Jewish Observer Issue of October 11, 2018

2 CHESHVAN 5779 • OCTOBER 11, 2018 • VOLUME XXXIX, NUMBER 20 • PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID, SYRACUSE, NY

Grant applications requested by Foundation’s Teen Funders

BY MICHAEL BALANOFF The Teen Funders Committee of the Jewish Community Foundation B’nai Mitzvah Program, led by Teen Funder Coordinator Jeffrey Scheer, is accepting grant applications from local charitable organizations. Grant recipients will be announced by the teen funders following their Sunday, October 28, meeting.

All applicants must be legally recognized charitable organizations. Grant applications must be received no later than Monday, October 22, by the Jewish Community Foundation B’nai Mitzvah Program, 5655 Thompson Rd., DeWitt, NY 13214.

Grant requests may be for funding up to $1,000 and applicants must provide details of the proposed project and explain how it promotes the organization’s mission.

For grant application information, contact Kathie Piirak at 315-445-2040, ext. 106, or kpiirak@jewishfederationcny.org.

The B’nai Mitzvah Program at the Jewish Community Foundation teaches the core Jewish value of tzedakah through hands-on participation. More than 130 B’nai Mitzvah Funds have been established over the past 13 years. A B’nai Mitzvah Fund requires a minimum $250 donation from the teen at the time of bar/bat mitzvah.

These donations are matched by the Pomeranz, Shankman and Martin Charitable Foundation for an opening balance of at least $500. The teens may advise to which charities their funds may be distributed.

All B’nai Mitzvah Fund holders are invited to join the Teen Funders Com-

mittee meetings, where the teens are asked to contribute some of their fund money to a pooled fund to be distributed by the group. In the past year, 10 organi-

zations received funds totaling $4,150.

Since the spring of 2009, the teens have distributed $50,254 to 86 non-profits, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

Spotlight

Jewish community ambassador update: “Reach-out, Value-in”

BY MICKEY LEBOWITZ The goal of the Jewish community ambassador is to work with the leaders of local existing agencies and organizations, especially with the Council of Jewish Organizations, to strengthen and grow the Jewish community.

The strategy is simple: Identify and engage unaffiliated Jews already in the community and Jewish people new to the area, in short, “reachout” to them and then Offer “value-in,” i.e., meaningful programs to initially bring folks in, and then even more importantly, meaningful relationships that will keep people coming to our synagogues, schools, Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center and Menorah Park. We have traction on both fronts.

Reach out – the Jewish Federation of Central New York and the JCC have collaborated to begin rebranding and marketing Jewish Syracuse and updating Federation’s website. We’ve been working closely with Centerstate CEO to better understand the job opportunities in Central New York. We are developing closer ties to Syracuse University Hillel, SU Law School and Upstate Medical University Jewish Medical Association. We are collaborating with our Shaarei Torah friends and their Shabbatons. We are trying to better understand the psychology and reasons why Jewish people choose not to affiliate with our organizations.

Value-in – As described in a recent Jewish Observer article, we have begun our communitywide Passport program, a “get to know who we are, what we do and how we do it” program for the unaffiliated

L-r: Rafi Stern was the first person to receive a community passport from Jewish Community Ambassador Mickey Lebowitz. and “new friends” to the community. Our community recently hired a “community teacher,” Moshe Alfasi, who can teach in the varied religious schools, JCC and other institutions. The Jewish Federation of CNY, in collaboration with the Syracuse Hebrew Day School, is now offering financial incentives to attend SHDS. A young adult Shabbat/holiday fund is being started to help groups such as Federation’s Young Leadership group organize holiday events. A new interest-free loan program has been started

by Federation. There are discussions at the CoJO group on better coordinating community events.

We hope you feel the energy and enthusiasm that’s being generated in our community by so many. We are much better together and will be stronger forever as we work together. For more information or suggestions, or to participate in the communitywide transformation, contact Mickey Lebowitz at leboruff@ gmail.com.

C A N D L E L I G H T I N G A N D P A R AS H A

October 12....................... 6:09 pm.................................................... Parashat Noach October 19....................... 5:57 pm............................................. Parashat Lech Lecha October 26....................... 5:47 pm.....................................................Parashat Vayera

INSIDE THIS ISSUE “Arts and Minds”

Congregational notes

Sweden’s Jews

SJFS and IMPARA plan a symp- Loc al synagogues will join Sweden’s Jewish community osium on “Creative Self-Expression worldwide challah bake s; is concerned as far-right and children’s activities; and more. and Well-being in Later Life.”

Islamist groups grow.

Stories on page 4 Story on page 3 Story on page 7

PLUS Small Business Profiles.....8-9 Calendar Highlights............. 10 B’nai Mitzvah......................... 10 Obituaries................................11

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779

A 1939 phone book could be the key to unlocking millions in Polish Holocaust restitution payments

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ WARSAW (JTA) – In the small park behind the only synagogue in this city to have survived World War II, Yoram Sztykgold looks around with a perplexed expression. An 82-year-old retired architect, Sztykgold immigrated to Israel after surviving the Holocaust in Poland. He tries in vain to recognize something from what used to be his childhood home. “It’s no use,” he says after a while. “To me this could be anywhere.”

Sztykgold’s unfamiliarity with the part of Grzybowska Street where he spent his earliest years is not due to any memory loss. Like most of Warsaw, his parents’ apartment building was completely bombed out during the war and leveled, along with the rest of the street. His former home is now a placid park that is a favorite hangout for mothers pushing baby carriages and pensioners his age.

The dramatic changes in Warsaw’s landscape have bedeviled efforts for decades to obtain restitution for privately owned properties like Sztykgold’s childhood home, making it difficult for survivors like him to identify assets that may have belonged to their families.

But for many restitution claimants in the capital, identifying assets will become easier thanks to a recent breakthrough with an unlikely source: the establishment of a first-of-its-kind searchable database.

Users need only type in the name of their family to obtain a complete overview of all the assets they may claim under a new restitution drive in Warsaw.

It’s a high-tech tool only made possible thanks to the recent discovery of an unpublished phone book from 1939.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, set up the database in December 2016. It allowed a relative of Sztykgold to get the first definitive list of the assets the family had in Warsaw before the war, when they headed a real-estate empire. The database allows users to check whether their family owned any of the 2,613 properties that the City of Warsaw said that year it would reopen for restitution claims.

Especially in Sztykgold’s case, the database had “a huge role,” he said, because the only adult from his family who survived the genocide was his mother, who “had only partial knowledge of what her family owned.”

“Bits and pieces, really,” Sztykgold told JTA on September 3 during a restitution-related visit to his place of birth.

During the visit, Sztykgold also got a rare chance to examine the key that led to the groundbreaking database: a yellowing proofing copy of a phone book of sorts from 1939. It was never published because the directory was being prepared when the Germans invaded Poland.

Crucially, the phone book, or registry,

contained information that allowed genealogist Logan Kleinwaks of Washington, DC, to find the names of the owners of thousands of assets, including approximately half of those 2,613 properties that Warsaw said it would reopen to claims.

Poland, where 3.3 million Jews lived before the Holocaust, is the only major country in Europe that has not passed national legislation for the restitution of property unjustly seized from private owners by the Nazis or nationalized by the communist regime, according to the WJRO. Instead of passing legislation, Polish authorities and courts handle restitution claims on a per-case basis.

Dozens of such cases have been resolved in recent years. Several Polish property attorneys told JTA that there is no way of knowing how many of the claims are by Jews.

As it carries out its new restitution drive announced in 2016, and considered controversial by some, Warsaw periodically releases a few dozen addresses of properties from its list that had been claimed during communism, but whose status has never been resolved. The city does not release owners’ names, although it presumably has at least some of them from stalled restitution claims filed for each of the 2,613 assets. Critics of this practice say it deprives claimants of “crucial information” necessary to gain compensation. Advocates say it is designed to minimize fraud.

Once a property is reopened for restitution, claimants have six months to file a second claim. It is an unreasonably short period of time, according to WJRO. But for people like Sztykgold, who don’t even know which addresses their families used to own, the entire 2016 process is irrelevant. Or, at least, it used to be until Kleinwaks “matched addresses announced in 2016 with the names of the owners” who are indicated in the 1939 registry, he said.

Today, the copy is kept in the vaults of the Central Military Library, which in 2014 bought it for about $3,000 from a book collector at an auction. The library then scanned the book and published the scans online. Kleinwaks, who had heard about the auction and was “eagerly awaiting” access to the book’s content, then used software he developed to build an owners’ database from the phone book, matching it with the 2,613 addresses.

So far, the city of Warsaw has reopened only about 300 of the restitution claims from the list of 2,613, and not one of the claimants has received compensation.

Kleinwaks said he does not know how many people are using his database to mount claims. He has reached out personally to more than a dozen families whose names he found, he said, and some of them have subsequently initiated restitution work.

None of the Sztykgold family’s assets – there are over a dozen of them – have been reopened for restitution. But the Sztykgold family is already doing the footwork – locating birth certificates, building a family tree, proving they are the only heirs and many other bureaucratic chores – so that when their assets are reopened, they would have a hope of making the six-month deadline.

