Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 1-4-19 by Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

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January 4, 2019 | 27 Tevet 5779

Candlelighting 4:49 p.m. | Havdalah 5:53 p.m. | Vol. 62, No. 1 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Imperial House gets active Social committee gets residents moving. Page 3 LOCAL On the road

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From shul bulletins to voicemails, Broadway, Rauh Archives preserves record local favorites of Oct. 27 massacre show ‘Roots of Steel’ at mega-benefit for Tree of Life victims By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

anti-Semitic massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue building and its aftermath. “If you have ever done historic research, you know the frustration of bumping up against the limits of what was saved,” Lidji said. “There are major events in the history of the Jewish community here that only exist in two or three newspaper articles. “We have an opportunity right now,” he stressed. “We know we are living through a historic moment.” Lidji began his work documenting the massacre the very next day, collecting items at the interfaith vigil held at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Oakland on Oct. 28. “The first thing I collected was the program and the seat cards from the vigil on Sunday night,” said Lidji. Since that night, he and his colleagues — other archivists at the Heinz History Center — have been

he flamboyant entertainment style of Broadway star Billy Porter (“Kinky Boots”) could not be further from that of Pittsburgh’s favorite heartland rocker, Joe Grushecky. What both men have in common, though, is a deep love of their Steel City roots, and a yearning to help the Jewish community of their hometown heal. Porter, Grushecky and dozens of other singers, dancers and musicians lit up the stage at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland on Dec. 27 — exactly two months after an anti-Semite wielding an assault rifle murdered 11 congregants at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash. More than 1,000 people turned out for the benefit concert, dubbed Roots of Steel, which was organized by four young women who got busy planning the show in the hours after the shooting. Jacqueline Radin, a 2011 Mt. Lebanon High School grad, reached out to her friends Samantha Harris — a performer living in New York City — and Amanda Reich, who works in a Jewish day school in Washington, D.C. Both Harris and Reich grew up attending services at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha. Radin recalled asking her friends, who she met as a teenager in USY, “What do we even do with this?” Harris responded: “The only thing I know how to do is put on a show.” So, the millennials channeled their inner Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and put on a show — and in a very big way. As the wheels were put into motion, Gina Morgano, another Mt. Lebanon graduate

Please see Rauh, page 14

Please see Roots, page 14

French Pittsburgher takes off. Page 4 LIFESTYLE  Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives, displays one of the items collected after the masscre at the Tree of Life building.

Notorious RBG on film

Photo by Toby Tabachnick

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

I New movie chronicles early legal career of pathbreaking jurist. Page 16

n 1919, 10,000 Jews marched through the Hill District to Downtown Pittsburgh protesting Polish pogroms, but the only record of this massive demonstration is found in a couple newspaper articles. No archival items providing additional insight into that event have ever surfaced. “I have never seen a poster, I’ve never seen planning documents, I have never seen a photograph outside of those in the newspapers,” said Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center. As a result, it is difficult for researchers today to get a real picture of what happened then. Now, 100 years later, the archivist who is tasked with cataloging and conserving local Jewish artifacts and documents is encouraging the community to help preserve a full account of the events associated with the

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle WORLD

Israeli haredi integration slows

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European anti-Semitism report

FOOD

Caprese: Not just for salad

Headlines Osher to feature new course on Israel’s past and present — LOCAL — By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

n response to a Carnegie Mellon University Osher course about Israel taught last summer by a proPalestinian activist, two instructors will offer a new Osher course this winter based on what they say will be “unbiased information.” Called “Israel’s War and Peace: Past, Present and Future,” the new course will focus on the history and current status of Israel and its relationship to the Palestinians. The course, which will begin on Jan. 9, will be taught by Michael Vanyukov, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences, psychiatry and human genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, and Stuart Pavilack, the director of the Zionist Organization of America: Pittsburgh. For the last several years, Tina Whitehead, an outspoken pro-Palestinian activist, has been teaching a CMU Osher course about Israel and the Palestinians specifically from the perspective of the Palestinian people, according to Osher’s course catalogue from the summer of 2018. Called “The Palestinian Story: Hope in the Absence of Hope,” Whitehead’s course covered the Palestinians’ positions on “the right of return, settlements, boundaries and Jerusalem.” The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CMU offers a diverse range of courses taught by an array of community members. The instructors, called “study leaders,” volunteer their time to teach topics of their own choosing. Last summer, Pavilack and Vanyukov became aware of “The Palestinian Story” course taught by Whitehead, who is an active member of Friends of Sabeel North America — a group that appears on an AntiDefamation League list of the top 10 antiIsrael groups in America.

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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Email: newsdesk@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org BOARD OF TRUSTEES Evan Indianer, Chairman Andrew Schaer, Vice Chairman Gayle R. Kraut, Secretary Jonathan Bernstein, Treasurer David Ainsman, Immediate Past Chairman Gail Childs, Elizabeth F. Collura, Milton Eisner, Malke Steinfeld Frank, Tracy Gross, Richard J. Kitay, Cátia Kossovsky, Andi Perelman, David Rush, Charles Saul

“ You have to make clear and understand what the ideology is that

”

we are dealing with.

— MICHAEL VANYUKOV

Sabeel “quite consistently distorts information about Israel, and is generally quite unpleasant,” said Vanyukov, a former vice president of ZOA-Pittsburgh. “Sabeel hides behind a language of peace, but in reality, uses theologically loaded rhetoric that when examined more closely, rejects Israel as a Jewish state,” said Josh Sayles, director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Community Relations Council, in an email last May. “The organization speaks of the formation of Israel as the ‘original sin,’ where Israel is cast as a colonizer that was only formed as a result of European intervention after the Holocaust. There is virtually no mention of a continued Jewish presence in the land for 2,000 years, and the Palestinian refugee issue is described as ‘ethnic cleansing.’” Hearing about Whitehead’s course, and concerned that its participants might be fed information that “is not correct,” Pavilack wanted to offer an alternative. There is a lot of misinformation about Israel in the media that can distort the perception of even fair-minded people, noted Vanyukov.

“I’m convinced that the general population, even those who are well-read, frequently receive information that is not correct,” he said. Vanyukov is a research scientist who has studied Israel throughout his life. He will apply the same principles of logic that he employs in his scientific research in presenting information about Israel and the “antagonisms and hostilities” it faces. “I’m not teaching the course from either an Israeli or Palestinian or balanced perspective,” he explained. “The perspective I’m doing it from is the perspective of the facts — the facts and nothing else.” “Israel’s War and Peace” will meet for five consecutive Wednesdays, and will present the “background for the reestablishment of the Jewish state in the historical Land of Israel” as well as the country’s development and “the causes and consequences of hostilities that have accompanied Israel’s existence,” according to the Osher catalogue. In addition to covering Israel’s origins, the class will also examine “refugees and territories,” including Jewish refugees from the

p Michael Vanyukov

Photo provided by Michael Vanyukov

Arab world, and the “ideology behind the hate” going back to pre-Islamic Arabia. “In my view, a large part of the current disorder is ideological,” Vanyukov said. The wars in the past century “that have been the most horrible,” he noted, “were ideological,” though on the surface, they appeared to be about resources or territories. “You have to make clear and understand what the ideology is that we are dealing with,” Vanyukov continued, adding that his class will examine that ideology and discuss ideological solutions toward peace. All 36 seats in the class have been filled. There is a waitlist. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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Headlines Imperial House social committee spurs engagement — LOCAL — Adam Reinherz I Staff Writer

he tallest residence in Squirrel Hill may be the height of fun, according to those living within its walls. Each month, residents of Imperial House, a 140-unit building located at 5600 Munhall Road, regularly participate in game nights, picnics, film screenings and even lessons on balcony gardening. Since May, the varied activities have been coordinated by resident Deborah Knox and her nine-person committee. Within the group, “everybody votes, everybody has a say,” said Knox, a writer whose work has appeared in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. The goal of the committee and the events themselves is to foster camaraderie and create an optimal living environment, explained Knox. Social programming aids the cause but aesthetics also help, which is why the Imperial House committee hosted a session dedicated to site-specific gardening. Towering over the Squirrel Hill skyline, the nine-story building has varying exposure to the sun, explained Knox. Depending on what side of the building you live on, there are different options

p Residents gather in the library to participate in games and other activities.

for “what will grow well on your balcony, whether you face north, south, east or west,” she said — adding that building rules restrict balcony items “that hang over and might fall.” Beautifying outdoor settings and providing opportunities for communal gatherings are not only important suggestions for making a place more homey, they also improve wellnesss. According to the World Health Organization, physical inactivity is the fourthleading risk factor for global mortality. Along with high blood pressure, tobacco use, high blood glucose and obesity, physical inactivity is “responsible for raising the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancers. They affect countries across all income groups: high, middle and low.”

p Nancy Latimer, Cecilia Rothschild, Susan Werstil and Carol Lampe enjoy a game of mahjong. Photos by Deborah Knox

“Participation in regular physical activity,” the WHO stated in a 2010 report, has been shown to reduce “the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, diabetes, hypertension, colon cancer, breast cancer and depression.” Knox enjoys walking and listening to podcasts, but when she moved into the building three years ago, she noticed a general lack of activity and fraternization.

“A lot of the older people in the building, we don’t see them out much.” Offering these monthly get-togethers “seemed like an opportunity,” she said. The sexagenarian reached out to fellow residents, including Gloria Shapiro, and formed a committee. Years earlier, Shapiro had headed social activities at Imperial Please see Imperial, page 5

HOW WE DISCOVER Our sixth graders excavate artifacts from on-campus archaeology pits and learn how to analyze, classify and contextualize their findings. Our hands-on approach to education sparks students’ curiosity and inspires the next generation of critical thinkers. How will you discover the perfect balance of rigor and joy for your child?

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Headlines French motorcyclists take iconic American trip a comprehensive road book complete with copies of travelers’ plane tickets, hotel bookings, vehicle reservations — and the addresses of local Chabads, since Shabbat stays in L.A. and Las Vegas bookended the trip. “It’s Chabad — they’re everywhere,” said Sahel. In addition to the planning, they were serious about safety, too. Each day, the motorcyclists, some of whom previously belonged to Biker Tov, a Paris-based club, followed a staggered formation where the lead (the rider in the front) and the sweep (the rider in the back) communicated via helmet-inserted intercoms. By moving this way, “we were able to keep the line of bikes compact and safe,” said Sahel, a financial services consultant. Ranging in age from their mid-30s to mid-60s, and all clad in matching custommade coats, the group was quite a sight, Sahel said. “We stayed in decent hotels, so you can imagine the faces of people when we pulled up with skulls on our jackets and riding loud motorcycles.” While some onlookers asked questions, others were simply flabbergasted by the sight of 11 French-speaking men aboard Harley-Davidson Road Glides, Street Glides and Tri Glides (the latter is a three-wheeled

— LOCAL — Adam Reinherz I Staff Writer

etween Horace Greeley, Groucho Marx, “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Easy Rider,” America’s cultural landscape is paved on Route 66. So when a group of 11 French Harley-Davidson aficionados decided to navigate the West, they chose to travel the iconic roadway colloquially termed the Will Rogers Highway. In seeing Death Valley, the Mojave National Preserve and Grand Canyon National Park, the Parisian pack, which included Pittsburgher David Sahel, traversed 2,000 miles and four states in six days this past November. “Every turn of the trip, you feel you’re in a movie,” said Sahel, 35, recalling the trip in a Steel City coffee shop. Weeks have passed since the Squirrel Hill resident — who moved to Pittsburgh from Paris’ eastern suburbs this year — last rode his motorcyle. Between work, family and the fact that he stores his Harley Softail in his sister’s garage, there have been logistical constraints. But Sahel remains revved up about his recent excursion: “It was with a nice group of friends. There was no fighting. We were just having fun, laughing.” Despite the laughs, the group was quite serious about the trip beforehand, designing

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p David Sahel poses for a photo during his trip on Route 66.

Photo courtesy of David Sahel

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Please see Motorcycle, page 5

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Headlines Jewish Healthcare Foundation approves up to $2.1 million in grants — LOCAL —

he Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) approved up to $2.1 million in grants, including support to strengthen behavioral health services and supports for teens, expand quality improvement education and training opportunities for community organizations, improve maternal and child health outcomes, develop new senior programming and address health and human services needs within and beyond the Jewish community.

