April 2, 2021 | 20 Nisan 5781
Candlelighting 7:28 p.m. | Saturday 8:28 p.m. | Havdalah 8:29 p.m. | Vol. 64, No. 14 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
Pitt and CMU launch new center to fight hate
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Pondering a pandemic
Rabbi Danny Schiff’s new e-book Page 2
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Pittsburgh’s Holocaust Center marks Yom HaShoah, Genocide Awareness Month By David Rullo | Staff Writer
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Meet Mark Friedman
Penguins’ new Jewish player Page 4
NATIONAL Another first for second gentleman
Emhoff hosts White House’s first virtual seder Page 8
leading the Collaboratory along with Lorrie Cranor, director and professor in security and privacy technologies in CMU’s CyLab. While Blee recognizes the enormity of the task ahead, she is optimistic. “There will definitely be challenges, but all I see right now is opportunities,” she said. “A definite challenge is the scale of the problem we’re addressing — it’s very large — but so are the ambitions of the Collaboratory.” Blee, a member of Congregation Dor Hadash — one of the three congregations attacked on Oct. 27, 2018 — has spent decades studying white supremacism, interviewing members of hate groups to determine how they came to embrace their ideologies. While Blee says her work has been “smallscale,” she hopes that by bringing in other researchers and experts, the Collaboratory can develop effective interventions. “In Pittsburgh, we know all too tragically the facts of extremist hate,” Blee said. “We have a community of people who
auren Apter Bairnsfather is not surprised that Yom HaShoah falls during Genocide Awareness Month. “We didn’t have the word genocide until the Holocaust,” said Bairnsfather, director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. The Holocaust Center’s annual Yom HaShoah program honoring the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust takes place April 8. It will be the first in a series of events hosted by the Center that pays tribute to Genocide Awareness Month. The Yom HaShoah event will be held virtually and will include school children participating by interviewing survivors and survivors’ children and grandchildren, Bairnsfather said. The program moved to a virtual format for the first time last year, and the Center changed its timing from evening to a lunchtime program. “People loved that,” Bairnsfather said. “We had 800 people watching in real time.” By keeping the daytime format this year, many area schools — not just those with students participating in the event — can watch the commemoration. The program will include a tribute to the late Cantor Moshe Taube, a Holocaust survivor who was a longtime participant in the Center’s Yom HaShoah event and who died last November. One of Taube’s students will chant two prayers that Taube frequently led. Both Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill and
Please see Center, page 14
Please see Genocide, page 14
Students unite at the University of Pittsburgh one week after the attack at the Tree of Life building. Photo courtesy of University of Pittsburgh By Dionna Dash | Special to the Chronicle
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wo years after the massacre at the Tree of Life building, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have together launched a research center to study and combat extremist hate. The number of hate crimes against marginalized communities in the U.S. continues to rise. Last year, hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade, according to a recent FBI report. In 2019, the American Jewish community experienced the highest level of anti-Semitic incidents since tracking began in 1979. The Collaboratory Against Hate Research and Action Center will bring together researchers and clinicians from both universities, as well as local community groups, to study how extremist hate is spawned and proliferates in online spaces and real-life encounters. The center’s goal is to develop interventions to inhibit extremist hate and minimize its impact. Sociologist Kathleen Blee, dean of Pitt’s Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, will be
Headlines Danny Schiff ponders a pandemic year in new e-book — LOCAL — By David Rullo | Staff Writer
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abbi Danny Schiff might be creating a new genre of writing. Call it contemporary nonfiction or hyper-present prose. Whatever the tag, Schiff ’s new e-book, “Who By Pandemic?: One Rabbi’s Thoughts During a Year That Shook Humanity,” explores the last year — month by month — through the rabbi’s eyes. The book is a collection of 14 essays written by Schiff, Foundation scholar at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Each essay is titled by date, allowing the reader to follow the rabbi’s thoughts as they progressed throughout the year. “It seemed to me,” Schiff said, “that we had been through a collective human experience and at the same time a singular Jewish experience that provoked me to write a number of different pieces during the year.” He thought it might be helpful and offer opportunities for reflection if all the pieces were collected in one place. The book begins with an essay written on March 13, 2020, one day after Gov. Tom Wolf implemented social distancing measures in much of the state, and the same
Rabbi Danny Schiff
day Pennsylvania schools closed for an anticipated two-week pause. The essay captures the anxiety many felt for the first time as the pandemic forced the closing of synagogues, neighborhood stores, parks, Jewish
“ It seemed to me that we had been through a collective human experience and at the
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same time a singular Jewish experience.
— RABBI DANNY SCHIFF
fear, confusion, anger, loss and ultimately hope. “When I wrote the pieces, I wasn’t thinking about it in terms of a whole,” he told the Chronicle. “I was just focusing on the mood and the spiritual need of that particular day or week. Looking back at it now, it seems pretty clear that it starts with this shock, a presumption that it’ll be over soon, and then continues into this numbing sense of helplessness, because we know that there is a great deal of suffering and pain and loss, and then it moves into this ‘when will it end?’” Schiff believes his book allows for a broader perspective on the last year. “It allows people to emerge from an experience like we’ve just had and to immediately begin to put it into a larger File photo Book cover Photo courtesy of Rabbi Danny Schiff context, rather than having to wait three years [through tradiCommunity Centers and other institutions, tional publishing channels] by which time as well as the hope that the temporary shut- their own emotions or feelings have long down would stop the disease in its tracks, since been forgotten,” he said. saving millions from illness and death. The final essay, “February 25, 2021,” written Several essays were written in April 2020 a few days before Purim, contemplates a year — as the rabbi contemplated Passover in lock- Purim to Purim — in the shadow of the virus. down and wrestled with the challenges of The book opens by inviting its readers on finding God during a pandemic. a journey of memory and ends by contemMany of the questions raised in the book plating the future. Or, as Schiff writes, “Let have ethical implications beyond the context this then be our prayer for Purim: May it of a pandemic: Am I brother’s keeper? Does speedily usher in days of light and happi10% of a person’s income fulfill the mitzvah ness, joy and honor. For us — and for of tzedakah? What if I cannot fix all the the whole world.” world’s problems? “Who By Pandemic?” is available to Taken together, these essays — some purchase on Amazon.com. PJC first published in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and on Facebook — show an arc David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ in the rabbi’s writing, with Schiff confronting pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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Headlines Nonprofit launches tool to report anti-Semitism in schools CALL TO SCHEDULE A PERSONAL TOUR!