Gideon Taylor, WJRO’s chairman of operations, said it was “a very positive step” by Polish authorities to purchase and make available online the 1939 registry.

“But Poland has to now follow through and make that information actionable for heirs, instead of introducing procedure that make it more difficult to reclaim properties,” he said.

Unlike her husband, Liora Sztykgold, 77, can’t even use the WJRO database to find out whether her parents had any assets that are being reopened for restitution.

An orphan who was left in the care of a Catholic convent, she knows neither her birth name nor her date of birth. “It’s not about money,” said Liora, who has two children with Yoram. “Of course, we’d like to leave more to the grandchildren.

It’s about achieving a measure of justice.”

Poland has returned communally owned properties worth many millions of dollars to Jewish and Christian organizations, among others. But it has resisted calls to pass legislation on privately owned properties.

In Warsaw, attempts to achieve justice on restitution are complicated, messy and feature many non-Jewish claimants.

About half of the 2,613 assets on the list

Yoram Sztykgold examined the unpublished registry from 1939 that helped him locate his family’s assets at a military library in Warsaw on September 4. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz) being reopened were probably owned by non-Jewish Poles, according to Kleinwaks. But “there is a general unwillingness to touch the issue,” according to Konstanty Gebert, a Jewish journalist for the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. This is largely because of corruption scandals plaguing it, he said, but additionally, “Many Poles feel the entire nation suffered under Nazism and communism, and that it’s wrong for only a few to get restitution.”

Then there are cases like that of Krystyna Danko, a non-Jewish woman who risked her life to save Jews during the Holocaust.

She was forced out of her home at the age of 100 after the building where she had been living for decades on the ground floor was

See “Phone” on page 6

At left: Wojciech Danko sat on the bed of his mother, Krystyna, while she rested in their Warsaw apartment on September 6.

(Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz)

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AROUND CENTRAL NEW YORK Syracuse Jewish Family Service: “Creative SelfExpression and Well-being in Later Life”

BY NANCY AURELI Syracuse Jewish Family Service and IMPARA: Institute at Menorah Park for Applied Research on Aging invite all older adults, family caregivers and aging services and healthcare professionals to attend a two-day event intended to inspire people to “reach for what it means to be alive and human at any age.” The inaugural Arts and Minds Symposium, “A Reason to Get Up in the Morning: Creative Self-Expression and Well-being in Later Life,” will be held on Wednesday, October 31, from 9 am-5 pm, at Menorah Park in Syracuse, with a pre-event program, “My Annie Hall,” on Tuesday,

“My Annie Hall,” a Woody Allen reboot starring older adults from a senior community center in Manhattan, will screen on Tuesday, October 30, with a panel presentation by co-directors Matt Starr (far left) and Ellie Sachs (far right), who are pictured chatting on location in Manhattan with “Alvy,” played by 94-yearold Harry Miller (second from left), and an unidentified member of the all-senior cast (second from right).

October 30, from 5:30-8 pm.

In inviting the lay public and professionals to participate, IMPARA Director Judith Huober said, “Experience, understand and learn to harness creative and expressive strategies that promote well-being in later life.

A design-thinking process will guide participants through an imGary Glazner mersion into the transformative possibilities offered by creative and expressive arts and will provide insight into how and why these modalities influence well-being so powerfully in later life.”

The day of October 31 will culminate with a conversation about collaborating to innovate creative self-expression programming in the community and in people’s personal and professional lives. The film and dinner on October 30 will offer a “captivating – and hilarious – illustration of what happens when we offer older adults the chance to engage their creative selves.”

The October 31 symposium day will include breakfast and lunch, and feature a keynote by Gary Glazner, poet, author and founder of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, on “Celebrating Creativity in Work and Play with Older Adults,” along with Donald Carr of Syracuse University’s School of Design and Aging Studies Institute. He will speak on “Planning to Play: Synthesis and Visioning” and introduce and guide the design-thinking process of the event. Glazner will also provide two breakout sessions on “Poetry Jam” with rhythm accompaniment by Jimbo Talbot of DrumQuest and “Poetry Party.”

Melissa Luke, dean’s professor at Syracuse Univer-

Donate to Federation’s hurricane relief fund

The 2018 hurricane season began with its first major storm, Hurricane Florence, which wreaked havoc on the Carolinas and southern East Coast. More hurricanes threaten to follow.

When disaster first strikes, immediate aid is needed to help communities recover and rebuild. Afterward, rebuilding and strengthening resilience can take years.

However, just as with hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, Jewish Federations around the U.S. help meet the urgent

needs of the most severely impacted people.

To donate, send a check to: Jewish Federations of North America, Wall Street Station, PO Box 157, New York, NY 10268 or go to the Jewish Federation of Central New York website (www.JewishFederationCNY.org) and click on the tzedakah box or the NYCharities logo.

Make sure to indicate that this donation is for “Hurricane Relief.” For more information, contact Kathie Piirak at 315-445-2040, ext. 106.

Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center senior dining menu OCTOBER 15-19 Monday – vegetable soup and macaroni and cheese Tuesday – chicken rollatini Wednesday – beef stew over egg noodles Thursday – beef chili Friday – roast turkey, stuffing OCTOBER 22-26 Monday – split pea soup and turkey sandwich Tuesday – flu clinic – imitation crab cake Wednesday – stuffed cabbage Thursday – meatloaf Friday – birthday celebration – salmon with dill The Bobbi Epstein Lewis JCC Senior Adult Dining Program at the Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center offers Va’ad Ha’ir-supervised kosher lunches served Monday through Friday at noon. Lunch reser-

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sity, will present a session on “Meet me in the sand: Stories, drama and self-expression in sand tray work.”

Jim Brulé, CEO of Compass Narratives, will speak on transformational storytelling. Gloria Heffernan, poet, author and poetry teacher, will present a session on poetry and the spirit. Barbara Baum, artist, teacher and principal of Paint Partners, will speak on “But can you say it in See “Family” on page 5

There’s so much going on

BY JUDITH STANDER People say that it takes time to scroll through the choices published in the bi-weekly Community Happenings e-bulletin, combined with the bi-weekly issues of the Jewish Observer.

The newspaper and the e-bulletin publicize local event information. The JO is technically free, but readers are encouraged to donate to the annual JO Appeal to offset the paper’s expenses that are not covered by advertising income.

The free CNY Community Happenings e-bulletin appears every other week (in between the JO issues) and lists events by various organizations and agencies that serve the Jewish community. Included are activities sponsored by the congregations, as well as cultural events and concerts, educational opportunities and movies.

This e-bulletin also notifies the community of deaths of interest to the Jewish community. When the Post-Standard changed its publishing cycle, the Federation and area funeral services collaborated to keep the community informed of these deaths, and every effort is made to publish obituaries as soon as possible. To be added to the distribution list, contact Judith Stander at 315-4450161, ext. 114.

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Wednesday, October 10................. October 25 Wednesday, October 24............... November 8 Wednesday, November 7........... November 22 Tuesday, November 20, early..... December 6

vations are required by noon on the previous business day. There is a suggested contribution per meal. The menu is subject to change. The program is funded by a grant from the Onondaga County Department of Aging and Youth and the New York State Office for the Aging, with additional funds provided by the JCC. To attend, one need not be Jewish or a member of the JCC. For further information or to make a reservation, contact Cindy Stein at 315-445-2360, ext.

104, or cstein@jccsyr.org.

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779

CONGREGATIONAL NOTES Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas CBS-CS SEMI-ANNUAL RUMMAGE SALE The Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas Sisterhood will hold its semi-annual rummage sale on Sunday, October 28, and Monday, October 29, from 10 am-4 pm, with a bag sale from 2-4 pm on Monday.

Proceeds from the sale help support scholarships for Jewish summer camping experiences, gifts for b’nai mitzvah

students and synagogue needs not in the regular budget.

CBS-CS also collects toiletries and household products for clients of Vera House and Operation Soap Dish. These items may be dropped off at CBS-CS during the above hours.

For more information, contact Steffi Bergman at 315-632-4905 or steffibergman@gmail.com.

On September 25, CBS-CS members enjoyed a spirits tasting presented by the Last Shot Distillery in Skaneateles and played pub trivia at Spirits in the Sukkah. Attendees had hors d’oeuvres and listened to music by congregant Don Siegel on jazz guitar.

Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation THE GREAT BIG CHALLAH BAKE On Thursday, October 25, at 6:45 pm, Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse will host its second Great Big Challah Bake, joining thousands of women across the globe. The event is part of “The Shabbat Project,” a grassroots movement that started in South Africa in 2013 to bring together Jews from across the spectrum of religious affiliation, young and old, and from all corners of the world to experience a complete Shabbat in accordance with Jewish law.

Temple Adath Yeshurun

The event will be led by Shira Shenberger, who will explain the symbolism of the ingredients and the traditions that accompany challah baking. Last year’s event had positive feedback. There is a modest charge and reservations are due

by Monday, October 22. There is a slight supplement at the door for those without reservations. Reservations may be made at www.stocsyracuse.org/events, by e-mailing info@stocsyracuse.org, or calling 315-446-6194 to leave names of those attending.