Grants include:

Two-year grant of up to $220,000 to support ongoing efforts to build a safety net from the bottom up for teens that are experiencing a mental health crisis and to build resilience among teens with behavioral health needs through a communitywide initiative. The grant will include support for a community planning event in early 2019 and a project

Imperial: Continued from page 3

House, but an illness forced her to step away from leading the group. Reflecting on past activities, Shapiro said, “We got people out to meet their neighbors. It was always wonderful.” Knox picked up where Shapiro reluctantly left off by providing a mix of educational and social events. In August, there was a viewing of “Undaunted: The Forgotten Giants of the Allegheny Observatory,” a 2012 documentary recounting the history of the Allegheny Observatory and its contributions to astrophysics and aviation. This was followed by an October potluck and November celebration of Veterans Day complete with bingo and a patriotic sing-a-long. As when Shapiro headed the group, the goal is to get people out and build

Motorcycle: Continued from page 4

motorcycle with a passenger seat, explained Sahel). The group also included a Frenchspeaking driver, who trailed the riders in a car containing luggage. California to Nevada, by way of Arizona and Utah, wasn’t the troop’s first jaunt, as they had previously ridden from Paris to Poland with stops in Frankfurt, Dresden and Krakow before touring the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. It’s tough to compare the two experiences, Sahel said. Aside from having a lighter focus, the West Coast trip included fewer participants. “For California, we only took experienced drivers.” Having fewer riders increases safety and decreases time, explained Sahel, who served as the group’s sweep, a responsibility that requires possessing technical knowledge in

coordinator position at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. The new grant advances JHF’s Adolescent Behavioral Health Initiative, which was launched in 2016 and some of the key recommendations from JHF’s Youth Advocacy Summit, which was held in November in partnership with local teenserving organizations and school districts. Two-year grant of up to $500,000 to support new and ongoing training, coaching, and educational initiatives at various community organizations. These initiatives include quality improvement training and coaching for frontline providers and administrative staff at the JCC and Jewish Association on Aging (JAA), as well as regional offerings related to strengthening the skills of community health workers, creating dementia-friendly organizations and improving end-of-life care and communication. The Foundation will explore partnerships with LIFE (Living Independence for the Elderly) programs, Area Agencies on Aging, AARP and Familylinks, among other organizations. relationships regardless of age, said Knox, who added, “We’re not a senior building.” Current residents include toddlers and young professionals, she said. “We have a wonderful building here,” said Shapiro, “and the people are nice, friendly, kind and helping each other.” The building, Knox added, has been “incredibly supportive” and even “gave us a budget to pay for food and coffee.” Shapiro praised the office managers who regularly make and hang fliers, letting residents know of upcoming programs. “Anything we need, they’re here for us,” she said. “I love living here. It’s just a friendly building,” said Shapiro. “If you want to live in a wonderful building, this is the place to be.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. the event of mechanical failures. More motorcycles means more chances for breakdowns, and with a greater number of drivers, there is a higher need for bathroom breaks and other interruptions. Factor in such variables and a five-hour trip can easily double or triple. “I don’t mind driving 400 to 500 miles a day, but some of the guys want to stop every hour,” he added. It’s good he got a lot of driving in on the trip: Between a demanding, travel-oriented work schedule, familial responsibilities and winter weather on its way, Sahel doesn’t anticipate accelerating on his Softail anytime soon. But another ride is on the horizon; the group wants to do Route 1 next fall. Sahel is hoping he can make the trip. But there are certain considerations to take into account. He’ll go, he said, “if my wife lets me. She was amazing enough this time.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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One-year grant of up to $75,000 for strategic planning related to Senior Connections, an initiative started in 2016 to strengthen service opportunities for older adults in western Pennsylvania and beyond. These services include transportation and housing, exercise and recreation, geriatric friendly health care, nutrition and caregiver supports.

JHF renewed the following grants:

One-year grant of up to $300,000 to the Women’s Health Activist Movement Global (WHAMglobal), a supporting organization of JHF, to advance the organization’s strategies to improve maternal and child health. WHAMglobal is committed to identifying the root causes of maternal and infant mortality, and supporting mothers and families through the entirety of their care. One-year $900,000 block grant to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, which is distributed to beneficiary agencies to address

the health needs of the Jewish community. The block grant, which benefits the Jewish Association on Aging, the Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family and Community Services, Riverview Towers and Jewish Residential Services, represents 60 percent of the $1.5 million distributed annually by the Federation to the local community for aging and human service needs. The block grant is part of JHF’s more than $2.1 million in total funding support provided to the local Jewish community in 2018. One-year, $68,000 grant to the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania Impact Fund. JHF has provided a yearly grant to the Impact Fund since it was launched in 2002 to support the United Way’s core partner agencies and address critical community needs. One-year, $50,000 grant to PublicSource to provide independent coverage of health care issues of interest to the residents of southwestern Pennsylvania. PJC — Angela Leibowicz

Women of Valor? The Challenge of Sexuality to Orthodox Judaism in Contemporary Israeli Film and Theatre

A Lecture by Hadar Galron Including excerpts from Mikveh, The Secrets, Bruriah, and Passion Killer

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Jan. 14 @ 6:30pm Frick Fine Arts Auditorium 4127 Schenley Drive

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Hadar Galron, born and educated in Jewish Orthodox society, intertwines her personal story with those of some of her writings for the theatre and cinema. In this lecture the emphasis will be on womanhood: the image, concept and “aims” of the female body from the moment of birth as portrayed in “Halacha,” or Jewish law. Galron will share how, as part of her own personal growth, she transformed these concepts into drama that demands change. Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, the Film and Media Studies Program, the Department of Theatre Arts, the Department of Religious Studies, and the Gender, Sexaulity, and Women's Studies Program

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Calendar Russ and Daughters.” Lunch is deli-themed and includes popcorn. Visit bethelcong.org for more information. Call 412-561-1168 to make a reservation. There is a $6 charge.

q FRIDAY, JAN. 11 Pittsburgh’s Jewish Young Adults (22-45) will hold Game Night Potluck Shabbat from 7 to 9 p.m. at Amberson Towers Community Room. Bring a vegetarian dish to share. Wine and challah will be provided. There is no charge, but registration is required. Space is limited. Visit jfedpgh.org/ shabbat-dinner to register. Contact Meryl Franzos at mfranzos@jfedpgh. org or 412-992-5204 for more information. >> Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions will also be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q SUNDAY, JAN. 6 Shalom Pittsburgh will hold a family meet-up to have coffee and a bagel with other Jewish families in the community from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Panera Bread in Shadyside, in the Community Room. Everyone is welcome whether you are new to Pittsburgh, new to parenthood or expecting in the near future. Visit jfedpgh.org/family-meet-up or contact Meryl Franzos at mfranzos@jfedpgh.org for more information. The Senior Social Group will meet from 10 a.m. to noon at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh in Room 202. The discussion will be on living in Russia. Join this welcoming group to socialize and make friends. There is no charge. Community Day School and PJ Library Pittsburgh invite the community with children (ages 2-5) at 10 a.m. in the CDS Annex for a PJ Library Tu B’Shevat story, snack and an opportunity to build inventions with recycled materials. There is no charge. Visit comday.org/pjinventiontime for more information. The Young Adult I-Volunteer event to make challah with Challah for Hunger will be held at Hillel Jewish University Center from 7 to 9 p.m. I-Volunteer is a collaboration organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Volunteer Center. The Friendship Circle partners with Shalom Pittsburgh, Repair the World and Moishe House to encourage young adults between the ages of 18 and 45 of all abilities to combine entertainment with community service in a comfortable social setting. Together, they perform meaningful work within the Pittsburgh community. Visit jfedpgh.org/ challah-for-hunger or contact DChudnow@ jfedpgh.org for more information.

The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s Generations Speaker Series will be held at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of the South Hills, 345 Kane Blvd. Lynne Ravas will share one child’s experience in a Jewish orphanage in Germany during Kristallnacht. The program is free and open to the community, sponsored by the Sylvia & Martin Snow Family Fund. There is no charge. Visit southhillsjewishpittsburgh.org/generations for more information.

q SATURDAY, JAN. 12 Lubavitch Center and Yeshiva Schools Annual Melava Malka celebrating the community and honoring Chaya Engle and Officer Dan Mead will be held at 8 p.m. in the Congregation Beth Shalom Ballroom. The charge is $36 per person or $180 sponsorship (includes two tickets). Visit yeshivaschools. com/melavamalka for more information.

q DEADLINE MONDAY, JAN. 7

q SUNDAY, JAN. 13

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s 2019-2020 Wechsler Fellowship: Building Pittsburgh’s Next Jewish Leaders is now accepting nominations. Nominate one or more outstanding individuals from your organization, synagogue, community or social networks. Ideal candidates are between the ages of 22 and 45, who are passionate, innovative and inspired to lead our Jewish community into the future.

Sisterhood Movie Night sponsored by the Women of Rodef Shalom will be at 7:30 p.m. in Levy Hall. “Green Fields,” a masterpiece of the Yiddish cinema of the 1930s starring Hershel Bernardi and Helen Beverly, will be shown. The film is a Yiddish folktale of that period that has been remastered and has clear English subtitles. The film is open to the community. Refreshments will follow the film. There is no charge. Visit rodefshalom.org for more information.

q TUESDAY, JAN. 8 AND JAN. 15

q WEDNESDAY, JAN. 16

Congregation Beth Shalom will hold a Lunch and Learn at noon at 535 Smithfield St., and Tuesday, Jan. 15 at noon at Congregation Beth Shalom. Ever wonder why you don’t have to park three blocks away from a Conservative synagogue on Shabbat? Or whether your rabbi can marry a gay couple? The Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has been reviewing contemporary halachic issues for the Conservative movement for more than 90 years, and has a long-standing tradition of issuing thoughtful, sensitive responsa to the challenges of keeping Jewish law in today’s world. Learn about these teshuvot. There is no charge. Visit tinyurl.com/ LunchLearnJan2019 for more information.

Congregation Beth Shalom’s Derekh Speaker Series will present Elisha Waldman at 7:30 p.m., made available through the Jewish Book Council. Waldman’s book is “This Narrow Space,” a memoir by an American pediatric oncologist who spent seven years in Jerusalem treating children of all faiths who had been diagnosed with cancer. There will be a book sale and author signing at the end.

q WEDNESDAY, JAN. 9 Shady Side Academy will hold The Expectation Gap, a free parent education program from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Hillman Center for Performing Arts at 423 Fox Chapel Road. Parenting and youth development expert Dr. Deborah Gilboa will be the speaker. Visit shadysideacademy.org/parenteducation for more information. Nar-Anon and NA meetings are every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Beth El Congregation, 1900 Cochran Road. Enter through the administration office doors. All are welcome. q THURSDAY, JAN. 10 Chabad of Squirrel Hill will present SoulStir, an uplifting dance experience for women from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at 1700 Beechwood Boulevard. There is a $10 charge. Visit chabadpgh.com/dance for more information.

q MONDAY, JAN. 7

q FRIDAY, JAN. 11

Beth El Congregation will host its First Mondays monthly lunch program with Rabbi Alex Greenbaum from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. featuring a showing and discussion of the film “The Sturgeon Queens: The story of

Rabbi Don Rossoff, Temple Emanuel of South Hill’s interim rabbi, will lead a Downtown Lunch & Learn from noon to 1 p.m. at Reed Smith, 225 Fifth Ave., Suite 1200. The program is free and open to the community. Bring your own lunch and enjoy an hour of

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lively conversation on current events. RSVP to skaiser@reedsmith.com. There is no charge. Contact Temple’s office at 412-279-7600 or templeemanuel@templeemanuelpgh.org for more information.

Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville will present “The Mob, The Jews, and Israel” at 7:30 p.m. at 2715 Mosside Blvd. The son of Jewish mobster Barney “Sugie” Sugerman, Myron Sugerman worked as a manager for Meyer Lansky’s organization operating slot machines in the ‘70s. He also reintroduced the slot machine business into New York City where they had been outlawed for nearly 40 years, attracting the attention of both the FBI and the bosses of New York’s five major crime families. He will tell the story of the Jewish Mob and their contributions to the betterment of the Jewish people. They fought the American Nazi party in the ’30s and supplied arms, cash and illegal weapons to both the Haganah and Irgun in the struggle for Israel’s independence. Sugarman also assisted Simon Wiesenthal in the search for Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. There is a $10 charge. Visit Jewishmonroeville. com/mob to RSVP. Contact 412-3721000 or Chabad@Jewishmonroeville. com for more information. q MONDAY, JAN. 28

q MONDAY, JAN. 21 Community Day School will be in session for Martin Luther King Jr. Day for the fourth consecutive year as the school takes on the themes of race in America and honors the life and legacy of King. The day will begin at 8 a.m. with special morning tefillah (prayers) and a concert featuring The Afro-Semitic Experience, an ethnic world music group merging Jewish and Afro-diasporic melodies and groove to combine the core concepts of àse and shalom power, action, unity and peace. Free and open to the community, but RSVPs are required at comday.org/MLK. Post-concert linger for an opportunity to learn as the students do. q SUNDAY, JAN. 27 Temple Emanuel of South Hills’ Bereavement Support group will meet at 1250 Bower Hill Road at 10 a.m., led by Jamie Del, MS, NCC, LPC and Naomi Pittle, LCSW. The group is open to previously and newly bereaved adults. Contact Temple’s office at 412-279-7600 or templeemanuel@ templeemanuelpgh.org for more information. The Holocaust Center will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a screening of the French film “Korkoro” at 2 p.m. at the Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Ave. The award-winning drama is a tribute to Romani victims of the Holocaust, and the event will include a discussion with an expert on the Roma experience. Tickets are $10, free for Holocaust survivors and students with valid ID. Visit hcofpgh.org/korkoro for more information.

