18 IYAR 5776 • MAY 26, 2016 • VOLUME XXXVII, NUMBER 11 • PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID, SYRACUSE, NY
Combined Federation, Day School, Epstein School annual meeting BY KATHIE PIIRAK The Jewish Federation of Central New York announced a combined 2016 annual meeting with the Syracuse Hebrew Day School and the Rabbi Jacob H. Epstein School of Jewish Studies, which will be held on Wednesday, June 8, in the Anne and Hy Miller Auditorium at the Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center of Syracuse, beginning with refreshments at 6:30 pm and the meeting at 7 pm. Presiding over the 98th annual meeting will be Board Chair Ruth Stein. A dessert reception will be catered by JCC chef Donna Carullo under the supervision of the Va’ad Ha’ir. There will be a sheet cake from the new BJ’s kosher bakery. First Niagara Bank is this year’s annual meeting sponsor.
in 2017 are Adam Alweis, Sidney Cominsky, Miriam Elman, Joel Friedman, Elliott Meltzer, Todd Pinsky, Neil Rosenbaum, Carl Rosenzweig, Neil Rube, Cheryl Schotz, Rabbi Evan Shore, Jef Sneider and David Temes. Stein will remain the board chair. The 2016 Esther and Joseph Roth Award for Outstanding Jewish ComMara Charlamb Adam Fumarola Steven Goldberg Mickey Lebowitz munity Leadership will be presented to Rabbi Evan S. Shore. The Syracuse Hebrew Day School There will be an election for Feder- Ellen Weinstein. New trustees for a Chorus will perform. ation’s Board of Directors. This year’s two-year term ending in 2018 are Mara The combined annual meeting is open nominations include trustees returning Charlamb, Adam Fumarola and Mickey to the community. Reservations are refor a two-year term ending in 2018: Lebowitz. Steven Goldberg will be Michael Balanoff, Marc Beckman, joining the board for a one-year term quested and may be made by contacting Mark Field, Alan Goldberg, Philip ending in 2017. Returning trustees on Kathie Piirak at 445-2040, ext. 106, or Holstein, Stein, Steven Volinsky and the board to complete their term ending kpiirak@jewishfederationcny.org.
Former child refugees, rescued from Nazis, Urge U.K. to take Syrian kids This report was heard on “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio on May 9. The reporter was Lauren Frayer and is reprinted with their permission. In her suburban London row house, Margit Goodman, 94, sits wrapped in blankets in her favorite recliner. She was a girl of 17 when she first came to Britain, escaping from her native Prague just before the Germans invaded. She remembers the exact date: June 5, 1939. “When I left, [Czechoslovakia] was still a free country,” she recalls. “But we soon became occupied by the Germans.” In the late 1930s, as Nazi persecution of Jews intensified, the British government and Jewish aid groups arranged for the transport of nearly 10,000 children to the U.K. from Europe, through a program that became known as the “Kindertransport.” Goodman was one of the children rescued by the program. “I wouldn’t be here now. They saved our lives, didn’t they?” she says. Her mother, father and brother were left behind in Prague. From there, they were deported to concentration camps – where they were gassed to death. Goodman arrived in London alone. No other close relatives survived. “I’ve never seen a photo of my grandparents,” says Karen Goodman, Margit’s daughter. Margit Goodman ended up working as a house maid in Scotland. Her experience as a teenage refugee shaped her whole family. She eventually became a social worker, and so did her daughter.
Now both women have become advocates for today’s child refugees from Syria. In November 1938, the British Parliament passed emergency legislation to admit Jewish child refugees from Europe without visas. The Goodmans and a number of former evacuees, now elderly, are lobbying the U.K. to do the same for unaccompanied Syrian children who are in Europe. Karen Goodman recently briefed members of Britain’s Parliament on how the U.K. social services system might absorb 3,000 Syrian youngsters through programs like the one to which her mother says she owes her life. But Prime Minister David Cameron has said he doesn’t want his government to grant asylum to any Syrian refugees who’ve already traveled to Europe on their own. “We shouldn’t be encouraging people to make this dangerous journey,” Cameron told Parliament last week. “I think it’s right to stick to the idea we keep investing in the refugee camps and in the neighboring countries.” Cameron’s ruling conservatives voted against an immigration bill amendment last month that would have forced his government to bring in 3,000 Syrian child refugees already in Europe. The amendment was authored by Alfred Dubs, a Labour Party member of the House of Lords who, like Margit Goodman, was born in Prague and came to Britain as a child refugee via Kindertransport. Dozens of his fellow evacuees have asked Cameron to change his mind. The prime minister has since said he’s willing
to reconsider and admit some Syrian children, but he wouldn’t give a number. “My survival is entirely due to the extreme generosity of the British government in 1938,” says Leslie Brent, 90. “And the contrast with the present government is quite pathetic.” Brent says he’s worried Cameron is caving into pressure from right-wing, anti-immigrant groups. His Conservative Party is already split over a possible British exit from the European Union, on which Britons will vote in a national referendum in June. Immigration – or fear of it – is a big part of that debate. Brent recalls how in the 1930s, anti-Jewish sentiment got so bad in his hometown in northern Germany that he could no longer go to school. So his parents sent him to an orphanage in Berlin. That decision helped save his life. “The director of the orphanage nominated me to leave on the first Kindertransport, which left Berlin on the first of December 1938 – only a few weeks after Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass, when Jewish shops and homes and synagogues were ransacked,” he says. “My parents had until then really believed that things would change for the better.”
They did not. Brent’s parents and older sister were shot by the Nazis. Brent See “Syrian” on page 7
2016 Federation Annual Campaign Goal: $1,200,000
1,051,867
$
as of May 23, 2016
To make a pledge, contact Marianne Bazydlo at 445-2040 ext. 102 or mbazydlo@jewishfederationcny.org.
C A N D L E L I G H T I N G A N D P A R AS H A May 27......................8:15 pm............................................................Parasha-Behar June 3........................8:21 pm.................................................. Parasha-Bechukotai June 10......................8:25 pm.....................................................Parasha-Bamidbar June 11......................after 9:37 pm.................................................... Erev Shavuot June 12......................after 9:38 pm.............................................................Shavuot June 17......................8:28 pm............................................................ Parasha-Naso
INSIDE THIS ISSUE Shavuot
Senior kosher dinners
Federation grant
Local synagogues announce The JCC will host weekly kosher Federation has given the Epstein their Shavuot celebrations and dinners for seniors over the School a grant for its “Packing for summer, starting on June 20. services. College” program. Story on page 3 Story on page 2 Story on page 5
PLUS Gifts for Dads and Grads...... 6 Calendar Highlights............... 6 Obituaries................................. 7 Summer Fun....................1A-4A