At left: A group of women made and baked challah at the 2017 Great Big Challah Bake at Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse.

Davia Moss and her children, Cason (in her arms) and Eliana, assembled the lulav and etrog during Temple Adath Yeshurun’s Tot seudah in the sukkah on September 23. The program was part of the Young Children’s Programming at TAY and was funded by the Edward and Marilyn Steinberg Family Fund for Tiny Tots and Preschool Children’s Programming.

On Simchat Torah, two honors are given during the Torah service: hatan/ kallah ha-Torah and hatan/kallat Beresheit, with one of the honorees having the last aliyah read in the book of Deuteronomy and the other the first aliyah in the book of Genesis. These honors are given to congregation members whose commitment has helped build a stronger congregation.

This year, Temple Adath Yeshurun gave the hatan ha-Torah aliyah to Lorne Cohen (left), and the hatan Beresheit aliyah to Michael Gilman (right). Both congregants were given these honors in appreciation of their consistent devotion to attending daily evening services, helping to ensure there is a minyan and willingness to daven.

Temple Concord TC BLOOD DRIVE With more than 500 pints of donated blood collected through a dozen blood drives held at Temple Concord over the last seven years, donors should be very proud to have saved up to 1,500 lives.

That’s a lot of mitzvot.

For those who want to keep giving the gift of life, or even those donating blood for the first time, Temple Concord and the American Red Cross will team up for their annual fall blood drive to be held in the synagogue’s social hall on Sunday, October 28, from 9 am-2 pm. Anyone 16 and older may donate.

Temple Concord blood drive Coordinator Mark Kotzin is signing up donors for appointments every 15 minutes during that time. All blood types are needed, and those with types O+, O-, A- and B- may make a Power Red (double red cell) donation that can help save twice the number of lives.

The entire donation period typically takes about one hour, and those who donate will get free cookies and juice, along with the satisfaction of knowing they have helped save up to three lives.

Donors should bring a photo ID and their donor card (if they’ve given before).

To make an online appointment to donate, go to www.redcrossblood.org or use the Red Cross smartphone app, enter sponsor code “templeconcord” or call Mark Kotzin’s blood drive hotline at 315-288-0773. For more information about donating blood or eligibility, visit www.redcrossblood.org. Donors in the

month of October will be automatically entered to win one of five $500 gift cards redeemable at hundreds of merchants.

TC INTERNATIONAL CHALLAH BAKE

BY ELLYN ROLOFF Temple Concord’s Sisterhood is sponsoring “The International Challah Bake” on Thursday, October 18, at 5:30 pm, in the synagogue’s kitchen.

Sisterhood Co-President Bonnie Leff said, “This is a community challah bake being done on the same special night as thousands of Jews all over the world.”

For a small fee, participants will receive ingredients, a recipe, instruction and support as challahs are made together.

Everyone will make three small challahs, two to take home and one to stay in the freezer to use for Shabbat dinners.

Leff said, “Please bring hands ready to knead, open hearts, and if you would like to use your processor, bring it too, as well as an extension cord. Clothing which can get messy is a must.”

The event is open to the community.

Reservations should be made by contacting the TC office at 315-475-9952 or office@templeconcord.org so sufficient flour, oil, yeast and eggs are available.

GAN FOR TODDLERS A program filled with art, movement and stories about Noah’s Ark will be held for toddlers ages 2-5 at Temple Concord on Sunday, October 14, at 10:30 am. It is open to the community. Call the TC office at 315-475-9952 for more information.

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Vicki Feldman to be honored by Syracuse Sounds of Music On Thursday, October 18, at 5:30 pm, at the Genesee Grande Hotel, the Syracuse Sounds of Music Association will present its annual Ovation Award to Vicki Feldman, of Manlius, for her advocacy, dedication and commitment to the Central New York music community.

The awards dinner and silent auction will take place at the Genesee Grande Hotel, 1060 E. Genesee St., Syracuse. There will be musical entertainment by a Symphoria ensemble.

A graduate of the Syracuse University School of Art, Feldman has been a freelance graphic designer in the Syracuse area for many years and began providing graphic design and event planning services to a number of non-profit organizations. Her involvement with the Central New York music community began when she joined the Syracuse Symphony Association’s Board of Directors in 2001, where she became vice president in 2006 and president in 2008.

The SSA became a springboard to further involvement with other Central New York music and cultural organizations, including support of the musicians of the interim orchestra that became Symphoria.

When the SSA reorganized in 2011 to Morning Musicals Tiffany Award; 2015 Tembecome the Syracuse Sounds of Music Assople Concord President’s Award; 2012 Menorah ciation Inc., she remained active on the newly Park President’s Award for leadership 2012; formed SSMA Board of Directors, serving as and the 2010 National Council of Jewish president from 2016-18.

Women, Hannah G. Solomon Award. She was She has been on the Temple Concord Board also honored by the Society for New Music in of Directors since 2013, and currently serves as June 2017. She was also one of 100 finalists a vice president and fund-raising chair. She has in the 2008 Pillsbury Bake-Off. organized the synagogue’s Regina F. GoldenThe Syracuse Sounds of Music Associaberg Cultural Series for the past 10 years and tion is a non-profit organization that, through was called instrumental in organizing the 2015 fund-raising events and the Encore Thrift Vicki Feldman performance of Itzhak Perlman with Symphoria.

Shop in Fayetteville, NY, awards grant funds Feldman has served on the boards of Syracuse Opera’s to Central New York non-profit music organizations Aria Society and Menorah Park. She has been the festival each year in December. At the SSMA Annual Meeting in coordinator for the Jewish Music and Cultural Festival, June, $1,000 scholarships are awarded to two area high and for the past 11 years, arts and crafts co-director at the school seniors planning to study instrumental, vocal or Hospice of Central New York’s grief camp for children, music education in college.

“Camp Healing Hearts,” for four days in August each Reservations for “Music Matters” are required and year. She has been a member of the Syracuse Pops Chorus can be made by mail or online. Information about the for the past 10 years and is currently a board member. SSMA, “Music Matters,” awards, and scholarships can Awards include the 2018 Temple Concord Margie be found on the Syracuse Sounds of Music Association Markson Johnson Heart and Soul Award; 2018 Civic Inc. website, syracusesoundsofmusic.org.

Miriam Elman named to Algemeiner’s top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life” Her books include “Jerusalem: Conflict and

BY BETTE SIEGEL Cooperation in a Contested City” (2014) and The Algemeiner traditionally publishes her op-eds have been published by Haaretz, an annual “J100” list of the top 100 people The Post-Standard and other outlets. Elman is “positively influencing Jewish life.” People also an editorial board member of the journals, named to the list do not have to be Jewish. This “International Security, Foreign Policy Analysis fifth annual “J100” list of the top 100 people and Political Research Quarterly.” She serves as was unveiled at a gala attended by more than a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in 500 people in New York City on September the Middle East, a leading pro-Israel organization 13. Honorees in attendance included actress among higher education professionals.”

Sharon Stone and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

William A. Jacobson, clinical professor of Miriam Elman, Syracuse University Maxwell Miriam Elman law and director of the Securities Law Clinic School associate professor of political science, was one of the honorees. Her interests include internation- at Cornell Law School, wrote about Elman’s honor at al relations, international and national security, Middle www.LegalInsurrection.com. He said, “In addition to East, Israel studies, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, BDS her academic and community accomplishments, her work documenting the anti-Israel movement’s tactics and antisemitism, academic freedom and free speech.

In Elman’s citation, The Algemeiner wrote, “An associate has earned Professor Elman deserved accolades.

“We often link to Israel and BDS-related stories that professor of political science and security studies at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, Miriam Elman is run in The Algemeiner. In that regard, there’s an overlap a regular contributor to the influential blog Legal Insurrec- with our coverage of those issues. [Elman’s honor] is tion on topics concerning Israel and the BDS movement. particularly impressive because there were only 11 other

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honorees in the ‘academia’ category.

“Miriam has broken ground in much of her reporting.

While it’s impossible to list all her great posts since she first joined us in April 2015, Miriam has made a name for herself by documenting the anti-Israel movement’s tactics, particularly so-called ‘Jewish Voice for Peace.’

“These posts alerted the community to the insidious danger and often dishonest tactics of the anti-Israel movement, and have helped mobilize opposition.

“Congrats on being named to Algemeiner’s fifth annual J100 List, Miriam. You earned it.”

This article has been shortened to fit the Jewish Observer’s space and length requirements. The section

by William A. Jacobson can be found at https:// legalinsurrection.com/ and is reprinted with his permission. The list of Algemeiner’s top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish Life” can be found at https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/09/14/algemeinerreveals-5th-annual-j100-list-at-star-studded-galafeaturing-sharon-stone-and-nir-barkat/ and is reprinted with permission of The Algemeiner.