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q TUESDAY, JAN. 8

Chabad of Pittsburgh will host Soup for the Inspired Soul, an evening featuring three local authors and their inspiring stories at 7:30 p.m. at 1700 Beechwood Blvd. There is no charge. Visit chabadpgh.com/soup for more information. q TUESDAY, JAN. 29 The FBI will lead a discussion on Extremism and Hate Crime Indicators from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave. The discussion will cover hate speech, bias crimes and extremism that have been reported in the Greater Pittsburgh area. The FBI will discuss the groups that have targeted the area and the relationship to regional and national trends. Learn how to identify symbols affiliated with these hate groups and mechanisms for reporting the activity. Visit jewishpgh.org/event/ hate-crime-indicator to register. q DEADLINE TUESDAY, FEB. 12 Jewish Scholarship Service of Greater Pittsburgh (JSS), formerly known as Central Scholarship & Loan Referral Service (CSLRS), is reviewing scholarship applications for Jewish students attending college, secondary technical school or graduate school in the fall of 2019. The deadline for all applications is February 12. Apply at jfcspgh.org/scholarship. Applicants must demonstrate financial need and live in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington or Westmoreland counties. For more information visit the JSS website or contact Alayne Lowenberger, JSS program director, at alowenberger@jfcspgh.org, or 412-422-7200. PJC

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Headlines Pace of haredi Orthodox integration into Israeli life slowing down — WORLD — By Sam Sokol | JTA

ERUSALEM — The pace of haredi Orthodox integration into both the workforce and academy has slowed significantly, indicating a “worrisome” trend in Israeli society, a Jerusalem think-tank warned in a new report. The Israel Democracy Institute said Wednesday that full-time yeshiva enrollment has increased among the fervently Orthodox haredim, rates of employment have slowed and fewer members of the community are enrolling in secular higher education. According to the IDI, as of last year there were 114,000 haredi Orthodox men in fulltime religious study, a rise of 21 percent over three years ago and a reversal of the previous trend of growing workplace participation. By contrast, between 2013 and 2014 there was a 16 percent drop in yeshiva enrollment. During the past decade, amid calls for reform, the number of haredi students had grown by 141 percent and the number of haredim registered in secular graduate programs as of 2017 was five times what it was in 2010.

“This year’s report reveals worrisome trends,” said IDI researchers Gilad Malach and Lee Cahaner. “The findings show that the trend toward the rise in the rate of employment and academic studies has come to a standstill, after several years of a consistent increase in both. Although there is encouraging data regarding an increase in income and a decline in poverty rates, this appears to be the fruits of past government policies that encouraged higher education, army service and employment.” Israel’s growing haredi population currently numbers over a million. Characterized by strict religious observance, the communities also exhibit lower rates of employment and military enlistment. Israel’s non-haredi policymakers, and even some in the haredi community, say the lifestyle is not sustainable economically and is a threat to Israel’s democratic and civic fabric. Efforts to integrate haredi Jews grew apace in recent years. Although 45 percent live in poverty, the average haredi monthly income increased by eight percent between 2015 and 2016, reflecting “a rise in ultraOrthodox salaries among those employed,” said IDI. While the poverty rate among the haredim is high compared to the 11 percent rate among other Israelis, it is actually

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a significant improvement over the 58 percent haredi poverty rate as recently as 2005. While just under half of haredi men are unemployed (while 73 percent of haredi women work), that represents a significant rise over 2003 when only 36 percent of haredi men and 51 percent of haredi women held down jobs. The recent gains can be credited to the “rise in the p Haredi Orthodox men pray at the Western Wall in number of well-educated Jerusalem in 2017. Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images members of the ultraOrthodox community and the advancement of ultra-Orthodox 54 percent of haredim in 2017 reported workers in the labor market (as a result using a computer, an increase of 10 percent of a combination of appropriate skills and over 2007. The rate of enlistment in the milieducation, and government programs),” tary has also increased significantly, with Malach and Cahaner commented. 3,700 haredim having enlisted in the Israel “Nevertheless the expenditures of the Defense Forces or a civilian national service ultra-Orthodox are still higher than their framework last year, a slight increase. income, which may point to the transfer of According to a government report issued illegal funds and the receipt of unreported last year, Israel’s population will double in donations from abroad.” about 40 years. Some 29 percent — or 5.25 Meanwhile, despite opposition by many million of its projected 18 million residents rabbis to internet-connected devices, — will be haredi Orthodox Jews. PJC

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Lee & Lisa Oleinick JANUARY 4, 2019 7

Headlines The latest poll on anti-Semitism in Europe looks bad, and is true — WORLD — By Cnaan Liphshiz | JTA

MSTERDAM — The last time that a stranger directed an anti-Semitic insult at me, I was carrying supplies for my son’s birthday party. It was on a Sunday afternoon on Dam Square. Carrying Star of David party decorations in a see-through bag, I paused to snap some pictures on my cellphone of an anti-Israel rally. I was busy sending them to a friend who had inquired about such events in the Netherlands when a bearded man sporting a Moroccan accent said loudly in my direction: “Cancer Jew. You’re all made up, you’re fake. You’re fake dogs.” The incident was far from extraordinary — I have experienced much worse abuse during my years of covering European Jewry and its problems — but I found myself recalling it Monday following the publication of the unsurprisingly grim results from Europe’s largest survey of Jews on anti-Semitism. About a third of the 16,395 Jews polled this year in 12 countries by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said they avoid Jewish events or places out of fear for their safety. A similar number said they have considered emigrating in the past five years because they did not feel safe as Jews. More than 80 percent of respondents said anti-Semitism was “the most pressing problem” facing them. Nearly 40 percent said they had experienced an anti-Semitic incident over the past five years, and of those, 79 percent said they didn’t report it because they thought doing so would be a waste of time. Vera Jourova, the E.U. commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, called some of the poll’s data “shocking” in an address she delivered in Brussels during the presentation of the report. She vowed tougher action on antiSemitic crimes, especially online, and called on all E.U. member states to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, which includes some forms of anti-Israel rhetoric, because “you cannot fight it if you can’t define it,” she said. The respondents appeared more affiliated than the average European Jew, with 45 percent saying they eat kosher at home and 84 percent declaring they fast on Yom Kippur. A sample with more respondents for whom Judaism is a less central element of life may yield different results. But even for a secular Jew like me, the report was no more shocking than the presence of the armed special forces officers at our children’s Jewish kindergarten, where they block off the entire road twice a day, during pickup and drop-off hours. My reporting has made me so used to such sights — the result of several terrorist attacks by Islamists on Jewish institutions, including the 2012 bloodbath at a Toulouse school

8 JANUARY 4, 2019

— that I was genuinely surprised by how disturbing this is to my wife, who is Jewish but rarely attends Jewish community events. Certainly the head of the European Jewish Association wasn’t surprised by the E.U. report. Anyone who is shocked, Rabbi Menachem Margolin said in a statement, is “disconnected from the reality on the ground.” Like so many of the poll’s respondents, I also brushed off the antiSemitic incident I had experienced without reporting it to police. After all, I do not believe Dutch police would have identified the man who accosted me. But if they did, he could have accused me of assaulting him and back his claim with false witnesses from his rally — who would land me in trouble. The refusal by Dutch police to even investigate a Jewish community leader’s complaint for assault did little to assure me that they have my back. The Dutch government’s resistance to adopting an internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism was also of little assurance. Nor was a Dutch court’s failure in July to charge a Syrian man with a hate crime for smashing up a kosher restaurant while waving a Palestinian flag. These problems are not exclusive to the Netherlands. In France, where half a million Jews live and the volume of anti-Semitic incidents increased by 69 percent in 2018, such occurrences have become a “daily occurrence,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said last month. In the United Kingdom, the country’s former chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said that many people in his community feel they are facing ”an existential threat” in the supporters of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Sacks, one of contemporary Judaism’s most eminent representatives, called the far-left politician an anti-Semite. Corbyn, who has called Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends” and who had suggested that British “Zionists” are incapable of irony, has rejected the allegation vociferously. In Sweden, anti-Semitic harassment by far-right activists led for the first time since World War II to the shuttering of a Jewish community anywhere in the European Union out of security concerns. The dissolution of Umea’s Jewish community was a sad precedent in a country where Jews are regularly assaulted by Muslim extremists, often with Israel as a pretext. Still, the news out of Brussels isn’t all bad when it comes to the fight against anti-Semitism. Last week, the European Council — the European Union’s executive branch — made a declaration against anti-Semitism, calling on E.U. member states to shoulder Jewish communities’ security costs and urging coordinated action against anti-Semitism. And whereas some European governments 20 years ago took pains to deny the resurgence of anti-Semitism after the Holocaust and the reasons driving it forward,

p Danish soldiers guard the Jewish Synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2017. Photo by Mads Claus Rasmussen/AFP/Getty Images

mainstream politicians in Europe today seem to be more conscious of the problem’s nature and more interested in confronting it. Significantly, Jourova mentioned in her address not only anti-Semitism, but also anti-Zionism — a reference that many believe would have been unthinkable only several years ago coming from a highranking E.U. official. She also mentioned “Islamist anti-Semitism.” Such rhetoric reflects a reluctant acceptance in Europe of the effect of the arrival to the continent of millions of immigrants from anti-Semitic societies in the Muslim world. Whereas many integrated seamlessly into European societies and adopted their values, others have rejected them and reintroduced into the mainstream anti-Semitic sentiments that have been suppressed in Europe as part of the lessons of the Holocaust. Labeled “new anti-Semitism,” this mutation of Jew hatred has baffled European progressives, who struggled to come to terms with the systemic targeting of one minority group by members of another. Watchdog groups say that the vast majority of violent attacks on Jews in Western Europe today come from people with Muslim background. But accepting or admitting this has proven difficult for some advocates of Europe’s immigration policies. Yet last year, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that France will “not surrender to anti-Zionism because it is a reinvention of anti-Semitism.” It was the first time that a French president made such an equation. Following France’s lead, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and several other countries mounted formidable efforts to protect Jewish community institutions, in some cases leading to a reduction in incidents. Yet even under Macron, French authorities, who in the early 2000s downplayed the scale of anti-Semitic crimes, showed signs of relapsing. Last year, France’s National Consultative Commission on Human

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Rights asserted that it “had no evidence” to support what it called “the new antiSemitism hypothesis.” In May, a study published by a German federal entity said that anti-Semitism in Europe is unaffected by recent Muslim immigration, prompting a prominent critic to call the report selective and flawed. And last month, a CNN poll of Europeans in seven countries found that more than a quarter believe Jews have too much influence in business and finance and more than one-third said they have no substantial knowledge of the Holocaust. Only 5 percent of the 7,092 respondents reported never hearing about the Holocaust, but 29 percent said they had heard about the genocide and that this was the full extent of their knowledge about it. Half of respondents said they know “a fair amount” about the Holocaust. One-third of respondents said that Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals. Forty percent of respondents said that Jews were at risk of racist violence in their countries and half said their governments should do more to fight anti-Semitism. But substantial minorities blamed Israel or Jews themselves for anti-Semitism. To 28 percent of respondents, antiSemitism in their countries mostly owed to Israel’s actions, they said. And 18 percent said the phenomenon was a response to the everyday behavior of Jewish people. As the debate rages on, many Jews like me are increasingly contemplating their futures in Europe — despite major steps designed to ensure our ability to live freely and safely here. Because amid polls, reports, discussions and declarations about the need to balance freedoms, for too many European Jews “freedom of belief and the freedom to live without fear remain distant aspirations,” as Michael O’Flaherty, the director of the E.U. Agency for Fundamental Rights, put during his address in Brussels. PJC

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Headlines Forty years ago, a refusenik made art of the Soviet Jewish tragedy; at 82, he is seeing its first English translation The Russian-language novel became the first published work of literature on the refusenik experience. A year later, in 1987, the family was finally granted permission to emigrate. They settled in Providence, where Shrayer-Petrov worked for some two decades as a cancer researcher at Brown University and continued to write. More recently, the couple relocated to this town that borders Boston, close to their son and his family.

contribution of his translators, and he is pleased with the results. In 2006, he wrote “The Third Life,” the final book of the trilogy. In the years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, three Russian-language editions of the novels have been published in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Emotions swing wide in the richly textured and exquisitely written first volume. Its protagonist, Herbert Anatolyevich Levitin, and his wife Tatyana Vasilyevna, fear for

