Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 11-22-19

DID YOU KNOW? The Jewish Deferation of Greater Pittsburgh supports some great programs most people don’t know about: November 22, 2019 | 24 Cheshvan 5780

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Musical theater stalwart Leon Zionts dies 61

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

L

eon Zionts, whose love of theater defined his professional and personal life, died on Nov. 10 after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 61. nd his wife attending which ked

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NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Coffee and sympathy A local Starbucks earmarks table for Jewish students and Hillel JUC staff.

Candlelighting 4:40 p.m. | Havdalah 5:41 p.m. | Vol. 62, No. 47 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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Musical theater National Geographic stalwart Leon photographer’s Squirrel Hill photos at Winchester Thurston Zionts dies at 61

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

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Page 4

in the history of the United States.

Twenty of those images are currently displayed at Winchester Thurston School in Shadyside in an exhibit called “Is Your Neighbor Worth Loving?”

Johnson, a 1971 alumna of Winchester Thurston, has been a photographer for National Geographic for almost three decades. Prior to that, she was a photographer for Time Life, after having worked for seven years for the Pittsburgh Press.

She often captures images that tell difficult stories, such as rape in the military ranks, and zoonotic disease. Her master’s thesis probed the impact of hate crimes.

Sally Allan, visual arts department chair at Winchester Thurston, reached out to Johnson in an effort to bring a message of hope to her students to mark one year since the attack.

“I wanted to have some kind of school response to the anniversary of the shooting at Tree of Life that focused on the positive reaction of the Squirrel Hill community as a microcosm for how we can help each other

eon Zionts, whose love of theater defined his professional and personal life, died on Nov. 10 after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 61.

Prior to his death, Zionts and his wife Nancy spent their evenings attending musical theater productions, many of which featured actors who had previously worked in shows the couple produced.

Zionts and Nancy met and fell in love while studying at Hebrew University in Israel. At one  Leon Zionts point, when Nancy Photo courtesy of Nancy Zionts returned to the U.S. for Passover, Zionts attempted to send her a dozen roses on her birthday. But with his small allowance, he could only afford seven.

“He wired me seven roses for my birthday,” Nancy recalled. “The card read, ‘All that I have, I give to you.’ From then on, the only flowers we exchanged were seven roses.”

A few days before Zionts’ death, a friend brought the couple a vase of roses. After he died, Nancy looked at the flowers more closely. “There were seven pink roses. It was such a beautiful coincidence. To me, they were the last flowers I will receive from him.”

Married in 1986, the couple shared a mutual passion: “Everything about theater, we absolutely loved,” Nancy said.

Though Zionts worked as an attorney after graduating with a law degree from Duquesne University, after a heart attack in 1996, he and Nancy decided to reassess.

“Our kids were 6 and 8. We reevaluated our life and he went back to theater,” Nancy said.

Zionts’ first role following bypass surgery was one he’d long be identified with: Tevye in

Please see Photographer, page 20

Please see Zionts, page 20

LOCAL Kind hearts, kind deeds

Commemorating the yahrzeit of those killed at the Tree of Life building with 11 special days.

Page 6 WORLD Witness at the border Rabbi Jeremy Markiz on a heartwrenching trip to El Paso.

Page 8

 Eli Vogel was traveling home to New Jersey and felt compelled to stop to sing his prayers at the memorial at the Tree of Life building. Photo by Lynn Johnson

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

N

ational Geographic photographer Lynn Johnson spends most of her time out of the country on assignment, but she happened to have just landed at the Pittsburgh International Airport on Oct. 27, 2018, when she first heard that there was a shooting happening in Squirrel Hill.

“I’ve been a journalist and photographer for now almost 40 years, so I can’t say that much surprises me, but there definitely was something horrific about it happening in our town” said Johnson, who spent most of her youth growing up in Pittsburgh, and currently resides on the North Side when she is not traveling. “Not just because we may or may not know the people involved, but that it just made so clear that everyone is vulnerable, that no one is protected from this insane division, this hatred, animosity that continues to grow in this country.”

In the days following the massacre, Johnson photographed Squirrel Hill for National Geographic, producing images that show the humanity of a community pulling together after the most violent attack on Jews

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle

LOCAL Solomonov returns

WORLD Yael Eckstein’s inheritance

COMEDY Funny talk with Modi

Headlines Designated Starbucks table blends interests — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

S

o much of college is predicated on caffeine and camaraderie that a recent pairing of the two seems about as sweet as a caramel macchiato between friends. Several months ago, Starbucks employees at 4022 Fifth Ave. in Oakland began placing a chalk-written sign on one of the tables: “This table is reserved for our friends at Hillel 10 a.m.-4 p.m.”

“Hillel brings a lot of students into Starbucks, and because they bring in so much business, my boss decided they should have their own table to have their own space to meet, instead of having to fight for space to meet in such a busy area,” said Polina Neft, a Starbucks barista.

Prior to the sign’s placement, Ariel Walovitch, Hillel JUC’s director of engagement, was regularly meeting with students and colleagues at various tables in the shop.

“It’s very funny because I always refer to that Starbucks as my office,” she said. The manager “noticed what we were doing and wanted to support us and create that safe space for the Jewish students.”

“Starbucks as a company encourages us to make it a safe space for all sorts of people from all walks of life. Ariel and her team are there a lot so it occured to me to give them a space to do what they do,” said Nick Drop, the store’s manager.

This decision by Starbucks “was really meaningful to me,” said Leah Belman, a University of Pittsburgh student. “I was really touched by how welcoming Starbucks is to the Jewish community and Jewish students.”

Please see Starbucks, page 5

p Jonathan Perlman, left, and Ariel Walovitch

Photo courtesy of Hillel JUC

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Headlines

“Having a checkup was routine.

Needing a new kidney wasn’t.”

Brenda L., North Versailles

p Lauren Meltzer, left, and Maddie Ginsberg

Starbucks: Continued from page 4

The dedicated table also made life easier for Belman, who apart from studying supply chain management and marketing is a campus engagement intern with Hillel JUC. “I try to bring uninvolved Jewish students into the Jewish community on campus,” said the University of Pittsburgh junior. “One of the huge ways that I do my job is taking out freshmen on coffee dates.”

Per the program’s design, Belman is given a Starbucks gift card from Hillel JUC. “We’re able to take out the students in a casual way, face to face, and neither of us has to worry about paying, and we can talk about classes or what’s happening on campus,” said Belman. “A lot of the time we just catch up.

Being college students, it’s nice to be able to get together and talk.”

Belman visits the the Amos Hall Starbucks on Fifth Avenue about twice a week, and said the table is almost always occupied by either Walovitch or other Jewish students.

“The sign says 10 to 4 but they’re pretty much there from 10:30 in the morning until maybe 8 at night, and it’s not just people who work at Hillel but students who are engaged at Hillel sit there too,” said Neft.

“The Hillel table at Starbucks epitomizes one of the key values of our Hillel: being present at the right space in the right place at the right time to meet students’ needs,” said Dan Marcus, Hillel JUC’s executive director and CEO. There is a lot of programming that occurs in Hillel JUC’s building, but the table “feels

Photo courtesy of Hillel JUC

like so much of a safe space, where you are accepted as part of the Hillel community but you’re not actually at Hillel,” said Belman.

“What’s also really special about it is that I have met so many new Jewish students at that table that I wouldn’t have met otherwise because they see me sitting at the Hillel Starbucks table with the sign saying ‘Reserved for Jewish students’ and then (I get) asked about Hillel, and asked what it is, and I get to know them, which is really cool,” said Walovitch.

Drop, who isn’t Jewish, is happy that the area is achieving its purpose.

“Part of the reason why this was important to me was when I was in college at CCAC I had a professor who was Jewish and she opened her doors to me and other students, and she would teach us an act of Shakespeare every single week at her home in Squirrel Hill,” he said. “She was actually born in Hungary and ran around in World War II and has some really dark memories from back then. Her story and her travels hit me in a soft spot. For me to be able to do this at my level was really meaningful.”

Walovitch is grateful to Drop and Starbucks for their willingness to bolster a community. Since September, she’s met with approximately 300 students there. The irony of the klatch, however, is in the ordering, explained Walovitch.

“I meet with so many students throughout the day, I typically just get water or decaf,” she said. “Because I’m very energetic, I stay away from the caffeine.” PJC

The day after an annual exam that she’d been putting off, Brenda got an unexpected call from her UPMC primary care physician. Her routine bloodwork showed she was in kidney failure and needed a transplant. “One day I’m fine, the next, I need a transplant,” Brenda said. “I didn’t even feel sick. But I knew I was in the right place. My PCP connected me with the transplant team at UPMC. Together, they talked me through everything. I thought I’d be scared, but I really wasn’t. My sister was tested to be a donor and was a match. Now I’m back at work and back to being myself.”

To learn why UPMC should be the first choice for all your care, from routine to advanced, visit UPMC.com/Routine.

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

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Headlines Shabbat together caps campus days of kindness — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

D

ays of challah-baking and coatcollecting culminated in discussion, prayer and board games at Hillel JUC. The Nov. 15 gathering, which began with lighting 11 yahrzeit candles in memory of those murdered in last year’s attack at the Tree of Life building, marked the coming end of 11 days of kindness and a collective effort to reinforce the value of community.

Nearly a week and a half before students congregated in Oakland to memorialize, pray, discuss and eat a dinner of shawarma, falafel and lava cakes, Hillel JUC marked its fifth annual Hillel Makes a Difference Day on Nov. 3.

Through Hillel Makes a Difference Day, more than 120 Jewish students volunteered at 12 service projects across Pittsburgh, explained Dan Marcus, Hillel JUC’s executive director and CEO. The annual program is typically scheduled for the first Sunday in November, but while coordinating this year’s schedule, a Hillel JUC staffer recognized a calendrical connection.

When a colleague noticed that this year’s date for Hillel Makes a Difference Day was separated by 11 days from “the yahrzeit, we

felt like it was beshert,” said Danielle Kranjec, Hillel JUC’s senior Jewish educator.

The 11-day period was “really important because it gives us a reminder of how we want to model the year both in and out of the Jewish community,” said Carolyn Brodie, president of Pitt Hillel.

During that span there were opportunities for Jewish and non-Jewish people to volunteer together or take on individual efforts, explained Dionna Dash, a University of Pittsburgh student studying communications and linguistics with a French minor.

Participating in these projects was a reminder that “you have allies and you have a personal power to help your community,” she said.

The 11-day period also was “a way for us to rectify some things as much as one can after the shooting,” said Brodie. There was an ability to “bring a little bit of good back into the world and create a movement for other students to do that as well.”

“Many of the events were community service related and hands-on and helped me a lot, like baking challah,” said Dash.

“Physically being able to take something in your hands and create was a very cathartic way to work through grief.”

Students on campus experienced much last year and there was a great desire to act.

Through these 11 days, Hillel JUC was able to provide a framework, explained Kranjek.

“I think everyone wants to be a good

p Jonah Lerman, left, Cayla Rubin and Barrie Weiner decorate cards during Hillel Makes a Difference Day. Photo courtesy of Hillel JUC

person, and there are universal values around being good, but what’s important for us is to show students a distinctively Jewish iteration of what it means to be good,” said Kranjek.

This period, and particularly through Shabbat, was an opportunity to “show how Jewish values connect to universal values and how they’re distinct.”

Throughout the period, students bounded acts of kindness with Torah study or Jewish

practice. Solidifying these endeavors was a special “Shabbat Together” on Nov. 15 and 16, organized by Hillel JUC. Following the Nov. 15 yahrzeit candle lighting ceremony, services and dinner, which was attended by Pitt’s dean of students Kenyon Bonner and senior vice chancellor Kathy Humphrey, was “an oneg and board Please see Kindness, page 7

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Headlines Kindness: Continued from page 6

games in honor and remembrance of Mel Wax, z”l,” said Kranjek.

On Sat. Nov. 16, Carnegie Mellon University’s Jewish students similarly organized services, meals and study for the campus community.

Between Hillel Makes a Difference Day, the 11-day interim and Shabbat, there were many opportunities for pause and reflection, including a Havdalah ceremony on Nov. 9, held near the “Lest We Forget” exhibit at the University of Pittsburgh campus. The Saturday evening ceremony, which marked the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht, was led by Hillel JUC student leaders and representatives of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.

The generational span at the ceremony was a welcome reminder of community, explained Dash.

“It was the only event I’d been to through the 11 days where there was just a large presence of people from the Jewish community, and not just from Pitt, and I really did feel a connection to them. There was almost a second circle of people that understood what we’re going through,” she said. “I feel like a lot of the events throughout the 11 days have been super helpful, but you go and see the same people — all Pitt students or CMU students, all Jewish students. This

p Students gather on Hillel Makes a Difference Day.

had a different sense of community. It felt like we all went through this together. We all experienced the fear and the horror of Oct. 27 together, and I hadn’t appreciated how much the larger adult Jewish community experienced those feelings because I don’t have that much exposure to them.”

Turning 65?

Were These Your Classmates?

Photo courtesy of Hillel JUC

Whether it was through the Havdalah ceremony, Hillel Makes a Difference Day, Shabbat or the 11 days of kindness, the collective period afforded students a chance to “feel an even stronger sense of community and togetherness,” said Marcus.

For many students, the lead-up to the

yahrzeit was particularly difficult.

“Being in community and being in Jewish community is a great antidote,” said Kranjek. PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishcommunity.org.

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NOVEMBER 22, 2019 7

Headlines Local rabbi witnesses detention at El Paso-Juarez border — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

T

he stories of detainees at the El PasoJuarez border resonate deeply with Rabbi Jeremy Markiz, whose father, as well as three of his grandparents, were immigrants to the United States.

“Immigration is an important part of not just my story, but our story as Jews,” explained Markiz, director of Derekh and youth tefillah at Congregation Beth Shalom.

