Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 1/12/2018

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January 12, 2018 | 25 Tevet 5778

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Candlelighting 4:57 p.m. | Havdalah 6:00 p.m. | Vol. 61, No. 2 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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New CMU anthology showcases works inspired

by Martin Luther King Jr.

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Steady hand at many celebrations hangs up his ladle Pittsburgh caterer Chuck Schwartz ends a career spanning a half-century.

Page 2 LOCAL Teen goes on trip of a lifetime

 A Jewish volunteer in Mumbai provides informal and experiential teaching.

Photo courtesy of Gabriel Project Mumbai

Washington County tech wiz attends Technion competition.

Page 3 LOCAL Grab a warm bowl for the game Chili is the perfect food for postseason football.

Page 14

Volunteers observe and aid Mumbai despair

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

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lumming it may not seem like the most satisfying use of time, but Aviva Rosenberg would disagree. The Squirrel Hill attorney and mother of three recently returned from Kalwa, an Indian city 14 miles northeast of Mumbai. The trip was an opportunity to volunteer in one of India’s poorest parts as well as learn more about an organization committed to caring for vulnerable children.

“My passion is international health and international development. There’s really not a lot of that going on in Pittsburgh,” said Rosenberg, 41. “Forget about from a Jewish perspective, just from a public health perspective, most of that goes on in D.C. and New York.”

Interested in global aid but unwilling to relocate due to local responsibilities, Rosenberg reached out to a contact at OLAM, a coalition of Jewish organizations that supports at-risk people in developing countries who informed her about Gabriel Project Mumbai, a Jewish volunteer-based cause that provides “hunger relief, literacy

support, health and empowerment to children living in the Mumbai slums.”

Rosenberg connected with GPM’s founder and director, Jacob Sztokman, and after researching the initiative was intrigued by both its efforts and efficacy despite limited resources.

“GPM is a grassroots community-run-and-led organization. We are embedded in the community, are led by the community members, have committees with community representatives and hire almost exclusively people in the slums,” explained Sztokman, who added that he is the “only person in the organization not Indian and not from the communities where we operate.”

Rosenberg spent a year disseminating organizational information by speaking at Rotary Clubs in Fox Chapel, Shadyside and West Mifflin with the hopes of raising money and awareness about GPM. But last fall, she and Sztokman agreed that the best way for the foreign friend to truly appreciate and advocate GPM’s undertakings would be to experience them firsthand. So Please see Mumbai, page 16

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

J

im Daniels dolefully admits that the same words could ring true every single year at his presentation of the Carnegie Mellon University Martin Luther King Jr. Writing Awards: “In light of recent events, these awards are more important than ever.”

The poetry and prose writing contest for area high school and college students that Daniels established in 1999 has produced a stunning collection of original and personal pieces about race, prejudice and feelings of otherness. The contest, and the works submitted, continue to be timely.

“I look at the winners for this year,” Daniels said. “I’ve got one called ‘Charlottesville.’ I’ve Please see Anthology, page 16

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle

WORLD Londoner gains Polish fame

NATIONAL Jewish families perish in crash

THEATER Schumer earns Broadway laughs

Headlines Caterer Chuck Schwartz retires, has recipe for fruitful life — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

C

huck Schwartz has earned a reputation during the 50-year span of his career as one of the Steel City’s premiere caterers and not just because of his homemade latkes, gefilte fish and matzah balls.

Schwartz, who finally laid down his ladle last week to enter retirement, has been a steadfast and beloved fixture at countless weddings, brits, baby-namings, bnai mitzvah and corporate events throughout the Pittsburgh Jewish community and beyond since 1966.

“You didn’t have to worry about anything when you hired Chuck,” said longtime customer Martha Kreimer. “He has really been there for our family, catering our wedding, my son’s bris, his bar mitzvah party. I think many, many people have counted on him.”

A native Pittsburgher, Schwartz, 74, graduated from Taylor Allderdice and the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in business.

After college, he spent some time in the U.S. Army Reserve, before joining his father, Mickey Schwartz, in a catering business in Shadyside in 1966. The elder Schwartz had been seasoned in the food service industry as partner in a steak house in Squirrel Hill before he decided to focus on catering.

In 1977, the Schwartzes moved their catering business to Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill, building a new kitchen and deli counter and calling their enterprise Charles Catering.

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he shared space with Cop Out Perogies.

In addition to Jewish life cycle events, many of which were held in area synagogues, Schwartz catered countless corporate events for various businesses and at Carnegie Mellon University. He catered large events for the Junior League back in the 1970s and served 2,500 people at events for Action Industries.

“Many of my customers have been with me for 40 or 50 years,” Schwartz said.

One of those customers, Anita Lopatin Smolover, has “had everything I’ve ever done, every celep Chuck Schwartz Photo by Toby Tabachnick bration in my home” Chuck Schwartz never attended culinary catered by Schwartz. school, but instead educated himself on “It was always wonderful,” she said. “He is the ways of the business with “on-the-job so caring, and everything was always lovely. training,” he said.

He’s a wonderful, wonderful man.”

Charles Catering was busiest during the Running a catering business is not Jewish holidays, Schwartz recalled, when a leisurely pursuit. During the Jewish scores of Pittsburghers would visit his store- holidays, Schwartz would often put in front to pick up ready-made foods such as 80-hour workweeks. matzah balls and matzah bagels for Passover, “Seven days a week, he was on call,” said noodle kugel, brisket, gefilte fish and horse- his wife, Rose Schwartz. “He went in every radish for Rosh Hashanah and latkes and day and never complained. Sometimes he’d applesauce for Chanukah. work from 6:30 in the morning until 11:30 at “Those were phenomenal latkes,” said night. They were extremely long hours. He is customer C.W. Kreimer. “And it was really dedicated to his customers.” great applesauce.”

That dedication, conversely, has led Schwartz remained on Murray Avenue to some regrets. for decades and finally downsized in “I missed things with my own family,” 2013, moving his business to Etna, where Schwartz said. “I would miss a seder, or

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Thanksgiving dinner, because I’d be working.

I missed some family functions and the wedding of a friend. It’s very time-consuming being a caterer. It’s like being a doctor on call.”

The catering industry has changed in the last several years, with chain restaurants such as Panera Bread and Subway offering the service.

“They all do it, but I did different things,” Schwartz said. “For me the business was personal. I always tried to go out of my way to make it a special event. And I was there at every event that I catered, unless it was just dropping off food for a small group.”

His generosity extended beyond providing the personal touch for the events that he catered. C.W. Kreimer, chair of the Jewish Committee on Scouting, Greater Pittsburgh Council, noted that Schwartz lent his scouts thermoses for hot chocolate every year for the Scouts’ annual 10 Commandment Hike to various houses of worship throughout the city.

“If I didn’t call him one year to ask for the thermoses, he’d call me,” Kreimer said. “How many people do you know who rent their stuff as part of their business, but who give it to you for free and go out of their way to give it to you for free?”

Schwartz is looking forward to the freedom that retirement will bring, having the time to spend with family and friends and to travel.

“I will miss the business,” he said. “I’m sad, but I’m happy. I’m thankful to all my customers and friends for their loyal support and patronage over the years.” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick @pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Washington County student travels to Israel for STEM opportunity — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

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The fact that they could collaborate, design and implement new ideas despite linguistic and cultural barriers was not surprising. “I believe that [STEM] is really the language that young people speak; they are very inter-

an individual with a knack for inventiveness.

When Avram Hershko, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, “talked to us, he said how proud he is of us to be the next startup nation and how he would have jumped on this opportunity if

he were in our shoes, that we will change the world. It was awesome hearing that from him,� she said. “Being 17 years old, I wasn’t expecting to hear that I am going to change the world. I didn’t think that just by being there and doing what I am passionate about is going to change the world.�

Hearing that message, along with enjoying the other experiences that Teen Tech provided, was what drove Classrooms Without Borders, an organization that traditionally provides professional development for teachers, to aid Silassy’s trip. “We thought it was important,� said Gur. “Just the opportunity to travel, the opportunity of working with other students from around the globe is tremendous,� said Craig. “If I could have gone, I would have gone as a student, just for the focus on technology and the different aspects of STEM and being able to share your own experiences in your community with those students from communities around the world.

In this day, it’s so important that people learn about individual differences so we learn to respect them. It’s imperative, especially with everything going on in the world.�  PJC

he first time Raeann Silassy experienced Chanukah, she lit a menorah with the mayor of Haifa. To follow that up, she kindled candles with the president of Israel. “It was an interesting experience because I had never celebrated Chanukah before; it was really cool,� the teenager said.

Though Silassy’s recent visit to Israel coincided with the Festival of Lights, her time abroad was to spark separate interests, said Tsipy Gur, founder and executive director of Classrooms Without Borders. Silassy, a 12th-grader at Fort Cherry Junior/ Senior High School in McDonald, Pa., was one of 60 students from 12 countries to participate in Technion International’s first annual Haifa Teen Tech Challenge.

The experience boasted two successive weeks in Israel, as the first was spent touring and the second was devoted to working with scientists and researchers on an innovative and juried project.

Both weeks provide benefit, said Adam Reinherz can be reached Teen Tech founder and director Liora p at areinherz@pittsburghjew ish Raeann Silassy was one of 60 teenagers who participated in Technion’s first annual Kalish. “We see this as an opportunity Haifa Teen Tech Challenge.

Photo courtesy of Raeann Silassy chronicle.org. to bring youth from all over the world together. These teenagers who are coming ested in science and technology, especially here, I believe will be our best ambassadors. technology,� said Kalish.

They toured Israel, met with Israeli youth, It is what drew Silassy to the project, with the president, with innovators, and said Trisha Craig, junior high principal many of them had no idea what Israel is all at Fort Cherry. about. They watch the news and see what After receiving information about the each station wants to show, especially when program from her Fort Cherry administhere is a terrorist attack or problems, and trator, Silassy immediately applied. She is “an all of a sudden they encounter a modern excellent student and a very sweet girl. She’s vibrant country and city. And that’s what I involved in a number of different activities want people to know, that we are open and at school, including our Society for Women want to share our knowledge with every- in Engineering chapter and our agricultural body, and we are delighted that so many science program,� said Craig. For her to “take countries decided to join.� those learning experiences and expand them Despite the various backgrounds and while overseas is awesome.� personalities of participants, melding Silassy, who marked this trip as her first Whether you are looking for someone to help an aging parent together was rather easy, said Silassy. time abroad, agreed. “I learned a lot while I a few hours a week or need more comprehensive assistance, After sharing particular interests, the teens was there,� she said. “It was amazing. I kind of Home Instead can help. were divided into groups and then strate- got culture shock when I first got there. It was gized alongside supervisors from IBM, Intel different from Pittsburgh: the weather, the and Technion on possible projects. Silassy’s time difference and being so far away from Home Instead CAREGiversSM cohort, which consisted of kids from Argen- home. It was a whole different experience.�

Call for a free, can provide a variety of tina, Australia, Israel and Mexico, designed But Silassy, who visited the Dead Sea and no-obligation appointment a pedal-powered cellphone charger. The Masada, observed three bar mitzvahs at the services. Some include: idea was that it would encourage health and Western Wall and enjoyed a Shabbat meal 412.646.1257 fitness while providing a necessary function, complete with home-cooked food, quickly • Companionship Care she explained. adjusted to her new surroundings.

The winning team, which was comprised “I didn’t expect it to be that amazing,â€? • Personal Care of Israeli Druze and Chinese teenagers, she said. “It’s a beautiful country. I think • Meals & Nutrition created a “special device that you can put on everyone should go.â€? a person’s finger, even a child’s, when they go Such is one of the goals, said Kalish. “I see • Transportation swimming, and it transmits different scien- it is as a bridge between us and everybody. tific details to an app.â€? If the wearer expe- [Teen Tech is] an opportunity to meet the • Household Duties riences distress, the app then alerts those country and its people.â€? outside of the swimming area that a situaAnd while Silassy spoke highly of her • Respite Care tion is arising. “It gives you enough time to Israeli hosts, who treated her “like royalty,â€? act,â€? said Kalish. one individual stood out. As she and the HomeInstead.com/567 • Hospice “It was so amazing to see what these kids other teenagers collaborated on their innowere able to create,â€? said Gur. vative endeavors, they were introduced to Each Home Instead Senior Care JVERGLMWI SJ½GI MW MRHITIRHIRXP]

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Headlines Innovation imperative to keep Jewish youth involved, says expert — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

D

avid Bryfman, chief innovation officer at The Jewish Education Project (formerly the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York), is no longer concerned with using Jewish education to make people better Jews. Considered an expert in bringing innovative strategies and creative thinking to Jewish education, Bryfman sees a bigger picture.

“My ultimate goal is to try to show [Jews] that their Jewish heritage, their wisdom, their values, their culture, their religion can actually make them better human beings,” he said in an interview prior to a visit this week to Pittsburgh, where he would be instructing Jewish educators, youth professionals and other local stakeholders. “That’s a bit of a flip. p David Bryfman I’m no longer saying that I think Judaism can make you a better Jew, or make the Jewish community stronger. I’m pretty adamant senior director of Jewish Life at the Jewish now that I believe that Judaism can actually Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. make you a better human being, and it can On Monday, Bryfman met with youth direcmake your community better and stronger, tors from Pittsburgh, as well as visiting youth and it can make the world a better place.” workers from Pittsburgh’s Israeli PartnerBrfyman was invited to come to Pittsburgh ship2Gether sister region, Karmiel/Misgav.

by Rabbi Amy Bardack, director of Jewish He also had a separate session with rabbis, Life and Learning at the Jewish Federation of synagogue directors and religious school JC OticonZPower _Eartique 11/28/17 9:12 AM Page 1 educators and other Jewish professionals Greater Pittsburgh, and Rabbi Ron Symons,

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and held a third session, open to the public, called “Understanding Jewish Teens: The Selfie Generation Who Will Save the World.”

Bardack thought the timing was right to bring Bryfman to Pittsburgh, as the results of the new Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study, which the Federation commissioned from Brandeis University researchers, will be revealed next month.

As the community will be evaluating its new data, Bardack explained, “it’s time to make sure our approach to teen learning is based on best practices and research.”