“That masterpiece put me inside the story,” he recalled in a phone conversation. Gorin first read the book in 1992, when he By Penny Schwartz | JTA was 18 and 50,000 copies of a one-volume edition of the first two novels, titled “Herbert ROOKLINE, Massachusetts — The and Nelly,” were published in Moscow. The well-worn books that fill the shelves book sold out almost immediately and was in David Shrayer-Petrov’s living room long-listed for the 1993 Russian Booker Prize. reveal the remarkable literary life of the As a work of literature, “Herbert and influential refusenik, who has left his mark Nelly” exposes the characters’ inner struggles both as a distinguished physician and as an as well as the historical landscape that comes acclaimed writer. alive in a much more powerful narrative Among the volumes are works by literary than works of nonfiction, Gorin said. lights of Russian 20th-century literature, Gorin’s original copy still holds an including novelists Mikhail Bulgakov and honored place in his library, he said. Vasily Aksyonov, a peer of Shrayer-Petrov In 2014, his publishing house brought dating back to the 1950s, and the poets out a revised two-volume edition of Boris Pasternak and Genrikh Sapgir, his “Herbert and Nelly,” a chance for newer close friend until the poet’s death. generations to read the book, he said. But it’s the copies of the writer’s own Born in 1936, to a Jewish family in globally published works that bear Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), David witness to Shrayer-Petrov’s triumph Shrayer (he later took on the pen name of against the oppressive and anti-Semitic David Petrov, now hyphenated), grew up control exerted by Soviet officials who a descendant of generations of Lithuanian tried to silence the voice of the masterful rabbis and millers from the Podolian and influential writer. region of Ukraine. Through these older Now, with the publication of “Doctor generations, he was exposed to Jewish Levitin,” the warm and cordial 82-year-old culture and traditions and to Yiddish. can boast another literary milestone, the He came of age amidst the openly antifirst English-language translation of his Semitic campaign of Stalin’s last years, an groundbreaking novel. Written some 40 experience that sharpened his sense of years ago, it is a harrowing tale that probes Jewish pride, according to his son. p David Shrayer-Petrov outside of the Brookline Booksmith store in November, the experience of refuseniks and the where he and the translators of “Doctor Levitin” spoke to a crowd. In the novel, the character of Doctor fraying of the deep-rooted relationship Levitin comes reluctantly to the decision between Russian Jews and their country. to leave his country. In his own life, the Shrayer-Petrov wrote the novel decision to emigrate was not easy, Shrayerbetween 1979 and 1980, the beginning Petrov acknowledged, a tearing-away of his family’s eight-year-long ordeal of from the foundation of his life, its culture living as refuseniks — would-be emigres and the language of his artistic output. kept in limbo by the USSR’s cruel and His love of music, formal vocal training fickle bureaucracy. and deep knowledge of 20th-century Four decades ago, in January 1979, Russian composers echo on the pages of Shrayer-Petrov, his wife, Emilia Shrayer, “Doctor Levitin,” with bursts of staccaa literary translator and also a refusenik to-like phrasing juxtaposed with melodic activist, and their then teenage son passages describing the landscapes of the Maxim applied for exit visas to leave Russian countryside. the Soviet Union. “I am happy you found this in my book,” The life-changing consequences were Shrayer-Petrov said, noting that among immediate: Shrayer-Petrov was stripped of his papers and letters is a brief correhis academic medical position and soon spondence from the 1950s with Russian thereafter, tossed out of the Union of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich. The Writers. Shrayer-Petrov worked in a hospital two discussed the possibility of collabemergency room and drove an illegal cab orating on a musical production based at night. The family faced insidious antion the works of Soviet poet Vladimir Semitic harassment and Shrayer-Petrov was p Shrayer-Petrov in front of a portrait by the Russian-American artist Anatoly Dverin. Mayakovsky, Shrayer-Petrov recalled. Photos courtesy of Maxim Shrayer subject to harassment by the KGB. Looking back, Shrayer-Petrov is grateful Against this backdrop, as the Soviet that as an emigre, he was able to continue Union invaded Afghanistan, Shrayerboth of his life’s pursuits in medicine and Petrov penned his panoramic novel of a “Doctor Levitin” (Wayne State University their son Anatoly’s future as he faces the literature. Among his English language works Jewish doctor, his non-Jewish Russian wife Press), was translated by Arna B. Bronstein, draft. And yet, with hints of hope, young love is the 2014 collection, “Dinner with Stalin and and their teenage son whose once comfort- Aleksandra I. Fleszar — both of whom have blossoms and in one scene, Tatyana brings a Other Stories,” that includes short fiction about able lives spiral downwards in unimaginable translated other works by Shrayer-Petrov — sense of purpose and even adventure as she Russian Jewish immigrants living in the U.S. and tragic ways after they apply to leave and Maxim Shrayer, the author’s son, a writer prepares the family for an uncertain exit. Today, he and Emilia Shrayer are proud their homeland. and professor of Russian, English, and Jewish “Everything in the book was based in the grandparents of two American-born, Three years later, Shrayer-Petrov Studies at Boston College, who has overseen real life of refuseniks, but as with all forms bilingual girls, and he considers himself a completed “May You Be Cursed, Don’t Die,” the translation of his father’s writing. of art, it is a work of literary imagination,” Russian-American-Jewish writer, settled in the second novel of what would eventually “I am happy this book is in English and it Shayer-Petrov said, sitting at his living room his life as a New Englander. become a trilogy. can be read by [American Jews] and Russian table with his son and offering a guest a Despite some health problems, ShrayerAgainst all odds, in 1986, after the manu- Jews,” as well as non-Jewish readers, Shrayer- scone from a favorite local bakery. Petrov is excited to be assembling a volume scripts were secretly photographed and Petrov said in a wide-ranging conversaIts enduring power is as a work of fiction, of his collected poetry and working smuggled out to the West, an abridged tion at his home. according to Boruch Gorin, editor-in-chief on a new novel. version of the first book was published The ever humble and gracious writer of Knizhniki, the Moscow-based publishing “I have the possibility to continue to write in Israel, under the title “Being Refused.” is quick to acknowledge the painstaking house of Jewish books. in freedom,” he said. PJC

— WORLD —

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JANUARY 4, 2019 9

Headlines Jewish studies conference celebrates 50 years of explosive growth in the field — NATIONAL — By Penny Schwartz | JTA

OSTON — Diversity and inclusion were among the hot topics at the 50th annual convention of the Association of Jewish Studies, where some 1,200 Jewish studies scholars gathered for a three-day conference that ran from Dec. 16-18. Fifty years to the month after a handful of scholars in the newly emerging field of Jewish studies held what became its founding conference at nearby Brandeis University, the now large and dynamic AJS returned to its roots. “We are really happy to be back in Boston,” said Christine Hayes, AJS president. A professor of religious studies at Yale, Hayes said the organization has seen tremendous growth. “It reflects a robust field that encompasses so many different disciplines.” The field’s expanding popularity can be seen in AJS’s membership, which grew from 47 in 1969 to more than 1,800 today. The AJS website lists more than 200 Jewish studies programs or departments and 230 endowed positions at North American colleges and universities. Michael Meyer, now retired as a professor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, was at the first AJS meeting 50 years ago. He said that Jewish studies has flourished more than the early group anticipated. The small gathering included just one woman, the late historian Lucy Dawidowicz, and the one Israeli there doubted that American Jewish studies would ever come close to Israel’s scholarship. That growth is pegged to the rise of Jewish pride after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967 as well as interest in the Holocaust and the more general rise in identity politics and scholarship. The expansion of opportunities for women also helped: In 2013, at least half of AJS members were women, as compared to just over 10 percent in the late 1970s, according to a study on the AJS website. This year’s conference, held at the Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, boasted 215 sessions, with 19 concurrent sessions throughout each of the three days, according to Warren Hoffman, the group’s executive director. The topics ranged from rabbinics and Jewish mysticism to Yiddish, film and the arts, to literature, race, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Israeli politics. For its golden anniversary, AJS welcomed one of its own, Maud Mandel, the new president of Williams College, and a widely regarded scholar of Jewish studies, as a keynote speaker. Mandel, the first woman to lead the elite college in the Berkshires, attracted a large crowd for the plenary session talk on Sunday,

p Maud Mandel, the new president of Williams College, speaks at the Association of Jewish Studies conference in Boston in 2018. Photo by Tim Correira

p A new facsimile of the 14th-century Sarajevo Hagaddah was on display, and for sale, by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the exhibit hall at the Association of Jewish Studies convention held last month.

Photo by Penny Schwartz

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Notes from Jewish History and Campuses Today.” “The field of Jewish studies can be a key to transforming campuses and building a diverse and inclusive educational system,” said Mandel, a scholar of 20th-century religious and ethnic minorities in France. Mandel spent her academic career at Brown University where she was a professor of history and Jewish studies. In 2014, she was appointed dean at Brown. Last summer, she began her new position as president of Williams, the fourth Jewish president of the liberal arts school, she said.

A fervent proponent of diversity, inclusion and equity in college life, Mandel noted that these goals are part of the mission of colleges and universities across the country as a way to open the doors to groups of students these institutions have traditionally failed. Diversity and inclusion broadens the experience for all students, she emphasized. She drew a parallel between the subject of her own Jewish studies scholarship to underscore the point that diversity dramatically changes — and improves the experience of the majority in society at large and on college campuses.

Programs in Jewish studies, women’s and gender studies, black studies and Latin studies transformed their institutions, she said. “This association helped drive that change,” she said. Among the emerging topics that have gained traction is an interest in Sephardic Jewry and transnational history — that is, cultural exchanges between Jews and other groups. Darcy Buerkle, an associate professor of history at Smith College, said her course on the Holocaust has had to tackle modern manifestations of the hate it explores, including the Nazi march at Charlottesville, Va., and the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue building that claimed 11 lives. In a workshop, “Teaching the Holocaust in the Age of Trump,” Buerkle said that for the first time, she finds herself more aware of her own vulnerability and emotions in response to current events, while students are voicing their own reactions. At Case Western University, Jay Geller has added material to his syllabus since Pittsburgh. “The present climate is intruding into the course,” he said. Still, demographers in one session warned scholars not to exaggerate the scope of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism at large and on college campuses is not as rampant as is widely reported, they suggested at a round-table discussion, “Anti-Semitism in Contemporary America.” “The percentage of Americans who experience anti-Semitism would appear to be about 13 or 14 percent a year,” Ira Sheskin, director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami, said after the session. But the murders at the Tree of Life synagogue building have jolted American Jews, the panelists said. That and other high profile, violent incidents give a sense that antiSemitism is widespread. What has happened in today’s political climate is that “people who are anti-Semitic have been emboldened by statements from the President,” and the ratcheting up of divisive rhetoric by others, said Sheskin. Other highlights of the conference included the awarding of the 2018 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards, funded by the Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Family Fund, which honored books on sacrifice in early rabbinic literature, the printing and material history of the Jewish Bible, right-wing Zionism among Polish Jews and conversion in Israel. It also saw the launch of the first AJS podcast, Adventures in Jewish Studies. Its first installment includes a discussion of New York Jewish food traditions with Hasia Diner, professor of American Jewish History at New York University, and Mark Russ Federman, an owner of New York’s famed Russ & Daughters appetizing shop. PJC

www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org 10 JANUARY 4, 2019

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Headlines — LOCAL — Diocese raises $220,000 for Tree of Life victims The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh has been raising funds for Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, Congregation Dor Hadash and New Light Congregation in the wake of the Oct. 27 anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue building. So far, the diocese has raised $220,000, representing donations from about 110 of the 188 parishes, with funds still coming in, according to the Pittsburgh Catholic. “The hearts of Catholics continue to go out to our sisters and brothers in the Jewish community,” Bishop David Zubik told the Pittsburgh Catholic. “While money cannot heal heartbreak, we hope that this tangible sign of our love and concern for our neighbors will bring them some comfort in this time of suffering.” PJC

— WORLD — From JTA reports

Senior Labour lawmaker quits over anti-Semitism A senior lawmaker for Britain’s Labour Party who was facing sexual harassment allegations has quit the party, citing its

anti-Semitism problem. Ivan Lewis, who is Jewish, resigned on Dec. 20 from Labour, where he had served as chief whip — a post whose duties include enforcing coalition discipline in votes in the House of Commons, the lower house of the British parliament. In his resignation announcement, Lewis accused party leader Jeremy Corbyn of being “unwilling to condemn those whose hatred of Israel becomes Jewish hatred” and complaining that the disciplinary process against him was “subject to political manipulation.” Lewis said he would continue to sit in parliament as an independent, The Guardian reported, but his decision to quit means that the long-running Labour Party disciplinary process following allegations of sexual harassment can no longer be concluded. Lewis denies the allegations. In his letter of resignation to Corbyn, Lewis wrote that others will “determine whether you are anti-Semitic,” going on to accuse the Labour leader and his director of communications, Seumas Milne, of not believing “in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their own state.” Several prominent Labour politicians have resigned over Labour’s spiraling anti-Semitism problem since 2015. That year, Corbyn, a far-left politician who has called Hezbollah and Hamas his friends, was elected party leader. His accusers say he has encouraged or tolerated a culture of anti-Semitism within Labour, though Corbyn has denied this and

vowed to kick out anyone caught engaging in hate speech. Jewish Agency names first woman CEO The Jewish Agency for Israel appointed its first woman CEO Amira Aharonovich, 47, replaces longtime Jewish Agency CEO Alan Hoffmann and will also be its director general, the organization wrote in a statement. The Jewish Agency handles key aspects of immigration by Jews to Israel for the state, and serves as a prime beneficiary of Diaspora donations to the Jewish state. Aharonovich holds two degrees in business administration and has worked for the Jewish Agency in top management positions since she joined the organization after completing her military service at the age of 20. Josh Schwarcz will serve as director of external relations, the statement also said. Schwarcz, will continue to serve as secretary general, which he has held since 2001. “I am leading The Jewish Agency toward a period of significant change,” Isaac Herzog, the agency’s chairman, said in the statement. “I’m confident Amira will be an outstanding CEO,” he added, and that “Josh will draw on his tremendous experience to lead his new areas of responsibility, both in Israel and around the world.” Herzog, a former leader of Israel’s Labor party, was selected in June by the Jewish Agency’s board as the successor of Natan Sharansky, who had served as chairman since 2009.