(412) 507 - 9922 ENHANCED SENIOR LIVING
ASSISTED LIVING MEMORY CARE More than 300 college students came to Pittsburgh in 2019 to learn how to fight antiSemitism and anti-Zionism on campus. Photo by Toby Tabachnick
— LOCAL — By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle
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Los Angeles-based nonprofit that works to strengthen Israeli and Jewish identity is taking a step stateside to combat the proliferation of hate. The Israeli-American Council (IAC) has launched a new website, called School Watch, which is designed to contribute to a safe school environment in the U.S. and reduce incidents of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and national origin discrimination. Students, parents or educators who have encountered anti-Semitism or anti-Zionist conduct or content in schools can file complaints through the online platform. The IAC says it plans to bring these complaints to the attention of the school or district to ensure they are properly addressed so that similar incidents do not recur. Complaints can be filed anonymously. “In recent months we have received many reports from parents and students within our community of anti-Semitism and bias in classrooms,” Shoham Nicolet, co-founder and CEO of the IAC, told the Chronicle. “School Watch will help streamline these complaints and allow the IAC to act quickly where needed in order to ensure a safe environment for our children.” The School Watch platform will help students and parents report on a range of anti-Semitic content — “from the teaching of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement, anti-Zionism, as well as false representations of Israel, the American-Jewish community, its history or its culture, to allegations of biased teaching,” according to an IAC spokesperson. In addition, School Watch will enable people to file complaints concerning discrimination and harassment around inflammatory content or anti-Zionist biases among educators. The Anti-Defamation League operates a similar, though slightly different, platform — its Tracker of Anti-Semitic Incidents. That website compiles cases of anti-Jewish vandalism, harassment and assault reported
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to or detected by the ADL. An ADL “map,” also available online, provides comprehensive statistics on domestic instances of anti-Semitism, extremism and terrorism. Several Jewish Pittsburghers — even those whose lives were not directly impacted by the massacre of Oct. 27, 2018 — have experienced anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish bias in schools. In 2017, students at Upper St. Clair High School studying Elie Wiesel’s memoir, “Night,” created and displayed posters filled with swastikas and photographs of Adolf Hitler. The school district removed a dozen of those posters after receiving several complaints from Jewish students and their parents. “People just don’t understand what they’re doing,” said Debra Levy, whose three sons attended Upper St. Clair High School — one of whom lodged complaints about the posters. “Nazi symbols, without context on posterboard as you’re walking down a hallway at the high school, it’s not a pleasant experience.” Programs like No Place For Hate, an ADL initiative adopted in Upper St. Clair, are improving things, Levy stressed. When the synagogue shooting occurred in Squirrel Hill in 2018, rattling the Jewish world and, specifically, Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, the school district responded appropriately, she said. “I think they’ve done a pretty good job,” Levy said. Anti-Semitism was an issue for Shirley Holtzman Schwartz back when she was growing up in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the 1940s. Holtzman Schwartz lived in subsidized housing in Terrace Village and remembers Black and white peers in segregated Pittsburgh shouting anti-Semitic epithets and slurs at her as she walked to Miller Elementary School and, later, at Fifth Avenue High School. Holtzman Schwartz, 84, said some incidents of anti-Semitism stemmed more from ignorance, insensitivity or lack of
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Headlines Nu? Want to learn Yiddish? There’s an app for that — LOCAL — By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle.
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vetch. Mensch. Mazel tov. Schmooze. Colorful Yiddish words and phrases have been in America’s collective cultural bloodstream throughout generations — and many more might soon follow. Duolingo, the Pittsburgh-based technology company that bills itself as “the most popular way to learn languages online,” will release its long anticipated Yiddish course on April 6. The course, which has been under development at Duolingo for the better part of five years, is ideal for those just learning about the language, Jews fluent in Yiddish who want to brush up on grammar and spelling, as well as people whose ancestors spoke Yiddish and who want to explore a family tradition, said Myra Awodey, a native Pittsburgher working as a senior community manager at Duolingo. “We, of course, started with the largest languages — English to Spanish, Spanish to English —for the first couple of years,” Awodey told the Chronicle. “Over time, we realized not only were people asking about other languages, there were other people reaching out, saying, ‘I’m an expert and I want to help.’”
