as for the continuation of Jewish religious and cultural life in Kyiv. Her work is based on secret police (KGB) reports, which she found in Kyiv and Israeli archives. Kyiv had one of the largest Jewish populations in the Soviet Union. However, Jewish scholarly and cultural institutions were closed in Kyiv, as well as in the entire Soviet Union, from the late 1940s due to state antisemitism.
KGB reports show that many Kyivan Jews responded enthusiastically to news about the establishment of the State of Israel and wanted to immigrate there. But Jewish emigration was not allowed from the Soviet Union until the early 1970s and was very restricted thereafter. Kyivan Jewish refuseniks organized meetings of protest and memorial meetings in Babyn Yar, the largest Holocaust site in the Soviet Union. Soviet authorities dispersed these unauthorized meetings and arrested their participants.
While the Soviets suppressed Jewish national life, Israeli politicians and diplomats helped Kyivan Jews preserve their religion and culture. Israeli diplomats delivered to Kyivan Jews matzah, Jewish religious books, and literature about Israel. They celebrated with Kyivan Jews religious holidays. Documents show that the connections of Kyivan Jews with the State of Israel were never completely suppressed by the Soviet authorities, and Israelis helped Kyivan Jews continue their national and cultural life even under conditions of state antisemitism in the Soviet Union.
Aaron Koller teaches at Yeshiva University in New York City. He constructs a series of considerations on Language and Identity in Israel and Diaspora: Ancient Perspectives on a Modern Problem
The Hebrew language has had multiple identities over the past 3000 years: as the vernacular of a small ethnic group, a religious language, and a marker of identity, among others. In contemporary American Jewish culture, Hebrew is usually a token rather than a language, and the vast majority of American Jews across the denominational lines cannot conduct a conversation in Hebrew. Is this a potentially fatal problem for the community or a sign of its strength in a new English-speaking Homeland? Does the flowering of translations into English of all Jewish literature, from the Zohar to the Talmud to modern texts, reflect a profound engagement with the culture or bespeak a superficial attachment that may not stand the test of time?
A look back at the history of Jewish Diasporas can help inform our thinking on such issues. The language has carried emotive, political, and demographic power from the time of Bar Kokhba and the Rabbis to the Mishnah, through the far-flung Jewish traders and rabbi of the Middle Ages, and into the period of the enlightenment that saw the rise of Zionism in the nineteenth century. Koller will survey some of the explicit thinking on the function of language throughout this time, as well as data on actual function and usage of Hebrew in various communities. As we will see, the modern English-speaking situation is unparalleled among pre-modern Jewish communities that survived, but does have parallels in communities that disappeared into the mists of history. The significance of Hebrew for Jewish cultural survival is hard to overstate, and American Jews rush headlong into the translation industry at their own peril.
Amir Segal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will address Homeland Run: Israeli Baseball and American Transmigrants
His paper addresses an aspect of cultural transfer and transformation by immigrants, focusing on the case of Israeli baseball, brought to Israel by Jewish migrants from the United States. As such, it examines cultural transfer as part of the transnational activities of transnational migrants.
The analysis is based on interviews with 20 Jewish migrants
from the United States to Israel who are engaged in Israeli baseball — as players, coaches, administrators, etc. — as well as five Israeli-born players who are also engaged in the sport.
This study contributes to our understanding of transnational migration by drawing attention to the ways in which the experiences of transnational migrants are shaped by recreational activity and how transnational migrants’ activities affect their host country. This occurs via transnational cultural diffusion, mediated in this case by a “critical community” of American Jews. Israeli baseball provides Jewish migrants from the United States with a means to identify with Israel as well as a sense of transnational belonging and, counter intuitively, eases their acculturation to Israeli society.
Yossi Turner, Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, has developed an expansive approach to Diaspora, Homeland, and the Future of the Jewish People
This paper involves a view of Jewish existence in present day Israel and the contemporary Diaspora, considered along with a theological, cultural, and historical evaluation of the conditions necessary for the continued existence of the Jewish people.
Turner will suggest an understanding of Jewish existence as one that can flourish so long as it maintains a balance between the influences coming from its inner diachronic, multigenerational discourse and those that come from its synchronic relation to the civilization that dominates each particular present.
Turner will then subject the differing aspects of Jewish life in contemporary Israel and the present day Diaspora to the conditions necessary for the long-term continuation of Jewish existence as established in the tension between “inner and outer” in the preceding discussion. He will highlight the role played by the traditional form of Jewish self-interpretation known as midrash in mediating the difference between “inner and outer” through the ages. This point will be invaluable insofar as he maintains that modern and particularly post-modern civilization has reversed the roles played by the “inner and outer,” so that the Jews’ first frame of reference in the present is almost entirely drawn from the outer-non-Jewish civilization, with the inner diachronic forms of Jewish existence residing mostly on the horizon of one’s consciousness. On this backdrop he will claim that the test of viability for Jewish life, in Israel and in the Diaspora, is to be found in the extent to which the Jewish culture being created in each might provide for a return to the interpretive mediation between “inner and outer” that characterized Judaism through the ages, but that the means for doing so will necessarily be radically different in both settings. He will also make suggestions as to how this might be accomplished.
Hana Waisserova teaches at the University of Nebraska— Lincoln. Her Symposium presentation is titled Women Diaspora: Testimonials and their Precarious Ethos and Pathos. It focuses on autobiographical narratives of women Holocaust survivors who for a variety of reasons eventually left the country of their birth, Czechoslovakia, and settled abroad in Diasporic Jewish communities or non-Jewish societies and were published abroad. These accounts of their survival and their resettlement, all published with significant delay, offer many incentives to rethink The Jewish Diaspora and the Promised Land: Origins, Developments, Future Prospects
Often dismissed in their homeland or their emigré communities, these biographies include testimonials by Heda Kovály, Edith Bauer, Zdenka Fantlová, Helga Weiss-Ho1ková, and Franci Rabinek Epstein. These accounts are intimate, physical, emotional, and gendered stories of survival and exile; their problematic reception reveals the often-dismissed ethos and misjudged pathos of women’s voices as well as lasting problematic neglect of the Holocaust memory and precarious uneasiness about women Holocaust survivor accounts in general.
Motti Zalkin is on the faculty at Ben-Gurion University. His presentation this year features ‘An Eye Gazes toward Zion?’ Post-Soviet Jewish Immigrants and the ‘Promised Land.’
The collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s marked the beginning of a new era in terms of Jewish immigration. Over the course of only seven years, approximately one million six hundred thousand Jews crossed what was known until then as the “Iron Curtain.” However, unlike previous waves of immigration, these Jews were not expelled from their country and did not escape the terror of pogroms. They immigrated of their own free will.
The same goes for the potential immigration destinations. In fact, each one of these immigrants could set foot almost anywhere in the Western world, from New Zealand in the south to Sweden in the north, from the State of Israel in the Middle East to the United States in North America, and of course to any country in Central and Western Europe. And precisely because of the combination of these two elements, it was one of the defining moments in modern Jewish history, in which the dilemma that accompanied millions of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe since the end of the nineteenth century -- whether to immigrate to the “promised land,” that is, the Land of Israel, or to replace one exile with another one, a certain type of another “promised land” -- had
A new graphic novel
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IHE
Executive Director
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Amanda Friedeman will be the Institute for Holocaust Education's presenter Thursday, Nov. 21 at 11:30 a.m. on ZOOM. She is Associate Director of Education at Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, overseeing field trip content, professional development offerings for educators, the Museum’s Speakers’ Bureau, and docent training.
She engages with history through innovative tellings of survivor stories, including Second and Third Generation narratives, interactive video, and immersive virtual reality. Most recently, she co-edited Interrupted Lives: Nine Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, to be published in March 2025. She holds a BA in History of Art from Princeton University and an MA in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with emphases in museum- and community-based programs, interdisciplinary curricula, and media literacy.
Amanda will be speaking about a new graphic novel, Hour of Need: The Daring Escape of the Danish Jews during World War II, developed in partnership with Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Hour of Need: The Daring Escape of the Danish Jews during World War II shares the true story of how the people of an occupied nation risked their lives to evacuate their Jewish countrymen. When Nazis moved to round up Danish Jews in a surprise raid in 1943, families were forced to make life-and-death decisions to save their lives. Overnight, they became refugees at the mercy of strangers organizing their escape. Hour of Need is a tribute to these strangers – ordinary citizens who defied the Nazi regime – and how their heroic actions saved Danish Jews. For more information or to register for the IHE third Thursday Lunch & Learn, please email Scott Littky, IHE executive director at slittky@ihene.org
Omaha Jewish Film Festival begins Sunday
JFO Community Engagement and Education
If you haven’t marked your calendars already, do so now and attend one or all of these films presented in the 22nd Annual Omaha Jewish Film Festival.
Oct. 27 | Shared Legacies: The African-American Jewish Civil Rights Alliance | Host: Marty Shukert
Oct. 28 | Our (Almost Completely True) Love Story | Host: Sarah Abrahamson
chase passes. You may also navigate to jewishomaha.org, select the “Our Priorities” drop-down. Under “Community Engagement,” click on “Film Festival.” Direct questions to Mark Kirchhoff, 402.334.6463 or mkir chhoff@jewishomaha.org
FILM FESTIVAL
Oct. 29 | Running on Sand | Hosts: Ilana Linthicum and Francisco Guzman Jimenez
Oct. 30 | Avenue of the Giants | Host: Gloria Kaslow
Note correct time: Showtimes are 6 p.m. in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Theater at the Staenberg Omaha JCC. You will be treated to free popcorn and bottled water and invited to a brief post-film discussion.
Use the QR code in this article to view trailers and pur-
Continued from page 5
a decisive impact on the political, economic, social, and cultural world of the entire Jewish people in the years to come. In his lecture he will examine some lesser known aspects of this wave of immigration, among other things the multidimensional perception of concepts such as “The Promised Land”; “stability” vs “ transience,” and “Jewish cultural identity” in the world view of the first and second generation of these immigrants. Finally, Marzena Zawanowska joins us from the University of Warsaw and will present Between the Holy Land and Diaspora: Medieval debates in Al-Andalus over the Status of the Land of Israel in Judaism. The Middle Ages were a period of intense debates in the Jewish world over the nature of Judaism and its main values. One of the issues discussed at the time was the question of whether it was necessary for Jews to live in the land of Israel or perhaps was it equally possible to lead a truly Jewish life in the Diaspora. A variety of answers were given ranging from identifying the Holy Land as the unique place where all the adherents of Judaism should live, because some of the divine commandments could only be fulfilled there (e.g., the Karaite Mourners of Zion), to considering the Diaspora as a perfectly legitimate place for Jews to stay and practice religion (e.g., the gaonic establishment in Babylonia). She explores. divergent responses to this ideological dilemma offered by various poets and thinkers active in Al-Andalus, highlighting in this context the uniqueness of Judah Halevi’s position. Many Jewish intellectuals active in the medieval Iberia tried to accommodate to the socio-political reality of the time and to “le-
The festival is generously sponsored by the following Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation Funds: Ruth Frisch & Oscar S. Belzer Endowment Fund; the Kenneth Ray Tretiak Memorial Fund; the Foundation IMPACT Grant; the Special Donor Advised Fund of the Jewish Federation of Omaha Foundation; The Miller Jewish Film Fund, and the Klutznick Creighton Custodial Fund. Additional support by the B’nai B’rith Henry Monsky Lodge.
Annual Symposium
gitimize” not only the Jewish stay there, but also the rooting and development of the Jewish tradition in this land (e.g., Abraham ibn Daud), while some even dreamt of creating a sort of a Jewish autonomy in the region (e.g., Shmuel Hanagid who –as a warrior-poet – described himself as the David of his age).
In contrast, the author of the Kuzari rejected the diaspora model, longing for the rebuilding of the Jewish life in Zion as the divinely given homeland of the children of Israel who could receive the gift of prophecy only there. Interestingly, not only did he advocate the return to the land of Israel in theory, but even realized it in practice by undertaking a dangerous journey to the Middle East. In an attempt to investigate the subject more in-depth, Zawanowska will try to identify Karaite influences on the unusual for his contemporaries’ concepts fostered by this Rabbanite author.
The Symposium is co-hosted by The Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization; Creighton University; The Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society; Creighton University; The Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; The Natan and Hannah Schwalb Center for Israel & Jewish Studies; University of Nebraska Omaha and The Jewish Federation of Omaha.
Generous support for The Symposium is also provided by The Ike and Roz Friedman Foundation; The Riekes Family; The Dr. Bernard H. Bloom and Dr. Bruce S. Bloom Memorial Endowment; The Henry Monsky Lodge of B’nai B’rith; Gary and Karen Javitch; Creighton University Lecture, Films, and Concerts and The Creighton College of Arts and Sciences.
