HAKOL - April 2014

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY The Voice of the Lehigh Valley Jewish Community

APRIL 2014 | NISAN 5774

Students: Let’s make some noise!

Easton’s Danny Cohen to be honored ProJeCt of Easton, Inc.

LV SENIORS GET GOING New transportation options available. See pages 16-17.

Jewish Day School students don special hats and costumes for the Purim festivities held at the school in March.

This was just one of more than a dozen Lehigh Valley Purim services and parties to mark the raucous holiday.

See pages 22-23 for more photos of Purim across the Valley.

YOM HASHOAH COMMEMORATION:

CHILD SURVIVOR Movie narrator to speak at JCC Film Festival.

See page 21.

Daughter to honor heroic father

By Annabel Williams JFLV Marketing Intern

PASSOVER SPECIAL SECTION This year, how world news resonates.

No. 366 com.UNITY with Mark Goldstein 2 Women’s Division

4

LVJF Tributes

8

Jewish Family Service

16-17

Jewish Day School

18-19

Jewish Community Center Community Calendar

20 30-31

On Sunday, April 27, the Holocaust Resource Center of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley will host “Choosing to Act: Stories of Rescue.” The evening of Holocaust remembrance will particularly commemorate the activities of Colonel José Arturo Castellanos, a Salvadorian diplomat who issued illegal certificates of Salvadorian citizenship, mainly to Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. His efforts saved tens of thousands of lives. Castellanos’ daughter, Frieda Garcia, will be on hand to speak about the bravery and ingenuity of her father during World War II and how he risked everything for Jewish life.

A native of El Salvador, Castellanos joined his country’s military and served for 26 years, achieving the rank of second chief of the general staff of the army of Non-Profit Organization

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the Republic of El Salvador.

He then went on to serve as Salvadoran Consul General in Liverpool, England; Hamburg, Germany and Geneva, Switzerland.

While in Geneva, Castellanos befriended George Mandel, a Hungarian Jewish businessman. Soon after being named consul in that city, Castellanos appointed Mandel to the fictitious position of “the consulate’s first secretary,” and changed Mandel’s last name to the more Spanishsounding Mantello.

By 1944, Mandel-Mantello, with the official seal of the consul, was issuing illegal passports and visas for

European Jews desperately seeking to escape Nazi rule.

This small-scale scheme turned into one of the largest rescue missions in the history of the Holocaust.

Castellanos and MendelMantello could not produce passports and visas fast enough, so they began secretly distributing more than 13,000 documents of Salvadorian citizenship. These certificates allowed Central European Jews to seek protection from the International Red Cross and, eventually, from the Swiss Consul in Budapest.

Known as “El Salvador

Yom Hashoah

Continues on page 6

ProJeCt of Easton has evolved over the course of its history, but one thing has remained the same: Danny Cohen got involved just after the agency was incorporated in 1968 and continues to serve on the board of directors and play an active role in ongoing efforts to help people help themselves. For his years of service, he will be honored at an inaugural Daniel E. Cohen Award event, to be held Thursday, April 24, at 5:30 p.m. at the Hampton Inn on Route 248 in Easton.

ProJeCt is a community benefit human service agency founded by local clergy and community leaders in the wake of the Martin Luther King, Jr., assassination and in response to the rising tide of poverty and social unrest of 1968. Its purpose was to advocate for action and to provide service to an underserved poor population in Easton.

Cohen had just come back from law school at the University of Pennsylvania when his mentor, Norm Seidel, asked him to get involved.

The genesis for ProJeCt was to address poverty so Easton would not experience the explosions and riots that places like Newark, Plainfield and Philadelphia were seeing.

“We brought together whites, blacks, Christians, Jews, poor, wealthy, doctors, lawyers, barbers, people of every stripe for the purpose of trying to keep the peace and improve the lot of people who were needy and hurting,” Cohen said.

At that time, ProJeCt was strictly volunteer. Today, ProJeCt has a combination of part-time, full-time and seasonal employees for a total paid staff of 40. Cohen notes the professionalism of the staff and overall focus of the agency as two things that have changed over the years.

“We were doing a lot of different things. We were trying to be all things to all people,” Cohen said.

There was a well baby clinic, a dental clinic, some after-school recreational programs and some after-school tutoring programs.

Cohen said he’s seen the good and the bad over the years. He’s learned how generous some people can be and how difficult others can be.

“It’s the human condition …

Donors, clientele, volunteers, staff. We are all unique individuals and need to be treated uniquely.”

Cohen is a past president of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley and past chair of the Lehigh Valley Jewish Foundation. He sums up his

Danny Cohen

Continues on page 5

com.UNITY

FROM THE DESK OF MARK L. GOLDSTEIN

Executive Director | Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley markg@jflv.org

Wait and see, but don’t believe everything you hear One of the problems writing a column in a monthly publication is timing. Even if I submit the column at the last possible moment, there is still a weekto-10 days before the paper will be in your mailbox (provided that the USPS cooperates and the delivery is timely). I worry that the topic can become stale or even outdated during that time.

Unfortunately, I think I’m pretty safe this month. It is doubtful that peace will break out in the Middle East before this HAKOL appears in your mailbox.

Last month, I joined nearly 50 people from the Lehigh Valley -- plus an additional 14 Muhlenberg and Lehigh students -- at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference. It is an important and empowering conference. Our group from the Lehigh Valley was our largest delegation ever to the annual AIPAC conference and included the rabbis of the three largest synagogues in the Lehigh Valley, as well as congregants of those and other synagogues.

Most of the buzz at the conference was on Iran and the diplomatic efforts to roll back (not simply contain) their nuclear capabilities and hopefully avoid some kind of military action. There clearly was a divide between Congress and the Administration, and between the Administration and the majority of the AIPAC conference delegates. It is subtle,

but not insignificant. Everyone endorses, and applauds, the U.S. Administration’s efforts to bring about a diplomatic resolution. Everyone believes that the sanctions imposed on Iran have largely been successful and are a major reason Iran is in diplomatic talks with the P5+1 countries. Everyone supports additional sanctions on Iran should they fail to perform according to the interim agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 in November in Geneva. The nuance is that most in Congress and many in the pro-Israel community believe the best strategy is to confirm those additional sanctions now, leaving Iran no doubt as to the next steps to be taken by those dedicated to preventing a nuclear Iran.

U.S. Senators Toomey and Casey have expressed their support of announcing the additional sanctions now, as reflected in letters and draft legislation proposed by Senators Kirk (Wash.) and Menendez (N.J.). However, it does not appear the legislation will move forward without a veto-proof majority.

But there was another undercurrent during the AIPAC conference, evident in many of the “drill down” sessions, relating to the current U.S.- led efforts to bring about some sort of movement in the negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And I heard it from many: political scientists, political

commentators, former State department officials, former IDF officers, former Israeli Knesset members, Israeli and American journalists and even from former PLO negotiators. What I heard and felt was in three components: (a) Secretary of State Kerry’s efforts to bring about direct Israeli-Palestinian talks may prove to be nothing short of heroic; (b) we may be closer than ever to something positive (I am hesitant to say exactly what, other than many felt we are closer than we have been in decades, or more); and (c) we should not be distracted by what each side says publicly. Everyone stressed that the difficult compromises that Obama and Kerry say are necessary to move the process forward will come about in direct negotiations and not in pronouncements prior to those discussions. The chatter is more for positioning and (hopefully) less for articulating immutable positions.

Both Netanyahu and Abbas have fragile political foundations. Netanyahu needs to keep together a coalition of unlikely partners, some of whom are making public statements expressing their respective political parties’ positions, not necessarily the position of the Israeli government as a whole.

Abbas has struggles on both sides: Hamas in Gaza and ousted Fatah Central Committee member Mohamed Dahlan, currently living abroad. Public

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Readers, While on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I took a wrong turn on a sidewalk and came upon a modestly-sized house with a placard in its front yard.

Peering at it through the dark, I felt amazed to find that this modest structure, which had once belonged to Lillian and Albert Small, had come to be used as a house of worship and is now the oldest synagogue building still standing in the city.

There are many such

surprises that come in similarly modest trappings. In this issue of HAKOL, we bring you stories of the ordinary-turnedextraordinary: Jewish youths who grew up into political leaders; a regular couple who saved “50 Children”; and ordinary times that have evaporated into civil strife in Ukraine, Venezuela and elsewhere. For this last, see the Passover special section with its focus on the on-going struggles for basic human rights. And may this Passover give you reason

to dance to the music of glad tambourines.

Shalom, Jennifer Lader

IN HONOR LARRY AND EVA LEVITT Bat Mitzvah of granddaughter Danielle Roberto and Eileen Fischmann

ROBERTO AND EILEEN FISCHMANN Engagement of daughter Claudia to Ryan Judy, Marc, Noah, & Molly Diamondstein Stan and Vicki Wax

KEREN AND MATT SALTZ Birth of son, Neev SHALOM BABY

JUDITH TAMAROFF Special birthday Elaine Lerner

MARK AND DEENA SCOBLIONKO Special wedding anniversary Roberto and Eileen Fischmann

TAMAR AND NATE WIENER Birth of son, Gavriel Leib SHALOM BABY

TO ORDER TREES, call the JFLV at 610-821-5500 or visit www.jewishlehighvalley.org.

2 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

LEHIGH VALLEY HAKOL is published 11 times per year for the Jewish communities of Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton and vicinity by the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley.

COMMUNITY SUBMISSIONS Submissions to HAKOL must be of interest to the entire Jewish community. HAKOL reserves all editorial rights including, but not limited to, the decision to print any submitted materials, the editing of submissions to conform to style and length requirements, and the placement of any printed material. Articles should be submitted by e-mail or presented as typed copy; “Community Calendar” listings must be submitted by e-mail to hakol@jflv.org or online at www. jewishlehighvalley.org. Please include your name and a daytime telephone number where you can be contacted in the event questions arise. We cannot guarantee publication or placement of submissions.

Phone: (610) 821-5500 Fax: (610) 821-8946 E-mail: hakol@jflv.org

We gratefully acknowledge those individuals who have offered expressions of friendship by requesting that trees be planted in the Yoav--Lehigh Valley Partnership Park.

In the March edition, regarding the page 1 story about Sidney Parmet, Japan surrendered and those soldiers who were at that time supposed to go on to Japan were not required to so, Sidney Parmet amongst them.

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pronouncements by Abbas of accommodation to Israel might let him earn favor with the U.S. and the E.U., the latter beginning to express its frustration with Abbas and the Palestinians for their intransigence, but it won’t ensure his political position (or life).

A retired brigadier general from the IDF cautioned that the upcoming “Kerry Framework” will not be a framework agreement between the two parties. Rather, the Framework is an attempt to narrow the gaps so both parties can come to the table with their respective reservations.

The struggle is how to create two equal narratives from two competing narratives.

It is said in the Middle East that you stand where you sit.

With that foundation, I can think of many issues that will be deal breakers (settlements, Palestinian right of return, borders, Israeli military presence along the

In the “Homes & Gardens” special section, Cathy Leiber, writer of “Attract pollinators to your yard with child-friendly projects,” was incorrectly described as being a member of Congregation Keneseth Israel. She is a member of Temple Covenant of Peace in Easton.

Jordanian border, recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people). And the recent public comments by those involved can easily lead us to believe that we are no closer to anything. But I am hopeful that those extremely more knowledgeable than I am might be right and that things are happening now that lead them to believe we are closer than ever. The stakes are high; I am willing to wait and see, and will work hard to place the public comments into this perspective.

HAKOL STAFF Jennifer Lader Editor

Allison Meyers

Graphic Designer

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Advertising Representative TEL: 610-515-1391 hakolads@jflv.org

JFLV EXECUTIVE STAFF Mark L. Goldstein Executive Director

Judy Diamondstein

Assistant Executive Director

Temple Coldren

Director of Finance & Administration

Stephanie Smartschan Director of Marketing

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Director of Planned Giving & Endowments

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Director of Outreach & Community Relations

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Monica Friess, Acting Chair Barbara Reisner Judith Rodwin Sara Vigneri

Member American Jewish Press Association

All advertising is subject to review and approval by The Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley (JFLV). JFLV reserves the right to decline, withdraw and/ or edit any ad. The appearance of any advertising in HAKOL does not represent an endorsement or kashrut certification. Paid political advertisements that appear in HAKOL do not represent an endorsement of any candidate by the JFLV.

JEWISH FEDERATION OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY MISSION STATEMENT In order to unite, sustain, and enhance the Lehigh Valley Jewish community, and support Jewish communities in Israel and around the world, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley is dedicated to the following core values:

• Supporting Jews in need wherever they may be.

• Supporting Israel as a Jewish homeland.

• Supporting and encouraging Jewish education in the Lehigh Valley as a means of strengthening Jewish life for individuals and families.

• Supporting programs and services of organizations whose values and mission meet local Jewish needs.

To accomplish this mission the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley is committed to the following operating guidelines: • Raising and distributing funds to support the core values.

• Developing Jewish leaders.

• Building endowments to support implementation of core values.

• Committing to ongoing Jewish community strategic planning.

• Fostering cooperation among organizations and community building.

• Evaluating all decisions with respect to fiscal responsibility.

• Identifying unmet needs and investing in community initiatives to help get them started.

• Coordinating and convening a community response as an issue or need arises.

• Setting priorities for allocation and distribution of funds.

• Acting as a central address for communication about events, programs and services of the Jewish community as a whole.

Approved by the JFLV Board of Directors on November 15, 2000

‘The Same Moon’ connects families in Israel, LV

Temple Beth El students practice reading Hebrew and gear up for reading and letter-writing with their counterparts (above, r.) in the Lehigh Valley’s partner region, Yoav, in Israel.

By Abby Trachtman JFLV Project Coordinator One moon that looks the same to people all over the globe. That moon has become the basis of a new project shared between the Lehigh Valley and the region of Yoav, Israel, through Partnership2Gether.

The Same Moon project, also now a book, was the brainchild in 2012 of Adi Shacham, an Israeli shlicha working with the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis. Shacham’s goal was to find a way for families to learn that despite distance, the worlds of Israeli and United States families are very similar.

Through shared experiences, “The Same Moon” brought families from Indianapolis and from their partner area in the Western Galilee in Israel closer together and fostered greater knowledge and understanding of how Jewish families in different parts of the world live their lives.

Shacham, who developed the idea, worked with students to create the book to serve as a guide for those shared family experiences. The book, coauthored by Shacham and Patti Freeman Dorson, is illustrated by Indianapolis artist and associate of the Partnership2Gether program, Joani Rothenberg.

Because the project was such a success in Indianapolis, it has been expanded to other communities. Now children in the Lehigh Valley will get to participate in the program along with children from Yoav. The project requires families to make a six-month commitment. With the help of their parents, nine children from Temple Beth El’s second grade will write monthly letters to their pen pals.

“The Same Moon” books are available in both English and Hebrew, but all letters will be written in English.

There were many more third graders than that in the three elementary schools in Yoav, so the children and families participating from there were hand-picked. The most committed, engaged and excited students were chosen by the Israeli teachers involved. There will be both a classroom component and a home component to this partnership both here and in Israel.

In Israel, it is the third graders who have been paired with our second graders, because the Yoav children begin learning English in third grade. At Beth El, second grade is the grade during which the children really start learning to read and recognize vocabulary in Hebrew.

Parents and children gathered at Temple Beth El on Sunday, Feb. 23, for a special introduction to the program.

“I do know that all of my students and I are extremely

excited about getting pen pals in Israel,” said Diane Stein, the second grade teacher at Temple Beth El who, along with co-teacher Elaine Langer, will be organizing this first group of students to participate.

Communication will be done via regular mail. The emphasis for the project is family participation and written correspondence. In an electronic era, the excitement of receiving something in the mail remains unabated. “The Same Moon” book includes envelopes into which families will place the letters, pictures and any other momentos that their “across the ocean” family may share.

The colorfully illustrated book provides information and commentary to assist the families in preparing their letters and in appreciating the concept of being apart yet being similar. The use of both Hebrew and English further underscores the concept. In the months ahead, families will share holiday customs, leisure activities, weather comparisons and ways that they relate with the rest of society. In learning about others, families are sure to learn more about themselves and what it is like to share “The Same Moon.”

Adapted from a similar article written by Mark Kirchhoff for The Jewish Press published by the Jewish Federation of Omaha.

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HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 3

WOMEN’S DIVISION OF THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY

Women’s Spring Event spotlights Jewish sororities Shira Kohn, assistant dean of the graduate school at the Jewish Theological Seminary whose dissertation examined Jewish college sororities and their encounters with social and political movements in postwar America, will be the featured speaker at the Jewish Federation’s Women’s Division Dollar-A-Day Spring Event on May 7.

How did you decide to study Jewish sororities? Was it from personal experience or something else?

When I was an undergraduate at a large Midwestern college and went through sorority rush, I was shocked to see how segregated the Greek system on campus was -- both in terms of race and religion. When I went

to different houses to learn about them and they realized I was Jewish, they almost always pointed me toward the two “Jewish sororities” on campus, told me to speak with them, and then quickly ended our conversation.

When it came time to write an undergraduate honors thesis, that memory came back to me. I decided I wanted to research the origins of these women’s groups and to better understand why sororities were formed for Jewish women and what, if anything, distinguished their stories from those of the historically Christian women’s groups.