To illustrate that trend, Awodey pointed to Irish-Gaelic, which Duolingo estimated about 1 million people spoke fluently when it launched its Irish-Gaelic course five years ago. In just the first year Duolingo offered Irish-Gaelic, 1 million people signed up to learn from the course. Awodey stressed, though, that the Yiddish course Duolingo is releasing is merely a beta version; the company constantly invites participants to report errors and provide it with feedback. “The courses are never completely finished,” Awodey said. “There’s always room for improvement.” The Yiddish course was created by contributors representing the three major Yiddish dialects and from a variety of backgrounds — from a civil engineer who grew up speaking Yiddish at home to three Gen Z’ers (those born after 1997) inspired by their heritage to carry on the tradition, according to a Duolingo spokesperson. Meena Viswanath, the aforementioned civil engineer, grew up in New Jersey in a modern Orthodox family and today lives in Maryland. Her family includes experts versed in various aspects of Yiddish. Her grandfather teaches the subject at Columbia University, her aunt is an editor at the Yiddish version of The Forward, and her mother published a Yiddish-to-English dictionary. Viswanath’s brother even translated some
of the popular “Harry Potter” series into the language, she said. “We come from the secular, from the academic world,” Viswanath told the Chronicle. “We don’t live in communities where Yiddish is the vernacular. It’s a conscious decision we make.” There are three main dialects of Yiddish, according to Viswanath: Litvaks, or northern Yiddish, which was spoken in Lithuania, Belarus and Latvia; Galitsyaner, or central Yiddish, spoken in Poland and parts of Hungary; and southeastern Yiddish, spoken in Romania and Ukraine, which often is a “compromise” dialect between Litvaks and Galitsyaners. The southeastern Yiddish is the form of the language most often depicted in the Yiddish theater and in Yiddish films, Viswanath said. Duolingo chose to teach Galitsyaner, or central Yiddish, as it is the most commonly spoken dialect of the language, especially among Chasidic Jews, Viswanath said. Parts of the Jewish world already are responding positively to news of the Yiddish course. “[Duolingo’s] Yiddish program has been trending on the Jewish/Chasidic Twitter,” Viswanath said. The Yiddish program, like Duolingo’s popular Hebrew course, will help bilingual or trilingual speakers who code-switch between languages when they stumble on a
Penguin Mark Friedman happy to be on right side of cross-state rivalry — LOCAL — By Toby Tabachnick | Editor
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he Pittsburgh Penguins’ newly acquired defenseman Mark Friedman is unequivocal when asked how he feels about playing for the archrival of his former team, the Philadelphia Flyers. “I can say I’m on the good side of the rivalry, let’s put it that way,” laughed Friedman, 25. Friedman, who is Jewish — a rarity in the world of professional hockey — has been in Pittsburgh for about a month, since the Penguins claimed him off waivers from the Flyers at the end of February. And he “loves it.” “There is more of a homier feel than Philadelphia,” said Friedman, who has been on injured reserve since March 4, following a game against the Flyers. “It’s not as busy, not as noisy, nicer people. It’s not as dirty, especially in Cranberry where I live. It’s just a great neighborhood.” The Toronto, Ontario, native was originally drafted in 2014 by Ron Hextall when he was the general manager of Philadelphia. Hextall was named general manager of the Penguins in early February. Hextall “gave me my first opportunity,” said Friedman. “I can’t thank him enough for giving me a fresh start — it’s definitely something I needed. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about him. He’s hard when he needs to be, strict when he needs to be, but he is very approachable as well. We have a
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Mark Friedman
Photo by Joe Sargent
good relationship and it’s just fitting that he’s the one who picked me up off waivers.” In Friedman’s first game as a Penguin — which was against the Flyers — he got his first NHL point with an assist on Cody Ceci’s goal. On March 4, early in the first period in his second game as a Penguin, Friedman scored his first NHL goal — also against the Flyers. “It was definitely an experience like no other,” Friedman told the Chronicle. “The first game turned out well, then the first period turned out well for the second game. It was definitely a big ‘woo-hoo’ when I
scored, for sure.” Later in that game, Friedman was injured and was still on injured reserve as of press time. Last year, Friedman said, he had some “bad concussions” and is wary to return to the game too soon. “You never want to mess with the brain,” he said. Friedman sees his role in the Penguins as a “a reliable two-way defenseman more leaning toward my offense, with my ability to get up in the play. I’m not the biggest guy, but I love to get up and down the ice.”
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Screenshot from Duolingo’s Yiddish app Image provided by Duolingo
Please see Yiddish, page 15
He said he’s confident in his skating ability “and my puck-smarts and my hockey IQ,” and is undaunted by bigger guys. “I like to get physical,” Friedman said. “I like to play a hard-nosed game.” Over the years, Friedman’s skating has gotten “dramatically better,” he said. “My first couple years in the NHL, my skating ability kind of hurt me,” he said. “My gaps weren’t great. But now I’m using my skating ability and my speed to get me out of trouble and that’s where I think I can be relied on here, to make the first pass out of the zone on a break out.” Friedman grew up in Toronto and attended Hebrew school until grade five, when hockey began to conflict. His Toronto high school was predominately Jewish, he said, and he remains close to several of his Jewish friends from those days. He values his Jewish upbringing, he said. “It’s nice being in a family that’s Jewish,” Friedman said. “It’s different from most of the hockey world. You don’t see too many Jews playing hockey, especially in the NHL. It’s definitely cool when guys ask about it.” He enjoys celebrating the Jewish holidays with his friends and family back home, he said, and has a particular fondness for Jewish food. His favorite dish? “Anything my bubbe cooks,” he said. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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Headlines ‘Folk Shabbat’ at Temple Sinai ‘Turns! Turns! Turns!’ virtual — LOCAL — By David Rullo | Staff Writer
The Temple Sinai band rehearses for a ‘Mostly Musical Shabbat’ before COVID-19 Photo by John Schiller
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ometimes it takes more than a good idea. Sometimes it takes passion and a fair amount of chutzpah to see a concept from creation to fulfillment. Temple Sinai member John Schiller knows just how important that combination can be. While in Cape Cod in 2015, Schiller happened upon a local synagogue’s “Boomer Shabbat,” featuring music favored among those of a certain age. He thought the concept was perfect for Temple Sinai and began a multiyear process convincing then-Senior Rabbi Jamie Gibson to give it a try. Three years later, Gibson agreed, and asked
Cantor Laura Berman to “make it happen,” Schiller recalled. “She reached out to me and said, ‘You finally have your wish.’” Schiller drafted his friend and fellow guitarist Benjamin Wecht to help make his vision a reality, and the two began creating Temple Sinai’s “Folk Shabbat.” Berman felt it important that the service be more than just a greatest hit collection of 1960s socially conscious songs and that it keep the flavor of Shabbat. “We sat together and studied the Friday night service and the different blessings and prayers and textual components that are part of that,” Berman said. “Those were our jumping off points.” The Shabbat liturgy, she explained, offered themes for which songs could be substituted in place of traditional prayers and blessings. The Reform movement had already experimented with this idea, offering modern interpretations next to customary service sections in its “Mishkan T’Filah” prayer book. Recognizing what not to change was just as important as understanding where there were opportunities for interpretation, Berman explained. “I mean, we weren’t going to change the Shema,” she said. “There were things that were just too central to the service.” For Wecht, creating the service allowed him to hear songs he had enjoyed for decades in new ways. In addition to traditional folk songs like “If I Had a Hammer” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, which have social justice components, the popular love songs from the era were transformed when sung