Having been an outspoken advocate for asylum seekers in the age of Trump, Markiz was invited to join other Jewish clergy from around the country on a trip to the border sponsored by HIAS and T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. The group of 23 clergy and staff headed down to El PasoJuarez on Nov. 3 for a three-day journey to explore and witness the conditions challenging masses of migrants trying to enter the United States, most of them desperately trying to find better lives for themselves and for their children.

Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, form “basically one community and one city separated by a border,” Markiz noted. The area, with a combined total population of about 2.5 million people, has served for centuries as a “pathway to the north,” because the area sits within a break in the mountains.

The clergy heard from HIAS attorneys and local government officials about the history of the region as well the complex laws governing immigration and asylum.

A recently enacted U.S. policy called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), has created a difficult situation for many asylum seekers, Markiz learned. Now, those from Central America wishing to find asylum in the U.S. must remain in Mexico until their legal proceedings have concluded, which can take months.

The clergy visited a migrant shelter in Juarez which housed people from countries such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, many of whom were “escaping for their lives from gangs, drug cartels, climate change in some cases,” Markiz said.

“These are people who don’t have somewhere to go back to.”

After trekking “all the way up to the border,” Markiz explained, instead of being admitted into the U.S. and getting an asylum hearing, they encounter border patrol, which prohibits them from entering the country.

“They have to take like a deli counter number in a process called ‘metering,’” said Markiz. “This metering list has tens of thousands of people on it.”

The asylum seekers, with no resources, are then “stuck, waiting to be processed in Mexico,” said Markiz. “Many of them are just on the streets, in tents, in shelters. There is a population of people from southern Mexico who are also in this category of people trying to get across the border, seeking asylum from the Mexican government.”

Once the migrants do get called for processing, “they are brought into ICE

8 NOVEMBER 22, 2019

p Rabbi Jeremy Markiz at the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh’s banner at the Walmart in El Paso targeted by a mass shooter last summer.

Photos provided by Jeremy Markiz

p A shelter at the El Paso-Juarez border.

custody,” Markiz explained. “The pictures we see on TV of those chain link fences and the Mylar blankets, and people sleeping on the floor, those are the processing centers.

They are not supposed to be there for more than 72 hours, but of course we know for a fact that many people are staying there for weeks on end.”

Once the people are processed by ICE, because of the MPP, they are sent back into Mexico to wait for their court hearing, where they are held in shelters by the Mexican government.

“The very first shelter we went to on that first morning, there were the people who were waiting for their court date,” he said.

“There were 250 beds and 651 people staying

there. The Mexican government had sort of a disaster kitchen from the military there providing thousands of meals every day.

People there were profoundly friendly and they wanted to tell us their stories.”

While there, Markiz heard the story of Giselle, a Honduran who had worked on a military base and who escaped her country along with her 16-year-old daughter after her life was threatened.

“She is afraid to leave the shelter because the gangs are not that far outside the shelter,” said Markiz.

Another woman in the shelter was a professional soccer player, who, after fouling an opponent during a game, was threatened by that person’s sibling, a gang member.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

“These people are fleeing for their lives,” Markiz said. “They are literally going to be murdered.”

The group of clergy also visited the Otero detention center.

“It was a show prison,” said Markiz. “They cleaned it up, and it was antiseptic by the time they showed it to us.”

Nonetheless, he said, “it was a prison.

These people are in civil detention. They are not criminals. The majority of these people have not committed a crime. And yet they are being held in barracks. We saw these people waiting to be processed into this place and you could see the desperation in their eyes. They are afraid. And it was hard for us to figure out how to communicate that we are their allies, that we are not enjoying this experience of seeing them in prison, which was challenging.”

Otero, he said, has a “particular history of misusing solitary confinement,” and although signs throughout the facility boast the tagline BIONIC (“Believe It Or Not I Care”), Markiz was convinced “you only say that when it is not possible to believe it.”

“We were told they never have more than a few people in solitary and for the most part it is something they are choosing for themselves,” said Markiz. “ But every lawyer we met told us they use it in a punitive way — again, these people are not criminals — to inflict pain and suffering on these people.”

There were only a few telephones in the hall for detainees to use, and just four computers — with no internet — in the facility’s “law library,” according to Markiz.

“It’s hard to sit with the attempt for gaslighting here, for the cognitive dissonance with these people who are trying to show this humane prison while not seeing the profound inhumanity they are treating these people with,” he said. “They once used the language of ‘bodies’ for people. That says something. It is profoundly dehumanizing.”

The majority of the people in the detention centers are “trying to find safe places in the United States to live, just like you and I,” Markiz stressed. “They want what we have.

And that is reasonable. These people are not different from us. That’s the most important thing. Their story is exactly the same story.

Swap out gangs and drug cartels with Cossacks, it’s the same story.”

The rabbi also visited the memorial in El Paso for the victims of the Walmart Shooting.

“As I walked along the memorial, I remembered how profoundly hard this past year has been in Pittsburgh and recognized how much more healing we have to do,” he wrote on Facebook. “El Paso and Juarez are just starting that process and I feel connected to them. There is something that connects all of us who deal with mass shootings.

“With tears in my eyes, I encountered the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh’s banner and I broke down completely,” Markiz continued.

“I sobbed standing there. Holding my own pain and sorrow with that of El Paso’s was profound.” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Kickoff event first dish in Federation’s annual campaign — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

A

trip to the casino is always a gamble so event organizers stacked the deck. In an effort to kick off its 2020 campaign and raise $14 million, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh hosted a conversation with acclaimed chefs Michael Solomonov and Kevin Sousa at Rivers Casino on Nov. 13.

The evening affair provided time to mingle and enjoy hors d’oeuvres and drinks, however, for the hundreds in attendance the main dish was clearly the chance to hear Solomonov, a former Pittsburgher and multiple James Beard Award-winner, field questions from Sousa, a Pittsburgh native and James Beard Award semifinalist.

Sousa, though unseasoned, relished the role of examiner.

“I’ve never interviewed anyone onstage in front of a couple hundred people,” he said.

Solomonov “made it easy on me, so it was a piece of cake.”

For more than 30 minutes, Sousa’s queries enabled Solomonov to delve into personal connections to Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and its place within the latter’s meteoric rise from Squirrel Hill kid to culinary master.

It was a rocky and uncertain climb, explained Solomonov, the current chef and co-owner of several renowned Philadelphia restaurants.

Since leaving the Steel City for Israel with his family at 15, his parents got divorced, his younger brother David was killed in military action on Yom Kippur, mere days before his release from the IDF, his mother Evelyn died, and he struggled with addiction.

Returning to Pittsburgh offered a chance to reflect, he explained.

“I feel like I’m such a child of this community. It’s so nice to be able to not be taking from it and instead be generous or contributing to something positive,” said Solomonov, who with co-author Steven Cook wrote the books “Federal Donuts,” “Israeli Soul” and “Zahav.”

“I feel like I haven’t been to Squirrel Hill since the shooting at Tree of Life, so I feel like there is a grieving, cathartic process that I am

going through right now,” added Solomonov.

“Sort of the success of my upbringing, really, I attribute to this community, and it’s just nice to be back and to be part of it.”

Solomonov’s personality and work ethic make him “one of the most inspiring chefs I’ve ever met,” said Sousa. “I mean, his stories will bring you to tears. He’s giving it so much just in an interview — imagine what he’s doing in the kitchen and with his staff and with his family.”

Eventgoers recalled Solomonov’s days as a young boy who ate Nutella sandwiches and had a passion for origami.

“It was really good seeing him after all these years,” said Chani Shusterman, who was taught

by Solomonov’s mother at Yeshiva Schools.

“I catered an event with him a couple of years ago. He’s definitely talented, but he’s also a real mensch,” said Judah Cowen, of Elegant Edge Catering.

Meryl Aisnman, chair of Federation’s board, called Solomonov’s story “compelling,” and said he demonstrated real strength and conviction.

Along with the conversation between chefs and the opportunity for attendees to reconnect, the evening was a “celebration of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community,” said Robin Gordon, an honorary event chair.

The specialness of the Steel City and its Jewish community is something that’s “been such a part of my life,” said Barbara Burstin, who with her husband, David Burstin, received the 2020 PNC Community Builders Award.

“I’ve lived in this town for seven years.

I grew up and went to a Jewish school in Florida, but this is the first time I’ve ever lived in a truly Jewish community,” echoed Matt Feinman, one of several event chairs.

“When you leave Squirrel Hill, not every city has 10 synagogues or a Forbes and Murray,” said Solomonov.

This community is “absolutely incredible,” said Sousa. “It’s emotional because after the year that Pittsburgh had, to see five, six hundred people out supporting on a Wednesday night, it’s unbelievable. I couldn’t be happier and more proud to be a part of it and continue to be a part of it, and I’m not Jewish.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Calendar q SUNDAY, NOV. 24 Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division for I-Volunteer Thanksgiving Food Packing at Repair the World (6140 Station St.) on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 1 p.m. Please bring non-perishable goods and get ready to help pack and sort Thanksgiving donations to local organizations that help those in need.

This project is aimed at young adults and young families. Visit jewishpgh.org/ event/i-volunteer-thanksgiving-foodpacking/ to register.

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

Submissions will also be included in print.

Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q FRIDAY, NOV. 22 Moishe House invites you to attend a Friendsgiving Potluck Shabbat dinner beginning at 7:30 p.m. Moishe House events are intended for young adults age 22-32.

For more information, visit facebook.com/ events/557530681458298.

q SATURDAY, NOV. 23 Attend Rodef Shalom’s (4905 Fifth Ave.) “Night at the Races” at 6 p.m. The evening includes a 50/50 raffle, Chinese auction, and cash prizes for picking the winning horse. All proceeds benefit Mimsie’s Place, the preschool playground of the Berkman Family Center.

Tickets are $40 per person. Name a horse at $20 each: Secretariat, Justify, Affirmed – choose your name! Event tickets include food and two drinks. You must be 21 to attend. To RSVP, visit rodefshalom.org/rsvp.

Congregation Beth Shalom’s Samuel and Minnie Hyman Ballroom (5915 Beacon St.) will be transformed into the hottest comedy

Olivia Tucker presents “New Heroines from Ancient Times” as part of Rodef Shalom’s “Wisdom, Wine, and Cheese Lecture Series.”

Free and open to the public, 4905 Fifth Ave, 7 p.m. rodefshalom.org.

club in town for Come Together: Comedy Night, the congregation’s annual fundraiser.

The comedy night stars Modi, called “the next Jackie Mason” by The New York Times. The laughs begin at 7 p.m. Tickets: bethshalompgh.org/cometogether.

q THURSDAY, DEC. 5

q SUNDAY, NOV. 24

Chabad of Squirrel Hill invites you to attend An Evening of Celebration with Rabbi Moshe Bryski on Thursday, Dec. 5 at Chabad of Squirrel Hill (1700 Beechwood Blvd.) at 7 p.m.

The evening includes a wine and cheese reception and presentation of the Community Lamplighter Award. Covert: $50. Visit chabadpgh.com to make a reservation.

Temple Sinai (5505 Forbes Ave.) is writing a Torah to honor Rabbi Jamie Gibson and they want you to join them for their Sacred Words, Sacred Connections Kick-Off Event beginning at 7:30 p.m. There’s no charge for the evening, but RSVP is required. templesinaipgh.shulcloud.com/event/torahproject-kick-off-event.html.

Watch the Steelers take on the Cincinnati Bengals at Hough’s Taproom and Brewpub (563 Greenfield Ave.) with the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. but arrive by noon to guarantee seating. Dietary laws may not be observed. For more information and to register visit jewishpgh.org/event/steelers-vs-bengals. q TUESDAY, NOV. 26 South Hills Interfaith Movement invite their South Hills neighbors to attend the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service beginning at 7 p.m. This year’s event will be held at Bower Hill Community Church, 70 Moffett Street. All are welcome. Contributions of non-perishable food items benefit the SHIM food bank For more information visit shimcares.org/event/ interfaith-thanksgiving-service/?event_ date=2019-11-26.

q THURSDAYS, DEC. 5, JAN. 2, FEB. 6, MAR. 5, APR. 2, MAY 7, JUNE 4 Facilitated by local clergy, the ChristianJewish Dialogue at Rodef Shalom (4905 Fifth Ave.) explores topics of similarities and differences. Themes range from wedding rituals to the story of Noah. Attendees are invited to join for any and all sessions. Free and open to the public. q SATURDAY, DEC. 7 Sthiel Pilates & Movement Center (316 S. St. Clair St.) hosts Lauri Lang, RDN LDN Concierge Wellness LLC for Holistic Nutrition and Wellness. Dec. 7, 2019’s theme is Enhancing Immune Function, Vitality and Graceful Aging. The workshop is 75 minutes in length. $59. Visit sthielpilates.com for more information and to register.

Please see Calendar, page 11

This week in Israeli history Nov. 25, 1940 — Transport Ship Patria is sunk

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

Nov. 22, 1923 — Actress Hanna Maron is born

In the rustling

Hannele Meierzak, who as Hanna Maron is recognized by Guinness as the actor with the world’s longest stage career, is born in Berlin. She makes aliyah in 1933 and wins the Israel Prize in 1973.

of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn.

We Remember Them.

Nov. 23, 1926 — Spymaster Rafi Eitan is born

Rafi Eitan, whose intelligence career ranges from the high of capturing Adolf Eichmann in Argentina to the low of handling U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard as a spy, is born on a kibbutz at Ein Harod.

Nov. 24, 2006 — Rapist Benny Sela escapes

Benny Sela, convicted in 2000 of committing 14 sexual assaults in Tel Aviv, escapes on his way from prison in

Lee & Lisa Oleinick 10 NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Beersheba to a court hearing in Tel Aviv. He eludes a manhunt until Dec. 8.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

The Haganah bombs the SS Patria in Haifa’s harbor to prevent British officials from shipping more than 1,700 Jewish refugees to Mauritius. The intent is to disable the ship, but instead it quickly sinks, killing 267 people.