What are a few of the major surprises you found in your research?

save the date

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley Women’s Division

Lion of Judah & Pomegranate Women spring recognition event with “the chocolate rabbi” debbie prinz www.jewishlehighvalley.org

Overall, I was surprised to see how complex the history of Jewish sororities turned out to be. It was impossible to write a simple, linear organizational history of these women’s organizations, there was too much rich material to include! For example, I had no idea that Jewish sororities petitioned for admission into the National Panhellenic Council -- umbrella organization to all national sororities -- for 30 years before receiving an invitation to join the group. The historically Christian sororities refused to admit Jewish (and Catholic) sororities into their ranks until after the end of World War II and defended the exclusion of these minority groups because they were “sectarian” in membership.

Ironic considering the Jewish and Catholic groups formed because they couldn’t get into the established Christian houses due to their own religious restrictions! I found this fascinating considering that the Jewish and Catholic fraternities had gained entry into the national men’s organization decades earlier.

I was also surprised to see how politically aware many of the leaders of the Jewish sororities were, particularly during the postwar period when they were confronting powerful movements such as anticommunism and civil rights in American society.

These women found that their dual identities as politically liberal Jews and members of a larger politically conservative Greek culture were often

at odds and often had to articulate a position that stayed true to their personal beliefs and values while conforming to the larger Greek environment that they so desperately wanted to be a part of. The Jewish sorority women had to make difficult decisions concerning membership practices and self-representation.

Final surprise: the diversity of accomplished Jewish women who were members of these Jewish sororities, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Judith Resnick, Dinah Shore, Elizabeth Glazer, Sherry Lansing, Joyce Brothers, Barbara Boxer, Ofira Navon, and Zelda Rubinstein -- to name just a few!

What can we expect from your talk?

My talk will discuss the self-representation of Jewish sorority women in the immediate postwar decades of the 1940s - 1960s.

Through looking at a variety of materials including yearbooks and sorority publications, I argue that Jewish sorority members consciously cultivated an image of American Jewish womanhood that was compatible with white middleclass expectations of beauty and behavior while still preserving aspects of Jewish distinctiveness. These women embraced their roles as ambassadors of Jewish culture and ethnic identity to a larger Greek collegiate population and used that platform to

showcase their ability to represent “good American citizenship” at a time when American Jews more generally were attempting to cement their place within American society.

Join the Women’s Division

Wednesday, May 7 at 6:30 p.m. at Vault 634 634 Hamilton St. Allentown $40 per person for dinner & program Register now at www.jewishlehighvalley.org

Attendees must pledge a minimum of $365 to the 2014 Campaign for Jewish Needs.

Living with gratitude and zest SPONSORED BY THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY’S WOMEN’S DIVISION

WELCOMING NEW BABIES

to the Lehigh Valley GAVI LEIB

son of Tamar and Nate Wiener

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son of Keren and Matt Saltz

If you’re expecting, know someone who is, or have a new baby, PLEASE LET US KNOW! Contact Abby Trachtman, 610-821-5500 | abbyt@jflv.org

4 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

Dr. Neil Dicker, shown with wife Linda, spoke at a recent Federation-sponsored Lunch & Learn about his experiences as a stem cell transplant recipient.

The polka dotted jersey he wore, like the one given to the best hill climber in the Tour de France, is a reminder to him that he’s always conquering hills, he said.

During his presentation Dicker called his wife up to the podium. His stem cell donor, Arielle, had saved his life, he said. But Linda had saved his soul.

Save the Date

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For information, contact Judy Diamondstein at 610-821-5500 or judy@jflv.org.

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KI’s Matan Peled to shave head, support pediatric cancer research

Lunch & Learn to focus on disability and inclusion

CCAR & Congregation Keneseth Israel Press Release

By Annabel Williams JFLV Marketing Intern Join guest speaker Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr as she focuses on “Disability and Inclusion in the Jewish Community” at this campaign year’s final Jewish Federation Women’s Division Lunch & Learn at 12 p.m. at the JCC on Wednesday, April 30.

Despite maintaining a vibrant career as a mother of three, Schorr found it best to rearrange her work life when her autistic son and his two siblings needed more from her. The transformation from a religious community leader to what her kids call a “house mother” has been nothing short of life-altering.

Ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Schorr is a CLAL Rabbis Without Borders Fellow, a contributing writer for “The New Normal: Blogging Disability” and the editor of the newsletter of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She is a regular contributor to Kveller.com and RJ.org, and a frequent guest on Huffington Post Live.

Schorr is also a contributor to “The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality” and the co-editor of a forthcoming publication on the impact of 40 years of women in the rabbinate.

“The Jewish community strives to be inclusive,” Schorr said in a recent interview. “However, many times, our institutions don’t know how or where to start.”

At the Lunch & Learn, Schorr will seek to provide a better understanding of what disability looks like, define types of disability and reveal ways in which the Jewish community can better include disabled persons in all aspects of life. “The Lunch and Learn is going to be a wonderful opportunity to get a general overview of what we can do to create a community that truly honors the Divine Spark within every individual,” she said.

Lunch & Learn

Disability and Inclusion in the Jewish Community

Join the Women’s Division of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley for Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr’s presentation on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, from 12 to 1:30 p.m. at the JCC of Allentown. Cost is $12, including lunch. Men and women welcome.

During the 125th Annual Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) Convention, over 60 male and female Reform Rabbis will shave their heads to raise awareness of and funding for pediatric cancer research. In addition, some participants such as Matan Peled, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College student and director of youth engagement at Allentown’s Congregation Keneseth Israel, are shaving in their home communities.

As HAKOL goes to press, Peled is set to shave during religious school at KI on Sunday, March 30.

The connection between the Reform Jewish community and pediatric cancer advocacy began with the story of Samuel Sommer, the son of Rabbis Phyllis and Michael Sommer. Phyllis Sommer serves Am Shalom in Glencoe, Ill., and her husband has served Congregation B’nai Torah in Highland Park, Ill., and North Shore Congregation Israel.

The Sommers had documented Sam’s battle with cancer on their blog, “Superman Sam.” From the blog, there came an outpouring of support from people all over the country who sympathized with Sam and his family. Rabbis across denominations prayed Mi Shebeirach

Danny Cohen Continues from page 1

basic philosophy of life with a quote on a plaque given to his father in 1955 after his tenure as president of the Easton JCC: “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that

for Sam’s recovery.

In October 2013, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer and Lehigh Valley Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr had the idea to organize a massive fundraiser, “Shave for the Brave,” in which 36 rabbis would shave their heads, raising awareness of the reality that only 4 percent of United States federal funding for cancer research is earmarked for all childhood cancers.

The initial fundraising goal for “Shave for the Brave” was $180,000 to fund pediatric cancer research.

“We have surpassed our initial goal, but will not stop. Not now; not ever,” Schorr said. Sam succumbed to leukemia in December 2013.

Rabbis of “Shave for the Brave” are banding together to help save other families from having to go through what the Sommers went through. “[We are] slightly meshugene, but very devoted rabbis who are yearning to do something,” Schorr said. “We couldn’t save Sammy; perhaps, though, we can save others like him.”

The official “Shave for the Brave” event will take place on April 1, at the CCAR Convention, which will be held at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park. The CCAR is the representative organization of nearly 2,000 Reform rabbis, the world’s largest group of Jewish clergy.

The rabbis’ “Shave for the Brave” fundraiser benefits St. Baldrick’s,

I can do or any kindness that I can show to another human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

-Stephen Grellett, 1773-1855 “You can’t talk about ProJeCt’s 45-year history without talking about Danny Cohen and his unwavering commitment to our

a charity committed to funding childhood cancer research. So far, the CCAR Rabbis have raised over $330,000 for St. Baldrick’s and hope to reach their goal of $360,000.

“I am honored to participate in the ‘Shave for the Brave’ fundraiser and to support St. Baldrick’s in their efforts to research pediatric cancer and find a cure,” Peled said.

“My eighth grade Jewish American Heroes class selected Sam Sommer as one of their heroes. They learned about his family and his story, creating a plaque in his honor just days before the world lost this precious life.”

You can visit http://bit.ly/36rabbis to make a donation to St. Baldrick’s in memory of Samuel Sommers.

mission, our work and the people in our community,” said Executive Director Janice Komisor. “Danny is a shining example of compassion and generosity of heart and we are privileged to honor his selfless dedication to the community with this award.”

For more information or reservations, visit www.projecteaston.org.

Yom Hazikaron Ceremony ISRAEL MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVANCE

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah

yom hashoah

Choosing to Act Stories of Rescue SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 2014 7:00 PM | JCC of Allentown

Featuring guest speaker

FRIEDA GARCIA

Daughter of Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos, who helped save tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution by providing them with papers of Salvadoran nationality.

Col. Castellanos was posthumously inducted as one of Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations in 2010.

iurfzv ouh

FREE AND OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY www.jewishlehighvalley.org

MAY 4, 2014

7 p.m. | JCC of Allentown Commemorate as a community in solidarity with Israel

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 5

AIPAC lobbying effort leads to bi-partisan support on Iran American Israel Public Affairs Committee At the AIPAC Policy Conference in March, participants lobbied senators and representatives to send a strong message to the president about what Congress expects from a final deal with Iran.

Two weeks later, congressional leaders delivered two important letters to the White House signed by more than 80 percent of Congress.

These letters send a bipartisan message to the president that Congress will continue to play its historic role during negotiations with Iran and will work to improve the prospects for a successful outcome to the current talks.

In these letters, Congress urged the administration to begin working with the House and Senate today so that Congress can act swiftly if Iran violates the interim agreement or stonewalls during negotiations.

The letters also state that any acceptable agreement should: • Require Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons-related infrastructure such that the Islamic Republic will not be able to develop, build or acquire a nuclear weapon, and • Require stringent transparency measures to guarantee that Iran cannot develop an undetectable nuclear weapons

breakout capability.

Visit www.aipac.org to sign petitions thanking the 83 senators who signed onto the Senate letter, spearheaded

by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and signed by Sens.

Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, and the 394 House members who signed onto the House letter, led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and including Reps.

Matt Cartwright and Charlie Dent.

The overwhelming number who cosigned these letters demonstrates the critical importance of this issue to Congress.

JOIN THE YOUNG ADULT DIVISION FOR JEWISH HERITAGE NIGHT AT THE IRONPIGS KOSHER FOOD | JEWISH-THEMED GAMES BETWEEN INNINGS | SHOW YOUR PRIDE! $15 PER TICKET including an IronPigs Hebrew hat and $2 of ballpark credit

CONTACT AARON GORODZINSKY at 610-821-5500 or aaron@jflv.org to secure your ticket.

Seats in the group package are limited – first come first serve.

YOUNG ADULT DIVISION

Thursday, April 3, 2014

6:00 to 8:00 p.m., The Colony Meadery | 905 Harrison St., Ste. 115, Allentown, PA

Enjoy a private meadery tour and tasting with Colony CEO and founder Greg Heller-LaBelle

Plus

a presentation by Rabbi Daniel Stein on freedom in the 21st Century

$20 INCLUDES TOUR, TASTING, APPETIZERS & SOUVENIR GLASS Respectful accommodation for dietary observance ERIN & JUSTIN CORSA, YAD Co-Chairs

RSVP to Aaron Gorodzinsky, 610-821-5500 or aaron@jflv.org, or register online at www.jewishlehighvalley.org.

6 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

Yom Hashoah Continues from page 1

Action,” the activities of the two men saved between 30,000 and 50,000 Jews. Initially, Castellanos sought permission from his government to issue the citizenship papers and was refused. He continued his efforts anyway.

The heroic work of Castellanos, who died in 1977 in San Salvador, were uncovered in 2005 when a woman from Geneva found an abandoned suitcase of El Salvador certificates in her basement. Castellanos’s efforts have since been honored by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and Visas for Life. In 2010, Yad Vashem recognized Castellanos with the title “Righteous Among the Nations.”

Today, Castellano’s daughter, Garcia, takes an active interest in commemorating her father’s efforts. She grew up in London, where her father in the post-war years served as ambassador, and spent holidays in Switzerland with her brother and grandfather.

As an adult, Garcia started a company for simultaneous interpretation and translations in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Garcia said she is honored to share her father’s story of heroism and bring awareness to the world of the sufferings of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

This event is free and open to the community. The program will begin at 7 p.m., at the JCC of Allentown. For more information, contact the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley at 610-821-5500.

344 years after his execution, French Jew cleared of blood libel Jewish Telegraphic Agency Nearly 350 years after his wrongful execution, a French Jew who had been convicted of a blood libel was exonerated and declared a martyr.

The village of Glatigny in the eastern district of Moselle set the record straight on Jan. 19 about the wrongful conviction of Raphael Levy in 1670 for murder.

Levy, a merchant, was

found guilty and burned at the stake for the alleged killing of 3-year-old Didier Lemoine for ritual purposes.

City officials affixed a plaque in Levy’s memory to a public building in the village of Glatigny, near where he was killed. The text refers to him as a “Jewish martyr from Boulay,” Levy’s village, who was “accused of a ritual crime which he did not commit.”

Approximately 100 people attended the ceremony, including members of the Jewish community of Moselle, and Joel Mergui, president of the Consistoire, the French Jewish community’s organization responsible for religious services.

“Today we are back to square one, we are reconciled, we resume normal relations with the Jewish community,” said the mayor of Glatigny, Victor Stallone. “Glatigny was cursed since that time because of a principled prohibition decided upon by the Jewish community.”

Stallone was referring to a decree issued by leaders of French Jewry following Levy’s execution, according to Henry Schumann of the Consistoire’s local branch. Le Figaro quotes him as saying that the Jewish community had declared Glatigny accursed and instructed Jews not to set foot there.

SO MUCH MORE THAN A CONFERENCE AIPAC experience educates, unites

By Jarrod Rosenthal, M.D. Special to HAKOL Recently, I was fortunate to be among a contingent of over 50 members of the Lehigh Valley Jewish community to attend the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. The local delegates included several rabbis and many established community members. This year, a group of 16 “40-somethings” generously sponsored by Stan and Vicki Wax attended, in the hope that we would be inspired to become more active in pro-Israel advocacy. I think it is safe to say that we were inspired almost immediately.

At the opening session, we were treated to a host of individuals describing how each of them “was AIPAC.” These were people of all ages, races, religions and cultures, describing how and why advocating for Israel is important to them. They included college students, politicians, church leaders and even a young South African black woman yearning to prove that Israel is not an “apartheid state.”

Politically, I was expecting a number of self-serving, mostly “left-leaning” political presentations, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could not have been more mistaken. I was astonished that such an innately political organization could be so non-partisan. The focus on the American-

Israel relationship was constantly maintained, while avoiding any partisan American politics. As the AIPAC staff pointed out, it is important to maintain the pro-Israel message and to maintain good political relationships, regardless of which party is currently in power. In fact, so many congressional representatives and senators specifically pointed out that advocating for Israel is perhaps the only issue on which there is excellent bipartisan agreement and support in Congress.

The important focal issues of advocacy and lobbying included the Iranian nuclear threat, possible sanctions against Iran and maintenance of the U.S.-Israel partnership. And the list of notable speakers seemed endless. Just a few of the staunch pro-Israel speakers were: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Secretary of State John Kerry and, of course, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Note that the speeches can be viewed online.

It is difficult to describe the enthusiasm and excitement that grew within us as we absorbed more and more of the conference.

The anticipation of hearing what would come next from the various speakers culminated for me on the final day, when I awoke at 5 a.m. to hear the address by Prime Minister Netanyahu -- and get through the secret service security check over an hour early.

But the meeting was more than an auditorium of 14,000 delegates being dazzled by many prominent figures, videos and live demonstrations of Israeli ingenuity and technological advances, including firsthand accounts of how Israel made a difference in many individual – and often non-Jewish -- lives.

By all accounts, the most dynamic, show-stopping presentation came from Pastor Chris Harris, an African American Baptist preacher from the south side of Chicago, who treated us to his personal story of attachment to Israel, then broke into song accompanied by his gospel choir. It was a truly unforgettable moment that had us all on our feet, clapping and dancing in the aisles.

There were also many “breakout sessions,” with smaller groups in classroom settings, led by world experts on a variety of issues, including the Iranian threat, local middle eastern politics, terrorism and security preparations, Iron Dome and joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs, and a session on the BDS (Boycott-Divestment-Sanction) anti-Israel movement that was led by Allentown’s Tama Tamarkin’s brother, David Rittberg.

The culmination of the event was a trip by many delegates to Capitol Hill, to meet with our elected senators and representatives and discuss our desire to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and maintaining the

The Wax Family Fund Leadership Fellows on their way to lobby on Capital Hill. special relationship, both politically and militarily, between the U.S. and Israel.

Though the conference was exhausting at times, requiring us to wake early and remain in the convention center until 7 p.m. or later, none of us seemed to mind. We seemed to be running on adrenaline (some with the help of coffee), and with growing enthusiasm and

excitement as each day went on.

I think that we all left with great admiration and appreciation for what AIPAC can do and is doing on behalf of us all in support of Israel. The ultimate success of the conference, (and of the vision of Stan and Vicki Wax in sending our group) is that it left us wanting to do more...most of us have already registered for next year’s meeting!

By Dalit Agronin Special to HAKOL

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Muhlenberg students had the opportunity to lobby our Congressman, Charlie Dent. We have now lobbied him at Muhlenberg, in his district office and in Washington, D.C., so we have a pretty good relationship with him. It was an amazing experience for us because we were with the entire Lehigh Valley delegation, which was so large that we had to sit in a separate room from his office because we could not all fit.

Most of the members of the community spoke to Rep. Dent on the talking points; however Brittany Barnett, a sophomore at Muhlenberg, spoke on the five key points of negotiations with Israel.

This lobbying session was an open dialogue between us and the congressman. Many members of the community asked him questions and he openly answered all of them, as well as ensuring us that we have his support in maintaining a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and keeping tight sanctions on Iran. Ending with this lobbying session was the perfect way to complete the policy conference because we had been learning and preparing for three days and then saw our work and AIPAC’s work of gaining support from out congressional representatives and senators come to fruition.