as hymns to God. Once the songs were selected, Schiller and Wecht found musicians who were interested in playing the pieces. Some of those members came from Temple Sinai’s previously established band, sometimes they were from outside the congregation, and sometimes they were not even Jewish, Schiller said. “It’s been a rather ecumenical experience,” he added. Eventually, a core group was formed that included several Temple Sinai teenagers, Schiller, Wecht, Roger Rafson, Temple Sinai’s President Saul Straussman, and professional musician Laura Daniels. Wecht was charged with instrumentation and developing small groups from the larger pool of musicians. Although Schiller, Wecht and Berman created the initial “Folk Shabbat” format, Berman is quick to credit the entire group of volunteers. “I like to stress how this group has worked as a team,” she said. “There are times when Laura Daniels said, ‘Should we try this feel and this rhythm?’ Or we wanted to get some sort of sound and Roger was able to go with that.” This year, an additional volunteer was needed to help complete the service — a videographer. Temple Sinai continues to celebrate Shabbat online due to COVID-19, so “Folk Shabbat,” which has been live since its inception in 2018, has moved to a virtual format. Temple Sinai member Don Maue prerecorded all the small band recordings — socially distanced — and readied them for
Steven Diaz seeks seat on the bench — LOCAL — By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer
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ormont is nowhere near rural India, but attorney Steven Diaz is looking east for inspiration. “I see the magistrate in the role of the village elder, whose role is to sit under the banyan tree and try and disperse some experience, some insights that you’ve garnered by experience, and hopefully some wisdom,” said Diaz, 72. Diaz is running for magisterial district judge of Dormont and Mt. Lebanon. If elected, he said, he’ll dedicate extra attention to youths. “High school is a time of experimentation,” said Diaz, a member of Beth El Congregation of the South Hills. “As the responsible mature community engages our upcoming youth, we’ve got to remember a bit what it was like. We’ve got to be able to know the difference between malice and growing up, and we need to support people. We’ve got to hold their feet to the fire, but we have to teach them why it’s important, to get them to understand and appreciate why responsible behavior is important.” Diaz said his legal career taught him to appreciate diverse plaintiffs and defendants. “I’ve been in private practice where I have represented family-owned businesses, large corporations and public entities in the PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG
Steven Diaz, left, and family
development of mass transportation,” he said. Prior to that, Diaz served for 11 years as a deputy city attorney in San Francisco, California, representing police officers, firefighters and other first responders. “I understand the rigors of their jobs and the difficulties that they sometimes encounter,” he said. Life presents myriad complexities, so
Photo courtesy of Steven Diaz
having someone who appreciates nuance and has a track record of bringing people together is critical to judicial success, said Diaz, an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Law. As a young attorney, the former Californian advised Democratic mayors of San Francisco Joseph Alioto, George Moscone and Dianne Feinstein, before eventually working for
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online viewing. Folk Shabbat is just one part of the music tradition at Temple Sinai. The Reform congregation has featured a band since 2002 when then-cantorial soloist Sara Stock Mayo created “Mostly Musical Shabbat” under the direction of Cantor Henry Shapiro. That band has evolved over the years and includes not just guitar, bass and drums, but sometimes also keyboard, clarinet, banjo, mandolin, accordion, tenor saxophone, trumpet and even violin. Add in the synagogue’s choir and individual vocalists and the result is a sizable band capable of creating a service that speaks to most of the congregation. The musical services performed by Temple Sinai’s bands have become part of the congregation’s DNA, said Straussman. “We really do try to make it accessible to all,” he said, noting that the family-friendly services often introduce the congregation to new melodies for familiar prayers. For Schiller, the use of music at a service does much more than simply entertain. “Music is such a fundamental part of the way we connect with God, and I think we do it beautifully in so many ways at Temple,” Schiller said. Temple Sinai’s “Folk Shabbat” service, sponsored by the congregation’s Brotherhood, takes place Friday, April 9 at 7 p.m. More information about the service can be found on the synagogue’s Facebook page. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. His years of bipartisan work prove true Joni Mitchell’s lyric, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,” said Diaz. “There’s always a reason why people hurt the way they hurt. And you need to be able to understand the people who come before you, and to listen for more than the yesses and the noes,” he continued. “You need to be able to listen to the humanity of what’s before you.” In addition to maintaining a private legal practice, Diaz and his wife Stacey are active in Pittsburgh’s disability community. Parents to three children, including Amanda, a group home resident, they helped Beth El develop its Inclusion Shabbat and continue aiding the congregation in its quest to provide full inclusion and participation for all people, Diaz said. Through Amanda, the Diazes also became involved in The Friendship Circle. Diaz has been a Mt. Lebanon resident for more than 15 years, and said if elected on May 18, he’ll give back by helping its youth: “I have a son and daughter who went to middle school and high school here so I know what it’s like to be a parent in this bubble,” he said. “I have seen the kind of support that the high school kids need. And like I said, it’s not the only part of this job, but I view it as perhaps socially the most important part of the job.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. APRIL 2, 2021 5
Calendar Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions also will be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. FRIDAY, APRIL 2 Join Repair the World for “Who Is at the Table? Immigration and Refugee Justice in Pittsburgh,” a Shabbat dinner unpacking and addressing immigration justice in Pittsburgh. Hear from local organizations fighting for immigration justice and discuss how immigration connects to the Jewish holiday of Passover. Panelists include Gisele Fetterman, Aweys Mwaliya, Ben Gustchow, and Rachel Vinciguerra. Free. 6 p.m. rpr.world/Pesach MONDAY, APRIL 5 Join Beth El Congregation of the South Hills for First Mondays via Zoom. Rabbi Alex Greenbaum will discuss with Dr. Cyril Wecht his new book, “The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht: Memoirs of America’s Most Controversial Forensic Pathologist.” 12 p.m. bethelcong.org MONDAYS, APRIL 5, 12, 19, 26; MAY 5 Join Rabbi Jeremy Markiz in learning Masechet Rosh Hashanah, a tractate of the Talmud about the many new years that fill out the Jewish calendar at Monday Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. TUESDAY, APRIL 6 Hadassah Midwest and the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest present Excellence in Innovation, How Israel is Helping Tackle the World’s Challenges with Covid-19. Free 12 p.m. hadasssahmidwest.org/Innovation TUESDAYS, APRIL 6-JUNE 1 What is the point of Jewish living? What ideas, beliefs and practices are involved? Melton Course 1: Rhythms & Purposes of Jewish Living examines a variety of Jewish sources to discover the deeper meanings of Jewish holidays, lifecycle observances and Jewish practice. Cost: $300 per person, per year (25 sessions), includes all books and materials. For more information and to register, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 Join Temple Sinai for guest speaker Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels. Free and open the public. 1 p.m. For more information and to register, visit templesinaipgh.org. The Women of Temple Sinai invite you to their April cooking class. The guest cook is Lynn Magid Lazar. 6:30 p.m. Free and open to the public. Register at templesinaipgh.org for Zoom link. Beth Shalom Congregation’s Derekh Speaker Series welcomes Talia Carner. Carner will discuss “The Third Daughter: A Novel.” 7:30 p.m. Free. For more information and to register for the Zoom event, visit bethshalompgh.org/speakerseries.