Bryfman has “articulated outcomes we can use to measure how we’re doing and set goals for teen learning and experiences,” Bardack added. “We do a lot of tracking of how teens are engaging, and we’ve already introduced some of David Bryfman’s research to our youth professional network. Now, we need to figure out how we can further assess how we’re doing, and that will inform our planning on what to do with the teens.”

Jewish teen engagement must evolve, Brfyman said, to respond to the unique qualities of a new generation and a rapidly changing world.

Because of technology, “this is possibly the most materialistic, narcissistic, self-indulgent generation the world has ever known, and at the same time, they are also out there involved in more social, political, cultural campaigns than any generation ever before them,” Brfyman said.

While those attributes “seem completely dichotomous,” he posited, “this generation has really found a way to be both quite seamlessly.”

Because it is hopeless to “fight social trends,” he continued, “nothing we do in the Jewish world is ever going to be able to compete with what’s happening in their lives.

So, we work with what we’ve got. We make sure we offer activities that take the values of this generation to succeed and to thrive in their indulgent lives — which often means helping them get into colleges and universities, getting them the jobs they need to be as successful as they need — and also give them the framework to help change the world and make it a better place.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

“If we [the Jewish community] can offer them the things they value, they will come to us for a whole lot of other things — not just the Jewish. They will come to us for anything that is valuable to them.”

Established Jewish institutions will have to change, Bryfman said, if they want to remain relevant to Gen Z. Traditional models of synagogues, for example, will not attract teens.

“They don’t like hierarchy, they don’t like fixed prayer, they don’t like being quiet, they don’t like being spoken at,” he said. “Are we able to change Jewish practice to meet the needs of this younger generation, while at the same time not upsetting the older people in the congregation who pay the bills and who also come there to pray? We know we can do it, because at summer camp, it’s really successful. We know how to engage the kids in all this wonderful stuff. We have to actually make a choice, to change our ways to meet the needs of this younger generation.”

Although he conceded that summer camp does not work for every Jewish child or teen, there are some aspects of the model that can and should be replicated in other settings.

“There’s a flattened hierarchy in these organizations, or at least the kids feel that they are owning the experiences in which they are participating,” he said. Institutional leadership needs to parse out “the types of ownership roles we can give young people to actually run parts of synagogue life.”

Jewish institutions must also strive to be more inclusive to meet the needs of the new generation, Bryfman added.

“Among non-Orthodox Jews in particular, 72 percent of them come from interfaith families,” he said. “All of them have non-Jewish friends, and none of them really likes to see Judaism as an exclusive club. So, what are we doing in the Jewish community to welcome in our non-Jews or our half Jews or those wanting to learn about Judaism? It’s not a very welcoming place.”

Doing nothing to change the model will lead to a “crisis,” he said, as the numbers of people participating in organized non-Orthodox Jewish life continue to dwindle.

“You need leadership that is actually able to say that we got to where we are today because of the people in the room, but if our real mission is to stay viable and valuable moving forward, then we need to look at who’s up and coming and what we need to do to alter our practices to meet their needs.

I call it the ‘innovation imperative.’ We have no other choice but to change our ways.”

When working with the youth professionals, Brfyman generally begins the sessions by inquiring as to what outcomes they are held accountable.

“We shouldn’t just be held accountable for numbers,” he said. “The quality of the experience matters. What matters is, is what you’re doing helping them to become a better human being, a more productive member of the community? And is what you’re doing helping to make the world a better place? If you can check off any of those three buckets, you’re doing a great job.” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines UPMC doctors lead charge in paradigm shift — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

T

wo local Jewish doctors are charged with implementing a task of multigenerational value. Steven Reis and Mylynda Massart, both of the University of Pittsburgh, are seeking to recruit nearly 150,000 central and western Pennsylvanians for participation in the PA Cares for Us research program.

Reis and Massart’s efforts coincide with similar undertakings occurring throughout the country, as National Institutes of Health-supported physicians and scientists are attempting to build a database of information from one million participants. The national endeavor, which is titled All of Us, along with its regional counterpart, is to facilitate better understanding of disease, explained Reis, principal investigator, associate vice chancellor for clinical research, Health Sciences, professor of medicine and CTSI director at the University of Pittsburgh.

“The goal of All of US is to collect the largest dataset in the United States, so it’s one million people and their histories … and their genetics. And once you have a database of one million people,” explained Reis, “you have individuals in the database who have every disease essentially: rare diseases,

p Steven Reis and Mylynda Massart

common diseases. And then scientists can start making observations.”

By aggregating such voluminous data, physicians and researchers will be better equipped to diagnose, prevent and treat disease in the years ahead, said Massart, co-investigator and medical director at the UPMC Matilda Theiss Family Health Center.

Collectively, it’s about “individualizing care” for patients, echoed Reis.

PA Cares and its national counterpart are part of the Precision Medicine Initiative introduced by President Barack Obama in

Photos courtesy of UPMC

his 2015 State of the Union address.

“He recognized that this was really how we needed to advance medicine and take medicine to the next level,” said Massart.

What Obama also realized was that “historically, research has been done on Caucasian men,” but when doctors are “trying to make medical decisions and they want to go to the research for the best evidence, then that evidence has to be applicable to the patient that they are considering at that moment.”

“For example, “if I’m in my office and the majority of my patients are African-Amer-

ican or Ashkenazi, if the research is done on some Caucasian male who is 70 years old, how am I going to interpret that data in terms of these patients? Obama recognized this and said not only do we need to advance medicine, but we need to broaden our research base to be the most diverse it’s ever been in the history of this country because we need doctors to interpret the data to the specific patient that they’re taking care of.”

Adopting a precision-medicine method is really about “treating people based on who they are, which is different from the way we approach medicine right now,” echoed Reis.

“Right now, we use evidence-based medicine, which is based on the results of largescale studies of cohorts of large numbers of people, not necessarily on individuals.

There’s just a different frame of reference essentially. It’s a paradigm shift. It’s changing the way we as physicians will practice medicine, and for patients, the way they will be cared for in the future.”

To date, the University of Pittsburgh has received more than $7 million in NIH grants toward PA Cares. “The university anticipates receiving $67 million in awards for the life of the study,” said William K. Young of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh.

This is a “huge monumental groundPlease see UPMC, page 17

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Calendar q WEDNESDAY, JAN. 17 Generations Speaker Series: Moshe Baran and Avi Baran Munro, hosted by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh will begin at 7 p.m. at Community Day School, 6424 Forward Ave. This series, which will be hosted in-person and live-streamed online, will consist of dialogues between Holocaust survivors and their family members. There will be three events, taking place in the first three months of the year in various locations. All talks will be free and open to the public. Baran will share his harrowing story of survival as a member of a Partisan unit, speaking along with his daughter, Munro, the head of school at Community Day School, who will share her experience as a child of two survivors. The Greater Pittsburgh Church of Christ that meets at Community Day School will host this program. Visit jfedpgh.org/generations-moshe-baran for more information and 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. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q THURSDAY AND SATURDAY,

JAN. 11 AND 13

Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge series and the Andy Warhol Museum, will include two concerts that feature klezmer clarinet virtuoso David Krakauer. The first, an orchestra concert at Carnegie Music Hall at 8 p.m. will include the premiere of Mathew Rosenblum’s work, “Lament/Witches’ Sabbath,” a clarinet concerto that chronicles the Rosenblum family’s escape from Ukraine in 1919. The second concert, at 8 p.m. at the Andy Warhol Museum, features Krakauer’s powerhouse klezmer group, Ancestral Groove. This will be the closing event of the three-day festival that celebrates cultural roots. Visit music. pitt.edu/mote/beyond for more information about the concerts and festival. q SATURDAY, JAN. 13 Temple Emanuel of South Hills will host Pastor Cheryl Jones Ross of Greater Hope Restoration Ministries who will speak during Shabbat morning services at 10:30 a.m. Ross will speak on Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and its message to American Jews. All are welcome to attend at 1250 Bower Hill Road. Visit templeemanuelpgh.org for more information.

Havdalah and Wine at Moishe House from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Channel your inner “wine aunt”/sommelier, and learn about the origins of kosher wine. Bring a brag-worthy bottle to share; cheese will be provided. Visit tinyurl. com/ycjhjr9x for more information. q TUESDAY, JAN. 16 JFCS Career Development Center has launched the Women’s Networking Series 2018.

The series will consist of four events, covering topics such as LinkedIn and internet job sites, volunteering one’s way into a job, balancing family and work needs and considering temping to get a foot in the door. Attendees will have a chance to ask questions and spend some time networking, a critical skill to discover available jobs and make connections.

This series also expands JFCS Career Development Center programs into the South Hills areas of Pittsburgh, a process that began a few years ago. It was created in partnership with the Mt. Lebanon Library, where the sessions will be held at 16 Castle

6 JANUARY 12, 2018

Shannon Blvd. The four sessions take place on the third Tuesday of each month, January through April, beginning Jan. 16. This series is free and open to the public, but space is limited and registration is required. Visit mtlebanonlibrary.org or call 412-531-1912 to register. Visit jfcspgh.org/career or call 412-422-5627 for more information on JFCS Career Development Center services.  WEDNESDAY, JAN. 17 Documentary Night with Moishe House from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Chatham University. Join for viewing and discussion of “Birthright: A War Story,” a film that explores the relationship between the government, religion and reproductive rights in the United States through the stories of women, pregnancies and families. Meet at Moishe House at 6:15 p.m. to walk over together. Visit tinyurl.com/ydxer7uc for more information. q WEDNESDAYS, JAN. 17-MAY 9 What’s Your Story? A Deep Dive into Foundational Biblical and Rabbinic Stories of Judaism, will be offered by Kulam, the Pittsburgh Community Beit Midrash (house of learning), for a seven lecture series by leading scholars from the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies on key stories from the Tanach (Bible) and the Talmud, and how these stories have continued to influence our narrative to this day. The sessions will be at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh on Wednesdays from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in room 202. Visit Facebook at tinyurl.com/y7lqkwbz for a complete list of speakers, dates and times. The lectures are free and open to the community. q WEDNESDAY, JAN. 17 NarAnon meeting and NA meeting, every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills, 1900 Cochran Road. Contact Karen at 412-5633395 for more information.

for Israel, will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Rodef Shalom Congregation. This is a free event that includes a dessert and wine reception; dietary laws observed. Di-Porto brings her expertise and well-honed skills to effectively manage critical, often clandestine aliyah missions from Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. With the increase in aliyah from France, Di-Porto is at the forefront of JAFI’s aliyah and absorption in Israel. Contact Mia Alcorn at malcorn@jfedpgh. org or 412-992-5222 for more information.

Chabad of the South Hills will hold a new monthly course for women, Pause and Effect: A Shabbat Outlook, by the Rosh Chodesh Society. Classes will be held on the third Thursday each month at 10 a.m. There is a $5 charge. Visit chabadsh.com or contact barb@ chabadsh.com for more information. q FRIDAY, JAN. 19 Community potluck dinner at 5:45 p.m. at Temple Sinai with an entrée of baked blueberry chutney chicken prepared by Chef Drew. Bring a nondairy side dish, salad or dessert (enough for 8-10 people). Shabbat service follows at 7 p.m. There is a $5 charge.

Contact Judy Lynn Aiello at 412-421-9715, ext.

124, or judylynn@templesinaipgh.org or visit tinyurl.com/ydh2wuva to register.

Temple David celebrates its 60th anniversary in the Eastern Suburbs. The kickoff begins with the “Temple David: This is Us” display. There will be a dinner at 6 p.m. A Shabbat service will follow at 7:30 p.m. discussing the importance of “Jewish Archiving” with Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program and Archives at the Heinz History Center. Refreshments will follow. Saturday there will be a Shabbat service at 10 a.m. with “Congregants reminiscing Six Decades.” Sunday the kickoff weekend ends with interactive stations about the past 60 years, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and a discussion of “What Led to Temple David” by Eric Lidji at 11:30 a.m. For information, call 412-372-1200.

Young Adult Shabbat after hours at 8:30 p.m. at Temple Sinai, a wine and cheese mix and mingle with young adults (ages 21-45). There is no charge. Visit tinyurl.com/ycno9zd4 for more information and to RSVP. q SATURDAY, JAN. 20 Game Day, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., whether your favorite game is Telestrations or Apples to Apples, you can find it at Moishe House.

Play one of its games or introduce players to your own game. Spend your Shabbat afternoon playing and snacking with your favorite Moho crew. Visit tinyurl.com/ ybo2uz3f for more information.

Beat the winter blues and party like you’re on an island vacation at Community Day School’s Sun & Schmooze: A Tropical Gala at 7:30 p.m. with dancing with DJ Sosa, and

AARP Squirrel Hill Chapter 3354 will hold its monthly meeting at 1 p.m. at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha located at Shady and Wilkins avenues. Board member Marsha Stern will be conducting a trivia contest. Everyone is invited; membership is not required.

Refreshments are served after the meeting.

Contact Ilene Portnoy at 412-683-7985 for more information.

q

gourmet dinner stations with tropical flavors at the August Wilson Center at 980 Liberty Ave. All money raised will go directly to support educational programs at CDS and to provide tuition assistance for families in need.

During the evening, CDS will honor members of the community. CDS alumni parents State Rep. Dan and Debbie Frankel will receive the Community Leadership Award and alumni parent Dana Himmel will receive the CDS Volunteer of the Year Award. Visit comday. org/gala for tickets. For more information on how to become an event sponsor while supporting Community Day School, contact Jenny Jones at 412-521-1000, ext. 3207, or jjones@comday.org.

Shabbat Searchers: Exploring Sacred Spaces at 5 p.m. in the Rodef Shalom sanctuary. This is a pilot program exploring offsite Shabbat experiences for those who prefer life off the beaten path. Every other month the group will gather for an alternative Shabbat experience focusing on how one can view, use and be in sacred spaces. The program launches from Rodef Shalom’s home sanctuary before setting off to explore around the city. Contact frischer@ rodefshalom.org for more information. q SUNDAY, JAN. 21 Congregation Dor Hadash, Congregation Beth Shalom’s program Derekh and the University of Pittsburgh’s Jewish Studies Program invite the community to a lecture at 10 a.m. by Justin Cammy titled “When Yiddish Was Young.” Cammy, associate professor of Jewish studies and comparative literature at Smith College, is a literary and cultural historian with research and teaching interests in Yiddish literature, Eastern European Jewish history, and Zionism and contemporary Israel. He holds a doctorate in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from McGill University. The lecture will be presented at Congregation Dor Hadash at the corner of Wilkins and Shady avenues in Squirrel Hill.