Amanda Friedeman
MARK KIRCHHOFF
OMAHA
Top, above and below: The recent October 7 commemoration brought our community together in the Alan
Performing Arts Theater and included speeches and a dance performance by the JCC Training
SP O TLIGHT
PHOTOS FROM RECENT JEWISH COMMUNITY EVENTS
SUBMIT A PHOTO: Have a photo of a recent Jewish Community event you would like to submit? Email the image and a suggested caption to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org
Friedel eighth graders started a new chesed (kindness) project! They are making 40 fleece tie lap blankets as Hanukah presents for our friends at the Blumkin Home. The first week, students planned their fleece purchases, making sure they were purchasing the correct size fleece per blanket and staying within budget per blanket. They took a quick
trip to
Fabrics to shop, and went to work starting this long-term project.
Above: Rep. Don Bacon presents a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of Beth Israel’s 75th anniversary to Rabbi Ari Dembitzer, along with Yosef Siegel, Beth Israel president, and Liora Herskovitz, Executive Director.
Above, below and bottom: The kids of Beth Israel made Sukkah decorations and Simchat Torah flags for Beth Israel’s sukkah as well as for their own. We hope this is a tradition that will continue for a long time!
Below: Friedel Jewish Academy students commemorated October 7.
Voices
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David Finkelstein, President; Margie Gutnik, Ex-Officio; Helen Epstein, Andrea Erlich, Ally Freeman, Dana Gonzales, Mary Sue Grossman, Hailey Krueger, Chuck Lucoff, Larry Ring, Melissa Schrago, Suzy Sheldon and Stewart Winograd.
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 JFO are: Institute for Holocaust Education, Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Community Center, Jewish Social Services, Nebraska Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Press Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: www.jewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment.
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Let’s talk about the weather
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT
Jewish Press Editor
“Accusing Jews of controlling the weather is not new for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Mira Fox wrote for the Forward recently. “She once accused the Rothschilds of starting forest fires with space lasers. Now she’s accused a shadowy ‘they’ of causing both Hurricane Helene’s damage as well as the incoming destruction of Hurricane Milton, expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday [10-9].
Of course, there’s no outright proof Greene means the Jews when she says “they.” But, every self-respecting conspiracy theorist knows, the word “they” gives it away. You can substitute it for anyone you don’t particularly like. That way, the conspiracy theory lives much, much longer. But, let’s not kid ourselves: “they” usually means “us.”
“While few people outright blame Jews for the hurricanes,” Fox continued, “the inference is easy to make, even without Greene’s famous Rothschild space laser comment. After all, going all the way back to the Black Plague, Jews have been accused of somehow orchestrating acts of terrifying destruction. And the idea that a rich cabal would seek to control the elections — well, that’s got antisemitic history behind it as well.”
Never mind Marjorie; I have beef. Whenever we’re accused of something (cabals, owning the banks, Hollywood, the weather), why is it always so outlandish? Like, how would one go about controlling all the banks? Do you know how many banks that is? (Note to self: Google that later). And if we really owned Hollywood, there are many people in
the industry who would be out of a job. I am looking at you, Susan Sarandon.
“Mainstream far-right politicians, media personalities, and other influencers often promote diluted versions of antisemitic conspiracy theories that do not explicitly name Jews but use dog whistles and historical anti-Jewish tropes,” Human Rights First stated in a 2023 report on antisemitic tropes. Here are some ideas included in their fact sheet:
Jews are “intent on subverting the government and replacing or enslaving white Christians.” In the 1920s anti-Communists labeled Jews “Bolshevik” enemies around the world, just as fascists blamed Jews for the Great Depression in the 1930s, and segregationists in the 1960s claimed Jews were driving the American Civil Rights Movement. Apparently, it was Jews who founded the NAACP. (HumanRightsFirst.org)
the truth, but “prefer the errors, with all their dramatic fears and hatreds, and the excitement of conspiracy stories. We have to look outside the cognitive domain to the realm of the emotions, and ask: what are the pleasures, what are the emotional rewards which antisemitism has to offer to its ad-
Let’s face it, we are still poisoning wells, stealing children and spreading disease. There is no real daylight between these age-old accusations and the 2024 campus protests either. What I don’t understand is the ultimate function, the why of it all. In Marjorie’s case, she wants votes; what do the rest of them want? Does it make them feel like they are “in the know,” so they can feel better about themselves? Does believing in conspiracies make hurricanes go away, does it solve crimes? Who benefits?
In the summer of 2013, Eve Garrard wrote an article for Fathom titled The Pleasures of Antisemitism In it, she states the antisemites don’t want to know
herents? Antisemitism is fun, there’s no doubt about it. You can’t miss the relish with which some people compare Jews to the Nazis, or the fake sorrow, imperfectly masking deep satisfaction, with which they bemoan the supposed fact that Jews have brought hatred on themselves, especially by the actions of Israel and its Zionist supporters, and that they have inexplicably failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust.”
I hate to admit it, but I think she might be right. Antisemitism as a reward, as a hobby, perhaps even a bonding exercise. These “protesters” are enjoying themselves. Could it really be that simple?
In this Jewish season of forgiveness, I’m asking for permission
RABBI
AVI KILLIP
A rabbi’s prayer for when the world is too sad, hard, confusing or chaotic | This article initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge | JTA
It has been a hard year. So hard, it can feel like all our rituals are wrong.
It’s nearly impossible to enter the High Holidays this year with a full heart. It’s nearly impossible to believe that the year ahead might be sweet or that the sins of this past year might be forgiven. To really engage in ritual this year would require a suspension of disbelief, or maybe a willingness to believe in the impossible.
But sometimes that is precisely what ritual is for. I collect definitions of ritual, and here is the one I think we need most this year, from historian Jonathan Z. Smith: “Ritual is a means of performing the way things ought to be in conscious tension to the way things are.” Rituals don’t represent life as we experience it. They offer us an opportunity to step into a different world from the one we normally inhabit and to feel the tension between the two.
Rituals offer us permission to do and say things that would be dishonest otherwise. When we recite Psalm 121 and ask from where our help comes, the answer is always: “It comes.” Even though we know in the real world help does not always come. When we insist in the High Holiday liturgy that repentance, prayer and charity can save us, we know that in reality, they often can’t. When the world is too sad, too hard, too confusing or chaotic, ritual can be an alternative, offering permissions that the real world doesn’t allow.
I have come to realize this is what I want this year: Permission.
I want permission to cry. I want permission to feel utterly and completely devastated without finding any silver lining. I want permission to feel scared. I want permission to worry about my friends and colleagues in Israel. And to worry about the Israelis I don’t know. I want permission to worry about every single soldier and every single child who will someday become a soldier. And every single person who is or will be the parent of a soldier. I want permission to feel scared for us in America too — to feel scared as a Jew and scared as a
woman. I want permission to feel scared for all vulnerable Americans even when we have nothing in common and will never meet.