Nov. 26, 2013 — Singer Arik Einstein dies

An aortic aneurysm kills beloved singer/songwriter Arik Einstein at age 74 in Tel Aviv, leading thousands of fans to gather the next day in Rabin Square.

Nov. 27, 2007 — Understanding signed at Annapolis

A one-day conference in Annapolis, Maryland, produces a joint statement from Ehud Olmert, Mahmoud Abbas and George W. Bush committing to direct negotiations on final-status issues toward a two-state solution.

Nov. 28, 1961 — Operation Yachin begins

After a two-year ban on Jewish emigration from Morocco, Israel launches Operation Yachin to help Moroccan Jews make aliyah. By the operation’s end in 1964, more than 97,000 Jews leave Morocco. PJC

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Calendar Calendar: Continued from page 10

Water Well

Enjoy a gala evening at Congregation Beth Shalom Men’s Club Sweepstakes & Awards Dinner 2019 (5915 Beacon Street) beginning at 6:30 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres and open bar. Dinner will be served at 7:30 p.m. with entertainment at the end of the prize drawings. Reserved seating, RSVPs required no later than Wednesday, Nov. 27. $75. To RSVP, visit bethshalom.org/events-upcoming.

Betty and Alexis

q SUNDAY, DEC. 8 Volunteer at Super Sunday, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s annual mega-phone-a-thon, at the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Three time slots available. For more information, visit jewishpgh.org/event/super-Sunday-2. q THURSDAY, DEC. 12 Join Chabad of the South Hills for the monthly series “Rosh Chodesh Society for Women: Insight Infused with the Wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” Chabad of the South Hills (1701 McFarland Road). $70.

For more information or to register contact batya@chabadsh.com or 412-341-1494.

Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division for their 3-part series Young Adult Bartending Club.

Each session takes place at a different bar.

November’s get together is at the Omni William Penn Hotel (530 William Penn Place) beginning at 7 p.m. For more information and to register, visit jewishpgh.org/event/youngadult-bartending-club-5. q SUNDAY, DEC. 15

q SATURDAY, DEC. 7 Congregation Beth Shalom (5915 Beacon St.) welcomes Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland.

Learn about his journey to become the chief rabbi, the challenges Jews face there and the future of their community. Rabbi Schudrich’s talk is free and begins at 12:45 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalom.org/ events-upcoming. $10. threeriversfilmfestival.com/films/jewishmemories-of-pittsburghs-hill-district q TUESDAY, DEC. 17 Rodef Shalom’s “Wisdom, Wine, and Cheese Lecture Series” presents rabbis discussing their experiences as Women on the Pulpit.

Free and open to the public, 4905 Fifth Ave, 7 p.m. rodefshalom.org. q SUNDAY, DEC. 22

Games, crafts, music, prizes, sufganiyot and latkes! Everyone is welcome to attend J-JEP’s 10th Annual Latkepalooza on from 10 a.m.noon at Congregation Beth Shalom, 5915 Beacon Street. $5 per person. Help give light to others and stop by the BSUSY/theRSTY teen table with a donation of new clothes or school supplies for NCJW’s Back 2 School Store. For more information, visit jjep.org.

The Annual South Hills Lights Community Chanukah Festival features a live concert with Oneg Shemesh and the world’s 1st Chanukah virtual reality 3D experience, plus the Grand Menorah lighting and more. Free and open to all. Potomac Ave. & Belrose Ave. For more information, and to RSVP, visit www.chabadsh.com/lights.

Due to popular demand, an encore screening of “Jewish Memories of Pittsburgh’s Hill District - Documentary” has been added beginning at 7 p.m. at Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Ave. “Pittsburgh Courier: Newspaper of Record” will be shown after the documentary.

Join Temple Ohav Shalom as they host the 2nd Annual North Hills Public Menorah Lighting at McCandless Crossing (8970 Covenant Avenue) on the first night of Chanukah. Located at the fountain in McCandless Crossing, free, 5:30 p.m. PJC

q THURSDAY, DEC. 5 Congregation Beth Shalom is excited to announce a reading group for Ibram X. Kendi’s new book How to be an AntiRacist! The group will be reading the Introduction through Chapter 3 for their first conversation at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth Shalom (5915 Beacon Street). Free. For more information, visit bethshalom.org/ events-upcoming.

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8/14/19 3:50 PM

NOVEMBER 22, 2019 11

Headlines — WORLD — From JTA reports

Former nanny found guilty of sexually abusing Utah Chabad rabbi from age 8 A jury in Utah has convicted the former nanny of a Chabad emissary in Salt Lake City of sexually abusing him for about 10 years beginning at age 8.

Alavina Florreich, 70, was found guilty of five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and two counts of forcible sex abuse, the Deseret News reported. She will be sentenced on Jan. 13, and faces up to life in prison. Her attorney said she will appeal.

Rabbi Avrohom Zippel, 28, a father of two, first came forward in an article in February in the Deseret News. The newspaper said he may be the first Orthodox rabbi to come forward during the #MeToo movement as a survivor of sexual abuse.

The rabbi, who works as a Chabad emissary in Salt Lake City, where he grew up, said the #MeToo movement inspired him to come forward. He also cited as an inspiration Jewish Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, who testified in court alongside 156 other women against former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted of sexually abusing them.

Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City in 2002 at 14 and

was sexually abused during her nine months being held captive, was in the courtroom for the verdict. She has advised Rabbi Zippel throughout the case.

Rabbi Peretz Chein, the co-founder of the Chabad House at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, also was in the courtroom.

He came forward earlier this year as a sexual abuse survivor, the newspaper reported.

Florreich, a native of Tonga, a kingdom in the South Pacific, was arrested in March 2018 on suspicion of 131 counts of child abuse.

Zippel’s parents were Utah’s first Chabad emissaries.

California Democrats vote down ‘highly flawed anti-Israel’ amendment to party platform

California Democrats voted down an amendment to their party platform that called for the right of return for Palestinians and eliminated references to the two-state solution.

The amendment presented at the state party’s fall convention also advocated for the return of the descendants of Jewish refugees in Israel to the countries from which they fled.

The Democrats for Israel Los Angeles chapter said in a statement that it coordinated the efforts to defeat the “highly flawed anti-Israel” amendment.

About 65% of the 2,500 delegates at the California Democratic Party State Central Committee had rejected the amendment

language in the Israel section of the platform.

The party adopted language calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “directly negotiated by the parties that guarantees equality, security and democracy for all; recognizing Israel’s future as a secure and democratic Jewish state with recognized borders; and providing Palestinians with independence, sovereignty and dignity.”

The platform also recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, adding that the “decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem should not remove Jerusalem from final status negotiations, nor should the capital city be used to undermine the peace process.”

It also continues to denounce the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

The party also adopted planks advocating stronger measures to fight hate speech, including anti-Semitism.

U of Toronto graduate student union apologizes for ‘unintentionally causing harm’ to campus Jewish community

The Graduate Student Union at the University of Toronto has apologized for “unintentionally caus(ing) harm toward the Jewish community” after a union official suggested that the executive board would not support a campaign by the school’s Hillel to make kosher food available on campus since it is “pro-Israel.”

The union’s External Commissioner in response to a Jewish graduate student’s request for the union to officially support the Kosher Forward Campaign suggested he student union’s Executive Committee might be reluctant to bring such a motion forward to its board of directors since Hillel is “pro-Israel” and that supporting it would go against the “will of the membership.”

The Graduate Student Union voted in 2012 to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS movement against Israel.

The statement also said: “The External Commissioner did not intend to do harm in using this language, but recognizes that this is not an excuse for the harm that the wording of this response caused to the individual receiving it as well as to Jewish students at U of T.” The statement notes that no official decision has been made on whether to bring the motion forward at the next board meeting.

The union said it has reached out to Hillel and the student who received the email “to request a meeting to discuss how to remedy harm and how to mitigate future harm towards Jewish students on campus.”

In response, the U of T Hillel said it appreciates the student union’s apology and its agreement to consider the kosher food motion but added that “this apology does not address the anti-Semitic nature of their original response. This is the core issue that must be discussed.” PJC

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to everyone everyone who attended tthe he

Jewish J ewish Federatio Federation on of Greater Pit Pittsburgh’s ittsburgh’s THIS IS US US: S: Community Campaig Campaign Kickoff Event!

After a spirited conversation about food, Israel and being a chef, Chef Michael Solomonov (left) and Chef Kevin Sousa (right) demonstrated how to create an easyto-make, quick and delicious hummus.

Meryl Ainsman, (right), chair of the Jewish Federation Board of Directors, and award-winning chef and Pittsburgh native Chef Michael Solomonov shared a moment prior to the program.

Peter and Robin Gordon, honorary event chairs of the This Is Us event.

Guests placed their photos onto the #ThisIsJewishPGH photo mosaic to symbolize that they were part of something bigger: Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.

Congratulations to PNC Community Builders Award recipients David and Barbara Burstin, shown here with PNC representative Erik Kimbrough (right).

Photos by David Bachman

Missed the event? You can still make your commitment to the Jewish Federation’s Community Campaign at jewishpgh.org/donate or by calling 412-681-8000.

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PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

NOVEMBER 22, 2019 13

Headlines Labour’s anti-Semitism problem is an election issue for non-Jews, too — WORLD —

By Cnaan Liphshiz | JTA

J

ust like the Democratic Party in the U.S., Britain’s liberal Labour Party usually counts on star power for a boost.

Ahead of the upcoming Dec. 12 general election, for instance, Labour has scooped up endorsements from major celebrities such as former Oasis lead singer Liam Gallagher, pop star Lily Allen and comedian Eddie Izzard.

But for the first time in decades, Labour is also beginning to take serious flak from celebrities and other significant parts of the electorate over a festering anti-Semitism problem.

Two dozen prominent non-Jewish Brits — including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, novelist John le Carré, author Fay Weldon and actress Joanna Lumley — said in a letter published Thursday in The Guardian that they will not be voting for Labour because of the anti-Semitism controversy.

“The coming election is momentous for every voter, but for British Jews it contains Please see Labour, page 27

p Jeremy Corbyn

Photo Anthony Devlin/Getty Images

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Headlines Yael Eckstein is putting her own mark on building bridges between Christians and Jews — NATIONAL —

By Deborah Fineblum | JNS

I

t’s traumatic enough to experience the loss of a beloved parent, especially one who dies suddenly at the age of 67. But in February, soon after burying her father, Yael Eckstein had to undergo a second trauma.

She had to sit at his desk.

Because Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein was not only her dad but, as the founder and president of the $1.6 billion International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, known as the Fellowship, for 15 years, he was also her boss. “All that time I’d always been on the other side of the desk,” she said eight months later. “Sitting in his chair was very, very hard, but it was something I knew I’d have to do eventually.”

First, however, she had to cry for her father. “His death was so sudden. And I knew for shiva I needed to be just a daughter who’d suddenly lost her dad and was already missing him.”

After those seven days of mourning were over for her and her two sisters, and she’d shed her tears, Eckstein got to work. “I could have taken a few months, but I believed I needed

to show that we weren’t going to let all the people who rely on us — or our donors — down, that there would be no gap in services.”

With the unanimous support of the Fellowship board behind her, the 35-year-old mother of four stepped out from behind her father’s shadow and is set to make her own mark on Jewish history. Raising more than $127 million dollars a year from 1.75 million donors (95% of whom are Christians), not only is the Fellowship the world’s largest Christian-supported humanitarian agency helping Israel and the Jewish people, but it’s by far Israel’s largest charity and one of the top 400 nonprofits in the U.S. The transition wasn’t easy.

“I knew that if I blurred the line between my emotions and my professional judgment, I’d fail at both,” she said. “For me, that’s meant learning to watch videos of my father without crying.”

And there’s an abundance of such videos.

The rabbi has been in the public eye since 1983, when he founded the Fellowship.

Having raised $1.6 billion in its 36 years of operation with an average gift of just $76, the Fellowship currently benefits some 1.5 million people a year. Among them: • An 89-year-old who lost her parents

p Eckstein opens a food box with an elderly woman, Nelli Barotko

in an anti-Semitic attack in Iran and was herself injured in a terrorist bombing years later in Netanya. Living on a meager government retirement, she is one of 16,000 Israeli elderly who receive help and now enjoys new independence with a wheelchair and a range from the Fellowship.

• A 10-year-old living in a Fellowshipsponsored orphanage for Jewish children in Odessa. With 200 friends, he’s bused each

Photo via JNS

morning to an ORT school, his lunchbox filled with nutritious food.

• An IDF soldier who’s the oldest of five children of an Ethiopian-born single mother who works cleaning the streets. When her refrigerator died, her son told his officer, who arranged to buy a replacement through an emergency Fellowship fund.

Please see Eckstein, page 17

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Headlines In Ukraine, aid for needy Jews comes with a catch — WORLD —

By Cnaan Liphshiz | JTA

A

lina Feoktistova always knew she was Jewish, but the first time she sought contact with the community was to see if it could pay her tuition.

Feoktistova’s family couldn’t afford to send her to college, but the local Jewish community provides an alternative in the form of the Jewish University of Odessa, an accredited institution that offers tuition and room and board at no charge. Founded in 2003, the university features five-year programs in a number of fields, including foreign language, early childhood education, law, business and Jewish studies.

“I was crying. I really didn’t want to do it,” said Feoktistova, 28, who studied literature at the school. “(My family had) no funds for college for me. The Jewish community was there for us.”

After graduation, Feoktistova found work as an office administrator with Tikva, the Orthodox group that runs the Jewish University of Odessa along with a host of other identity-building and educational programs. And though she married a Jewish man and raises her two children in an observant home, Feoktistova has a bit of the rebel about her.

