Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 10-9-20

October 9, 2020 | 21 Tishrei 5781

Candlelighting 6:30 p.m. | Havdalah 7:26 p.m. | Vol. 63, No. 41 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Congregations forced to think on their feet for Simchat Torah festivities

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL A new face at the JAA

$1.50

JCBA assumes care of cemeteries tended to by good Samaritans

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

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Rabbi Dovid Small hired as director of pastoral care

have hakafot with singing and dancing as we normally would,” he said.

Congregation B’nai Abraham in Butler will offer members a virtual Simchat Torah experience on Friday evening Oct. 9.

“I’m putting together a video with pictures from the last 10 years of us doing the hakafa with all of the Torahs,” said Cantor Michal Gray-Schaffer, B’nai Abraham’s spiritual leader.

In addition to enjoying the collected photographs, participants can sing along to onscreen lyrics from songs traditionally chanted by the congregation during the holiday.

“Hopefully, it will feel nostalgic,” said GraySchaffer. “I guess it’s the best we can do.”

In an effort to deliver a meaningful and safe holiday experience, Congregation Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill is offering members the opportunity to rejoice both virtually and in person. The latter, which will occur each morning during Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah outdoors in the Beth

round 2017, a Christian faith leader found an abandoned Jewish cemetery on the side of a suburban road in White Oak. This year, after long hours of restoration and repair, care for the eight remaining graves at the once-forgotten Ahavas Achim Cemetery is being turned over to the Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh, a nonprofit which cares for and helps preserve Jewish cemeteries in the region.

Mark Pudlowski, founder of the Family of God Biblical Reasoning and Counseling Prayer Center in White Oak, was driving down Rippel Road in the borough a few years ago when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw what looked like a tombstone in thick brush seven or eight feet tall.

He kept driving.

Weeks later, he was driving down Rippel Road and again spotted it. This time, he couldn’t pass.

“I pulled over and saw there was a path back there. I went and saw all those gravestones and said, ‘Oh this cannot be,’” Pudlowski told the Chronicle recently.

“Because I’m in ministry, I just stood there and felt sad. I just asked God, out loud, ‘What do you want me to do?’ And I just got a sense in my spirit: This needs fixed.”

Pudlowski worked alongside an area teenager, Daniel Lia, who helped to renovate the site as part of his Eagle Scout project.

They cleared brush, weeds and tree limbs, laid mulch, erected a border face and placed a large blue Star of David at the front of the site. Lia’s father helped donate equipment for the cause.

“Most people didn’t even know it was there,” Pudlowski said. “Well, they know it’s there now.”

Please see Simchat Torah, page 14

Please see JCBA, page 14

Page 2

LOCAL The New Riverview

Renovations to senior apartments complete Page 3

 Simchat Torah at Temple Sinai, 2019

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

W

LOCAL Ready for phase two

JCC reintroduces expanded services Page 4

ith Simchat Torah occurring this weekend, congregations are striving to close out the High Holiday season’s final festival with safety in mind.

Simchat Torah is predicated on physical activity but COVID-19 is forcing some reconfigurations. Familiar practices, like hoisting a Torah scroll and dancing en masse, or unrolling the sacred text for onlookers to appreciate its 304,805 handwritten letters, are undergoing pandemic-related modifications.

As it did during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Temple B’nai Israel in White Oak will encourage congregants to tune in to a service online. By combining the holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah during a service on Oct. 10, members can enjoy the festivals in a distanced and tempered fashion, explained Rabbi Howie Stein.

While the congregation will hear the end of Deuteronomy and the beginning of Genesis, it will not, however, “be able to

Photo by Dale Lazar

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle LOCAL

A proper unveiling

WORLD

An inside look at Abraham Accords

WORLD

The Jews of Monaco

Headlines JAA welcomes Rabbi Dovid Small as new director of pastoral care — LOCAL —

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

T

he Jewish Association on Aging has hired Rabbi Dovid Small to serve as its new director of pastoral care following the retirement of Rabbi Eli Seidman.

Small has worked the last eight years as a special education teacher at Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh. He also served as hospital chaplain at UPMC Presbyterian and Montefiore Hospitals, where he provided pastoral and spiritual care, for the past two years.

The Pittsburgh native graduated from Yeshiva Schools in 2000 and received his rabbinic ordination in 2005 at the Yeshivas Ateres Menachem in Ottawa, Canada.

In 2007, Small moved to Melbourne, Australia, with his wife, Miriam Simcha, and completed his post-rabbinic studies at Kollel Menachem. He spent five years in the country, teaching and working as a full-time rabbi at a Jewish nursing home in Victoria, Australia.

Small is member of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement but is looking forward to serving the entire JAA population.

“I really identify myself as Jewish and want to work with everyone, not only Jews, but everyone within the community that comes in contact with this organization,” he said.

Because of his time working at the Yeshiva Schools, Small is a known figure in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community. He will now have the opportunity to serve the parents and grandparents of his former students.

“It will be really special for me to be able to provide support for the different generations within the community,” he said.

The time he spent at UPMC was significant and will inform his work with the JAA, Small said.

“It was such a special experience for me,” he said. “Being a chaplain is how I identify myself.”

It’s important to Small, he said, to be present with people, understand their needs and to help make a difference in their lives.

Being a hospital chaplain, Small said, required a distinct skill set.

“What’s really unique is that you’re not only counseling but you are supporting people’s spiritual needs,” he explained. “There’s a combination of emotional and spiritual connections and support and empowering a person, which is just fascinating to me.”

One d i f fe re n c e between his former role at the hospitals and his new position at the JAA, Small pointed out, will be his ongoing relationship with the JAA community. During his time at UPMC, he said, he would visit a patient who he might not ever see again. In his new role, there will be what Photo provided by the JAA he called “a continuous p Rabbi Dovid Small connection.” forward to being around her a little bit more In fact, Small, a father of five, already has a deep connection in this new position.”

Small said one of his goals is to create an enviwith one of Weinberg Village’s residents: ronment of support where each community his grandmother.

“My grandmother is a very special person member — regardless of whether they are a to me and everyone in my family,” he said. resident, family member of part of the JAA “She really is a leader. She is so kind and staff — will feel valued.

Providing for the spiritual needs of that gives us a sense of what it means to be noble. She’s had a wonderful experience diverse community will be paramount in Weinberg Village, and I feel very happy for the rabbi.

“If there was something I couldn’t provide she’s in such a good place. I very much look

— for example, if a resident was Catholic, so I wouldn’t be able to assist — I would make sure they were able to have their spiritual needs met by coordinating with a priest,” he said.

Small acknowledged that beginning his tenure as the director of pastoral care during the COVID-19 pandemic presents special challenges. He is taking special note of safety protocols and regulations and will work to find creative ways to provide support and programming for residents and the JAA’s other clientele.

While the rabbi doesn’t officially start until Monday, Oct. 12, in the meantime, he will be meeting with his predecessor, Rabbi Eli Seidman, who retired after 25 years, and getting to know his way around the various campuses and buildings.

The JAA completed an extensive search but was pleased to have been able to find a rabbi to fill the director of pastoral care position in its own back yard.

“When we met Rabbi Small, we knew he had the perfect background and interest in senior care to excel here at JAA,” said JAA’s president and CEO, Deborah Winn-Horvitz, in a prepared statement. “He has served the communities in Pittsburgh and around the world. We think he will bring his own brand of kindness and caring to our seniors and we look forward to working with him.”

Small is happy to assume a leadership role in the Pittsburgh Jewish community.

“There’s something really special about our community,” he said. “There’s a certain warmth, a certain quality of comradeship that people have together. I grew up here, so I had an understanding of it but I think when I came back to the community, it evolved even more so into a community that is really caring and united in a very special way. That’s something I feel very special to be a part of and I think many people feel that quality as well.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines It’s all new at Riverview: 18-month renovation complete — LOCAL —

By Kayla Steinberg | Digital Content Manager

F

or about two weeks, Dee Laine left her apartment from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day and headed to the first floor of the B building, where The New Riverview supplied snacks, PB&Js and coffee for residents while their apartments received a much-needed makeover.

“The renovation was a little stressful, but they made it as comfortable as possible,” said Laine, 94, who moved into Riverview nine years ago. “And the end result is beautiful.”

Her apartment is now decked out with new insulation, windows, flooring, kitchen appliances and more.

After four years of procuring funding and 18 months of construction, renovations at The New Riverview — formerly Riverview Towers — are complete. The two 56-year-old buildings now have new flooring, windows, appliances, cabinetry, fixtures, HVAC and landscaping.

“There had not been a lot of work done in the buildings for many, many years,” said Amy Weiss, president of the board of Riverview Apartments Inc. “They really sorely needed to be modernized.”

With the new features came a new name: The New Riverview.

“We wanted to keep the flavor of the old because we had been so successful for so long,” said Weiss. “But we just felt with the new apartments and the new spaces that it deserved to have a new name.”

p Originally two small studio units, this new one-bedroom apartment is completely renovated.

Photo provided by the Jewish Association on Aging

The renovation was a team effort: Government officials like state Sen. Jay Costa and state Rep. Dan Frankel, Riverview staff and board members, private trusts and Jewish Association on Aging staff all worked together to make the $17 million project a reality. It was financed by low-income housing tax credits from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.

The New Riverview, which sits on the JAA’s campus, affiliated with the JAA in March 2018.

“It was a natural progression for JAA and

Riverview to come together, and the renovation presented the ideal opportunity as this was a huge project for Riverview to take on,” said JAA President and CEO Deborah WinnHorvitz. “As older adults’ needs continue to change and more individuals are interested in aging in place, we are thrilled to be able to offer a beautiful place for our community’s seniors to call home.”

The A building had a more extensive renovation than the B building owing to the expansion of its apartments. As a result, there are fewer Riverview apartments now

— a drop from 221 to 191 — but all have at least one bedroom (some have two), and 42 units are fully accessible.

And out of the 191 apartments, 151 are designated for tenants whose incomes are 60% or below the area median while the other 40 apartments are market rent. The New Riverview is subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Weiss is grateful for the sacrifices tenants made, temporarily relocating to allow for lasting changes.

“I would just shout out a huge thanks to the tenants for being incredibly patient and understanding,” said Weiss. “The staff did an amazing job just trying to juggle people around so that they were as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.”

People are already snapping up the apartments. The New Riverview had just nine openings as of press time with a growing waitlist.

“These are going to go very fast,” said Weiss. “We’re going to need to build another building down the road hopefully someday.”

The New Riverview is restricting visitors right now due to the pandemic, but Laine is enjoying the renovated space. She goes outside with a few people, takes walks and gets food delivered to her refurbished apartment.

“I’m very content,” she said. “It’s always nice to have something new, even at our age.” PJC Kayla Steinberg can be reached at ksteinberg @pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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OCTOBER 9, 2020 3

Headlines JCC prepares for phase two reopening — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

T

he schvitz is still off limits but other familiar spaces at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh are reopening.

Beginning Oct. 5, both the Squirrel Hill and South Hills branches will allow partial access to the general locker rooms, expand swimming pool capacity and increase evening hours until 8 p.m.

“This is the next iteration of a phased plan that very slowly and deliberately is trying to enhance the experience of our community at the JCC, but with health and safety first and foremost,” said JCC’s president and CEO, Brian Schreiber.

During phase two of the reopening plan, the JCC will follow similar protocols to those employed during phase one, explained Fara Marcus, the organization’s director of development and strategic marketing.

Mask wearing will remain mandatory, social distancing will be enforced, and extensive cleaning and sanitation practices will be practiced. Additionally, the JCC will continue to comply with local and state guidelines, as well as CDC recommendations, and will continue to work with the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, an operating arm of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

PRHI has helped the JCC in its reopening strategy through “pressure testing,”

4 OCTOBER 9, 2020

explained Schreiber. With each new phase of its reopening plan, the JCC identifies certain goals, proposes strategies for implementation and submits those plans to the PRHI for scrutiny to preempt possible problems. For example, when the JCC decided to make use of designated open lockers in its general locker rooms during phase two, the pressure testing exercise enabled the JCC to determine that social distancing, and a reduction of high-touch areas, was possible by opening one locker every six feet and zip tying those open lockers to nearby closed lockers.

Under this plan, members can clearly see which lockers are open and available for use without having to unnecessarily touch other areas, said Marcus.

Operating under COVID-19 requires the JCC to balance safety p A Squirrel Hill Zone 4 comfort dog visits the with meeting its users’ needs.

JCC’s Early Childhood Development Center.

For example, while health Photo provided by the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh club users will not be able to close their lockers — members Apart from partially reopening its general are discouraged from keeping valuables locker rooms, the JCC is effectively doubling inside — the ability to store belongings the possible usage of its pools. Beginning should be helpful in the coming months. Oct. 5, two swimmers will be permitted in During the summer, swimmers could exit each lane, total capacity will increase to 12 the facilities while wearing wet clothes, but swimmers per 45-minute session and addiwith fall and winter weather, people need tional clothing storage will be provided in the a place to put their belongings, like coats, pool lounge. Hours for lap swim will remain said Schreiber.

6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday,

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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and reservations will continue through the MINDBODY online sign-in.