Continued from page 3

color?” Megan Perioli, LMHC, R-DMT and CEO/owner of Move with Me LLC and staff, and Talbot, founder of DrumQuest, will present a session on “Body movement and rhythms: finding your inner play.”

Jason Duffy, Ph.D., LMHC, assistant professor at SUNY Oswego, will speak on “The power of metaphor: Enhancing well-being and self-expression through story and language.”

A screening of “My Annie Hall,” a Woody Allen reboot starring older adults from a senior community center in Manhattan, will form the core of the pre-event program on October 30, at 6:30 pm. Preceded by an optional deli supper at 5:30 pm, the film screening will include a panel presentation with co-directors Matt Starr and Ellie Sachs, who will talk and take questions on how they got the idea to remake the film with older adults, what the process involved and some of the outcomes they achieved – in addition to watching the film itself.

The brainchild of Starr and Sachs, “My Annie Hall” was filmed in many of the same locations as the orig-

inal 1977 classic, but with a twist: Alvy is played by 94-year-old Harry Miller and Annie by Shula Chernick, a 73-year-old who can speak and sing in nine languages, and actually used to work at a senior recreation center herself. The film has only had one public showing to date, this past August. “Syracuse is in for an unusual treat,” promised Huober.

Support from sponsors make this symposium possible: Wellbeing Angel Sponsor Health Foundation of Western and Central New York is joined by Jewish Home Foundation, MatrixCare, Pomeranz, Shankman and Martin Trusts, Sodexo, SU Aging Studies Institute, Upstate Printing, WRVO Public Media and others.

Registration for all or some of the symposium events is available at EventBrite or by going to www.sjfs.org.

More information is available by calling 315-446-9111, ext. 234.

SJFS (www.sjfs.org) provides holistic, preventive, wellness-oriented integration of social and human services offered without regard to race or creed to all

residents of Central New York. SJFS seeks to help individuals and families in the Jewish and general communities maximize their self-determination, realize their potential and live with dignity. With emphasis on issues relating to aging, SJFS provides human services on site and in community-based locations falling into four arms: planning and navigating the journey; promoting and restoring mental health; supporting brain health and living well with dementia; and empowering the team – families, professionals and ancillary services.

IMPARA (www.impara-cny.org) is a centrally located hub for research, training and delivery of care and services to the aging. IMPARA creates collaborative constellations of institutions, agencies and individuals who will bring its mission and expertise to complement those of Menorah Park; the benefits of these partnerships impact the aging (and soon-to-be aging) population of the Central New York region, as well as that of similar regions and well beyond.

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779

Decorating the JCC sukkah with PJ Library®

BY ANKUR DANG Four-year-old Collin Szyffer was all set to leave for Disney World with his parents on September 23. Images of Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan and The Incredibles raced through his mind. But before he could get on the plane, he had one stop to make – the PJ Library® in Central New York’s sukkah decorating party at the Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center.

“I couldn’t go without putting up my decorations,” Collin said as he stuck watermelon-shaped foam stickers onto a mobile he had received in the mail from the PJ Library for the holiday. “Our sukkah will look the prettiest when we put all our decorations up.”

While he continued to work with the fruit stickers, his younger brother, Caleb Szyffer, age 2, applied his talents to a scratch-apple that would also go on one of the walls of the sukkah. Their parents were “happy to see that the brothers were truly enjoying themselves,” completely immersed in their craftwork.

Sukkot, commonly translated as Feast of Tabernacles (the Feast of Ingathering), is a biblical holiday celebrated on the 15th day of Tishrei. During ancient times, it was one of the three pilgrimage festivals.

Today, Sukkot is commemorated by Jews through the building of a sukkah, a temporary shelter under the stars, and dwelling in it for seven days from the first night of Sukkot. Families invite friends and neighbors to join them for meals in the sukkah, especially on the first two days of the holiday.

“Welcoming people is a big part of Sukkot,” said Carolyn Weinberg, coordinator of PJ Library in CNY, a JCC of Syracuse program. “The idea of this event was the same – to welcome guests and to celebrate

the holiday with them. All PJ Library subscribers got mobiles in the mail which they could decorate and then write the names of everyone who came to their sukkah.

We are also doing the same thing; sharing our joy with the larger community.”

The event was attended by seven families, including some interfaith families. According to Weinberg, this is not unusual. In fact, many of these families are PJ Library subscribers who receive one storybook in the mail every month about Jewish customs and beliefs.

Weinberg said, “Children love having stories The JCC sukkah started to take shape with the help of several families who came read to them. These books to help out on September 23. are a way for families to learn more about Judaism together, especially interfaith families where one partner did not grow up with Jewish traditions. Besides, it is a way for children to connect emotionally with their heritage. For instance, I know some kids insisted that they wanted a sukkah of their own so that they could sleep under it like the characters in the story.”

“Is Mickey sleeping in a sukkah, too?” asked Collin Szyffer as his father helped him tie a lantern to the ceiling of the JCC sukkah. “Maybe we can join him.”

The Szyffer family was ready to decorate the Sam Pomeranz Jewish Community Center sukkah. L-r: Rebecca, Collin, Caleb and Brian.

Phone PJ Library of CNY Coordinator Carolyn Weinberg took a break from the sukkah decorating activities to share a moment with her son Aiden.

Collin Szyffer attached his decorated mobile to the JCC sukkah’s ceiling while being held up by his dad, Brian (not pictured).

Menorah Park bids Cantor Moskowitz shalom on his retirement

BY STEWART KOENIG Residents, staff and friends gathered on September 13 at Menorah Park’s Bistro to wish Cantor Marvin Moskowitz a happy retirement, as he leaves for New Jersey to be near family.

The cantor came to Menorah Park in 1988 as kosher supervisor (mashgiach) and in 2004, he took over conducting Shabbat and holiday services, and other programming duties. Menorah Park CEO Mary Ellen Bloodgood said, “We will miss Cantor Moskowitz and

wish him the very best. He brought loving and living Yiddishkeit to Menorah Park.”

Continued from page 2 returned in 2016 to restitution claimants from Paris. (The claimant, Emilia Radziun, who owns a supermarket in the French capital, has told the Polish media that she is not Jewish. She did not reply to JTA’s attempts to reach her.)

Now Danko lives in a public housing building on the sixth floor, where her wheelchair barely fits the rickety elevator. Her son, Wojciech, says that his mother, who is nearly 102, went blind during the weeks of the move from the stress involved. “What happened to my mother wasn’t just, but I understand the Jewish perspective of seeking justice through restitution,” he said. “I think we need legislation and a compromise because the way this is going isn’t good for too many people.”

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Chanukah is coming!

Director of Development of the Foundation at Menorah Park Susie Drazen and Menorah Park CEO Mary Ellen Bloodgood presented Cantor Marvin Moskowitz a menorah as a retirement gift.

L-r: Liora Sztykgold and her husband, Yoram, rested in a Warsaw park that used to be his childhood home on September 5. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz)

Issue Date: November 22 Ad Deadline: November 14 To advertise in this special ad section, please contact Bonnie Rozen at 1-800-779-7896, ext 244 or bonnie@thereportergroup.org.

Our Wedding, Prom and Party Planning Guide is coming soon!

Issue Date: October 25 • Ad Deadline: October 17 To advertise in this keepsake section, please contact Bonnie Rozen at 1-800-779-7896, ext 244 or bonnie@thereportergroup.org.

OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779 ■

JEWISH OBSERVER

Sweden’s Jews concerned as far-right and Islamist groups grow

BY DAN LAVIE (Israel Hayom via JNS) – The president of Sweden’s Jewish Central Council said he is concerned by the significant gains made by a nationalist right-wing party with neo-Nazi roots in the country’s recent elections. Aron Verstandig told Israel Hayom that while he believes the Sweden Democrats will not be part of the new government, “one can never know.”

He said the Jewish community’s main concern in recent years was the strengthening of radical movements in Western Europe and North America, which he said could have consequences for Jewish communities there.

Verstandig called the nationalist right in Sweden an indirect, but palpable, threat to the local Jewish community because, although it does not explicitly call for Jews to be kicked out of the country, it is no fan of minorities.

He noted that “the strength of the neo-Nazis is felt more forcefully in the last two to three years, with them holding marches and event pretty frequently.”

The Jewish community in Stockholm, where over half of Sweden’s 15,000 Jews reside, held an emergency rally recently that included an emergency briefing on the threats facing Swedish Jews. Among those who attended were representatives from the anti-racist Expo Research organization, Sweden’s Military Academy Karlberg, and representatives of the police and security forces.

“Because our community is comprised of many Holocaust survivors and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we are naturally shocked at the rise of the underground Nazi movement,” he emphasized, calling for local politicians to rein in neo-Nazis and their activities.

Along with the far-right, the Salafi Sunni Islamist movement is also growing in Sweden.

A recent report by the Swedish Defense Ministry described the city of Gothenburg, one of the largest exporters of jihadis in Europe, as a Salafist stronghold.

In December, three Syrian and Palestinian assailants were arrested for firebombing a synagogue in the city.