On a Saturday evening earlier this month, she wore a black leather biker jacket over a long dress with a matching studded kerchief in her hair as she smoked her first postShabbat cigarette.

“I’ve accepted my fate,” Feoktistova joked.

About 360,000 Jews are estimated to live in Ukraine, most of them in Odessa and other major cities, and Jewish groups have used their robust welfare systems not only to help those in need, but also to overcome the indifference and aversion to Judaism that was instilled here during the communist era.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, provides assistance to any Jewish applicant it deems needy, regardless of their participation in communal activities. But other Jewish organizations often require communal engagement, from enrolling children in Jewish educational programs to attending synagogue, in exchange for help.

In Odessa, the estimated 30,000 Jews are eligible for free services through the Jewish community’s various institutions, which include two community centers, a dozen schools and two orphanages. Families and the elderly can get hundreds of dollars a month — a significant sum in a country where the average monthly salary is about $300.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, a network affiliated with the Chabad Chasidic movement, also runs a Jewish university in Odessa, which it describes on its website as “a path out of poverty and into Jewish service.”

The engagement-for-aid model has had a meaningful impact on “breathing life into the dry bones” of a moribund community, according to Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, director of intergovernmental

16 NOVEMBER 22, 2019

p Alina Feoktistova at the Tikva Jewish education complex in Odessa, Ukraine on Nov. 2, 2019.

“ Of course, Russian-speaking Jews are not babies, they’re sophisticated people, but from a Jewish perspective

”

they are like captured babies.

— RABBI BINYOMIN JACOBS, RABBINICAL CENTER OF EUROPE relations at the Chabad-affiliated Rabbinical Center of Europe.

“Some might even call it a bribe, but it’s legitimate — and it works,” said Jacobs, citing the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who allowed parents to use candy to motivate children to study.

“Of course, Russian-speaking Jews are not babies, they’re sophisticated people, but from a Jewish perspective they are like captured babies — people who know nothing about Judaism because of oppression,” Jacobs said.

“It’s OK to offer them something they need as a way to acquaint them with Judaism so they can decide in an informed way if they want it in their lives.”

Many young Ukrainians in this city and beyond seek a connection to Judaism without financial incentives. The Limmud FSU conference here last month attracted 600 participants who paid nearly $200 to

attend the weekend event at a resort.

One participant, Vlodymyr Zeev Vaksman, a 38-year-old active in the Odessa Jewish community, said he sought out that community after suffering bullying in school. Connecting with his Jewish identity, Vaksman said, “helped restore my pride in it because it’s hard to be a proud Jew when you’re being beat up in school almost every day for being Jewish.”

Others, however, clearly get involved out of necessity.

Rivka Bendetskaya attended a Chabad school in the eastern city of Zaporizhzhia where she grew up. Her family was poor and not religious, but the Chabad school offered free meals and long hours. At 16, Bendetskaya came to Odessa to pursue a degree in business management at Chabad’s Jewish University.

The five-year program would have cost about $17,000 at a regular university, an unaffordable sum for her family.

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Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz

Sergey and Elena Yarelchenko had little to do with the organized Jewish community before they were forced to flee their home in Lugansk during the 2014 revolution.

At a Jewish refugee camp set up outside Kyiv by Rabbi Moshe Azman, who named it Anatevka after the fictional hometown of Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof,” the Yarelchenkos not only found shelter, but work and a sense of community.

“I never thought I’d go to synagogue, much less live in a Jewish village,” Sergey said.

For other Ukrainian Jews, the community was a ticket to big city life.

Haya Saphonchik, a 27-year-old kindergarten teacher, enrolled in a Jewish school in Odessa primarily to escape her impoverished hometown of Kremenchuk.

“My mom had no money to send me to Odessa,” Saphonchik said. “She asked me when I was 17: ‘Do you want to stay in Kremenchuk in a regular school, or do you want to go a Jewish school in Odessa?’ Of course I went to Odessa.”

After graduating from high school, Saphonchik went on to study at the Jewish University in Odessa, where she met her husband, Uriel, who came to study computer programming from his native Russia. Though she came initially for financial reasons, she stayed because the school offered her more than just an education.

“I found great beauty,” Saphonchik said, “a great mutual responsibility for each other that I didn’t know existed and which ended up giving me the best things that I have in life.” PJC

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Headlines Eckstein: Continued from page 15

• A Holocaust survivor in Moscow living on $70 a month in government support, but at 85 can no longer cut his own firewood, endangering him for both freezing and malnutrition. Now he’s part of an emergency winter relief program, providing food, heat and medicine.

• A mother of four near Gaza who told Eckstein that now that one of the Fellowship’s 5,500 mobile bomb shelters has been placed on her street, she no longer has to choose which child to grab for the run to the neighborhood shelter when the alarm sounds. In addition, the Fellowship has also renovated many of the permanent shelters in hard-hit areas near Gaza and Lebanon, installing electricity, showers and mattresses.

• A Ukrainian Jewish family of four making aliyah, one of more than 20,000 Jews from the FSU and Europe the Fellowship has sponsored in the last four years. There’s also a myriad of adjustment services awaiting them in their new home.

“Five years ago, my father dreamed of having our own aliyah program for Jews from all over,” said Eckstein. “Everyone discouraged him, but four years later, when we’ve brought 20,000 olim from 37 countries to Israel, it’s such a testament to my dad’s vision.”

In July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Eckstein at the airport to welcome 300 Ukrainian Jews. 

A history of fellowship

It all began in 1983, when Rabbi Eckstein and his wife were expecting Yael, their third child.

The Chicago native made a radical departure from his secure job at the Anti-Defamation League and instead decided to establish an organization dedicated to building bridges between two faith communities.

The concept of Christian support of Jews and Israel was a hard sell at that time to many in the Jewish establishment who were concerned that it was a thinly veiled road to conversion.

“There is a small minority of Christians who see the end game of supporting Jews and Israel as conversion; however, the Fellowship has always had a ‘no missionary’ rule,” said Eckstein. “For our 1.4 million donors, they support Israel because they see the word of our prophets come alive here, and they see it as their biblical obligation. They see the Jewish people as having a special bond with God, taking seriously the words of the Torah: ‘Forever this is a sign of my chosen people.’ ” Indeed, many among the Jewish communal leadership took exception to Fellowship ads targeting Christian would-be donors portraying elderly Holocaust survivors and Israeli children as poor and needy. “Sadly, Israelis do have a high rate of poverty, below Mexico,” said Eckstein. “But my father had a big personality, and I think many of these clashes were personal.”

Still, Eckstein said she’s now taking a more positive approach to touching the heartstrings of donors.

In a recent video with Mike Huckabee, smiles replaced the tears. “We’re trying this approach to gauge the response,” she said. “If it’s successful, great. But if it doesn’t raise the

p Eckstein pictured with her children.

Facebook photo via JNS.org

money we need to feed all the hungry people who rely on us, we will not hesitate to show the real need here.”

She believes her father’s message was right for the times he lived in, when the bonds between the two faiths and Christian support of Israel and Jewish causes were still in their infancy.

“My father used to joke that it took him 30 years to become an overnight success,” said Eckstein, who moved to Israel with her husband in 2005. As an Orthodox rabbi, she said, for 25 years “he was ostracized for reaching out to Christians, and only within the last 10 years was he more accepted and even celebrated for the strategic partnership he’s built between Christian and Jew, with many mainstream Jewish organizations now also reaching out for the support of Christians. I’m glad he lived long enough to see the Jewish community begin to understand what he’d been talking about for the last 37 years.” Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who founded the city of Efrat with many of his congregants from the Lincoln Square Synagogue in 1983 and remains its chief rabbi, said, “Rabbi Eckstein very well understood the changes in Christian attitudes to Jews and the importance of these relationships, especially for the State of Israel. He was one of the Jewish world’s most important leaders and worked mightily to make sure the forgotten Jews — many of them Holocaust survivors living in dire poverty — were not forgotten. He was absolutely passionate about them.”

So how does one step into such big shoes?

After 15 years of working together (Eckstein’s first job consisted of stamping envelopes), this leadership transition was eased by astute planning, says Fellowship board chair Bishop Paul Lanier.

The bishop remembers the rabbi mentioning succession again and again. “‘Why?’ we’d say. ‘You’re fine.’ But for the last few years, we could see he was determined to get Yael to meet the right people at the right time, to understand the entire organization.

So even though she was not prepared to lose her father, he made sure she was more than prepared to lead the Fellowship.”

“Rabbi Eckstein, in addition to his pioneering work, groomed a successor— something that is not done often enough in Jewish life,” says Professor Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor

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of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. “Rabbi Eckstein groomed his daughter, Yael, making her now one of the most important female Jewish leaders in the Jewish world and a role model for all Jewish women in leadership positions.”

Not that this was her dream, she points out.

“Being president was never anything I wanted; I was more focused on building relationships with our donors,” she said. “Still, because of these last four years, as my dad began to rely on me more and more, by the time I moved into the position I knew it inside and out. I now realize what a gift he gave me.”

Indeed, their leadership styles are quite different. “My father was a visionary who flew by the seat of his pants,” she said.

“When he believed in something and trusted it, the support would follow, which it almost always did.”

Which made for an excellent balance, she added. “He was the public face focused on international expansion. I was focused on the donors in America and fundraising. It worked. And since this is a founder-based organization, no matter how big it got, it would always be a mom-and-pop shop.”

Board chair Lanier said, “When her father was alive, Yael went along with him respectfully. But now that it’s her turn to call the shots, she is showing much of his strength but definitely not going to do things exactly the way as her dad. The board understood that and didn’t feel the slightest hesitation.”

One decision she made recently — to scratch the Fellowship’s $60 million Legacy Center for Christian visitors being built in Jerusalem — was particularly difficult, she said, “because that building was my father’s final dream. But ending the year 2% ahead of our projected budget, the board and I took a hard look at our priorities and unanimously agreed that we can’t get sidetracked, but need to remain focused on our primary mission: humanitarian aid.”

The current plan is to sell the property, expecting to recoup most of the $14 million spent on the project so far.

With multimillion-dollar decisions like that on the table, Eckstein is able to maintain her focus thanks to her husband, a writer who works from home and has flexibility with their four kids.

“I know statistically women are not given the same opportunities, but in my bubble of a childhood, my parents raised us girls to know we could do anything, the sky’s the limit,” she says. “I hope I’m a good role model to my daughters growing up in a religious family where the father is home with the kids while the mother is out making the world a better place.”

Support from the Christian world

Now Eckstein is the Fellowship’s public face, which means travel. On a swing of the United States this summer, she made a point of speaking to students at Christian universities to win the hearts of the next generation of supporters. “As my father used to tell me, ‘There is no second chance to make a first impression.’”

She also appeared on Christian media like the “700 Club” and “The Mike Huckabee Show.”

“In some cases, the loss of a visionary means the end of vision and power or the second generation can simply lose their way,”

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said Huckabee. “My audience, who’s very pro-Israel, saw her warmth and her passion for helping people with food, electricity and thousands of temporary bomb shelters in Israel, but also how careful she is about how the resources are being used, something very important to donors.”

Penny Nance, a new Fellowship board member who is CEO and president of Concerned Women of America, the largest women’s public-policy organization in America, said Eckstein resonates with her half-million members, mostly evangelical women.

“Yael is a compassionate leader who understands the increasingly key role Christians play in support of Israel,” said Nance, who came to Israel to see the Fellowship in action.

“I found we have so much in common, as mothers and believers in God’s sovereignty over the world. … This is just her first year, but she has what it takes. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”

One sight that impressed Rev. Johnnie Moore on his recent Eckstein tour of Israeli Fellowship projects was one of the terror tunnels. Warned to stay out due to the threat of collapse, “I had to see it with my own eyes,” said Moore, president of the Congress of Christians. “I’ll never forget what I felt there, the terror that might have been had the Israelis not been fortunate enough to find it.

Thanks to the Fellowship, we Christians are in a position to help Israelis protect themselves.”

“To succeed as a second-generation leader, you have to have a strong foundation, be an extraordinary communicator, a decisive leader, sensitive to others and incredibly comfortable in your own skin” added Moore.

“Yael is a millennial woman of faith who has it all. As the Jewish community is beginning to trust the evangelists — and there were, by the way, good reasons in the past not to — she’s in the perfect position to grow that.”

Eckstein herself will tell you the operation runs on partnerships like the ones with the Christian leaders above who help get the Fellowship message out to their communities, as well as with those within the Jewish world who make sure the funds go where they’re most needed.

One long-term key partnership is with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which has worked closely for decades with the Fellowship on programs helping Jews across the globe.

“It’s always been a partnership grounded in a shared commitment to the neediest Jews in the world, many of the 87,000 Jews in the FSU are elderly survivors who live on pensions as low as $2 a day,” said David Schizer, CEO of JDC. “Not only has the Fellowship long been our main funder in helping those desperately poor people — the rabbi was a key member of our executive board — but we’re finding Yael to be every bit as passionate and committed as her father was, in addition to being really strategic.”

‘An important alliance’

Although the Fellowship’s success in gaining Christian support of Jewish causes has impressed many in the Jewish community, there are those who harbor lingering doubts about whether Christians Please see Eckstein, page 23

NOVEMBER 22, 2019 17

Opinion The alarming bias of the European Court of ‘Justice’ — EDITORIAL —

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hat’s behind last week’s European Court of Justice ruling that Israeli goods produced in settlements on the West Bank must be labeled that they are from occupied territory and not from Israel itself? We ask this question because the ruling reflects a disconcerting bias against Israel and gives ammunition to those who want to isolate Israel economically and weaken it politically.

First, the bias. The ECJ says labels are required so that consumers will not mistake the products for those made in Israel proper. But Israel is not the only country in which territory is disputed. Why hasn’t ECJ required similar territorial labels for products made in disputed areas controlled

by Turkey, Russia, Morocco or India?