The changes should help safely remedy some of the supply and demand issues swimmers have experienced, said Schreiber.

Phase two will also include additional indoor programming.

Whether it’s dance classes, a performing arts camp or private basketball training, users can enjoy familiar JCC offerings in a safe, masked and socially distanced manner, said Marcus.

Little by little, the JCC is beginning to resemble its past self, but the community center’s leadership is cautious about returning too rapidly to a place where childcare users, eager exercisers, shvitz enjoyers, senior lunch-goers and educational enthusiasts can converge in a hubbub of activity.

From speaking with other JCC leaders across the country, and hearing the unique challenges each community faces navigating COVID-19, Schreiber recognizes that consistency is critical. “It becomes less confusing for folks if you’re not changing your protocols every day,” he said.

“We don’t want to start moving forward on things and then a week or two from now move backward — that could happen but that’s not our goal. Our goal as we move into these phases is that this becomes a bit of our new normal until we move into phase three or phase four or phase five.” PJC

The New Riverview. Here for you.

A fresh start to senior living.

Perfect for downsizing seniors who want easy living in a warm and friendly environment 191 completely renovated, spacious, one- and two-bedroom apartments, 42 accessible units A variety of floor plans to fit every need Apartments available at all income levels: market rate, subsidized, and affordable housing Independent living, with access to JAA’s support and services to help seniors age in place.

More than a fresh coat of paint.

The New Riverview has a brand-new, fresh feeling High-quality, insulated windows Flooring that’s easy to care for Attractive, easy-to-use kitchen appliances Bathrooms with modern fixtures Finely crafted cabinetry Upgraded HVAC and plumbing systems Gorgeous tiered landscaping and grounds

Our loyal political advocates: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Senator Jay Costa • Commonwealth of Pennsylvania House of Representatives Dan Frankel & Summer Lee • County of Allegheny Office of County Executive Rich Fitzgerald • County of Allegheny Councilor Paul Klein • City of Pittsburgh Office of the Mayor Bill Peduto & Chief of Staff Dan Gilman • City of Pittsburgh City Councilors Corey O’Connor & Erika Strassburger Our generous financial advocates: Charles Morris Charitable Trust • Citizens Bank • City of Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority • Enterprise Housing Credit Investments • Federal Home Loan Bank Boston • Federal Home Loan Bank Pittsburgh • Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation • Housing Opportunity Fund • The Jack Buncher Foundation • Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh • Jewish Healthcare Foundation • Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency • PNC Bank • U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Among our many diligent and helpful business partners: Affordable Housing Accountants • BDA Engineering Inc • Diamond and Associates • Dan Droz • Gateway Engineers • Mistick Construction • PJ Dick • Rothschild Doyno Collaborative Architecture & Urban Design • TRG Closing Services • Wagner Insurance Agency Our family: Brandywine Communities Management Company • JAA Board Members, Administration & Staff Those especially close to the project: The New Riverview Executive Director Hanna Steiner • The New Riverview Director of Resident Services Phyllis Cohen • The New Riverview Administration & Staff The New Riverview Past Board Members including Bob Bernstein, Charles R. Broff, Carol Cozen, Maureen Kelly Busis, Alan Dunn, Robin Elson, Ray Engel, Macy Kisilinsky, Dave Lassman, Earl Parker, Mitchell D. Letwin, Sarita A. Mallinger, Corey O’Connor, Barry Roth, Alec J. Stone, Amy Weiss Finally, our thanks to those who made it through months of mayhem and now live happily ever after: The New Riverview Tenants

Part of JAA’s Family of Services

52 Garetta Street | Pittsburgh PA 15217 | jaapgh.org For more information or to request a tour, call 412-521-7876

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OCTOBER 9, 2020 5

Headlines Free burials and unveilings help mourners who can’t afford to pay — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

E

nsuring each Jew receives a proper Jewish burial, regardless of their status in society or financial means, is a concept that has been well-established for centuries. “It’s a very beautiful thing,� said Rabbi Eli Seidman, who has led burial rites and read from the Psalms at free burials in the Pittsburgh area for the past three years. “It is a very touching moment, thanks to the work of the Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association. And it’s something not a lot of people are aware of.�

The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh is one of many agencies in the U.S. and abroad that provides qualified Jews with free burials after customary paperwork and screening.

JCBA will honor that tradition next week by unveiling headstones of those buried since 2019’s High Holidays at its Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery in Shaler Township.

The ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. on Oct. 18.

All proper precautions are being taken to respect social distancing and keep the ceremony safe in the age of COVID-19, according to the JCBA. Chesed Shel Emeth, which is home to about 600 graves, dates back some 150 years.

The former Hebrew Burial Association — also known as Chesed Shel Emeth, named

p A 2017 unveiling at Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery

for its “ultimate kindness,� Seidman said — was organized in 1853 to provide Orthodox burials for the deceased of “indigent families,� according to the JCBA. The “old cemetery,� located on Seavey Road in Shaler Township, ceased being

Photo by Jonathan Schachter

used in the 1920s, said Barry Rudel, JCBA’s executive director. It was a sign of the Jewish community’s dedication to the concept of the free burial that the founding of the cemetery did not lag far behind the founding of congregations in Pittsburgh.

“The community, right away, found reason to set aside ground not only for burial, but for free burial,� Rudel said.

A “new cemetery� bearing the same name was purchased on Oakwood Street in Shaler Township, near what it is now Shaler High School, said Jonathan Schachter, JCBA administrator. It has been in use since its first burial took place in January 1918. “It’s about our calling to an age-old mission to provide the free burials to the needy,� said Schachter, who has worked with the JCBA since about 2006. “If someone lacks the means to provide a proper Jewish burial, that’s when our organization steps in.�

Some years pass without a service at Chesed Shel Emeth, Schachter said. This year, only one headstone will be unveiled; it’s for a woman whose case was brought to the attention of the JCBA by an area rabbi, Schachter said.

The free burial service offered by the JCBA is comprehensive. Seidman leads prayers, which he customizes to the deceased, as he would at any other funeral, and other services are provided by Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. in Shadyside. The headstones, all of which are intended to look similar, are donated by Urbach Memorials, which also is based in Shadyside. “It’s a mark of society to take care of its own,� Seidman said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do.�  PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

SPONSORED CONTENT

STAFF CHANGES AT MARKS ELDER LAW ANNOUNCED This is one in a series of articles about Elder Law by Michael H. Marks., Esq. Michael H. Marks is an elder law attorney with offices in Squirrel Hill and Monroeville.

Send questions to michael@marks-law.com or visit www.marks-law.com.

This has been a year of transition at Marks Elder Law. We are pleased to announce the addition of Leslie A. Dutchcot, Esq. to our staff while also noting the retirement of Linda Law Carroll, Esq. after twelve years.

Linda Law Carroll joined Marks Elder Law in 2008 and has served clients with dedication and skill for 12 years. Linda is a native of California and a graduate of Georgetown Law School. In our office she mostly handled estate administration, probate in nonprobate estates, inheritance tax and estate income tax issues, estate related litigation and estate planning.

Known for her easy-going manner and talent in assisting clients to reach solutions in both routine and difficult cases, Linda will be missed.

Linda said of retiring, “With my husband, Dan, I have been enjoying retirement. We have been doing a lot of reading, hiking, biking, and meeting up with two of their children who live in the area. Although enjoying the slower pace of life, I miss many aspects of my work. Most of all I miss the many wonderful clients who I met and worked with over the years and send my heartfelt regards to all.�

Linda L. Carroll, Esq.

6 OCTOBER 9, 2020

Please join as we welcome our new attorney at Marks Elder Law, Leslie A Dutchcot. Leslie hails from upstate Pennsylvania but lives in Squirrel Hill now. She went to University of Pittsburgh for her undergraduate degree and is a graduate of Duquesne University Law School.

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Most recently, she spent several years in wealth management with a large Pittsburgh financial institution as a fiduciary advisor helping clients understand the mechanics of their trust legacies in order to provide for generational family wealth. “I am excited to return to private practice with the added experience of having seen trusts, as a product of estate planning, in operation.“ She brings knowledge and enthusiasm to her new position at Marks Elder Law where she will be handling primarily estate planning and estate administration matters.

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Headlines Pittsburgh white supremacist Hardy Lloyd to be released from federal prison — LOCAL —

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

H

ardy Lloyd was scheduled for release from federal prison on Tuesday, Oct. 6.

An avowed white supremacist with a lengthy criminal record, Lloyd has been incarcerated since Aug. 15, 2019, when he received a 24-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab.

Lloyd was charged with violating the terms of his probation which prohibited him from accessing social media or communicating with anyone to promote terrorism. The charges stem from April 4, 2019, when the convicted felon’s probation officer said Lloyd posted a blog message about a free speech ban in Europe and posted another condemning a Pittsburgh assault weapons ban.

Lloyd wrote that anyone supporting the laws “must be targeted and their families murdered,” according to media reports. He urged supporters to “disobey and kill, my Lone Wolves,” if the ban wasn’t overturned.

He also said they should “Target: Jewhill,” an apparent reference to Squirrel Hill.

Those convicted of a federal offense typically serve approximately 85% of their sentence in prison, according to Shawn Brokos, director of Jewish Community Security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

Lloyd will complete his full sentence on Dec. 31, 2020. Until that time, he

will be staying at a halfway house under supervised release.

Once Lloyd has completed his supervised release, he will no longer be able to be sent back to prison for violating his probation, Brokos explained. Even if he is sent back to federal prison while on supervised release, it would only be until the completion of his full

and Dormont to order martial arts weapons and watch videos of women being abused.

He was also recorded on video giving the Nazi salute at a Mt. Lebanon protest and distributing flyers in the city’s East End. In 2016, Lloyd was sent back to prison for 14 months followed by 22 months of supervised release.

“ I can tell you that this is an absolute priority for law enforcement. The FBI is actively involved, the United States Attorney’s Office is actively involved, the Pittsburgh police

”

know him well.

— SHAWN BROKOS, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY SECURITY sentence in December, she added.

The August 2019 sentence was the third time Lloyd had been returned to custody for violating the terms of his probation.

In December 2017 Schwab sentenced him to serve 13 months in prison and nine months of supervised release for using public computers at libraries in Mt. Lebanon

The Pittsburgher, who is known to often live in and frequent Squirrel Hill and South Hills neighborhoods, was first arrested in 2004 and sentenced to serve 30 months in a federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for violating federal firearms laws. At that time, he was charged with killing his girlfriend in Squirrel Hill. He was

acquitted of the murder but found guilty of firearms possession. After his acquittal, Lloyd took to the internet, celebrating and bragging about the murder.

He was placed on the Department of Homeland Security’s domestic terrorism watch list in 2009. That same year, he celebrated the death of three Pittsburgh police officers who were shot and killed.

Brokos called Lloyd a potential threat to the Jewish community but said that she had been in touch with federal, state and local law enforcement, working on mitigation strategies.

“I can tell you that this is an absolute priority for law enforcement,” Brokos said.

“The FBI is actively involved, the United States Attorney’s Office is actively involved, the Pittsburgh police know him well.”

Community members should call 911 and report any threats or suspicious activity to law enforcement and the Federation’s Community Security Office , she said, adding that “in light of Hardy Lloyd’s release, it is imperative that the community remain vigilant.”

Brokos pointed out that Federation’s focus on Lloyd is just one part of a larger security strategy that has become more robust since the Oct. 27 shooting at the Tree of Life building. “This is one of the necessary steps we take in the normal course of business to protect the Pittsburgh Jewish community, as well as the community at large,” she said. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Federation combats misinformation in lead-up to election

W

hite supremacist trolls celebrated on 4chan in January when a fake Twitter account caused tension between the Jewish and Black communities after anti-Semitic attacks in New York. The fake account included posts from fictional users uttering racist slurs.

That’s just one example of a growing trend: fabricated news whose real purpose is to sow division and hate in America.

Other instances include anti-Semitic graffiti painted on a Beverly Hills sign that was attributed to Antifa and went viral on social media. The images turned out to be manipulated in Photoshop, but the damage

had already been done.

In another instance, Antifa was blamed for barriers erected in front of the Chabad of Sherman Oaks building in Los Angeles, California. In reality, the Chabad center had installed the barriers itself.

The false stories and social media posts have become more sophisticated and are often hard to distinguish from real news.

Because of that confusion, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is stepping forward to help identify disinformation about anti-Semitism before the election.

“The concern is that there is already anxiety in the community,” Federation’s

director of Jewish Community Security, Shawn Brokos, said. “We’re encouraging people to make informed decisions, shy away from assumptions and look for the truth before over- or underreacting.”

Community members can report potential anti-Semitic information or incidents at the Federation’s website, jewishpgh.org/ security, Brokos said. Federation’s staff will work to determine if the information is real or simply what is now popularly known as “fake news.”

Brokos is working closely with the Secure Community Network, which specializes in this work, through the Jewish Federations of

North America.

“It’s critical now more than ever to distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake,” said David Sufrin, chair of Pittsburgh’s Federation, in a press release. “During a time when lots of misinformation exists on social media across the political spectrum, it’s even more important not to jump to conclusions when we see reports of anti-Semitism in Pittsburgh or around our region.”