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Congregation Emanu-El Israel and the Seton Hill Holocaust Center invite you to attend their Yom HaShoah Memorial Program. This year, the program will remember Shulamit Bastacky, a Holocaust survivor who recently passed away and was active in Holocaust education in Western Pennsylvania. 7:30 p.m. For more information and to register, visit ceigreensburg.org. THURSDAY, APRIL 8 Join the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh for their 2021 Yom HaShoah commemoration. In keeping with their theme of “40 Years of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh,” this year’s commemoration will include photographs and mementos of the many commemorations the Center has held over the past 40 years. Free. 11 a.m. hcofpgh.org/events Classrooms Without Borders, in partnership with Rodef Shalom Congregation and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, is honored to welcome Ambassador John L. Withers II and survivor Howard Chandler as they discuss “Balm in Gilead: A Story from the War,” a moving tale of friendships forged between survivors and rescuers in the days after the war. 4 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/ balm-in-gilead SATURDAY, APRIL 10-APRIL 25 Written by Leslie Lewis and Edward Vilga, with an uplifting message of forgiveness and compassion, “Miracle in Rwanda” is based on the life of New York Times Bestselling author Immaculée Ilibagiza. “Miracle in Rwanda” chronicles Immaculée’s dramatic experience of survival during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. 8 p.m. $10-25. hcofpgh.org/Rwanda SUNDAY, APRIL 11; TUESDAY, APRIL 13 Classrooms Without Borders begins their newest Israel seminar, “Bachazit” – On the Frontline. The six sessions will highlight challenges facing Israel and the individuals or organizations that are grappling with issues including the integration of minority groups into the high-tech sector, the struggle for LGBTQ rights, programs that assist Israelis injured during their military service, the fight against racism in Israeli society and more. 2 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/ frontline-israel SUNDAYS, APRIL 11, 18, 25; MAY 2 Join a lay-led Online Parashah Study Group to discuss the week’s Torah portion. No Hebrew knowledge is needed. The goal is to build community while deepening understanding of the text. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. MONDAY, APRIL 12
scholar Rabbi Jonty Blackman via Zoom. 7 p.m. For more information and to register, visit classroomswithoutborders.org. TUESDAY, APRIL 13 Pittsburgh Chapter of Hadassah and Aviv Hadassah presents Build Your Own Board, with Board Mama, Robin Plotkin. Learn the art of charcuterie board making in this virtual class to create a kosher-style appetizer board. Plotkin is an award-winning registered dietitian and nutrition communicator 7 p.m. $25. hadassahmidwest.org/AvivBoard WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14 Classrooms Without Borders Presents AntiAsian American Racism and Violence: Then and Now - with Susan Stein. With violence and racism against Asian-Americans surging, the program will focus on a dark chapter in American history during World War II too often omitted from school curricula. This is an interactive session that combines discussion, imagination and critical thinking. 4 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/ anti-asian-racism SUNDAY, APRIL 18 The Jewish National Fund welcomes stars of the Netflix series “Fauda” to its annual Breakfast for Israel. 10:30 a.m. Register for the free event at jnf.org/bfi. MONDAY, APRIL 19 Join Moishe House of Pittsburgh for Incense from the Temple to Your Home with Aya Baron. This is third part of their “Plants in Jewish Traditions” series. 7 p.m. facebook. com/moishehouse.pittsburgh/events MONDAY, APRIL 19-MAY 31 Join Temple Sinai for “Making Our Days Count with Rabbi Karyn Kedar (via Zoom).” Rabbi Kedar will discuss the period between Passover and Shavuot, called Omer. She will teach seven spiritual principles for the seven weeks of the Omer: decide, discern, choose, hope, imagine, courage, pray. These principles can offer a path from enslavement to freedom, darkness to light, constriction to expanse. 7 p.m. templesinaipgh.org TUESDAY, APRIL 20 The Jewish Pittsburgh History Series, sponsored by Rodef Shalom Congregation, will feature a presentation by Bob Rosenthal at 7 p.m. Rosenthal will discuss Rodef Shalom’s Building: Construction, Behind the Scenes, Oddities and What Was Where. 7 p.m. rodefshalom.org WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21
Beth El Congregation presents a special edition of First Mondays with Rabbi Alex. Women of the Wall Executive Director Yochi Rappeport will share her personal story, WOW’s history and struggle to achieve equality at the Western Wall. Free. 12 p.m. bethelcong.org
Pittsburgh Chapter Hadassah and Hadassah Greater Detroit presents Wellness Wednesday Updates in Dermatology, with Dr. Karlee Novice, a virtual program. Novice is a boardcertified dermatologist and fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. $10. 11 a.m. hadassahmidwest.org/GDWW2021
Join Classrooms Without Borders in Israel — virtually. Monthly tours with guide and
Pittsburgh Chapter of Hadassah and Eleanor Roosevelt Hadassah presents A Mother’s Day
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Brunch Cooking Demonstration with Mimi Markofsky. Markofsky will re-create a few of her favorite brunch dishes, followed by a question-and-answer session. She is the chef/ owner of Mimi’s Just Desserts. $10. 7 p.m. hadassahmidwest.org/RooseveltCookingDemo THURSDAY, APRIL 22 The 28th annual JFilm Festival presents international Jewish-themed films that deepen audiences’ understanding of Jewish culture, tolerance and our common humanity. The 11day festival is complemented by a variety of supplemental programming, including visiting filmmakers, guest speakers and collaborative events with other local organizations. For more information, including a complete list of films, visit filmpittsburgh.org/pages/jfilm. MONDAY, APRIL 26 Join Temple Sinai for “Teaching Children Resilience and Courage” with Rabbi Karyn Kedar. Explore three questions, three rules and one important myth that can help create a foundation where children can find resilience and courage. Free. 7 p.m. templesinaipgh.org THURDAY, APRIL 29 Join Pittsburgh Chapter of Hadassah, Hadassah Greater Detroit and the Nurses Council as Wendy Goldberg presents A Brilliant Rebel: Florence Nightingale’s Message for Our Challenging Times. Goldberg will speak about Nightingale’s contributions to science and health care and their relevance today. 7 p.m. $10 Hadassah member/HGHS Employee; $15 non-member. hadassahmidwest.org/GDrebel FRIDAY, APRIL 30 The Talmud says Lag B’Omer celebrates the end of a plague. Moishe House would like to call that in with a traditional bonfire celebration. Join them for pizza and a campfire. To maintain social distancing, attendance is capped at 10 participants. 6:30 p.m. For more information, visit facebook. com/moishehouse.pittsburgh/events. THURSDAYS, MAY 6; JUNE 17 Jews have never desisted from addressing tough problems. In this year’s CLE series, Rabbi Danny Schiff will dive into “Tense Topics of Jewish Law.” Each topic raises significant concerns in our contemporary lives. With CLE/CEU credit: $30/session or $150 all sessions; without CLE/CEU credit: $25/session or $125 all sessions. 8:30 a.m. For more information, including a complete list of topics, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org/continuinglegal-education. MONDAY, MAY 10 Join Pittsburgh Chapter of Hadassah and Hadassah Greater Detroit for Raiders of the Lost Art: The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia. Rabbi Josh Bennett of Temple Israel will share the amazing story of the hidden Jews of Ethiopia. He will explore the history of the Ethiopian Jewish community and discover the roots of an African Jewish presence in the ancient Aksumite Kingdom. 11 a.m. $10. hadassahmidwest.org/GDraiders PJC
