8 | The Jewish Press | December 24, 2021
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Margie Gutnik President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Staff Writer Mary Bachteler Accounting Jewish Press Board Margie Gutnik, President; Abigail Kutler, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen; David Finkelstein; Bracha Goldsweig; Mary Sue Grossman; Les Kay; Natasha Kraft; Chuck Lucoff; Joseph Pinson; Andy Shefsky and Amy Tipp. The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Life, Jewish Social Services, and the Jewish Press. Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: wwwjewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha. org. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de KampWright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha.org.
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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.
Wish list
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor With the end of the calendar year rapidly approaching, you probably have questions. I know I do. What happened to 2021? What happened during 2021? I realize we always feel like the year has gone too fast when we hit December, but it seems to be more intense this time. Will we look back 20 years from now and feel like this year simply didn’t happen? Or, here is a thought, do we become more mindful to notice it when good things do occur? Do we have anything to be excited about right now? I have a wish list for 2022. And when I say “wish,” I don’t mean I am going to sit back and passively hope for great things to happen. I believe wishes come with a job description. If we want things to happen, we have to be willing to do the work. First things first: we are finally going to have that party we had planned for March 2020. Remember that? On Sunday May 1, from 4-7, we will finally celebrate our Centennial anniversary. We will host it outdoors in the Pavillion; it will look very different than what we had originally planned, but that should not hold us back. We could use some help and are looking for volunteers to assist us with a variety of tasks, like setup and cleanup, hosting and choosing the entertainment. If you think party planning is something you’d enjoy, please contact us by sending an email to avandekamp@jewishomaha.org. When we initially began to plan for this celebra-
tion, we never stopped to think we might have to cancel it. Yet, when we did, we did so fast: a yearand-a-half of planning was wiped out with 6 minutes’ worth of phone calls. Back then, we didn’t call it ‘canceling,’ we said we were merely postponing it. I remember thinking we would be able to have it in late summer, early fall. Thank G-d we can’t see the future; we would lose all optimism. Yet, optimism is what will pull us through. While there are still countless reasons to not plan anything (we don’t know what’s going to happen, people are reluctant to come, there might be another variant, what if it rains), at the same time, we really need to plan for future events. Partially that is because it’s the practical thing to do, considering all the community members who purchased tickets for the original event (did we really call it a “Gala?” Yes, we did). Partially because I think the only thing that’s stopping us from gathering outside is the weather, and we have a decent chance of that being nice on May 1. So please, put the date on your calendar, and wait for further details because we have lots to talk about. Next: we have started working on our 2022 Passover edition. For that issue, we are collaborating with the Institute for Holocaust Education. Any time we get to collaborate with another depart-
ment or agency, it makes our work better and more meaningful. That is especially the case with the IHE; for those of you who aren’t familiar with our building, the Press has been neighbors with both the ADL/CRC and the IHE for a long time—we see
each other every day and the opportunity to create a special issue together excites us all. It is that kind of excitement we all need. The pandemic has been particularly challenging in that regard: it’s easy to become too still and too cautious. There comes a point when we have to remember what it feels like to be passionate about something, about anything. What gets you wound up, what makes your heart beat faster? Whatever it is, I hope you get to experience it. Soon, today. Let’s create some memories together in 2022. Next year, when December rolls around, may we all look back and remember many, many high points.