I want permission to be angry at the enemy for their brutality and I want permission to be angry at Israel’s army, which is not the perfect army I was promised it was. And I want permission to be angry at myself for having believed that a perfect army is possible.
“I want permission to pray for peace between nations, between peoples, between countries.” Credit: Getty Images
I want permission to pray for the destruction of the enemy. And I want permission to not pray for the destruction of the enemy. I want permission to weep for the death and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, to express empathy with their mothers and not feel I have to apologize for it. And I want permission to not always empathize with Palestinian suffering, because sometimes it is just too hard and too complicated to hold all that pain.
I want permission to spend some time this holiday season thinking about my own life — my failures and goals, and how I might change and grow this year, even when my struggles feel small compared to the things I could be praying about. I want permission to sometimes forget about those bigger things and focus only on my own small life. And I want permission to not focus on myself this year. I want permission to say that teshuvah might be too small a framework for the challenges of this moment.
I want permission to think about the big picture of history, to feel comfort in its long arc and in the power of the universal. And I want permission to feel completely particular, to feel safe in the company of other Jews on our new year.
I want permission for so much, but more than
anything else, perhaps more than anything else ever, I want permission to pray for peace. And by peace, I mean two things.
First, I want permission to pray for peace between nations, between peoples, between countries. I want permission to believe that prayers for peace are worth praying, that such a peace can exist and will exist. Permission to pray for peace is not merely something I want; it is something I need. If I cannot pray for peace I cannot pray. As impossible as this kind of peace feels right now, I believe we need to constantly remind ourselves that peace is the goal. As we learn in Deuteronomy, a desire for peace is not something we suspend during wartime. As the text tells us: “When you approach a city to make war against it, call out to it in peace.”
The Midrash tells us that this is something Moses taught to God. When God instructed Moses to attack, Moses instead sent messengers offering peace. This was a bad tactical move. This is not how wars are waged. But God learned from Moses and created a commandment that we must offer peace amidst war. How illogical. How impossible to imagine. And yet, this is the mandate of the Torah.
Second, I want permission to be at peace. Of everything on this long list, this is the one I find hardest to admit. I feel guilty even suggesting it when there is so much suffering all around me.
Jewish tradition teaches that during the Priestly Blessing, God looks out at us directly through the hands of the priests. As we close our eyes, for just a moment we get to bask in divine closeness, to feel held and seen. To feel at peace.
I want to offer that when we recite this blessing on the High Holidays this year, we experience it as a moment of permission to feel at peace.
May God bless you and keep you safe
May God shine upon you, with a beaming face, bestowing grace
May God lift up his face towards you
And just for this one moment, may God bring you complete, wild peace.
Rabbi Avi Killip is the executive vice president at Hadar.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
Credit: André Karwath, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
In 2013, I started AtoneNet, a space for public ritual confession. Here’s why I’m shutting it down.
DAVID ZVI KALMAN
AI and algorithms have made it harder and harder to see the internet as a place where spirituality happens, writes a scholar at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America | JTA
Back in the summer of 2013, I had this idea: What if the internet could make Jewish prayer better? Specifically: What if a website could serve as a place for public ritual confession?
Similar websites, of course, already existed. PostSecret, the most well-known at the time, was founded in 2004. My idea was that such a site could be tied in to Jewish prayer — specifically, the vidui litany that is repeated five times over the course of Yom Kippur.
The purpose of the vidui is to have the entire community atone for its collective sins; you’re repenting not just for your own shortcomings, but for the shortcomings of the person sitting next to you. This is a fine idea, but the actual litany leaves much to be desired: Specifically, it’s vague and a little too committed to the gimmick of being in alphabetical order. It never resonated with me emotionally.
But what if you just asked people what they wanted to atone for this year — and then treated their answers as a form of liturgy?
This was the core idea behind AtoneNet. I created a simple Tumblr site that accepted only anonymous submissions to the prompt “What do you want to ask forgiveness for?” Then, once a year, I would compile the content of the website into a booklet suitable for use in synagogue. Many people, myself included, used this ad-hoc text as a supplement or a replacement for the prayerbook’s vidui service. Over the years the site was covered in a few different media outlets. Through the magic of the anonymous internet, it seemed possible to make a substantial improvement to an iconic Jewish prayer.
connect to each other in unprecedented ways. It was this mindset of a connective internet that brought AtoneNet to life. Like the bulletin boards of the ’90s, or the listservs of the ’00s, or Facebook, it used virtual space to do what would have been cumbersome in the real world. Actually, not just cumbersome, but literally impossible. The internet’s famous ability to grant anonymity (the “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” cartoon was published in 1993) allowed people to reveal parts of themselves that you might never see in real life. In this sense the internet was better than physical reality. The internet created the conditions for truth.
But of course, Jews don’t live on the internet, even if we do
day to brushing increasingly realistic-sounding spam out of our inboxes. Forums dedicated to debate about real-life questions — like Reddit’s r/AmITheAsshole — are perpetually haunted by questions of authenticity. This rot has already set in at the level of text, and advances in AI-generated graphics, audio and video mean that it’s only a matter of time before we need to apply a similarly cynical filter to everything we see on the internet. For AtoneNet, the shift means that the site loses a lot of its emotional power. I’ve done almost no moderation on the site, but when new submissions come in it’s no longer possible for me to tell whether they correspond with real human confessions. Users of the site, too, can now justifiably read the site’s anonymity policy as a reason not to trust what they see there.
Now, I suppose I could circumvent this problem by developing some kind of authentication system. Maybe there’s a Web3 version of AtoneNet. I’m not going to do this. If you’re reading this and inspired to try your hand at it, you have my blessing to take the idea and run with it. For me, it’s not about the technical problems. The main issue is that a major feature of the internet has now become a major bug.
There’s a solution to this, but it’s not a better website. It’s interactions with real people in the real world.
“Anonymous “confessions” posted to AtoneNet before it was shut down after 11 years.” Credit: JTA illustration by Joseph Strauss
I never wanted to make a big deal out of running the site. I suspected that people would feel more comfortable using it if it felt like it was run by nobody. Still, there was a quiet joy in managing it, and it was interesting to see confessional “trends”; after the Black Lives Matter protests, for example, many people wanted to atone for racial prejudice or failing to act in the face of injustice. I expected to maintain AtoneNet indefinitely. That’s what the website promises.