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Headlines Microsoft reportedly seeking to invest over $1 billion in Israel —WORLD — By Shoshanna Solomon | Times of Israel
Microsoft’s new campus in Herzliya, Israel, inaugurated in Nov. 2020 Photo by Amit Geron
U
S tech giant Microsoft is reportedly planning to invest $1 billion to $1.5 billion in Israel through setting up a new data center locally and expanding its chip research and development activities. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month and informed him about the plans, Globes reported on Monday, without saying where it got the information. Nadella told Netanyahu that Israel is “a very important development center for Microsoft,” Globes said, stating that the CEO has made no requests for
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government incentives for the investments and none were offered. Spokespeople for Microsoft in Israel and for the Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the report. Microsoft benefits from a low tax rate of 6% on profits from the intellectual property generated in Israel, lower than the average corporate tax rate of 23%. Small tech firms pay a tax rate of 7.5% to 12%, Globes said. The U.S. tech giant said last year that it would set up its first cloud data center in Israel to offer services to Israeli customers, starting with Azure and following with Office 365, expected to be operational sometime this year. The setting up of the center “marks a significant investment by Microsoft in the Israeli market,” the company said at the time. “Offering Microsoft Azure and Office 365 from a datacenter region in Israel forms a key part of our investment and involvement in the startup nation, as infrastructure is an essential building block for the tech intensity that public sector entities and businesses need to embrace,” Michel van der Bel, president of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa, said in a statement at the time. Microsoft Israel CEO Ronit Atad said at the announcement of the data center: “This significant investment marks a milestone in the relationship between Microsoft and
“ This significant investment marks a
milestone in the relationship between Microsoft and Israel...as we mark 30 years
”
of the company’s activity in Israel.
— RONIT ATAD Israel and also comes as we mark 30 years of the company’s activity in Israel.” The company opened a local branch in Israel in 1989, and established its first R&D center in Israel, its first outside the U.S., in 1991. As of the end of 2020, Microsoft employed an estimated 2,300 people in Israel — 2,000 of them in R&D, working on projects including cybersecurity, AI technologies, big data and healthcare at development centers in in Herzliya, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Nazareth. Some 300 people work in sales and marketing. The firm also has local venture capital fund activity and a program to foster startups. In November, amid the pandemic and the work from home trend, the company
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launched its new Microsoft Israel campus, 46,000 square meter (495,000 square foot) complex in Herzliya. The new offices are home to some 2,000 people, including sales staff and developers, engineers, researchers and employees from M12 — Microsoft’s venture funding arm. Earlier this month Google said it was setting up a chip development team in Israel, while Nvidia has said it was planning to recruit 600 additional engineers to boost its R&D activities locally. Amazon is also mulling setting up a data center in Israel, and Oracle said in February that it was building a new data center in Jerusalem that will function as a regional cloud provider for Israeli clients. PJC
APRIL 2, 2021 7
Headlines Doug Emhoff hosts the White House’s first online Passover seder — WORLD — By Ron Kampeas | JTA
T
here was virtual wine spilled and nostalgia for gefilte fish, as well as a serious message to consider the role of women in the bible. Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris’s Jewish husband, hosted the White House’s first-ever online Passover seder on Thursday, two nights before the holiday formally began. “We are gathered today for the first Passover celebration of the Biden Harris administration, and I’m excited to join you as the first-ever second gentleman, married to the first woman to serve as Vice President of the United States,” Emhoff said. “And as the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president.” President Barack Obama launched White House seders in 2009; they have until now been closed to the public. Emhoff recalled attending his grandmother’s seders in Brooklyn and waxed nostalgic over her brisket and “delightfully gelatinous gefilte fish.” “Some of my best memories of our my own family’s Jewish traditions,” said Emhoff, who grew up in New Jersey. “My mom, Barb, dressing me and my brother Andy and my sister Jamie and matching outfits to go over to my grandma Anne’s house in Brooklyn for the seder.” Harris, who later joined Emhoff, said she
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff participate in a virtual White House seder, March 25, 2021. Screenshot via JTA
wanted evidence of the matching outfits. “I just wish we had a photograph, to really fully appreciate the magnificence of that,” she said. Emhoff, who was joined in hosting by Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR congregation in Los Angeles, where Emhoff lived until the election, focused on the biblical women who are often overlooked in retellings of the Passover story. “We should also talk about the women who’ve earned their own chapters in the history books, then and now the often neglected women in the Passover story, including the midwives who saved Moses, the mother who nursed him, the Egyptian princess who spared him the pain of slavery, the sister, a prophet
in her own right, who watched over him, and ultimately led the Israelites in a song of liberation,” Emhoff said, likening them to the first responders, teachers and others who continued to work throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Emhoff drew his remarks in part from a National Council of Jewish Women supplement to the Haggadah, “The Five Women of the Exodus.” President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, made an appearance. They, together with Harris, emphasized the closing wish of the Haggadah, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Biden alluded to the necessity of Zoom seders in a pandemic. “We can close the Seder by adapting a familiar refrain: Not only next year in Jerusalem. But next