There were beyond-amazing speakers at the conference, but there was so much more to the conference. It is about the individuals we met, the personal stories we heard, and the chills we got when 14,000 people rose to their feet cheering when Bibi Netanyahu said, “America and Israel stand for life, we stand together on the right side of the moral divide, so stand tall, stand strong, stand proud.”

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Nine Muhlenberg students, some half awake, others very excited, rushed out of the Capitol Hilton Hotel close to 8 a.m. to catch the shuttle to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Sunday, March 2. It was the start of the AIPAC Policy Conference that saw the students uplifted by the content and the recipients of an award for their activism.

The doors opened to the general session at 8:30 a.m., so we wanted to be there as early as possible to get the best seats in our section. Both Sunday and Monday, we arrived early and even though many probably thought we were crazy -- since we were among the few students at the convention center that early -- the seats we got to hear speakers such as Sen. John McCain, former Sen. Joseph Lieberman and AIPAC Chairman of the Board Michael Kassen were well worth the early mornings.

Stephanie Fishbein, a sophomore at Muhlenberg College who attended the conference, said, “AIPAC Policy Conference shows the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship, not just politically but through technological advances and business innovations.”

We were together for all of the morning and afternoon general sessions and then decided to split up and attend separate breakout sessions so we could share the information gathered after each session. I particularly enjoyed the AIPAC Campus Liaisons Forum where we heard from AIPAC’s Leadership Development Director Jonathan Kessler and outgoing CEO Howard Kohr, as well as

incoming CEO Bob Cohen. We learned how to best support the U.S.-Israel relationship on college campuses and how to deal with the many problems that arise such as the BDS movement, lack of student government association support and Israel Apartheid Week.

Julie Koenigsberg, a freshman and first-timer, said after the conference, “The breakout sessions delved into topics I had never even considered and the general session stirred up emotions in me that I had never experienced. Each video, speaker and panel inspired me and reminded me why it is important that we continue to support this amazing and special country.”

Another event that I know myself and the rest of the Muhlenberg students really enjoyed was “Sunday Night Live.” This was an exclusive event where we got the chance to hear from Palestinean and Israeli children and view a sports program that works to integrate them on the soccer field.

Elie Skolnick, a freshman at Muhlenberg, said, “This has been a successful learning experience for these kids because it brings a different view to these children’s minds instead of preconceived information of each other’s country.”

In addition, we were able to hear from the inspirational Pastor Chris Harris who works to implement the “Israeli method” of coping with tragedies in his Chicago church and community. This event was particularly exciting for us because the Muhlenberg Hillel students won the “Activist of the Year” award for our work on campus and in the community.

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HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 7

Charitable Gift Annuities offer income, fulfill intentions

By Mike Miller JFLV Board Member What is a Charitable Gift Annuity (CGA)? And on this day (night), why is this charitable gift different from all other charitable gifts?

In simple terms, a CGA is an agreement with a charity, for example, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, under which the charity, in return for a transfer of cash or marketable securities, agrees to pay a fixed amount of money to a donor for the rest of his or her life. After the charity satisfies the annuity obligation, the balance of the gift remaining is used for designated charitable purposes.

Although there are a number of planned giving strategies, the CGA is among the most popular techniques in the charitable gift planning community.

Why would a donor want to choose this opportunity? First, it is simple to understand and create. Second, it provides a steady, reliable and often increased income stream to the donor.

Third, when created it can provide an income tax charitable deduction

and it may provide some tax-free income. Fourth, it allows the donor(s) to experience the joy of giving a completed gift in the donor's lifetime.

In 1988, I gave a talk to the Lehigh Valley Jewish Foundation Heritage Society on the topic of estate planning. The theme was “L’Chaim” (“To Life”). The primary strategy message was to encourage those with a charitable intent to consider choosing lifetime gifts as a preference over gifts after death. Either type of gift could reduce the donor’s taxable estate, but the lifetime gifts could also provide current income tax deductions.

The CGA is one of the ways that the Federation can help its donors achieve their personal goals in supporting the Jewish community. The Federation helps educate our children, care for our elderly, feed our hungry, strengthen Jewish identity, preserve our culture and heritage, support our synagogues and protect and strengthen the State of Israel and its people.

Since a gift supporting the Federation supports so many different programs, it is simple for donors to help others now and make

8 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

a difference in the lives of future Jewish generations.

A few months ago, my wife Linda and I updated our wills. We remembered the talk I gave to the Heritage Society. We also remembered our volunteer service over the years and the incredible staffs and volunteers of those organizations, as well as the meaningful benefits they provided to our Jewish community.

As part of our Jewish tradition, we wanted to give back to the community and plant seeds for future generations in perpetuity.

So we decided to fund the Linda and Mike Miller Family Fund (a designated fund) within the Lehigh Valley Jewish Foundation, which is part of the Federation. This was done with a CGA that will provide annuity payments for the rest of our lives and then annual payments to five Lehigh Valley Jewish organizations we chose to support in perpetuity with the remainder. We feel confident that future community leaders will continue the stewardship of serving our community well.

The Federation has Charitable Gift Annuities Continues on page 10

LEHIGH VALLEY JEWISH FOUNDATION THE JEWISH COMMUNITY’S ENDOWMENT FUND Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley

IN MEMORY

LEAH BUB (Mother of Sam Bub) Karen Kuhn BEVERLY KOLB (Daughter of Elwood and Marilyn Kolb) Jeanette and Eduardo Eichenwald James and Andrea Jesberger CAROLE KOVED (Sister of Stan Wax) Nancy and Danny Cohen Karen Kuhn Ron and Martha Segel HARRY B. SHERMAN (Father of Barbara S. Sussman) Karen Kuhn MAX STETTNER (Husband of Shelley Stettner) Karen Kuhn LORRAINE LESAVOY WEISBERGER (Mother of Lynda Krawitz) Leonard Abrams Wendy and Ross Born Audrey Eisler Cherney Judy and Marc Diamondstein Gary and Carol Fromer Sandra and Harold Goldfarb Elaine Lerner Adam, Penny, Alex, & Nikki Roth Selma Roth Robby and Laurie Wax Stan and Vicki Wax HONEY WOLBRANSKY (Sister of Helen Cook) Lisa and Ellis Block

IN HONOR

ROBERTO AND EILEEN FISCHMANN Engagement of daughter Claudia to Ryan Iris, Jon, Harry, & Charlie Epstein Carol and Stewart Furmansky Betty Greenberg Jeff and Elizabeth Greenberg Family Jay and Evelyn Lipschutz BOBBY AND BONNIE HAMMEL Birth of grandson Jackson Henry Hammel Wendy and Ross Born Iris, John, Harry, & Charlie Epstein Stan and Vicki Wax CAROL AND JEFFREY KRANITZ Birth of granddaughter Charlotte Judy, Marc, Noah, & Molly Diamondstein Iris, Jon, Harry, & Charlie Epstein KAREN KUHN Birth of grandson Asher Jacob Kuhn-Watson Jeanette and Eduardo Eichenwald JOANI LESAVOY AND SID GREENBERG Engagement of her granddaughter Elaine Lerner LARRY AND EVA LEVITT Bat Mitzvah of granddaughter Danielle Roberta and Jeff Epstein CAREN AND KEITH LOWREY Birth of son Drew The Shimon Family MICHAEL AND COOKY NOTIS

Engagement of granddaughter Jeanette and Eduardo Eichenwald RABBI MOSHE AND ADINA RE’EM Adina’s father’s Israel Prize Stan and Vicki Wax SARA AND BERNARD SCHONBACH Birth of grandson Phoenix Wendy and Ross Born EILEEN AND MICHAEL UFBERG Bonnie & Manny’s Chabad Honor Sam and Sylvia Bub

HELEN & SOL KRAWITZ HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL FUND IN MEMORY

GABRIEL DEUTSCH Joani Lesavoy and Sid Greenberg LORRAINE LESAVOY WEISBERGER (Mother of Lynda Krawitz) Sandra and Harold Krawitz Joani Lesavoy and Sid Greenberg Judy and Larrie Sheftel

We gratefully acknowledge those individuals who have offered expressions of friendship through recent gifts to the Lehigh Valley Jewish Foundation.

The minimum contribution for an Endowment Card is $10.

Call 610-821-5500 or visit www. jewishlehighvalley.org to place your card requests. Thank you for your continued support.

OP-ED

Beating back the assault on Israel’s legitimacy

By Jerry Silverman and Steve Gutow Jewish Telegraphic Agency Leaders of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement say they are protesting Israel’s policies in the West Bank. They are doing far more than that.

BDS advocates routinely oppose a two-state solution and seek to delegitimize the sovereign, Jewish State of Israel.

In some cases, BDS becomes the latest form of anti-Semitism.

The BDS movement aims to isolate and punish Israel, using the same techniques applied to apartheid South Africa. Not hesitating to misrepresent facts and ignore context, these Israel bashers take advantage of ignorance and naïveté within civil society circles, mostly in Western Europe, to advance their anti-Israel agenda.

BDS advocates view the situation in the West Bank through a one-way lens, seeing only a single perspective. They cite, for example, the security checkpoints that make life difficult for Palestinians but conveniently overlook the reasons for those checkpoints.

They ignore the fact that hurting Israel’s economy would also hurt Palestinians who earn their livelihoods from Israeli-owned businesses.

BDS backers don’t bother to protest the many countries that have horrific human rights records, instead singling out the world’s only Jewish state, often based on false or misrepresented information.

A tipping point for the Jewish community’s response to BDS came in 2009 when a number

of anti-Israel groups called for a boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival because one of its themes was Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary. The Toronto and Los Angeles Jewish federations joined forces and, with the involvement of major figures in the entertainment industry, fashioned an effective response.

With calls for BDS escalating in the mainline Protestant churches, on college campuses and elsewhere, Jewish community leaders realize that the situation calls for more than an ad hoc approach: Local communities need a strategic approach with national support and coordination.

In 2010, the Jewish Federations of North America, representing more than 150 local federations, allocated significant resources so that the Israel Action Network could serve this purpose. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs -- with its 16 national member organizations, including all four of the religious movements, and 125 Jewish community relations councils, which work with non-Jewish coalition partners on a range of international and domestic concerns -- was the JFNA’s obvious partner.

One principle that guides this work is that we should understand our audiences.

And when we speak with others, we should do so with a respect for the sensitivities of that constituency so that our important messages are authentically heard. Whether on a campus, in a church or speaking with an LGBT group, we should always be clear that we stand as partners, sharing the

goal of a future with peace and security -- not one of conflict and BDS. Experience and research demonstrate that what works best with these audiences -- mostly made up of political and religious progressives -- is not an all-good-vs.-all-bad characterization of Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, a more nuanced narrative is the one that is likely to defeat the onesided and hostile stance of those seeking to delegitimize Israel.

This means honestly conveying the situation’s complexity, expressing empathy for suffering on both sides (without implying moral equivalency) and offering a constructive pathway to helping the parties move toward peace and reconciliation based on two states for two peoples.

Whether we are dealing with a boycott of Israeli academic institutions adopted by the American Studies Association or an attempt to remove Israeli products from a Brooklyn food co-op, the most effective opponents of these initiatives are the people who travel in those circles.

While we in the organized Jewish community should not remain silent in the face of Israel’s delegitimization, we should strongly support and accentuate the efforts of these third-party validators who share our values and viewpoints. The 247 (and counting) universities and colleges that have denounced academic boycotts generally -- and academic boycotts of Israel specifically -are just such validators.

It is not enough to only

expose the true goals of the boycotters and their allies.

Israel’s supporters must also go on the offensive and drain the swamps of ignorance that allow the poisonous ideas of the Jewish state’s opponents to incubate.

Thus, we are taking the initiative to inoculate vulnerable politically progressive sectors, presenting a more factual perspective on Israel and taking prominent leaders to the region to see the real situation firsthand.

The Israel Action Network, of course, does not work alone in this arena. On a daily basis, numerous organizations stand up for Israel. Through the IAN, JFNA and JCPA are working together to convene around a common strategic planning table not only our affiliates but also a range of other North American, Israeli and European groups in order to share best practices

and coordinate our collective resources in confronting this global danger.

There is no imminent threat to the critical and broad North American support for Israel. But American support for Israel is not something to be taken for granted in light of the organized campaign we now face. While we should not be panicked, we cannot be complacent either. We pledge to continue to work hard to prevent any erosion of that support.

Rabbi Steve Gutow is president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Jerry Silverman is president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Pennsylvania House condemns ASA boycott The Pennsylvania House of Representatives in a vote of 191 to 0 has condemned the Academic Studies Association’s action to boycott against the State of Israel and has called for

the Pennsylvania universities to not participate in the boycott.

This legislation, HR-627, was introduced by House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) with co-

sponsorships from House Speaker Sam Smith (R-Jefferson); House Minority Leader Frank Dermody (D-Allegheny) and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny).

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 9

Driving Force: Storied history for Jews on the golf course

By Annabel Williams Marketing Intern The 3rd annual Mortimer S. Schiff Memorial Golf Tournament tees off on Monday, June 9, at the Lehigh Country Club. This tournament is held in honor of Mort Schiff, z”l, and his wife Vera’s goals of prejudice reduction. Both Mort and Vera taught those around them to practice tolerance and acceptance of all peoples.

It seems fitting that the sport chosen to represent prejudice reduction is one of inclusive and diverse athletes. The past century of golf has brought many different peoples to the sport, including golfers of Jewish heritage. If you follow the sport, you know that Herman Barron was the first Jewish golfer to win a PGA Tour event in 1942. Barron was born in Port Chester, N.Y., and was able to live professionally as a golfer in the 1930s and 1940s. He has a total of eight professional wins, returning in the 1960s to the Senior PGA Championship, and teaching until his death at age 68 in Pompano Beach, Fla. You also might know Monte Scheinblum’s name for his big win in the 1992 National Long Driving Championship. Scheinblum, a Jewish golfer, is the son of another famous sportsman, Major League Baseball All Star Richie Scheinblum. Monte was the world long driving champion in 1992 and retired in 1996.

Amy Alcott is another Jewish golfer who joined the LPGA tour in 1975, going on to win five major championships and 29 LPGA Tour events.

She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Currently, Alcott is serving on the architectural design team for the golf course of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

A new face of Jews in golf is Morgan Pressel, age 23. She turned pro at age 17 and in 2007 she became the youngest to ever win a LPGA major championship. She currently has five professional wins and is continuing in her driving career.

Think you can hang with the skills of these Jewish golfers? Join the June 9 tournament for 18 holes of golf, a driving range, decadent brunch, catered dinner and reverse raffle. This tournament will also present the annual award for prejudice reduction established in Mortimer’s name, a name that lives on to inspire equality and acceptance.

To register for the event, visit www.jewishlehighvalley. org by Friday, May 16, 2014.

Charitable Gift Annuities Continues from page 8

extensive experience in helping donors create CGAs. It establishes an annuity payment amount based upon the actuarial life of the donor and the amount of the funds used to create the CGA. Importantly, the effective annuity rate is a higher percentage to the extent the donors receive an initial income tax deduction.

The amount of the annuity payments to the donor will never change; however, the final benefit to the charities will vary depending upon the lives of the donors and the investment results of the Federation endowment fund. The donors may reserve the right to revise the list of beneficiaries during their lifetimes.

There are many reasons we chose a CGA, from the income provided by it for our lifetimes to the tax benefits. Mainly, however, we feel the satisfaction of completing the gift during our lifetime.

Remember that, as individuals plan for death, something we all should do, let us not forget about life.

The Charitable Gift Annuity allows us to do both.

This article is providing educational information and not tax or legal advice. Prospective donors should discuss their situation with their own tax and legal advisors. To learn more about how a CGA can help you, contact Jim Mueth, Federation director of planned giving and endowments, at 610-821-5500 or jim@jflv.org.

Easton

Charitable Gift Annuities...

AN EXAMPLE Sometimes, the easiest way to understand a concept is with an illustration.

For example, here are some projections for the following assumptions: DONOR: Age 65 SPOUSE: Age 63 Defer annuity payments for 5 years SECURITIES: Fair market value: $100,000 Cost (tax) basis: $20,000 INCOME TAX BRACKET: 39.6% The key metrics of the projections are as follows: ANNUITY PAYMENTS: $5,200 annually (5.2 percent of $100,000) INITIAL INCOME TAX DEDUCTION: $32,341 EFFECTIVE ANNUITY RATE: 6.95%

Saturday, April 26, 2014 Bnai Abraham Synagogue

Federation Shabbat

Featuring Debbie Stein, Senior Director of Talent Development for the Jewish Federations of North, America’s Mandel Center for Leadership Excellence FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Celebrate Community Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley ANNUAL MEET ING

SAVE THE DATE

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014 Free and open to the community

10 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

KI Music Director Karen Berta sings at Carnegie Hall

By Michele Salomon Congregation Keneseth Israel Music, music, music. Morning, noon and night. Each and every day of the week. Music has infused Karen Berta’s life from a very early age and she carries the music with her wherever she goes. Whether it’s selecting music for an upcoming church or synagogue service, directing the professional and congregation choirs, practicing or playing hand bells or teaching, Berta is always engaged with music.

Perhaps that’s why she always has a smile on her face. She is doing something she truly loves and which also delights her daughter, Kelly.

Singing at Carnegie Hall – yes, the one in the heart of New York City – is Berta’s most recent accomplishment.

Along with a select few individuals and church choirs, Berta was recently invited to sing in honor of the 75th anniversary of Shawnee Press Music Publisher. She describes being part of this choir as “incredible” and “more than I could have expected.” And while she admits to having had butterflies she made sure to enjoy each and every moment of this amazing experience.