Albania expels Iranian diplomats after alleged soccer plot Albania has expelled two Iranian diplomats, reportedly due to their involvement in a plan to attack a soccer match featuring the Israeli team. Albania expelled Amb. Gholamhossein Mohammadnia and a diplomat, accusing them of “involvement in activities that harm the country’s security” and for “violating their diplomatic status.” The country’s foreign ministry said the decision came after talks with other countries, including Israel. They are reportedly accused of being involved in a plot to attack a 2016 World Cup qualifying soccer match in Albania against Israel. The match changed venues after warnings of a possible terror attack. Iran accused Albania of being influenced by the United States and Israel in its decision to expel the Iranian ambassador and another diplomat. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Thursday that Albania’s move was “in line with previous such scenarios meant to damage Iran-Europe relations at the current sensitive juncture,” the state-owned PressTV reported. The planned attack in November 2016 was reportedly arranged by two Albanians in Syria fighting with the Islamic State group. Iran is an enemy of Islamic State. President Donald Trump in a letter thanked Albania for its actions. The U.S. Embassy in Tirana published the letter on its Facebook page, the Associated Press reported. PJC

This week in Israeli history — WORLD — Items provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.

Jan. 4, 1935 — Mosul-Haifa pipeline opens

A pipeline spanning 590 miles from Kirkuk, Iraq, to Haifa begins operating to carry crude oil from the Mosul fields to the Mediterranean Sea. The pipeline remains in operation until Israel’s independence in 1948.

Jan. 5, 1930 — Mapai Party founded

Two socialist-leaning political movements, David Ben-Gurion’s Ahdut Ha’avodah (Labor Unity) and Joseph Sprinzak’s Hapoel Hatzair (Young Worker Party), merge into Mapai, which quickly becomes the dominant political party in the Yishuv (area of Jewish settlement). The party provides Israel’s first four prime ministers and is the Knesset’s largest until 1968.

Jan. 6, 1942 — Toledano becomes chief rabbi

Rabbi Jacob Moshe Toledano, the chief rabbi of Alexandria, Egypt, assumes the post of the Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Born in Tiberias in 1880, Toledano traces his family back to Toledo, Spain. His experience includes three years as chief rabbi of Tangiers, Morocco, in the late 1920s.

Jan. 7, 2010 — Hebrew inscription deciphered

University of Haifa professor Gershon Galil deciphers an inscription found at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2008 on a pottery shard from the 10th century B.C.E. The inscription is the earliest-known Hebrew writing discovered. The text calls for the support of strangers.

Jan. 8, 1978 — Rose Halprin d ies

Rose Luria Halprin, a national president of Hadassah who held numerous leadership positions in the Jewish Agency during the British Mandate, dies in New York at 83. She led Hadassah from 1932 to 1934 and from 1947 to 1952 and served as liaison to the Hadassah Medical Organization in the 1930s.

Jan. 9, 1873 — Hayim Bialik born

Hayim Nahman Bialik, who becomes Israel’s national poet, is born in Radi in northwestern Ukraine. He gets involved with Zionism while studying at a yeshiva in Lithuania. He makes aliyah in 1924 and plays an important part in the cultural development of Tel Aviv.

Jan. 10, 2000 — Syria peace talks end

Peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara, focusing on trading the Golan Heights for peace, conclude without resolution. The talks do not resume as scheduled. PJC

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As is the norm, the Open Enrollment period (Oct. 15-Dec. 7) was busy, at times hectic, but always satisfying. Why satisfying you might ask? Because I was able to help a significant number of people, who were searching for the right options for their Medicare Plan. It’s a great feeling when you are able to assist someone towards achieving their goals. With that accomplishment behind me, it is now time to shift focus to the people who will be turning 65 in 2019. For these folks, who undoubtedly will have many questions, (such as ‘should I enroll in Medicare or stay with the benefits I receive from my employer?’ Or, ‘how will my decision affect my wife’s options?’) I will try to educate and guide them to the most optimal outcome. If you are one of these folks, please call me. Let’s put you in the best possible position to make these very important decisions.

Here’s Wishing You a Very Healthy and Happy 2019.

Dan Askin

412-901-5433 • askinsure@msn.com

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JANUARY 4, 2019 11

Opinion America’s losses in Syria — EDITORIAL —

mid the celebrations when President Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem last year was the cryptic warning that Israel will “pay a higher price” in peace talks with the Palestinians for Trump having taken Jerusalem “off the table.” Trump has not yet delivered on the peace plan. Yet it appears that part of the president’s bill has arrived in Jerusalem, in the form of Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria “as quickly as possible.” The move was opposed by the president’s own military and intelligence services and was roundly condemned by usually quiescent Republicans in Congress. It led to the resignation of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and of the State Department’s Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The United States sent troops to Syria in 2015 to fight the Islamic State group, guiding airstrikes and training the predominantly Kurdish p A view fighters who make up the

Syrian Democratic Forces. Troops were also there to search for senior ISIS leaders in Syria. U.S. forces control the northeast third of Syria, forming a military buffer and serving as a reminder of U.S. might and investment in the region. While the Islamic State’s caliphate is gone,

the group is not dead. Nevertheless, Trump declared victory over ISIS, via Twitter, and decided to withdraw. That will leave a power vacuum and a price to be paid by U.S. allies. Some news outlets are calling the decision a bonus for Iran, whose chief regional enemy is “The Little Satan” — Israel — which

it repeatedly vows to destroy. Ongoing U.S. support is part of Israel’s security shield, and the American exit from Syria could open the possibility of increased Iranian movement into Syria. This would fulfill an Iranian goal to have a land bridge from Tehran to Beirut to more easily support Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, which is poised to attack on Israel’s northern border. Another U.S. ally, the Kurds, are surrounded on all sides by enemies. They are threatened by Turkey, which sees its own Kurdish citizens as a Fifth Column and wants to pulverize the Syrian Kurds to prevent the creation of a Kurdish entity. To save themselves, the Kurds may have to throw in their lot with Bashar al-Assad, the genocidal leader of Syria who, with the help of Russia, has clawed himself to near victory in that country’s years-long civil war. Sadly, with this move, the loyalty-obsessed Trump has thrown the loyal Kurds under the bus. And America’s allies in the region are taking note of our country’s decline in geopolitical influence and credibility. The president has said that he likes winners. In this case, the winners are: Iran, Assad, Russia and the Islamic State. of a U.S. military base in Syria between Aleppo and the northern town of Manbij in 2018. Count the United States and Photo by Delil Soueiman/AFP/Getty Images Israel among the losers. PJC

Written in sadness at the death of a child at the border Guest Columnist Joyce Sperling

knew this child. In my heart, this child was mine. In my 22 years of teaching English as a second language in Takoma Park, I loved them all. I can imagine this child, Jakelin Caal — who died a few weeks ago in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol — visualizing her as a beautiful little girl, with long dark hair worn like my granddaughter Luna’s. Her 7-year-old smile would be like my granddaughter Sara’s, revealing a missing baby tooth. In my dreams, Jakelin would be in my second-grade class of newly arrived students. The first days of school, she would arrive shy and frightened, but after a few weeks would blossom into a happy learner. Soon she would come to school each day with a confident look, bursting into my classroom to show me her homework. The work would be carefully done, words she was learning, correctly written on lined paper in a row with little drawings to show me that she knew their meaning. Then, there would be the sentences to follow, using the new words in her best 12 JANUARY 4, 2019

One of my Cambodian children did tell me, in words I will never forget: “Mama no eat, die.”

handwriting. She would be well-prepared for our daily quiz. Papers with smiley faces, taped to the classroom wall by me, would grow in quantity until there was little space left to hang them. Some fun would begin with songs all of us loved: “Shoes and Socks” to work on pronunciation. “I Like Bananas” to grow our vocabulary and to bring smiles to each student who could name a fruit that none of us previously thought of. Jakelin would probably offer “strawberries,” thinking of the fields of fruit her family harvested in Guatemala. “The Hokey Pokey” would give us a chance

to move our bodies and laugh and get some exercise before returning to classrooms. Perhaps at the end of the day, Papi would come by to pick up Jakelin and her face would brighten as she would run into his arms. Sometimes, it would be Mami’s turn and she would arrive carrying Jakelin’s little sister. Mami would always be delighted to share baby sister’s hug with me. Oh, what a precious job it was to be the welcomer of these new arrivals. While there were always challenges, most problems had a way of getting resolved: a little help to office staff to make sure that free lunch

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forms were sent in. A few calls to help families sign and send back permission slips for field trips. Some health issues to follow up on and of course, there could be behavior problems. Some suggestions and materials to classroom teachers overwhelmed with students not speaking English and how to keep these children productive during the day. But Jakelin would have been one of the many students who would have been well-behaved and motivated. Her parents, although not educated themselves, inculcated how important her education was. I never asked any of my students about their journeys to get here, nor did many bring up their experiences. However, one of my Cambodian children did tell me, in words I will never forget: “Mama no eat, die.” These words haunt me to this day. I could only hug this child and remember my own pain of losing loved ones. I learned from my students that the human spirit is resilient. If we could sing and dance together, the world could be a beautiful place. I am weeping for Jakelin Caal, who sadly died at the border and never had an opportunity to be in my class. PJC Joyce Sperling is a retired teacher of English to speakers of other languages for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland.

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Opinion ‘Settling the score’ with terrorists won’t prevent subsequent attacks Guest Columnist Alex Traiman

n the last night of Chanukah, a Palestinian terrorist wounded seven in a drive-by shooting at a bus stop outside the large Jewish community in Ofra, Samaria. Injured in the attack were Shira Ish-Ran, a 21-year-old and 30-week pregnant woman, and her husband, Amichai, both of whom suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Two weeks ago, their baby, who had been delivered in an emergency Caesarean section soon after the attack, died. The Monday morning after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the actions of the “horrible terrorists” at the weekly Likud Party faction meeting in the Knesset. “It’s monstrous,” said Netanyahu. “Security forces are pursuing. … They’ll capture them. We’ll bring them to justice and settle the score.” But Israelis are not interested in bringing individual terrorists to justice. And they most certainly are not interested in a pattern of suffering deadly terrorist attacks, only then to capture the terrorist in a manhunt and then “settle the score.” Israelis are interested in a policy of deterrence that prevents this growing number of attacks from happening in the first place. Recent polls have shown that Israeli support for Netanyahu remains at all-time highs — for his numerous accomplishments in building and strengthening the economy and the diplomatic channels of the Jewish state, as well as for the lack of a suitable successor.

Israelis recently backed Netanyahu over his political rivals to the right, regarding the de-escalation of hostilities with Hamas in Gaza, after the rogue terror organization fired more than 450 rockets at Israeli population centers, including Ashkelon and Beersheva, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis ducking for cover. Yet a policy of de-escalation is not necessarily a policy of security for Israel’s citizens. Within Israel, and particularly in Judea and Samaria, there is a steady stream of radical violence against Israeli citizens. In 2018, there have been nine deadly incidents, not including this week’s shooting. Each of the incidents has killed parents of young children. Each of the incidents tears at the heart of the Jewish people. The shootings, stabbings, car-rammings, as well as the rockets from Gaza and Lebanon, are not part of some lone-wolf phenomenon that cannot be defended, deterred or fully eradicated. Rather, they are part of an anti-Semitic campaign to eradicate Jewish life and destabilize the State of Israel. The willingness of the current government to allow even a limited number of civilian deaths — as long as they aren’t piling up in mass-casualty events or too quickly one after the other — is disturbing. Harsh statements of condemnation and assertions that the murderers will be captured do nothing to deter the next murderer from carrying out an attack. Immediately following the Barkan Industrial Park shooting last month that left two young parents dead, the prime minister assured that “the security forces are in pursuit of the assailant. I am certain that they will apprehend him, and we will deal with him to the fullest extent of the law.” Chaim and Liora Silberstein, the parents

A deli lament Where oh where have all the delis gone? Hearing that the Smallman Street Deli on Murray Avenue is shutting its doors marks the end of a once thriving part of the Squirrel Hill food scene. A pizza is fine and Chinese food delightful, but give me a good old-fashioned corned beef sandwich on rye with mustard and a pickle. Anytime. Sorry to see you go. Good luck. Bill Schwartz Scott Township We invite you to submit letters for publication. Letters must include name, address and daytime phone number; addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters may not exceed 500 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Mail, fax or email letters to: Letters to the editor via email: letters@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org Address & Fax: Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 5915 Beacon St., 5th Flr., Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Fax 412-521-0154 Website address:

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constituents publicly at every possible opportunity, and literally pays individuals to attack Jews, while providing lifetime stipends to terrorists’ families if the attacker is killed during the act of attempted murder. The 2018 Palestinian Authority budget earmarks $340 million in payments to terrorists and their families — amounting to 7 percent of its entire budget. While Israel recently passed a law to withhold payments it makes each month to the Palestinian Authority as part of an Oslo-generated tax-collection arrangement, that law has yet to be implemented. Many of the law’s proponents are afraid that the government will find a means to prevent the law’s execution, out of fears that restricting funds could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, together with pressure from the international community to restart the payments. Yet the continuing cycle of violence against Israeli civilians will not disappear until Israel’s political leaders are ready to take responsibility for each and every Jewish life, and to defend each one as if it were the entire nation. Israel’s government and its security forces must take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the death of the next young parent going about his or her life at work, a bus stop, crosswalk or supermarket. If the current leadership, including Israel’s prime minister, are not willing to take such steps, the Israelis who increasingly find themselves under attack may task a new set of leaders with the challenge of deterring terrorists and preventing these heinous acts once and for all. PJC Alex Traiman is managing director and Jerusalem bureau chief of Jewish News Syndicate

To the Tree of Life Congregation

— LETTERS —

of Shira Yael Ish-Ran, spoke with clarity about the need to dramatically improve the security situation. “We want to send a clear message to the government that it’s unthinkable that sweet innocent children are shot at,” said Liora Silberstein. “We cannot accept such a reality.” Chaim Silberstein, while expressing his great appreciation for “the work of the IDF, Shin Bet and everyone else in the area,” stated that the Israel Defense Forces have been prevented by the political establishment from “re-establishing deterrence … so that terrorists and degenerates will think twice — or 10 times — before carrying out such acts.” To accomplish that type of deterrence, harsh steps must be taken. Roadside shootings and car-rammings represent an abuse of the roads that Israeli taxes have paid to build and maintain. When Palestinian terrorists abuse these roads to injure or kill Israelis, their access to these roads should be completely restricted. Immediately increasing roadblocks would send a strong message that acts of terror have repercussions on Palestinians, not just Jews. In the 25 years since the failed Oslo peace accords were signed, Palestinian terrorists have been taught to target, kill and injure Jews in all facets of their lives — from school textbooks to television, to city squares and soccer fields that have been named after martyrs, to ongoing incitement on social media. The generation that grew up watching “Hamas Mickey Mouse” and attending summer camps where they learn to murder Jews is now acting exactly as they have been trained. The Palestinian Authority, which most of the Western world continues to view as legitimate rulers of the Palestinian people and legitimate peace partners, incites its

My name is Paul Marcel-René. I am currently incarcerated at Belmont Correctional Institution in St. Clairsville, Ohio. I am writing for myself and my fellow Yid here. After the tragedy at the shul, each and every one of us were profoundly affected. We have shared our feelings during our weekly Shabbat services and during Chanukah. We mourn with you. And we all wanted to show our unequivocal support. We have sent the shul a handmade card with our expressions of support, but felt the need to reach out to the greater community as words can not capture the true essence of our sorrow, but we hope our words of support will fill the hearts of all Pittsburgh and Yid the world over and strengthen your emunah. Despite our present circumstances and the fact that we are often forgotten, we want the shul and Pittsburgh to know that we also share your sorrow and also our hope for an end to the hate that has plagued us for thousands of years. May there be a time of shalom in our lifetimes. May the memory of all those we lost be for a blessing. Paul Marcel-Rene and the Yidden community at Belmont Correctional

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JANUARY 4, 2019 13

Headlines Rauh: Continued from page 1

attending virtually every event in town held in memory of the victims of the attack, and gathering paraphernalia associated with those programs. Because many significant archival items are not in the public domain, though, the Heinz staff must rely on community members to offer what they have to the Archives. The Archives has received many physical items, such as the signs of those protesting President Donald Trump’s visit to Pittsburgh, kriah (mourning) ribbons from members of Bend the Arc, and a sign reading “ Love Thy Neighbor” displayed by a family at the impromptu vigil held hours after the shooting on the corner of Murray and Forbes. Other artifacts have been coming into the Archives through a web portal that was launched shortly after the attack. That portal provides a means to contribute photos, videos, audio files, social media posts and relevant links. Because the portal was based on a similar version created by the University of Virginia following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the Archives was able to get that up and running quickly, said Lidji, adding that he also received additional assistance from other archivists who have had the difficult but crucial task of documenting tragedy for posterity.

On Monday morning, Oct. 29, archivist Pam Schwartz, who preserved the artifacts associated with the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, reached out to Lidji via email to offer guidance on how to begin the job before him; he also spoke to an archivist who chronicled the 2015 shooting at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina. Thanks to the experts at UVA, Orlando and Charleston, “we were able to get enough help to at least not feel paralyzed,” Lidji said. The most challenging aspect of archiving an event of this magnitude is “there is no written, perfect guide on how to do it,” said Schwartz, chief curator of the Orange County Regional History Center. Each event is different, as is the response of the community it affects. Archivists have to “learn as they go,” she said, while emotions of those involved are running high. “That’s why we reach out to colleagues,” Schwartz said, adding that the hope is to provide “food for thought” and the opportunity to learn from mistakes made in the past. The number of items donated to the Pittsburgh Jewish community from people all over the world is immense, Lidji noted, and extends way beyond the signs, rocks, and adornments that people left at the memorials outside the Tree of Life building. Jewish organizations throughout the city received items of consolation as well. In collecting these artifacts, Lidji said, “the goal is to have as little discarded as possible.

It may not all end up in the Archive, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be somehow used to remember and memorialize.” Now that “the triage is basically over,” Lidji hopes that community members will take a look around them, and notice changes resulting from the Oct. 27 shooting that, if documented, could help future researchers understand the event and its effect on Jewish Pittsburgh. “When you look out at communal life and you see something, ask yourself, ‘Would this have happened if not for this event?’” Lidji suggested. “A good example is, you will go to the synagogue you go to every day, but you will see a new sign on the door that says, ‘You can no longer use this door during the week.’ So, I would take a picture of that.” Or, if a rabbi delivers a sermon somehow related to the massacre, Lidji would seek to get a copy of that sermon, he said. Likewise, he is scouring congregational bulletins and emails that circulate to congregants, searching for happenings and responses that should be preserved as well. One unique aspect of the event, Lidji noted, was that it happened on Shabbat, resulting in scores of concerned voicemails left on the phones of observant Jews. He is trying to collect some of those messages. “The thing we are trying to do is to keep the event from becoming generic,” he explained. “And the thing that gets lost over time is the immediacy of emotion. That’s what’s really hard to get in the archival record. So, to hear the voice of one person calling a loved one to make sure that they

are OK, and hitting the brick wall of a voice message, is something I would like to get.” Preserving oral histories of people affected by the massacre is another priority of the Rauh Jewish Archives. Currently, Lidji and his colleagues are focusing on “people in the Jewish community who were part of that immediate communal response,” he said. They are recording information such as the strategies discussed among communal leaders in the hours and days immediately following the shooting. In addition to documenting the massacre itself, Lidji hopes the Archives can serve as a sort of “clearinghouse” for a variety of independent preservation projects planned by an array of individuals and organizations throughout the community. “We at the Archives have a different responsibility than everybody else because we are the primary repository in the region,” he said. “I want to encourage people to do the things they want to do without us being proprietary about it, but at the same time, I don’t want there to be confusion in the community, and unnecessary duplication of efforts.” Lidji requests that anyone planning a preservation project associated with the Oct. 27 attack share their plans with the Archives, which can offer advice on obtaining legal releases, documenting methodology to preserve the integrity of research and to avoid duplication of efforts. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Roots: Continued from page 1

currently living and performing as a singer in New York City, got on board, and the four women began scouring their contacts to connect with entertainers who might be willing to volunteer their talents. Friends, and friends of friends, were able to get in touch with scores of top-level performers, who were eager to help the three congregations targeted by the attack, Radin said. “Boy, did they find talent,” said Johanna Nadler, whose three children Becca, Sarah and Ben Nadler performed a cappella versions of “Blackbird” and “Shalom Rav” during the show. Becca and Sarah both have served as High Holiday cantorial soloists at TOL*OLS. “I am truly speechless, considering what these young people have done.” Porter, who has been nominated for a Golden Globe for best actor in a TV drama for the FX show “Pose,” not only sang two numbers, but emceed the three-and-a-halfhour show, donned a kippah during act two, and tried his hand at a few Hebrew phrases. His banter was peppered with personal stories of growing up in Pittsburgh, attending CAPA and Carnegie Mellon University, and a recollection of how the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh came to the aid of his mother by giving her a free membership during a time of need. The program included faces familiar to the local theater scene, including Howard Elson, a former president of TOL*OLS, who took on the persona of Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof ” and performed a medley from 14 JANUARY 4, 2019

p From left: Event organizers Gina Morgano, Amanda Reich, Jacqueline Radin and Samantha Harris

p Billy Porter

that show, and Bob Fosse protégé Lenora Nemetz, who, through a vibrant song and dance number from “Chicago,” showed not the slightest indication of slowing down after five decades in the business. Other hometown favorites singing their hearts out were Sarah Stock Mayo, director of ruach and music at Temple Ohav Shalom; Broadway veteran Billy Hartung and his daughter Elizabeth; and Avi Diamond, daughter of Rabbi Chuck Diamond, former rabbi of TOL*OLS. Several alumni of the Carnegie Mellon University drama department took a road trip from New York back to Pittsburgh to perform, including Zachary Prince (“Honeymoon in Vegas”), Sara Jean Ford (“CATS,” “The Phantom of the Opera”) and actor/writer/composer Will Reynolds. The show opened with a video message from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass),

“We are extremely grateful and deeply humbled by the show of support we have received from the Pittsburgh community and from people across the United States and around the world,” said TOL*OLS, New Light and Dor Hadash in a prepared joint statement. “Benefits like this event help lift up our heavy hearts by demonstrating to us that love truly is stronger than hate.” Ticket sales alone raised more than $54,000, with thousands more expected to be raised through the auction, raffle and donations. All proceeds will go directly to the three congregations. “I’ve stopped being overwhelmed,” remarked Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, spiritual leader of TOL*OLS. “But I continue to be delighted and uplifted.” PJC

telling the Pittsburgh audience that with its “roots of steel, you are repairing the world.” She spoke of the rising rates of anti-Semitism in the United States, and warned that its “danger is real and tangible.” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and City Councilman Corey O’Connor gave welcoming remarks, reflecting on the strength of the community demonstrated in the aftermath of the Oct. 27 attack. The wider Pittsburgh community joined in making Roots of Steel a success. The Carnegie Music Hall donated its space, ShowClix donated its ticketing services, and Aladdin’s Eatery of Squirrel Hill donated food for the performers during their daylong rehearsal, according to Radin. More than 200 businesses, as well as the local sports franchises, donated items and gift cards for a silent auction and raffle held before the show.

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Photos by Toby Tabachnick

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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Life & Culture Double duty caprese When diners have eaten their fill, place the salad in a sealed container with any extra dressing and all the “drippings” from the bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use — no more than 24 hours later. Double Duty Caprese Pasta

Photo by lily_rochha/iStockphoto.com

1 quart leftover caprese (see above) 1 pound your favorite pasta Parmesan cheese and fresh pepper to taste

— FOOD — By Keri White

was invited to a Chanukah luncheon in early December. The hostess prefaced the invite with, “We are serving latkes, bagels, lox, deli, bread, sandwiches. A total carb fest, nothing healthy.” Sounded great to me, but it was clear she was a bit sideways about the spread. I offered to bring something — sweet treat or healthy green salad. She opted for the greens, so I began to consider what to make. I wanted something that would be hearty enough for the folks that were avoiding bread and carbs (which alas, has become almost the norm these days), but I did not want to upstage the latkes and lox. A caprese salad seemed to strike the right note; the cheese delivers enough heft and protein that the salad can stand on its own, but it can be a perfect side if there are other items taking center stage. I managed to find fresh mozzarella “pearls,” which are the ideal size for a large salad and requiring no cutting by the cook. Tomatoes this time of year are rather grim, but I located some cherry tomatoes on sale at the grocery store and roasted them into a sweet, slightly charred oblivion a day ahead of time. If this is not appealing to you, if you don’t have time to roast and chill the tomatoes, or if you are a strict “in season” produce eater, julienne-cut jarred sun-dried tomatoes are a suitable substitute. The best part about this dish was the leftovers, which shocked me more than anyone because I refuse to save salad once it’s dressed. I have no use for that soggy mess, and generally I am precise in my salad size to avoid waste. But I had no idea how many people were coming or how many would eat salad, so I went big. And, OK, the salad didn’t last for eight days, but the mini Chanukah

miracle was that the leftover salad became a delicious pasta for my hosts’ dinner the following night. Henceforth, I shall strongly consider doubling my quantities for this salad and having tomorrow’s dinner in the bag in a few simple steps. Double Duty Caprese

Serves six with leftovers For the tomatoes: 4 pints cherry tomatoes 2 tablespoons oil Generous pinch kosher salt Generous grinding of fresh cracked pepper For the salad: 1 pound arugula (the large double-sized bag) 1 pound fresh mozzarella cheese (pearl sized, or cut into small, bite-sized pieces) For the dressing: 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 1/4 teaspoon salt Generous grinding pepper 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Place the rinsed tomatoes on a large rimmed cookie sheet and toss with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for about 30 minutes until some of tomatoes are charred and all have split open. Stir occasionally while roasting. Remove the tomatoes from the oven and cool completely. This step can be done two days ahead. Place the cooled tomatoes in a container in the refrigerator. In a large salad bowl, place the arugula, cheese and tomatoes (with liquid) in layers to ensure even distribution. (If you use a glass bowl it looks really pretty.) In a small bowl, mix the dressing ingredients with a fork. Taste for salt. Right

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before serving, toss half of the dressing over the salad and mix well. If more dressing is needed, add a little bit at a time. Serve immediately. (Save any remaining dressing for the next recipe.)