RSVP is required at admin@dorhadash.net or 412-422-5158. q JANUARY 22-MARCH 5 Beth El Congregation’s Adult Ed Speaker Series. Join Beth El for the first of six thought-provoking evenings through March 5. Each evening begins with a wine and cheese reception at 7 p.m. and features different guests, including Beth Kissileff, Rabbi Ron Symons, Ria David, Dr. Mark Perlin and Rabbi Danny Schiff. There is no fee and the event is open to the community. Visit bethelcong.org for more information and to RSVP or call 412-561-1168.

Please see Calendar, page 7

SATURDAY, JAN. 27

Clues and Schmooze (with some Booze), a trivia event that includes a raffle, open bar and snacks, will be held at Beth Shalom Congregation at 7:30 p.m. Trivia will be in teams of four. Bring your own team or be matched up at the door. Visit tinyurl.com/clues2018 for more information, including charges.

q THURSDAY, JAN. 18 Rescuing Jews in Need through Clandestine Aliyah Efforts, featuring Arielle Di-Porto, director, Aliyah Division at the Jewish Agency

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Calendar Calendar:

q SATURDAY, JAN. 27 Continued from page 6

q TUESDAY, JAN. 23 Chabad of the South Hills will hold its pre-Tu B’Shevat lunch for seniors at noon at 1701 McFarland Road. There will be a safety presentation by the Mt. Lebanon Fire Department and a special Tu B’Shevat program. Call 412-278-2658 to preregister.

There is a $5 suggested donation.  TUESDAY, JAN. 23

AND THURSDAY, JAN. 25

The Pittsburgh OASIS Intergenerational Tutor Program is seeking volunteers (50plus) to tutor in Pittsburgh and Woodland Hills School Districts in grades K-4. An hour a week can change a child’s life. A two-day training class will be conducted from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 411 Seventh Ave., Suite 525 (Duquesne Light Building). Contact John D. Spehar, Pittsburgh OASIS Tutoring program director at 412-393-7648 or jdspehar@ oasisnet.org for more information or to register. OASIS is an affiliate of Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. q FRIDAY, JAN. 26 Breakfast for Dinner Shabbat at Moishe House from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. with pancakes, eggs and mimosas. PJs are welcome (extra points for footsies). Visit tinyurl.com/ ybuurzsn for more information.

The Holocaust Center, in partnership with the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Modern Languages and Rodef Shalom Congregation, will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a screening of “Sterne” (“Stars”) at 7 p.m. at Rodef Shalom. The East German film is a drama about a sergeant in the Wehrmacht and how his life is changed by the establishment of a transit camp for Jews arriving from Greece.

“Sterne,” which won the 1959 Special Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, is a linguistic triumph, speaking to the diversity of Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

The film features dialogue in Bulgarian, German, Greek, and Ladino. Because English subtitles were not completed until 1999, the film has gained new life in the 21st century.

This is the first time Sterne has been screened in Pittsburgh. Visit hcofpgh.org/sterne/ for more information. The event cost is $10 and free for students with valid ID and survivors. q SUNDAY, JAN. 28 I-Volunteer & MoHo: Packing Medical Supplies from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. for targeted communities in need throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Come to MoHo at 12:15 p.m. or meet at Global Links, 700 Trumbull Drive at 1 p.m. Visit tinyurl. com/ya7mujc3 for more information. q NOMINATIONS DUE BY

FRIDAY, JAN. 31

The Shore-Whitehill Award nominations are open for 2018. The Shore-Whitehill Award, created in 1996, is named for Robert Whitehill

and the late Barbara Shore and celebrates volunteers who promote inclusion of people with disabilities in the fabric of Jewish life through advocacy or direct service to individuals and families. Organizations that nominate awardees receive a grant of $1,000 to help underwrite the costs of a recognition event and/or inclusion activities. Awardees receive an original sculpture by the late Sylvia Plutchok, who was a Pittsburgh-based artist. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Jewish Residential Services give the award annually. Visit jrspgh.org/ shore-whitehill for the nomination form and contact Jewish Residential Services at shorewhitehill@jrspgh.org or 412-325-0039 for more information. q FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2 Temple David hosts a Young Family Shabbat Service and Picnic Dinner. The Shabbat service begins on the bimah at 6 p.m. and a picnic in the social hall will follow at 6:30 p.m. There is no cost. Chicken fingers, sides and drinks will be provided. Please bring your picnic blankets. The event is for children under age 10 with their families and children of all ages in the family are welcome. q WEDNESDAY, FEB. 7 Chabad of Squirrel Hill hosts an inspirational talk, entitled “Creating Light from Darkness” at its new location, 1700 Beechwood Blvd. at 7:30 p.m. The presentation will be given by guest lecturer Dina Horowitz, a mother of seven from California whose life was turned upside down when her husband, Rabbi Yitzi, was diagnosed with ALS in 2015. The cost of

the event is $10 per person. A soup bar will be available for guests to enjoy as well. For more information or to make a reservation, please visit chabadpgh.com/light or call 412-421-3561. q THURSDAY, FEB. 8 The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s Generations Speaker Series with Judah Samet and Miriam Cohen. The free series will be hosted in-person and live-streamed and will consist of dialogues between Holocaust survivors and their family members. Samet will present his story, which includes surviving the horrors of Bergen-Belsen as a 7-year-old child alongside his brave mother. His sister, Miriam Cohen, will speak about being born in Israel after the war’s conclusion, and the experience of being raised by Holocaust survivors beside siblings who also survived the Holocaust.

The program is at 6:30 p.m. at Wilkins and Shady avenues.

Temple David and AgeWell Pittsburgh are partnering to offer a Caregivers Forum to learn what supports you, as a caregiver, need, be it a safe, nurturing place to talk, resources for your loved one or supports for yourself, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at 4415 Northern Pike, Monroeville. Coffee and light snacks will be provided. RSVP by Feb. 2 to Sybil Lieberman, AgeWell at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, at slieberman@jccpgh.org or 412-697-3514. PJC

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JANUARY 12, 2018 7

Headlines This 31-year-old Londoner has become Poland’s best-known (and most controversial) Jew — WORLD —

By Cnaan Liphshiz | JTA

M

IĘDZYRZEC PODL ASKI, Poland — In a snowy woods near the border with Belarus, Jonny Daniels pulled muddy fishing waders over the pants of his tailored business suit and grabbed a shovel from the trunk of his car.

A London-born Israeli activist for Holocaust commemoration, Daniels, 31, had worn the suit for a meeting last year with Polish government officials in the country’s east. And he put on the waders shortly after learning at that meeting of a village road made of Jewish headstones — which he then decided to salvage.

Both get-ups are “uniforms” that Daniels always has with him, he said while struggling to break the frozen ground to extract the headstone fragments. He later deposited the stones at a local Jewish cemetery as part of a commemoration project by the charity that Daniels established in 2014 called From the Depths.

“Though I admit I don’t usually wear them in layers. This is odd even for me,” he added.

Odd, perhaps, but nonetheless an appropriate demonstration of the tools that Daniels, a public relations specialist and former parliamentary aide in Israel’s Knesset, has used to become one of the best-known Jews in Poland just four years after moving here. It was through a mix of hard work, strategic alliances with some locals and Poland’s right-wing government, publicity stunts and an embrace of controversy.

Daniels’ first project in Poland was in 2014, when he brought over half the Knesset to the former death camp of Auschwitz using money from private donors. The following year he partnered with local weightlifters to help move Jewish headstones, providing a colorful photo op for international media.

And in early 2017, Daniels brought to Poland former NBA All-Star Ray Allen for meetings with Holocaust survivors and their rescuers.

Leveraging his exposure with local politicians — last month alone Daniels appeared on national television and the front pages of the left-leaning Gazeta Wyborca daily, as well as the conservative Do Rzeczy weekly — he has made some powerful allies, including Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Daniels hosted Morawiecki at events and even at his own home in Warsaw, where Daniels throws Shabbat dinners for politicians and journalists — often their first such experience in a country with only 6,000 Jews.

Daniels, who has helped restore hundreds of Jewish headstones and raised millions to honor saviors of Jews during the Holocaust, says his alliances and media profile are “helping Poles and Jews bridge their tragic history toward greater understanding that will reduce mutual suspicion and anti-Semitism.”

This goal, and the need to improve the “horrendous situation of Jewish burial sites” in Poland, were his motivation for becoming 8 JANUARY 12, 2018

p Jonny Daniels with Holocaust survivor Moshe Tirosh in 2015

Photo courtesy of From The Depths

involved with fieldwork in Poland, said Daniels, whose family hails from the Eastern European nation. His grandfather fled the country for the United Kingdom after surviving a lynching.

“I felt, and I still feel, that it’s my duty. It’s almost as though I feel them calling out to me from their ruined graves,” Daniels said.

His successful outreach has earned Daniels praise and appreciation from many Poles, including some leaders of Polish Jewry. In 2016, Daniels signed a general agreement of cooperation with the cultural group TSKZ, the country’s largest Jewish organization with 1,200 members. It was a major breakthrough for Daniels, who until that point had few allies within Poland’s Jewish community.

But his fame and coziness with the nationalist government — currently the European Union’s bête noire for its alleged inaction on racism, defanging of the Supreme Court and anti-abortion policies — also have exposed Daniels to scathing criticism, including by some leaders of the local Jewish community.

Among his most outspoken critics is the chief rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, who is also a critic of the current government. In an interview for the Daily Forward in November, Schudrich said that some say Daniels is “engaged in the world’s oldest profession” for his ties to that government.

“He has become a supporter of the ultraright wing,” the rabbi said of Daniels. “It’s the politicization of the Holocaust that is the most dangerous aspect of what he’s doing — and the politicization of history.”

Sergiusz Kowalski, a leader of B’nai B’rith Poland, called Daniels a “court Jew who’s trying his best to promote the anti-democratic propaganda and policies of the ruling Law and Justice party.” And Anna Chipczyńska, the president of the Jewish Community of Warsaw, said “people find it ridiculous what he’s doing,” accusing him of trying to undermine the community’s elected representatives by meeting politicians on his own.

Even Daniels’ promotion of non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews in Poland has come under attack. Kowalski branded such

efforts, which had the help of government officials, an “abuse of noble rescuers” to help the government show a “more civilized face” and to highlight positive behavior during the Holocaust at the expense of exploring dark chapters of complicity by other Poles.

Daniels said that “honoring rescuers is nonpartisan.” He denies having any sympathy for the Polish far right, whose activists often accuse him of being a Russian, American or Israeli spy working to undermine Polish sovereignty.

“My critics within the Jewish community perceive me inaccurately as a threat to their position,” he said, “so they attempt to slander me instead of cooperating. It’s regrettable.”

Israeli politicians, by contrast, have had no problem visiting Poland on trips organized

by Daniels. They have included Ayoob Kara, the communications minister; Hilik Bar, the deputy Knesset speaker and secretary general of the Labor party; and Oren Hazan, a Likud lawmaker and provacateur.

Reacting to criticism over his ties to the current government, Daniels noted that he worked just as closely with the previous one. He said he criticizes Polish authorities frequently for their handling of some Jewish gravesites, former Nazi concentration camps and failure to prevent illegal hate speech against Jews, including during a nationalist march in November. That month, Daniels filed a complaint with police against individuals who shouted anti-Semitic slogans at the Warsaw march.

Yet, Daniels has himself trafficked in classic ultranationalist terminology during television interviews in Poland. In one interview in October with the TVP station, he linked the criticism of Poland by some Jews to a desire to make money off the Holocaust.

“There’s such a thing as the Holocaust industry. There are Jews — leftist Jews — benefiting from the Holocaust. That’s the truth,” he said. “The leftist Jewish media continue to attack Poland and portray Poland as a racist country. They earn from it. This helps them, for example, to get restitution.”

That sentiment may be offensive to many

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

Jews in Poland and beyond, but it is nonetheless echoed by some of the most prominent figures in Poland’s fractious Jewish community — an environment that many members describe as toxic, rife with rumors, recriminations, allegations of corruption and deep personal animosities.

Artur Hofman, president of the TSKZ cultural group that is allied with Daniels, defended Daniels as someone doing “good work” but being attacked by the “leftist media” and Jewish community leaders.

Hofman accused Chipczyńska, the Warsaw Jewish leader, of waging a “political war” on the government by “exaggerating the country’s anti-Semitism problem” while mismanaging millions in restitution funds.

The alleged “political war” was a reference to a letter that Chipczyńska co-authored last year to a senior politician. In an unprecedented act of protest by the Jewish community in post-communist Poland, the letter warned of rising threats to the Jewish community from ultranationalists and charged that the government is not doing enough to rein them in.

Countering Hofman’s claims, Chipczyńska insisted it was an accurate observation born out of her responsibility to maintain the community’s security.

Daniels is also scrutinized for his work as a public relations consultant for the state-owned LOT airline, which is seen as a conflict of interest by several leaders of Polish Jewry, including Rabbi Haim Beliak of the Beit Polska group of Progressive Jewish communities in Poland.

Daniels counters by saying his work for “a firm that is purely a financial enterprise” has no bearing on his Jewish activism. He has refused calls by critics to reveal details about the funding sources for From the Depths, which he says does not receive “a single cent” from the Polish government.

“I am under no legal obligation to disclose this, so I don’t,” he said.

But to many of Daniels’ critics in Poland, the thorniest issue of all is his close relationship with a Catholic priest who for years headed a radio station that was one of the country’s main purveyors of anti-Semitic propaganda. In May, Daniels participated with Father Tadeusz Rydzyk in a show on Rydzyk’s infamous Radio Maryja station.

Daniels even hosted the priest at one of his Shabbat dinners.

In 2007, Rydzyk said that “Jews were pushing the Polish government to pay exorbitant private property restitution claims,” and that Poland’s president was “in the pocket of the Jewish lobby.” Anna Azari, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, also hosted Rydzyk at her embassy in a move that infuriated some of her critics within the Jewish community.

Daniels’ relationship with Rydzyk prompted Laurence Weinbaum, an expert on Poland and the global representative in Israel of the World Jewish Congress, to launch a withering attack on Daniels, calling him a Please see Poland, page 17

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Headlines — WORLD — From JTA reports

Pence’s Middle East visit rescheduled Vice President Mike Pence will visit Israel later this month, his office announced.