Lucky for the rest of us that Berta showed no athletic ability as a young child. It became clear fairly early on that Berta would not follow in her mother’s athletic footsteps.

Determined that Berta “do something,” her mother bought an organ and the rest, as they say, is history. She started organ lessons at age 4, played in the school band, sang in the chorus and got a degree in music education from West Chester University. She did some graduate studies, taught in the Allentown School District for a short time and then switched to teaching privately, piano, voice and organ. She had as many as 40 to 50 students at any given time, including KI’s Rabbi Feder’s daughters.

Berta has been playing and directing music at Morgenland Church since 1979, celebrating her 35th anniversary this year. They have KI beat by about 10 years. Berta first came to KI nearly 25 years ago when Rabbi Beifeld was the rabbi and Berta’s daughter Kelly was just about a year old. Over time, KI’s former music director asked Karen to substitute for her. She did and when the music director position became available, it was hers.

Berta is an integral part of Shabbat service at KI. She finds it inspiring to select music which helps adds meaning to the worship service -- whether at Morgenland or at KI. And she has been lucky to share traditions across religions. Over the years, she has found music that works in

both places of worship; the Jewish favorite, “L’chi Lach,” goes over well at Morgenland and at KI we’ve found a new favorite in “Sanctuary,” originally a Christian song.

Karen has found willing partners in Rabbi Seth Phillips and Cantor Jennifer Duretz Peled. As Rabbi Phillips said, “Karen Berta shares her love of Congregation Keneseth Israel and Jewish music with us weekly. Our services are all the more meaningful because of Karen's musical selections, her playing and her nurturing of the congregational and professional choirs. Karen (and her daughter Kelly) reflect the soul of the community and help us to new spiritual heights.”

Cantor Jenn adds that “to know Karen and her family is to love them. Collaborating with Karen is an absolute joy. I have learned a great deal from her both as a musician and a person. Congregation KI is blessed to have Karen as part of our spiritual team.”

Straight from her Carnegie Hall debut, KI will be celebrating Berta’s 25 years worth of song and music during Shabbat Services on Friday, May 30. All are welcome.

Please join us.

Zucchero April 21 | 7:30 pm sponsored by WNTI 99.9 FM

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies May 22 | 7:30

Upcoming Shows The Psychedelic Furs sponsored by WDIY 88.1

April 2 | 8:30 pm

LIVE: Medium’s Gallery with Lauri Moore April 2 | 7:30 pm

An Acoustic Evening with JON ANDERSON

Leo Kottke

April 10 | 7:30 pm

pm

Fishtank Ensemble April 10 | 8 pm

The Blues Brotherhood

with special guest Tom “Bones” Malone April 12 | 8 pm

Little River Band

The Voice of YES April 3 | 7:30 pm

sponsored by Wells Fargo

Who’s Bad—A Tribute to Michael Jackson

Colin Quinn: Unconstitutional

April 18 | 7:30 pm

April 4 | 7:30 pm

April 19 | 8 pm

Perfect Together: Grilled Cheese and Beer

Livingston Taylor May 2 | 7:30 pm

April 6 | 12:30 pm

Musikfest Café™ at SteelStacks™ 101 Founders Way | Bethlehem, PA 18015

Tickets available at: artsquest.org | 610-332-3378

Preservation Hall Jazz Band May 8 | 7:30 pm

Pat Martino May 15 | 7:30 pm

Jane Monheit May 29 | 8 pm

Terence Blanchard May 30 | 8 pm

Plus, Jazz on film series, art exhibit, artist talk with Terence Blanchard and free performances by local artists!

SteelStacks™ | Bethlehem, PA

Tickets available at artsquest.org | 610-332-3378

RiverJazz is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Art Works.

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 11

Hillel students to be honored at brunch April 6 Food Pantry Feinstein Challenge The Alan Shawn Feinstein Foundation will again distribute $1 million among non-profit agencies fighting hunger.

Each participating agency will get a share of the $1 million equal to its proportion of the total amount raised by all participants. All donations designated to Jewish Family Service of the Lehigh Valley’s Food Pantry and received in March and April are eligible.

Donations may be monetary or gifts of food. Donations of food items will be valued at $1 per item for reporting purposes. At this time, we need canned fish, grains (including gluten-free) and cereal.

Scholarships Available Are you a Jewish high school senior looking for scholarship assistance? Call Jewish Family Service at 610-821-8722 or visit www.jewishfamilyservice-lv.org for information on the Gaines Family Foundation Prize in Engineering and the Martin Philip Memorial Scholarship.

Moriah Benjoseph

Samuel Waldorf

By Annabel Williams JFLV Marketing Intern Join the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley in honoring the 2014 recipients of the Levy Hillel Leadership Awards. The Levy Hillel Award recognizes young leaders at each of the Lehigh Valley’s Hillel chapters.

Under the Lehigh Valley Jewish Foundation the Levy Hillel Leadership Award was founded by Mort and Myra Levy, z”l.

The program and brunch will be held on Sunday, April 6, at 10:30 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center in Allentown.

MORIAH BENJOSEPH Moriah is a religious studies major and creative writing and women and gender studies minor at Muhlenberg College. She has served as the vice president of religious and cultural life at Hillel since April 2013 and also serves as the Reform services coordinator at Hillel. Moriah is also currently on the search committee for Muhlenberg’s

Daniel Ferman

Jewish chaplain. She is the secretary of the Muhlenberg College Feminist Collective, is active in the theater association and is on the Council for Interfaith Leadership. She is also a trained assistant for sexual assault support services on campus and a member of Students for Queer Advocacy.

SAMUEL WALDORF Samuel attends the College of Business and Economics at Lehigh University and is enrolled in the Global Citizenship Certificate Program. He is the president of Hillel Society and teaches religious school at Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown. Sam also serves as the president for Global Citizenship Student Committee and is a founding member and vice president of marketing for TAMID Israel Investment Group. He writes for the Brown & White newspaper as a sports reporter.

DANIEL FERMAN Daniel studies psychology at Moravian

Samantha Chavin

College. He holds the treasurer position for Hillel. He is also the president of the Psychology Club and Psi Chi International Honors Society in psychology at Moravian.

Daniel is involved in Greek life on campus and served as vice president for his fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, and is currently the undergraduate council rep for the fraternity.

SAMANTHA CHAVIN Samantha is a neuroscience major at Lafayette College and is the president of Hillel Society. She has also worked at the Union of Reform Judaism on the Kutz Campus for Reform Jewish Leaders in Warwick, N.Y. At Lafayette, she is a Marquis Scholar and the activity coordinator of Lafayette’s Chapter of Best Buddies.

Samantha is the president of the French Club and a member of Marquis Players Charity Theatre Troupe. She holds the position of new member educator for Delta Delta Delta.

Imagining Jews wraps up first semester with tchochtkes

By Jessica Cooperman Muhlenberg College Tchochtkes will be the theme of the final event of the first semester in the popular “Imagining Jews” speaker series.

This slide lecture with Dr. Jeffrey Shandler on Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m., in Muhlenberg College’s Seegers Union will examine an array of items found in post-World War II America featuring one or more Yiddish words on them.

These works of material culture provide an unusual opportunity to consider the place Yiddish has found in American life in the post-Holocaust era. Shandler will look at the language’s complex

symbolic role in American Jews’ sense of identity and heritage, ranging from expressing nostalgia and piety to celebrating cultural subversion.

A Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies program organized by the Jewish Studies Program at Muhlenberg College and co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University, and the Institute for JewishChristian Understanding, the series “Imagining Jews: From the Ancient World to the American Present” explores the many different ways that Jews have been represented by others and by themselves in various media

12 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

and moments in time.

The second semester will kick off in the fall.

Before Shandler’s lecture, one more upcoming event on April 2 at 7 p.m. in Seegers Union at Muhlenberg will feature Professor Henry Bial speaking on “Jew Media: Performance and Technology for the 58th Century.”

The first two events in the series took us back to the Roman past. On Jan. 30, Professor William Gruen, chair of the Department of Religion Studies at Muhlenberg College, transported us to ancient Rome, where he examined depictions of Jews in the letters of Roman officers and administrators following the

Jewish rebellion of 115-117 C.E. In these papyri, Jews appear as dangerous, armed rebels fighting against the imperial army.

Gruen compared these Roman descriptions of troublemaking Jews to a Jewish interpretation of the Book of Job written at approximately the same time. He found that, far from challenging the Roman accounts, the Jewish document demonstrated that these Jews readily embraced their image as rebels eager to pick a fight against a much larger enemy. Gruen provided a glimpse into an understudied moment in the lives of Jews in the Roman Empire and an unexpected way of understanding both how Jews were seen and how they saw

themselves.

On Feb. 25, Professor Daniel Leisawitz, of the Language, Literature, and Culture Department at Muhlenberg, introduced us to a very different Roman Jewish experience. He focused on the work of the 19th century Italian Jewish poet, Crescenzo Del Monte, who used his poetry to record and preserve the distinctive lifestyle and dialect of the Jewish ghetto of Rome.

The ghetto had been established in 1555 and existed until 1870, when Jews were finally allowed to become citizens of the newly-unified Italian State. The ghetto walls were demolished and Jews like Del Monte, who was born in 1868, moved into other neighborhoods in the city but retained a nostalgic connection to the life and language of the ghetto.

Using clips of native speakers reading Del Monte’s funny and poignant poetry, Leisawitz introduced the language of Judaico-Romanesco, the dialect of the Jews of Rome, and raised important questions about how Jews remember and re-imagine the cultures and experiences of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

And on March 27, as HAKOL went to press, Ruth Knafo Setton was set to read from and discuss her new memoir, “Living Between Question Marks,” which she says “explores the grammar of exile, the punctuation of memory, the song of spices and the poetry of myth to imagine – and create – a Sephardic-Jewish identity that seems relevant in today’s world.”

All of the programs in the series are free and open to the public.

Jessica Cooperman is an assistant professor in the Religion Studies Department and Jewish Studies Program at Muhlenberg College and co-organizer of the series.

Cedar Crest professor celebrates sweet life

By Bathsheba Monk Special to HAKOL At 60 years old, Pat Badt has it all and she found it on her unique journey through art, Judaism, teaching, marriage and motherhood.

Pat is a professor of art at Cedar Crest College in Allentown and has a painting studio in an outbuilding at her home in Orefield which she shares with her husband, artist Scott Sherk.

“I always knew I wanted to be an artist,” Pat says. “Or more precisely, I always was an artist. Ever since I can remember I was drawing and painting, creating things.

What was harder was finding Jewish painters I could model myself on. Painters I admired, like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, never self-identified as Jews, and when I was studying art no one said they were Jewish so I thought I was alone. Both of them were famous partly for

painting Christian themes, like stations of the cross, so I just assumed they were Christian.”

A milestone for Pat was seeing an Egyptian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York when she was girl and seeing a figure of a slave.

“He was circumcised!” she says, “So I knew he was Jewish. It made me so happy.”

Pat was born in Los Angeles, Calif., and her parents never celebrated Jewish holidays except for Passover with her father’s sister-in-law where the seder was more centered on politics than Jewishness.

“All my friends were Jewish. I didn’t know anybody who wasn’t Jewish.

I never doubted that I was Jewish, but I couldn’t have told you then what that meant.”

In the laid-back California atmosphere, Chanukah and Christmas blended together.

It wasn’t until she was 6 and her parents divorced and she moved with her mother to New York that her mother started celebrating the big Jewish holidays with relatives and friends.

“If someone had asked me then what kind of a Jew I was, I would have said I was a New York Jew,” she says, laughing. “That’s how I distinguished things: New York Jew and Los Angeles Jew. It had a lot to do with how many presents I received at holidays.”

It wasn’t until grad school at the University of Pennsylvania where Pat met her roommate who wasn’t Jewish that she was thrown out of her cultural comfort zone and was forced to articulate what being a Jewish artist meant. Without a mentor, she knew she would have to create an artistic identity on her own and at Penn she began to refine her voice as an artist.

She had always identified with the abstract expressionists, many of whom she now knew were Jews, but that school of painting had strict rules about referencing neither the physical world nor personal experience and Pat finds most of her inspiration in both.

Her canvases are bands of nuanced color that pull the viewer in because they are familiar — yet not. They intrigue, like a word on the tip of your tongue which is tantalizingly just beyond your reach. And if you turn the canvasses around they will often have attached to their backs a physical or personal

remembrance of what inspired them: a photo, a keepsake.

“All of my paintings,” she says, “are about finding metaphors. Finding symbolism. Culture is about looking at history and history is a litany of specific events and things.”

“Mansard,” a painting in the Girl Band show Pat curated this winter at the Martin Art Gallery at Muhlenberg College is a composition of green and slate gray stripes — slanting and straight — that reference the roof on her studio which was recently replaced when it started leaking. On the back of the canvas is a piece of the discarded roof tile.

An even more personal painting in the show is called “Licorice Buttons and the Beach, 2012,” a luscious composition of yellows, beiges, white and black. It was inspired by her father who died three years ago.

“He loved to eat black licorice buttons when he sat on the beach,” she says. Attached to the back of the canvas is a half-finished portrait of her father that she started during one of her visits to California and a bag of his favorite black candy.

Pat always intended to go back to California after grad school, but before that could happen she met Scott Sherk, a fellow student at Penn, and they got married. He had deep roots in Pennsylvania and when they both found jobs in local colleges — Scott is head of the art department at Muhlenberg College — she agreed to stay “for a while.”

Scott’s family considers

itself part of the Pennsylvania Mennonite tradition and they embraced Pat and encouraged her to explore her Jewish roots. Pennsylvania Dutch low-German dialect is similar to Yiddish.

“I made my first brisket for Scott’s family,” she says.

When her daughter Rachel was born she realized how important it was to make her daughter aware of Jewish traditions. She wrote a Haggadah for the Passover seder based loosely on Elie Weisel’s book — “but with more opportunities for toasting,” she said — and she’s found many ways to incorporate Jewish symbolism into her life. At a recent party celebrating an exhibit of Scott’s work that coincided with Rosh Hashanah, she passed around a plate of apples from her orchard dipped in honey and explained to all the guests that it expressed a hope for a sweet life in the new year.

And it is a sweet life. “It took 60 years to get here,” she says.

Does she still yearn to return to Los Angeles? To be a Los Angeles Jew? Pat opened a book she made in 2000 called “A Life Imagined,” paintings of all the things she missed about L.A.: Mexican food, perfect legs from all that physical culture, endless sunlight of course.

The last page is a picture of Scott holding Rachel and the caption reads, “My world would have been empty without you.”

“I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” she says.

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Themes of Jewish life run deep

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Judge Kelly Banach

Glenn Block

Jeanette Eichenwald

Robert Freeman

Roberta Marcus

Judge Edward Reibman

By Monica Friess Special to HAKOL In the Pennsylvania General Assembly there are 203 members of the House, of which five are Jewish, and 50 members of the Senate, of which four are Jewish. “We are just one shy of a minyan!” joked State Rep.Michael Schlossberg.

Here in the Lehigh Valley there are several members of the Jewish community who hold public office. We thought we’d ask some local officials about the juxtaposition of their Jewish upbringing with their work on behalf of their constituency. How has Judaism impacted their career choice and practice? How do Judaism’s teachings and culture inform their politics?

Some of their thoughts appear below.

Judge Kelly Banach of Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas said the starting point is the desire to combat injustice. “For me,” said Banach, who lost family members in Hungary to the Holocaust, “there’s an overarching desire to honor what was lost.” She remembers her Hebrew school days spent “learning lessons from the Torah -- what is right, what is just.” She also recalls her Hebrew school class collecting items to donate to those less fortunate. As one who always felt herself an outsider -- the only Jewish student in her Swain School class, the only private-school student in Girl Scouts -- she knows how it feels to be “the other.” When judging a defendant, Banach tries to put herself in their shoes and figure out, “‘How did this happen?’ I’d rather repair damage than merely punish an individual. The spirit of tikkun olam is very important to me.”

Glenn Block, vice president of South Whitehall Township’s Board of Commissioners and native Allentonian, said he is “lucky to have had parents who sent me to the Jewish Day School. It was there I learned to be a critical thinker, to study the Torah and the Talmud, to reach deep into their meaning using logic and interpretational skills.” The Torah, he said, is “a study of right versus wrong. We can learn to apply the wisdom of 5,000 years ago to modern day issues.” Block said lessons of the Holocaust taught him the invaluable lesson of how harmful words can lead to horrible actions.

“Memories of the Holocaust have instilled in me the drive to be a just leader; to ensure that people of all walks of life and of every race and religion are treated fairly.”

For Allentown Councilwoman Jeanette Eichenwald, her initial interest in seeking public office stemmed from the experience of her parents, Holocaust survivors from Vienna.

“I saw first-hand what a harmful government is capable of,” she said, “and what a strong role the government plays in our lives.” She said she has never taken any of her rights for

14 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

granted, and implores people to stay informed and exercise their right to vote. Eichenwald said her parents’ experience (also reinforced by her in-laws’ Holocaust survival experience), “gave me the courage to go against the grain and stand up for what is right, to make sure the minority opinion is heard, to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves.” This is, she acknowledged, a guiding principle of all faiths, but it was her personal history that drove her desire and moved her to ensure she had a “modicum of power over the decision-making process.”

State Rep. Robert Freeman remembers the lessons taught during his Hebrew school classes and Bar Mitzvah studies. Some of the messages imparted may have been subtle, he said, but they have stuck with him through his career. “Judaism puts a tremendous emphasis on ethical conduct and on treating our fellow citizens well,” he said, “and instills in us the responsibility to give back to the greater community.” He credits much of his motivation to his “wonderful parents who served as role models of proper ethical conduct” and says the lessons he learned from them and from his Hebrew school years have been a “guiding force in how I perform my duties as a public official and how I conduct myself in the world.”