Why just Israel? That glaring double standard, according to the European Union’s International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, constitutes anti-Semitism, and is cause for grave concern.

Then there’s the aid and comfort to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS), and further promotion of the anti-Israel narrative. In a letter to European Parliament President David Sassoli, in which he called the ECJ ruling “disgraceful,” Israeli Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said that the “selective information” on which the court based its ruling “will inevitably result in a boycott of goods — first those from Judea, Samaria [West Bank] and the Golan Heights and then those from Israel as a whole.” He went on to say that “in doing so, the court has knowingly adopted the arguments long propounded by the BDS movement, whose extremist agenda aims to destroy the economy of Israel.”

Edelstein’s points are well taken and the slippery slope concerns us. The BDS movement claims it wants to end Israel’s challenged occupation of all contested areas, but its real objective is not the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Instead, it seeks to delegitimize Israel and her claim to sovereignty. The ECJ’s offensive ruling plays

right into that corrosive narrative.

Other reactions to the ECJ ruling by several mainstream Jewish organizations were similarly direct: The American Jewish Committee Transatlantic Institute responded, saying, “labelling plays into the hands of those who seek to isolate and demonize the only Jewish state.” AIPAC tweeted that the court was supporting “discriminatory boycotts against the Jewish State.”

J Street, however, had a very different response.

“We welcomed the EU ruling and created resources to explain to American policymakers why — contrary to AIPAC and Trump administration talking points — differentiation between Israel and the territories it controls is a pro-Israel and pro-peace position,” wrote Jess Smith, chief operating officer, J Street. “In fact, under Israel’s own law, there is a vital difference between Israel inside the Green Line and the territory it occupies over it. Over the next year, we’ll be fighting to make sure that pro-Israel, anti-occupation views

aren’t merely heard, but are reflected in the Democratic platform, on the debate stage and in the policies of the next president of the United States.”

Anti-Semitism from the far left, the far right and by Islamic extremists continues to plague many countries in Europe. It is naïve at best to ignore the fact that the ECJ ruling is likely to feed those sentiments, leading to ever worsening conditions for Jews.

So what’s next? Should Israel simply avoid international tribunals, virtually all of which seem to lack a moral or measured ethical backbone and shamelessly reflect dogmatic bias against the Jewish state? Or is there some point in engaging in the international dialogue, in the hopes of bringing logic, morality, equality and some semblance of justice to these proceedings?

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wants to work with his European counterparts to prevent the implementation of what he called “this gravely flawed policy.” We wish him luck, but, sadly, at this point, we’re not optimistic. PJC

Truth is not selective: Poland vs. Netflix Guest Columnist Ben Cohen

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oland’s government won an important victory on the battleground of history this month. It succeeded in persuading the entertainment-streaming service Netflix to amend a newly released World War II-based documentary that implied, through one of its maps, that the six extermination centers built by the Nazis on Polish soil were located in an independent, sovereign country, rather than one under German occupation.

The offending map was included in “The Devil Next Door,” the widely praised documentary produced by the Netflix studios about Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk. The former U.S. citizen was eventually convicted of assisting in the murder of 28,000 Jews at Sobibor — one of the six death factories constructed by Nazi Germany during its occupation of Poland, alongside Auschwitz, Chelmno, Treblinka, Belzec and Majdanek.

The problem with the map as rendered by Netflix was that it showed Poland as a unified country with sovereign borders — an absolute travesty of that country’s actual situation during World War II. As a furious chorus of Polish complaints led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki correctly pointed out, Poland was eliminated as a sovereign country through its partition at the hands of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. When the Germans invaded Poland, they did not install a puppet government, as was the norm elsewhere, but split the country into districts under direct German rule.

In a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings,

18 NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Morawiecki argued that viewers would be “deceived into believing that Poland was responsible for establishing and maintaining these camps, and for committing the crimes therein.”

He went on: “As my country did not even exist at that time as an independent state, and millions of Poles were murdered at these sites, this element of ‘The Devil Next Door’ is nothing short of rewriting history.”

Within a few days of receiving Morawiecki’s letter, Netflix conceded its error and promised to fix it. A revised map would “make it clearer that the extermination and concentration camps in Poland were built and operated by the German Nazi regime who invaded the country and occupied it from 1939-1945,” a statement from the company explained.

Poland’s leaders responded warmly.

Writing on his own Facebook page, Morawiecki remarked that mistakes “are not always made of bad will, so it is worth talking constructively about correcting them.” Similarly, on Twitter, the Polish foreign ministry recorded its “appreciation” of Netflix’s attention to “difficult and important topics.”

To anyone who isn’t tuned into the finer details of the Polish World War II debate — and that is most people — the spat with Netflix would seem to have been resolved by a welcome combination of sober historical research, mutual respect and an accent upon factual accuracy as the one element of the historical narrative that really matters.

Matters such as these, however, are rarely so simple. In Poland’s case, a legitimate complaint such as the one against Netflix also serves as a gateway for the very “rewriting of history” that so alarms Morawiecki, in terms of other critical aspects of the Nazi occupation.

For more than a decade, successive

nationalist governments in Poland have made it a priority to assault some of the myths and careless formulations that have arisen around the Holocaust in Poland. For example, most Poles detest — and rightly so — the lazy description of Auschwitz as a “Polish concentration camp,” when it is more properly understood as a Nazi extermination camp built on occupied Polish soil by the invading Germans.

There are other vague, generally accepted notions about World War II that infuriate the Poles as well. On the thorny issue of collaboration with the Germans, two main points are made. First, because Poland was under direct German occupation, historians cannot talk about “collaboration” in Poland as they would do with Croatia, France, Hungary and other European nations where puppet rulers were installed by the Nazis. Second, the risks of resisting the Nazis were far greater in Poland, where hiding or otherwise aiding a Jew would result in a sentence of death; the same offense against the Reich in France, by contrast, carried a much lighter sentence.

In Jewish circles, Polish anger over these issues has invariably received a sympathetic hearing. For example, Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, frowns upon the use of the phrase “Polish concentration camp,” as do the leading Jewish advocacy organizations — the American Jewish Committee, the World Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League among them — that have built close relationships with Polish institutions since the end of the Cold War. But accompanying these legitimate complaints is an aggressive tendency to police the research and discussion of the Holocaust so that any probing of Polish collaboration is denounced as historical revisionism. Through its Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) Law passed in 2017, to speak of Polish collaboration with the

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Nazis — the “Blue Police” units established by the Germans, the Szmalcownik bandits who preyed on Jews in hiding — is now a criminal offense. Increasingly, Polish historians emphasize that the 3 million Jews from Poland who were murdered by the Nazis were “Polish citizens,” which conveniently overlooks the widespread discrimination and violence directed at the Jews of pre-war Poland by thousands of their fellow Poles.

In tandem with these developments, Polish relations with Israel have nose-dived.

In the furor over the passage of the IPN Act, several leading Holocaust historians accused Poland of callously whitewashing its reputation to suit its present nationalist agenda; the dispute even became a domestic issue, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was taken to task for allegedly prioritizing his desire for close trade and defense links with Poland over the truth of the Holocaust.

Ironically, when, last February, Netanyahu did briefly mention the facts of Polish collaboration with the Nazis, the government in Warsaw promptly responded by canceling a summit of Eastern European nations that was being hosted by Israel.

When it comes to debating the issue of Holocaust collaboration, Poland will not settle for anything less than complete exoneration for its nation—a goal that doesn’t comport with the historical record. Just as it is true that there were no Polish units in the SS — unlike the Lithuanian, Ukrainian and other national units — it is also true that several thousand of the 3 million Polish Jews murdered by the Nazis were delivered to their executioners by non-Jewish Poles.

Truth is not selective. PJC Ben Cohen is a New York City-based journalist and author who writes a weekly column on Jewish and international affairs for JNS, where this article originally appeared.

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Opinion A long-awaited correction Guest Columnist Dore Gold

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he Department of State under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has corrected U.S. Middle East policy in an important way.

The past legal determination that Israelis deciding to reside in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Israeli unilaterally left Gaza in 2005) are doing so in violation of international law has always been deeply flawed.

It failed to recognize that the case of Israeli settlement construction was unique and was

not what the drafters of international law had in mind when they first addressed this question. The original basis for judging the settlement question was the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention that was designed to protect occupied populations.

True, the legal adviser to President Carter’s State Department stated that Israeli settlements in the territories Israel captured in 1967 were “inconsistent with international law.” And former Secretary of State John Kerry called them a violation of international law; in December 2016, Samantha Power, his representative to the United Nations, abstained when U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 was adopted in December 2016. That resolution stated that the establishment by Israel of settlements

in “the Palestinian territory” constitutes a “flagrant violation of international law.” The United States would have normally vetoed a resolution employing such harsh language.

U.S. policy appeared to be evolving.

But significant American voices took a very different view. There was Eugene Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School and Under Secretary of State who wrote that the settlements were in fact legal. Morris Abram, who was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, once explained that he had been one of the drafters of the Fourth Geneva Convention. He wrote that its authors had in mind heinous crimes committed by Nazi Germany that were raised during the Nuremberg trials. These included forcible evictions of Jewish populations for purposes

of mass extermination in death camps in places like Poland, and it is utterly vile to even suggest that Israeli settlements should be thought of in this context.

Not surprisingly, President Ronald Reagan broke with the Carter administration’s position and viewed the settlements as legal. In this sense, the new Trump policy on settlements represents a continuation of a school of thought within American foreign policy that Secretary of State Pompeo was simply reaffirming.

There were other factors that had made the West Bank unique in the formulation of U.S. policy. It must be recalled that the last sovereign over the territory of the West Bank was the Ottoman Empire; it renounced its legal Please see Gold, page 21

Creating community through food Guest Columnist Maya Bornstein

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he clang of the metal pans hitting the stovetop erupts from the kitchen. The effervescent blue fire allows the diced onions to sizzle as my mother swirls them around with her wooden spoon. I carefully crush a clove of garlic and dice it up to add to her mixture. The aroma permeates the kitchen and I feel an immediate sense of comfort and nostalgia, as I have helped her prepare for dinner for so many years.

When I was younger, every Friday night my three siblings and I gathered to share Shabbat dinner with family and friends.

The table was always surrounded by people, piled with platters of food, and adorned by two lit candles, flickering over heated discussions. Some nights these dinners ended happily with dessert, while other times, huge arguments erupted. I learned that fighting for your beliefs and values is incredibly important, even if they differ from those held by the ones you love. Ultimately, I learned the value of convening around the dinner table to share food and opinions.

Coming from an observant Jewish family,

tikkun olam — Hebrew for “repairing the world” — was central to my upbringing.

My family regularly participated in social justice projects, including preparing meals for homeless shelters and packing food boxes at Manna, a community pantry in Potomac, Maryland.

My parents made sacrifices to send us to a private Jewish day school, and my Jewish identity certainly shaped the person that I am today. Yet, as I grew older, I began to struggle with this identity. I questioned why traditional Judaism did not treat men and women equally. I became aware that my school, synagogue and youth group were incredibly homogenous, composed almost entirely of white, affluent and educated people. We seemed to have such strong values, yet we were so disconnected from communities that we “helped.”

In college, studying sociology and global development, I delved deeper into learning about the structures that lead to inequity in order to develop strategies to tackle these challenges. I learned to struggle with confronting my own unconscious biases, work toward utilizing my privilege to be a better ally and learned the importance of cultivating a diverse network of friends. I became involved with and later led many programs on campus addressing food security, educational equity and homelessness. In

— LETTERS — J Street wrong on settlements

I was both dismayed and surprised to read the account published in the Chronicle of the discussions and announced policies of the recent J Street Convention (“Unchecked U.S. aid to Israel challenged at J Street conference,” Nov. 8). The organization purports to be “pro – Israel and pro peace” and at the same time announces policies that endanger Israel’s security and survival.

The policy of advocating restrictions on the use of American funds with respect to settlements, particularly for defense, would impact tens of thousands of Israelites who live in Maale Adumim Aleph and Bet, and adjacent communities which are in Area C, which the Palestinians regard as settlements, but always tacitly agreed to remain part of the Jewish state.

These communities need to expand to accommodate additional families and those citizens are equally entitled to assistance and protection.

Aside from my dismay, I was also surprised to hear the argument that expansion of any

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this country, access to food, a basic human right, can be dependent on one’s income, education and race. This is unacceptable. I wanted to be a Repair the World Fellow to learn to combat food injustice and to ensure that good quality food is available to all.

I aspire to pursue a career in a social-justice related field, so Repair seemed like a perfect next step for me to take after college.

I packed my bags and headed to Pittsburgh, a city that I only passed through once before.

I have been pleasantly surprised by this city. I love working with local farms and gardens, my hands stained with soil from planting plants and harvesting crops. I have been welcomed so graciously and immediately into communities, festivals and synagogues. I see first-hand how Repair the World Pittsburgh pulls the Jewish community together while simultaneously pushes them to look deeper into power and justice and not just “talk the talk” but “walk the walk.” We don’t “help” communities — we partner with them.

The Pittsburgh Repair team emphasizes that each identity we hold is central to who we are, and as a community, we are strongest when we come together to embrace these differences through solidarity. Here we understand that justice does not mean justice for only the Jewish community, but justice for all marginalized groups. Until

all historically oppressed groups are valued in society, we as a Jewish community will not sit idly by.

Though I had limited knowledge about the Pittsburgh area before arriving, I see ties to my heritage everywhere I go. I see where my mother, who grew up in the neighborhood of East Liberty where I now live and work, went to school, spent time with friends and attended youth group meetings. I see so much pride in embracing culture and history in all of the communities that make up this city. I see people realizing that in order to create progress we must address the past.