But I changed my mind. I plan to freeze the site in its current state, and it may eventually go down. I want to tell you why. Want to read a paragraph that feels simultaneously very quaint and very current?
Picture it: A lonely Jew in Iceland with a laptop computer consults with a Lubavitcher rabbi on the latest Torah reading. A researcher in California printed out a study of Australian Jewish intermarriage from a Jerusalem computer in 10 minutes — for the price of a local telephone call. A campus Hillel in New York State asks other Hillels around the country what to do about an upcoming Nation of Islam rally, and gets a dozen responses, This is how the Forward described the internet back in 1994. The World Wide Web promised to connect a Jewish community that was numerically tiny and geographically dispersed. In fact, this is exactly what it did! Today Jewish knowledge is more accessible than ever before and Jews have the ability to
spend a lot of time here. In the decade since AtoneNet began the internet has grown in new and distressing ways. It remains as vital as ever, but it is clearly no longer “just” a way to connect with others. As I have tried to understand its transformations, AtoneNet has felt increasingly like a project for a different time. The two forces driving this change are algorithmically driven content and artificial intelligence. The first means that we are inundated with content that is anonymous (in the sense that it’s from people whose identities are meaningless to us) and yet selected to produce some kind of desired effect, like urging us to stay on the app/site or buy products. We all know that we’re being manipulated in this way. This doesn’t mean we can do anything about it, but it does make us jaded towards data streams, even ones like AtoneNet, which are not driven by any algorithm. AI is a bigger concern. The blessing of anonymity that the internet once bestowed on users has now been bestowed on massive amounts of AI-generated content, as well. This content can be generated with ease; it’s easy to see that it will take up an ever-larger percentage of online content over time. We’ve come to accept this as the price of doing business online, but it’s a huge downer. We fell in love with the internet because it connected people to each other; now, the geography of the internet encourages those connections to happen in smaller, gated communities (WhatsApp groups, some Discord servers) where anonymity is viewed with suspicion. Without realizing it, we’ve adapted our online habits to avoid the fatigue that comes from constantly batting away lies. (Worse: We fall for the lies.) What this means, ultimately, is that the value of anonymous online content has plummeted. Most people devote time every
In Asheville, we can see the stars already
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina | JTA
My backyard is perfect for a sukkah. I can walk right off the deck into my yard, which is surrounded by my garden and the autumnal woods. There is easy access to the kitchen and to the stars.
Last year, my first in my new home here in this beautiful mountain town, I was away for much of the weeklong Sukkot holiday helping someone I care about who needed me. So I was excited to buy the building materials and make use of my space for the first time this fall.
After Hurricane Helene pummeled my city, I’m not doing it. I am not building a sukkah this year because I just spent two weeks cooking and eating every meal outside. It was hard and frustrating, and while I recognize that I’m so, so, so much more fortunate than people even a few blocks away from me, it feels a little triggering right now to access the symbology for the very real thing I just did.
I am not building a sukkah this year because I couldn’t possibly go buy building materials for a temporary, symbolic dwelling when people desperately need those building materials to repair their actual homes to have more than two and a half walls, to keep the night air out, to make them livable, or to build non-symbolic temporary structures where their homes used to be. Temperatures are supposed to dip to freezing tonight. This is a matter of pikuach nefesh (the Jewish commandment to preserve life above all else) — how dare I
buy building materials that I personally don’t need when others very much do?
I am not building a sukkah this year, because I don’t need the symbology of the cloud of glory, the temporal, human vulnerability, or the sense that we are cared for by something mysterious that is greater than us. All I need to do is walk out
of my house still feeling deeply vulnerable and I will trip over the most beautiful, gracious, unbelievable sense of being deeply cared for by something far greater than individual human capacity: community. It is a glorious thing: Every human I’ve encountered is walking with a grace bigger than the human heart. I don’t need a symbolic reminder for some-
You can imagine how I, as a millennial who is very socially awkward, feel about coming to this realization, but it’s the truth. The internet is still marvelous, but it’s full of nonsense. There’s nonsense in the real world, too, but most of what you see in physical space is really there. All the people you meet in the real world are real people, a sentence that I didn’t think I’d ever need to write. Yes, physical design definitely tries to manipulate your attention. The layout of grocery stores, for example, has been carefully optimized but the level of optimization and bullshit is nowhere near what you’ll experience on a popular website these days.
Importantly, it is harder and harder to see the internet as a place where spirituality happens. It is quite notable that fully virtual prayer spaces, despite their beauty and creative freedom, have not really flourished. (I’m working on a story about this for Belief in the Future, stay tuned.) The people who want to go to shul/church/mosque mostly want to go to a physical shul/church/mosque. Virtual spaces can supplement all that, but I suspect that shared physical space is going to emerge as a new religious value.
So, what do you do if you want a vidui that really does represent your community? My honest recommendation is that you find time to talk to your community about the year that they’ve had. Maybe you can anonymize the process — or maybe you can create the conditions where you don’t need anonymity to trust one another.
A version of this article appeared on Substack.
David Zvi Kalman is the host of Belief in the Future. He is a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a senior advisor at Sinai and Synapses. He writes at Jello Menorah.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
thing I am face-to-face with, constantly.
I am not building a sukkah this year because schach (branches from trees used as the roof on a sukkah) is everywhere. Thousands and thousands of tree branches line the roads everywhere I drive, and some peoples’ actual homes are still covered by schach rather than roof. I don’t need to be reminded how vulnerable we are, how temporary this is, how you can see the stars between the branches on the sukkah roof — when you can see the stars between the branches in the zombie-hero-survivors’ eyes all around me.
There would be no joy in building what I do not need. Maybe next year, when all are housed and warm and our feet have hit the ground and our minds have rested, maybe then I will gladden my heart in a symbolic structure. Instead, I am thinking of all I know who live in towns that are not broken and who will sit around tables together creating memories and enjoying links in paper chains and chains of tradition, and my heart shares in a wisp of their joy.
But here in Asheville, I will continue to rally these weary bones, to do what I can to be part of the grace bigger than myself and to show my neighbors that caring humans are showing up for them in their very non-symbolic, deeply vulnerable season.
Joanie Terrizzi is a Mindful Schools-trained educator with more than a decade of experience working in schools and with children. She has a doctorate in Mind-Body Medicine from Saybrook University.