President of the School Board of the Parkland School District Roberta Marcus feels adamantly about giving back to the community what she received from others. “It’s such a strong tenet of our faith,” she said, “that the children are our future. We have an important responsibility as parents to ensure that public education for all kids is of the highest quality.” She said that just as her education was the responsibility of others, she wants to remain active in providing the same opportunities for all of our children.

Judge Edward Reibman of Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas, said “Judaism’s principal theme of rebuilding the world to make it a better place reinforced values imparted to me by my parents and were consistent with their activities, which I greatly admired.” His mother, Jeanette Reibman, a Pennsylvania legislator for 38 years and the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania Senate, was well known throughout Pennsylvania for enacting laws that created opportunities, especially educational opportunities, for all persons to have a better life. This has guided Reibman throughout his career. His involvement as a lawyer in the Civil Rights Movement influences him to this day as a judge. “Many Jews were active leaders in the movement,” he said, “in numbers disproportionate to the general population.

Historically, the Jewish people in particular, but not exclusively, have experienced the hard

for Valley’s elected officials

Lisa Scheller

Michael Schlossberg

and evil realities of oppression, discrimination and suffering. Understanding that history has graced us with a strong social conscience and an imperative to do something with it.”

Lehigh County Commissioner and Chairwoman of the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners Lisa Scheller cites the great scholar and philosopher Moshe Ben Maimon as a guide in her decision making. “My political beliefs and actions are strongly influenced by my personal values, communications with the residents of Lehigh County, and existing law,” she said. “Maimonides’ code of charity has been interpreted that the highest level of tzedakah is helping people in ways that they will no longer be dependent on others.” Her concern over local tax rates and their potential effects on its citizens motivated her to run for office.

She favors personal involvement in outcomebased initiatives that will foster independence rather than government handouts and said, “I believe this is what Maimonides would propose.”

“I’ve always believed Judaism in its best form is social action,” said State Rep. Michael Schlossberg, “with emphasis on the here and now and the building of a better future.” A means to this end is through public education,

Judge Robert Steinberg

and this is his focal area of interest. “Education is a core value of Judaism, and I want to work toward restoring the careers of those who were laid off so that they may continue to teach our children.” Schlossberg remembers a phrase he heard as a child from his rabbi. “He said, ‘Our responsibility is to add one more grain to the store.’ One of Judaism’s goals is to improve humanity, and I feel I can best do this through public service.”

Born and raised in Allentown, Judge Robert Steinberg of Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas remembers his parents’ active involvement with Temple Beth El and their commitment to family and community. “The values I have,” he said, “are those instilled by my parents and, by association, their interaction with people at the synagogue.” Their social involvement helped him gain a perspective and understanding of people who come into his courtroom. “Discussions of the nuances of laws and of Judaism were a part of my household,” he said. “My parents imparted lessons of Jewish values, and my mother taught me to be empathetic. I try my best to emulate them.”

While there are other Jewish elected officials in the Valley, this small sampling shows what an important influence Judaism can have on their professional lives.

Do you know an outstanding young leader in the Jewish community?

Nominate him or her for the

2014 GEORGE FELDMAN ACHIEVEMENT AWARD An exceptional cadre of young leaders have been recipients of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley's Feldman Award. First given in 1973, the award recognizes those individuals who have exemplified the finest qualities of leadership in volunteer life serving the Jewish community.

The award has a monetary value of up to $1,500 for participation in a mission to Israel.

Full nominating criteria can be found at www.jewishlehighvalley.org.

DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO DESERVES THIS SPECIAL RECOGNITION? Please submit names of nominees, along with a short statement indicating the reasons for consideration for this award.

Nominations should be sent to the attention of GFAA, Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, 702 North 22nd Street, Allentown, PA 18104 or by e-mail to judy@jflv.org with GFAA in the subject line. Nominations must be received no later than April 17, 2014.

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 15

JEWISHSENIORLIFECO The GO Program offers free transportation for seniors

What is the Jewish Senior Life Connection?

Jewish Senior Life Connection is a joint initiative of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, Jewish Family Service of the Lehigh Valley and the Jewish Community Center of Allentown, in partnership with other local Jewish organizations, that strives to meet the needs of a growing senior population in the Jewish Lehigh Valley. By providing services such as transportation, we are helping seniors, if they choose, to successfully age in place and maintain a connection to the Jewish community.

By Carah Tenzer Senior Services Planning Consultant The Lehigh Valley is a great place to live for people at all ages and stages.

Now the third most populated area in Pennsylvania, we’ve got history, museums, music and culture right at our fingertips. For many people over age 65 who don’t drive or who have limitations to driving, the trick has been accessing what the Valley has to offer beyond attending to daily needs outside the home.

Public transportation may not

FROM JFS DIRECTOR

Debbie Zoller When older adults cannot drive, they frequently experience emotional, mobility, monetary, psychological and social loss. The non-driving individual feels that he or she should only have trips out of necessity and not for social reasons. The person may not want to impose on family members or may not have family members to ask for help. These feelings are magnified if the older adult was previously independent and self-sufficient.

How an older adult negotiates rides is influenced by what the person can afford. Jewish Family Service can provide an in-home assessment to help identify services needed by the older adult. JFS offers a variety of services that can help an older adult cope with the aging process. JFS also has a caregiver support group for those who are concerned about their aging parents.

It gives me great pleasure to roll out these two pages on transportation options for seniors in the Lehigh Valley. The GO Program, which is part of the Jewish Senior Life Connection, is the result of the Jewish Federation and Jewish Family Service’s collaborative effort to address the challenges faced by our elderly population today.

While no single program may address each person’s entire needs, it is our hope that we can provide a menu of services that help empower those older adults who remain in their own homes.

The GO Program is a step in the right direction recognizing that it’s time to put services in place that empower our seniors. You also can help in this process by becoming a JFS volunteer who can make a difference to a senior by providing a service that a senior needs. In this month of April, as we are celebrating Passover, the idea of “let my people go” is truer than ever, especially as we honor the seniors in our community.

16 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

be ideal. Friends and family can only do so much; yet the ability to get where one needs and wants to go is crucial to wellbeing. This is why transportation became a top priority when the Jewish Community Strategic Plan called upon Jewish organizations to “expand supportive services to older Jewish people that allow them to maximize their wellbeing, independence and connection to Jewish life.”

In order to address the needs and wants of the area’s older adults and make transportation for seniors a reality, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, Jewish Family Service and the Jewish Community Center created Jewish Senior Life Connection. In time, several new programs that address healthy and safe aging in place will come out of this collaborative.

This April, Jewish Senior Life Connection will debut The GO Program. It is a friendly, free door-todoor ride service for Jewish seniors or adults with a disability, with trained volunteers doing the driving. A simple call to Jewish Family Service will begin the process of enrollment.

One of JFS’s professional staff will conduct a convenient in-home interview to identify transportation needs. Jewish Family Service’s partner agency, ShareCare Faith In Action, will track scheduling preferences and will be able to accommodate two to three round-trip rides per month, per person.

Debbie Zoller, executive director of Jewish Family Service, is enthusiastic about the expansion of services.

“Our mission is to help individuals and families cope with transitions in their lives,” she said. “By building transportation options, JFS is able to help those who need services

connect in meaningful ways to their community while encouraging their ability to age in place.”

Successful aging in place means that one can safely reside in his or her own home while community resources remain accessible. In addition to helping with medical appointments, food shopping and attending to personal needs, The GO Program helps seniors stay connected to family and friends, participate in community life and take part in classes or programs that are thoughtprovoking and fun.

Rebecca Axelrod-Cooper, community impact coordinator at JFS, has already conducted several interviews with interested riders.

“By and large, people rely on family and friends to get around,” she said.

“The GO Program is perfect for those who have that and need just a little bit more. The enduring relationship between the driver and the individual is such a key part of its success.”

Several volunteer drivers have already participated in the orientation program.

“The drivers absolutely form a bond with the riders,” AxelrodCooper said. “One of the pleasures for them is taking the individuals to places where they will socialize or get their hair done. Seniors needing rides is not strictly about doctor’s appointments, but about maintaining a positive quality of life!”

If you or someone you care about would benefit from a few rides per month, please call Jewish Family Service at 610-821-8722 and ask about The GO Program.

Likewise, if you have a few hours to spare and want to do something wonderful for others, consider becoming a volunteer driver. The need is great and grows whenever community members enroll.

OTHER RIDE OPTIONS LANTA

610-776-7433 | lantabus.com All LANta buses are free for people 65 and over with ID if able to ride the bus. Application for the van is online: After the application is submitted the person will be contacted for an in-person evaluation.

The LANta van is $3.35 per trip or you can buy a book of tickets : 6 tickets for $20.10; 6 one-way or 3 round-trip -- must be bought ahead of time. The van is door to door service but a shared ride.

Mon-Sat, 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sun, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Can call up to 14 days ahead until 4:30 p.m. the day before. No same-day ride service.

Lehigh and Northampton Counties.

ITN

610-419-1645 | itnlehighvalley.org Must register and there is an annual fee of $60/person and $75/family.

Contact ITN for ride fee rates 24/7. No limitation for ride purpose.

Private automobiles. Trained drivers. Book anytime, but there is a discount for booking ahead or sharing a ride.

ONNECTION The GO Program THE MOST DIFFICULT CONVERSATION:

Turning in the car keys

By Myra Saturen JFS Community Relations Coordinator

It is a conversation that many of us will have to initiate. It is also one of the most difficult: telling an aging relative that it is time to turn in the car keys.

AARP identifies these warning signs that the time has come:  Almost crashing, with frequent “close calls”  Finding dents and scrapes on the car, on fences, mailboxes, garage doors, curbs, etc.  Getting lost, especially in familiar locations  Having trouble seeing or following traffic signals, road signs and pavement markings  Responding more slowly to unexpected situations, or having trouble moving their foot from the gas to the brake pedal; confusing the two pedals  Misjudging gaps in traffic at intersections and on highway entrance and exit ramps  Experiencing road rage or causing other drivers to honk or complain  Easily becoming distracted or having difficulty concentrating while driving  Having a hard time turning around to check the rear view while backing up or changing lanes  Receiving multiple traffic tickets or “warnings” from law enforcement officers.

How can we approach this fraught subject? The National Highway Safety Traffic Administration has some suggestions:

 Be sensitive to the way you can help older drivers preserve their self-respect. Appreciate the significance of a driver’s license to the older person.

Empathize with and listen to the older driver.  To lead the conversation, choose someone in the family or a trusted friend with whom the older driver might be more comfortable.  Present your concerns in the least threatening way. Instead of saying “you’re no longer a safe driver,” say instead “I am concerned about your safety when you are driving.”  If conversations do not convince the older driver, have that person go to an objective, less personal source such as AARP’s Driver Safety Program, which offers a self-assessment quiz.  Offer alternative means of transportation that will allow the older person to stay connected to the community and activities that are meaningful to them.

Yes, it is an emotionally charged conversation, but a necessary one that could save lives.

GOING BY LANTA VAN:

Allentown resident finds service indispensable

By Myra Saturen JFS Community Relations Coordinator When Nancy Amols, a resident of Allentown’s West End, has a doctor’s appointment, she gets right on the phone with LANta and makes a reservation for a ride on their van. As long as she notifies LANta a day ahead, on a weekday, she is assured of a ride.

The LANta van provides transportation for people with specialized needs.

Since she does not drive because of a medical condition, Amols uses the van often,

sometimes every day and even twice on the same day, to go from one appointment to another.

“The drivers are respectful, pleasant and helpful,” she said.

“They will walk people right from and to their doors, will help fasten seatbelts, make people comfortable.”

Because the drivers are so conscientious about assisting people and sometimes because of traffic conditions, a rider may have to wait a short time, on occasion, for a van. But this does not trouble Amols. She comes prepared with a book and a snack.

Fares for the LANta van for people with disabilities are relatively low and can be waived for people who have low incomes.

For more detailed information on fares and the application process, go to LANta’s website, www. lantabus.com, or call 610-4323200. It is also helpful to know that LANta eligibility decisions can be appealed. The ride is a shared one.

“The van goes all over the Lehigh Valley, to stores, cultural venues, workplaces, restaurants, visits to friends,” Amols said enthusiastically. “I recommend it.”

VOLUNTEER DRIVERS NEEDED Formal training Insurance coverage Mileage reimbursement Drive who you want, when you want.

Jewish Senior Life Connection is a collaborative program and planning initiative of:

Call Rebecca Axelrod-Cooper at Jewish Family Service, 610-821-8722 In partnership with ShareCare Faith in Action

Volunteer Stephen Volk on the best things about driving for JFS What brought you to volunteer at JFS? My wife, Beverly, was a former president of the board of Jewish Family Service. Bev mentioned to me that JFS was in need of volunteer drivers. I had a stroke which impaired my speech, so I could no longer work as a physician. I wanted to do something productive.

What have you gotten out of your volunteer experiences?

My volunteer drives for JFS clients are good experiences. I benefit from the experience. I feel good about performing a service that is valuable and really appreciated by the people I help.

Beyond driving people to the places they need to go, have you seen other benefits to your relationship with the riders?

The clients TALK - my speech is too impaired for me to talk much to them. In fact, I listen to the clients. I enjoy that. One client told me he was scheduled to speak at a convention in Texas. That was quite interesting.

What would you say to encourage others who are considering becoming a volunteer driver?

Driving for JFS clients is not hard, and it is very rewarding. People need to be able to get to their doctor and other appointments. They need to be able to get to the grocery store. They are very appreciative. Maybe the lucky folks who get to go south for the winter can pitch in and do some driving when they get back to the Lehigh Valley!

JEWISH HERITAGE NIGHT AT THE IRONPIGS THURSDAY, MAY 22, 2014 Want to GO to this special event?

You get the ticket, we’ll get you there!

Transportation available for seniors ages 65+

$4 PER PASSENGER

Central pickup points in Allentown and Easton To reserve your seat by May 7, call Jewish Family Service at 610-821-8722.

Tickets to the game may be purchased by calling 610-841-PIGS or by connecting with one of the many Jewish institutions offering group tickets.

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 17

Beneficiary Agency of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley

18 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

Beneficiary Agency of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley

Date: June 21st; rain date June 22nd Parkland Athletic Fields 8:30am to 9:15pm Home Run Derby at 6pm Mocktail Mix Off at 5pm

Exciting News Steve Carlton Ex Phillies Pitcher and Hall of Famer will be joining us for part of the day, and will be signing autographs Info:www.justinsheftel.com Like us on Facebook for updates The Justin Sheftel Memorial Softball tournament continues to honor Justin’s memory. Throughout its history it has educated the public on the dangers of underage drinking and driving while intoxicated. Due to the generosity of our sponsors and participants the Memorial Fund has donated over $175,000 in scholarships and donations to many local charities, (including the JCC) and sports organizations. This year we will be celebrating our 10th annual tournament on June 21st. As part of this celebration we will be hosting, Steve Carlton, Hall of Fame Pitcher, ex Phillie. Our mission is to remember Justin, to continue educating the public, support local charities, work to make a difference in our community, and to ensure we all have fun doing this. Come and watch us play, see Steve Carlton, be part of the day.

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 19

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

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We welcome you to

visit the JDS.

To schedule a personal tour, contact CAROLYN KATWAN Director of Marketing & Admissions, at 610-437-0721.

2313 W PENNSYLVANIA ST. ALLENTOWN, PA 18104 610-437-0721 WWW.JDSLV.ORG

20 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

BLUE 2013 RIBB N SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE Member of

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Kurt Herman, rescued as a child, to speak at JCC Film Festival

On a rescue mission, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus of Philadelphia with the Jewish children they rescued from Europe.

Kurt Herman, shown to the left of the life preserver and next to the hand and now of Willow Grove, Pa., was one of the children they rescued.

By Monica Friess Special to HAKOL “Imagine being one of only 50 people in the world to share a unique experience,” said Kurt Herman of Willow Grove, Pa. “I am one of those people.”

Herman was referring to a kindertransport of 1939 organized and undertaken by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus of Philadelphia.

Their story is told in the film “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus,” which features commentary by Herman and several of the other rescued children. He will speak at the showing of the film at the Jewish Community Center at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23.

Born in 1929 to Martha and Heinrich Herman, Kurt Herman began life in an uppermiddle-class family in Vienna, Austria. His father and maternal grandfather owned a fabric business; his aunt, uncle, and cousin lived nearby and the extended family relished the time they spent together. At the age of 6, he began school, studying and playing alongside his non-Jewish classmates. “Sure there was anti-Semitism in the country,” Herman said, “but there was antiSemitism everywhere. This was nothing new.”

By 1937, it became clear to the Herman family that Hitler was looking to rid Europe of non-Aryans. “My mom had an intuition that things would be bad for Austria and especially for the Jews and that we should get out,” he said. This would prove very difficult, as strict quotas were set and families needed signed affidavits in order to be considered for emigration.

In March of 1938, Germany marched into Austria, occupying and annexing it into the Third Reich. Two weeks after this

Anschluss, Herman’s school was divided.

“They drew lines down the middle of our classrooms,” he recalled, “and the Jews and nonJews were separated.” With this division also came bullying by his “so-called buddies.” “They began wearing swastikas and taunting me,” Herman said. “I asked my father, ‘What did I do?’ He replied, ‘You were born Jewish.’”

As the family worried and waited for their quota number, life went on. His father could still work, but not as much and under harsher conditions. In 1939, Jews were no longer allowed in the neighborhood schools. His mother would transport him to and from a school an hour away.