Through the Cooking Matters Program with 412 Food Rescue every week, we discuss healthy and affordable food options and cook with an amazing group of people from all over the area. I know from my past, with family and friends, the power and importance of a meal with others. It’s a moment to sit, talk and both explore other cultures and share our own. Together, we are creating a community where everyone can access nutritious and culturally appropriate food, and share thoughtfully prepared meals with the people they love. PJC Maya Bornstein is a 2019-’20 Repair the World Pittsburgh Fellow. She graduated from Emory University, where she studied sociology and international development.

settlement, or establishment of a new village, is “threatening the possibility of the two state solution.” The stated rationale for the restriction on American aid was “if you want to negotiate with a partner, you don’t bring them to their knees.” It is a false premise. Employees and their labor unions, for over 100 years, have employed strikes in order to successfully bring reluctant employers to the bargaining table. General Motors Corporation, just a week or two ago, reached agreement with the union representing their employees because the strike inflicted economic harm which became insurmountable. There was simply no alternative, and that situation replicated itself countless times in American labor history. The strike weapon, rather than destroy the possibility of settlement, enabled it to proceed to a successful resolution.

J Street cannot and should not ignore Israel’s right to create incentive for the Palestinians to seize the moment to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and to commence negotiations while there is still time left to do so.

Gerald Kobell | Pittsburgh

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Please see Letters, page 21

NOVEMBER 22, 2019 19

Headlines Zionts: Continued from page 3

“Fiddler on the Roof.”

“I literally went every night with a defibrillator under my feet,” Nancy remembered. “I thought it was a good insurance policy to have with me.”

Becky Toth was in the orchestra during that production. She later cast the actor in “Urinetown” at Stage 62.

“Leon had this innate ability to not only bask in the love others had for him in a way I would be uncomfortable with, but he could accept it and would return that love tenfold,” Toth recalled. “He was able to give it back. That’s the legacy that anyone that worked with him will remember.”

They’ll also remember his commitment.

“He and Nancy were always there,” Toth said. “You never felt like you owed them anything.

Leon was just there for you. He always looked out for the needs of everyone around him.”

Zionts began producing musicals with Bruce E.G. Smith in 2008, forming the botique musical theater production company Front Porch Theatricals. Nancy joined the company in 2014.

“We became producers,” Smith said.

“We always joked about the musical ‘The Producers.’ He wanted to be in the image of Max Bialystock and I was Leo Bloom.”

They staged productions of popular, wellknown shows like “In the Heights,” “Parade” and “Big Fish.”

“The heart and soul of the company is Leon and that will never be replaced,” Smith said.

While not all of the musicals they produced had Jewish content, “they’ve always been stories about character and family and social justice,” Nancy said.

“Social justice was always an important part of Leon — as a feminist, as a supporter of LGBTQ rights, as a supporter of immigrant rights.”

Equally important was using actors with Pittsburgh connections, said Smith, who also noted that the company paid its interns and worked to create an atmosphere of respect by providing food tables for the actors.

Zionts continued to act while producing with Front Porch Theatricals.

Elinor Nathanson, co-founder of ShpielBurgh Productions, said Zionts performed in all three works the company produced since its founding in 2016.

“Whe n I w rote ‘Hadassah,’ I suggested Leon to Sara Stock Mayo, who was

at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum on Oct. 28, 2018, following the shooting at the Tree of Life building.

“He regularly sang at the Jewish Federation’s annual meeting for years and years,” said Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Marketing Director Adam Hertzman. “When we were looking for ways to honor the lives lost on Oct. 27 and introduce the program appropriate to the tone of the event, Leon was a natural fit.”

In a tribute suited to both an actor and producer, Zionts’ funeral was standing room only. He was remembered by colleagues, friends and families through stories and song.

“It was astonishing to hear the remarkable stories told and the memories of those who spoke,” said Jeanne Drennan, who knew Zionts through her work as the executive director of the Musical Theatre Artists of Pittsburgh.

“I think Leon projected a belief that  Leon as Mordechai in a production of everything was going to be wonderful.

“Hadassah” in March 2019. At left, a Leon Zionts bobblehead Photo by Jennifer Bails It’s very hard to resist that kind of enthusiasm, and who would want to?”

Zionts is survived by Nancy and their directing, for the role of Mordechai. We two daughters, Allison Laine and Dani Lyon; joked that we used divine casting because his mother, Shirley; his sister and brother, as we never use auditions and Leon was divine well as 18 nieces, nephews and great-nieces in so many ways. He was 100% on board.” and great-nephews. PJC Zionts often sang both the U.S. national David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ anthem and “Hatikvah” at many public events, including the memorial service pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Photographer: Continued from page 3

heal,” Allan said.

The exhibit opened last month and runs through Dec. 6.

“We have used gallery visits and work in many classes in middle and upper school in an age appropriate way,” Allan said. “In lower school, we showed selected photographs and only talked about community and helpers and didn’t mention the shooting. Lower school students wrote haikus about the importance of community. It is Lynn’s and our hope that other schools or organizations borrow the photos and pass them along to continue the discussion of the importance of standing up to hate.”

Johnson has strong ties to Squirrel Hill and its adjacent neighborhoods. She grew up near the Carnegie Mellon University campus, and her first apartment after leaving home was on Morrowfield Avenue. While she now lives on the North Side, she still comes to Squirrel Hill to shop.

“It’s like the center for me, my home,” she said.

Although Johnson has photographed many other locales in the U.S. that have been victimized by mass shootings, seeing her own city affected hit her hard.

She wanted to capture on camera people finding ways to manage in the wake of such horror, and began her work by roaming the neighborhood seeking images that would tell that story.

20

NOVEMBER 22, 2019

 Lynn Johnson

Photo provided by Lynn Johnson

“That was the first thing I did, kind of wander around to see what was going on in the community because I really thought it was important to see regular life,” Johnson said. “And that was one of the things I talked about to the editor of National Geographic, that I wanted to show how life continues to go on and how people were reacting not negatively but by helping each other.”

She was looking “for places and people to photograph who were coping,” she said.

“I just didn’t want to haunt the funerals. I refused to do that. I figured if the newspapers needed to do that, that was fine, but that was not how I wanted to work.”

Although there is an emotional toll from a deadly attack hitting so close to home, for Johnson “photography is a way to figure

 Twins, Ronna Wedner Levin, right, and her sister, Robin Exler prepared most of the flowers for the funerals of victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

Photo by Lynn Johnson

things out,” she said. “For me, it’s always been an art form that allows one to ponder and puzzle out the complexities of life, even though there might be pain involved.”

The photographs from the exhibition are available for loan to schools, religious institutions and other organizations to further the conversation about the importance of community.

“When Sally asked to show them, I said, ‘Please show them and travel them and use them for education,’” said Johnson. “I would

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

just love for them to be out there in the world so folks can learn from them. If people want to use the material to educate and sensitize and do the good work of keeping us from harming each other, these images are available.”

For inquiries about the exhibit, contact Sally Allan at allans@winchesterthurston.org. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines Gold: Continued from page 19

rights to the land after the First World War. That set the stage for the League of Nations in 1922 explicitly supporting the “close settlement” of Jews in the territory of the British Mandate. Those historical rights of the Jewish people were preserved by Article 80 of the U.N. Charter.

True, Jordan seized the West Bank as a result of the first Arab-Israeli War that ended in 1949. But while Jordan annexed the territory, even the Arab states refused to recognize its sovereignty there. In other words, there was no recognized sovereign over the West Bank prior to Israel’s entry into the area. A vacuum of sovereignty had been created that had to be taken into account when looking at the legality of Israeli settlements.

Letters: Continued from page 19

Dispassionate reporting not appropriate

The Chronicle’s seemingly dispassionate front page article about J Street’s national conference unfortunately included disingenuous and uninformed assertions. It quoted Nancy Bernstein’s defending having speakers from the PLO and IfNotNow saying that “we are not afraid of hearing those perspectives ... if somebody has an idea that not everyone supports, it still might be important to hear what they have to say.” In which case one might wonder why they didn’t invite someone from an organization like CAMERA, for example, who could speak to the history and legalities of the “occupation.”

And what sort of reporting is it that blandly describes IfNotNow as a “progressive (sic) Jewish activist group that targets Jewish institutions it sees as enabling Israel’s treatment (one presumes that the treatment is negative) of the Palestinians.” Since the article noted that the J Street attendees said Kaddish for the Tree of Life victims, it might have noted that IfNotNow members choose to recite the Kaddish for Palestinian terrorists, but not their Jewish victims.

Or, since the reporters characterize IfNotNow as “progressive,” how do they characterize the group’s advocating the banning of Jewish lesbians from a dyke gathering because they carried a Pride flag with a Magen David on it? What’s “progressive” about that?

It’s particularly unnerving to find this sort of coverage on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht. What have we learned?

Ann Sheckter Powell | Pittsburgh

Citizens or dhimmis?

I am responding to Dr. Mehmet Fuat Ulus’ letter (Letters, Nov. 15) in which he claimed that Jews were granted equal citizenship by Ottoman sultans.

Jews who were expelled from Spain were given refuge by the Turkish sultan, but weren’t they required to accept dhimmi status as a condition of moving to Ottoman territories? Jews who were dhimmis would have been valued by sultans because under sharia they could be taxed more heavily than Muslims. Dhimmi status is not equal citizenship.

Jim Silverman | Pittsburgh

Never forget

As a Holocaust survivor, for the past 10 to 15 years I have volunteered my time to speak to hundreds of high schools, colleges and associations around the country concerning my experiences during that horrible period. It is always an encouraging experience, standing in front of people eager to hear my first-hand account. In the end, they are always gracious, often sending individual thank-you notes after my talk.

Early in 2019, I had the opportunity to speak for a second time to Quigley Catholic High School in Baden. My good friend Bill Lintz, a retired FBI agent, suggested I give my talk there as his grandson is a student at Quigley. Some weeks after my talk, I received over 50 thank-you letters from those in attendance. One in particular stood out. It was eloquently written by a young woman who penned this sentence: “Now I understand why you are the chosen people.”

“Wow,” I said to myself. I was very moved by this, and have told this story to a number of people, each of whom had the same reaction as I did.

This sentence gives me hope, hope that we can reach the youth of today with our story, and that it will not be forgotten when we are gone.

Judah Samet | Pittsburgh

City thumbs nose at criminal law

I am the president of Firearms Owners Against Crime and I commissioned the lawsuit against the City of Pittsburgh for openly defying Pennsylvania’s Criminal Code yet again, a nearly three-decades-old legacy of lawlessness (“Pittsburgh Jews react to judge striking down gun laws passed by City Council,” Nov. 8). I commend you for adding the comments of attorney Cliff Zlotnik to your article. His comments were absolutely accurate and to the point.

What is missing from the article is the “ends justify the means” approach by the mayor and City Council in thumbing their nose at criminal law as if they are an elite protected class who cannot be held accountable. That should worry everyone, especially the media!

Just like gun owners exercising the Second Amendment, journalists have a special responsibility to responsibly report the facts. There is a reason the city’s efforts in Harrisburg fall on deaf ears and that is because their advocacy of gun control has been shown to increase violent crime and the legislature knows this.

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Finally, Israel reminded the international community that when it captured the West Bank in 1967 it acted in the framework of a war of self-defense. The Soviets sought to brand Israel as the aggressor in the Six-Day War, but their diplomats failed to convince a majority of member states in both the U.N. General Assembly and in the U.N. Security Council back then.

The unique conditions of the case of Israeli settlements influenced the whole issue of

how they should be judged, but now with the formulation of a new American position their legality is on the way to being finally accepted. PJC Ambassador Dore Gold is the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

He served as the Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel and as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

So do we throw out the Constitution because billionaire-backed anti-gun groups misinform people about gun control and throw out the Constitution for all citizens based on those misinformed positions? What precisely does Article 1, Section 21 and 25 mean? Remember, Article 1, Section 21, of the Pennsylvania Constitution, ends with “Shall Not Be Questioned.”

Is this the kind of country we want, to allow one group of citizens to take away the rights of other citizens?

Instead of trashing the constitutional rights of all citizens and ignoring responsible approaches to dealing with violent criminals, the city could have reached out to us prior to taking these actions. Their actions belie their true intent, which is political and not serious about solving the violent crime problem.

Kim Stolfer | FOAC president, Pittsburgh

Judge’s decision on gun laws the right one

Once again, Mayor Peduto was put in his place, this time by a Common Pleas judge who ruled he and his allies on City Council violated the Commonwealth’s constitution by passing their own gun laws. It is high time that we as American citizens stop this soft tyranny no matter which form it comes in.

The worst of all ordinances is a preemption law. This usurps the rights of all citizens to due process before a punishment is administered. The issue with gun violence lies with the criminal, not the law-abiding citizens. We need to reform the HIPAA and mental health laws to allow easier flow of information from doctors and family to the authorities if someone poses a danger to society. There are two main reasons these mass shootings happen — mostly from mental illness and hate. When we address these issues, we can reduce gun violence.

The mayor and his allies have a political agenda and nothing is going to stand in their way. I applaud Judge James and his opinion. I feel confident the appellate courts will agree. Until then, the mayor may wish to use the legal channels to change the Commonwealth’s constitution.

Andrew Neft | Upper St. Clair

Hill District memories

I just finished reading “New documentary recounts the Jewish history of one Pittsburgh neighborhood” in this week’s Jewish Chronicle. My husband and I plan to see this film. In fact, I told (a friend) who knows what memories in me will be revived, including how the IKS was a godsend to my dad (Hungary) and my mom, who immigrated from Russia.

I am now 83 and never have I given anyone an interview about my Hill District experiences.

We were unable to “give” to the community, as we lived in Terrace Village (2087 Bentley Drive), which was like Section 8 subsidized housing. We had to move there after my late father went broke in his store for lending out too much credit to customers — and then came the Great Depression. I even remember President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicating a plaque on Elmore Square (up the hill from Bentley Drive) even though I was only a few years old at the time.