JOANIE TERRIZZI
Cars and houses in Asheville, North Carolina, had trees fall on them during Hurricane Helene in September 2024. Credit: Joanie Terrizzi
Synagogues
B’NAI ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE
618 Mynster Street Council Bluffs, IA 51503-0766
712.322.4705 www.cblhs.org
BETH EL SYNAGOGUE
Member of United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism 14506 California Street Omaha, NE 68154-1980
402.492.8550 bethel-omaha.org
BETH ISRAEL
SYNAGOGUE
Member of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America 12604 Pacific Street Omaha, NE. 68154
402.556.6288 BethIsrael@OrthodoxOmaha.org
CHABAD HOUSE
An Affiliate of Chabad-Lubavitch 1866 South 120 Street Omaha, NE 68144-1646
402.330.1800 OChabad.com email: chabad@aol.com
LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY:
B’NAI JESHURUN
South Street Temple
Union for Reform Judaism
2061 South 20th Street Lincoln, NE 68502-2797
402.435.8004 www.southstreettemple.org
OFFUTT AIR
FORCE BASE
Capehart Chapel 2500 Capehart Road Offutt AFB, NE 68123
402.294.6244 email: oafbjsll@icloud.com
TEMPLE ISRAEL
Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 13111 Sterling Ridge Drive Omaha, NE 68144-1206
402.556.6536 templeisraelomaha.com
LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY:
TIFERETH ISRAEL
Member of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism 3219 Sheridan Boulevard Lincoln, NE 68502-5236 402.423.8569 tiferethisraellincoln.org
Monthly Speaker Series Service, Friday, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m. with our guest speaker. Our service leader is Larry Blass. Everyone is always welcome at B’nai Israel! For information about our historic synagogue, please visit our website at www.cblhs.org or contact any of our other board members: Renee Corcoran, Scott Friedman, Rick Katelman, Janie Kulakofsky, Howard Kutler, Carole and Wayne Lainof, Ann Moshman, MaryBeth Muskin, Debbie Salomon and Sissy Silber.
Handicap Accessible.
Services conducted by Rabbi Steven Abraham and Hazzan Michael Krausman.
IN-PERSON AND ZOOM MINYAN SCHEDULE:
Mornings on Sundays, 9:30 a.m.; Mondays and Thursdays 7 a.m.; Evenings on Sunday-Thursday 5:30 p.m.
FRIDAY: Simchat Torah Morning Service, 10 a.m. at Beth El & Live Stream; Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. at Beth El & Live Stream.
SATURDAY: Shabbat Morning Services, 10 a.m. at Beth El and Live Stream followed by the Lerner/Secola/Gold Milestone Anniversary Kiddush Lunch; Jr. Congregation (Grades K-12), 10 a.m.; Havdalah, 7 p.m. at Beth El & Zoom.
FRIDAY-Nov 1: Kabbalat Shabbat, 6 p.m. at Beth El & Live Stream.
SATURDAY-Nov. 2: Shabbat Morning Services, 10
a.m. at Beth El and Live Stream with guest speaker Aaron Koller at services; Jr. Congregation (Grades K12), 10 a.m.; Lunch & Learn with Aaron Koller follwing Shabbat Morning Servies; Havdalah, 7 p.m. at Beth El & Zoom.
Please visit bethel-omaha.org for additional information and service links.
SATURDAY-Nov. 2: Shabbat Kollel, 8:30 a.m.; Shacharit 9 a.m.; Tot Shabbat 10:30 a.m.; Youth Class, 10:45 a.m.; Tehillim, 5 p.m. at the Zivs; Soulful Torah, 5 p.m. with Rabbi Geiger; Mincha 5:50 p.m.; Kids Activity/Laws of Shabbos, 6:20 p.m.; Havdalah, 7:01 p.m.
Please visit orthodoxomaha.org for additional information and Zoom service links.
All services are in-person. All classes are being offered in-person and via Zoom (ochabad.com/academy). For more information or to request help, please visit www.ochabad.com or call the office at 402.330.1800.
FRIDAY: Morning Services, 10 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Hakafot; Celebrating Our Resilience, A Special Hakafot commemorating the victims of the tragedy on Shmini Atzeret on Oct. 7th, 5:30 p.m. followed by Services and Dinner; Shabbat Candlelighting, 6:09 p.m.
SATURDAY: Shacharit 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 7:08 p.m.
SUNDAY: Sunday Morning Wraps, 9 a.m.
MONDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Peronal Parsha 9:30 a.m.; Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Parsha Reading, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Translating Words of Prayer, 7 p.m. with David Cohen.
TUESDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Translating Words of Prayer, 11 a.m. with David Cohen; Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 7 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen.
WEDNESDAY: Shacharit 8 a.m.; Mystical Thinking (Tanya), 9:30 a.m.; Introductory Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 10:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Parsha Reading, 11:30 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen.
THURSDAY: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Introduction to Alphabet, Vowels & Reading Hebrew, 10 a.m.; Advanced Biblical Hebrew Grammar, 11 a.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Talmud Study, noon; Introduction to Alphabet, Vowels & Reading Hebrew, 6 p.m. with Prof. David Cohen; Code of Jewish Law Class, 7 p.m.
FRIDAY-Nov 1: Shacharit, 8 a.m.; Lechayim, 5:45 p.m., go to ochabad.com/Lechayim to join; Candlelighting, 6 p.m.
SATURDAY-Nov. 2: Shacharit 9:30 a.m. followed by Kiddush and Cholent; Shabbat Ends, 7 p.m.
Services facilitated by Rabbi Alex Felch. All services offered in-person with live-stream or teleconferencing options.
FRIDAY: Synagogue Offices Closed; Shabbat Can-
Jewish Omaha memories
pings from Aug. 12, 1928.
In the archives of the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society there are endless papers, photographs, pamphlets and objects that tell the rich history of our community. The offices are easily accessible, but there is a room downstairs that is a virtual treasure representing what our community has experienced throughout the years. While we have a beautiful museum on site, there are many more things to share. From time to time, we’ll highlight something in the Jewish Press that is of interest. In this picture, you can see a metal, rusted box that seems unremarkable.
The box is bent, and scuffed up. If you found it sitting in your attic or garage, you might not think it very remarkable. You’d be wrong. It is, in fact, the cornerstone box of the congregation of Israel. What’s more, it kept what’s inside safe for many, many years.
“The box contains the announcement of the cornerstone dedication,” Nebraska Jewish Historical Society’s Jennifer Garza said. Jennifer is the Director of Archives and Collections. The box also has a list of members and officers, and newspaper clip-
“I do not know who donated it,” Jennifer said. “I don’t have the exact dimensions, but it’s about as big as a mailbox. Its significance is that it marks the dedication of one of the early iterations of Temple Israel.”