“This was a good move for my mother to take me,” Herman said, “since many fathers who took their kids [to school] didn’t come back.”

Then came November 9-10, 1938. Kristallnacht.

“All was lost.” Herman said. “I witnessed the fires and the stormtroopers from our apartment window. That image will forever haunt me.”

His father and grandfather lost their business, and eventually all three branches of the family consolidated into one apartment.

Little by little the family was able to leave Vienna. His uncle went to Shanghai while his aunt and cousin remained with his family. Next, his father and grandparents were able to obtain passage on the SS Flandres, a ship bound for Cuba. They were turned away, but France accepted the ship and they ended up in a displaced persons camp.

Herman’s father was placed in a work camp; his grandparents were later sent to Auschwitz, where they perished.

Early in 1939, word came that

a couple was coming to Austria to rescue Jewish children. “We were told there were 50 spots, but tons of kids. Why would they pick me?” Herman wondered.

Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus came with a pediatrician who was fluent in German, and the process began. The kids were given Rorschach tests and physicals, and their report cards were reviewed. On May 10, the Hermans received a letter saying their son “was fit” and should be at the train station with two suitcases on May 20. “This was a frightening sight,” Herman said.

“There were stormtroopers with bayonets and dogs. Parents were warned not to cry or wave.”

Funding for the trip was organized and raised by the Brith Sholom Fraternal Organization of Philadelphia.

The train took them to Berlin and from there they boarded the USS Harding and set sail for the United States.

“What an adventure!”

Herman said. “English lessons with the Krauses were required, but we had a lot of free time and free run of the ship.”

On June 3, they arrived in New York Harbor and were taken to a Brith Sholom campsite in Collegeville, Pa., where they spent the remainder of the summer. “Here we learned to be Americans,” Herman said. (He found he loved basketball, and would go on to become captain of his junior high team and play for Muhlenberg College as well.)

By the end of the summer, the exodus from camp began. Some kids were picked up by family members; most went to foster homes.

Herman and another boy were taken in by the Leonards, a wealthy family in Allentown.

He remembers arriving at their home, which is now the

president’s home at Muhlenberg College, and thinking, “Wow, people live very well in America!”

Mr. and Mrs. Leonard, whose children were already grown, were wonderful to the boys. Early in 1940, Herman’s mother was also able to leave Vienna and come to Allentown. (His aunt and cousin had already made it to Brooklyn, and his father would join the family in Allentown later on.) Herman remembers his mother saying, “I sent a boy and got a man.” Mrs. Leonard found her an apartment and a job. Later, his father would find work in the fabric business. “We struggled,” Herman said. “We were poor, but we were free.”

Kurt Herman studied and worked hard. He graduated from the Allentown school system, became a U.S. citizen, attended Muhlenberg College and graduated from Penn State. He served in the Coast Guard from 1951-54 “doing my duty and giving back to my country.” He married Rosalyn, a Philadelphia girl, in 1953, and they have three daughters: Gayle, Elise and Shari.

Eventually Herman would become CFO of three private companies in succession and then of the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia, where he completed his career in 1996.

He opened a tax consulting business at that time and he still lends his business acumen to his synagogue as their financial advisor. He was also asked by Brith Sholom to be president of the Kraus-Pearlstein Lodge.

“I couldn’t turn them down,” Herman said. “They saved my life.”

Kurt Herman will speak to the community on April 23 when the film “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus” is presented at the JCC. “It was a dark time in history,” he said, “but mine was mostly a happy story.”

“50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus” is part of the JCC’s Jewish & Israeli Film Festival and is co-presented by the Holocaust Resource Center and Eydie and Neil Glickstein in memory of Eydie’s father Maurice Marin, a survivor from Paris. The event is free and open to the community.

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After Auschwitz trip, Cantor warns against dangers of isolationism

Eric Cantor

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency When Rep. Eric Cantor took the stage in February at the Virginia Military Institute to deliver a wide-ranging foreign policy address, Auschwitz was on the House majority leader’s mind —

and so, observers suggest, was the state of his party.

In his speech, the Virginia Republican cited his recent visit — his first — to the Nazi death camp, connecting past horrors to the present-day danger of retreating into isolationism.

“Standing there as the frigid wind swept through the eerily quiet ruins of the camp, I could not help but regret that American action in World War II came too late to save countless millions of innocent lives,” Cantor said.

The Virginia Military Institute speech is one of the ways in which Cantor — sometimes mentioned as a future House speaker or possible vice-presidential pick — has tried recently to shape his party’s agenda on both foreign and domestic policy. Also in February, he penned an article for the venerable conservative magazine National Review outlining the House Republicans’ vision for economic and jobs growth.

But while Cantor is asserting his leadership within the party more broadly, sources who have spoken to him suggest his foreign policy address was shaped specifically by profound feelings aroused by his visit to Auschwitz.

Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, had visited Auschwitz with other members of Congress to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the camp’s liberation. He was there at the same time as a historic delegation that included nearly half the members of the Israeli Knesset.

“He was profoundly impacted by what he had seen,” said William Daroff, director of the Washington office of Jewish Federations of North America, of their phone conversation. “He’d never been to Auschwitz before.

It really brings home the impact of inaction in the world scene.”

Cantor was traveling and was not available for an interview.

PJ LIBRARY Family of the Month: THE SHIMONS PJ Library makes Jewish history accessible to our young readers. The stories of Eastern European shtetls, New York City tenements and Middle Eastern communities are told in fun context, sparking family conversations about our own grandparents and great-grandparents!

Hakol 4x4_April_BeautyAndBeast_Layout 1 3/10/2014 11:25 AM Page 1

To learn more about PJ Library and register to receive free Jewish-themed books for children from 6 months through 8 years, visit www.pjlibrary.org.

Tue., June 3 & Wed., June 4

PJ LIBRARY

Pre-Passover Dinner & Story Walk

Please join PJ Library for a night before the first Seder spaghetti dinner.

We will have a fun search for chametz, a story walk, dinner and, of course, a PJ Library story.

SPECIAL GUEST READER RABBI SETH PHILLIPS.

7 PM - $55/$50

Sponsored by Brown-Daub Dealerships and 100.7 WLEV; Family series sponsored by Capital BlueCross

453 Northampton St., Easton, PA

. 1-800-999-STATE . 610-252-3132 . www.statetheatre.org

DATE: Sunday, April 13, 2014 TIME: 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

LOCATION: JCC of Allentown $12/adult, $8/child. Advanced registration and payment to the JCC Welcome Center required by April 8. Contact Brenda Finberg at bfinberg@lvjcc.org for information.

JCC OF ALLENTOWN 702 N. 22nd St., Allentown, PA 18104

JOIN PJ LIBRARY FOR MORE GREAT EVENTS: Davening with Donuts at Temple Beth El Saturday, April 5, 10 a.m.

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 25

GIVE A MITZVAH, DO A MITZVAH

Bat Mitzvah’s whole family gets in on the walk

Danielle Vaknin became a Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Sons of Israel on Saturday, March 29.

The Springhouse Middle School seventh grader is autistic, but isn’t letting her special needs get in the way of helping others.

Every year, Danielle and her family, including parents, Lora and Sharone, and sisters, Ariel and Talia, participate in Walk Now for Autism Speaks. As in years past, Danielle’s grandparents, Eva and Larry Levitt, will be joining the walk too.

This year’s Lehigh Valley walk will be held on Friday, April 25, at Dorney Park. Autism Speaks is dedicated to increasing awareness of autism spectrum disorders, funding research into the causes, prevention and treatments for autism and advocating for the needs of individuals with autism and their families. Walk Now for Autism Speaks is a fun-filled, family-friendly event and is the single most powerful force to fund vital research that will lead to the answers. Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disorder in the U.S. Every 11 minutes, another family receives the devastating news that their child has an autism spectrum disorder.

If you’d like to help Danielle raise money, checks made out to Autism Speaks may be dropped off at the Federation office. Or email sharonvaknin1@yahoo.com.

“Sharone and I are so proud of Danielle,” her mom, Lora, said. “Even with her special needs, she is always helping others.”

In addition to her mitzvah project, Danielle has made her first adult gift of tzedakah to the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley Annual Campaign for Jewish Needs.

For help developing your mitzvah project, contact Abby Trachtman, program coordinator, at abbyt@jflv.org or 610-821-5500.

The JCC Skunks win the 2014 JCC Basketball Classic Four teams entered this year’s JCC Basketball Classic, the annual end-of-season tournament involving teams from various youth sports organizations across the Lehigh Valley. This year’s selection included two teams from the Allentown JCC, one team from Catasauqua and one team from Parkland.

In the first game of the tournament, the eighth grade JCC team -- also known as the “Skunks” -- beat a tough Catasauqua team 49 to 24. The JCC’s Ben Wax and R.J. Corba led the team with 10 points each, while Sammy Zahn and Andy Leboeuf netted seven points apiece. Ben Wilson, Ben Palumbo and Max Hakim controlled the paint and led the team in rebounding.

The Skunks made it to the championship game, for the second time in three years, to face an athletic and aggressive Parkland team before a packed crowd. The final game was tight throughout. Brayden Koch, Steven Lipson and Vincent Borrelli continued to break a tough Parkland

press, and Jonah Grob led the defensive effort.

The Skunks led by four with one minute remaining, until Josh Lemberg’s deep three-pointer provided a bit of breathing room, and the Skunks held on for a 30 to 24 victory.

The win capped an exceptional season for the Skunks, who lost only once during the entire season.

Lone Soldier writes home

Editor’s Note: Since July 2012, Sami Meir-Levi has shared with us her life as a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. Although continuing as a lone soldier, Sami will now transition to a new role as volunteer field correspondent for HAKOL. Todah rabah, Sami, for your dedication in writing to us every month and we look forward to your future contributions!

Shalom HAKOL Readers, As much as I would like to tell you about fun times with my friends, I need to share one of the more scary experiences I’ve had on base.

In mid-March, there were 41 rockets launched from Gaza into Israel. According to the IDF blog, three of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome and five landed in populated areas. Palestinian Islamic jihadists had launched these rockets.

For a few nights, we had to sleep on the floors of the bomb shelters on my base. We all brought our thin mattresses from our beds and laid them on the tile floor. After the first night of the rockets coming in, our planes started to fly over Gaza.

Back in our shelter, we were a crowd of sleeping (or texting) girls and, above us, the noise of the planes -- and of the rain.

I’ve never seen it rain so hard in Israel.

In response to the rocket attacks, according to the IDF blog, the “IAF (Israeli Air Force) targeted 29 terror sites in the

Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed.”

Seeing, hearing and experiencing these terror attacks is something I’d never thought would happen in my life. I always heard about these types of events from the States. For example, with Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, I was visiting my family in the U.S. just before starting the army. I couldn’t imagine how Israeli civilians, men, women and children could live with the frequent attacks. After seeing it firsthand, I am even more shocked. It’s a terrible way of living and these attacks need to stop immediately.

Sami Meir-Levi

The Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley and other Federations in North America fund the Lone Soldier program.

The greatest winter ever for Allentown BBYO

By Austin Hedden Allentown BBYO It has been a busy winter for Allentown BBYO. Since the first day of 2014, we have been hard at work introducing new members to the BBYO lifestyle and making sure older members are still involved. We had a Game Night for Allentown AZA on January 11. The whole night was spent having video game competitions in games like Halo, Madden, Fifa and Super Smash Bros. Melee, as well as our annual game of Risk.

Around the start of February, the Allentown BBG and Allentown AZA had AIT Night. This is an event where we teach new members about our orders and our sacred traditions. We also officially induct new members into the chapter at these programs. There was also IT Convention, where new members are inducted into the region, and IC, where any member can go and meet other members from around the world.

The girls had a night of programming called Girls Back in Time where they had older members team up with newer members and teach them about their experiences in BBYO. In March, we had 5/6 Fold, where there were a bunch of programs about team-building and unity using the 5 and 6 folds of AZA and BBG, as well as a program about breaking out of stereotypes.

Even as I am writing this article, we are busy preparing for Man Night, a night of gentlemanly and heroic things for Allentown AZA. Not to mention there is also going to be East Coast Kallah, a convention featuring all the regions of the East Coast. We are also excited for the Jewish Federation’s anti-Semitism seminar at the JCC on March 30. Winter has been busy, but spring will be even busier.

26 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

The Jerusalem Post Crossword Puzzle

By David Benkof Special to HAKOL Editor’s Note: This month we bring you something new! Puzzle-writer David Benkof says this is the first puzzle he’s written in which “every single clue is Jewish.” He adds, “Judaic clues range from Israeli cities to Hollywod actors to Yiddish words

to notable Jewish women. Designed for the knowledgeable but not necessarily bilingual Jew, no more than a very few clues per puzzle expect the solver to simply translate between Hebrew and English.”

Note that some answers are actually two words written as one, without a space between them. For the answers to the crossword puzzle, visit the Federation website at www.jewishlehighvalley.org.

Coming in the fall of 2014, Shalom Lehigh Valley, a full-color magazine produced by the Jewish Federation, will focus on what's new, noteworthy and right next door in the Jewish Lehigh Valley.

In the mean time, see if you recognize this photo.

Think you know the answer? Send an e-mail including your full name with the correct location to stephanie@jflv.org for a chance to win a fabulous prize!

FLOURISH. ACROSS 1. Simplest Hebrew verb construction 5. St. with "The Holy Land Experience" Christian theme park 8. Oksana Baiul is an Olympic goldwinning one 14. "Show Boat" playwright Ferber 15. Romanian-Jewish novelist Calugaru 16. African city with an Israeli embassy 17. Three-___ matzah holder 18. Brian Schatz is one for Haw. 19. Observed Yom Kippur 20. Oxford scholar fluent in seven languages 23. Musical genre for Marty Friedman of Megadeth 24. When the Kol Nidre is recited, vis-àvis Yom Kippur 25. Al Capp's Daisy ___ 28. Malamud novel set in Brooklyn 32. Sound at a "bark mitzvah," perhaps 35. Jazz musician Friedman 36. Oy vey!

37. Unit for Rashida Jones's sitcom "The Office" 39. 29th of November and 14th of May are important ones in Israeli history 41. Alma mater for Mayim Bialik and James Franco 42. ___ Hushi (Haifa mayor for 18 years) 43. Bernard Madoff's is 150 years 44. Title for Natan Sharansky (abbr.)

45. Six-time Emmy nominee ("Smash," "Will and Grace") 50. Character Gold on "The Good Wife" played by Alan Cumming 51. Philadelphia Athletics player Limmer 52. Person using one step of a method for preparing kosher meat 56. Publisher of "Israel Matters" by Mitchell Bard 59. Hank who voices Apu on "The Simpsons" 62. "Hija Ke Yo ___" (Ladino song meaning "Daughter I Love") 63. Film historian Gerald who wrote that Woody Allen's career was distinguished by the Jew-WASP binary 64. Allen Ginsberg's astrological sign 65. Alma mater of Kennedy adviser Pierre Salinger 66. Last word of Psalm 23 67. Participating in Birthright 68. ___ Pasuk (trope for the last word of a verse) 69. Like the novel "The Song of Hannah" DOWN 1. It meant little to Alfred Dreyfus 2. Charoset (___ containing fruits, nuts, and wine) 3. "Listen to my cry; lend ___ to my prayer..." (Psalms 17:1) 4. Item for Kinky Friedman

5. Rosh Hashana positive omen 6. Songwriter Lisa whose "Stay (I Missed You)" hit number one 7. Writer Roiphe ("Secrets of the City") 8. 2007 Israel Prize winner Alice 9. Couric and Holmes 10. ___ kodesh (holy ark) 11. Eilat goal 12. "Pray for Jerusalem, to keep her ___ she fall...." (lines from the poem "Weep Jerusalem") 13. Bane of Roy Cohn 21. Hank Greenberg's type of bat 22. Shabbat observers 25. Salute to Israel Parade, e.g.

26. English-speaker in Israel 27. Mechon Hadar Rosh Yeshiva Tucker 29. Beverly Sills got her start on "Major Bowes' ___ Hour" 30. Dachau and Birkenau are oft-visited Holocaust ones 31. Zeta Beta ___ (Jewish fraternity) 32. Yiddish writer Chaim ("The Agunah") 33. Korach, famously 34. "Friday the ___ Slept Late" (Harry

Kemelman mystery) 38. ___ Cheshvan (fall month) 40. Branson, Missouri comedian Yakov 46. Prayer at the end of services 47. Industry introduced by South African Jews 48. Wellness agy. once led by Milton J. Rosenau 49. "Revenge of the Lawn ___" (R.L. Stine "Goosebumps" installment) 53. Yasmin Levy's third album "Mano ___" 54. Delancey-___ (Lower East Side subway stop) 55. Act as the Goldman family did toward O.J. Simpson 56. Award for Amy Gottlieb and Sarah Stern 57. Art Spiegelman's 1992 Pulitzer-winning rodent novel 58. "Mazel Tov!" ("I ___ happy for you!)

59. "Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years ___" by Hannah Trager 60. It's practiced by some Bu Jews 61. Size of a bat mitzvah gift, e.g.

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HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 27

jcc kochavim

camp jcc in center valley a 49 year tradition Calendar Draft 3.12.14. Subject to change.