I was born in 1936, and went to Miller Elementary School from K through sixth, and then attended Fifth Avenue High School for a year and a half before we were financially able to rent a place and move to Squirrel Hill. Other memories I retain — other than the severe anti-Semitism I experienced daily from kids attending Catholic school before Jews were absolved of killing Christ — included the Roosevelt Theatre on Center Ave., Carnegie Library on Wylie Ave. and across the way was the Hebrew Institute. Thank God for the Irene Kaufmann Settlement where I took piano lessons from Mrs. Perlow, and tap dancing from Gertrude Belle, and learned to swim. Also, I still remember the shops: Hausmann’s Kosher Butcher Shop, Filner’s Bakery, the shoemaker on Center Ave., the police station, Liepack’s Drugstore and so many other memories. I wish over all of these years I had someone to share my memories with while I still have my “marbles” — or at least most of them.

Shirley Holtzman Schwartz | Pittsburgh

Remembering the Hill

I have read both your article and the Post Gazette article with great interest. My family had a great history in the Hill and the story brought back some wonderful memories. When the family first came to the United States, they settled in the Hill.

My mother and her parents probably learned English at the Irene Kaufmann Center and she once mentioned cigar rolling as one of her early jobs as well as dipping chocolates.

My grandparents lived at 2075 Bentley Drive and worshiped at Kether Torah when it was in the Hill. And the cousins that helped bring my family to Pittsburgh had Filner’s Bakery on Center Ave. Thank you so much for dusting off some of my memories of yesteryear.

Barry Werber | Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

NOVEMBER 22, 2019 21

Life & Culture No joke: This Jewish comic got his start on Wall Street — COMEDY —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

I

t’s not news that lots of comedians are Jewish, “but there aren’t a lot of Jewish comedians,” noted Modi, née Mordechai Rosenfeld. “I’m both.”

By “both,” the Israeli-born comic means that not only does he hail from a traditional Jewish background, but also that his comedy itself is, well, very Jewish.

Modi will be headlining at Congregation Beth Shalom on Saturday night, Nov. 23, at its annual fundraiser, “Coming Together: Comedy Night.” The evening will include food, drinks and raffles, and will kick off with the music of local personality Phat Man Dee. Modi, who got his start in comedy 25 years ago following a career as an investment banker on Wall Street, now performs in clubs and at fundraisers for a variety of audiences.

He does have a specialty, though, in Jewish comedy which spans the denominational spectrum.

“I perform for audiences that are completely irreligious to beyond Chasidic,” said Modi, speaking by phone from his home

University. Singing, in New York prior to his though, has become trip to Pittsburgh. “Every a hobby rather than a year I do a Christmas show, serious endeavor — with erev Christmas, the 24th one notable exception. of December, and I go to “I still do the Kol Nidre Caroline’s comedy club. It service in my synagogue, sells out and you see these the Sixth Street Synagogue Chasidic people coming. on lower Manhattan,” It’s a lot of fun. They have Modi said. “It’s a great a great time. They know place. It’s only because the it’s, like, kosher — I don’t place is so great that I still curse onstage — and it’s do it, but otherwise I just references that they get.” do it as a hobby.”

Modi was 7 when his p Modi Rosenfeld So, how does an investfamily moved to Long Photo courtesy of Modi Rosenfeld ment banker on Wall Island from Israel. Aside from his native Hebrew, he speaks perfect Street pivot to stand-up?

“I used to work in an international diviYiddish, a consequence of conversing in the mamaloshen with his Russian- sion, and there used to be a lot of foreign people there and I used to imitate them, their Polish grandparents.

“Also, in yeshiva, I used to love to read accents and languages,” Modi explained. the Lubavitcher rebbe’s sichos, his teach- “And my friend said you should do it on ings in Yiddish, and that helped me learn the stage. That’s how that began. That was the language,” the comedian told the back in ’94. I had no desire to do it whatsoJewish Telegraphic Agency in an inter- ever. My friend said, ‘I’m going to book an view last summer. open mic night for you, and I’ll bring some Following college, Modi scored a schol- people,’ and that night I went up and did all arship to study cantorial music at the Belz the imitations I used to do and I had a great School of Music, which is a part of Yeshiva time. I did it a few more times. The owner

said, ‘You should definitely stick with it,’ and before you knew it, a few years later, I was doing it full time.”

Since then he hasn’t looked back. Live stand-up has become his bread and butter, though he also does his share of work in television. He has appeared in shows such as “The Sopranos,” “Madam Secretary” and an episode of HBO’s “Crashing,” in which he played himself.

“The good thing is, you don’t need to audition when you play yourself,” he quipped.

“When they hire you as Modi, there are no auditions.”

Modi also appeared in 2006 in “Agent Emes” — a children’s video series produced in Pittsburgh by Squirrel Hill resident Leibel Cohen — taking on the role of Rocky Rabinowitz in the show’s Chanukah episode.

Modi is excited to return to Pittsburgh.

“I’m really looking forward to coming out there,” he said. “We are going to have a lot of fun. They are going to get to experience a real Jewish comedian. We’re going to have some laughter and healing and a lot of good energy.” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines

p Eckstein pictured with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Facebook photo via JNS.org

Eckstein: Continued from page 17

can and should be financial and moral supporters of their causes, especially when it comes to Israel.

“No one forgets history and anti-Semitism has been very strong in Christian history, but the evangelicals are well-aware of that and most of them are very sensitive to accusations that they’re trying to convert us,” said Danny Ayalon, who recalls Rabbi Eckstein visiting him in Washington, D.C., when he was Israeli ambassador 17 years ago. “He came with a vision: linking Christians to the land and the people of Israel, for the benefit of both, especially Israel. What we need to understand is their support is coming from their own belief that Judaism is the root of their faith, and the Bible is an instruction book. The truth is this strategic political alliance born of shared values is needed even more now, so his daughter is in a very important position.”

That daughter sees it this way: “That there are Christians who are anti-Semites is not new. What’s new is that millions of them, especially evangelicals, are among Israel’s and the Jewish people staunchest defenders.

In an era of BDS and growing anti-Semitism, this is an important alliance we need to invest in.” Case in point: Evangelicals invest millions each year in lobbying senators and congressmen to support Israel.

p Yael Eckstein kissing her late father, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein

Facebook photo via JNS.org

And Eckstein maintains that the fact that she, as an Orthodox woman, now stands at the helm of this movement to engage, educate and mobilize Christian supporters “clearly shows that they aren’t here to change us, but to support and defend us any way they can.”

The future of the Fellowship

With offices in Chicago, Toronto, Jerusalem and Korea, the Fellowship under Eckstein is also focusing on new alliances within the Jewish community. “Jewish leaders are beginning to see how strategic our relationship with Christians is going to be in the future, and they want to support that.”

To whit: A recent gift of $100,000 from a Jewish donor interested in investing in outreach to Christian college students.

But even when focused on the strategic big picture, Eckstein insists it’s the stories that keep her going. Like the recent immigrant from Ukraine who told her that he had been beaten up so many times that he’d changed his name to stay safe. “But what I saw was an Israeli citizen in his mid-40s wearing a kippah and a Jewish star around his neck,” said Eckstein. “He said he’s so happy that for the first time in his life, he lives in a country where he is free to be a proud Jew.” And he had some good news for her: Once in Israel, he decided to change his name back. As the new head of the International “Fellowship” that helps 1.5 million people a year, she has taken what her father, Rabbi Eckstein, built and is adding her own vision to the 36-year-old organization.

“It’s truly amazing to be in a position to help make these miracles happen for the next 50 years,” she says, “These are bridges my father built where no one else dared to go.”

But Eckstein is now tapping into her own strengths as well, says Lanier. “When she emerged from shiva saying, ‘We’re not going to let any hungry person miss a meal because we dropped the ball.’ I told her, ‘Yael, you’re not going to fill your father’s shoes; you’re going to stretch them.’ ” She insists she is not stretching those shoes alone.

“Anyone in a position of leadership is only as strong as their team, and their team is only as strong as its leadership,” said Eckstein.

“The prayer I say every day before I walk into the office is: ‘God, let me be a vessel to bring Your holiness into the world.’” PJC

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Celebrations

Torah

Bat Mitzvah

Purpose first

On Nov. 23, 2019, Adina Michalah Rosen, daughter of Scott and Sheri Rosen and big sister to Evie Rosen, will be called to the Torah to become a bat mitzvah at Temple Sinai. She’s in the seventh grade at Dorseyville Middle School in Fox Chapel. Adina loves sports, music and EKC camp. She plays softball, basketball and clarinet. She is passionate about all Philadelphia and Pitt sports teams.

Adina volunteers with the Miracle League of Pittsburgh, a national organization that helps children with disabilities safely play baseball.

Engagement

Cathy and Steven Frank of Churchill announce the engagement of their son Jason to Miriam (Mimi) Merens, daughter of Dr. Teri and Henry Merens of Wilmette, Illinois. Jason is the grandson of Dorene and Eugene R. Cohen of Davie, Florida, formerly of Squirrel Hill, Albert Frank and Susan Yelen of Wilkes-Barre and the late Philip and Yvette Starr of S. Boynton Beach, Florida. Miriam is the granddaughter of the late Alfred and Dr. Constance Adelman and the late Miriam Merens and Robert Merens of Illinois. Jason held positions in finance at Lazard in NYC and Adams Street Partners in Chicago. He is currently pursuing his MBA degree at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Miriam is a business development manager in healthcare revenue at LaSalle Network. The couple is planning their wedding for next summer in Chicago. PJC

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Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel Parshat Chayei Sarah Genesis 23:1-25:18

E

ver forget your name? Ever stammer and stutter and then out of desperation reach for a generic title to replace your forgotten name?

Something happens in this week’s parsha that upon first glance appears to be a case of a man forgetting his name but upon closer examination reveals Torah’s formula for healthy living.

Avraham is on the hunt for a wife for his son Yitzchak. He dispatches his loyal servant Eliezer to find the right candidate. Presently, he arrives at the home of Besuel to propose a match with his daughter Rivkah. But when he introduces himself to them, he seems to forget his name, saying, “I am Avraham’s servant.” He presents his title but not his name. And from there he proceeds to lay out his mission and what he was aiming for with his visit. That is his entire self-introduction.

So did he forget his name in the process of remembering his aim? No. Instead, he knew something about life that we ought to learn and remember.

Eliezer was not only Avraham’s servant; he was also his closest disciple. Everything Avraham taught the world — monotheism, faithfulness, civility, common decency, humility, kindness and generosity — was imbued deeply and authentically in Eliezer.

Here, Eliezer displays yet another gem learned from Avraham: To be consistently happy and successful in life, put your purpose ahead of yourself.

As an esteemed teacher has said, every person has a choice to make between existing and living.

The former would mean that a person elevates his or her existence above all else, pursuing first and foremost whatever will fortify their existence, even if it means sacrificing all sense of purpose in the process.

This is associated with what people call “the survival of the fittest.” If the main goal is to survive, then you only need to be fit, you don’t need to be befitting. This leads inevitably to a growing sense of emptiness and moral aimlessness, coming to a head whenever the person awakens to the realization that in all their effort to remain here, they have never bothered to find out why they came here in the first place. That feeling of purposelessness is depressing and destructive.

The latter would mean that a person elevates his or her life above all else, pursuing first and foremost what gives meaning to their life, even if it means sacrificing some creature comforts for the cause. To this

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person, their reason for existing is far more important than existing. The purpose of life defines life. And so to such a person, the idea of compromising on the purpose to simply remain existing is unthinkable. This leads to a consistent sense of drive, joy and vision.

Very little can break such a person because the person identifies with a mission and a higher calling.

No one understood this better than Avraham. He knew that his life was created

by G-d and therefore it had to have a purpose, a G-dly purpose; he didn’t merely wind up on Earth as the result of some cosmic accident.

He spent his youth searching for the purpose until, at the age of 75, he finally hears from G-d Himself and discovers G-d’s vision for the world and the role that he is to play in it.

And indeed, his entire identity was one with his divine mission and purpose, as witnessed by his endless willingness to sacrifice himself, even his very existence, for the purpose.

Eliezer learned this from Avraham. He identifies by his mission, not by his name.

He is one with his life, not only his existence.

When he enters Besuel’s home on a mission from Avraham, he finds no reason to mention his name; that would only explain who he his, but not why he is. They would know who was standing before them but they wouldn’t know why. Instead, he announces that he is Avraham’s servant. That’s why he is here.

Avraham has given him divine marching orders and that is his whole story.

This week, the emissaries of Chabad Lubavitch from all over the world are joining together in New York for their annual international conference. In step with Avraham and Eliezer, they do not identify as rabbis but rather as emissaries (“shluchim” in Hebrew.)

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of saintly memory, has given them divine marching orders to spread the light of Torah and mitzvot, goodness and kindness, and that is their whole story. Sure, they could tell you their names, but then you would only know half the story. By forgetting their names and calling themselves by their mission, you know the rest of the story — not only who they are, but why they are.

And dear reader, you should try it, too.

After all, we are all emissaries from On High, sent here with a sacred mission to elevate existence and infuse it with holy life. That sense of exalted purpose is the master key to joy and vibrant living. The world whispers about it like it’s some kind of state secret, but it’s actually right there in black and white, in this week’s Torah portion. PJC Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel is the executive director of the Aleph Institute-North East Region. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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

In memory of...

A gift from ...

In memory of...