The fake images are created to “instill fear, doubt and unrest,” Brokos said. “Staying vigilant, mindful and accurately informed is the way to combat that.” PJC — David Rullo

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Calendar >>Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Submissions also will 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 MONDAYS, OCT. 12; NOV. 9;

DEC. 14 Join Classrooms Without Borders in Israel — virtually. Monthly tours with guide and scholar, Rabbi Jonty Blackman, via Zoom. 7 p.m.

For more information and to register, visit classroomswithoutborders.org. q MONDAYS, OCT. 12, 19, 26; NOV. 2

Join Rabbi Jeremy Markiz in learning Masechet Rosh Hashanah, a tractate of the Talmud about the many new years that fill out the Jewish calendar at Monday Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q TUESDAY, OCT. 13

Join the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Pittsburgh Holocaust Center for Preserving Holocaust History through Artifacts, Archives and Research, a live digital program, exclusive to the Pittsburgh community, featuring the Museum’s National Institute for Holocaust Documentation and its work to collect, preserve, and make accessible to the public this vast collection of records of the Holocaust and support the museum’s wide-ranging efforts in the areas of research, exhibition, publication, education and commemoration. 12 p.m. For more information and to register for this free event, visit hcofpgh.org. q WEDNESDAYS, OCT. 14, 21, 28;

NOV. 4, 11 The 21st century is already 20 years old. In that time, the Reform movement has produced more responsa than any other non-Orthodox movement. What have these pieces taught us about 21st century Judaism? In 21 C Reform Responsa, Jewish Community Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff will examine two decades of responsa for their statements about contemporary Judaism. Six sessions for $30. 11 a.m. To register, visit foundation. jewishpgh.org. q THURSDAY, OCT. 15

Joshua Andy leads Classrooms Without Borders’ book club discussion of “The S.S. Officer’s Armchair.” Educators attending this program are eligible to receive Pennsylvania Act 48 continuing education credits. Book author, Daniel Lee, will join for a discussion at the conclusion. 7 p.m.

For more information and to RSVP, visit classroomswithoutborders.org.

q THURSDAY, OCT. 15

q SUNDAYS, OCT. 18, 25; NOV. 1

Be an informed consumer and join the Security and Exchange Commission to learn how to protect yourself from financial fraud and from potential scams during the COVID-19 pandemic. Representatives from the SEC, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the FBI will be present. 10 a.m. Submit questions in advance to SECSeniorOutreach@sec.gov. To register, email usapaw-rsvp@usdoj.gov.

Join a lay-led Online Parashah Study Group to discuss the week’s Torah portion. No Hebrew knowledge is needed. The goal is to build community while deepening understanding of the text. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.

q THURSDAYS, OCT. 15; DEC. 3;

FEB. 18; March 18; MAY 6; JUNE 17 We live in a time of multiple challenges.

Controversial issues and struggles confront us daily. But the truth is that Jews have never desisted from addressing tough problems. In this year’s Continuing Legal Education Series, Jewish Community Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff will dive into a range of “tense topics” — difficult and troubling issues that are both powerfully emotional subjects and have substantive legal ramifications at the same time. Get up to 12 CLE ethics credits. With CLE/ CEU credit: $30/session or $180 all sessions; without CLE/CEU credit: $25/session or $150 all sessions. 8:30 a.m. For more information and to register, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org. q FRIDAY, OCT. 16

The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh presents on Zoom a Work in Progress Colloquium, “The Pornography of Fools: Antisemitism and Sexual Fantasy,” with Aidan Beatty at 1 p.m. To register visit, calendar.pitt.edu/department/jewish_ studies_program. q SATURDAY, OCT. 17

Join Moishe House Pittsburgh for Shabbat Unplugged and practice Shabbat with a restful break from technology at Friendship Park. Feel free to chat, read a book, study Torah, throw a frisbee or do whatever else relaxes you and brings you joy. Snacks and hand sanitizer will be provided. Attendance capped at 25. 1 p.m.

For more information and to register, visit facebook.com/moishehouse.pittsburgh. q SUNDAY, OCT. 18

The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association will hold its annual unveiling ceremony at the Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery located at 498 Oakwood Street. Rabbi Eli Seidman, director of pastoral care at the Jewish Association on Aging, will officiate. 11 a.m. For additional information, call 412-553-6469 or jcbapgh@gmail.com.

The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh presents the annual Israel Heritage Room lecture. This year’s topic is “The Making of Shtisel” by director and cocreator Yehonatan Indursky. 2 p.m. For more information, visit calendar.pitt.edu/department/ jewish_studies_program.

h THE BEST OF THE IN YOUR EMAIL INBOX ONCE A WEEK. Sign up on the right hand side of our homepage. pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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q SUNDAYS, OCT. 18, 25; NOV. 1, 8, 15, 22;

DEC. 6; JAN. 31; FEB. 7, 14, 21, 28; MARCH 7, 14

What does Jewish tradition have to say about God, Torah, mitzvot, suffering, messiah, Israel…? In this special course, Pittsburgh Rabbis on Jewish Belief, Jewish Community Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff will host 14 Pittsburgh rabbis, each teaching a session on fundamental aspects of Jewish belief. Fourteen sessions for $70. 10 a.m.

For more information and to register, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org. q MONDAY, OCT. 19

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures presents Lee Gutkind, founding editor of Creative Nonfiction magazine. Gutkind delivers his new memoir “My Last Eight Thousand Days: An American Male in His Seventies.” To register, visit pittsburghlectures.org/lee-gutkind.

Cheshvan is the first new month of 5781. Take a moment with the Moishe House community to set intentions for the month ahead. We can keep the Rosh Hashanah energy going and provide accountability for each other in achieving our goals. This will be the first occurrence of a new monthly Rosh Chodesh event. For more information and to register, visit facebook.com/moishehouse.pittsburgh. q MONDAYS, OCT. 19, 26; NOV. 2, 9, 16, 30;

DEC. 7; FEB. 1, 8, 15, 22; MARCH 1, 8, 15 Most people associate the term “Haftarah” with opaque prophetic reading on Shabbat morning. This course, “Haftarah,” will attempt to make the opaque sparkle. Choosing selectively from the most interesting Haftarah portions, Jewish Community Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff will seek to imbue meaning in these powerful prophetic passages.

Fourteen sessions for $70. 9:30 a.m. For more information and to register, visit foundation. jewishpgh.org.

Pennsylvania. Panel discussion moderated

by Beth Kissileff and Steve Weitzman with Barbara Burstin, Laurie Eisenberg and Adam Shear. 7:30 p.m. For more information and to register, visit calendar.pitt.edu/department/ jewish_studies_program. q SUNDAY, OCT. 25; TUESDAY, OCT. 27; WEDNESDAY, NOV. 4; THURSDAY, NOV. 5 Join the Pittsburgh Jewish community for the 10.27 2nd Year Commemoration: Remember, Reflect, In Spirit and Action. This year’s commemoration will be largely virtual. Join Repair the World for community service on Oct. 25; study Torah with a variety of scholars on Oct. 27, Nov. 4 and Nov. 5 and livestream a pre-recorded Community Gathering Ceremony on Oct. 27 run by the 10.27 Healing Partnership. For complete information and to register for the different events, visit jewishpgh.org/events. q FRIDAY, OCT. 30

Put on your warmest costume and come to the Moishe House backyard for a socially distant spooky Shabbat dinner. The candles will be lit promptly at 6 p.m., but you are welcome to come as early as 5:30 p.m. A vegetarian meal will be provided. Attendance will be capped at six guests. For more information and to register, visit facebook.com/moishehouse.pittsburgh. q SUNDAY, NOV. 1

The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh presents a discussion of the film “Soul Witness.”

Completed in 2018, the documentary includes testimony with Boston-area Holocaust survivors. The discussion will include producer R. Harvey Bravman and three descendants of survivors featured in the film. The discussion is free. The movie can be bought or rented at soulwitness.org/hcpgh. Thirty percent of the proceeds will go to the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. 3 p.m. To register, visit eventbrite. com/e/soul-witness-survivor-testimonyas-inspiration-during-troubling-timestickets-123328357437. q SUNDAY, NOV. 8

Classrooms Without Borders is honored to bring David G. Marwell, author of “Mengele: Unmasking the ‘Angel of Death.” “Mengele” is a gripping biography of the infamous Nazi doctor, from a former Justice Department official tasked with uncovering his fate. 7 p.m.

For more information and to register, visit classroomswithoutborders.org.

q THURSDAY, OCT. 22

q TUESDAY, NOV. 10

Join Chabad Young Professionals, OneTable, Moishe House, Repair the World and the Young Adult Division of the Jewish Federation as they come Together at the Virtual Table to commemorate the tragic events of Oct. 27, 2018, with an eye toward the future. Hear from young adult leaders, pray together and create together as we prepare for Shabbat the following day. Shabbat kits are available only to those who register by Oct. 8. Everyone is welcome. 7 p.m. For more information and to register, visit jewishpgh.org.

The University of Pittsburgh’s Jewish Studies Program welcomes via Zoom Natan Meir, Lorry I. Lokey Professor of Judaic Studies at Portland State University. Meir will present “Epidemic and the Marginalized of Society: A View from the Jewish Past.” 6 p.m. For more information and to register, visit jewishstudies.pitt.edu.

q MONDAY, OCT. 26

Book launch of “Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy” by the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of

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Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh for a virtual tour of Kibbutz Eshbal, Israel’s first educator’s kibbutz. Eshbal is located in Pittsburgh’s Partnership2Gether region of Karmiel and Misgav and is working on revolutionizing education as well as creating a strong and equal Israeli society. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is a longtime supporter of their important work with at-risk youth. For more information, visit jewishpgh.org. PJC

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Headlines AJC official Jason Isaacson: Normalization between Israel and UAE ‘breathtaking’ — LOCAL —

By Kayla Steinberg | Digital Content Manager

J

ason Isaacson has travelled to every state on the Arabian Peninsula, working to build relationships with high-level officials, journalists, think tank analysts and Jewish community members that could eventually lead to normalization between the Arab monarchies and Israel. But even he was shocked by the Aug. 13 normalization announcement from the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United States.

“One strives for this goal for year after year after year, meeting many people and having very interesting discussions,” said Isaacson, the American Jewish Committee’s Washington, D.C.-based chief policy and political affairs officer.

“To get the announcement from the president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the prime minister of Israel that full diplomatic relations are being established was breathtaking.”

And less than one month later, Bahrain followed suit. With the Sept. 15 Abraham Accords, the UAE and Bahrain became the third and fourth Arab countries to formally normalize relations with Israel, following Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) — a feat Isaacson, 67, attributes in part to President

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

p Jason Isaacson conducting a dialogue on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly with Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, then the foreign minister of Bahrain, last September in New York.

Photo by Michael Priest

Donald Trump’s efforts.

He saw Trump’s Middle East peace plan as a catalyst for immediate action because in it, the U.S. government showed support for Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank — motivating the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S. to get Israel to take annexation off the table by offering a normalization deal instead.

“That was the hook that allowed this to advance in the space of a few months,” said Isaacson.

But the underlying dynamics that drive Israel and some Arab states closer exist

regardless of who is president. Isaacson cited three key forces: the threat posed by Iran, which Israel can help ameliorate; Israel’s innovative technology and businesses (hence its “start-up nation” moniker); and frustration with Palestinian leadership.

These dynamics have been taking shape over decades. At the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, Israel and multiple Arab neighbors sat down together for the first time. It ushered in a period of enormous possibility, Isaacson said, not just for Israeli-Palestinian peace, but for multilateral efforts to address specific issues

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

like arms control and the environment.

These efforts put AJC in a position to be a bridge between Arab countries and Israel, the United States and the Jewish community, explained Isaacson.

“We have made friends for the Jewish people and made friends for Israel,” he said.

“And I believe contributed to the widening of the circle of Arab-Israeli peace and understanding, which has been one of our most important missions.”

Isaacson has traveled — sometimes solo, sometimes with AJC staff or board members — to countries around the world. These trips have afforded him a close-up look at recent hints of regional transformation. At a meeting last December, Isaacson asked UAE’s foreign minister about the nonbelligerency agreements floated by Trump administration and Israeli officials, who assumed full peace was unachievable. The foreign minister asked Isaacson why they were aiming so low.

In terms of where we go from here, Isaacson thinks a Biden administration would pick up where the Trump administration would leave off, should former Vice President Joe Biden win the election in November. However, he thinks pandemic-related budgetary pressures could affect how ambitious U.S. military and diplomatic efforts will be.

Please see AJC, page 15

OCTOBER 9, 2020 9

Headlines Eight months into the pandemic, Israel is readying refrigerated morgues. How did it get here?

— WORLD —

By Marcy Oster, Gabe Friedman | JTA

I

srael has been known as a country that can rise to face a crisis — usually of the military kind — quickly and efficiently.

The country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in its early months garnered international praise, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at one point boasted that “the world is learning from us.”

But now Israel has become the world’s foremost cautionary tale, stuck in one of the worst second waves of cases on the planet, one that is showing no evidence of slowing down.