Remove the “salad” from the refrigerator about an hour before serving so it can come to room temperature. (This helps the cheese melt a bit when it hits the hot pasta). Cook the pasta according to package directions in well-salted water to al dente (usually 1 minute less than indicated on the package). Save about 1 cup of the cooking liquid, then drain. Pour the pasta into a large, shallow bowl, and toss with the caprese. Slowly and gradually drizzle the cooking water over the dish, about ¼ cup at a time, tossing with each addition until the ingredients are well distributed. (You probably won’t use the whole cup.) Serve with Parmesan cheese and fresh ground pepper. PJC Keri White writes about food for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. B B”H

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JANUARY 4, 2019 15

Life & Culture Felicity Jones on playing Ruth Bader Ginsburg before she was the ‘Notorious RBG’ — FILM — By Curt Schleier | JTA

he young attorney seems unsure of herself. As a law professor, she is unaccustomed to appearing in court, so she hesitates at first, unable to begin her summation. But once she gets going, there is no stopping her. It is the climactic scene of “On the Basis of Sex” a biopic about Ruth Bader Ginsburg that debuted on Christmas. It focuses largely on Charles Moritz v. Internal Revenue Service, a major gender discrimination case that Ginsburg shepherded to trial years before she became a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. To succeed, she would have to overturn years of precedent. But the film is more than your typical courtroom drama. While powerful and inspiring, the movie also manages to paint a subtle portrait of a woman finding a place for herself in a society that wants her to stay home and cook. Viewers here don’t meet “Notorious RBG,” as she is often called these days — the tough, take-no-prisoners liberal pop culture icon of the last decade. Young Ruth is not yet a superhero in 1972. Yes, she is as determined to fight for truth, and is a respected lawyer, but she is still shackled by the misogyny of the time. That nuanced and honest approach to the character is thanks in large part to the approach of two key creatives — screenwriter Daniel Stiepleman and the film’s star, Felicity Jones. Jones, a British actress who launched her career at age 12 and has gone on to star in blockbusters such as “The Theory of Everything” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” had an emotional connection to the film. “I understood what it felt like as an outsider on so many levels,” she said in a telephone interview. “I grew up on film sets where there were only a handful of women.” Reading the script, Jones said she felt an immediate connection. “What was interesting to me was trying to find out who is the woman behind the icon,” Jones said. “What are the decisions she made and how did she get to the place where she is now. How did she harness that essence and anger and use it to her advantage.” Stiepleman, 37, is Ginsburg’s nephew. Ruth’s husband, Marty, was his mother’s older brother. And while he wasn’t exceptionally close to his aunt — he was closer in age to her grandchildren — he remembers being at the Ginsburg house for Passover seders and Thanksgivings. (Chanukah was normally held at the home of his cousin Jane, Ruth’s daughter.) The idea for the film originated in 2010 at Marty’s funeral. “In a eulogy, someone mentioned the only case the two argued together,” Stiepleman said. “Until the end of his life, he said this was one of the most important things he did.” Ginsburg entered Harvard Law School in

16 JANUARY 4, 2019

p Felicity Jones plays a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “On the Basis of Sex.”

p “On the Basis of Sex” recalls that when Ruth Bader Ginsburg entered Harvard Law School in 1956, she was one of nine women in the class, the sixth class to accept women.

p Armie Hammer plays Ginsburg’s supportive husband Marty in the film.

Photos by Jonathan Wenk/Focus Features

1956, one of nine women in the sixth class ever to accept women. “Why are you occupying a place at Harvard that could have been occupied by a man?” the dean asks in the film. “So I can be a more understanding wife,” she responds.

Her husband (played by Armie Hammer), a year ahead of her in school, is diagnosed with testicular cancer. So Ruth juggles her own classes, attends his to take notes and cares for their newborn infant daughter, Jane — all while earning a spot on the prestigious Law Review.

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Despite her academic success, no law firm will hire her. One offers secretarial work. Another tells her, “We hired a woman last year. What would we do with two of them?” A third wonders warily if she observes Shabbat. Ultimately, Ginsburg lands a job teaching law at Rutgers University in New Jersey, but even that is tainted when she realizes it was a token hire. She is angry but at the time, the broad equal protection clause was by precedent applied only to cases of race, not gender. There was little recourse until Marty suggested a unique approach. Charles Moritz, a Denver resident, was denied a tax deduction for home health care for his mother because he was unmarried. Women, divorced men and widowers were entitled to the benefit, but unmarried men were not. The Ginsburgs believed a male plaintiff could change the dynamic. Ginsburg herself was peripherally involved in the film from the beginning, giving her blessing to Stiepleman, opening her files to him and reviewing the script. She never asked for changes involving her character — her focus was on assuring that the law, and Marty, were presented accurately. On the subject of accuracy, some have argued that the casting of Jones erases Ginsburg’s Jewishness from the film. Natalie Portman had been slated to fill the role, but that fell through in 2017. When the trailer debuted in July, viewers called attention to Jones’ accent — a far cry from Ginsburg’s nasal Brooklyn tone. Anna Miriam wrote in Alma that Jones, with her “fine features and her awkward American accent, beautiful, perfectly manicured,” erases “any trace of Ginsburg’s roots.” Besides the Shabbat reference, nothing else in the film stands out as Jewish. Jones has played a Jewish character: Margot Frank, sister of the famous diarist Anne, in a 2009 BBC miniseries. Stiepleman would have none of the criticism. “I was desperate [to cast] Felicity,” he said. “Ruth has a particular alchemy — steely, driven and precise. But when you get to spend some time with her in the comfort of her home, all of that is undergirded by joy and optimism. Some actresses can play steely. Some can play the joy. But Felicity can combine the two and she channeled Ruth’s essence.” When asked about it, Jones sidestepped, talking instead about how she focused on capturing details of Ginsburg’s persona. “Felicity has to depart, and it’s all about becoming Ruth,” she said. “I become obsessive about costume, hair, makeup. I became meticulous, listening to Ruth in court, how powerful her voice is and how her Brooklyn accent comes on strong when she’s frustrated.” At the time of shooting, Jones was also preparing for her wedding to her longtime fiance, director Charles Guard. For Guard, the timing wasn’t the best. “I kept telling him he had big shoes to fill,” Jones said. “Look at what Marty does for Ruth!” PJC

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Celebrations

Torah

Wedding

Wombmates Rabbi Joe Hample Parshat Va’eira | Exodus 6:2-9:35

Eichner/Young: Elyse and Marty Eichner are delighted to announce the marriage of their son, Scott Benjamin, to Tracy Alison Young, daughter of Edward and Virginia Young of Parkville, Missouri. Scott is the grandson of Sanford and Claryne Berman and Sally Eichner, all of Pittsburgh, and the late Dr. Sidney Eichner. Tracy is the granddaughter of Janina Stoepel of Hobe Sound, Florida, and the late Ted Stoepel and Nancy and Edward Young. Scott is the director for athletic compliance at the University of Tennessee and Tracy is the director of digital media for Dive Training magazine and the associate producer of the Scuba Show. Scott and Tracy were married at OceanCliff in Newport, Rhode Island, and reside in Knoxville, Tennessee. PJC

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s my rabbinate has taken me from city to city and time zone to time zone, I’ve left dear friends behind in places I seldom visit anymore. Occasionally we have a nice long chat on the phone. Or they send an e-card, like the modernists they are, and I respond with a paper card, like the Luddite I am. Once they were at the center of my life, now they’re at the periphery. Luckily, I have two brothers and a sister, people I actually see in the flesh with some regularity, on holidays or at family milestones. The four of us didn’t always get along, back when the discrepancy of our ages mattered more, or angling for our parents’ attention loomed larger. Later in life, that stuff isn’t so important. We’re in four separate states now, and that’s a plus — it’s harder to fight. These days I feel free to tell them all my nutty ideas and embarrassing problems because they’re stuck with me for life. Come what may, I’m their big brother. In this week’s Torah portion, Moses relies on his big brother Aaron in his greatest crisis, the confrontation with Pharaoh. They go to the palace together, with the magic staff they apparently share, and threaten Pharaoh by turning the staff into a snake (Exodus 7:1-10). This is the same staff that will later part the Red Sea (Exodus 14:16) and produce water from a rock (Exodus 17:5-6). I used to tell our Sunday school kids that Moses has a “Swiss army staff,” but I’m not sure they got the joke. Now I tell them the staff has a lot of different apps on it. See, I’m not such a Luddite after all. Siblings squabble, especially when adults are watching; siblings try to humiliate each other. I used to pick on Henry till he cried. Sometimes my parents would ask how the fight started, and scold me if I was the instigator. But my grandparents didn’t bother to investigate, they just punished the person who cried. I liked that better. Moses plays the same game with Aaron. He will leave Aaron to manage a community accustomed to idolatry (Exodus 24:13-14), then condemn Aaron for making the golden calf (Exodus 32:19-21). He sets Aaron up to look bad. Siblings envy each other, especially when one is preferred. I was the straight-A student in my family — teachers hassled my younger siblings for achieving less. Or if Martha did well, the teacher might cruelly say, “Now that’s more like Joe Hample’s sister!” Moses has that pattern with his siblings too. In the wilderness, Miriam and Aaron will criticize Moses’ marriage, but the real issue seems to be professional jealousy (Numbers 12:1-2). Why does Moses always get to be the star? In spite of these clashes, Moses, Aaron

and Miriam are a matched set, like the three tenors (Micah 6:4) — they are each other’s hidden strength. They shared the most painful of childhoods, under the sword of Egypt (Exodus 1:15-22). Those scars may never heal. But it was on this battlefield that Miriam protected the infant Moses (Exodus 2:1-8). When it counts, they’ve got each other’s back. Our Torah portion says Aaron is three years older than Moses (Exodus 7:7). Miriam must be the firstborn, maybe 6 or 7 when she follows baby Moses down the Nile. The three of them are spaced about as far apart as the three oldest Hamples. My brother Zack is much younger, as Joseph is much younger than his brothers back in Genesis. Freud’s colleague Alfred Adler thought birth order shaped interaction styles throughout life, and this theory is still widespread. People talk about it all the time, but research doesn’t provide much evidence. Still, I grew up in the heyday of psychiatry. There was a lot of blather about the privileges of the oldest and youngest, and the sorrows of the middle child. I was the oldest, the one who tried hardest to be respectable. That’s why I’m the rabbi. But was that inevitable? Are all rabbis firstborns? In biblical law, special privileges accrue to the firstborn (Deuteronomy 21:17), but biblical narrative often subverts the point. Isaac is a younger brother, Jacob is a younger brother, David is a youngest son, Solomon is a youngest son. Who says the firstborn is necessarily the leader? Our Torah portion features the Nile turning to blood (Exodus 7:19-20), the first of the 10 plagues. But to me this miracle suggests a more benign metaphor: Blood is thicker than water. We Hamples can hurt each other more than others can hurt us: We know how to push each other’s buttons. Zack doesn’t pull any punches with his outrageous personal questions. Henry likes to remind me what a lot of nonsense I taught him, back when he believed anything I said. At Thanksgiving I teased Martha, whose success in business still surprises me, about being a capitalist, and she visibly flinched. But my siblings are the pillars of my reality, the frame of my identity. And if I’m anxious or sad, they can reassure me like no one else. At our Sunday school in Morgantown, we begin the weekly assembly with Hinneh Mah Tov, “Look how good it is when brothers/ sisters dwell together” (Psalms 133:1). Our text is full of sibling rivalry, but solidarity with our wombmates is still a Jewish value. Self-esteem demands it. If I don’t love these folks who look and act so much like me, how can I ever love myself? PJC Rabbi Joe Hample is the spiritual leader of the Tree of Life Congregation in Morgantown, West Virginia. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Rabbinic Association.