Pence will travel to the Middle East Jan. 19-23, with other stops in Egypt and Jordan to meet with their leaders.

In Israel on the last two days of the trip, the vice president is scheduled to meet jointly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, and to address the Knesset. He also is scheduled to visit the Western Wall and Yad Vashem.

Palestinian leaders refuse to meet with Pence in the wake of President Donald Trump’s recognition last month of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Pence postponed a planned mid-December visit to Israel so he could preside over the vote on a tax overhaul favored by Trump.

It was believed that the vice president may have been needed to cast the deciding vote in the closely divided Senate, but he was not as the plan passed.

The original trip had included meetings in Bethlehem with Palestinian Authority officials.

On the newly scheduled trip, prior to visiting Israel, Pence will meet in Egypt on Jan. 20 with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and in Jordan on Jan. 21 with King Abdullah II. “At President Trump’s direction, the Vice

President is traveling to the Middle East to reaffirm our commitment to work with the U.S.’s allies in the region to defeat radicalism that threatens future generations,” Pence’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, said Monday in a statement. “The Vice President is looking forward to meeting with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel to discuss ways to work together to fight terrorism and improve our national security.”

US-born terrorist asks for furlough to attend son’s bris A U.S.-born Jewish terrorist serving two life sentences for killing Palestinians has asked the Israel Prison Service to leave jail for his son’s bris.

Jack Teitel, a Florida native, has been in an Israeli jail since his arrest in October 2009.

He was sentenced in 2013.

The bris will be held Saturday morning, requiring that Teitel be granted a furlough for the entire Shabbat. His family lives in Shvut Rachel, a West Bank hilltop settlement.

“Thousands of terrorists have been released home in the past few years — I’m merely asking to be present for my son’s brit,” Teitel told his attorney, Azriel Friedenberg of the Honenu organization, according to Ynet.

“I’ll go back to prison later. I expect to receive this small bit of compassion at the very least.”

The request submitted Sunday by Friedenberg asked that Teitel “be allowed to take an irregular vacation for the bris ceremony considering the exceedingly special circum-

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

Jan. 12, 1989 Historic basketball game takes place in Moscow

Maccabi Tel-Aviv defeats the CSKA Red Army team, 97-92.

Jan. 13, 1922 Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow meets with US president

Jan. 16, 2003 Columbia space shuttle launches

The Columbia space shuttle takes off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:39 AM. The shuttle explodes while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere two weeks later, killing all on board. Among the seven-member crew is Ilan Ramon, an Israeli Air Force pilot and the country’s first astronaut.

Jan. 17, 1930 High Commissioner John Chancellor argues to end Jewish national home

Nahum Sokolow, serving as president of the Executive Committee of the World Zionist Congress, meets with President Warren Harding in Washington, D.C.

Jan. 14, 1925 Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is born

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, one of modern Judaism’s most influential composers and spiritual leaders, is born in Berlin.

Jan. 15, 1958 Kastner is found not guilty

Dr. Israel (Rudolf) Kastner, who had been accused of collaborating with the Nazis in the annihilation of Hungarian Jewry, is cleared of any wrongdoing by Israel’s Supreme Court.

In a dispatch to the Colonial Office, John Chancellor, serving as British high commissioner in Palestine, argues to end the Jewish national home in Palestine.

Jan. 18, 1906 Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts opens

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The first 40 students, all women, enroll in the newly established Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. PJC

stances” and said he would “consent to every condition” mandated by the prison service.

Teitel attended the bris of a son born two years ago that took place on a weekday within the prison facilities.

Along with killing two Palestinians and attempting to murder five Jews and Arabs, Teitel also assembled a package bomb that seriously injured the son of a messianic Jew in Ariel and set up a pipe bomb near the home of prominent left-wing professor, Zeev Sternhell.

The crimes occurred between 1997 and 2008, some while Teitel was in Israel as a tourist. He made aliyah in 2000.

Teitel had admitted to all the crimes, but said he did not recognize the court’s authority.

Jewish groups urge Senate panel to advance bill targeting Burma for persecution of Muslims Twenty-four Jewish groups encompassing all major religious streams urged a Senate panel to advance a bill that would penalize Burma for its treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority.

“Passing this legislation through your committee and the full Senate would send a powerful message to the Burmese military and the global community that the United States will not be silent or inactive in the face of mass atrocities,” said the letter sent Friday to Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), respectively the top Republican and Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Among those signing were Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist umbrella bodies as well as major civil rights groups including the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Also signing was the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the consensus-driven umbrella for Jewish public policy groups, and American Jewish World Service, which promotes human rights in the developing world.

The bill, as described in the letter, “would mandate targeted U.S. sanctions to help end the Burmese military’s atrocities against the Rohingya people, provide refugee assistance for the Rohingya, and establish a mechanism to address accountability around crimes committed against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Burma.”

Cardin, who is Jewish, has told reporters in recent days that he believes the bill will advance soon.

“We cannot remain silent as Jews, for whom the words ‘never again’ require us to act, nor as global citizens, in the face of senseless acts of brutality,” the letter says.

Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been accused of ethnically cleansing Rohingya from its country. The hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing the country since August is believed to be the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis. Burma, a Buddhist majority country, says it is only targeting militants.

Israeli human rights groups have sued to stop Israel from selling arms to Burma. PJC

Thank You to the Community

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People in financial crisis turn to us and with your support, we respond with immediate assistance for medical, dental, transportation, utilities and housing expenses.

On behalf of those receiving grants, the Board of Directors thanks the Pittsburgh Community and appreciates efforts to help those facing financial challenges.

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JANUARY 12, 2018 9

Headlines Jewish families killed in Costa Rica crash remembered for passionate social justice work — NATIONAL —

By Josefin Dolsten | JTA

N

EW YORK — Members of two families killed in a plane crash in Costa Rica were being remembered for their involvement in Jewish and philanthropic causes.

The Steinberg family of Scarsdale, in suburban New York, and the Weiss family of Belleair, Fla., were killed Dec. 31 when the small plane in which they were passengers went down in the Central American nation’s northwest shortly after takeoff.

The nine victims in the families were among 12 casualties — 10 U.S. tourists and two local crew members — in the accident in Guanacaste. Costa Rican investigators said that the cause was probably strong winds or mechanical problems, The Associated Press reported.

People close to members of the Steinberg and Weiss families spoke last week about the victims’ commitment to bettering the world.

The Steinbergs — Bruce, an investment banker, and wife Irene, along with their sons Matthew, 13; William, 18, a student at the University of Pennsylvania; and Zachary, 19, a student at Johns Hopkins University — attended the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale. They were involved in Jewish and social justice causes, including the UJA-Federation of New York, the American Jewish Committee and Seeds of Peace.

William helped introduce his family to Seeds of Peace, an organization that promotes conflict resolution, including between Israelis and Palestinians. He attended a Seeds of Peace camp in Maine in the summer of 2015, where he focused on

p Ari Weiss performs at Camp Ramah Darom in Clayton, Ga.

Photo courtesy of Camp Ramah Darom

dialogue between Indians and Pakistanis, as well as a leadership session in 2016 and a Jerusalem trip this summer. The Steinberg family supported the organization and attended benefit events.

A fellow program participant, Paul Guenther, 18, remembered William as supportive and deeply caring.

“He was a real mentor and supportive figure at camp for me,” Guenther said.

Guenther, who is not Jewish, said that William taught him about Judaism when the two visited Jerusalem this summer. At a Shabbat dinner, William helped lead the group in celebrations, and during a visit to the Western Wall, he helped give Guenther the lay of land.

“He was telling me what to do so I wouldn’t stick out,” Guenther said.

William was interested in pursuing a

p Bruce Steinberg and son William pose for a photo at the Seeds of Peace Camp in Otisfield, Maine.

Photo courtesy of Seeds of Peace

career in international affairs and believed that conflict resolution skills could serve as a stepping-stone.

“He very much was thinking about working towards peace in the Middle East in either the State Department or a think tank or an NGO,” said Clarke Reeves, the programs and development manager for Seeds of Peace. “He felt that the program in Jerusalem, the mediation and negotiation seminar, would kind of lay the foundation for him for a lifetime of public policy and global citizenship.”

Irene Steinberg’s efforts for UJA-Federation of New York included serving on its Scarsdale Women’s Board. She raised awareness about the organization’s work, participated in fundraising efforts and organized events.

Irene, who previously worked as a social

Mormons are baptizing Holocaust victims, Lubavitcher Rebbe and celebrities

By Josefin Dolsten | JTA

A

10 JANUARY 12, 2018

p The historic Salt Lake Temple and the world headquarters of the Mormon church in Salt Lake City Photo by George Frey/Getty Images

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Please see Crash, page 19

The names cited by Radkey refer to Holocaust victims baptized from April 2012 and onward. In March 2012, the Mormon church, formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sent a letter to its congregations reiterating a 1995 policy that members should only do posthumous baptisms on their own ancestors and forbidding baptisms of Jewish Holocaust victims and celebrities.

In addition to hundreds of Holocaust victims, Radkey claims to have found other examples of famous Jews being baptized. For example, she says the late Chabad-Lubavitch leader, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and his fatherin-law, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneersohn, were baptized in 2015. So were philosopher Martin Buber in 2016, and the grandparents of Spielberg and Fisher in 2015 and 2017.

Radkey found the names in FamilySearch, a website used by Mormons to trace family lineages and submit requests for proxy

— NATIONAL —

researcher says Mormons have posthumously baptized the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, the grandparents of Carrie Fisher and Steven Spielberg, and hundreds of Holocaust victims, violating an agreement to halt the practice.

Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City-based independent researcher who has been looking into the Mormon practice of posthumous baptisms for two decades, said there are hundreds of examples of Jewish Holocaust victims being baptized in Mormon churches around the world since 2012. In a report released this week, she shared names of 20 such people who had been baptized.

“There are at least hundreds, probably more,” Radkey, a former Mormon who was excommunicated from the church in 1978, said.

worker, was passionate about Israel and social justice, said Tali Strom, a senior development executive at UJA-Federation.

“She really was someone who wanted to make a difference in this world and woke up every day and did that, and did that for UJA,” Strom said. “She raised three boys who were basically following in her footsteps. They were an incredible family.”

The Weiss family — Mitchell and Leslie, both physicians; their daughter, Hannah, 19, and son, Ari, 16 — were members of Congregation B’nai Israel in St. Petersburg, Fla. Hannah Weiss — a sophomore enrolled in a joint program at Columbia University and List College, the undergraduate school of the Jewish Theological Seminary — cared deeply about the environment.

Please see Mormons, page 20

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Opinion Trump’s tweets — EDITORIAL —

P

resident Trump launched a barrage of tweets on Jan. 2 dealing with Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, the new tax law and a few other subjects — one of them addressing the Palestinians and Israel. In doing so he contradicted his previous positions and threatened to further destabilize a region for which he has long promised to deliver the “ultimate deal.”

Riffing on his outrage in his New Year’s tweet that in exchange for billions in U.S. aid, Pakistan has “given us nothing but lies & deceit,” Trump complained, “We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel.” In a similar vein the next day, he called for cutting off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Such a measure has been advocated by parts of the Jewish community and parts of the Republican Party, ostensibly because of the P.A.’s payments to the families of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned by Israel. This time, Trump seemed to be threatening a cutoff if the Palestinians did not submit to negotiations, which Palestinian leaders have characterized as “blackmail.”

p President Trump’s tweets threaten to further destabilize the PalestinianIsraeli relationship.

Photo by Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images

It isn’t clear which aid Trump was threatening to stop. About half of the $700 million the United States contributes annually to the Palestinians goes to UNRWA, the United Nations agency charged with humanitarian relief for Palestinian refugees. While UNRWA has been the subject of withering

and justified criticism for decades — the Palestinians are the only group in the world to have their own refugee agency, while the agency has turned a blind eye to terrorism taking place in and around its facilities — it is the primary engine of the social safety net in Gaza and a cornerstone of the United

Nations’ support of the Palestinian Authority.

That’s why some Israeli authorities expressed concern over Trump’s threat. The Palestinian Authority, while a convenient and oftentimes deserved punching bag, also has a strong security relationship with Israel. Absent that partnership — a likely outcome of a safety net collapse — Israel would have to re-enter and reoccupy the cities of the West Bank.

But Trump’s tweet contained an additional statement that has raised eyebrows in Israel and among her supporters: “We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.”

Analysts have parsed this fragment of an idea like Talmudists poring over a holy text. It seems on the one hand to contradict Trump’s statement when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital that its final boundaries will be decided through negotiations.

But it also seems to contradict Trump’s statement that the capital announcement was a recognition of existing reality.

Trump came to office a year ago promising to reject approaches that had failed in the past. He is doing that in one respect, but in the process is sowing discord and confusion across an already turbulent region. PJC

Israel should not be extolling President Trump Guest Columnist Richard H. Schwartz

I

srael is going gaga over President Trump, largely for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. There are more than 110 “God bless Trump” signs in Jerusalem. There are plans to name a future rail station near the Kotel after Trump and the Jerusalem Friends of Zion Heritage Center put up a four-story display thanking him. But, there are many reasons to reconsider the abundant praise.

A major reason is that Trump, along with a majority of Republicans, is in denial about climate change — an existential threat to Israel, the United States and, indeed, the world. Despite the overwhelming consensus of climate experts and the many recent severe climate events — including three Category 4 or 5 hurricanes and a series of massive, devastating wildfires in California — Trump is the only world leader denying climate change. He has pulled the country out of the 2015 Paris climate pact agreed to by all of the other 195 nations attending, including Israel, appointed climate change deniers as director of the Environmental Protection Agency and many other agencies, and is doing everything possible to eliminate or weaken recent efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

Israelis should be especially concerned about climate threats. Because of climate change, the Middle East is becoming hotter and drier and, according to military experts, this makes violence, terrorism and war more

12 JANUARY 12, 2018

likely. If the rapid melting of polar icecaps and glaciers continue, the coastal plain that contains most of Israel’s population and infrastructure will be inundated by a rising Mediterranean Sea. Israel is already facing the effects of climate change, as we are now in the fifth year of a severe drought, the Sea of Galilee is at a century low, much of the Jordan River is a polluted trickle and the Dead Sea is shrinking rapidly. Water experts warn that if the Sea of Galilee continues to shrink, it could become a salt sea like the Dead Sea. But Trump’s policies are also contrary to basic Jewish values in terms of concern for the disadvantaged, the stranger, the hungry and the poor. Rather than improving Obamacare, which provided health insurance to tens of millions of Americans, Trump supported health legislation that would have caused up to 32 million Americans to lose their insurance and others to pay higher premiums.