Next week, the Jewish Press will cover the upcoming Warner B. Frohman exhibition, curated by the NJHS. Warner Frohman was a “Ritchie Boy,” and artifacts from the family’s private collection will form the backdrop for the movie The Ritchie Boys. The NJHS will show the film in collaboration with the Institute for Holocaust Education, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Alan J. Levine Performing Arts Theater. Admission is free.
dlelighting, 6:13 p.m.; Kabbalat Shabbat Service, 6:30-7:30 p.m. led by Rabbi Alex at SST.
SATURDAY: Shabbat Service, 9:30-11 a.m. led by Rabbi Alex at TI; Torah Study, noon on Parshat Bereshit led by TBD via Zoom; Havdalah, 7:11 p.m.
SUNDAY: LJCS Classes, 9:30-11:30 a.m. at TI; Men’s Bike/Coffee Group, 10:30 a.m. at The Mill on the Innovation Campus. For more information or questions please email Al Weiss at albertw801@gmail.com; Pickleball, 3-5 p.m. at TI. Anyone interested in playing or learning how to play can text Miriam at 402.470.2393. If there are enough interested people; we’ll play in the Social Hall.
TUESDAY: Ladies' Lunch 1 p.m. at LeQuartier Bakery & Cafe, Meridian Park - 6900 O Street. If you'd like more information or would like to be added to the group please contact at oohhmmm.barb@gmail. com.
WEDNESDAY: LJCS Hebrew School, 4:30-6 p.m.
FRIDAY-Nov 1: Shabbat Candlelighting, 6:04 p.m.; Kabbalat Shabbat Service, 6:30-7:30 p.m. led by Rabbi Alex at SST.
SATURDAY-Nov. 2: Shabbat Service, 9:30-11 a.m. led by Rabbi Alex at TI; Torah Study, noon on Parshat Noach led by TBD via Zoom; Havdalah, 7:03 p.m.
FRIDAYS: Virtual Shabbat Service, 7:30 p.m. every first and third of the month at Capehart Chapel. Contact TSgt Jason Rife at OAFBJSLL@icloud.com for more information.
In-person and virtual services conducted by Rabbi Benjamin Sharff, Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin, and Cantor Joanna Alexander.
FRIDAY: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. In-Person; Village Walking Group, 10 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat B’yachad Service, 6 p.m. In-Person & Zoom.
SATURDAY: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat Morning Service and B’not Mitzvah of Halle and Tori Tauber 10:30 a.m. In-Person & Zoom.
SUNDAY: Grades PreK-7, 9:30 a.m. In-Person; Temple Tots, 10 a.m. In-Person; Coffee and Conversations with Board Members, 10 a.m. In-Person
TUESDAY: Adult Prayer Hebrew: Level Bet, 6 p.m. In-Person.
THURSDAY: The Zohar: Thursday Morning Class, 11 a.m. with Rabbi Sharff and Rabbi Azriel — In-Person & Zoom.
FRIDAY-Nov 1: Drop in Mah Jongg, 9-11 a.m. InPerson; Village Walking Group, 10 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat Shira Service, 6 p.m. In-Person & Zoom.
SATURDAY-Nov. 2: Torah Study, 9:15 a.m. In-Person; Shabbat Morning Service and Bat Mitzvah of Hattie Lake, 10:30 a.m. In-Person & Zoom. Please visit templeisraelomaha.com for additional information and Zoom service links.
The film and exhibit are only the first step in what promises to be an educational and fabulous few months. Stay tuned for more information about all the events the IHE and the NJHS have scheduled!
The Nebraska Jewish Historical Society was founded in 1982 by Mary Arbitman Fellman and Oliver Pollak to collect, publish and display materials which pertain to the family, business and so-
cial histories of the Jewish community of Nebraska and Council Bluffs. And ever since the beginning, our community has answered the call to donate items that are valueable to all of us.The NJHS is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. For more information, please visit our website at www.nebraska jhs.com, or contact Executive Director Jane Rips at jrips@jewishomaha.org and Director of Archives and Collections Jennifer Garza at jgarza@jewishomaha.org
B’NAI ISRAEL
BETH EL
BETH ISRAEL
CHABAD HOUSE
LINCOLN JEWISH COMMUNITY: B’NAI JESHURUN & TIFERETH ISRAEL
OFFUTT
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor
Life cycles
Rabbi Geiger’s Weekly Torah Expedition
PARSHA BERESHIT
Right after Rosh Hashanah, I read a story in Yamim Noraim with the Magid by Rabbi Krohn. One Rosh Hashana in a large shul, a young father was looking for a private place where his wife could tend to their infant. He found only one place: the Rabbi’s office. A little embarrassed, he walked through the hundreds of praying people to reach the rabbi’s seat. Rabbi Dovid Feinstein immediately handed him the key to his office. A little while later, it was time to blow the shofar. However, Rabbi Feinstein (1929-2020) said, “Wait one moment.” He searched the crowd intently, finally finding the man he had given his key to. He ran over and asked, “Did your wife make it back into
Beth Israel
shul?!” Only upon hearing that she had, the great Rabbi allowed the shofar to be blown.
One of the most well-known and perplexing stories in the Torah is the story of Kayan and Hevel, how, at the very beginning of creation, brother killed brother. When G-d Himself asked where is your brother, Kayan lied! Did He think G-d did not know? Let’s focus on the first part of the story. Kayan has a flash of inspiration and brings an offering to G-d. But G-d does not accept his offering because Kayan brought it from the worst of his crop. Maharal explains that Kanyan believed in G-d, so he brought an offering. But Kayan did not believe he was significant enough for G-d to care if he brought the best or the worst. He thought that G-d was not paying attention when he killed Hevel because why should G-d care about us? Kayan missed the lesson of Rabbi Feinstein; each and every one of us is so important and loved by G-d we stop the show until everyone is there.
Will Sinwar’s death end the Gaza war?
JTA STAFF
JTA
For months, the United States has signaled that Yahya Sinwar was the biggest impediment to a ceasefire deal in the Israel-Hamas war, with the Hamas leader unwilling to consider any scenarios that would require his group to cede control over the Palestinian territory.
But does that mean his death, announced October 17, means the war could soon come to an end?
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris say they think it should. But both Israel and Hamas have signaled that they plan to keep fighting.
“Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent people, including the victims of Oct. 7 and hostages killed in Gaza. He had American blood on his hands,” Harris tweeted. “Because of his death, the United States, Israel, and the entire world are better off — and this moment gives us an opportunity to end the war in Gaza.”