Last week, the country’s health ministry reported a record high of nearly 9,000 COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours — the equivalent of well over 300,000 in the United States. Hospitals are filled to capacity and threatening to close, and the government has significantly tightened a second lockdown that began on the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Israelis are now limited to traveling just over a half mile from their homes.

And Israeli media recently reported that Haifa’s chevra kadisha, or ritual burial society, was preparing refrigerated shipping containers in which to store the bodies of the dead, until they could be buried, and that other cities were preparing to do the same.

p Workers at Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem wear protective clothes as they work in the coronavirus ward, Oct. 1, 2020.

Nati Shohat/Flash90 via JTA

How did Israel get here? There are many factors.

A weak government could not act decisively

In March, Benny Gantz, the man who came close to unseating Netanyahu in three consecutive elections in less than a year, laid down his proverbial arms and struck a deal with Netanyahu to finally form a government

Don’t miss an issue All changes can be submitted in writing or emailed to subscriptions @ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org or call 410-902-2308 P I T TS B U R G H

h

coalition. Gantz, who some called patriotic and others called politically naive, deemed it an “emergency” unity government and said it would “fight the coronavirus and look out for all Israeli citizens.”

In the end, it has done neither effectively.

The two main sides of the government — Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Gantz’s Blue and White coalition, which has splintered and shrunk after his deal with Netanyahu

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

Oct. 9, 1994 — Hamas abducts Israeli soldier

Hamas terrorists abduct soldier Nachshon Wachsman in central Israel by offering him a ride while wearing kippot, playing Chasidic music and carrying a prayer book. He is killed during a rescue attempt.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

Moshe Hess, interred in Cologne in 1875, is reburied at Kibbutz Kinneret beside other fathers of socialist Zionism. His “Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question” may have inspired Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State.”

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Please see Israel page 11

This week in Israeli history

Oct. 10, 1961 — Bones of Moshe Hess brought to Israel ACCOUNT NUMBER

— have been working at cross-purposes from the start. They have argued over almost every aspect of government and haven’t been able to pass a national budget for 2020 — which is of course three-quarters over.

If a budget isn’t approved by Dec. 23, another round of elections will be triggered.

And Netanyahu isn’t exactly against this, for a couple of reasons. In the deal that he signed with Gantz, he agreed to step down to allow Gantz to become prime minister after 18 months. Netanyahu would love for the deal to not last that long, and to keep his grip on the role.

Gantz’s coalition, as mentioned, is also in pieces, leaving less in Netanyahu’s way when it comes to significantly consolidating his power in the next election.

Meanwhile, the ineffective government has not filled several top civil servant positions, including the state prosecutor and the chief of police. Coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu was appointed without the basic authority that he needs to implement his programs, and his plans have been weakened by the government’s constant bending to pressure from different sectors of the public.

“The same government that appointed [Gamzu] has no problem with subverting or eroding some of his main recommendations and to water them down,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute.

Christian cult. The approach of the year 2000 raises fears in Israel about doomsday cults.

Oct. 13, 1969 — Allon proposes Home Rule for West Bank

Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon reveals his plan for home rule covering everything but defense, foreign policy and communications for the 650,000 Arabs living in the West Bank.

Oct. 14, 1989 — Intellectual Dov Sadan dies

Intellectual and one-term Knesset member Dov Sadan dies at the age of 87. He led the Yiddish studies department at the Hebrew University from 1952 until 1970.

Oct. 15, 2002 — Political Cartoonist Ze’ev dies

Oct. 11, 1950 — Filmmaker Amos Gitai is born

Filmmaker Amos Gitai is born in Haifa. He is known for documentaries and features on the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict and Holocaust memory in Europe and shows at least 10 films in competition at Cannes.

Oct. 12, 1999 — Christian extremists denied entry to Israel Israel refuses to let 26 Irish and Romanian tourists enter through the port of Haifa for being members of an extremist

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Yaakov Farkash, known as Ze’ev (Wolf) and considered the father of Israeli political cartoons, dies at age 79. A Holocaust survivor, he worked construction until selling his first newspaper cartoon in 1953. PJC

OCTOBER 9, 2020 10

Headlines Continued from page 10

Rather than operating as it should, the coalition is in many ways acting like an interim government and is operating as if it is “sliding toward an election campaign,” Plesner added.

Netanyahu’s eyes were elsewhere, even amid protest at home

Israel began coming out of its first lockdown in early May, opening businesses, restaurants and schools. It had four months to prepare for the challenges of any second wave.

But besides the domestic politicking, Netanyahu was also preoccupied with bigger moves that he knew would add to his diplomatic legacy. He flirted with the idea of annexing parts of the West Bank by July 1, an idea that drew criticism from an unusually wide range of stakeholders — including the Trump administration and even some settlers, whom Netanyahu has successfully courted for years.

Then in the fall, with the help of the Trump team, Israel signed normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Netanyahu attended a signing ceremony for the so-called Abraham Accords in Washington, D.C. just days before the beginning of Israel’s second lockdown went into effect, giving him just the right visuals to mount a new election campaign, whenever relevant.

There would, of course, be competing visuals from the anti-Netanyahu protests that grew over the course of the summer and fall. Critics of the prime minister gathered outside his Jerusalem home weekly to call attention to his poor handling of the coronavirus crisis and his governing while under indictment for corruption. The protests grew to include disparate segments of Israeli society and at times resulted in violent clashes between police and protesters. Now the government has enacted steep restrictions on protests as part of its pandemic response, effectively ending the weekly public display of resistance.

The economy opened too quickly

The seemingly successful quick reopening of Israel’s economy that drew so much praise proved to be dangerous, and all sides of the government have admitted it.

Israel began coming out of its first lockdown in late April. Some retail outlets were allowed to open, with a limited number of customers at a time. Schools then reopened, followed by hotels, malls and gyms, then restaurants, cultural venues and event halls, all operating at less than full capacity.

But by July, some restrictions — including on gyms, public pools, event halls, bars, clubs and cultural shows — were reimposed as coronavirus cases began rising again. Israelis had headed to beaches and restaurants, unmasked, too early, encouraged by a government that figured it had conquered the virus.

In the hours before the start of Yom Kippur, Netanyahu acknowledged that the country opened too fast after the first lockdown. “Did we make mistakes in the past?

Of course,” Netanyahu said in a Hebrew video posted on social media. “Our decision to open event halls was too fast. Perhaps also the decision to reopen all schools.”

Gantz agreed, saying that the country PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

was also too slow to implement widespread contact tracing. In an interview on Channel 12’s “Meet the Press,” Gantz apologized, saying the government had been too involved in political squabbles to get their jobs done.

Despite the now out-of-control COVID caseload, there is still opposition to the second strict lockdown — from Gamzu, the coronavirus czar himself.

Gamzu said last week that he preferred the idea of “a slight tightening of the lockdown, to prevent serious damage to the economy.”

By that night, he called the government’s decision to implement a total lockdown “disgusting,” added that he would have to take an “anti-nausea pill.”

Schools continue to be a culprit

When Israeli schools reopened for the first time in May, things did not go very well.

The announcement that schools were opened came out days before the planned reopening date. A patchwork of policies and guidelines left administrators scrambling.

Hundreds of teachers, students and their relatives contracted the virus quickly. In less than two weeks, dozens of cities shut down their school systems.

Still, with many Israeli parents sick of home schooling and supervising, clamoring to send their children back to school, Education Minister Yoav Gallant insisted in July that the next school year should start on time on Sept. 1 — and it did, despite widespread objections from teachers.

That didn’t last long either. Almost immediately, outbreaks were associated with schools, and classes, grades and even entire schools were sent into quarantine.

Even as students were lumped into “capsules” to limit exposure to each other, teachers moved between capsules, potentially spreading disease between them. (The country had too few teachers to reduce class sizes and had tried to mount a rapid hiring effort.) The situation became so acute that schools ended up closing before the general lockdown on Rosh Hashanah.

The emphasis on getting students back to school meant that little attention had been given to what would happen if they needed to learn from home again.

“I believe that we made a mistake and missed an opportunity to develop the distance learning components,” said Zimra Vigoda, a parent whose daughter’s school switched to virtual learning earlier in September when there were too few unexposed teachers to operate in person.

“The administration and teachers worked hard to develop the pod-based learning and added a multitude of interesting courses but, here in Israel, the land of apparent perpetual optimism, nobody, including myself, really wanted to believe that in-person learning would not be possible this year,” Vigoda said.

received night time curfews.

The incident highlighted how important the haredi Orthodox have become to Netanyahu politically and how he is willing to bend the rules for them. It also displayed how COVID-19 has spread further in some Orthodox communities, where continuing to gather in large groups to pray and celebrate has trumped precaution. It’s a trend in Orthodox communities around the world, including Brooklyn, where local authorities have threatened to crack down in heavily Orthodox neighborhoods where infection rates are high.

A symbol of this tension has been Yaakov Litzman, the haredi former health minister.

He resigned that position in April, after reports claimed he contracted the virus from attending a prayer group that his ministry had banned. Litzman became housing minister, but he resigned that post as well in protest over the new lockdown restrictions imposed on Rosh Hashanah in time for High Holiday prayer services.

Not all haredi Orthodox have been anti-social distancing, however — for example, Aryeh Deri, Israel’s interior minister who also heads the Sephardic Orthodox Shas Party, compared ignoring the lockdown rules to murder earlier this month. And the Shas Council of Torah Sages on Tuesday called for prayer services to be held outside only and according to current coronavirus regulations.

Right now, haredi Israelis make up 40% of new cases, despite amounting to just 12% of the population. That proportion has continued to generate criticism from more secular Israelis about why the entire country is under lockdown. But even without those cases, the country would have

an infection rate that exceeds what public health experts say is safe.

“Don’t call me a freier” — the psychology of Israelis

The word “freier” in Hebrew roughly translates to “sucker” — someone who gets taken advantage of. Avoiding being a freier is a top priority in Israeli culture these days — a concept that is a far cry from the socialist kibbutz culture that reigned in the country’s early days.

In the context of the pandemic and social distancing, the anti-freier line of thinking goes: Why should I adhere to the coronavirus restrictions when I see my neighbors and friends flouting the rules? Why should they enjoy the opened economy and life without a mask, and not me?

That culture may be hurting Israel’s ability to contain the virus. In Haaretz, Anshel Pfeffer wrote that Israelis have been “too busy looking at other sectors and demanding ‘equal’ rights to be infected.” In the Jerusalem Post, Liat Collins wrote, “Now is the time to fear the spread of corona, not the Israeli fear of being considered a ‘freier.’”

There’s also the psychological downside of that successful reputation for rising to meet a crisis. More Israelis have died of COVID-19 than from terror attacks, but with sickness and death hidden away inside hospitals, the pandemic is not eliciting the same reaction.

“Israelis can sometimes be a little bit too resilient,” said Alison Kaplan Sommer, a journalist at Haaretz, during a recent panel discussion. “Our fear threshold is very high.

We lived through all of these traumas and all of these wars and that’s damaged us in our ability to take this virus seriously. … The national psychology is a big part of the story.” PJC

Creative Kosher selling pink challahs for cancer awareness

Photo courtesy of Creative Kosher Catering

Israel:

The haredi Orthodox have shaped the response

Last month, the government flagged some 40 cities and towns, most of them haredi Orthodox and Arab, as “red light” communities — or areas with higher infection rates that would be hit with individualized and stricter restrictions than the rest of the country. This “traffic light” system of categorization has been used successfully in other countries, and Gamzu is a proponent of it.

But after Orthodox religious politicians threatened to abandon Netanyahu and his government coalition over the red light rules, which would have included a strict lockdown, the communities instead only

D

eena Ross and Moishe Siebzener, the food service professionals behind Deena’s Dishes and Creative Kosher Catering, are raising money for breast cancer awareness. For each challah sold during select weeks in October the caterers are donating $1 to Sharsheret, an organization that provides Jewish women and families with programs and resources regarding breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

Supporting breast cancer awareness was driven by a personal connection to the

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

disease, Ross said.

“Unfortunately, I have friends who have passed away from breast cancer, and I have a couple of friends who have breast cancer,” she said. “It’s been an impactful thing in my life.”

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The special challahs are available in pink or marble pink and will be served in pink boxes with pink ribbons. PJC — Adam Reinherz OCTOBER 9, 2020 11

Opinion Clergy stress levels are soaring. Rabbis need a break. visits and stepped up, sometimes putting themselves in harm’s way by gathering with people who needed them. Against the backdrop of increasing civil unrest and their own passion for justice, clergy also participated — bemasked — in BLM protests and rallies,

Guest Columnists Rabbi Elyse Wechterman and Rabbi Ilana Garber

I

n these last six months, Jewish clergy all over the world have worked more hours, in more ways, and with more demands than ever before. And they need a break.

In March, when the pandemic became a reality, rabbis and cantors pivoted in every way: They conducted online services, streamed Passover Seders and began officiating at remote and socially distanced funerals. They counseled families who either postponed or drastically reimagined the shape of the simchas — the b’nai mitzvah, weddings and other events — that had been in the works for months (if not years).