Rather than supporting efforts to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, given a grade of D-plus by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Trump and Republican legislators pushed through a tax bill that greatly benefits the wealthiest Americans and highly profitable corporations, although they have already greatly benefitted financially in recent years. This will increase the national debt by up to $1.5 trillion, giving the Republicans an excuse to carry out their longtime desires to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and environmental and health protections.

Then there is the issue of Trump’s character. As The New York Times conservative columnist Bret Stephens, a former editor-in-

chief of the Jerusalem Post, put it in a recent article, Trump’s character involves “lying, narcissism, bullying, bigotry, crassness, name calling, ignorance, paranoia, incompetence and pettiness.” He continues: “In place of the usual jousting between the administration and the press, we have a president who fantasizes on Twitter about physically assaulting CNN. In place of a president who defends the honor and integrity of his own officers and agencies, we have one who humiliates his attorney general, denigrates the FBI and compares our intelligence agencies to the Gestapo.” Do we really want to honor such a person and make him a role model for our children and grandchildren?

In addition, lavishing praise on Trump is adding to the current split between many American Jews and Israel. Almost 80 percent of American Jews disapprove of the job Trump is doing, according to a September poll by the American Jewish Committee. So when they see how Israel is going overboard in praising Trump, it adds to the alienation they already feel due to recent Israeli decisions on prayer at the Kotel, conversion and other issues. This could reduce the moral, political and financial support Israel receives from American Jews.

Doesn’t Trump still deserve praise for his strong support of Israel? Somehow some negative things about Trump’s positions and statements about Israel are being ignored.

For example: Trump has not kept his pledge of seeing that there would be no space between the United States and Israel, as he has demanded several times that Israel limit settlement construction, and Trump’s $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia reduces

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Israel’s qualitative military edge.

Trump deserves praise for his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but not to be lionized. Of course Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, always has been and always will be. But the nations of the world will only acknowledge that if it is part of a comprehensive, sustainable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While Trump’s pronouncement about Jerusalem is good for Israel’s morale, it did not change the overall situation. It did, however, spark much resentment among the Palestinians, other Arabs and many nations, led to some violence, showed further evidence of widespread opposition to Israel’s position on Jerusalem through the votes in the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly, and resulted in a further decrease in the potential of a peace agreement.

Yes, the peace process has basically been dead for some time, and the Palestinians certainly deserve much blame. But Israel needs to do everything possible to obtain a resolution of the conflict in order to avert continued and possibly increased violence and diplomatic criticism, effectively respond to her economic, environmental and other domestic problems, and remain a Jewish and a democratic state. Many Israel strategic and military experts agree with this assessment, including all the living ex-heads of the Shin Bet. It’s hard to see how lionizing Trump accomplishes anything. PJC Richard H. Schwartz is the president of the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians and president emeritus of Jewish Veg.

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Opinion Pharaoh’s administration offers a cautionary tale for today Guest Columnist Bill Dauster

A

ll national leaders have staff. Pharaoh was no exception. The Torah tells us that Pharaoh’s administration included taskmasters, overseers, courtiers, sages, sorcerers, magicians and an army.

Good leaders know how to pick good people to help them. And they know when to listen to them. One of Pharaoh’s shortcomings was that he failed to do so.

The Book of Exodus says that Pharaoh’s courtiers shared his displeasure when the Israelites failed to produce their quota of bricks, witnessed Aaron cast down his rod that turned into a serpent, saw Aaron strike the Nile and turn it into blood, and suffered frogs and swarms of insects in their houses. In these encounters, Pharaoh’s

courtiers appear much like a Greek chorus, adding volume to Pharaoh’s entourage, but saying nothing that the Torah deemed worth recording.

But after Pharaoh’s magicians failed to produce lice, the magicians told Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God!” Pharaoh, however, remained obstinate — his “heart stiffened” — and he did not heed them. The Torah does not waste words. It included this caution for a reason.

Pharaoh would have done better to listen to his magicians. The Talmud quotes the Sages saying: If your friend calls you a donkey, prepare a saddle for your back. Pharaoh’s magicians were trying to be his friends.

When Moses foretold the plague of hail, Pharaoh’s courtiers were divided. Some feared God and some did not. Those who feared God’s word brought their slaves and livestock indoors to safety, but those who paid no regard to God’s word left their slaves and livestock in the open. Moses

Corrections The photo below the headline “December: New Castle congregation closes and sends Torahs worldwide” (Dec. 29) belongs with the story headlined “August: Rabbis and congregations on the move.” In the photo, New Light Congregation members walked Torah scrolls to the congregation’s new home at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha.

In “Jewish Association on Aging plans new independent living facility” (Jan. 5), Daniel Rothschild’s involvement with the organization was misidentified. He did not work with the JAA on its AHAVA project. PJC PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

concluded that Pharaoh and his courtiers did not yet fear God. Even though God then hardened the hearts of both Pharaoh and his courtiers, when Moses threatened the plague of locusts on the courtiers’ and other Egyptians’ houses, Pharaoh’s staff summoned up the courage to warn him: “How long shall this one be a snare to us? Let a delegation go to worship the Eternal their God! Are you not yet aware that Egypt is lost?”

Pharaoh at first seemed to heed their advice, but negotiations that he led quickly broke down over exactly who among the Israelites would get to leave.

So now two sets of advisers had counseled Pharaoh to relent. The Midrash quotes a proverb similar to that in the Talmud. The Midrash’s version says: If one man tells you that you have donkey’s ears, do not believe him; if two tell it to you, order a halter.

God gave Pharaoh two chances to listen to advice. Pharaoh failed to listen, and ended

up looking like a donkey.

Unfortunately for both Pharaoh and his courtiers, their story did not have a happy ending. After the Israelites had fled, both Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart and said, “What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service?” Pharaoh ended up losing his entire army in the sea.

In the closing chapters of the Torah, Moses recalled what God did “to Pharaoh and to all his courtiers and to his whole country.”

And the final sentence of the Torah repeats mention of the signs and portents that God sent Moses to display “against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country.”

The Torah remembers God’s victory over both Pharaoh and the staff to whom he failed to listen. PJC Bill Dauster, a Senate, White House, and campaign staffer from 1986 to 2017, has written Wikipedia articles on the 54 Torah portions.

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JANUARY 12, 2018 13

Life & Culture Chili, three ways — FOOD —

By Keri White | Special to The Chronicle

A

s Old Man Winter sets up shop for the next few months, I’ve been on the lookout for simple ways to stay warm.

Chili in most any form does the trick.

In addition, football season gets really interesting in January, and a pot of chili is an ideal halftime meal. Fans can serve up an easy-to-hold mug, and return to the couch to cheer for the team. The following three recipes offer different takes on this crowd pleaser.

White chicken chili This dish offers a light, but still hearty bowl of spicy warmth. Braising the chicken with all of the seasonings infuses the meat with lots of flavor while keeping it moist. It is a great winter meal, and it freezes well. So make this a double and pull out the spare when you are strapped for time.

Serves six 4 boneless chicken breasts 2 tablespoons oil 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 onion, chopped 1 lime, zest and juice 1 1/2 cups Pilsner, lager, or any light-ish beer (or more as needed) 2 cups chicken broth (or more as needed) 2 teaspoons chili powder (or more to taste) 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons ground cumin 2 15-ounce cans white beans, drained 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, plus more to garnish

In a large pot on medium heat, heat the oil and sauté the garlic, onion, lime zest and seasonings. When fragrant, add the chicken breasts and sear them on both sides.

Lower the heat and add the broth, beer and lime juice. Cover and simmer for 90 minutes until the chicken is very tender and falls apart when poked with fork.

Check the pot occasionally to ensure there is sufficient cooking liquid; if needed, add more beer and broth. When done, the liquid should be reduced and slightly thickened. If this is not the case, turn up the heat and boil it

for five minutes to thicken/reduce sauce. And, if the liquid has evaporated too much, add some more beer and broth and cook briefly.

Pull the chicken apart with two forks until it is completely shredded.

Add the beans and cilantro, and cook another 30 minutes to blend the flavors.

Serve with additional chopped cilantro.

Vegetable chili The beauty of this dish is its versatility. You can toss in pretty much any vegetables you have on hand. And even though it is vegetarian, it packs a flavorful punch so your carnivores will likely embrace it.

Serves six to eight 2 tablespoons oil 1 large onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 teaspoons ground cumin 2 teaspoons chili powder 1 teaspoon salt 6 cups chopped mixed vegetables: bell peppers, zucchini or other squash, corn, carrots, peas, string beans, spinach or other leafy greens, potatoes, yams, etc.

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped finely

(if desired) 2 cups vegetable broth 3 15-ounce cans beans, drained (choose pinto, kidney, black or a combo) 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes 1/2 cup cilantro plus more for garnish

In a large pot, heat the oil and sauté the onions, garlic, jalapeno (if using) and seasonings. When fragrant, add the remaining vegetables and sauté until all the spices

14 JANUARY 12, 2018

are evenly distributed over the vegetables.

Add the broth, tomatoes and beans; stir.

Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes until the vegetables are soft and totally cooked through. Adjust the seasonings, add the cilantro and serve.

Texas-style beef chili My husband makes this dish frequently.

We call it Texas style for two reasons.

First, it uses cubes of meat, which is de rigueur in the Lone Star State. This contrasts with chili containing ground beef, which we more commonly see around here. Secondly, true Texas chili does not include beans, so this recipe is a creative and delicious hybrid.

A word on the meat: My husband prefers to splurge with sirloin, and the results are stupendous, but we have also made this with chuck, stew meat and short rib for a more economical and equally tasty result.

This chili gets better after a day or so as the flavors blend, so if you have the ability to make it a day ahead, that is recommended.

Serves six 2 teaspoons ground cumin 3/4 teaspoon ground coriander 1/2 teaspoon salt (or more to taste) 2 tablespoons oil (or more as needed) 1 medium onion, chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced

Chili is a true one-dish meal.

It contains protein, vegetables, fiber and loads of flavor. But even the most Spartan of us likes a little variety on the table. With that in mind, I offer the following suggested accompaniments to a steaming bowl of chili: • • • • •

Cooked brown or white rice Cooked quinoa Corn chips Lime wedges Chopped fresh cilantro

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2 pounds beef (chuck, short ribs, stew meat or sirloin) cut in bite-sized cubes 2 whole jalapeno peppers, chopped (seeds removed if you want milder flavor) 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch 1 tablespoon ground ancho chili powder 1 teaspoon oregano 1 bottle dark beer 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes 1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1 whole dried red chili (such as ancho or guajillo) 2 15-ounce cans kidney beans

In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil and brown the beef. Add the onions, garlic, spices and chopped jalapenos. (Add more oil if the contents start to burn.)

Add the tomatoes, beer, cocoa powder, cornstarch and whole dried chili. Stir to blend. Add the beans with the liquid. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat, cover and simmer for about two hours until the meat is fork tender. PJC Keri White is the food columnist for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

• Cubed avocados • Chopped fresh or canned jalapenos • Tomatillo salsa • Guacamole • Sour cream or plain Greek yogurt (for vegetarian chili) • Grated Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese (for vegetarian chili) • Warm flour or corn tortillas • Corn bread • Toasted pepitos (pumpkin seeds)

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Life & Culture A Broadway veteran joins Amy Schumer in Steve Martin’s Jewy new play — THEATER —

By Steve North | JTA

N

“there’s a story and a meaning, but it’s OK if you take a couple of minutes to let something funny happen that’s purely for the joy of laughing.”

Shamos does deliver his share of outright jokes in the play, which takes place in Ojai, Calif., during a striking celestial event. When Norm is asked if stars are visible in that area, he replies, “Of course. They’re out shopping every weekend!”

But most of the laughs he gets can’t be

sister and I went to the kindergarten, Sunday school and Hebrew school of the Reform synagogue there, also named Temple Emanuel, and we had a bar and bat mitzvah. So we were more religious than our parents had been.”

Shamos and his wife, actress Nina Hellman, have an 8-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter. He says the family is “culturally Jewish, in terms of Passover and Chanukah and things like that.” The kids don’t attend Hebrew school.

EW YORK — It’s a recurring theme in the career of actor Jeremy Shamos: extravagant praise for playing some less-than-extravagant characters.

In reviews for “Meteor Shower,” the new Broadway comedy by Steve Martin, the entertainment website Deadline. com says Shamos “is priceless as the zhlubbish Norm,” who is the “mushy husband” to the character played by comedian Amy Schumer. And the Los Angeles Times calls Shamos “the strongest actor in the quartet,” which in addition to Schumer features comedy star Ke e g a n - M i c h a e l Key and Broadway powerhouse Laura Benanti, both wellknown for TV roles.

The celebrated S chu me r, w ho recently explored her Eastern European Jewish heritage on the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” and Shamos, the son of New York Jewish parents who were married in Manhattan’s Temple Emanuel, p From left, cast members of “Meteor Shower”: Keegan-Michael Key, Jeremy Shamos, Photo by Matthew Murphy bring an indefinable Amy Schumer and Laura Benanti but unmistakable

u Jeremy Shamos sense of Jewish“is priceless as the ness to their on-stage marriage, despite followed by a rimshot. They’re born of zhlubbish Norm” in the lack of any references in the play to the the intricate, hilarious interplay between “Meteor Shower,” one reviewer says. couple’s ethnicity.

Shamos and Schumer, along with one sight Photo courtesy of In a story about “Meteor Shower,” The New gag in particular that might best be described Jeremy Shamos York Times notes, “Comedy of the type that (without spoiling it) as a watershed moment. sustained the commercial theater for decades Early in 2017, Shamos portrayed a very “Now that we have chil— verbal and domestic, often involving Jews different kind of character, a Jewish studies dren, I don’t know where we’re — has petered out as a genre.” Martin’s story professor, in the Roundabout Theatre going,” he says. of two very different kinds of couples revives Company’s production of Steven LevenShamos knows, however, that category of theater in a big, loud, and son’s “If I Forget.” where his career is going, and yes, Jewish way.