Sweden recently announced plans to build a Holocaust museum with a focus on Swedish survivors in the southern city of Malmo, where dozens of antisemitic incidents are reported each year, as well as a center dedicated to Swedish Righteous Among the Nations Raoul Wallenberg, responsible for saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.

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of members has grown. “One can still live a good Jewish life here,” he said. (See related newsbrief on page 15.)

According to Kesselman, “What is amazing about the community in Malmo is that while many have already left – not necessarily because of antisemitism, but due to the general secular atmosphere – we are seeing a record number of people take part in Rosh Hashanah activities and activities ahead of Yom Kippur. There is a certain awakening of people going back to their roots and identity, maybe precisely because of this period of uncertainty.”

The Swedish flag flies over Stockholm. (Photo by Stefan Lins via Flickr) “It feels like the move is more important than ever,” Swedish Health and Social Affairs Minister Annika Strandhäll wrote on Twitter.

Verstandig said, “I know that Prime Minister Stefan Löfven attributes much importance to the matter on a personal level. Last year, he visited [the Nazi death camp] Auschwitz, and in my opinion, it moved him. We met a number of times, and it is clear that this is really important to him.”

Still, Rabbi Shneur Kesselman, director of Chabad Lubavitch Malmö, was much more skeptical about the decision to open the museum, citing concerns those behind the move were more interested in calming tensions than actually improving the situation for Jews.

Sweden’s third-largest city, Malmö has taken in thousands of Muslim asylum-seekers in recent years. The Sweden Democrats received more than 30 percent of the city’s vote. The city’s 450 Jewish residents, along with the 1,500 other Jews residing in its environs, will likely pay the price of these elections in addition to the antisemitic incidents there that have become commonplace.

“No doubt the strengthening of the movement with a neo-Nazi background adds to everyone’s sense of threat, although one must not compare our concerns in the Jewish community, which are greater than those of the ‘locals,’ who are seen as ‘authentic’ [Swedes],” said Kesselman. “My greatest concern is that the radical right will continue to grow and its power will grow, and my hope is of course that the opposite will happen.”

On a positive note, Verstandig said it was important that people know that despite these challenges, the Jewish community in Stockholm is quite active, and the number

NEWS IN BRIEF From JNS.org

Greenblatt consults U.S. senators on Mideast peace plan

(Israel Hayom via JNS) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for Middle East Affairs Jason Greenblatt has spoken with a number of senators on both sides of the political aisle recently about the president’s plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Greenblatt tweeted on Oct. 5. Greenblatt said it had been well worth it for him and Trump adviser and sonin-law Jared Kushner to meet with Republican Sens.

Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, James Lankford, James Risch, and Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin, Chris Coons, Jeanne Shaheen, Bob Menendez and Chris Van Hollen to “discuss the Trump administration’s peace efforts.”

Trump and his staff have spent many months working on what he has called the “deal of the century.” Palestinian reports in August said that the president would unveil it at his address to the U.N. General Assembly in September, but that did not come to pass. The United States has, in the past, warned that if Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas remains adamant in his refusal to engage the United States as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Washington will introduce its regional peace plan regardless of his reservations. Abbas has been shunning the U.S.’s peace efforts since Trump’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the subsequent move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and has accused the Trump administration of being “grossly biased” in Israel’s favor.

Ithaca College Jewish Studies program presents Professor Ted Merwin on the role of the Jewish deli in American Jewish life

BY PETER SILBERMAN Merwin is a professor, blogger, journalist, humorist, collector and public intellectual. He On Thursday, October 25, at 7:30 pm, in has been called an authority on Judaism in Textor 101 on the Ithaca College campus, America. He is the author of two books, “In author Ted Merwin will present a talk on the Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age rise, fall and rise again of the Jewish deli and Popular Culture” and “Pastrami on Rye: an its role in American Jewish life titled “Pastrami Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli,” winner on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish of the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in Deli.” For much of the 20th century, the New the category of education and Jewish identity.

York Jewish deli was considered an iconic “Pastrami on Rye” has been featured in USA institution in both Jewish and American life. As Today, The New York Times, New York Post, a social space it was said to rival – and in some Ted Merwin New York Daily News, New York Observer, ways, surpass – the synagogue as the primary gathering place for the Jewish community. Ultimately, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, The Economist, Merwin has noted, upwardly mobile American Jews London Jewish Chronicle, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, discarded the deli as they transitioned from outsider to Times of Israel and many others and on various media insider status in the middle of the century. Contemporary outlets. He has given more than 100 multimedia lectures Jews are said to be returning the deli to cult status as over the last several years, including at the 92nd Street Y they seek to reclaim their cultural identities. in New York City, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Los

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Angeles, the Spertus Institute in Chicago, the Department of Homeland Security at JFK, the FDIC in Washington, DC, and at universities, synagogues, JCCs, libraries, book festivals, and museums from coast to coast. For more information visit tedmerwin.com.

The lecture is sponsored by Ithaca College’s Jewish Studies Program and is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Rebecca Lesses, coordinator of Jewish studies, at rlesses@ithaca.edu, 607-274-3556 or rlesses@ithaca.edu or visit the Facebook page, https:// www.facebook.com/events/2151244728528137/. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Lesses by e-mail or phone. Requests for accommodations should be made as soon as possible.

Peter Silberman is an associate professor in music theory, history and composition, and wrote this article on behalf of the Ithaca College Jewish Studies Program.

Visit the JO online at jewishfederationcny.org and click on Jewish Observer

8

JEWISH OBSERVER ■ OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779

Amy Bach, author who researches criminal justice system, awarded $100,000 Charles Bronfman Prize

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN NEW YORK (JTA) – Amy Bach has won the 2018 Charles Bronfman Prize for her research in statistics about the criminal justice system. The organization announced on September 5 that it was giving the Jewish humanitarian award to Bach, a lawyer and award-winning author. She is the founder and executive director of Measures for Justice, an organization that provides data on the criminal justice system across the United States Bach told JTA she was “thrilled” to receive the prize, which carries a $100,000 award. She said she will give

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her prize money to her organization. “It means so much to the work that we’re doing and to all the people on our team who’ve worked so hard to create public data that people can use so they can see how their county’s justice system is working,” she said in a phone interview.

Measures for Justice currently provides data for free on its website about six states’ criminal justice systems, including statistics about case outcomes from arrest to post-trial. The data can be filtered by categories such as defendants’ race and ethnicity, sex, age and offense type. The organization plans to release information about

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14 additional states by 2020, Bach said.

“It’s foundational that we need to see the problems in the criminal justice system before we can fix them,” Bach said. “Otherwise, we’re flying blind.”

Founded in 2004, the Charles Bronfman Prize is presented annually to a Jewish humanitarian under the age of 50 whose Amy Bach won the 2018 work draws on Jewish values. Charles Bronfman (Bach, now 50, was 49 in time Prize for her research for the nomination deadline in in statistics about the January.) Previous recipients criminal justice system. include Israeli writer Etgar (Photo by John Schlia) Keret, KIPP charter schools network co-founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, and Gift of Life founder Jay Feinberg. The prize was created by Ellen Hauptman and Stephen Bronfman – together with their spouses Andrew Hauptman and Claudine Blondin Bronfman – in honor of their father Charles, a Jewish philanthropist and co-founder of the Taglit Birthright program.

Charles Bronfman praised Bach’s work in a statement.

“Amy’s work revealed a critical gap in our criminal justice system, and she developed an ingenious method for filling it,” he said. “She epitomizes the concern for social justice and entrepreneurial spirit that the prize recognizes.”

Rosalie Silberman Abella, a justice on Canada’s Supreme Court, said in a statement on behalf of the prize’s judges that Bach’s research helps improve the situation of marginalized people. “Prison impacts some of the most disadvantaged,” Abella said in a statement. “Amy’s initiatives go toward taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves, addressing universal issues of poverty, race, indigenous populations, the undereducated.”

Bach, a graduate of Stanford Law School, first started investigating the criminal justice system as part of an article for The Nation about an overburdened public defender who had little time for his clients. That story prompted her to look further at how people were being treated in the justice system and culminated in the publication of her book “Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court.” In the book, which won the 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Bach looks at how the shortcomings of the criminal justice system affect ordinary people.

A year later, Bach founded Measures for Justice. She says she draws inspiration from Judaism. “In terms of my Jewish values, it’s making the world a better place and trying to make visible the invisible harm that people have to suffer on a daily basis,” she said.

She added that her goal is both to help people in the criminal justice system who are suffering and people working in the system who “want to do the right thing, but can’t see the problem yet.”

Bach lives in Rochester with her husband, John Markman, a physician at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and their 10-year-old son, Leo.