June 16

Week 1

17

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Green Eggs and CAMP

Week 2

Hop on Pop

Moonbounce 23

Wacky 18 Wednesday

Kites

24

30

The Great Outdoors

Week 4 Friends and Fitness

7

Mind

Juggling

25

Ropes July Challenges

1

8

Body

Baseball Games2

Super Stars, All Stars, & LITs Late Night Trip to Iron Pigs with Fireworks

Week 5

The Amazing Race

26

Action Karate27 Martial Arts Expo

Biking

3

4

All Camp Picnic and Counselor Hunt Wear Red, White and Blue to Camp

Spirit/Ruach 9

Wear Your Team Jersey to Camp

5-6 Grade Super Stars to Pinemere

14

Oh, the Thinks20 You Can Think

Bubbles

Clash Like Crazy Dress up Day

All Stars Late Night

Water Slide

19

The Cat in The Hat

All Stars to Pinemere

Super Stars Late Night

Hiking

Friday

Wear a Crazy Hat to Camp

Up, Up and Away

Week 3

Thursday

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

Beach Games 15

Fun in the Sun

Playground Games

16

Jump Rope 10 Bungee Jumpers Jump Rope Event Yacht 17 Yacht or Not

Camp Twins Dress Up Day

Camp Closed

11 JCC Camp Kochavim Fun Run Fun in the Sun Pool Party

18

All Stars and LITs to Jersey Shore

Week 6 Beatlemania

21 They Say It’s Your Birthday All Camp Birthday Party

Week 8 Wide World of Sports

4

Zack Rosen visit and Basketball Event Israeli League

23

Here Comes 24 the Sun Wear Sunglasses to Camp

29

#1

JCC of Allentown 702 N. 22nd Street Allentown, PA 18104 610.435.3571 www.allentownjcc.org

Registration Required

Go

30

31 Apache Relay and Maccabi Closing Ceremonies

3-4 Grade Super Stars overnight at Camp

Hockey

5

Shabbat With 25 A Little Help From My Friends Musical Shabbaton at Camp and Late Night Event with PJ Library

Super Stars and All Stars Trip

Wear Your blue or white spirit all week LIT Late Night

Basketball

Yellow Submarine Wear Yellow to Camp

28

Week 7 Maccabi Games

22

Soccer

6

Wear Your favorite pro or college sports T-shirt or jersey to camp

JCC Camp Kochavim in Center Valley 5831 Vera Cruz Road Center Valley, PA 18034 610.967.4750

Baseball

7

August 1 Israel Day Israeli Festival Everyone is a star.

8

Staff/LIT Wiffleball Game

Barrie Saias, Director bsaias@lvjcc.org 610.435.3571 ext. 180 Find us on Facebook

Bunk Shows and Bunk Plaques Presentation Event Last day of camp

A Bar Mitzvah for Chabad

Chabad of the Lehigh Valley celebrates its 13 year anniversary -- a Bar Mitzvah of service here in the Lehigh Valley -- at a gala dinner and celebration on March 9 at Bear Creek Resort. Several outstanding individuals were honored, including Buddy and Laurie Lesavoy; Jay Scherline, z”l; and the wonderful volunteers from the recently-inaugurated Chabad program, Circle of Friends, designed to help special needs children and their families by linking them with new friends.

By Angela Goldstein Chabad of the Lehigh Valley The atmosphere was warm and inviting and the food decadent; but most important were the people. On Sunday, March 9, over 200 friends, family and dignitaries gathered at Bear Creek Mountain Resort & Conference Center to celebrate the 13th year – a Bar Mitzvah of service -- of a staple organization within our community, Chabad of the Lehigh Valley.

Guests from the Lehigh Valley and beyond were dressed to the nines, all eagerly anticipating the celebration of a meaningful milestone as well as the introduction of the evening’s distinguished guests of honor. The program opened with a heartfelt memorial tribute to Jay Scherline, of blessed memory, a kind and generous friend to the entire Lehigh Valley community. A little over a year ago, with the help of the Scherline family, Chabad began the Jay Card program in an effort to help those less fortunate. The program provides people

in financial crisis with gift cards for groceries, baby care items, gasoline and other necessities. Jay has left a legacy that will help many people for years to come.

The honorees of the evening included Atty.

Buddy and Laurie Lesavoy for their steadfast support of Chabad and the local Jewish community. In addition, honors were given to all of the youth volunteers who participate in its signature program, Chabad’s Friendship Circle. Organized

by Mrs. Dit Greenberg, the program pairs up local teenage volunteers with a child who has special needs. Each week, volunteers meet with their “buddies” to do homework, play games and enjoy fun activities together. The program provides a network of love and support for these children and their families while giving volunteers the opportunity to build character and learn valuable life skills.

The overarching theme of the evening was inspiration, and the importance of continuing the work of Rabbi and Mrs. Yaacov Halperin; how the Lehigh Valley community has inspired the Halperins and how they, in turn, have inspired others. Before the evening came to a close, the audience welcomed guest speaker Rabbi Yosef Jacobson, renowned speaker and the first rabbi to ever be invited to the Pentagon to present the annual religious keynote. Rabbi Jacobson addressed the audience candidly and spoke with fervor about what it is to be Jewish today and the importance of each and every Jew in the world.

The night was truly a tribute to the past, coupled with a vision for the future. And when the event finally came to a close, it was plain to see that guests left content, yet inspired. Over the years, Chabad programs have touched hundreds of children, adults and beyond. They have helped many rekindle the spirit of Judaism within themselves while spreading Yiddishkeit throughout the Lehigh Valley and the world. In all, the event served as a venue for the community to come together for a great cause and ensure a bright future for Chabad and, as a result, the entire Lehigh Valley Jewish community.

OBITUARY

Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley partners with Lehigh Valley STYLE to present SHALOM Lehigh Valley STYLE SHALOM Lehigh Valley STYLE will be re-published as part of SHALOM Lehigh Valley COMMUNITY magazine, a biennial contemporary publication with engaging content & photography, including information on agencies, services, organizations, synagogues, education, volunteering, senior life and youth activities.

BUSINESSES & PROFESSIONALS

support SHALOM LEHIGH VALLEY

Reach out to STYLE readers and the local Jewish community.

Contact DIANE McKEE

Advertising Representative 610-821-5500, ext. 323 610-515-1391 hakolads@jflv.org

“In order to show my love, I had to risk losing a little bitof hers.”

Remembering Rabbi Shrager Rabbi Mark Shrager, rabbi emeritus of Bnai Abraham Synagogue in Easton, where he served as rabbi for 17 years, died on March 4. He was the son of Elsie Shrager and Harry E. Shrager, z”l, the brother of Sara Beth Shrager and nephew of Jean Aezen.

Rabbi Shrager graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the Jewish Theological Seminary. After serving as a U.S. Air Force chaplain in Japan for two years, he served as rabbi at Indiana University, where he was a Ph.D. candidate in folklore. Shrager served as rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation in North Adams, Mass., before coming to Easton’s Bnai Abraham in 1993, where he served until his retirement in 2010.

On the occasion of his retirement, the Express-Times dedicated an editorial, “Thank you, Rabbi Shrager,” to his years of service to the Easton community, noting, “He understands the power of words and takes great pains to make sure he delivers every message clearly, responsibly, and compassionately. And with love. Always with love.”

Shrager was active with ProJeCt Easton and its Interfaith Committee. In 2007, he joined with other local clergy to successfully save the chaplain position at Easton Hospital from budget cuts. For years, he served as a member of the Jewish Federation Board of Directors and was a member of the UJA/UJC Na-

tional Rabbinic Cabinet. He was a frequent speaker/lecturer at Project Yachad’s Adult Institute for Jewish Studies.

The Shrager family has requested that contributions in memory of Rabbi Shrager be made to American Friends of Meir Panim, a food security organization in Israel, an agency which some members of the

Lehigh Valley visited during the most recent Federationsponsored mission. Any contributions to the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley in memory of Rabbi Shrager will be forwarded to Meir Panim.

Kristin’s mother-in-law was struggling with daily tasks, but refused her family’s suggestions to get help. And Kristin’s husband wasn’t facing the problem, either. So Kristin came to us for advice. We helped her see that a little short-term stress would be a long-term gain for everyone. Kristin showed her husband and his mother the many care options we offer to our residents, and they agreed to a solution. Now, everyone feels safer and more comfortable.

And no love was lost.

From independent living to specialized memory care, we have a range of advice and solutions to help your family— all on a vibrant campus with activities, social events and individualized services.

Call us to find out how we can help, or learn more at CountryMeadows.com.

410 Krocks Road, Allentown (minutes from Routes 22 & I-78) • 610-395-7160 4035 Green Pond Road, Bethlehem (close to Routes 22 & 33) • 610-865-5580

Independent Living | Personal Care | Memory Care | Restorative Care Skilled Nursing* | In-Home Services *Skilled nursing is available at our Bethlehem campus only.

Country Meadows offers services and housing without regard to race, color, religion, disability, marital status, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation or gender.

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Community Calendar To list an event in the Community Calendar, submit your information on our website, www.jewishlehighvalley.org, under the “Upcoming Events” menu.

All events listed in the Community Calendar are open to the public and free of charge, unless otherwise noted. Programs listed in HAKOL are provided as a service to the community. They do not necessarily reflect the endorsement of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley. The JFLV reserves the right to accept, reject or modify listings.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2 Imagining Jews Presents Jew Media: Performance and Technology for the 58th Century 7 p.m., Muhlenberg College, Seegers Union. With Professor Henry Bial, American Studies and Theatre Departments, University of Kansas. The event is part of a yearlong series of free community lectures on “Imagining Jews: From the Ancient World to the American Present,” presented by Muhlenberg College. Program is free and open to the public thanks to a generous grant from the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project. All of the programs in Muhlenberg’s series are co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Lehigh Valley, the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University and the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding at Muhlenberg.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2 The State of Israel and Christian Zionism’s Use of the Bible 7 p.m., Lehigh University, Sinclair Auditorium, 7 Asa Dr. With Katell Berthelot, National Center for Scientific Research researcher, Centre Paul-Albert Fevrier, Universite d’Aix-Marseille. Sponsored by the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies. Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Berman Center at 610-7584869, inber@lehigh.edu, or visit http://lehigh.edu~inber/ inber.html.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3 Temple Beth El Healing Service 1 p.m., Temple Beth El. We will be creating a safe space to bring our pain, our questions and our yearning. This one-hour service will be held in the Hammel Family Chapel. The service will include music, silent meditation, traditional prayers and Torah study. The entire community is invited to participate.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3 Young Adult Division Mead & Greet 6 p.m., The Colony Meadery, 905 Harrison St., Suite 105, Allentown. Be a part of the growing mead culture as one of the oldest beverages in human history -- made from fermenting honey -- comes back to the American table in a new and exciting way. Enjoy a private meadery tour and tasting with Colony CEO and founder Greg HellerLaBelle, plus a presentation by Rabbi Daniel Stein on freedom in the 21st Century. $20 dollars includes tour, tasting, appetizers and souvenir glass. Respectful accommodation for dietary observance. For more information or to register, contact Aaron Gorodzinsky, aaron@jflv.org, 610-821-5500, or visit www.jewishlehighvalley.org.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3 J nights: Themed Thursday 7 p.m., JCC of Allentown. Join other adults at the JCC, sit back, relax and chat about similar interests such as travel, investing, crafts, movies and more. Share your experiences with others and take away some new ideas.

Cost: $10; JCC Member Value Price FREE. Spring series sponsored by Kathy Zimmerman and Peter Fisher. Register

by Wednesday, April 2, at the JCC Welcome Center or by calling 610-435-3571. Contact Amy Sams at asams@ lvjcc.org with any suggested themes for future programs.

SATURDAY, APRIL 5 PJ Library Davening with Donuts 10 a.m., Temple Beth El. Bring the kids for a Tot Shabbat service and enjoy a PJ Library story, challah, juice and donuts. Contact Temple Beth El at 610-435-3521 to learn more.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 Men’s Club Breakfast 9:30 a.m., Congregation Sons of Israel. “Why Iranian Nuclear Proliferation Cannot be Stopped, and How to Live with It” with Professor Chaim Kaufmann, Department of International Relations, Lehigh University. Cost: $6. Contact April at 610-433-6089.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 Temple Beth El Sisterhood Wine Sale 10 a.m., Temple Beth El. The wine sale has various selections of wine to enhance your holidays. Call 610-4353521 to learn more.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 22nd Annual Levy Hillel Leadership Awards 10:30 a.m., JCC of Allentown. Join the Jewish Federation for a brunch and ceremony to honor outstanding students from area Hillels with the Levy Hillel Leadership Award. The award was established through the Lehigh

30 APRIL 2014 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY

Valley Jewish Foundation by Mort and Myra Levy, of blessed memory, as a way to recognize young leaders.

Please RSVP to 610-821-5500, marlene@jflv.org.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6 J Adults to Go. Is It Art?: Lehigh University Art Gallery Tour 1:30 p.m., Lehigh University Art Gallery, 420 East Packer Ave., Bethlehem. Join us for a private guided tour of the exhibit titled “Is it Art?” Inspired by the New York Times article, “Is It Art? Is it Good?”, this exhibit explores these questions and provides a platform for viewers to investigate their own expectations about what constitutes a work of art. Stop by or call the JCC Welcome Center to register and reserve your space, 610-435-3571. Contact Amy Sams at asams@lvjcc.org to learn more about Adults at the J. Cost: $12 per person; JCC Member Value Price $8.

TUESDAY, APRIL 8 Bethlehem Easton Hadassah Book/Film Club 1:30 p.m., 1 Nottingham Lane, Easton. Book Discussion: “The Aleppo Codex” by Matti Friedman. Contact Debbie Miller, 610-253-8919.

TUESDAY, APRIL 8 The Brothers Grimm as Cultural Icons and Fictional Characters 4:10 p.m., Lehigh University, Linderman Library, Room 200. With Donald Haase, professor of German and associate dean, Wayne State University. Sponsored by the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies.

Co-sponsored by the Modern Language & Literature, English, Sociology and Anthropology Departments and the Creative Writing Program. Free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Berman Center at 610-758-4869, inber@lehigh.edu, or visit http://lehigh. edu~inber/inber.html.

TUESDAY, APRIL 8 Temple Beth El Men’s Club Poker 7 p.m., Temple Beth El. Come and “Ante-Up,” Texas Hold-em-style. Come play cards with us, and bring your friends. The TBE Men’s Club is sponsoring an evening filled with laughter, refreshments, a big game on TV and a “Flush,” “Straight,” “4 of a Kind,” and “Full House” card playing skills – highest totals at the end of the night win prizes! Open to the entire community. Cost: $10 per person. Please RSVP “All-in” to Roy Benasaraf at royben@ptd. net or call 610-216-0190.

THURSDAY, APRIL 10 Men’s Night Out: Rediscovering the Jewish Delicatessen 6:30 p.m., JCC of Allentown. Enjoy your last chametz before Passover with a genuine kosher Jewish deli experience right here at home. Join Ted Merwin, Ph.D., author of the forthcoming book “Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Delicatessen,” for the 3rd Annual Men’s Night Out. Dr. Merwin, a professor, writer and journalist, is a sought-after lecturer on the history of Jewish food. He is also the author of “In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture.” $40 per person includes kosher deli dinner (LVKC supervised), Dr. Brown’s soda and craft beer. A minimum pledge of $365 to the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley’s 2014 Campaign for Jewish Needs is required to attend. Register at www. jewishlehighvalley.org.

THURSDAY, APRIL 10 ‘Nicky’s Family’ 7 to 9 p.m., Moravian College, North Campus, Priscilla Payne Hurd Academic Building. The Moravian College Hillel Society will welcome Moravian College alumnus Ivan Backer, ‘49, to campus to share the moving biographical film “Nicky’s Family.” Ivan is one of the Czech children rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton, the “British Schindler.” In addition to the film, he will share his path from the Kindertransport to England, later to Canada and then to the United States to attend Moravian College.

SUNDAY, APRIL 13 PJ Library Pasta Before Passover 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., JCC of Allentown. Join PJ Library for a night before the first seder spaghetti dinner. We will have a fun search for chametz, a story walk, dinner and, of course, a PJ Library story. Special guest reader Rabbi Seth

FRIDAYS 8 - 9:30 AM WMUH 91.7 Featuring Cantor Wartell muhlenberg.edu/wmuh

Phillips. $12 per adult, $8 per child. Advanced registration and payment to the JCC Welcome Center required by April 8, 2014. Contact Brenda Finberg at bfinberg@lvjcc. org for more information.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival: ‘50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr and Mrs. Kraus’ 7 p.m., JCC of Allentown. The story of a Philadelphia couple who traveled to Nazi-controlled Vienna to bring what would become the largest known group of children to the U.S. during that time. One of the rescued children, Kurt Herman, who was brought to live in Allentown and now lives near Philadelphia, will speak at the event. Sponsored by the JCC’s Jewish & Israeli Film Festival in partnership with the Holocaust Resource Center and Eydie and Neil Glickstein in memory of Eydie’s father Maurice Marin, a survivor from France. Contact the JCC at 610-4353571 or visit www.allentownjcc.org to learn more.

THURSDAY, APRIL 24 Imagining Jews Presents Tchotchkes: Collecting Yiddish Popular Culture 7 p.m., Muhlenberg College, Seegers Union. This slide lecture with Dr. Jeffrey Shandler examines an array of items found in post-World War II America featuring one or more Yiddish words on them. These works of material culture provide an unusual opportunity to consider the place Yiddish has found in American life in the postHolocaust era and the language’s complex symbolic role in American Jews’ sense of identity and heritage, ranging from expressing nostalgia and piety to celebrating cultural subversion. The event is part of a year-long series of free community lectures on “Imagining Jews: From the Ancient World to the American Present,” presented

by Muhlenberg College. Program is free and open to the public thanks to a generous grant from the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project. All of the programs in Muhlenberg’s series are co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Lehigh Valley, the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University and the Center for JewishChristian Understanding at Muhlenberg.