And on October 18, Biden, speaking at a gathering of world leaders in Germany, said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek an end to the war. The Biden administration has previously criticized Netanyahu over his approach to negotiations, saying, as his critics within Israel have charged, that he has added conditions when breakthroughs appeared near.
“Now is the time to move on,” Biden said he told Netanyahu. “Move on, move toward a cease-fire in Gaza, make sure that we move in a direction that we’re going to be in a position to make things better for the whole world.”
Whether and how that happens is unclear. Officially announcing Sinwar’s death on Thursday, Netanyahu signaled that he did not consider Sinwar’s killing a war-ending accomplishment.
“While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end,” he tweeted when sharing a speech in which he said, “Today, evil suffered a heavy blow, but our mission is not yet completed.”
Some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners have said they will
not brook any scaling back in the war effort (and a handful of his party officials this week announced a conference to discuss Israeli settlements in Gaza, a goal of some on the far right. Netanyahu has counted out resettling the enclave.)
“We must continue with all our strength — until the absolute victory!” far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted after Sinwar’s death was confirmed.
John Kirby, Biden’s National Security Council spokesman, said Sinwar’s removal offers Israel ample room now to get to a ceasefire.
“Sinwar was the main obstacle to getting a ceasefire done,” he told reporters in Germany. Every time Sinwar’s negotiators would provisionally agree to a deal it would need his final approval and he would nix it, Kirby said. “It’s not as if the Israelis weren’t willing to continue to find compromises, and they did — each and every time, Sinwar found a way to stop it … his death does provide a unique opportunity here.”
For its part, neither Hamas nor its allies have indicated any plans to give up fighting. After a daylong silence, a senior Hamas leader, Khalil al-Hayya, said Sinwar’s killing would only strengthen the group. Sinwar’s death, he said, would be turn into a curse “on the occupiers.” He also said the hostages would not be released until Israeli forces withdraw totally from Gaza.
Hamas has not announced a successor to Sinwar, but the group has survived killings of its leaders in the past — including in August, when Sinwar succeeded Ismail Haniyeh as political chief after Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran. Iran, too, said said the “spirit of resistance” among those opposing Israel would be strengthened by Sinwar’s death. And Hezbollah, the terror group that Israel has been battling in Lebanon, said it would escalate its aggression against Israel.
The same day Sinwar’s death was announced, four Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon. Even as many Israelis rejoiced at Sinwar’s death, families of the 101 people still held hostage in Gaza — including dozens thought to be alive — said they feared that it would place their loved ones in greater danger.
Read more at www.omahajewishpress.org
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RABBI MORDECHAI GEIGER
Jewish America
JUDY MALTZ
This article originally appeared on Haaretz
A portion of it is reprinted here with permission.The full article is available on our website at www.omahajewishpress.com
From late August through early September, over the course of 15 days, I drove across the United States seeking out Jews in small communities away from the coasts – the type of Jews we rarely hear from.
I was curious as to how they had ended up in these places, how they got along with their non-Jewish neighbors, how their lives had been affected, even upended, by Oct. 7 and where they stood on the most contentious issues of the day: Israel’s war in Gaza, now nearing its one-year anniversary, and the upcoming presidential election, less than two months away.
at one of the few kosher restaurants in Cincinnati with a multigenerational, politically diverse group of local Jews. And I joined a small gathering of Jewish Omahans for wine and cheese at the home of an unconventional young rabbi.
I made 10 stops along the way: In Scranton (Pennsylvania), Charleston (West Virginia), Cincinnati (Ohio), Louisville (Kentucky), Peoria (Illinois), Des Moines (Iowa), Omaha (Nebraska), Aberdeen (South Dakota), Cheyenne (Wyoming) and Reno (Nevada). Here are a few takeaways from my journey.
and college students, who are probably more exposed to threats and intimidation than your average Jewish American. This overt sign of Jewish pride was not something I recalled from previous periods I had lived in the United States. As to the question of how safe Jews are feeling these days, there was obviously considerable security at almost every Jewish institution I visited. But in most cases, the cameras, guards and other precautions had already been introduced after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in 2018 and were not related to Oct. 7.
Writing Workshop continues
On this 4,400-mile (7,080-kilometer) trip –mostly along Interstate 80 – I met Jews in U.S. President Joe Biden’s hometown, in Appalachia, the Midwest, the Great Plains, the Wild West and the Nevada desert. I spent one Shabbat in Kentucky and another in South Dakota, where I got to attend services and have Friday night dinner with members of the smallest Jewish congregation in America.
I joined the “men’s club” of Charleston, West Virginia, for their weekly breakfast after Shacharit (morning prayers) at the shul. I joined the Jewish community of Peoria for their annual picnic in the park. I had dinner
Jewish communities away from the coasts are, for the most part, shrinking. Still, the people I met seemed to take great pride in what they had built over the years, and are committed to sustaining Jewish life in their towns for as long as possible.
Numerous surveys published over the past year have found that Jews in America are feeling scared and hiding signs of their Jewishness. I did not find that at all. To the contrary. Everywhere I went, I found Jews proudly wearing Star of David necklaces. More often than not, they said they had started doing so since October 7. That included high school
I have never seen a museum dedicated to the history and contributions of the Jews of New York. Or to the Jews of Los Angeles, Chicago or Boston, for that matter. To be sure, there are many Jewish museums in cities around the country – just not museums about the Jews who live or lived in these cities. Which explains my surprise at discovering such museums – of all places – in Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska.
If I had to choose one place in the middle of America to live, based on the amenities offered at its JCC, there would be no competition: Omaha wins hands down. With its indoor pickleball facility, huge performing arts theater, indoor water park, rotating art exhibits and every sort of extracurricular activity imaginable under the sun, I wasn’t surprised to learn it has 13,000 members (pretty much double the number of Jews in this town).
We are pleased to announce ‘Write With Us,’ the recent collaboration between the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Press, will continue in smaller format in the Fall. New workshops are scheduled for Nov. 21, Dec. 19, Jan. 16, Feb. 2, March 20 and April 17 in the Noshery at the Staenberg Omaha JCC. Register by contacting Jessi at jtaylor@jewishomaha.org or Annette at avandekamp@jewishom aha.org. There is no cost to attend, although donations are always welcome. If you have wanted to write your family’s story, that great American novel, or you have always wanted to try your hand at poetry, join us! Maybe you are already an accomplished writer, but you would benefit from being in a room with other writers. Perhaps you have convinced yourself you can’t write at all, but would love to try. Everyone, from absolute beginner to professional, is welcome to attend.