NEWS IN BRIEF From JNS.org

Trump signs Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act into law

U.S. President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act into law on Oct. 3, providing protections for American victims of international terrorism. The measure “allows certain assets that are seized or frozen by the United States to be used to satisfy judgments against a terrorist party for claims based on an act of terrorism,” according to a White House statement. In the Senate, it was co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Christopher Coons (D-DE), John Cornyn (R-TX), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Kennedy (R-LA) and John Boozman (R-AR). In the House, it was co-sponsored by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Bill Posey (R-FL), Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and John Rutherford (R-FL). “The history of Palestinian and Iranian terrorism against Americans is extensive, going decades and ranging from hijackings to suicide-bombings and assassinations,” Cruz said in a statement. “For too long, American citizens have been disgracefully denied justice. This bill will ensure that American victims of terrorism are empowered to secure accountability from terrorists and their supporters.”

OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779 ■

JEWISH OBSERVER

9

NEWS IN BRIEF From JNS.org

Jerusalem mayor announces that city will evict UNRWA

The city of Jerusalem will evict the United Nations Relief Works Agency (or UNRWA) in light of the organization’s illegal activities and incitement of Palestinians against Israel, according to Mayor Nir Barkat on Oct. 4. In a statement, Barkat said the new U.S. policy cutting $300 million to the organization inspired the move, which will see unlicensed UNRWA-run schools, medical centers and sports facilities transferred to Israeli authorities. According to Barkat, who is stepping down from his position after municipal elections at the end of the month in order to run for Knesset, schools will be closed by the end of the current school year. “The U.S. decision has created a rare opportunity to replace UNRWA’s services with services of the Jerusalem Municipality,” he said. “We are putting an end to the lie of the ‘Palestinian refugee problem’ and the attempts at creating a false sovereignty within a sovereignty.” UNRWA was founded in 1949 to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees from Israel’s War of Independence. Still operational today, UNRWA not only provides funding and resources to tens of thousands of remaining refugees, but also to their five million-plus descendants in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. The United Nations has not identified descendants of refugees as refugees in any other population dispute

worldwide. Israel has argued that UNRWA perpetuates a problem of Palestinian refugees by discouraging their absorption in other countries, as well as inflating their numbers.

Israel absorbed 688,000 Jews between 1949 and 1951, following the Holocaust and the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries. Between 1989 and 2006, Israel absorbed approximately 900,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union.

Study: Artificial sweeteners turn gut bacteria toxic

Giving new meaning to the phrase “sickly sweet,” researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have found that artificial sweeteners are toxic to digestive gut microbes. Published in the journal Molecules, the joint study with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore discovered that bacteria in the digestive system became toxic when exposed to as little as 1 milligram per milliliter of aspartame, Sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame and acesulfame potassium-k, as well as 10 sport supplements containing the sweeteners. All of the supplements and sweeteners are currently FDA-approved and E.U.-approved. Researchers warned that the consumption of artificial sweeteners has been linked to metabolic disorders, weight gain, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and the alteration of gut microbes. They also revealed that artificial-sweetener traces are beginning to appear in drinking and surface water, as well as underground aquifers.

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fayetteville@drmalara.com Website: www.DrMalara.com Hours: Evenings and Saturday appointments available in both offices Dr. Richard Malara has been providing “Professional Eye Care With A Personal Touch” to the people of Central New York since 1992. He has been involved in numerous “Gift of Sight” community service projects, as well as nine overseas medical missions projects. Dr. Malara is a yearly participant in the “Save Your Vision” campaign through the American Optometric Association. Dr. Malara is a Syracuse native who has chosen to locate his practices here to give back to the community he was raised in.

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Dr. Tucker’s family taught him the importance of helping others. Carrying on his family tradition, he supports numerous community charities and the work of the Dalai Lama, with whom he has had private audience.

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779

Calendar Highlights

To see a full calendar of community events, visit the Federation's community calendar online at www.jewishfederationcny.org. Please notify jstander@jewishfederationcny.org of any calendar changes.

Wednesday, October 10 Deadline for October 25 Jewish Observer Saturday, October 13

Temple Concord Noach Havdalah at the Wild Animal

Park in Chittenango at 6 pm TC Cinemagogue: “The Year My Parents Went on Vaca tion” at 7:30 pm Sunday, October 14

TC Sisterhood meeting at 9:30 am

TC Men’s Club meeting at 9:30 am Menorah Park Auxiliary membership brunch at The Bistro at 11 am

Jewish genealogy group at the JCC at 1:30 pm Federation Major Donors event at 6 pm, followed by comedian Scott Blakeman at 7 pm Tuesday, October 16 Sisterhood Symposium at the JCC at 6 pm Epstein School at Temple Adath Yeshurun from 6:308:30 pm Wednesday, October 17 Syracuse Community Hebrew Schoolat TAY from 4-6 pm Thursday, October 18 TC”The International Challah Bake” in the synagogue’s kitchen at 5:30 pm Sunday, October 21 Temple Adath Yeshurun Hazak luncheon at noon Tuesday, October 23 Epstein School at Temple Adath Yeshurun from 6:308:30 pm Wednesday, October 24 Deadline for November 8 Jewish Observer Wednesday, October 25 Syracuse Community Hebrew School at TAY from 4-6 pm Thursday, October 25 Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse The Great Big Challah Bake at 6:45 pm Sunday, October 28 Blood drive at TC from 9 am-2 pm Tuesday, October 30 Epstein School at Temple Adath Yeshurun from 6:308:30 pm Wednesday, October 31 Syracuse Community Hebrew School at TAY from 4-6 pm Wednesday, November 7 Deadline for November 22 Jewish Observer

D’VAR TORAH

And the king will yearn...

BY JIM BRULÉ This week, we read “Lech Lecha,” Go, go! We are propelled into the story of the first of our line, the couple whose names and lives will be altered by their encounters with the breath of God. How fitting, then, to take a sweet, mystical midrash as our opening into this portion. Rabbi Yitzhak said, “This may be compared to one who was passing from place to place and saw a fortress doleket (burning or illuminated).” He said, “Will you say this fortress has no governor?” The master of the fortress peeped out at him and said, “I am the master of the fortress.” Thus, because our father Avraham would say, “Will you say this world has no governor?” the Holy One peeped out at him and said, “I am the Master of the world.” (Midrash Rabbah – Genesis 39:1) As usual, the first question to ask is, “What is the question?” In this case, the question is, “Why Avram? What did he do to merit this amazing blessing and progeny?” This midrash is one of several that attempt to provide an answer; amongst them, this is the most mystical.

The surface meaning is simple and enticing. It sug-

B’NAI MITZVAH Noah Satterlee

Noah Satterlee, son of David and Jennifer Satterlee, of East Syracuse, became bar mitzvah at Temple Concord on September 29. He is the grandson of Dale and Marla Bly, of Corning, NY, and Richard and Rosemary Satterlee, of Remsen, NY. He is a student at Pine Grove Middle School and attends the Rabbi Jacob Epstein School of Noah Satterlee Jewish Studies.

He enjoys Syracuse University sports, including football and basketball. Doing mitzvot is an important part of Noah’s life. He has raised money for the Immune Deficiency Foundation, Walk for PI and Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central New York. He regularly collects the tabs on cans to donate to Ronald McDonald House Charities. His current mitzvah project is collecting travel-size toiletries and creating care bags for the parents of patients at Golisano Children’s Hospital.

gests that Avram was able to look at the world around us and recognize that it must have a Creator; having such an insight (presumably at a time when others did not) was the basis for Avram’s being chosen. Oh, but let’s go deeper.

The mashal – the analogy used to teach the lesson in this parable – is that of a fortress doleket, a term normally understood to mean burning. So at this level, Avram perceives not only the world and knows it must have a Creator, but also that the world is burning: i.e., in peril. What is that peril? Perhaps that the fortress appears to be unattended. “Never fear,” calls out the governor as the traveler’s worry mounts, “I am here.”

So the Creator not only was known to Avram intellectually, but responded directly to Avram’s yearning for the repair of the world.

Now, deeper still, the fortress may not be on fire – in danger – but may, on the contrary, be illuminated: engulfed in the bright light of the Divine. Now, the traveler’s recognition and searching is not out of fear, but out of recognition that the whole of Creation is suffused with the radiance of God. And, of course, at that recognition, God doesn’t just appear to Avram, but “peeps out”: playfully, mischievously, lovingly.

And yet, deeper still. This midrash is presented as sandwiched between verses from Psalms: “Listen, princess, and look, incline your ear, and forget your people, and your father’s house. And let the king yearn for your beauty – to beautify you in the world – for he is your master, and bow down to him.” (Psalms 45:11-12) We have learned that many of the verses of the psalms can be understood to be a love song between God and Israel. In these verses, they highlight the yearning of God for us, rather than the other way around. The daughter is being encouraged to leave her house, her people, and succumb to the king’s yearnings – just as Avram was asked to leave his home, his land, his people. In this setting, it is not that God chooses Avram in some form of contest or test, but because God loves him – and us – so much that the Holy One is drawn out from behind the curtain to peep out at us and say – here I am! Hineini! Come, and let me love you!

May we all be blessed with knowing the Eternal’s yearning for us.

Maggid Jim Brulé is a member of Temple Concord and a transformational storyteller throughout Central New York. He teaches transformational storytelling online at www.TransformationalStorytelling.org.