Without prior experience in production, they adjusted to this new virtual reality by working together to invent best practices for community building and inclusion in a digital world. They learned terms like “mute all” and “original sound,” and they practiced defending their communities against “Zoom-bombing” — none of which was covered in rabbinical or cantorial school.

At the same time, the pastoral demands, often the most meaningful part of a clergyperson’s work, multiplied dramatically.

Isolated individuals (especially elders) experiencing loneliness and loss, mourners unable to attend in-person funerals or be comforted by visitors for shiva, parents of school-age children barely holding it together while they worked, parented, managed their households and watched the world falling apart around them, all demanded our clergy’s attention. And rabbis and cantors, as they are trained and so desperately want to do, responded. They made calls, arranged porch

sessions, all on top of their regular work.

While summer vacations were put on hold, many used the time to write or rewrite scripts, service outlines and sermons.

Synagogue clergy produced and edited video and audio productions, crafted resources for

As has been said many times, “You cannot pour from an empty cup.” We believe our Jewish clergy, who have worked so hard and so long for the sake of the communities, deserve a moment to fill up and enjoy a cos rivaya (full goblet) once again. supported immigrants and asylum seekers at detention centers, and protested against the ongoing degradation of civil discourse and human rights in this country in particular.

All of this while managing their own losses, their own displacements and their own family situations — children needing to be homeschooled or monitored online, aging parents far away and fearful of their risk for illness, marriages needing attention, and congregations, day schools and organizations weighing the constantly changing CDC guidelines, unsure on a day-to-day basis how to proceed.

And this was all before we started worrying about the High Holidays.

Sometime in May, questions about High Holidays began circulating, and clergy and their organizations responded with an outpouring of creativity and energy, creating websites, Facebook groups and resources, holding conference calls and practicum

use at home and reinvented liturgy designed for shorter and online services.

Those working at schools reimagined everything from curriculum to instruction, while our clergy on college campuses prepared to welcome students back to a very different community. The explosion of creativity and response has been enormous.

And all of this has taken a toll.

Clergy stress levels have been soaring, according to experts on ministry and clergy nationally. Articles on clergy burnout during COVID-19 and civil unrest abound on the internet. Barna Research, a Christian-based think tank on faith and public life, reports in a recent study that 31% of pastors are struggling with their mental and physical well-being and 25% are concerned about their marriage and family lives. A Duke university Clergy Health Initiative study found that 11% of pastors report symptoms of

depression normally. Numbers have skyrocketed during the pandemic and shut down.

For Jews, like other marginalized groups around the world, the shocking examples of hate activity and growth of far-right hate groups — in particular those spouting anti-Semitism — add fuel to this already devastating mix of fires burning through Jewish clergy energy at this moment.

For these and so many other reasons, we, a cross-denominational collaboration of movement leaders and clergy support organizations, invite Jewish clergy to join our initiative called #HeshbonHeshvan, an opportunity to rest, renew and rejuvenate during the first week of Heshvan, from Sunday, Oct. 18 through Thursday, Oct. 22 (and through Shabbat, a true day of rest, if possible).

In Elul, Jews perform a heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul, as we prepare for the holidays in Tishrei. Once the holidays conclude, we begin the month of Heshvan, a month void of Jewish holidays.

Through #HeshbonHeshvan we perform an accounting of our self-care as we find new ways to rejuvenate so that we may continue to care for our communities. As we encourage #JewishClergySelfCare, we will offer free virtual opportunities for clergy to relax, renew and recharge as we Breathe, Create, Dance, Laugh, Learn, Sing and Support.

This is open to all Jewish clergy, all over the world, working in all types of settings.

Likewise, we are inviting our congregations, day schools, Hillels, Jewish continuing care facilities, yeshivot, organizations and every other places that employ Jewish clergy to Take the Pledge to avoid additional programming, meetings and demands on your clergy in order to support this initiative for #JewishClergySelfCare.

Please see Clergy, page 15

As Simone Shapiro wrote in her letter in the Oct. 2, 2020, edition, “If we are lenient with our judgment of others, G-D is lenient with his judgment of us.”

— LETTERS — We don’t have to agree, but we must recognize common values

I am pained reading the letters to the editor. There are those that want to believe that anti-Semitism is left or right, black or white, rich or poor. There are only two types of people: those that hate Jews and those that don’t. Any attempt to make anti-Semitism fit a particular narrative is mistaken and dangerous.

We don’t have to agree, but we do need to stop attacking our brothers and sisters. This is not a false unity where we march together in complete harmony, but we need to recognize common values that we share. We all want to fight anti-Semitism so that we are secure in our person, homes and property regardless of politics, race or class. How we best do that is of course the test. However, those who disagree with our opinions in the Jewish community are not brainwashed, stupid or bigots. They are simply wrong. This should be our starting point.

We are a small people that does not have a large margin for error. This extreme polarization endangers all of us.

Lee Golden Pittsburgh

Rocky Wice Squirrel Hill

Celebrating the community’s volunteers

I wholeheartedly agree with Raimy Rubin’s* comments vis-à-vis volunteering as an excellent way of expressing one’s Judaism or feelings of connection to Judaism (“Studying community: Volunteerism as an expression of Jewish values,” Oct. 2). One of the many collateral damages of COVID-19 for us at the Jewish Association on Aging has been the need to keep volunteers from our facility. Our incredible and amazing volunteers are so desperately missed by staff, families and residents alike. Their impact on our daily lives is immeasurable.

We are not so patiently awaiting their return and, hopefully, the addition of new individuals from our community who want to truly make a difference to our seniors. I truly believe that the take-away often exceeds the effort — so, in essence, we all win.

Here’s to the amazing people who give of their time throughout our Pittsburgh kehilla.

I know I speak for all of my colleagues when I say, “We can’t wait to welcome you back!”

Sharyn Rubin, JAA’s director of Resident and Community Services Squirrel Hill *Raimy Rubin is the author’s son

Letters should stick to the issues

I have written many letters to the Chronicle and had them edited for content and language. With the election season in full swing, coincidentally in the month of Tishrei (a time for forgiveness and joy), several letters have been published with scornful and angry language. One recent letter writer even had the chutzpah to say she could not forgive Jews who support Trump. Others have accused Biden supporters of being naive. The way things are headed, the letter sections of the Chronicle may eventually be a compendium to the first 2020 presidential debate. Tempers and fear are high, both ways. My question is to the Chronicle editors: Where are you in screening and perhaps calming things down?

More importantly, as Jews we are responsible for our actions, spoken words and emails.

Please try to stick to issues and not act like judges of your neighbors. That leads to better messaging and, who knows, you may change a few minds without the anger or labeling.

12 OCTOBER 9, 2020

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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pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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Opinion Turning fear to hope Guest Columnist Molly Pascal

I

had never heard of the Proud Boys. In fact, I hadn’t even tuned in to the debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden on Sept.

29. “I can’t watch,” I insisted, so my husband Matt appeased me by securing a pair of headphones over his ears as he streamed the event on his computer.

But not knowing began to feel worse than knowing. I periodically peered over Matt’s shoulder, sabotaging the brief attempt at self-preservation. When debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump to publicly condemn white supremacy, Trump hedged.

Wallace pressed, asking for a yes or no.

Trump refused to answer. Then, came the moment. “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” he declared.

My first reaction was confusion. I typed “Proud Boys” into my search engine for more information. There it was, listed by the Anti-Defamation League as a rightwing extremist group known to be “violent, nationalistic, Islamophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic.” They marched alongside neo-Nazis in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The Southern Poverty Law Center listed one chilling quote from an alt-right podcast, in which an organization member claimed that “ … like 90% [of the Proud Boys] would tell

you something along the lines of ‘Hitler was right. Gas the Jews.’”

My second reaction — disbelief (or perhaps naiveté) — led me to the dictionary to make sure I correctly understood the terms. Merriam-Webster noted that “stand back” meant “taking a couple of steps back,” but torpedoed any hope of ambiguity by defining “stand by” as “getting ready or prepared.”

Just shy of the two-year mark of the massacre at the Tree of Life building and the president of the United States not only refused to condemn white nationalism, but seemingly issued a call to arms. At least, that’s what the Proud Boys thought. Some of them promptly incorporated the presidentially coined slogan into their logo and celebrated their newfound legitimacy with shout-outs on social media. Within a day, they were selling T-shirts and reporting a spike in new recruits.

My third reaction was fear. I wanted to grab my kids and hide them somewhere safe, though I wasn’t sure where that might be. My memories took a tragic path littered with Trump’s dangerous words, from the “very fine people” at the far-right rally in Charlottesville to the man who stalked my children’s Jewish day school later that week, to desecrated cemeteries and the proliferation of swastikas, to a Saturday morning in October.

I remembered the panic of calling my brother, then president of Tree of Life, again and again to see if he was alive. I remembered each face of the 11 members of my community murdered that day. I remembered that I

am and will always be Other.

I’ve read many rationales about Trump’s comments. I’ve read a Trump campaign assertion that the public misunderstood; that Trump didn’t know of the Proud Boys; that he merely used the wrong preposition, which might be the most surreally believable theory, if it weren’t for Trump’s well-recorded history of similar comments.

I’ve read assertions that the far left is equally repugnant. Does it matter? When did the freedom for all people to be treated equal regardless of their race, sex or religion become a partisan issue? On the debate stage, President Trump could have clarified his position to all violent extremist groups, and to the world, with a simple declarative statement. All he needed to say was, “Yes, I condemn and denounce white supremacy.”

Instead, he invited them to load their guns. Our community knows all too painfully what it’s like to feel those guns pointed at us, and for the trigger to be pulled.

It took the president two days to say, “I condemn all white supremacists,” but only after public outcry.

We will never feel safe by hiding, only by negating the need to hide. I pray that Jews will vote in prodigious numbers this election, but what more can we do?

This past Yom Kippur, my friend, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife, reminded me of the long game. She planned a day of conversation and dialogue — the first of many — centered on anti-racism, pointing out the common struggle of all minorities and emphasizing that our freedom is connected to the freedom of other marginalized groups.

Her comments helped me later to refocus my fear, and allow my memories to take a different trajectory. I remembered the voices that may not be as visible or as powerful as the president’s, but which will, I hope, matter more in the end.

I remembered Wasi Mohammed, then director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, standing before us at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall on Oct. 28, vowing to protect his Jewish brothers and sisters.

I remembered the gifts — thousands of them — given to the Tree of Life congregation from all over the world, and how the Jews of Pittsburgh donated thousands of dollars for the victims of the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I remembered all the hours and work my friend Marnie Fienberg, daughter-in-law of victim Joyce Fienberg, poured into creating 2forSeder, an initiative created to forge interfaith connections and tolerance.

I remembered how the survivors of the Mother Emanuel AME Church massacre traveled to Pittsburgh from Charleston, South Carolina, numerous times in support. I remembered the trip I took with my brother to visit Mother Emanuel in Charleston this past February, keen to show our support in turn.

If we work harder to join hands with our fellow oppressed, perhaps our unity will turn fear to action, and action to justice.

That is the feeling of hope. PJC Molly Pascal is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Asking the wrong questions about extremist violence Guest Columnist Jonathan S. Tobin

H

e did it again. When presented at the first presidential debate of 2020 with another opportunity to make a straightforward condemnation of white supremacists, he refused. Or at least that’s what many headlines screamed the next morning after the train wreck of a debate that was held in Cleveland. The responses from liberal Jewish groups and most of the chattering classes were angry. According to them, Trump had dog-whistled to extremists and made it clear that he was on the side of the neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys, an offshoot of the alt-right that was recently seen marching in Portland, Oregon.

As with so much of what this president has said, including his much-criticized comments about the August 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, his comments were imprecise, and not uttered in the matter that politicians traditionally use and which they should employ.

It’s also true that like so much of the coverage of Trump’s statements, the summaries of the exchange are inaccurate and misleading.

Trump didn’t refuse to condemn white supremacists. But he didn’t state that position, which has been repeated many times during his presidency and put into policy,

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in the sort of normative declarative statement that, in theory, would have ended the discussion. That’s why no matter how biased so much of the coverage of this event has been, Trump bears the responsibility for what followed.

Even if we acknowledge that fact, the latest edition of these tit-for-tat battles

Wallace with interjections from Joe Biden went as follows: Wallace: “Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence at a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?”

Trump’s refusal to learn to speak like a politician and issue careful, modulated statements, inevitably invites opponents to both cherry-pick words to suit their preferred interpretation and cause the speaker to be mislabeled and be condemned. between Trump and the press about white supremacism didn’t do a thing to give us any pertinent information about the nature of the real extremist danger. Nor did it help a Jewish community that is understandably sensitive about anything to do with possible threats to its security to better understand what it should also be worried about.

The exchange with moderator Chris

Trump: “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would say that almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not from the right-wing. I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”

Wallace: “Well, then, do it, sir.”

Biden: “Say it. Do it. Say it.”

Trump: “You want to call them, what do you want to call them? Give me a name. Go

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ahead, who would you like me to condemn?”

Wallace: “White supremacists.”

Biden: “Proud Boys.”

Trump: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.”

Parsing out what was said here isn’t hard.