My Jewish ancestors owned slaves. That’s why I’m a rabbi for racial justice. RABBI BARRY H. BLOCK JTA In The Social Justice Torah Commentary, Rabbi Brian Stoller describes a turtle-shaped dinner bell that his great-grandmother used to summon a Black butler to attend to her needs at the family’s Shabbat table. When I got to that line while editing the volume, I felt a jolt of familiarity: An identical bell served the same purpose at my own grandmother’s table. All of my grandparents and all four of my American-born great-grandparents hailed from the South, and social justice activism was not baked into my DNA. Yet unlike many “old” southern families, I was raised without glorification of the Confederacy. As a preteen, I only learned that both of my parents are descended from Confederate veterans because I asked. My parents, members of the Silent Generation, were not engaged in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. However, unlike most members of the privileged Houston Jewish community in which they were raised and in turn raised my sister and me, they opened their eyes to social injustice in the 1970s and exposed us to progressive thought and activism, rooted in Reform Jewish life. Then, a distant relative sent me a page of the 1860 Louisiana slave census, the first documentary proof for me that my great-great-great-grandmother, Magdalena Seeleman was a slaveholder. Magdalena Gugenheim Seeleman was born Dec. 25, 1810, in Zweibrucken, Germany. She first shows up in the U.S. Census in New Orleans in 1850. She is listed in the 1860 U.S. Census as living in the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Simon and Caroline Shlenker, in Trinity, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana. According to the list of parish slaveholders from June 22, 1860, “M. Seeleman” was the owner of a 29year-old woman described as “mulatto.” Simon is described as the owner of a Black woman, age 25. Simon’s brother Isaac was married to Caroline’s sister Charlotte; Isaac and Charlotte were my greatgreat-grandparents. Isaac and Charlotte are not on the list of slaveholders, but a document says Isaac received payment from the state of Louisiana for serving as a prosecutor of escaped slaves. In an advertisement dated April 10, 1861, Isaac “and Bro.” offer a “Negro” for sale; the “girl” is described as
“young, healthy and acclimated.” streetcar. He would go on to lead the integration of The information is as horrifying as it is unsurpris- Little Rock’s public library. Later, congregants — ing. When I visited The National Memorial to Peace and Justice in Montgomery in 2019, I found memorials indicting Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, where Seeleman lived, as the site of multiple racist terror lynchings. All five of the other counties and parishes where my family thrived during the lynching era are similarly accused there. Charlotte Seeleman Shlenker (1838-1920), the author's great-greatAt Montgomery’s Legacy Mu- grandmother, was the daughter of Magdalena Gugenheim Seeleman, seum, I confronted a sign offering who showed up in the 1860 Louisiana slave census, left, as having a reminder that many of the same owned a 29-year-old woman. Charlotte's husband, Isaac, offered a "girl" families who were enriched by en- for sale in an advertisement dated April 10, 1861. Credit: Barry Block slaving Black Americans continue to enjoy that pros- women, in particular, including descendants of the perity today. Their wealth, inherited down the Confederate soldiers who founded the congregagenerations, cannot be separated from the enslaved tion heeded Rabbi Sanders’ call to organize against human beings that their, that is, my ancestors op- segregation in public schools. pressed to earn a generous living. Rabbi Sanders retired the summer I was born, a Earlier in my career as a rabbi, not yet entirely half century before my arrival in Little Rock. His aware of my family history, I did not focus on racial predecessors and successors, along with their partjustice in my work, but rather on immigration reform, ners in lay leadership, established a legacy of social abortion rights and LGBTQ equality. I became out- justice activism, calling on congregants and me to spoken to the point that, when I was seeking to leave continue that critical work. Their legacy inspires my previous congregation for a new pulpit, a friend my belief that, rather than solely focusing on the in lay leadership hoped that I would look in “blue guilt and shame of historical sins, the best recourse states.” Instead, in 2013, I took the pulpit of Congre- is to take action to repent for and rectify them. gation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I As for the woman my ancestor enslaved, my diswas truly awakened for the first time to the moral ur- tant cousin has been working to identify her, in the gency of advancing racial equality in our nation. hope of locating descendants in order to offer at Founded in 1866 on the heels of the Civil War, least some form of reparations. I do not know if we B’nai Israel counts Confederate veterans among its will ever be able to name her or her descendants. I earliest leaders, men who had risked their lives to dedicate The Social Justice Torah Commentary and maintain chattel enslavement of Black Americans. any social activism I can muster to her memory. But the synagogue’s subsequent history shows how And I pray that the work we all do to advance social a commitment to justice can emerge even in places justice today may serve as tiny measures of atonewhere racism and inequity might initially have ment for the grievous damage caused by our nation, been baked into its DNA. including my ancestors, to her and millions of Black When I joined the congregation, members Americans across four centuries and counting. shared with me the storied legacy of the late Rabbi Rabbi Barry H. Block is rabbi of Congregation Ira E. Sanders, an early hero of the civil rights move- B'nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the edment. During his first months in Little Rock in 1926, itor of The Mussar Torah Commentary and Rabbi Sanders lent his body to the struggle against The Social Justice Torah Commentary (CCAR segregation, refusing to move from the back of a Press, 2020 and 2021).