year in person.” Harris echoed: “Happy Passover, to all who celebrate, and indeed, next year in Jerusalem, next year, in person.” Top Jewish staffers led portions of the seder, including Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, who said that on her walks home from work, she recalled her Holocaust survivor grandparents. “When I leave the White House and walk down the steps of the Executive Office Building, I look up to my right and see the Washington Memorial lit up against the dark night,” she said. “I think of my grandparents, and I think of the lessons of their lives, the fear and the pain and the gift of freedom. They taught us to never forget it.” Jonathan Cedarbaum, the legal adviser to the National Security Council, held up a frayed Haggadah. “This Haggadah was used by my grandfather, Lou Goldman, my mother’s father when he led seders in Brooklyn, New York as a newlywed in the 1920s, and a young father in the 1930s. Its spine is fraying a little bit, its pages are marked, not only with his little jottings, but also with wine spills from decades past,” Cedarbaum said. “And so to me, those stains are not imperfections. They are messages reaching across the generations conveying just as powerfully as the words of the Haggadah Passover central message, or one of its central messages, that each generation lets tell the next about a very ancient struggle for freedom.” PJC
Jews in former Soviet Union eat pounds of matzah per person — the most in the world — every year. Here’s why — WORLD — By Cnaan Liphshiz | JTA
W
hen it comes to consuming matzah, the Jews of the former Soviet Union are in a league of their own. At the top of the chart are Azerbaijan’s 8,000 Jews, who this year are expected to consume 10 tons of the unleavened bread cracker that Jews eat on the week of Passover to commemorate their ancestors’ hurried flight out of Egypt. That’s a provision of 2.7 pounds per person — a ratio that’s nearly three times what’s on stock for the average soldier in the Israeli army. In Russia, home to about 155,000 Jews, the rate of consumption is somewhat lower than in Azerbaijan, about 2.4 pounds per person. The ratio in the similarly sized Ukrainian Jewish community drops to about a pound of matzah per person, but that’s still higher than the average per Israeli soldier. “There’s a special emotional attachment to matzah here that you don’t find elsewhere because for decades under the anti-Semitic persecution of the communist years, Passover was probably the safest way to stay 8 APRIL 2, 2021
connected to Judaism,” Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, who was born in Italy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Pound for pound, Russian-speaking Jews buy much more matzah than what we know in other communities. A lot of people keep eating matzahs long after Passover.” Two matzah retailers told JTA that estimates for consumption in Western countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, are difficult to make as those countries have multiple importers and producers. The supply in Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries “is more centralized,” according to one of the retailers, Rabbi Meir Stambler. In Azerbaijan, Jews regularly buy matzah to consume for many months after Passover, said Zamir Isayev, the rabbi of the Georgian Jewish Community of the Azeri capital of Baku. Among his community of Mountain Jews, an ancient group that has lived in Central Asia for at least a millennium, “Passover is a time of great devotion, and eating matzah is part of it.” “Passover is a holiday that is celebrated inside the family and requires no special objects except the matzah, which is just a cracker. So it was relatively safe to practice,” Lazar said. The holiday’s message of deliverance from
Workers knead dough at the Tiferet Hamatzot factory in Dnepro, Ukraine, Dec. 8, 2014. Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz
slavery also resonated especially with the oppressed Jews of the former Soviet Union. This year, Lazar’s Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia for the first time sent out 30,000 sets of matzah and other staples of the
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seder meal to Jewish households due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas making matzah was legal under
Please see Pounds, page 15
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Headlines It’s official: Gilad Kariv will be the first Reform rabbi in Israel’s parliament — WORLD — By Ben Sales | JTA
O
n March 23, after Israeli TV stations broadcast the first exit polls from the country’s elections, a rabbi who had just won a seat in parliament tweeted out a traditional blessing of thanks, called the “Shehechiyanu.” “Blessed are you, Hashem, our God, ruler of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and brought us to this day,” wrote the rabbi, Gilad Kariv. “Thank you to all my partners on this long journey.” Rabbis in parliament are far from an oddity in Israel, which sees multiple Orthodox parties serve in each term. But Kariv is not a member of any of those parties, nor is he quite like the rabbis who have sat before him in Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset. When he is sworn in, Kariv will be the first Reform rabbi to ever serve in Knesset. The leader of the Israeli Reform movement and a longtime religious pluralism activist, Kariv has been running in Israeli elections over the span of almost nine years, but has never won until now. Kariv has run for Knesset with the leftwing Labor Party multiple times, and in party
Rabbi Gilad Kariv
Photo by Dale Lazar
primaries earlier this year, he won the fourth spot on Labor’s list in Tuesday’s election. That meant that if Labor got enough votes to enter Knesset, so would he. According to
the nearly complete tally of votes, Labor will have won seven seats, more than enough to earn Kariv a spot. He plans to advocate for religious
pluralism and work to counter haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, control over religious affairs in Israel. Labor’s new leader, Merav Michaeli, is an outspoken advocate for feminism and social equality in Israel. “I’m ready to be more engaged in my other world of social impact, meaning the political work,” Kariv told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during his campaign in an earlier round of elections a year-and-a-half ago. “For us, the fact that equality isn’t a legislated constitutional value in Israel, that’s a disgrace. It’s a Jewish disgrace, not only a democratic disgrace.” Kariv’s election comes amid a small resurgence of left-wing Zionist parties. Labor, Israel’s former governing party, was thought to be moribund before Michaeli revived it this year. Meretz, which is historically to Labor’s left, is also on track to grow its Knesset delegation. Taken together, the two parties will likely double the number of seats they hold in parliament. While Reform Judaism is the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, it counts only a small percentage of Israeli Jews among its members and many Israelis are unfamiliar with what the movement believes and practices. And religious policies Please see Kariv, page 15
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APRIL 2, 2021 9
Headlines traditionally hidden at the Jewish Passover meal — into bread of the Eucharist, or a physical manifestation of Christ.