The “best football player who grew up in Israel” seeks a spot at U.S. college

BY HILLEL KUTTLER TEL AVIV (JTA) – In the summer of 2011, Yuval Fenta saw two guys tossing a football on the beach in Herzliya. He asked to participate. “You’re too small,” they responded.

A dejected Fenta retreated, but not before hearing them mention an American football league that played in Israel.

Seven years later, Fenta has showed them.

Now a 21-year-old running back for the Tel Aviv Pioneers, the son of Ethiopian immigrants for the past three seasons has earned the Israel Football League’s Offensive Player of the Year award. In 2017-18 he ran for 1,561 yards, averaged 6.9 yards per carry and scored 14 touchdowns.

Before that, with the Kfar Saba Hawks, he twice won the Israel High School Football League’s Most Valuable Player award and led the team to a championship each of his three seasons. Right after graduating to the adult league, Fenta led Israel’s national team to

a 2015 European championship.

This season, which begins November 15, will be Fenta’s last in Israel. Beginning in 2019, he intends to play college football in America – in Division II, or maybe even Division I, the highest level.

(The 2018-19 season will be the eightteam IFL’s first playing 11 on 11, having previously fielded nine a side due to a shortage of players.)

Before applying to U.S. colleges this winter, Fenta is studying to improve his English to succeed on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, a key entrance exam. Only in high school, Yuval Fenta plays he said, did he understand that good grades running back for the Tel could open the door to college.

Aviv Pioneers. (Photo by Now, “no one can set limits for me. I’ll Hillel Kuttler) decide what I’m capable of doing,” Fenta said on an early-September evening in Yarkon Park’s

Sportek complex prior to the Pioneers’ first preseason practice.

As to playing Division I football, where the best American college players compete, the 6-foot, 180-pound Fenta said: “They’re bones and muscle, just like I am.”

For two and a half years, prior to his recent discharge, Fenta served in the Israeli army with “active athlete” status – the only football player so classified. He would have preferred serving in a combat unit, as did three of his brothers. But his status enabled him to work in a part-time desk job – he handled paperwork covering wounded soldiers’ medical care – while developing his athletic ability.

Fenta is one of nine children born to Ethiopian Jewish parents who moved to See “Best” on page 11

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JEWISH OBSERVER

OBITUARIES Kosher beer label launched in JOAN BARBARA LEVITON Portuguese town with a few dozen Jews

BY JTA STAFF Brewers in Portugal have announced the country’s first kosher artisanal beer, which will debut at the country’s kosher market in October. The first brew in July yielded about 500 bottles, or 50 gallons, of the Cabralinha label, the RTP public broadcaster reported. Its name means “little goat” in Portuguese. The brewery is located in Belmonte, one of the three municipalities in Portugal with their own rabbis and synagogues, and is under the supervision of Elisha Salas, the local rabbi.

A municipality spokesperson said on August 23 that the beer would be part of the kosher market of Belmonte, an annual event that began in 2010. This year, the market will open on October 14 in the central Portuguese city.

The beer is produced with honey from Israel and local ingredients from the Serra da Estrela mountain range on which Belmonte is situated, Ana Bogalheiro, who works for the brewery, told RTP. The area has only a few dozen practicing Jews, but thousands of others trace their lineage to ancestors who were forced to abandon Judaism during the 16th century under the Inquisition campaign of persecution.

Salas is an emissary of the Shavei Israel organization, which works to bring communities who were lost to the Jewish people into the fold of Judaism. The region’s historical background is key to understanding the growing popularity there of kosher products there, Michael Freund, Shavei Israel’s founder, has said. Last year, one of Serra da Estrela’s oldest producers of olive oil, Casa Agrícola Francisco Esteves, located in the

Best

Visitors browsed the annual kosher market in Belmonte, Portugal. on September 17, 2017. Brewers in Portugal have announced the country’s first kosher artisanal beer, which will debut at the country’s kosher market in October. (Photos courtesy of Jornal de Belmonte) town of Manteigas, launched a kosher label in time for Hanukkah, the holiday when Jews celebrate a miracle connected to oil.

In the nearby town of Covilha on the range’s southern tip is the Braz Queijos cheese factory, which in 2009 obtained a kosher certificate for most of its products, becoming the first to do so in Portugal in modern times.

Five years earlier, a winery in the same town produced what was said to be Portugal’s first kosher-certified wine in centuries. A kosher hotel that was opened in Belmonte in 2016 has received 16,000 guests recently, Jornal Do Fundao reported.

Continued from page 10

Israel in 1991 from their village near Gondar. The next year, Fenta’s father, Adeba, traveled to Ethiopia to bring his parents to Israel. Yuval’s paternal grandparents are both centenarians and live near Haifa.

When their son first took up football, Fenta’s parents feared for his safety – especially after he broke a leg late in his first season with Tel Aviv. “But they quickly realized that this is me,” he said.

They cover his gym membership, prepare protein-laden meals and buy him whole wheat bread. “Relative to their means” – Adeba works as a gardener and his wife, Ungudai, cleans homes – “they pay more for me than rich parents do for their kids,” said Fenta, who works as a waiter.

Coaches and teammates said that though he is quiet, Fenta is a leader. Fenta paraphrased former NFL wide receiver Cris Carter in saying that football developed his personality and character. The Israeli standout met 18 NFL Hall of Famers, including Carter, who visited Israel in June 2017.

Told of Fenta’s remark, Carter seemed gratified.

“That’s what we hope for in our life,” Carter, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Minnesota Vikings and the Miami Dolphins, told JTA. “We as Hall of Famers know the platform we have. We’re very careful with the things we say, realizing that everything we say is like a [stone] thrown in a pond. It’s going to have a ripple effect.”

IFL Commissioner Betzalel Friedman called Fenta “the best running back in the league since he entered – it’s not even close” and offered this scouting report: “He knows how to be patient as a runner. He can turn on the jets. He can run behind his blockers and find a hole.

He’s also not afraid to lower his head and have contact.”

Tel Aviv’s head coach, Assaf Gvili, called Fenta “the best football player who grew up in Israel.

“He’s phenomenal, eager to learn and very coachable,” Gvili said. “Most talented players have big egos; he doesn’t.”

Itay Ashkenazi, Kfar Saba’s former head coach, remembers being stunned when Fenta gained 15 yards on a sweep, vaulted several feet over a would-be Haifa tackler and ran for another 15. On defense, at outside linebacker, Fenta displayed speed, strength, tackling ability and, overall, was “a shut-down player,” Ashkenazi said.

His Kfar Saba teammate and fellow captain, Damian Faur, cited a critical play that Fenta made on defense, also against Haifa. Kfar Saba was leading 32-30 late in the 2014 championship game, but Haifa was driving deep in Kfar Saba territory. After a completion, Fenta and a teammate crashed into the receiver, who fumbled. Fenta recovered the ball and the championship was secured.

“I’m not surprised that Yuval was the one who won the game,” Faur said.

Gvili plans to employ Fenta as a linebacker-safety

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hybrid this season. Playing offense and defense, Gvili believes, will help Fenta showcase his skills for the American colleges he approaches. “A talent like him should keep working on his craft,” Ashkenazi said. Fenta, he said, “can play college football, for sure.”

At Sportek, Fenta joined his teammates for practice on an unmarked grassy patch squeezed between basketball courts and a busy street. The nearest light tower beaming in their direction was at least 100 yards off. They danced into and out of stringy boxes in an agility drill, sprinted station to station toward cones, got into position to tackle and be tackled. Fenta and others absorbed a coach’s instruction to linebackers, then dropped quickly into zone coverage.

Being a dual threat appeals to Fenta. Heading off to another country, even just for a few years – that will be challenging. “It will be hard for me,” he said of leaving.

“I’m very patriotic, very Zionist.”

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Joan Barbara Leviton, 85, died on September 18 in Phoenix, AZ, after a short illness.

Born in Philadelphia, PA, she married Leo Henry Leviton in 1954. After her children were grown, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in Judaic studies from Gratz College. She was deeply committed to her family and community, and was active in Amit Women, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and Temple Ner Tamid. She was the owner of Leo Leviton Company in North Syracuse.

She is survived by her sons, Kartar Singh Khalsa and Robert Jay Leviton; her daughter, Sat Kaur Khalsa; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Burial was in Frumah Packard Cemetery. Birnbaum Funeral Service had arrangements.

Contributions may be made to Amit Children https:// amitchildren.org/. 

GLORIA NOVAK

Gloria Novak, 89, died at home on September 25 in Lake Worth, FL. Born in Englewood, NJ, she had been a resident of Syracuse for most of her life until retiring to Florida in 2000. She was a music teacher of stringed instruments and piano, first in White Plains, NY, then in the Syracuse City School District from 1970 until retiring in 1984.

She was a member of Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas, and Temple Beth Tikvah, Lake Worth FL. She graduated from Ithaca College with a bachelor and two master’s degrees in music. It is also where she met her husband of 45 years, Sidney. She was also an accomplished concert pianist. She spent her spare time volunteering for various organizations, including Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas, where she served as Sisterhood president; Civic Morning Musicals; Hadassah; Syracuse Polish Women’s Singers Alliance; and more recently, as a board member of the Covered Bridge Homeowners Association of Lake Worth.