Contrary to the headlines, Trump didn’t refuse to condemn these groups. Although he spoke colloquially, saying, “Sure. I’m willing to do that,” was, in fact, a statement of assent.

But Trump didn’t rephrase it as Wallace, with Biden egging on the moderator, demanded. Trump always refuses to do as bidden when placed in such situations, no matter how easy or obvious it would be to do so to simply say, “Yes, I condemn them.”

And telling the Proud Boys to “stand back” was, at least in Trump’s mind, also assenting to Wallace’s question. Unfortunately, adding the rhetorical flourish of “stand by” could be interpreted as diminishing the significance of the first phrase and may well have encouraged the group.

It’s easy to say Trump should have given Wallace what he wanted. But part of the problem here is that Trump knows that he has issued many declarative statements condemning white supremacy throughout his presidency, and it never satisfies those who are eager to pin the label of “extremist” on him. This impels him to petulant defiance that is foolish but not racist.

Trump’s refusal to learn to speak like a politician and issue careful, modulated see Tobin, page 15

OCTOBER 9, 2020 13

Headlines Simchat Torah: Continued from page 1

Shalom parking lot, requires participants to mask, social distance and register in advance, said Rabbi Seth Adelson.

In a slight return to past holiday practice, Beth Shalom is also hosting an evening Simchat Torah service on Oct. 10 with “scaled-back hakafot,” singing and dancing in the Beth Shalom parking lot, Adelson said. The service will be livestreamed, with similar events occurring Sunday morning.

Finally, although details had not yet been confirmed as of press time, Beth Shalom is considering taking “at least one sefer Torah through the neighborhood and ending up at Frick Park near the blue slide entrance for some public dancing and singing that will not be available on Zoom” for the Oct. 11 morning service, said Adelson.

At the Kollel Jewish Learning Center in Squirrel Hill, holiday plans had not been finalized as of press time, said Rabbi Doniel Schon. With so many individuals traveling to Pittsburgh from outside the city, the organization is acting extremely cautiously for fear of COVID-19 transmission, he said.

“We would like to have a Simchat Torah that’s infused with spirit, but safety is our number one concern,” he said.

Rabbi Sruly Altein of Chabad of Squirrel Hill expressed similar concerns leading up to the joyous holiday: “We want everybody to have a good time, while adhering to guidelines in place.”

Between enforcing social distancing during the Simchat Torah morning

p Mount Zion Cemetery in Sugarcreek

JCBA: Continued from page 1

The White Oak site goes back to the McKeesport congregation Anshe Ungarn, or Men of Hungary, according to the JCBA. Some non-Hungarian Jews from that group left to form Ahavas Achim in 1892 and they remained separate for 30 years, with the final burial taking place at the compact Rippel Road cemetery in 1924.

A July 2019 Chronicle article about the cemetery’s existence ended a Monessen man’s 30-year search for a relative killed at age 12 by a train in McKeesport. The family believes one of the graves with illegible markings belongs to the young boy.

“This shows you the kindness of

14 OCTOBER 9, 2020

p Children celebrate Simchat Torah at Temple Sinai, 2019

Photo by Dale Lazar

with Rodef Shalom Congregation, said Tami Prine, marketing and communications director for Temple Sinai. “Rodef is hosting Sukkot and we are hosting Simchat Torah,” she said.

The shared service arrangement between the Squirrel Hill and Shadyside congregations began last Passover, explained Rodef Shalom’s Rabbi Aaron Bisno: “We work on the service together — the rabbis and the music staff share responsibilities — it gives everyone a sense of ownership over the shared celebration.”

While each congregation has its own character, its own participants and its own preference for technology, the combined services have complemented each congregation nicely, continued Bisno.

Tuning into a shared virtual service between congregations is quite different from past Simchat Torah festivities, where singing, dancing and levity were the norm. Even still, for so many people, after spending multiple months at home, and away from a synagogue, there is a value in approaching the holiday with warmth, an open mind and a comfortable seat, explained Bisno. “The injunction on Sukkot is to dwell in booths, which are houses that are not our own, and for people to extend themselves to each other,” he said. “The idea is that we not remain in our place, but reach out to one another — not in a physical sense — and make sure that people know that you are there and you care.” PJC

in-person service and offering pre-packaged food, Altein is confident that Chabad of Squirrel Hill can offer participants a safe and meaningful experience.

“We heard from people that didn’t go to shul on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that they missed that experience,” said Altein. “Maybe this is something they could participate in.”

Cantor Henry Shapiro, spiritual leader of Parkway Jewish Center, located in Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs, appreciates how differently the holiday will feel from years past.

“We might do something virtually online,

but it will be a very short thing,” he said.

“We are not going to dance around with the Torahs. I’ve been leading services on Zoom and it’s kind of hard to dance around with the Torah and play the guitar, but I’ll give it some thought.”

Shapiro, a klezmer musician, is planning to offer, at least, a brief address online and the recitation of several prayers. The program will last no longer than 30 minutes, he said.

Like Parkway Jewish Center, Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill will rely on Zoom for its Simchat Torah service.

Scheduled for Friday evening Oct. 9, the program will operate in partnership

Photo provided by Barry Rudel

p Achavas Achim Cemetery in White Oak

Photo provided by Mark Pudlowski

strangers,” said Barry Rudel, the JCBA’s executive director.

Conscientious members of the broader community have saved or kept alive memories of several other Jewish cemeteries that have recently come under the care of the JCBA, including one in Port Vue. The Kesher Israel Cemetery there, adjacent to Calvary Cemetery, has 20 graves, some marked only with numbers. A dedicated neighbor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has been caring for the property since 2004, Rudel said.

Then, there’s the Mount Zion Cemetery, a Venango County site the JCBA also started to help managing this year. The last synagogue in this once oil-rich community closed around 1940, but borough officials in Sugarcreek, whose municipal building sits across Fox Street from the cemetery, have been paying to

maintain it for more than 30 years.

Why? “It’s the community thing to do,” said Joe Storer, who has served as Sugarcreek’s manager for the past decade. “We estimate it costs about $2,500 a year to maintain it, but we do it because it’s important for these things to not lose their history. It’s the right thing to do.”

“There are no Jews in the area but they’re doing this on their own,” Rudel said. “Now we’re catching up on the Jewish community’s responsibility.”

The cemetery features about 100 graves, many for people who worshipped at Congregation Emanuel — which became, during the High Holidays in 1865, the first Jewish congregation to hold services in Western Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh.

Storer said Sugarcreek, though, is not leaving behind care of the site; he’d like to repair the stone and cement work on two columns framing a fence at the Mount Zion Cemetery next year, with the blessing of the municipal government.

“I’m going to make that a priority in 2021, that we redo those,” he said.

Rudel stressed more news is coming from JCBA, as it continues to have productive talks with communities bearing Jewish cemeteries in the Johnstown and Beaver Falls areas.

“These small communities were small but mighty,” Rudel said. “They are communities that are actually helping out the JCBA more than the JCBA can help them.” PJC

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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Clergy: Continued from page 12

Communities that Take the Pledge will be celebrated publicly.

Even if clergy do not want to participate in any of our online programming, we hope you will give them some space and an opportunity to recharge. We support the concept that #JewishClergySelfCare comes in many forms. Our goal is to encourage this exploration, foster hevruta (partnership), and engage commitment to self-care, so it may truly be a happy and healthy new year for all.

As has been said many times, “You cannot

Tobin: Continued from page 13

statements, inevitably invites opponents to both cherry-pick words to suit their preferred interpretation and cause the speaker to be mislabeled and be condemned.

As with the Charlottesville statement, it’s the spin of Trump’s opponents that will dominate the narrative about the debate. An objective look at that transcript shows that the “very fine people” line was about those who objected to the removal of statues, not neo-Nazis. But many will still remember the debate as the time when Trump didn’t condemn racists.

As much as this latest blot on his reputation is, in large measure, his own fault, any discussion of this subject must also note that Trump’s objections about the question were, in large measure, correct.

The notion that white supremacists or the Proud Boys, a group that the ADL says numbers no more than several hundred, are the ones who created the urban crisis that has afflicted the United States in the last four months of violence and riots is not so much wrong as it is gas-lighting. Sightings of them at the hundreds of riots that have taken place since the death of George Floyd have been rare.

It’s also true that while Biden condemned violence, like Trump, when it came to the Proud Boys, he chose not to condemn Antifa and its fellow travelers, as well as the people who have helped fund and foment riots, but somehow that was largely ignored.

Wallace also ignorantly mischaracterized the “white fragility” critical race theory training sessions that have proliferated in both government and industry as unobjectionable “sensitivity training,” and which Trump has tried to ban. They are driven by a toxic racist and radical theory that is further dividing the nation and fueling violence, rather than quelling it.

Nor did he ask Biden about his refusal or that of his campaign to distance himself from other extremists.

AJC: Continued from page 9

Meanwhile, four to six Arab states are on a path toward normalization, he said.

Saudi Arabia gave Israel overflight rights in September. Netanyahu met with Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional administration, earlier this year.

And Israeli water experts regularly travel to the Middle East Desalination Research Center in Oman.

Plus, he thinks, the Palestinian leadership PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines pour from an empty cup.” We believe our Jewish clergy, who have worked so hard and so long for the sake of our communities, deserve a moment to fill up and enjoy a cos rivaya (full goblet) once again. PJC Rabbi Elyse Wechterman is the executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Rabbi Ilana Garber is the director of global rabbinic development for the Rabbinical Assembly. #HeshbonHeshvan #JewishClergySelfCare is a joint project of the RRA, RA, CCAR, CA, USCJ, RJ, Institute for Jewish Spirituality (IJS) and more.

This piece originally appeared at ejewishphilanthropy.com.

For all of his pose of civility and normality, Biden wasn’t asked why he compared Trump to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels or why a Jewish Democratic group has published an ad comparing the administration to the Third Reich, egregious and inappropriate Holocaust references that should have been vigorously condemned by the organized Jewish community, but which it has largely winked at because of the political leanings of its leaders.

Wallace didn’t ask Biden why he and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris met with an anti-Semitic supporter of hatemonger Louis Farrakhan whose son had been shot by police, about whom his running mate said she was “proud.”

Biden also wasn’t asked about his campaign’s apology for denouncing the anti-Semitism of former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour who was granted a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention.

None of that absolves Trump from his failure to clearly state his position on right-wing extremists or for statements that he has made that are worthy of criticism. But the fact that what the president said was mischaracterized as support for white supremacists, while Biden gets a pass for his equivocations and refusal to explicitly condemn left-wing extremists who have been the ones burning American cities in recent months, is exactly what convinces Trump that he shouldn’t bother conforming to the demands of his interrogators.

The real tragedy here is that at a time when conversations about race and violence have never been more important, a debate that might have shed light on them did just the opposite. Partisans will seek to apportion blame for this depending on their political sympathies. However, the result is that the Trump-Biden brawl obfuscated the public discussion of extremist violence instead of clarifying it. PJC Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS— Jewish News Syndicate.

will be under increasing pressure by its people, who see advantages in business interaction with Israel.

Putting a deadline on peace can be tough, though. Countries won’t take steps that pose domestic risks, Isaacson said. But leaders can prepare their citizens for change.

And he sees the UAE and Bahrain deals as just the start. “I expect more and more peace and prosperity to flow from this,” he said. PJC Kayla Steinberg can be reached at ksteinberg@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Israel will ban most sales of animal furs, government minister says — WORLD —

By Josefin Dolsten | JTA

I

srael will ban the buying and selling of furs, a government minister said.

Calling the use of animal skin and fur for clothing “immoral,” Gila Gamliel, Israel’s environmental protection minister, said the country would move to ban the trade, according to a recent report from the BBC. The move would make Israel the first country to ban the sale of all fur. Only a handful of cities in the United States and Sao Paolo, Brazil, currently have such a policy in place, according to the BBC. The new policy would allow exceptions for “scientific research, education or for instruction and for religious purposes or tradition.” That would likely allow haredi Orthodox men to continue to buy shtreimels, the fur hats traditionally worn on Shabbat and holidays.

Gamliel is currently in the news for having contracted COVID-19 and breaking Israel’s lockdown to pray in a synagogue on Yom Kippur more than 100 miles from her home.

The announcement drew praise from Israeli animal rights groups.

“The minister’s important decision will save countless animals,” the group Animals Now said in a statement, according to The

ChiccoDodiFC / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Opinion

Jerusalem Post.

Israeli lawmakers have debated proposals to ban fur for a decade. PJC

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PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

OCTOBER 9, 2020 15

Life & Culture Outside of Israel, tiny Monaco has the highest ratio of Jews in the world. Here’s why the community is growing.

By Cnaan Liphshiz | JTA

M

onaco, a tiny wealthy country on France’s southeastern coast, is famous for its beautiful beaches, coastal mansions and splendid casinos.

Outside of Israel, Monaco also has the highest ratio of Jewish inhabitants of any country in the world, at over 5%, according to statistics provided by its two rabbis.

To be fair, the city-state’s total population is only about 38,600, making it one of the world’s smallest nations. But its some 2,000 Jews are cultivating a growing community thanks in part to a luxurious synagogue opened in 2017.