“It’s an incredible play about the compli- that’s in the right direction. He “Jewish humor is so successful and so cations of being Jewish at the end of the last has had important TV roles in much a part of the vocabulary of comedy,” century,” Shamos says. “If you look at the “Better Call Saul” and “Nurse says Shamos, “that we almost don’t recognize Jewish-American journey, it’s a complicated Jackie” and played an actor who it as Borscht Belty kind of humor, or even time to be very religious because that feels is memorably offed in the 2014 older than the Borscht Belt. I think there’s sometimes like you’re not living in the world of Oscar winner “Birdman or (The been a shying away from jokes that set each America. But if you live completely in the world Unexpected Virtue of Ignoother up and knock each other down in that of America and forget your Jewish traditions, rance).” Two reviews of “Meteor Neil Simon kind of way.” then you’re forsaking your religion in a way.”

Shower” call him “Mr. Reliable” Shamos, 47, attributes that to what he Shamos finds echoes of that in his and “a Broadway reliable.” called “an element of drama criticism that own family’s saga.

What does that mean to him? made it so [that] something that just goes “Both of my parents were Reform enough “I’m like vanilla ice cream — for a laugh is sort of cheap.” that neither had a bar or bat mitzvah. We good with any topping!” he says, In “Meteor Shower,” however, he says moved from New York to Denver, and my laughing. “I consider it to be an

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honorable expression. Being reliable, especially in theater, means they can sit back and feel they’re in good hands. That’s a good thing.”

And with four major talents on stage at once, the audience is in for a treat, especially when the unexpected occurs.

“We have had moments of cracking each other up. And in this show in particular, it seems like a real opportunity for something to happen,” Shamos says. “One time the top of a martini shaker fell on the stage and rolled around, and Amy, who’s the quickest person I’ve ever known, picked it up and said, ‘Oh, it’s heads; it’s good luck!,’ which was completely random. That got a big laugh. The audience gets to see something they don’t see on TV, which is a live moment.”

The theatergo ers also get a respite from real life during the play, Shamos says.

“Aside from the fact that they haven’t thought about current politics and where the country’s going, there’s just a catharsis that comes from laughter and from people having the same experience in one room,” he says. “I think when people come out of this show, they’re completely refreshed.”

Which is exactly, one might say, what’s expected from a good shower. PJC

JANUARY 12, 2018 15

Headlines Mumbai: Continued from page 1

Rosenberg booked a ticket for Dec. 9-17. The timing of her trip coincided with a ceremony, where a new learning center named after Joshua Jacob Greenberger, a former GPM-Entwine fellow who died in May 2017, was dedicated by his parents, Penny and Bob Greenberger of Cleveland. Among those present at the inauguration and mezuzah fixing were Israeli Consul General Yaakov Finkelstein and Nurit Finkelstein. Also present were Israeli Consul Galit Laroche-Falche, Joint Distribution Committee India Director Elijah Jacobs and Rabbi Israel Koslovsky of Mumbai Chabad.

The festive day, which showcased GPM’s work, was unlike others that Rosenberg spent in the slums. In contradistinction to the pomp and circumstance of that experience were periods mired in despondency, she explained.

Upon earlier arrival to Kalwa, Rosenberg observed “garbage everywhere, feces everywhere. There are no bathrooms,” she said. “We were walking down the street and there were men pouring buckets of water to cleanse themselves.”

The sights surpassed any preparedness possible, she added.

“I had done a lot of reading, but until you see 4-year-old children throwing empty garbage back and forth as a ball and you see a naked man washing himself, I think no matter how much you read, there’s nothing that quite prepares you for that. It’s hard not to be affected by that level of poverty, by people who truly have nothing.”

The realization generates various responses.

Sztokman, a former high-tech executive, decided to rededicate himself to social welfare after visiting Mumbai in 2011 and

Anthology: Continued from page 1

got one called ‘Penance after DACA.’ So, it’s writing dealing with the politics that are happening right now and writing from a personal perspective.”

Daniels, the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor of English at CMU, has compiled an anthology of the best prose and poetry submitted to the contest in the last 19 years in the newly published “Challenges to the Dream” (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017). Within the collection are pieces from a diverse student population, including three pieces composed by students who identify culturally or religiously as Jews.

The anthology features 91 pieces by 83 writers on topics ranging from ethnic stereotypes to sexual identity discrimination.

“It’s amazing what these young kids can come up with,” said Daniels. “They are really heartfelt, trying to figure out how the world works.”

The annual contest offers separate categories for prose and poetry, and for high school and college students. The winners read their pieces as part of CMU’s daylong schedule of panel discussions and performing arts presentations in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This year, the program will be held on Monday, Jan. 15 at the Cohon 16 JANUARY 12, 2018

p Daily nutritious meals are provided for 1,000 vulnerable children in the slums and villages around Mumbai.

Photo courtesy of Gabriel Project Mumbai

started GPM roughly one year later. Others, like Rosenberg, have adopted alternative methods for supporting the eradication of international despair, either by assisting from afar or actually taking residence in India.

Since GPM’s inception, several volunteers have spent various periods of stay with the organization. Many have come for formal two-month stretches through the JDC Entwine Global Jewish Service Corps program, which enables Jewish young adults, ages 18 to 30, to dedicate eight weeks in a “kosher open and supportive Jewish environment.”

Others arrive for assorted durations and purpose.

Overlapping with the Pittsburgher were two 22-year-olds who had recently graduated from Rutgers University, a retiree from Los Angeles who planned on staying for four months and three septuagenarians from the United Kingdom, who, apart from spending six weeks with GPM had shipped a pallet of science materials from London to

Mumbai to bolster educational operations.

The travelers represent a growing trend called “voluntourism.”

In 2014, National Public Radio reported that “more than 1.6 million volunteer tourists are spending about $2 billion each year” on volunteer travel. Those figures will continue to rise, said David Clemmons, founder of VolunTourism.org. “With the U.K., Australia, Canada, the EU, Brazil, India and Southeast Asia serving as both homes and incubators of voluntourists around the world, the number of voluntourists could easily reach 25 million to 30 million by the end of this decade,” wrote Clemmons in a 2014 post.

Although a 2015 report by the Family Travel Association and the New York University School of Professional Studies indicated that “volunteer or mission trips” represent a “relatively niche” segment for family travel (of 2,614 responses, only 10 percent had previously taken such a trip), Rosenberg is enthused by the possibilities.

University Center. It is open to the public and there is no cost for admission.

Daniels, who has been at CMU since 1981, launched the contest to provide an outlet for students to “write about their own experiences as a way to connect and be aware of how discrimination can affect them in their daily lives.”

A writer who is originally from Detroit, Daniels had previously edited an anthology called “Letters to America: Contemporary American Poetry on Race” in which he “gathered work by nationally known writers of all different backgrounds writing about subjects that often divide us,” he said. When Martin Luther King Day became a national holiday, and CMU was interested in offering activities to mark the day, Daniels was inspired to reach out to students, asking for personal narratives on race and discrimination of all types.

“Coming from Detroit as a white guy — living on the edge of Detroit — there were a lot of racial tensions and problems growing up in my community, and I didn’t quite understand them as a kid,” he recalled.

“When I was in graduate school, I had a course from the writer James Baldwin, and in that class, he really challenged us to examine our own pasts a little more honestly in terms of these issues.

“I always considered some of my own writing on race to be a late paper for his class,” Daniels said. “He kind of inspired

me to learn more by reading other writers’ viewpoints. Every year I learn something through the awards about how these kids are perceiving things. It’s not like they are going to solve all our problems — because we can’t solve all our problems — but getting a fresh viewpoint on things, young people struggling to figure things out, can remind us of our own background and the difficulties of how we deal with these issues.”

Emily Nagin, who now teaches fictionwriting at CAPA, has two poems published in the new anthology. She wrote the poems while she was a student at CAPA in 2005 and 2006.

“Keeping” and “Eye to Eye” each won first place for high school poetry, referencing both ambiguity toward, and persecution for, identity.

“Writing these pieces was affirming as a writer,” Nagin said. “I am from an interfaith family, and it was good to sit down and think about these things.”

Daniels receives about 200 submissions each year for the contest; first, second and third place winners in each category are named and given a cash prize. The best entry from individual schools that do not win in the overall competition are also recognized. Seventeen public and private schools in Western Pennsylvania submitted entries this year.

This is the first time Daniels has anthologized some of the works.

“I really wanted to represent the range of material we’ve gotten over the years, in

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Whether it means that she and her family would embark on a volunteer journey in the coming years, or that she and her husband may spend months committing to an international cause after retirement, there is excitement in the unknown.

“This was not there when I graduated college,” and the opportunities are available to those of “any age,” she said.

“We have so much here in this country; not everybody, but many people have an excess, and if you want to do something different, these types of organizations give you that ability through a Jewish lens of making the world just a little bit better, and that’s what’s so cool.”

Given their promotion of global assistance, both Rosenberg and Sztokman are aware of those who denigrate such activity by claiming its forsaking of closer causes.

“Helping our fellow Jews should not come at the expense of helping other non-Jews, and the same, helping non-Jews should not come at the expense of helping Jews. We can do both. We can help our own community, and we can help other communities,” said Rosenberg.

Sztokman agreed: “A child suffering anywhere in the world is a Jewish issue.

The idea that there are children suffering, forced into child labor, forced to eat garbage, die from no access to health care and that 6 million children under the age of 5 die every year from poor nutrition and no access to health care is a Jewish concern to fix this. All humans are made in the image of God, and we share common fates. Our children are just like their children.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz @pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

quality, and in the different ways we define difference,” he said.

This year, Syndey Roslin, a junior creative writing and vocal performance major at CMU who is Jewish, received honorable mention for her poem, “Charlottesville.” The poem finds equivalence in the Nazi march in Virginia last year to the rise of Nazi Germany.

“It was bone-chilling to see that hatred, and for no reason,” Roslin said. “And it happens time and time again.”

Poetry “is a good way to get to the heart of these things,” she continued, adding that she has been moved by the work of the other winners of the contest.

“It’s heartbreaking to read what my peers have gone through,” she said.

“And it’s an honor to be published along with these pieces.”

It’s important, Daniels said, for students to be able to express their experiences of discrimination and for others to read about them.

“I think that often the easy thing to do in certain situations is to remain silent,” he said. “And I think the challenge that Martin Luther King issued is to speak up in the face of discrimination.”

“Challenges to the Dream” is available at amazon.com and at CMU. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Rabbinical student explains Judaism to Muslims — in Arabic — WORLD —

By Ben Sales | JTA

I

s it true that Judaism doesn’t accept converts? Is it true that Jews have to wash their hands before they pray? Is it true that Jews have historically killed their prophets?

These are just a few of the questions Elhanan Miller has heard over the years. A fluent Arabic speaker and former Arab affairs correspondent for the Times of Israel, Miller saw that many Muslims he knew didn’t have a clear understanding of Jewish practices and beliefs. So he decided to start teaching Muslims about Judaism, in a language and context they can relate to.

“Islam purports to tell Muslims about what Judaism is about,” Miller, 36, said. “But I think it’s a value to Muslims to hear what Judaism is about from an actual believer.”

That’s the idea behind Miller’s new project, “People of the Book,” a series of short animated videos that explain Jewish faith and ritual in Arabic and compare them to similar Muslim practices. It appears to be the first video series of its kind: an explanation of Judaism for Muslims in what, for many, is their native language. The first two videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on Facebook and YouTube.

The first video, released in July, compares keeping kosher with keeping halal. It explains that kashrut, like halal, forbids pork and has laws around slaughtering animals. But kashrut prohibits eating shellfish, for example, while halal permits eating any creature of the sea.

UPMC: Continued from page 5

breaking research study that Pitt is taking the lead on. We should have a lot of community nachas that Dr. Reis has accomplished all of this,” said Massart.

“I think regionally we should take pride that we were selected to be one of only a few centers around the country to participate in this landmark study. There are many institutions that applied, and we are one of a handful, so I am very proud of that fact,” added Reis.

Poland: Continued from page 8

“conman” in an op-ed published last month in The Times of Israel titled “In Poland, an anti-Semite, a conman and a useful idiot.”

Weinbaum argues that Rydzyk was using Daniels for a “charm offensive” in order to shed his image as an extremist. Weinbaum also called Daniels a “smooth-talking huckster with a yarmulke perched on his head”

p Elhanan Miller, a journalist and rabbinical student who speaks fluent Arabic, sees his videos as a way to bridge a religious divide.

Photo by Bruria Hammer

neighbors. Together, they do joint activities, like shared meals and agricultural work. He figured the same lessons would interest a wider audience, which has proved true.

The videos take several weeks to produce together with two partners: an animator in Israel, and a native Arabic speaker who co-narrates the script.

There’s one topic, however, that Miller isn’t planning to tackle anytime soon: Israel. He may address Jerusalem, which is holy to Jews and Muslims, in a future video, but says that broaching sensitive issues could derail the larger project of promoting understanding.

“My aim is not to do Israeli hasbara,” he said, using a Hebrew term for public relations. “I speak in these videos as a Jew more than an Israeli, because Israel is a contentious issue and I’m trying to build credibility and even sympathy with my followers.”

To maintain that relationship between videos, Miller held a Facebook live session Thursday, in Arabic, about Judaism in “ask me anything” form. The questions concerned everything from the status of Moses in both religions to how Jews view other faiths.

Of course, Jews have plenty of misconceptions about Islam as well, Miller said — like some who mistakenly think that Jews suffered more, historically, under Muslim rule than under Christian rule. But while he’d love to collaborate on a similar video series that explains Islam to Jews, he said that he — as a non-Muslim — is not the right person to lead that project.

“I don’t see it as my job to explain Islam to Jews,” he said. “It has to be someone from that faith.” PJC

A second video, released earlier this month, covers Jewish prayer (three times a day vs. five for Muslims, with less kneeling on the floor). Miller is planning more videos on clothing and modesty, Jewish conceptions of God and fasting in Judaism.

“There’s a big overlap between Judaism and Islam in those specific areas,” he said.