She was predeceased by her husband, Sidney, in 2000; her sisters-in-law, Claire Novak,Annie Mickelson, Diane Wallace and Fannie Wallace; and her brothers-in-law Myer Novak, Arnold Mickelson, Sheldon Wallace and Harold Wallace.

She is survived by her children, Mickey Novak, Perry (Kathleen) Novak, Shelah (Mike Barker) Novak, Harriet (Craig) Mead; five grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Burial was in the Beth Sholom section of Oakwood Cemetery. Sisskind Funeral Service had arrangements.

Contributions may be made to Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas, PO Box 271, DeWitt, NY 13214. 

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JEWISH OBSERVER ■ OCTOBER 11, 2018/2 CHESHVAN 5779

An Afro-Cuban-Yiddish opera tells the story of a Jewish refugee

Cuba’s Taino people in an uprising against

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN Spanish colonial forces in the 16th century.

NEW YORK (JTA) – “Hatuey: Memory of He was so taken by Hatuey’s heroism and Fire” flashes alternately among three unlikely execution at the hands of the Spanish – and settings and languages. The chamber opera is the way it resonated with his own experience set in a nightclub in Havana in 1931, a Cuban of pogroms in his native Ukraine – that he battlefield where indigenous people fight composed a 125-page poem about him in 1931.

Spanish conquistadors in 1511 and Ukraine The catch: Penn wrote the poem in Yiddish. in the early 20th century, where Jews face London and Thoron’s production, which violent pogroms. played at Montclair State’s Alexander Kasser The settings may seem incongruous enough, but they are connected by perhaps an even more Frank London, a Theater through September 23, stays true to surprising piece of writing: an epic Yiddish Grammy Award- Penn’s writing by including excerpts of the poem about an indigenous chief who has been winning trumpeter, poem in the mamaloshen. The Taino characcalled “Cuba’s first national hero.” is the composer of ters sing in Yiddish, which could have turned The opera, with music by Grammy “Hatuey: Memory out as a joke from a Mel Brooks movie, but Award-winning klezmer musician Frank of Fire.” (Photo by instead eerily connects one persecuted “tribe” to another. Other parts are performed in English London and libretto by Elise Thoron, is having Anya Roz) and Spanish with supertitles. its U.S. premiere at Montclair State UniverLondon, a founder of the Klezmatics and other klezmer sity as part of the suburban New Jersey school’s Peak supergroups, learned about Penn and Hatuey through Performances series. It draws inspiration from the life of Asher Penn, a Ukrainian Jewish refugee who arrived his friend, the theater director Michael Posnick, who is to Cuba in 1924 and later founded the country’s first Penn’s son-in-law (the Penn family later moved to the United States). Posnick serves as co-producer of the opera.

Yiddish newspaper.

In a phone interview with JTA, London said that he In Cuba, Penn learned about the story of Hatuey (prounced ha-too-WAY), an indigenous chief who led initially wanted to adapt the poem itself into an opera. But after he teamed with Thoron, his previous collaborator on a work about Marc Chagall and the Soviet Yiddish Theater, the pair decided to interweave the story of the poet and his poem’s hero.

“Once we had the idea to incorporate the story of poet in our theater piece, that’s where it got both very rich, very complicated, very multilayered and trilingual, but a lot of fun because that opened the door also for us to include the Afro-Cuban music,” he said.

London, who lives in New York, has performed Afro-Cuban music almost as consistently as klezmer in a career that spans some 500 CDs. Jennifer Jade Ledesna, center, plays a singer at a Though the pair concocted the fictionalized nightclub Havana nightclub in “Hatuey: Memory of Fire,” a love setting – and a romance between Penn and the singer to story set in 1931 Cuba. (Photo by Maria Baranova) whom he tells the story – the rest of the opera is based on the true stories of Penn and Hatuey, London said.

Even though he was enthusiastic about combining the various narratives and languages, London said it wasn’t necessarily an easy fit. “It took us a long time to figure out how this piece was going to work,” he said.

The diverse cast of 16, none of whom knew Yiddish previously, learned the entire libretto in the span of two weeks. London said it helped that they are all opera singers and thus used to performing in foreign languages. “It’s LARRY METZGER Owner

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Nicolette Mavroleon appeared in “Hatuey: Memory of Fire,”a chamber opera about a Yiddish poet and his obsession with an indigenous Cuban freedom fighter.

(Photo by Maria Baranova) hard to act in a language you don’t know,” he said, “but opera singers are trained to learn how to sing in languages they don’t know – that’s what they do.”

The production also received assistance from the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, which helped with translation and transliteration into Yiddish.

Writing an opera in Yiddish had been a longtime goal for London, but he struggled with finding a story that fit.

“I didn’t just want to take a beautiful Sholem Aleichem shtetl story in Yiddish and make a klezmer-shtetl opera,” he said, referring to the famed Yiddish author and playwright. “I really wanted this to have a more universal message and not be a nostalgic piece.”

As a member of the Klezmatics, London has long blended Yiddish musical traditions with contemporary music. For “Hatuey,” he wanted to do something in a similar vein. “The Klezmatics’ entire career was based on the same premise but within music: to create a vital, living Yiddish klezmer music that is directly connected to our roots and history and to its history, but that is perfectly alive in our world,” he said.

Last year, London staged the opera in Cuba, but he had to make modifications to accommodate the production company’s limitations. The Yiddish parts were performed in Spanish, and London altered the music so it could be played by a band rather than a full orchestra.

The New Jersey production represents the opera’s first run as it was written.

London said that putting on a new opera helps bring Yididsh theater back to its roots. “Yiddish theater 80100 years ago was cutting edge, avant-garde zeitgeist theater,” he said. “We’ve gotten back to that.”

NEWS IN BRIEF

From JNS.org

Arson balloon causes large fire in Israeli community, landfill

An arson balloon sent from Gaza caused an intense fire in the Israeli community of Ein HaBesor, near the Gaza border, on the night of Oct. 6. The fire was the largest such arson attack in six months. Teams of firefighters, security teams and farmers battled to stop the flames before they destroyed greenhouses growing vegetables and flowers.

According to reports, a resident saw the balloon land and a fire ignited just minutes later, as the resident went for help. The balloon also ignited a landfill that could burn for several days. Spokesman of the southern district’s fire department, Eli Cohen, said the arson attack caused the third landfill fire in the south in the past two days. At least 10 arson fires were reported since violent clashes between 20,000 Gaza rioters and IDF soldiers on Oct. 5.

Nearly 10,000 acres of Israeli land have been destroyed by airborne incendiary attacks from Gaza since March.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit reported being attacked with grenades and explosive devices. The Israeli Air Force responded with two airstrikes on Hamas positions.

Smoke emanating from tires burned by protesters on Oct. 5 forced residents of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom to shutter themselves in their homes.

JCC in Fairfax, VA, vandalized with 19 painted swastikas

A Jewish Community Center in Fairfax, VA, was vandalized with 19 spray-painted swastikas early Oct. 6.

Building staff noticed the building had been vandalized when they arrived to open the facility at 7 am. Security camera footage showed a suspect defacing the center at around 4:30 am. Local authorities released photos to the public. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine tweeted that an “insidious rise in hateful actions and antisemitism” must be met with “fierce condemnation and an over-abundance of love and unity.” In 2017, the same JCC was spray-painted with

the message “Hitler was right,” swastikas and other Nazi symbolism. JCC leadership released a statement saying, “as many of us recognize, these acts do not represent the community around the J[CC] or the community in Northern Virginia. The J[CC] as a whole, and particularly through the focused efforts of our Committee for a Just and Caring Community, will continue to participate as a positive force in both the Jewish and wider communities.”

Pro-Israel students protest Columbia University over mistreatment

Outraged and feeling mistreated by Columbia University, pro-Israel students protested the school on Oct. 4, decrying what they call a “pervasively hostile environment” by anti-Israel groups on campus. “Our message was that we will not just allow the university’s dismissal of our claims to go by silently, and that we hold the accountable for the repeated violations against us and the followed harassment our group goes through,” Dalia Zahger, president of the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel, told JNS. “Such dismissals enables this behavior.” Previous incidents included dozens of anti-Zionist activists surrounding and harassing five Israeli students. Another consisted of pro-Palestinian activists defacing materials by pro-Israel students, including a poster of Albert Einstein that reads, “This is what a Zionist looks like.” The word “Zionist” was scratched out and replaced with the word “scientist,” a rejection of Einstein’s support of Zionism. As to whether the protest was successful, according to the Lawfare Project’s Benjamin Ryberg, the weather likely affected the outcome of the protest. “The protest was (unfortunately) not all that successful, in my opinion,” Ryberg told JNS in an email. “Turnout was low, probably in part because it started raining.” However, Zahger said the demonstration’s outcome depends on the university’s response. “I will only know that if I hear from the university that they choose to reconsider their dismissal and take action,” she said.