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Obituaries BRODY: Gilbert S. Brody, age 84, of Scott Township passed away suddenly at his residence on Tuesday, December 25, 2018. Beloved husband for 59 years of Sheila Brody nee Zelkowitz, Devoted father of Marcia Brody, Susan Brody (Julie Nysewander) and Mark (Robyn) Brody. Grandfather of Leo, Blanche, Rachel and Max Brody. Brother-in-law of Marvin Zelkowitz, M.D., Kathleen Zelkowitz, Patricia Zelkowitz, M.D. and the late Leo Zelkowitz, M.D. Gilbert’s greatest joy was his family. He was a graduate of Culver Military Academy Class of 1951. He was a graduate of University of Pittsburgh School of Business and was an avid reader. Gilbert was the owner of Brody’s Furniture Store in McDonald, Pa. Funeral service was held at William Slater Funeral Service, Scott Township. Interment Beth Shalom Cemetery. Family suggests contributions may be made to the Mt. Lebanon Public Library, 16 Castle Shannon Blvd., Pittsburgh, PA 15228. DROZ: Sarah “Minnie” Droz, 97, passed peacefully at Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh on December 25, having recently been a much-loved resident of Weinberg Terrace. She was preceded in death by her parents, Abraham and Annie Justa; husband of 54 years, Sidney; sisters, Faye Lipman and Dora Baron; brothers, Louis, Sam and Jacob Justa; and son, Alan Droz. Born, November 1, 1921, in Richmond, Virginia, to Yiddishspeaking Russian immigrants, Minnie never completely lost her smooth southern drawl, even when she spoke Yiddish. She learned to sew at a young age, making her own clothes, and loved to dance. In 1931 she married Sidney, a welder working in Newport News, Virginia, and also a great dancer, then moved to Pittsburgh, Sid’s hometown, to raise their sons in Brookline

while Sid built a successful business. Apart from sewing and dancing, Minnie was also a great cook and an active member of Beth El Congregation Sisterhood in the South Hills. After Sid’s death in 1985, Minnie moved to Ft. Lauderdale, continuing to sew, dance and volunteer as an usher at local theaters. She also started Minnie Droz Designs where she made and donated purses to local nonprofits and enjoyed cruises and traveling. When she moved to Weinberg Terrace, she became an active resident, always enjoying bingo, weekly trips to cultural events and mending for other residents. After her memory began to waver, and residents wondered whatever happened to their pants, she gave up mending, but continued to entertain her fellow residents with her sharp wit, insight and wonderful stories. She is survived by her sons Dan (Cathy) and Gary (Shelley); grandchildren, Lani (Michael), David (Allie), Ben, Becca, Lauren (Oren) and Sara; as well as great-grandchildren, Sid, Molly, Shoshanna, Maayan, Noah and Eli. Services and interment private. Donations may be made to Weinberg Terrace, 5757 Bartlett Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15217 or the Jewish Association for Aging, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com WEISS: Goldie T. Weiss, on Saturday, December 22, 2018. Beloved wife of the late Bernard H. Weiss. Loving mother of Howard Marc (Elizabeth) Weiss and Dr. Larry D. (Laurie G.) Weiss. Sister of the late Raymond and Milton Weinberg. Grandmother of Brian, Brett, Bradley and Brandon Weiss and Hilary Goldberg (Thomas) Amburgey and Ethan Goldberg. Great-grandmother of Olivia, James and Henry Amburgey. Graveside services and interment were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to the Jewish Association on Aging, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following: A gift from ...

In memory of...

A gift from ...

In memory of...

Donor.................................................... In Memory Of

Gail & Fred Greene........................ William R. Greene

Elton Bailiss ....................................... Harry N. Bailiss

Meyer Grinberg ................................Rachel Grinberg

Arnold Belkin .....................................Rebecca Belkin

Anonymous ...........................................Celia Kaddell

Faye Bleiberg ....................................Diane Friedman Faye Bleiberg ...................................Jack I. Mallinger Faye Bleiberg ................................... Esther Mallinger Marc Darling & Susan Denmark .... James H. Darling Mindy Fleishman ............................ Morris Fleishman

Anonymous .......................................... Louis Kaddell Roz & Richard Kantrowitz ..............Samuel Goldblatt Michael Levin ........................ Gertrude Shakespeare Ida Jean McCormley ..................Benjamin Silberman

Lucille C. Gordon ............................. Irving E. Cohen

Anonymous ..........................................William D. Orr

Gail & Fred Greene.......................... David Silverstein

Deborah Petroff ......................................Robert Kane

Gail & Fred Greene.............................Bessie Perman

Suzanne Serbin ......................Leah Krauss Lenchner

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday January 6: Blanche Stein Banov, Matilda Barnett, Irene Bloom, Ida Schermer Burstin, Florence Ravick Fishkin, Goldie Friedman, Herman Friedman, Harry B. Harris, Leopold Heppenheimer, Jennie Hoffman, Albert Lebovitz, James Leff, Mathilda Lindner, Ilene Grossman Mattock, Bernard Peris, Leah Rosenfeld, Beatrice Rita Weil Ruben, Esther Sadowsky, Anna L. Saville, Max Schlessinger, Gertrude Shakespeare, William Solomon, Morton Stein, Rose Wedner, Mary Sulkes Wolk Monday January 7: Sylvia S. Berger, Frances Levenson Carey, Ruth H. Cohen, Fanny Eisenfeld, Harry T. Feinberg, Nochim Gelman, Philip Goldblum, Norma Marks Klein, Samuel E. Klein, Samuel Levine, Estelle E. Martin, Jacob Alex Miller, Harold J. Pasekoff, Dr. George Raffel, Anna Shapiro, Sophie Shapiro, Anna Sigesmund, Chaim Silberblatt, Yetta Singer, Henry Solomon, Elder H. Stein, Albert J. Supowitz, Rose Tabor, Louis Tenenouser, John D. Whiteman, Goldie H. Zacks Tuesday January 8: Isabelle Pitler Backer, Mollie Beck, Samuel Darling, Sidney H. Green, Florence Hiedovitz, Paul Ibe, Max M. Jacobson, Fannie Klein, Rose Klein, Regina Kossman, Geraldine Lerner, Blanche L. Schwartz, Bernice Semins, Russell Tanur Wednesday January 9: Samuel Baem, Harry N. Bailiss, Sara T. Davidson, George J. Fairman, Joseph Gray, Dr. John J. Horwtiz, Sara R. Jacobson, Sam Kaufman, Max Kweller, Fannie Kwalwasser Lazar, Morris Levy, Harry Meyer, Mary Myers, Lt. Louis Newman, Harry Pretter, Bella Richman, Mollie Samuel, Florence Stone, Pauline Strauss, Jennie Walk, Victoria Zimmer Thursday January 10: Gertrude Berenfield, Nathan Bilder, Paul Carpe, Joel David Cohen, Lillian Cook, Minnie Farber, Morris Fleshman, Samuel J Frankel, Paul Freedman, Jennie Glick, Sanford K. Greenberg, Lipa Haimovitz, Edward Hertz, Anna Harr Krause, Harry Lautman, Madylene Platt, Dorothy Rosenthal, Alec Samuels, Dr. Eugene J. Schachter, Gertrude Silberman, Jacob W. Simon, Alvin Weinberger, Esther Pakler Weiss Friday January 11: Irving E. Cohen, Alfred Engel, Nettie Galanty, Phillip Harris, Edith Lazear, Rheba Markley, E.Harry Mazervo, Oscar Robbins, Rebecca Rosenfeld, Gertrude Schugar, Pauline Silberblatt, Abraham Ulanoff Saturday January 12: Herman J Brody, Rebecca Broudy, Rubin Davidson, Leonard A Fleegler, Raymond Goldstein, Jacob Graff, William Randall Greene, Anna Grossman, Sarah Haimovitz, Tina Kaminsky, Anna Kart, Rose Klein, Betty Kuperstock, Anne Bilder Mallinger, Joseph Cliff Ruben, Ida Seminofsky, Jack C. Siegel, Al W. Wolf, Rose Blattner Zionts

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The attack at the Tree of Life synagogue building promises to be one of the most consequential moments in the history of Pittsburgh. With the support of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives is actively collecting original documentation of the event and its aftermath. The public is encouraged to submit digital materials — everything from photographs of vigils, to voice messages and texts on the day of the attack, to posts on Facebook and other social media, and to stories from the past week — through a special web portal https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/collections/rauh-jewish-historyprogram-and-archives/responding-to-the-tree-of-life-tragedy To donate physical materials, please contact Eric Lidji at eslidji@heinzhistorycenter.org or 412-454-6406.

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Studio • Move-In Condition Central Air • Balcony Elevator • Secure Building Parking Available Monthly condo fee includes heat, water, sewage insurance on the common areas $102,000

Contact Phil Durler to schedule your advertising pdurler@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org 724-713-8874 advertising@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

412-421-7774

Business & Professional Directory AUTOS WANTED 724-287-7771 BUYING VEHICLE$ CAR$ TRUCK$ VAN$ SUV$ GOOD BAD WRECKED CA$H DENNY OFF$TEIN AUTO $ALE$

EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY Blink Ink-photography— B a r / B a t - M i t z v a h - We d ding-Reunion-Event—Jay Podolsky—412-277-2922— Blinkink@me.com.

GARDEN & HOME MAINTENANCE

Spruce up your yard on a one-time or regular basis; clean out house, basement, painting. Reliable service, with references. Call Scottie at 412-310-3769.

GET ORGANIZED IN 2019

Are you drowning in paperwork, but don’t have the

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time or skill to tackle it? Is your home full of clutter and stuff that creates disharmony? I help overwhelmed families, people in transition, and busy professionals. I can make your home more livable and your office more efficient. CALL JODY at 412759-0778 or send an email to: alleghenyorganizing @gmail.com.

CEMETERY PLOTS FOR SALE

CEMETERY PLOTS

CEMETERY PLOTS FOR SALE

2/4 Reform Jewish Cemetery Plots North Hills

For sale: Two burial plots at Homewood Cemetery located in the Squirrel Hill Section of Pittsburgh. Graves 23 and 24 are located in Star of David in Section 31. Cemetery list price is $2,495 for each space. Owner is asking $4,800 for these spaces. Please call Tracey Miles at 215-283-8636.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

(3) Include Bronze Marker, granite base, vaults and more. $4300 each (1) Gravesite only $2500 Call for further details. 954-472-4666

JANUARY 4, 2019 21

Community 19th Annual Mitzvah Day For the 19th year, Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and other volunteers turned out in force for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Volunteer Center’s Mitzvah Day. Held this year on Tuesday, Dec. 25, Mitzvah Day is an opportunity to help people in need by lending

a hand at local nonprofit organizations. Almost 900 people participated this year at more than 80 sites throughout Greater Pittsburgh. Event sponsors were Giant Eagle, Sampo Distributors and Costco Wholesale. The photos show a small sample of Mitzvah Day action.

p At Hillel Academy in Squirrel Hill, students participated in the Jewish Federation’s Mitzvah Day by helping to paint a mural. The mural represents community strength following the Oct. 27 attack on the three congregations in the Tree of Life synagogue building. When the mural is complete, it will hang on the fence surrounding the construction area outside the Tree of

Life building. The Oct. 27 attack was on everyone’s mind as Mitzvah Day approached this year. Volunteer slots filled quickly as people recognized that Mitzvah Day provided an opportunity to show community solidarity and to express appreciation for support received from Greater Pittsburgh after the attack.

p Jewish Federation Volunteer Center volunteers Sandy and Barbara Zelekovitz helped to prepare a hot meal at Rainbow Kitchen Community Services, Homestead. Rainbow Kitchen was one of the many Mitzvah Day sites where volunteers helped to feed the hungry.

p This year, as part of Mitzvah Day, all 260 Hillel Academy students, kindergarteners through high school, contributed to a chesed (kindness) project during the Dec. 25 school day.

22 JANUARY 4, 2019

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Community

p At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh more than 80 Mitzvah Day volunteers made more than 2,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Light of Life Ministries distributed the sandwiches. Additional volunteers, at the South Hills JCC, added to the PB&J total.

p Volunteers visited the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, H. J. Heinz Campus, one of many Mitzvah Day sites where participants performed the act of bikur cholim (visiting the sick). The visiting volunteers included Jewish War veterans.

p No Crayon Left Behind is a local nonprofit that collects gently used crayons, many from restaurants, and puts them into the hands of kids without art supplies. On Mitzvah Day, PJ Library teamed up with Jewish Federation Volunteer Center volunteers to help sort crayons for recycling. Participants took a break for story time.

p Mitzvah Day volunteer Larry Rubin helped serve meals to more than 300 people at the Omni William Penn Hotel, downtown. The Salvation Army provided the meals.

p On Mitzvah Day, Ari Goldberg and other Wechsler Fellowship alumni played bingo with residents at the Charles Morris Nursing & Rehabilitation Center.

p Matt Schwartz (standing) and his family spent part of Mitzvah Day serving residents of the New Riverview Independent Living Apartments on the Jewish Association on Aging Campus. Photos by Joshua Franzos

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG â&#x20AC;&#x201A;

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

JANUARY 4, 2019â&#x20AC;&#x192;23

KOSHER MEATS

â&#x20AC;¢ All-natural poultry â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whole chickens, breasts, wings and more â&#x20AC;¢ All-natural, corn-fed beef â&#x20AC;&#x201D; steaks, roasts, ground beef and more â&#x20AC;¢ Variety of deli meats and franks Available at select Giant Eagle stores. Visit GiantEagle.com for location information.

Empire Kosher Fresh Ground Turkey Sold in 1 lb. pkg.

49 lb. Save with your

Price effective Thursday, January 3 through Wednesday, January 9, 2019

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24â&#x20AC;&#x192;JANUARY 4, 2019

and PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

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