Synagogue Edmond Safra, which was buoyed by a donation of more than $10 million by the Safra banking family, is housed inside a building that is shaped like a Torah scroll, its cylinder featuring Jerusalem stone tiling. The structure is oriented to see the Mediterranean and the famed Monaco marina — but has no windows to view them.

The Safra congregation isn’t new, but Daniel Torgmant, its rabbi since 2010, says the new building “has quite simply been an engine for communal growth.” Because of its attractiveness and prime location, “it allows us to attract a lot of people passing through Monaco, or Jewish people whose connection to Judaism is still in its infancy.”

Designed to resemble the far larger Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in Manhattan,

 Rabbi Tanhoum Matusof lights a Chanukah candle at a hotel in Monaco, Dec. 25, 2016.

Courtesy of the Jewish Cultural Center of Monaco via JTA

the Monaco version has a flat roof that boxes in and conceals a domed ceiling with wooden panels that is revealed only in the interior to dazzling effect. The interior’s artificial lighting is so ample that it sustains blooming orchids in pots affixed to wood-paneled circular walls. Several wooden circles, each one larger than the previous, surround the rabbi’s pulpit. They

ripple outward in the direction of the pews, which have about 400 semicircular seats upholstered in purple velvet.

“Having facilities like this really helps bring people in,” Torgmant said.

Like the vast majority of the population here, most of the principality’s Jews were born abroad. Many are millionaires who have come to the tax haven country,

where earnings require neither reporting nor sharing with the government. Others are middle-class employees in the tourism, gambling and banking sectors.

The resulting Jewish population is a relatively new and diverse community whose members speak different languages and come from disparate cultural backgrounds.

There is a bit of religious diversity as well, even though both of the state’s synagogues — Safra and a Chabad-Lubavitch movement outpost — are technically Orthodox. Each has members who are not very strictly Orthodox in their own homes, including many Russian-speaking Jews who own businesses, Israeli entrepreneurs, and French- and English-speaking Jews with ties to the banking sector.

The Chabad synagogue’s appearance pales in comparison to Safra. Situated on the ground floor of a residential building, its prayer hall can hold about 80 people and lacks the stylish kind of furniture on display at Safra.

“The Jews who live here don’t come to us for material reasons, they tend to be well-off,” Tanhoum Matusof, the Chabad emissary who runs the Jewish Cultural Center of Monaco with his wife, Chani, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He recalled one congregant who wondered why the synagogue needed a mikvah, a ritual bath, Please see Monaco, page 20

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PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

OCTOBER 9, 2020 17

Headlines

Torah

Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers partners with Rev. Eric Manning in collaborative global video

A new name

R

abbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha and the Rev. Eric Manning of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, bookended an interfaith, multiracial video titled “Voices for Change” featuring 100-plus cantors and Black music ministers from across the globe. The video was released publicly on Sept. 30.

They sang Richard Smallwood’s “Total Praise,” based on Psalm 121 and popular within both the Jewish and Black communities. Smallwood himself conducted in the video.

Myers and Manning became friends after the massacre at the Tree of Life building during which 11 congregants were murdered and two seriously wounded. Manning came to Pittsburgh several days later to comfort the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. Three years earlier, at Manning’s own church, nine people were killed by a self-proclaimed white supremacist during a Bible study.

The two introduced the singing in the video and spoke about partnership between the Black and Jewish communities afterward.

Manning described Jewish support during the formation of the NAACP. “It wasn’t just people of color coming together but it was also in conjunction with a lot of our Jewish brothers and sisters,” he said. “I think if we can tap back into that same spirit of unity, that same spirit of working together, I believe we could accomplish a lot more in this day and age.”

Myers cited national statistics showing disproportionate attacks on the Jewish and

Black communities in the U.S. “This is a perfect time to continue to grow that partnership because there’s so much we can do together to become anti-racists,” he said.

Hazzan Alisa Pomerantz-Boro, the immediate past president of the Cantors Assembly — which is affiliated with the Conservative/ Masorti movement — came up with the idea of the collaborative video after George Floyd was killed last spring. Pomerantz-Boro said she has seen how Black congregants at her synagogue, Congregation Beth El in Voorhees, New Jersey, have been treated unfairly based on the color of their skin.

“As cantors, we have to use our voices in meaningful ways,” she said.

After coordinating with the Cantors Assembly, she reached out to Myers, knowing that he had a relationship with Manning. “The two of them would be role models,” said Pomerantz-Boro, comparing Myers and Manning’s friendship to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel.

The video asks for donations to the Afro-American Music Institute, based in Pittsburgh. The money will go directly toward scholarships for the boys choir and senior programs.

“Music has the power to heal and bring comfort in a way unlike words alone,” said Pomerantz-Boro. “So by giving the gift of music to underserved populations, it can elevate their lives in a meaningful way.” PJC

T

assistance for lawful permanent residents applying for U.S. citizenship,” Toomey said in a prepared statement.

The grant will aid JFCS — in its partnership with Literacy Pittsburgh — in helping low-income permanent residents “learn English, study for the citizenship test, receive legal representation, and become U.S. citizens,” said Jamie Englert, director of JFCS Immigration Legal Services in an email to the Chronicle. “Through citizenship, our clients will be able to take part in civic life, be eligible for more employment opportunities, and move forward with their American dream.” PJC

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www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org 18 OCTOBER 9, 2020

O

ne day, I was telling my residents at the Jewish Association on Aging about Shemini Atzeret. I said one of the reasons that this holiday is not wellknown is that its name is hard to say for English-speaking people.

Chanukah is easy (although they pronounce it “Hanukah”). Passover is easy.

But Shemini Atzeret is hard. We should have a name that is easier to say and to understand.

One of my residents suggested: How about the “Grand Finale”?

That was a pretty good answer. After all, it is the end of the holiday season (although outside of Israel, we celebrate one more day, Simchat Torah).

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch found within the name of this holiday an explanation of how it really is a finale. “Atzeret,” he writes, comes from the words “to gather.” In other words, we gather up all of the feelings of gratitude, insights and devotion we have

— Toby Tabachnick

accrued during these Holy Holidays and carry them with us into the new year.

We are not the same people that we were before. We have heard the lofty sentiments expressed in the rabbis’ sermons on Rosh Hashanah, the Shabbat of Repentance and Yom Kippur, calling us to repent and improve.

We have heard the awe-inspiring sound of the shofar urging, “Awake you sleepers from your slumber ... ” Our emotions have been stirred by the symbolism of tashlich, the melody of Kol Nidrei and the climactic moment of Ne’ila. And we have been moved by recalling our loved ones at Yizkor.

Shemini Atzeret is the end, and it urges us to consider entering the new year with the new attitude we have learned over these weeks. To begin again with a new determination.

Indeed, it can be and should be a Grand Finale. Shabbat Shalom and chag sameach! PJC Rabbi Eli Seidman is director of pastoral care at the Jewish Association on Aging. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Rabbinic Association.

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JFCS receives $250,000 federal grant

he U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has awarded a $250,000 Citizenship and Assimilation Grant to Pittsburgh’s Jewish Family and Community Services to expand its capacity “to assist lawful permanent residents, including former refugees and asylees, with the naturalization process,” according to a press release from the office of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

JFCS Immigration Legal Services provides attorneys and accredited representatives for free or at nominal cost to people seeking legal immigration related assistance.

Toomey wrote a letter supporting the organization’s grant application earlier this month.

“This grant will provide significant

Rabbi Eli Seidman Parshat Shemini Atzeret Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17

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The Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh (JCBA) welcomes inquiries about the purchase of burial plots. JCBA is committed to the proper care and maintenance of sacred grounds, preserving existing rituals, and is devoted to the stewardship of Jewish cemeteries.

Plots are available in the following JCBA cemeteries: Agudath Achim (Hampton Township) • Anshe Lubovitz • Beth Abraham B’nai Israel (Steubenville) • Machsikei HaDas • Shaare Zedeck Workmen’s Circle #45 • Workmen’s Circle #975 For more information please visit our website at www.jcbapgh.org, email us at jcbapgh@gmail.com or call the JCBA at 412-553-6469.

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Legal Notice Richard Mandus, Deceased of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania No. 02-20-3889 Gregory Mandus, Co-Executor; 3502 Washington Pike, Bridgeville, PA 15017; and Jeffrey Mandus, Co-Executor; 2411 Milford Drive, Bethel Park, PA 15102. or to Bruce S. Gelman, Esquire, Gelman & Reisman, Law & Finance Bldg., 429 Fourth Avenue, Suite 1701, Pittsburgh, PA 15219

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Obituaries GLASSER: Earl Glasser passed away peacefully at his Fox Chapel residence on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020, at the age of 84. Beloved husband of Sheila Glasser. Beloved father of Michael Glasser and Staci (Derek Bush) Glasser Bush. Brother of the late Sanford Glasser. Grandfather of Ashley Glasser and Noah Bush. Uncle of Jay Glasser.

Earl was born in Pittsburgh on Oct. 3, 1935.

He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1954. He then furthered his education by graduating from Erie County Technical Institute as an optician. Earl opened the first of four businesses, Medical Center Opticians, in Oakland in February of 1962, where his son, Michael, continues to carry on his legacy. In October of that same year, Earl married the love of his life, Sheila Singer. They were longtime residents of Squirrel Hill, where they lived and raised their two children. A family man, he enjoyed traveling around the country to visit his numerous relatives, especially his beloved daughter, Staci. As an avid sports fan, he loved watching boxing and his favorite teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Penguins.

After 55 years of helping the community see better, he retired to where he enjoyed winters, in Florida, spending time with his grandchildren and lunches with lifelong friends. He was loved by all and will be sadly missed but leaves behind many treasured memories. Graveside services were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to American Cancer Society, 320 Bilmar Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15205 or a

charity of the donor’s choice. Arrangements entrusted to the Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family-owned and –operated. schugar.com MORRIS: Claire G. Morris, age 94, of Pittsburgh, passed away peacefully on Thursday morning, Oct. 1, 2020. Claire was born March 29 in Pittsburgh to George and Rebecca (Passack) Lifland. She graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School and went on to graduate second in her class from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in chemistry and as the only woman in her class. She married Sam Morris in the late 1940s and raised five children.

Claire played a major role in the family parking business, ran the household and managed just about every aspect of family life. Claire was a classically trained pianist and a bridge Life Master. Until recently she was placing in the top five in regional tournaments. Above all else, Claire valued her family and was a devoted wife and mother as well as a doting grandmother.

She will be dearly missed. She is survived by four children, Dr. Lynn Averill of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Barbara Morris of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dr. Allen Morris of Redding, California, and Paul Morris of Santa Monica, California; eight grandchildren, Ethan, Gordon, Geoffrey, Natalie, Jonah, Sara, Samantha and Connor; and two great-grandchildren, Preston and Oliver. She was preceded in death by her husband, Sam, in 1997, age 79, and her son, Dr. Geoffrey Morris, in 2000, age 49.

Graveside services and interment were held at West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Arrangements

entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family-owned and -operated. schugar.com OPALL: Morton Lee Opall – 1937-2020.

Morton “Mort” Opall of Uniontown passed away peacefully on Oct. 4 after prolonged health complications, holding the hand of his beloved wife, Rosalie, and surrounded by family. He was 82.

A graveside service was scheduled for 1 p.m. on Oct. 6 at the Holy Society Cemetery in Hopwood, Pennsylvania. Born in December 1937, Mort graduated from Uniontown High School in 1955, studied at Penn State University and served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa, Japan. Upon his return from overseas, Mort married his sweetheart Rosalie Gland, formerly of McKeesport, in January 1960. The two have been inseparable ever since. They worked together as partners managing Opall’s Furniture and then Opall’s Just Beds. They golfed together. They were longtime leaders in Uniontown’s Jewish

community. And they raised three children together, first from their home on Derrick Avenue and then from the home they built on Westgate Road in Heritage Hills. Mort Opall was an active member of Uniontown’s Rotary Club. He was a former president of the Tree of Life Synagogue and the Uniontown Chapter of B’nai Brith. Both retired in 2006 and enjoyed frequent travel, spending winter months in Fort Myers, Florida, and visiting children in Richmond, Philadelphia and Israel. Mort Opall was the son of Mary Opall, originally of Baltimore, and Louis Opall, an immigrant from British Mandate Palestine who was born in 1902 near Kharkiv, Ukraine.

He was the proud father of three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandson. He is survived by Rosalie Opall of Uniontown; Barbara and Zvi Rome of Herzliya, Israel; Ed and Terry Opall of Philadelphia; and Laura and Frank Amory of Richmond. All arrangements are under the direction of the Donald R. Crawford Funeral Home in Hopwood, Pennsylvania. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to American Friends of Magen David Adom. PJC

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Investing in Socially Good is Finally Becoming Profitable “ Here is a replay link that you can use to watch our webinar titled Environmental and Socially 2200 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217 412-521-2732 www.paytaxeslater.com

James Lange, CPA and Attorney

The headline above is not my own. It was literally ripped from the pages of The New York Times from an article published on August 29th.

Just a few weeks earlier on August 12th, I had co-hosted my first webinar about socially responsible and environmentally sustainable investing.