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 Temple Beth El Shira Chadasha 7:30 p.m., Temple Beth El. Temple Beth El invites you to share in our Shira Chadasha service. Come celebrate a musical Shabbat service with contemporary American and Israeli music.

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 Temple Beth El Blood Drive 9:30 a.m., Temple Beth El. Make you feel good to give?

Blood donors reported feeling a sense of great satisfaction after making their donation. WHY? Because helping others in need just feels good. For information, please contact the temple office at 610-435-3521.

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 Yom HaShoah Commemoration: Choosing to Act - Stories of Rescue 7 p.m., JCC of Allentown. Frieda Garcia will tell the story of her father, Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos, who helped save tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution by providing them with papers of Salvadoran nationality. Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos was El Salvador’s consul general in Geneva during the war and provided citizenship certificates to tens of thousands of Jews in occupied Europe in an effort to protect them from deportation. The citizenship papers were given to Jews who had no connection whatsoever to El Salvador and who didn’t even speak a word of Spanish. Col. Castellanos was posthumously inducted as one of Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations in 2010. Free and open to the community.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 Women’s Division Lunch & Learn: Disability and Inclusion in the Jewish Community 12 p.m., JCC of Allentown. Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr will be the featured speaker at the final Lunch & Learn of the year. A former career-driven mother of three, Rabbi Schorr became a reluctant stay-at-home-mom when her autistic son and his two adorable sidekicks needed more from her. Program is $12, including lunch.

Men and women are welcome. To RSVP, please call 610821-5500 or e-mail sbolmer@jflv.org.

Celebrate the beauty of Shabbat

Shabbat & Yom Tov Candlelighting Times Friday, April 4

7:12 pm

Friday, April 25

7:34 pm

Friday, April 11

7:19 pm

Friday, May 2

7:41 pm

Friday, April 18

7:27 pm

Friday, May 9

7:48 pm

Community Calendar Ongoing Events SUNDAY to FRIDAY DAF YOMI 7:30 a.m., Congregation Sons of Israel Are you intrigued by thought-provoking, stimulating and provocative religious discussion? Are you enamored by the depth and scope of the Jewish legal system? Are you curious about Judaism’s perspective on marriage, tort law, Jewish burial, holiday observance, prayer, blessings and, for that matter, nearly any Jewish topic? Then Sons of Israel’s daily “Daf Yomi” class is for you.

Meeting all year long, this class covers the gamut of Talmudic law, studying one page of the talmud each day, and completing the talmud over the course of seven and a half years. Basic Jewish background is recommended.

SUNDAYS JEWISH WAR VETERANS POST 239 2nd Sunday of the month, 10 a.m., JCC of Allentown A brunch follows each meeting – bagels, cream cheese, lox, herring, pastry and coffee. The veteran and significant other are invited as the guest of the Ladies Auxiliary.

Come and enjoy camaraderie and we will even listen to your “war story.” Questions?

Call Commander Sheila Berg at 610-2852729 or sh-berg1@hotmail.com.

TEFILLIN CLUB & ADULT HEBREW SCHOOL 9:30 a.m. Tefillin; 10 to 11 a.m. Adult Hebrew, Chabad Tefillin is for Jewish men and boys over the age of Bar Mitzvah, to learn about, and gain appreciation for, the rich and enriching Jewish practice - the mitzvah - of donning Tefillin. Adult Hebrew is an opportunity for you to learn about your heritage and expand your Jewish knowledge so that you can keep up with your child. Contact 610351-6511.

TSS HEBREW & ADULT EDUCATION CLASSES 10 a.m., JCC of Allentown Interested in learning Hebrew for the first time or brushing up your skills? Marcia Berkow teaches adult Hebrew beginning at 10 a.m., followed at 11 a.m. by David Vaida, who will you take you through the great moments across all 5,774 years of Jewish history. Free and open to all. RSVP at learnwithus@templeshiratshalom.org or 610-820-7666.

TALMUD CLASS FOR BEGINNERS! 10 to 11 a.m., Congregation Beth Avraham of Bethlehem-Easton For information,contact Rabbi Yitzchok I. Yagod at 610-905-2166.

TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY PRESENTS THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST 4 to 6 p.m., Bnai Abraham Synagogue Six Sundays beginning March 23. $36 per person which includes Kosher deli dinner.

For more information call Bnai Abraham Synagogue at 610-258-5343.

MONDAYS FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., JCC of Allentown Friendship Circle is a place for people to meet, make new friends and enjoy each other’s company. We welcome all adults over 50. Friendship Circle meets weekly for lively and enjoyable programs and a delicious lunch. Annual dues - $25. Regular weekly meetings and lunch - $6. First visit NO CHARGE. THE RHYTHM OF JEWISH LIVING 8 to 9 p.m., Temple Beth El Taught by Rabbi Moshe Re’em. This course will examine the ideas, beliefs and practices that define and shape Jewish life through daily, weekly, annual and life-cycle observances. The is designed as a yearlong course for those wishing to learn more about the religious observances of Judaism, theology of the holidays and ritual practices. The course is organized around the Jewish calendar, but includes other daily Jewish rituals.

TUESDAYS YACHAD TORAH STUDY GROUP 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., JCC of Allentown It doesn’t matter how much you know, it matters how much you want to know. Bring your curiosity to thet Yachad Torah study group and discover the wonders, adven-

tures and meaning of the Torah. Each FREE session is taught by one of our dedicated clergy members or a respected Jewish educator. Held in the Teachers’ Learning Center/Holocaust Resource Room (lower level, JCC). Call 610-435-3571 for information about individual sessions.

JFS-LV’S YIDDISH CLUB 1:30 p.m., Jewish Family Service Kibbitz in the mama loshen! You don’t need to be fluent — just come and enjoy! Call 610-821-8722 for more information.

100,000 MILES/YR FOR KOSHER! First Tuesday of the month, 7 p.m., Congregation Beth Avraham Open to all. Fascinating vignettes from a mashgiach who drives approximately 100,000 miles/year (yes, per year!) to keep the kosher supply chain intact. From rural Arkansas to frigid Nova Scotia, winter and summer, the demands are always there.

Contact Rabbi Yitzchok I. Yagod, Kashruth Hotline (24/6), 610-905-2166, rabbiyagod1@gmail.com.

THE DAVEN-CI CODE: UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF JEWISH PRAYER 8 p.m., Congregation Beth Avraham Weekly discussion group focusing on the structure, nuance and poetry of Jewish prayer. (Hebrew competence is not required.) Free and open to all.

LATTE & LEARN 8 to 9 p.m., Starbucks, Schoenersville Road, Bethlehem Come help us figure out the weekly Torah portion! Laid back, lots of fun, no Hebrew required. This event is sponsored by Congregation Beth Avraham. This event is free and open to the public. For information, Rabbi Yitzchok I. Yagod at 610-905-2166.

WEDNESDAYS CHRONIC CONDITIONS SUPPORT GROUP Second Wednesday of the month, 10 a.m., Jewish Family Service Beginning in February, this new support group will meet monthly for six months.

Cost is $5 per group, assistance available if needed. If interested, contact Rebecca Axelrod-Cooper at 610-821-8722 to set up a pre-screening appointment.

JEWISH CURRENT EVENTS First Wednesday of the Month, 1:15 p.m., Country Meadows, Bethlehem Rabbi Stein conducts a current events class at Country Meadows. Residents express their opinions and have the opportunity to ask questions. Sponsored by Bnai Abraham Synagogue. For more information, call 610258-5343.

HADASSAH STUDY GROUP Every other Wednesday, 1:30 p.m., Temple Beth El Allentown Hadassah presents a stimulating series of short story seminars. All are welcome to attend these free sessions in the Temple Beth El library. The group will be reading selections from anthologies available from Amazon.com. For dates and stories, e-mail Lolly Siegel at spscomm@aol. com or call 610-439-1851.

BETH AVRAHAM TORAH STUDY 7 p.m., Congregation Beth Avraham Torah: It is the common heritage that binds all Jews together. Explore the ancient healing wisdom of Torah together. All are welcome. Who knows? It might even be fun! RSVP: Rabbi Yitzchok I. Yagod, 610-9052166, rabbiyagod1@gmail.com.

IN-DEPTH STUDY OF THE BOOK OF JUDGES 7 p.m., Sons of Israel Abby Wiener teaches an in-depth study of the Prophets. We are currently learning the book of Judges with commentaries and other resources to give us a feel of the time, the people and the lessons in the story. For class location, please call Congregation Sons of Israel at 610-433-6089.

HUSBANDS ANONYMOUS First Wednesday of the month, 7:30 p.m., location provided upon signup Join Rabbi David Wilensky from Congregation Sons of Israel for a class for men on ways to improve their marriage. All wives are encouraged to encourage their husbands to attend.

TORAH STUDIES: A WEEKLY JOURNEY INTO THE SOUL OF TORAH 7:30 p.m., Chabad Torah Studies by JLI presents: Season Two: A

14-part series. Cost is $36 for the complete 14-week series (textbook included). For more information contact 610-351-6511 or Rabbi@chabadlehighvalley.com.

Congregations

ORTHODOX JEWISH LIVING: WHAT IS IT AND HOW? 8 p.m. To learn more, contact Rabbi Yizchok I. Yagod, 610-905-2166 or rabbiyagod1@ gmail.com

1545 Bushkill St., Easton – 610.258.5343 Rabbi Daniel Stein, Conservative MORNING MINYAN services are Thursday mornings at 7:25 a.m., SHABBAT EVENING services are Fridays at 8 p.m., SHABBAT MORNING services are Saturdays at 9:30 a.m., RELIGIOUS SCHOOL classes are Wednesdays at 4:15 p.m. and Sundays at 9:30 a.m..

THURSDAYS ADULT EDUCATION CLASS 10:15 to 11:15 a.m., Bnai Abraham Synagogue No preparation or prior knowledge is required. Rabbi Daniel Stein leads an eagerto-learn group. We examine the Torah, Judaism, the holidays, Hebrew and Yiddish literature, well-known stories and poetry.

Cost: $10 each semester. Contact 610-2585343, office@bnaiabraham.org.

MOMMY & ME 10:30 to 11:15 a.m., Chabad Led by Morah Devorah Halperin and Mrs. Alli Lipson, Mommy & Me is an innovative program for babies and toddlers to experience Jewish traditions in a stimulating, fun and creative atmosphere. Cost is $10 per class, $40 for full session. For information and to register, morahdevorah@chabadlehighvalley.com.

SEALED IN THE BOOK OF LIFE 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., Congregation Keneseth Israel Join Rabbi Seth and a friendly group of seekers who are exploring the proposed new Reform High Holy Day Machzor to discover its ancient wisdom and modern sensibilities.

Newcomers always welcome. Knowledge of Hebrew not required. Come with an open heart and do your part to improve your High Holy Day experience. Contact Ms. Sandra Hari, 610-435-9074. Free and open to the community.

TORAH ON TILGHMAN 12:15 p.m., Allentown Wegmans Cantor Ellen Sussman of Temple Shirat Shalom leads a lunch and learn on the Torah.

Shopping is optional. RSVP to contactus@ templeshiratshalom.com or 610-820-7666.

FRIDAYS TCP TOT SHABBAT SERVICE 4th Friday of the month, 5 p.m., Temple Covenant of Peace This wonderful program introduces children to Shabbat ritual and songs with activities designed especially for our youngest congregants and their families. Arts and crafts, stories and prayer round out the children’s activities.

SIMCHA SHABBAT 1st Friday of the month, 6:30 p.m., Bnai Abraham Synagogue Please join us for our musical Simcha Shabbat and stay for a special oneg to follow.

For more information please call Bnai Abraham Synagogue at 610-258-5343.

SHABBAT INTRODUCTION TO TALMUD 8:15 a.m., Sons of Israel On Shabbat mornings, come to an Introduction to Talmud class with Dr. Henry Grossbard. This class is free and open to the public.

JAVA AND JEANS 4th Saturday of the month, 10 a.m., Bnai Abraham Synagogue Join us for our monthly Shabbat service to discuss current topics of interest as they relate to Jewish laws and practices. For more detailed information, call 610-258-5343.

CHAVURAT TORAH STUDY Each Shabbat following kiddush lunch, Temple Beth El No sign-up needed for this class. Taught by Shari Spark. Enrich your Shabbat experience by studying the parashat hashavua, the weekly Torah portion, with other congregants, each Shabbat in the library at approximately 12:45 p.m. No previous knowledge or long-term commitments are required to participate as we discuss Torah together.

BNEI AKIVA 5:45 p.m., Congregation Sons of Israel An Israel-centered fun program for kids ages eight to 14. This program is free and open to the public. For information and to RSVP, call 610-433-6089.

BNAI ABRAHAM SYNAGOGUE

CHABAD OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY

4457 Crackersport Rd., Allentown – 610.336.6603 Rabbi Yaacov Halperin, Chabad Lubavitch SHABBAT EVENING services are held once a month seasonally, SHABBAT MORNING services are held Saturdays at 10 a.m., RELIGIOUS SCHOOL classes are held Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m.

CONGREGATION AM HASKALAH

1190 W. Macada Rd., Bethlehem – 610.435.3775 Student Rabbi Tamara Cohen, Reconstructionist Weekly Shabbat services and a monthly family service with potluck dinner. Religious school meets Sunday mornings. Email am.haskalah.office@gmail.com to learn more.

CONGREGATION BETH AVRAHAM

439 South Nulton Ave., Palmer Township – 610.905.2166 | Rabbi Yitzchok Yagod, Orthodox SHABBAT EVENING starts half an hour after candle lighting. SHABBAT MORNING starts at 9:30 a.m., followed by a hot kiddish.

CONGREGATION BRITH SHOLOM

1190 W. Macada Rd., Bethlehem – 610.866.8009 Rabbi Allen Juda, Conservative MINYAN is at 7:45 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, 9 a.m. on Saturdays and holidays. RELIGIOUS SCHOOL classes every Tuesday/Thursday at 4:15 p.m.

CONGREGATION KENESETH ISRAEL

2227 Chew St., Allentown – 610.435.9074 Rabbi Seth D. Phillips | Cantor Jennifer Duretz Peled, Reform Services begin at 7:30 p.m. every Friday night.

The first Friday of the month is a FAMILY SERVICE and celebration of birthdays and anniversaries.

RELIGIOUS SCHOOL classes are held Wednesdays at 4 p.m. and Sundays at 9:30 a.m.

CONGREGATION SONS OF ISRAEL

2715 Tilghman St., Allentown – 610.433.6089 Rabbi David Wilensky, Orthodox SHACHARIT: Sundays at 8:30 a.m., Mondays and Thursdays at 6:30 a.m., Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:45 a.m. For MINCHA, MAARIV.

TEMPLE BETH EL

1305 Springhouse Rd., Allentown – 610.435.3521 Rabbi Moshe Re’em | Cantor Kevin Wartell Conservative Weekday morning minyan services at 7:45 a.m. and Sunday at 9 a.m. Shabbat evening services at 7:30 p.m. with the last Friday evening of the month featuring our Shira Chadasha Service .

Shabbat morning services at 9 a.m. followed by Kiddush. Religious school classes every Tuesday/ Thursday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m. Midrasha school classes Monday at 7 p.m. Shalshelet — Temple Beth El’s new innovative high school program — meets bi-monthly on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Shalshelet (the chain) is open to ALL 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade students in the Lehigh Valley. For more information contact Alicia Zahn, religlious school director, at school at bethelallentown.org.

TEMPLE COVENANT OF PEACE

1451 Northampton St., Easton – 610.253.2031 Tcp@rcn.com; tcopeace.org Rabbi Melody Davis | Cantor Jill Pakman Reform TCP holds Shabbat evening services every Friday night at 7:30 p.m. and a Renewal Style Shabbat morning service on the 4th Saturday of the month at 10:30 a.m. A Family Shabbat Service is held on the second Friday night of each month at 6:30 p.m. Our services reflect a diverse culture of traditional, innovative and musical experiences with a Reform Jewish context. Religious School meets on Sunday mornings from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. We have a Family Game / Movie night on the first Saturday of every month at 6 p.m. For more information about our Temple and activities, see our website at www.tcopeace.org or look us up on Facebook.

TEMPLE SHIRAT SHALOM

Cantor Ellen Sussman Friday night SHABBAT WORSHIP SERVICES held at 7 p.m. at The Swain School, 1100 South 24th St., Allentown. For more information, Contact Us at templeshiratshalom.org or 610-820-7666.

HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | APRIL 2014 31

weis wishes you a Happy Passover Fresh Kosher Chicken

Chicken Breast Fillets p

4

Cut Up Chicken Fryers p

2

Whole Broiler Chickens

2

p

$ 99 $ 69 $ 49 Per pound

Per pound

Per pound

We have a selection of Kosher for Passover cakes and cookies made by Hagadda Passover Bake Shoppe.

Manischewitz Macaroons

Manischewitz Gefilte Fish

Tabatchnick Soup

Manischewitz Matzo Meal

2.99 2/ 5 2/ 3 2/ 5

10 ounce

$

24 ounce

U p

Season’s Sardines

$

1.29 2/ 5

$

U p

Manischewitz Cake Meal

4.375 ounce

16 ounce

U p

$

15 ounce

U p

$

16 ounce

U p

Gold’s Horse Radish

$

Rokeach Shabbos Candles

1.99

72 count

U p

$

Breakstone’s Whipped Butter

Weis Quality Sour Cream

$

$

1.69 1.99 2.99

6 ounce

$

8 ounce

U p

32 ounce

U p

U p

Weis Proudly Accepts Prices Effective March 23 through April 26, 2014

We also carry many of your favorite Kosher for Passover deli, dairy, frozen and grocery products.

We reserve the right to limit quantities. Not responsible for typographical or pictorial errors.

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