“Islam has dietary laws like Judaism, and the structures of daily prayers at fixed times are similar in Judaism and Islam. I thought it would be good to start with the commonalities before going into the differences.”

Miller is an observant Jew born in Jerusalem to Canadian parents. He fell in love with Arabic when he began studying it in seventh grade, and continued using it during his service in

the Israel Defense Forces and in college.

He earned a master’s degree in Islamic studies from Hebrew University, and has been a journalist for eight years, doing much of his reporting on the Arab world. Miller also studies at Beit Midrash Har’el, a traditional egalitarian rabbinical school in Jerusalem. The school has shared links to his videos, and he sees bridging between the two religions as part of his rabbinic calling.

“I want to be a rabbi who brings peace to the world,” he said.

Miller started producing the videos after teaching Muslims about Judaism as part of the Shorashim project, which brings Jews from the West Bank settlement bloc of Gush Etzion together with their Palestinian

Massart, who has been largely responsible for individual engagement and education, explained that participating in PA Cares is a relatively simple process that requires volunteers to answer questions pertaining to their health, environment and lifestyle, as well as contribute urine, measurements and blood samples at an enrollment site.

For those fearful of releasing their electronic health records to a national database, she explained that all information is “de-identified. It doesn’t travel with your name, and researchers don’t have access to that.”

The two physicians, both of whom have already joined the study, are excited by the possibility of recruiting 150,000 participating Pennsylvanians.

“We already know from the advancements in Jewish genetics that there are unique things relevant to our community, population, subpopulation and our health that are really important, and there are probably many more that we have yet to discover, and this is the type of study that will help us to understand that,” said Massart.

Both PA Cares and precision medicine are “going to affect all of us now,” but they will

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

with an “insatiable appetite for self-aggrandizement, who seems to have sold his birthright for a bowl of Polish porridge.”

If this is true, Rydzyk apparently has paid in hard currency in the course of the transaction.

According to a November article published in Poland’s highbrow and leftleaning Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper — not a publication known for any great sympathy toward Rydzyk — his station sometime in the last year completely and abruptly aban-

doned the content that in 2008 prompted the U.S. State Department to call Radio Maryja “one of Europe’s most blatantly anti-Semitic media venues.”

Even critics of Daniels say he deserves credit for this change.

“We all knew Rydzyk and his radio station to be anti-Semitic, and none of us would agree to cooperate with Rydzyk,” said Klaudia Klimek, an opposition activist and head of the Krakow branch of the TSKZ cultural group. “Then Jonny came and

behavior of radio changed. This is because of Jonny, for sure.”

Daniels is “maybe too close to the government,” Klimek said, adding that perhaps it was unavoidable because they are the ones in power.

And the priest is “still an anti-Semite,” but that doesn’t matter, Klimek added, “when the interaction with Jonny means that radio station stopped spewing anti-Semitic poison to millions of listeners. Then the outcome is good.” PJC

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also “have a very large impact on our children, grandchildren and future generations,” said Reis. “So I signed up for this study, and I did it because I believe in the science, and I really want to move medicine forward. But one of my main motivations was to support future generations, to make future generations healthier.”

Those interested in enrolling or learning more about PA Cares for Us can visit pacaresforusresearch.org/. PJC

JANUARY 12, 2018 17

Celebrations

Torah

B’nei Mitzvah

The joy of perfect imperfection Zachary Bennett Spatz, son of Helena and William Spatz, will become a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Jan. 13 at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills. Grandparents are Sherman and Ruthie Spatz of Mt. Lebanon and Naum and Alla Krinberg of Squirrel Hill. PJC

The Readers & Writers Workshop Transforming Minds/Transforming Lives Dr. Shandel Gilbert uses direct, cognitive instruction to help students develop the important verbal skills they need for school success.  The Workshop program provides a thorough evaluation and intensive, individualized instruction in basic reading skills.  The program enhances each student’s reading comprehension, academic writing, and analytical/interpretive thinking skills.  Workshop students learn to synthesize information and apply knowledge.

Call Dr. Gilbert at 412-421-1895 for information on how the Workshop can help your child succeed.

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Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel is executive director of the Aleph Institute — North East Regional Headquarters. This column is a service of Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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elieve it or not, it’s not that hard to believe.

Let me explain.

When Moses brought the news of the long-awaited redemption to the Jewish People, did the people believe Moses or not?

In one verse, Torah praises them by declaring that they believed him. In another verse, Torah sighs and says, “They did not listen to Moses, from shortness of breath and difficult labor.”

So did they or did they not?

The answer is as much a statement about them and their faith as it is a lesson for us about ourselves and our faith.

They certainly believed. That much is made abundantly clear by Torah. In fact, G-d even reprimands Moses for his seemingly reasonable and logical question: “What if they don’t believe me?” G-d’s response is something along the lines of, “Don’t be ridiculous, of course they’ll believe you.” So that point is made moot. Of course they believed him.

But what to make of the Torah itself reporting that the Jews “didn’t listen to Moses”?

Each of us is endowed with a body and a soul. The soul is divine, a spark of G-d, and even more than believe, it sees. It has no need to believe because it can see the Divine and G-d’s reality like I can see the sky or the birds. That’s the soul. The body is another matter. Although it has the honor of housing the soul, it isn’t blessed with the soul’s vision and is quite nearsighted and obtuse. So when the soul speaks to its body about lofty matters, the body either rejects it or accepts it on faith. And then it’s left up to the mind to go with the soul’s vision, the body’s faith or the body’s skepticism.

This is why it is entirely possible for a person to mistake the body’s exhaustion and suffering for a lack of faith. While the soul and its faith and vision are intact, the body is struggling under its load and toils to under-

stand the soul. That’s not human skepticism.

That’s human nature.

This is why it’s a folly for a person to proclaim that he or she doesn’t believe. It’s a simplistic and pessimistic statement about a complex and generally positive situation.

There is always a part of every person that not only believes, but sees. For the body to reject it is one thing; but for the thinking mind to reject it is slightly less rational. The mind — when given the peace of mind and tranquility necessary for presence of mind — can analyze the situation and gather what’s happening here. The soul is with G-d, the body is overwhelmed by the current circumstances, and the mind calmly assesses and concludes that faith is still more rational, even as the body toils to connect with it. The mind knows: the soul is as much mine as is the body. The faith is mine just as much as the darkness is.

And so the Jewish People believed. Even as their slavery and exhaustion made it a struggle to even hear Moses’ comforting message, they knew that they believed, and they took comfort in that faith. Even as their bodies screamed out in pain and confusion, their souls soothed them with the knowledge that the redemption was near and G-d was with them.

Each of us needs to meditate on this message and find the inspiration contained in it. In the Shema we read, “You shall love G-d with all your heart and all your soul.”

Torah mentions them separately to validate what we already know: They’re not always on the same page. And that’s OK. The broken heart mustn’t shatter the inspired soul. And the inspired soul mustn’t ignore or reject the tears of the heart. Together, as a team, they serve G-d in perfect imperfection.

Believe it or not, it’s not that hard to believe. PJC

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Obituaries BROSTOFF: Dr. Philip Brostoff, on Saturday, January 6, 2018. Beloved husband of the late Anita Keller Brostoff; son of the late Myer and Miriam Brostoff; loving father of Leon and his wife, Teresa Brostoff of Pittsburgh, Richard and his wife, Marcie Brostoff of Boston, Mass., Lynn Brostoff of Alexandria, Va., and Myra Brostoff Merritt and her husband, Mitchell Merritt of Pittsburgh. Brother of the late Gerald Brostoff and the late Judith Sauceda.

Brother-in-law of Pearl Brostoff. Cherished grandfather of Noah, Miriam, Alexandra, Benjamin, Joshua, and Nathan Brostoff, Joshua and Clara Anita Merritt and the late Emily Brostoff. Dr. Brostoff was a prominent and devoted physician in Pittsburgh for over 50 years. As Chief of Cardiology at Montefiore Hospital for many years, he created and ran its first Cardiac Care Unit.

He also taught and lectured at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment at West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Contributions may be made to American Heart Association, National Center, 7272 Greenville Ave., Dallas, TX 75231, honor.americanheart.org/ goto/heartest_doctor.

BROWN: Philip P. Brown, on January 3, 2018. Beloved husband of Roberta Brown for 67 years; dear father and father-in-law

Crash: Continued from page 10

of David (Luna) Brown, Darla (Dr. George) Grossberg, and Gayle Patrice Ostro; dear grandfather of Jonathan (Akanksha) Grossberg, Annie (Jacob) Hodes, Aviva, Aliza, and Jeremy Grossberg, Jason (Daisey), Jeffrey, Ilana, Ronen, Nicole, and Natan Ostro, Taire (Kyle) Giddens, and Naor Brown; dear great-grandfather of Isabella, Jonah, and Evelyn Hodes, Siddharth and Ravi Grossberg; dear brother and brother-in-law of the late Gloria (late Warren) Friedlander, Faye (late Warren) Karden, and the late Gladys (late Norman) Tabachnick; dear uncle, greatuncle, cousin and friend to many. Philip was born on July 18, 1925 in West Newton, Pa., to Regina and Eugene Brown. He was an Air Force veteran of WWII and the Korean War. Philip and Roberta raised their family in Steubenville, Ohio, where he was a prominent businessman and owner of Top Value Furniture. He was the district governor of the Lions Club of Ohio, president of the Lions Club Steubenville Chapter, and president of B’nai Israel Synagogue in Steubenville. Funeral service was Sunday, January 7, at Berger Memorial Chapel in St. Louis.

Interment at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery. Memorial contributions preferred to Bais Abraham Congregation, 6910 Delmar Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63130 or Congregation Yehuda Moshe, 4721 W Touhy Ave., Lincolnwood, IL 60712. Visit bergermemorialchapel.com for more information.

Please see Obituaries, page 20

summer camp in Clayton, Ga.. Ari Weiss also attended the camp.

“They were really stars, the two of them, just shining bright,” camp director Geoff Menkowitz said of the siblings. “It’s a huge loss that we are all reeling from and heartbroken from right now.”

As a camper, Hannah was involved with the organic gardening and sustainability program.

“It was one of the things that set her on the trajectory to be such an advocate for environmental issues and social justice,” Menkowitz said.

Ari lit up the camp through music, playing guitar, bass and piano at concerts.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say he was a rock star,” Menkowitz said.

This made Ari a big name throughout the camp, even among those who were not in his immediate circle of friends.

“It’s a rare talent when you have a ninthand 10th-grader that can excite the staff, the counselors,” Menkowitz said. “They were not politely clapping [for] him. He had fans that were real fans.” PJC

On campus she was involved in a handful of organizations promoting sustainability and hoped to double major in sustainable development and Jewish thought, said Shuly Rubin Schwartz, dean of graduate and undergraduate studies at JTS. Hannah also spent a summer volunteering at an organic goat cheese farm in Israel.

“She was trying to get at that deeper imperative to improve the world,” Schwartz said. “She really did so in any way that she could. She was only a sophomore, only in her third semester, but she was so clearly a rising star.”

Hannah led a group effort to introduce composting to her student dorm, recalled Jessica Jobanek, the Jewish life director at List College, adding that Hannah wasn’t afraid to stand up for what she believed in. During Sukkot this year, she approached JTS Chancellor Arnold Eisen to tell him about her work to improve sustainability at the school.

“I actually remember being struck by how bold and brave she was as a sophomore student to be presenting her vision to the chancellor of JTS — in a totally respectful and appropriate way,” said Jobanek, who met Hannah prior to her work at List College, when the two taught at Hebrew school at B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan.

Prior to moving to Irene Steinberg, far right, poses for a photo at New York, Hannah spent p the UJA-Federation of New York Scarsdale Women’s summers at Camp Ramah Opening Event with Dr. Ruth Westheimer in October.

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Nessa Green Mines................................................ Max Green Janet Moritz .............................................Marian Lindenbaum Shirley Preny ..............................................Bessie M. Bleiberg Shirley Preny .............................................. Diane S. Friedman Faye S. Rosch ...................................Becky & Louis Schwartz Faye S. Rosch ......................................... Anne & Philip Singer David Rosenberg .........................................Jacob Rosenberg Kim & Howard Rosenberg .......................................Al W. Wolf Gloria Shapiro ..................................................... Irwin Shapiro Dale Singer .........................................................Samuel Sloan Tamara Skirboll .................................................. Estelle Martin Yvonne & Barry Stein ..............................................Dena Stein Yvonne & Barry Stein ......................................... Elder H. Stein Martin L. Supowitz ......................................Albert J. Supowitz Susan M. Zeff ......................................................Rebecca Zeff Susan M. Zeff ........................................................... Harry Zeff Susan M. Zeff ...........................................Deanna Zeff Ostrow Mike Zeiden.......................................................... Julia Mankin