I’ve been interested in impact investing (a blanket term used to describe environmentally conscious and socially responsible investing) for a long time. But, like many other investors, I’d always assumed that impact investing, while good for the planet, would force investors to accept a smaller return with additional risk.

I’d never done much research about the opportunities available in this arena of investing.

But I started hearing more buzz about sustainable and socially responsible investing from advisors I respect discussing comparable returns on investments.

I was intrigued and did research. I’m a huge fan of Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) because I believe they have developed the best set of enhanced index funds on the planet. And I knew

Responsible Investing and Getting the Most Bang for Your Charitable Buck: https://paytaxeslater.com/SociallyResponsibleWebinar. You can also read the transcript at https://paytaxeslater.com/SociallyResponsibleWebinarTranscript.”

that Dimensional has designed mutual funds to meet the growing demand for socially screened and sustainability investments, so I decided to start there.

tems, warming temperatures and drying soils — both tied to human-caused climate change — have contributed to observed increases in wildfire activity.”

I took a hard look at the historical performance of DFA’s sustainable and socially screened funds, and the data was impressive. As it turns out, historical returns on portfolios built using DFA’s socially responsible and sustainable funds have consistently equaled or even exceeded those of comparably allocated portfolios built using more traditional funds without additional risks.

The forest fires raging across the western United States have, among other things, temporarily displaced many people from their homes, decimated tens of thousands of acres of forest that, according to researchers, may never grow back, and exposed millions to unhealthy and even hazardous air quality. But, sadly, these real and severe consequences pale in comparison to those that are yet to come if we continue to do little to address global warming.

Learning that there are real opportunities for low cost index investors to incorporate impact investments into their portfolios without necessarily taking a financial hit in the process was a bit of shocker for me.

At the moment most people, myself included, would say that the most urgent problem facing our country and the world community at large is the COVID-19 pandemic and that eliminating or controlling the virus is the most important goal that we should be working toward. But, in the big picture, I believe that global warming is truly mankind’s greatest challenge.

Forest fires are nothing new, but the Union of Concerned Scientists have stated “While fire is a natural and essential part of these ecosys-

The environmental ravages of global warming have already rendered many communities uninhabitable and if nothing is done to limit the emission of greenhouse gases, entire regions of the world will follow suit. Millions upon millions of people will be displaced and global food supplies will be decimated. This isn’t just an environmental issue, it’s an existential threat to humanity.

Given the gravity and urgency of this threat, many of us want to do something. And while government policies are important, sustainable investing provides us as individual investors with the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution. And, if, as the historical data tells us, making

impact investments won’t necessarily cost us any money, it makes sense to consider more sustainable investments.

With that in mind, here is a replay link that you can use to watch our webinar titled Environmental and Socially Responsible Investing and Getting the Most Bang for Your Charitable Buck: https://paytaxeslater.com/SociallyResponsible Webinar. You can also read the transcript at https://paytaxeslater.com/SociallyResponsible WebinarTranscript.

If you are interested in learning more about investing with companies whose values and core missions align with your own, watching this webinar and taking the next step by reaching out to our office to discuss the possibility of working with us and one of our partner DFA firms to develop your own socially responsible portfolio would be a valuable first step. Doing so might also actually improve your financial position and better protect your family. If you are interested in taking the next step to consider impact investing, please call Alice at 412-521-2732.

Content provided is for informational purposes only and should not be used or construed as investment advice or a recommendation regarding the purchase or sale of any security. Socially Responsible Investments may not be suitable for all investors. Investment choices should be discussed with your advisor prior to implementation. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Investing in securities involves risks, including the potential for loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.

The foregoing content from Lange Financial Group, LLC is for informational purposes only, subject to change, and should not be construed as investment or tax advice. Those seeking personalized guidance should seek a qualified professional.

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PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

OCTOBER 9, 2020 19

Monaco: Continued from page 16

seeing as so many of its congregants have their own pools.

“They need us for spirituality and a sense of community, which is something you don’t need a beautiful building to give.”

Still, the Matusofs do take into account the standard of living to which many Jews in Monaco have become accustomed. Their mikvah, for example, resembles a prestigious spa, and holiday celebrations are sometimes held at one of the city’s ritzy hotels rather than the synagogue.

“Listen, one has to understand one’s audience,” Matusof said.

At Matusof ’s synagogue, which has about 200 regular congregants, services are in English for the convenience of the many congregants who don’t speak French. English is also sometimes used at the Safra synagogue, but French is more dominant there.

The relative simplicity of Matusof ’s synagogue has its charms for some of Monaco’s Jews, like the family of Mahnaz Grosjen, a mother of two. She and her family moved from Geneva to Monaco seven years ago at the request of her husband’s employer.

“I was actually not looking forward to raising teenage kids in a very materialistic place,” said Mahnaz, a fashion designer.

“We’re not from the jet set. I actually like that our synagogue looks like any other normal synagogue in Paris or London. I think it sends the right message.”

But even some of Monaco’s Jewish millionaires also feel more at home at Matusof ’s synagogue, which they say has a younger and more international congregation.

“It’s a small, humble place but it’s warm and vibrant,” said Aaron Frenkel, who has lived many years in Monaco with his wife and their five children. He is also the president of the Limmud FSU Jewish organization.

“Maybe it reminds me of Bnei Brak,” he said, referencing the religious Israeli city where he grew up. “Whatever the reason, my synagogue here feels like home.”

The core of Torgmant’s congregation, the rabbi says, is Sephardic Jews older than 60, though the new building has helped bring young families into the fold. Visits to the Safra synagogue have quadrupled since the building’s renovation, and the number of bar mitzvahs and ritual circumcisions have increased dramatically, to about 50 a year, Torgmant said.

Before the pandemic, the Safra synagogue’s opening led brought Jews for Shabbat services from cruise ships.

“It really made things much more dynamic here. It’s like a beacon of light that brings Jews here,” Torgmant said.

One family drawn to the light are Borya

LEGAL NOTICE Jacqueline Slavkin, deceased, of Pittsburgh, PA, No. 4602 of 2020, Robert Slavkin, Executor, c/o David J. Slesnick, Esq., 310 Grant Street, Suite #1220, Pittsburgh, PA 15219

p Jews pray at the Jewish Cultural Center of Monaco in 2018.

Courtesy of Rabbi Tanhoum Matusof via JTA

and Masha Maisuraje, who are originally from the Republic of Georgia and own a shipping company in Kaliningrad, Russia.

They moved to Monaco in 2009 but “had very little to do with Judaism” before the opening of the new synagogue in 2017, Borya said. That year, they decided to plan a bar mitzvah for their youngest son, Alexei.

“It’s welcoming here, it’s a place you immediately feel comfortable in,” Borya Maisuraje said. “We suggested it to Alexei and he immediately said yes.”

Monaco does not have a Jewish school, though both synagogues provide Sunday and Hebrew schools, as well as youth activities during vacations. More observant parents send their children to one of the Jewish schools in Nice, about 10 miles away and also the source for Monaco’s fresh kosher food.

Unlike Nice, where many Jews feel unsafe, walking around with a kippah is no problem in Monaco — anti-Semitic incidents are rare and police have a robust presence. There is about one officer per 70 residents, more than four times the European Union average.

A parliamentary principality with its own royal house, Monaco has a land area that’s smaller than Central Park and is the world’s most densely populated country, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division.

Millionaires constitute a third of the population — a ratio higher than anywhere in the world, according to the 2019 Knight Frank Wealth Report. The annual GDP per capita in Monaco was $185,000 in 2018, more than three times the figure for the United States.

The Safra and Chabad synagogues each have a mikvah and a large garden. The latter amenity allowed them to host outdoor services throughout the High Holidays.

Matusof says Monaco’s mild weather allows the community to comfortably spend hours on end in the sukkah during Sukkot.

“We always enjoyed having a yard because it means our synagogue has its own sukkah on Sukkot,” the rabbi said. “We just never thought our sukkah would end up being our synagogue.” PJC

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THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday October 11: Lucy Balter, Sara Jean Binakonsky, Harry Bricker, Beatrice Charapp, Tillie Cohen, Samuel Jacob Eliashof, Dr. Howard H. Freedman, Hyman Goldstein, Paul Harris, Meyer Jacobs, Hyman L. Leff, Samuel Minsky, Hazel Oswold, Rose M. Rabinovitz, Florence Ruben, Abraham Schrager, Rivka Silverman, Leopold Weiss Monday October 12: Samuel Evelovitz, Dora Friedman, Frances Fromme, Morris Gordon, Ethel Hornstein Josephs, Phyllis K. Kart, Abram Hirsh Levine, Anna Mandel, Lena Moskowitz, Dora Rosenzweig, Abraham J. Rothstein, Bessie Rubinoff, Joseph Shire, Joseph Shire, Joseph Shire, Florence M. Supowitz, Saul David Taylor, Rebecca Weinberg Tuesday October 13: Isadore E. Binstock, Jack Citron, Mary Levinson Cohen, Sarah Silverblatt Epstein, Edward L. Klein, Esther Rogow Landau, Louise Comins Waxler, Dr. Alfred L. Weiss, Samuel J. Wise Wednesday October 14: E. Louis Braunstein, Harry Cooperman, Dorothy Harris, Barney Holtzman, Sidney H. Lefkowitz, Lazor Lewis, Ida Linder, Rose Ratowsky Ohl, David S. Palkovitz, Rachel Povartzik, Celia Rakusin, Florence Shrager, Rita Jo Skirble, Harry S. Smizik, Seymour Spiegel, William Stern Thursday October 15: Joseph Adler, Shirley Barr, Jean Singer Caplan, Saul Eisner, Louis Friedman, Sam Goldberg, Yitzchok Moshe Issac Goldstein, Jack Greenberg, Sadye R. Kantor, Charles Leefer, Louis Levy, Violet C. Miller, Alexander Reich, Flora May Shadden, Bertha Ethel Shamberg, Andrew H. Shapiro, Adolph Weinberger, Esther H. Winkler, Ada Marie Wolfe Friday October 16: William Abrams, Mary Astrov, Peter Davidson, Edward A. Feinert, Elinor Sarah Goldman, Abraham Hansell, Sylvia B. Karpo, Harry D. Linder, I. Edward Plesset, Jesse Rogers, Sara Sadie Sobel, Anna Sokol, Dr. Daniel Solomon, Fannie Stein, Mary Stoller, Harry Ulanoff, Dora Sriglitz Wechsler, Donald Eli Witkin, Rose Zasloff Saturday October 17: Jack Caplan, Morris Chaimovitz, Isaiah Cooper, Laurel B. Devon, Rose K. Freed, Harry Freedman, Pauline J. Isaacs, Sarah Jacobson, Rose Bigman Kalmanowitz, Dr. Paul Kaplan, Anna Klee, Ethel I. Krauss, Ida Magdovitz Krouse, Jacob Joseph Kurtz, Allen Lebovitz, Milton Lehman, Dr. Leonard M. Monheim, Emanuel Rosenthal, Edith F. Simon, Joseph Weintraub, I. Leroy (Lee) Yahr

20 OCTOBER 9, 2020

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Community Siddurim ceremony at CDS

p Community Day School second-graders received their siddurim on Oct. 1. The program, which

p Nitzan Helfand proves there’s no

was originally scheduled to take place last spring but was delayed by COVID-19, featured a socially distanced outdoor ceremony.

masking enthusiasm.

Shake your lulav

Exercising the soul

p Diana Vines proudly hoists her siddur.

Photos courtesy of Community Day School

t Roberta Gallagher, left, and Shirley Grossman shake the lulav and etrog under the sukkah at Congregation B’nai Abraham.

u Ben Vincent gets into the seasonal spirit.

p Aviv Diamant, left, and Debbey Altman-Diamant participated in an outdoor tashlich service with Kesher Pittsburgh and Venture Outdoors.

t Rabbi Sarah Perman shows how it’s done.

Photos courtesy of Congregation B’nai Abraham

p Jonathan and Elena Mayo gain strength while casting away their sins.

Photos courtesy of Sara Stock Mayo

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PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

OCTOBER 9, 2020 21

Community Seasonal Sukkot at Hillel JUC

What’s new at JAA

Students snapped photos in front of a Hillel JUC sukkah while picking up Shabbat2Go meals.

p Priscilla fashionably encourages Riverview residents to vote.

p Sarina Lavon, left, and Brianna Weissman

p Ruth shows that celebrating 100 years never looked so good. p Melanie Silver, left, and Evan Ressel

Photos courtesy of Hillel JUC

Stay safe this season

p Local residents participated in a drive-up vaccine clinic at the JCC Squirrel Hill Forbes Avenue garage.

Photo courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

22 OCTOBER 9, 2020

p Charles Morris resident enjoys a specially delivered treat.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Photos courtesy of Jewish Association on Aging

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WE’RE STRONGER TOGETHER. LET’S KEEP IT THAT WAY. In this unprecedented time, we’re working to keep Jewish Pittsburgh connected as we respond quickly to emergency pandemic needs.

Help us continue our important work: Make a commitment to the Community Campaign today at jewishpgh.org/donate

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OCTOBER 9, 2020 23

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