Anonymous.................................................. Goldie Fishman

Sherwin Glasser.........................................Gertrude Glasser

Anonymous....................................................Richard Lebby

Alan Z. Goldberg ......................................... Sadie Goldberg

Anonymous........................................Dr. Marshall Steinberg

Harriette Libenson .................. Fannie Katzman Rubenstein

Anonymous..................................Flora May Kahn Shadden

Nessa Mines ................................... Marcia Green Farbstein

Annette Alper ...............................................Minnie Hoffman

Larry Myer ........................................................... Diana Myer

Phyllis E. Anatole ......................................Carol Lee Anatole

Toby Perilman .............................................. Saul I. Perilman

Donald Berk ................................... Sara Berkowitz Rozman

Toby Perilman ........................................ Jerrilyn R. Perilman

Donald Berk ............................................... Leo E. Berkowitz

Ferne Rogow ............................................. Sylvia S. Vinocur

Charles S. Berney......................................... Anne Firestone

Ferne Rogow .....................................................Ben Vinocur

Phyllis Cohen ................................................. Abe M. Cohen

Karen K. Shapiro..................................................Sadie Levy

Phyllis Cohen ...............................................Estherita Cohen

Janice Standel ............................................Grace Levenson

Michael & Christine Cushner............... Helen Pearl Cushner

Boris Weinstein ............................................ Boris Weinstein

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday November 24: Doris Libby Bennett, Joseph Bilder, Max Cohen, Herman A. Donofsky, Leah Firestone, Phillip Friedman, Morris Glassman, Betty Grayer, Jennie Iskowich, Harry Jacobs, Bertha Klein, Leon Morris, Polina Novak, Meyer Seiavitch, Irwin Sidler, Fannie G. Skirboll, Sidney Stein, Sam Stern, Sam Stone, Marvin Tachna, Joseph Thompson, Mildred Weinberger, Milton Zakowitz Monday November 25: Bessie Lottie Azen, Sylvia Braun, Harry Cukerbaum, Anne Firestone, Julia Goldstein, Louis Greenberg, Zelda Gutmacher, Isaac Klein, Jacob Levinson, William Levy, Joseph Lustig, Jacob S. Miller, Gertrude R. Nachman, Ruben Nadler, Miriam S. Nydes, Max Perr, Philip Rubenstein, Shana Sergie, Ida Sussman, Nettie Touber, Rose Wolovitz Tuesday November 26: Jeannette Tafel Alman, Charlotte Ginsburg, Hymen L. Kaplan, Benjamin Klawansky, Esther S. Levine, Lafe B. Murstein, Sadie Rossen, Fannie Ruben, Leah W. Schlesinger, Helen G. Sheinberg, Lena Frieman Sieff, Michael Stone, Rebecca Tillman Wednesday November 27: Sam Benowitz, Fannie Fleischer, Jay David Glasser, Meyer Helfer, Bella Kalson, David London, Alvin Meyers, Eugene M. Rosenthall, Anna Shapira, Edward I. Solomon, Jacob Stolman, Jack Joseph Sussman, Harry Edward Traub Thursday November 28: Esther Berschling, Saul Cabin, Hyman Goldenson, Raymond E. Gusky, David Pudles, Ida Radbord, David G. Tarshis Friday November 29: Carol Lee Anatole, Nathan Bliman, Rebecca Needelman Bodek, Sadie Chotiner, Benjamin M. Cohen, Morris Cohen, Hyman Daly, Rebecca Friedman, Isaac Glick, Dr. Henry Goldstein, Selma Goldstein, David Gross, Hyman H. Kimel, Alfred Malt, Alvin Marks, Herbert Rosenbaum, Max Schwimer, Elmer Solomon, Dora B. Whiteman Saturday November 30: , Sam Birnkrant, Sara Chotiner, Goldie Fishman, Benjamin Himmel, Abraham Korsunsky, Louise Lebby, Adeline Levitt, Isaac Lieb, Mary N. Lustig, Annie Mermelstein, Ida Nusin, Fred Nussbaum, Noah Saxen, Raymond Irwin Sloan, Sherwin Smalley, Arthur Speizer

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KALSON: Edna Belle Kalson, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019. Beloved wife of the late William R. Kalson. Loving mother of Irwin Kalson (Kathleen Rall), David (Susan) Kalson and the late Sally Kalson (surviving spouse Edward Feinstein). Predeceased by siblings Jerome (late Ruth) Friedman, Frank (late Joan) Friedman and Paula Ruth (late Roy) Mitchel. Cherished grandmother of Alison (Stuart) Wexler, Zoe Feinstein, William Kalson (Elizabeth Belczyk), Hannah Kalson and Rachel Kalson. Greatgrandmother of Dashiell Wexler and Ezra Kalson. Also survived by many loving nieces and nephews. Special friend of the late Ben Root and dear friend of Joan Friedberg. Edna Belle, known to her family and many friends as Sis, Aunt Sis and Grandma Sis, graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill in 1939. She and her sister Paula Ruth held down the home front while Jerry and Frank went off to fight the war. Sis was swept off her feet in 1946 by the dashing Bill Kalson, who she met at the Y camp in the Laurel Highlands, the cauldron for a host of baby boomers, including Irwin, Sally and David. The family settled in Mt. Lebanon in the 1950s, where Bill and Sis were founding members of Temple Emanuel. In addition to launching her children into happy, meaningful lives, Sis adapted to the late 1960s by pursuing her own career, first as the executive secretary of the Chartiers MH&MR Center, then for decades as the executive secretary of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Pittsburgh. Bill passed away in 1977 but Sis soldiered on with a deeply fulfilling life. She had a gift for friendship, loved to laugh (especially with Paula Ruth) and travel, never stopped learning and could still beautifully sing songs of the 1940s, accompanying herself on the piano, well into her late 90s. We are grateful for her life and we will miss her. Services were held at Rodef Shalom Temple. Interment Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to the Sally Kalson Courage in Journalism Fund c/o The Pittsburgh Foundation, Five PPG Place, Suite 250, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com LEFKOWITZ: Alan Zoel Lefkowitz was born Dec. 1, 1932, to the late Curtis Lefkowitz and the late Lily Rose Lefkowitz (Selznick).

Alan was known from childhood for his intelligence and his cheerful good humor.

He remembered his first job helping his pharmacist father, counting pills and operating the soda machine. He had to stand on a box to reach the machine. Alan went to high school at Tennessee Military Institute, where he championed the younger classmates and played football. He enjoyed following college football the rest of his life. Alan finished high school early and went to college at the University of Pittsburgh. He played football for one season at Pitt but found his real love on stage with the Pitt Players. His Mortimer in “Arsenic and Old Lace” was acclaimed in the Pittsburgh newspapers. Though his years with the Pitt Players were his only foray in

the glare of the footlights, his love of theater was a lifelong passion that he shared with family and friends. Theater, especially, but not only Shakespeare was an exploration of the human spirit to Alan. His first date with his future wife, Francine Kaplan, was to “Henry IV, Part I.” He completed law school at the University of Michigan in time to get married at the age of 23, and then went into the Army. The Army sent him to Monterrey, California, for an intensive course in Russian and German, then sent him and his wife to Berlin. Alan was honorably discharged as a sergeant and came home with his wife in 1959, days before the birth of his oldest son. Alan and Fran had three children, Curtis (Kelly and wife Annick-France), Gail, David (Dawn Haberlach) and three grandchildren, Maylis Tournissac-Lefkowitz, Sidoine Tournissac-Lefkowitz and Rebecca Lefkowitz. Alan was very involved in parenting, coming home every evening for family dinners and to share hobbies like photography and music. Alan was a very talented photographer, participating in Pittsburgh’s Photoimager’s Guild and other photo clubs. He even had a photo that got to the finals of a National Geographic photo contest. Alan grew up at and remained a member of Rodef Shalom Congregation for his whole life. He was a past president of the junior congregation and the brotherhood.

Alan practiced corporate and securities law at Kaplan, Finkel, Lefkowitz, Roth, Ostrow and Woolridge until it was bought by Tucker Arensberg, whereupon he left to practice with Kabala and Geeseman until retiring at the age of 72. He also taught classes in arts and the law for a master’s in nonprofit management program at CMU. Throughout his life, Alan was a warm, friendly man who was always willing to share advice or lend a hand. His intelligence and quick wit aided many in problem-solving and brightened social gatherings. He was incredibly eventempered, loved to laugh and always found the silver nitrate lining in every photographic cloud. He will be missed. Interment was held at West View Cemetery. A memorial service was held at Rodef Shalom Temple. Interment West View Cemetery. Contributions in Alan’s name may be made to the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, 201 N. Bellefield Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, or to Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., schugar.com LION: Nira Lion, on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019.

Beloved wife of Gideon Lion. Beloved mother of Oren (Xi Xi) Lion, Ofer (Leah) Lion and Doron (Tamar) Lion. Sister of Daniella (Tuvia) Toister. Grandmother of Judah, Kobi, Laila, Dovi, Paz, Alexandra and Julia.

Services were held at Homewood Cemetery Chapel. Interment Homewood Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to Young Peoples Synagogue, 6404 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC

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Headlines Labour: Continued from page 14

a particular anguish: the prospect of a prime minister steeped in association with antisemitism,� the celebrities wrote. “Opposition to racism cannot include surrender in the fight against antisemitism. Yet that is what it would mean to back Labour and endorse Corbyn for Downing Street.�

The letter is part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that British Jews are not the only ones who have been following the Labour scandal. The party, under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, is becoming increasingly unpalatable to non-Jews, too.

In a Jewish News poll last month of more than 1,000 non-Jewish voters, 55% agreed with the statement that Corbyn’s “failure to tackle anti-Semitism within his own party shows he is unfit� to lead.

In the poll, 51% said Labour has a “serious anti-Semitism problem� — up from 34% when the same question was asked by an earlier ComRes poll. Just 18% disagreed.

According to a YouGov survey from May, 80% of British voters are now aware of Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis, and just 19% are still convinced by Labour and Corbyn’s arguments that they are not anti-Semitic.

The Guardian letter was published a week after The Jewish Chronicle, Britain’s

 Following Corbyn’s takeover of the party, hate speech against Jews and Israel began proliferating in Labour’s ranks. Thousands of incidents have been recorded.

oldest Jewish paper (not affiliated with the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle), published an op-ed on its front page addressed directly to non-Jews asking them not to vote for Corbyn, who was elected to lead Labour in 2015. “Throughout his career, he has allied with and supported anti-Semites such as Paul Eisen, Stephen Sizer and Raed Salah,� the op-ed said.

“He has described organizations like Hamas, whose founding charter commits it to the extermination of every Jew on the planet, as his ‘friends.’ He has laid a wreath to honor terrorists who have murdered Jews. He has insulted ‘Zionists’ — the word used by anti-Semites when they mean ‘Jew’ because they think it allows them to get away with it — as lacking understanding of

‘English irony,’� the article continued.

Corbyn has argued consistently that he is a committed anti-racism campaigner without any anti-Semitic bias. But last year, Labour was placed under a probe of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a government watchdog, over its handling of an explosion of anti-Semitic incidents that occurred after 2015.

Following Corbyn’s takeover of the party, hate speech against Jews and Israel began proliferating in Labour’s ranks. Thousands of incidents have been recorded both by internal Labour groups like Labour Against Anti-Semitism, and external ones, including the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

In 2016, an interparliamentary committee, which included Labour representatives, accused the party of creating a “safe space for those with vile attitudes towards Jewish people.�

The issue continues to haunt Labour in the general polls. Although Boris Johnson has the lowest approval ratings of any British prime minister in over 40 years, his Conservative Party has opened up a lead of approximately 11 points. The Conservatives have been the majority in British Parliament for the past decade. “Voters aren’t stupid,� said Jonathan Arkush, the previous president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. “There is now a pretty widespread perception that there’s something rather nasty around Labour.�  PJC

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Community Young Adult Division get-togethers

Chabad House marks yahrzeits with havdalah Chabad House on Campus and members of Congregation Dor Hadash joined students at the University of Pittsburgh for a memorial havdalah ceremony on Nov. 16. Rabbi Shmuli Rothstein shared thoughts regarding the healing process from last year’s attack. Rabbi Shua Hoexter and Leibel and Mendel Hoexter contributed to the service.

p Zach Schwartz hosted a game-night potluck Shabbat on Nov. 1.

The Shabbat dinner series is a partnership between Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division and OneTable. Photo by Zach Schwartz

p Burning with determination

p Members of YAD’s Explorin’ Club throw axes at Lumberjaxes.

p Let me stand next to your fire.

p Abbey Farkas leads the first of a three-part bartending series by crafting autumn-themed cocktail recipes the group then made themselves.

28 NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Photos courtesy of Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

p Havdalah brings the smiles.

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Photos courtesy of Chabad House on Campus

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Community Award-winning chefs celebrate Federation

Hundreds came to see two renowned Pennsylvania chefs at Rivers Casino on Nov. 13 to help kick off the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Community Campaign.

p Chef Michael Solomonov, left, and chef Kevin Sousa, far right, whip up a hummus recipe for event chairs onstage.

p Kyle Oldfield, left, Lynn Hyde, Mike and Yana Warshafsky and Jeremy Burton Photos by David Bachman

World Kindness Day JCC In recognition of World Kindness Day individuals dropped in at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh on Nov. 13 to make bagged lunches for people in need.

p Volunteers assemble lunches for donation in bags decorated by children from the JCC’s Early Childhood Development Center

p JCC Early Childhood Development Center children

Photos courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

Machers and Shakers t Andi Perelman, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ senior director of new media, was named a “Rising Star 2019” by The Business Journals, the largest publisher of metropolitan business newsweeklies in the U.S. The national list is compiled annually to honor “a group of younger executives having an impact on how business is done in communities across the nation.”

Photo courtesy of Andi Perelman

p Community Day School teachers Ronit Pasternak, left, and Jackie Goldblum were recognized as Middle School Advisors of the Year in Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Association of Student Councils (PASC). The award was announced at the PASC state leadership conference in Johnstown.

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Photo courtesy of Community Day School

NOVEMBER 22, 2019 29

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