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday January 14: Ruth Boimel, Abraham J. Epstein, Max levenson, Esther Mallinger, Julia Mankin, Rose H. Mirskey, David Newman, Eugene Neil Reuben, Louis Snyder, Rae Solomon Monday January 15: Philip Backer, Mollie Barnett, Bernard Bigg, Aaron H. Braunstein, David Dugan, Louis Fineberg, Abraham J. Friedman, Sam Gerson, Harry Glick, Nathan Greenberg, Frances S. Winsberg Gusky, Samuel Harris, Sarah Kallus, Betty Lenchner, Jacob Linder, Violet Semins Paris, Minnie Pecarsky, Charlotte Rubin, Ben Scolnik, Jacob Shapiro, Dr. Bernard J. Slone, Jennie S. Solomon, Ann Tergulitza, Freda Venetsky Tuesday January 16: Blanche Stein Banov, Matilda Barnett, Irene Bloom, Ida Schermer Burstin, Florence Ravick Fishkin, Goldie Friedman, Herman Friedman, Harry B. Harris, Leopold Heppenheimer, Jennie Hoffman, Albert Lebovitz, James Leff, Mathilda Lindner, Ilene Grossman Mattock, Bernard Peris, Leah Rosenfeld, Beatrice Rita Weil Ruben, Anna L. Saville, Max Schlessinger, Gertrude Shakespeare, William Solomon, Morton Stein, Rose Wedner, Mary Sulkes Wolk Wednesday January 17: Sylvia S. Berger, Frances Levenson Carey, Ruth H. Cohen, Fanny Eisenfeld, Harry T. Feinberg, Nochim Gelman, Philip Goldblum, Norma Marks Klein, Samuel E. Klein, Samuel Levine, Estelle E. Martin, Jacob Alex Miller, Harold J. Pasekoff, Dr. George Raffel, Sophie Shapiro, Anna Sigesmund, Chaim Silberblatt, Yetta Singer, Henry Solomon, Elder H. Stein, Albert J. Supowitz, Rose Tabor, Louis Tenenouser, John D. Whiteman, Goldie H. Zacks Thursday January 18: Isabelle Pitler Backer, Mollie Beck, Samuel Darling, Sidney H. Green, Florence Hiedovitz, Paul Ibe, Fannie Klein, Rose Klein, Regina Kossman, Geraldine Lerner, Blanche L. Schwartz, Bernice Semins, Russell Tanur Friday January 19: Samuel Baem, Harry N. Bailiss, Sara T. Davidson, George J. Fairman, Joseph Gray, Dr. John J. Horwtiz, Sara R. Jacobson, Sam Kaufman, Max Kweller, Harry Meyer, Mary Myers, Harry Pretter, Mollie Samuel, Florence Stone, Pauline Strauss, Victoria Zimmer Saturday January 20: Gertrude Berenfield, Nathan Bilder, Paul Carpe, Joel David Cohen, Lillian Cook, Morris Fleshman, Samuel J Frankel, Paul Freedman, Jennie Glick, Sanford K. Greenberg, Lipa Haimovitz, Edward Hertz, Anna Harr Krause, Madylene Platt, Dorothy Rosenthal, Alec Samuels, Dr.Eugene J. Schachter, Gertrude Silberman, Jacob W. Simon, Alvin Weinberger, Esther Pakler Weiss

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Obituaries Obituaries: Continued from page 19

BURSTIN: Betty Ruth Burstin, age 89 of New York, N.Y., formerly of Duquesne, died Sunday, December 31, 2017. She was born in McKeesport on July 29, 1928, and is the daughter of the late Louis and Ida Schermer Burstin. She was an English teacher for more than 40 years and enjoyed watercolor painting. She is survived by her brother, Dr. Charles Joel Burstin, and his wife, Judith Ann Burstin of Beverly Hills, Calif., as well as two nieces, Michaelle and Stacy Burstin, and a nephew, Brad Burstin. Graveside services were held Friday, January 5, 2018, at Temple Cemetery with Rabbi Paul Tuchman officiating. Arrangements by Strifflers of White Oak Cremation and Mortuary Services, Inc., 1100 Lincoln Way, White Oak, PA 15131. Condolences may be made at strifflerfuneralhomes.com.

HERER: Margery L. Herer, on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. Beloved wife of the late Jerome B. Herer. Cherished mother of Robin (William) Halpern, Lawrence (Linda) Herer, Yale (Paula) Herer and the late Lynda (surviving spouse Howard) Goldsmith.

Also survived by 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Lynda Herer Goldsmith Camp Ramah Fund c/o Congregation Beth Shalom, 5915 Beacon Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.

KERBER: Eugene S. Kerber, age 97, of Pittsburgh and formerly of Alexandria, Va., passed away very peacefully on December 22, 2017, at his family’s Fox Chapel home surrounded by his loving family and friends. He is survived by his beloved daughter Amy Kerber-Brancati and son in law Joseph J. Brancati of Fox Chapel; his beloved daughter Susan Kerber Price of Virginia; cherished grandchildren Timothy Eugene Price, Dominic Joseph Brancati, Kathryn Rose Price and Nicholas Amedeo Brancati all of Pittsburgh; dear friends Carmen and Tassos Nakassis of Gaithersburg, Md., and Chelo Jacob of San Rafael, Calif.; many nieces and nephews; and his loyal grand-dogs Gigi and Oscar. Eugene was preceded in death by his sisters, Eleanore Kerber Holstein, Esq. (Leo),

Mormons: Continued from page 10

baptisms. Her study was first reported by The Associated Press.

The practice of proxy baptisms is a controversial one. Mormons are instructed to perform baptisms on dead relatives who did not have the opportunity to convert to the church. However, in the 1990s it was discovered that Mormons had performed such rites on hundreds of thousands of Jews who died in the Holocaust. This angered Jewish groups, which said the practice disrespected the victims’ religious beliefs.

In 1995, the Mormon church reached an agreement with Jewish leaders to cease the practice, and it was emphasized in the 2012 letter.

Radkey also says she found examples of family members of famous politicians, including Presidents Donald Trump, Barack 20 JANUARY 12, 2018

and Rieck B. Hannifin (Jerry) and his parents. Eugene was the son of the late Stella and Isidore Kerber, immigrants of Kiev, Russia and Austria and grew up in Squirrel Hill.

His parents instilled in their children a love of learning and stressed the importance of doing well in school and beyond. Eugene graduated with high honors from Taylor Allderdice where he was named a Buhl Scholar, an academic scholarship program that afforded top students an opportunity to attend college. Eugene attended the University of Pittsburgh and graduated with distinction. He was the recipient of numerous academic awards, honorary society memberships and degrees. Upon his graduation from Pitt with degrees in economics and math, Eugene began a long and illustrious career with the United States government in Washington, D.C., just two days after graduation. During his 50 years, he held top positions at the State Department, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Commerce, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It was at the Department of Commerce that his career really took off. He was the head of the Balance of Payments Division of the Department of Commerce. Eugene was a highlyregarded U.S. diplomat representing the United States at economic meetings in Paris and was a founder of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), which was created to stimulate economic progress and world trade in the early 1960s. He served as the chairman for many years. He was considered to be one of the world’s experts on balance of payments and foreign aid. Eugene wrote sections on economics for the Encyclopedia Britannica’s Book of the Year from 19561964. After his retirement, Eugene continued to work as a consultant for the government.

Spending much time in Paris, he had a lifelong passion for fine French food and wine and enjoyed eating in highly rated Michelin 4 and 5 Star restaurants wherever he traveled. He was an avid reader who read three newspapers every day and proudly completed the crossword puzzles. He read numerous magazines, “The New Yorker” and “The Economist” being his favorites. Eugene’s philanthropy was both Pittsburgh and nationally based. It embraced areas dear to him — education, health care and the arts. Locally, he laid the groundwork that created the Miss Mitchell Society at the Winchester Thurston School, a charitable gift annuity program, by becoming the first donor to contribute when his grandson was

a student there. He was proudly a Lifetime Donor to the University of Pittsburgh. He also was a charter donor to National Jewish Health where he helped to start their charitable gift program many years ago. He also proudly supported many museums.

Eugene derived his greatest joy from his family. He was a devoted and loving father and adoring and proud grandfather.

His children, grandchildren, dogs, relatives and special friends were very dear to him. He especially treasured living with his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren during the last years of his life. He will be greatly missed, but his memory will forever live in the minds of those he touched. The family wishes to express their sincere gratitude to the extraordinary “Team” of Grandpa’s caregivers who cared for him in the comfort of our home with love, laughter, dignity and grace. Thank you, Joel, Nicole, Whitney, Keeley, Olivia, Ilana and Tina. If you so desire, trees may be planted in Israel in the Memory of Eugene S. Kerber through the Jewish National Fund. Please visit usa. jnf.org/jnf-tree-planting-center/ or call 800-542-8733 for details. Or to a charity of the donor’s choice. Services and interment private. A memorial service is being planned for a future date. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc.

Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as relatives of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, being posthumously baptized.

Eric Hawkins, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the church was doing its part to ensure there were no posthumous baptisms.

“The Church cares deeply about ensuring these standards are maintained,” he said in a statement. “Each month, we receive a list of names of Holocaust victims from the [Simon] Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

These are added to our database of names that require a direct family connection before temple work can be requested or performed.”

Four full-time employees at Family Search monitor the site for names of Holocaust victims and others that should not be added, Hawkins added.

The Anti-Defamation League, which has worked with the Mormon church on the issue, said the church was doing its part to

prevent Holocaust baptisms.

“My sense is that they are making every good faith effort to first of all block these before they happen, [and] if in the case that something slips through and they become aware of it, they then remove it and reverse it,” ADL’s director of interfaith affairs, Rabbi David Sandmel, said. “I’m satisfied that they take this seriously and that they are doing the best they can to fulfill the commitment they made on this.”

However, Gary Mokotoff, a Jewish genealogist who has been involved in the issue, begged to differ.

“If the problem still exists, whatever the church is doing to prevent it is not working,” Mokotoff said.

“A single person called Helen Radkey can find hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of Holocaust victims being submitted for posthumous baptism, then why can’t the church, which claims they actually have people working on it, find the

MASON: Sylvia Linder Mason passed away peacefully on Monday, December 25 in Framingham, Mass. Her last words were, “I had a good life.” Sylvia was born in Pittsburgh on April 19, 1922, to Morris and Ida (Freedel) Linder. She met Manuel Mason in Schenley Park where they were both camp counselors, and they married in 1943, the same year that she graduated from Carnegie Tech. During World War II Sylvia worked for the Manhattan Project doing mathematical calculations. Following the war, Sylvia and Manny returned to Pittsburgh, where Sylvia taught high school math for many years. Sylvia was predeceased by her beloved husband Manny after almost 75 years of marriage. Sylvia is survived by her brother and sister, Robert Linder and Ruth Edelstein, of Pittsburgh; her son Philip and daughter-in-law Jacqueline Horwitz; daughter Ruth and son-in-law Marty Richman; granddaughters Rachel Mason and partner Sharón Friedner, Michelle Rubenstein and husband Isaac; and her great-grandson Jesse Rubenstein, all of Massachusetts. Services were held at Schugar’s Chapel. Interment Kether Torah Cemetery. schugar.com

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MORRIS: Shirley Stern Morris, 91, of Washington, died Thursday, December 28, 2017, in the Washington Hospital. She was born September 26, 1926, in Pittsburgh, a daughter of the late Benjamin and Anna Siegel Stern. She was a member of Beth Israel Congregation, Washington, where she was formerly on the board, and was a former member of the Synagogue Sisterhood. She was also a member of Hadassah. On January 22, 1961, in Pittsburgh she married Julius Morris, who died April 3, 2008. Surviving are a daughter, Dianne Perlman of Yorktown Heights, N.Y.; a son, Michael Morris of Tampa, Fla.; four grandchildren, Rachel and Alexander Perlman, and Derek and Jared Morris, and several nieces and nephews. Deceased are three sisters, Gerri Dunn, Jocie Glasser and Beverly Glick, and a son-in-law, Richard Perlman. Services were held in the Piatt and Barnhill Funeral Home, 420 Locust Avenue, Washington, with Rabbi David Novitsky officiating. Interment at Beth Israel Cemetery, Washington. Memorial contributions may be directed to Beth Israel Congregation, 265 North Avenue, Washington, PA 15301. Online condolences may be expressed at piattandbarnhillfh.com.

PENNER: Barbara C. Penner, age 61 of Pittsburgh, passed away on Sunday, January 7, 2018. Beloved wife of Roy Penner. Loving mother of Jayme (Paul) and Matthew.

Sister of David (Rita) Cohen and Richard (Val) Cohen. Barb made strong and lasting connections with so many people in every stage of her life. She made a difference in her work as a behavioral therapist and as an Employee Assistance Program counselor.

Most recently, she helped create and grow the nonprofit initiative Standing Firm, where she worked with employers to help create safe workplaces that are supportive of domestic violence victims. Services were at Temple Sinai.

Interment Homewood Cemetery, Star of David Section. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Standing Firm at Women’s Center and Shelter, P.O. Box 9024, Pittsburgh, PA 15224.

Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com PJC

very thing that Helen is finding?” he asked.

Mokotoff, who has relatives that died in the Holocaust, said the baptisms of Nazi victims were particularly jarring.

“These people died because they were Jews,” he said, “and here you are bringing them into a second religion even though these people are not related to you.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the idea that Jews needed to be baptized was offensive. The parents of the center’s namesake, famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, have previously been baptized by Mormons.

“We were sure that these baptisms were removed but we’re seeing that they’re not,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center’s founder and dean, said in a statement emailed to JTA. “We reiterated yet again the reasons we protested that it’s insulting that the People of the Book whom G-d made a Covenant would need the assistance of a group of Mormons to gain entrance to Heaven.” PJC

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Community Hillel field trip

Warm inside!

On a day when most school districts were closed due to cold temperatures, Community Day School was in session on Friday, Jan. 5, and six recent alumni even gave up their morning off from Pittsburgh Allderdice to help lead the entire school in a warm and uplifting Kabbalat Shabbat service.

Photo courtesy of Community Day School

Net gains

Hillel Academy’s 11th- and 12th-grade girls visited Hillel parent Dr. Kara Bernstein’s lab at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, where Bernstein presented information on careers in science and invited the students to engage in some activities to give them an idea of what lab work is like. Students worked in small groups to prepare yeast samples, move material from one container to another using specialized equipment and look at cells under different microscopes. The visit was exciting and inspiring.

Photo courtesy of Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh

Somber moment Members of Temple Hadar Israel in New Castle gather for a special ceremony and religious burial of items from the now-closed synagogue.

Photos by Alanna E. Cooper

p Mark Haffner instructs tennis to a group of Friendship Circle members during Sunday Circle in December.

Photo courtesy of Friendship Circle

Calls for help

p Yeshiva high school students make calls for the school’s end-of-year fundraising campaign, which raised $180,000 in 24 hours.

Photos courtesy of Rabbi Chezky Rosenfeld

22 JANUARY 12, 2018

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Community At Temple David

Baking the world a better place

“Bake the World a Better Place,” held at Rodef Shalom Congregation on Dec. 3, was a tasty interfaith get-together that put smiles on the faces of all those who attended. p From left, Heather Benes, Marcine Hillman, Jan Zimmer and Barbara Fisher get their game on during the weekly mah-jongg game.

Photo courtesy of Temple David

p From left, Carol Congedo, Kay Liss, Rabbi Barbara Symons and Elaine Wolfe were part of the Temple David delegation to the URJ Biennial.

Photo courtesy of Temple David

p From left, Karen Hochberg, Julie Webb and Malke Frank

Photos courtesy of Karen Hochberg

p Micah Symons points out Temple David’s name while at the URJ Biennial.

Photo courtesy of Temple David.

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JANUARY 12, 2018 23

24â&#x20AC;&#x192;JANUARY 12, 2018

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