— WORLD — From JTA reports
Christian Passover seder with challah braided in the shape of a cross draws Twitter anger
In recent years there has been a resurgence of Christian Passover seders, in which non-Jews put their own spin on the Jewish holiday meal. Last weekend, one Twitter user found the perfect culprit to criticize: a Christian woman who served a challah bread braided in the shape of a cross at her seder. “I think I just had a rage blackout,” the user @clapifyoulikeme tweeted, along with a screenshot of a Facebook post by Carly Friesen. The photos show Friesen’s meal layout and the cross-shaped challah. In addition to the offense caused to some by the cross shape, the challah breaks one of the core religious frameworks of the holiday — abstaining from eating leavened bread. “Today we celebrated Passover in our own way for the first time as a family,” Friesen wrote in the post. “We had a modified Seder meal to start with a reading of the first Passover and recognizing Jesus as the final Passover lamb sacrificed for us. “Thank you to our Saviour[sic] for paying the ultimate sacrifice for us!” she added with a heart emoji. The screenshot of Friesen’s post drew thousands of likes and hundreds of comments, many of them perturbed. Christian seders often turn the afikomen — or dessert matzah that is
Romanian man arrested for allegedly threatening to throw Jewish actress ‘into a gas chamber’
Romanian police have arrested a man for sending death threats to the director of the Jewish State Theater in Bucharest and her children. The threats came in an email that was signed “on behalf of the far right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR),” police said. But that political party’s leader, George Simion, condemned the threat, which he said did not come from AUR, Reuters reported. The victim, Maia Morgenstern, also played the figure of Mary in Mel Gibson’s controversial film “The Passion of the Christ.” “This Yid has her days numbered,” the author wrote, threatening to rape her daughter and burn down the Jewish theater. “I intend to throw her into a gas chamber.” The theater reacted by inviting spectators to a free online show titled “A Lesson in Good Manners” by Jean-Claude Grumberg, a Jewish Holocaust survivor from France.
Polish woman who doted over Jewish boy she rescued from the Holocaust dies at 101
Anna Kozminska, a Polish woman who rescued a Jewish boy from the Holocaust, has died, the Polin Jewish museum in Warsaw wrote on Facebook. She was 101.
Kozminska was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations — Israel’s title for non-Jews who saved Jews from the Holocaust. In September 1942, when the Germans began destroying the Czestochowa ghetto near Krakow, Kozminska and her late stepmother, Maria, took in and hid in their home 8-year-old Abraham Jablonski, who had escaped from the ghetto with the help of relatives in hiding. Abraham had spent days hiding in barns and feeding on scraps at night to avoid detection when his uncle secured a hiding place for him at the Kozminskas. Maria and Anna “looked after Abraham devotedly, saw to all his needs, made him feel safe, and raised his spirits when he was feeling low,” the file about them in Yad Vashem reads. They also saw to his education, “taught him to read and write, and at great personal risk, took him occasionally for walks outside.” Abraham Jablonski stayed in his hiding place until January 1945, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war he immigrated to Israel. Kozminska’s apartment also served intermittently as a temporary shelter for a Jewish refugee as well as two women. The Kozminskas consistently declined any payment or compensation for their actions.
State Department revives use of ‘occupied,’ with caveats
President Biden’s State Department has revived the use of the term “occupied,” but with caveats noting Trump administration changes in policy. In 2018, the State Department stripped
“occupation” and “occupied” from the sections of its annual human rights report dealing with Israel and Palestinian areas at the behest of David Friedman, then-President Donald Trump’s ambassador, who has ties to the settlement movement. Under Republican and Democratic presidents, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights had been called the “occupied territories.” In the first human rights report under Biden, the term reappears, but with an explanatory note: “The United States recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017 and Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019. Language in this report is not meant to convey a position on any final status issues to be negotiated between the parties to the conflict, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the borders between Israel and any future Palestinian state.” The Times of Israel first reported the change. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has affirmed Biden’s pledge that the United States will uphold the Trump recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, although the Biden administration is also taking steps that implicitly recognize a Palestinian claim to the eastern part of the city, including plans to reopen a Palestinian-specific U.S. consulate. Blinken has stopped short of recognizing Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights, as Trump had done, but has also said that the question is moot as long as the Assad regime is in place in Syria — a status unlikely to change anytime soon. PJC
Don’t miss an issue This week in Israeli history All changes can be submitted in writing or emailed to subscriptions @ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org or call 410-902-2308 P I T TS B U R G H
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— WORLD —
Items provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.
April 2, 1947 — Britain seeks special U.N. panel on Palestine
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
The British government notifies the United Nations that it plans to bring Palestine’s future before the next U.N. General Assembly session and that it wants a special commission to make recommendations.
April 3, 1970 — Poet laureate Avigdor Hameiri dies
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10 APRIL 2, 2021
Avigdor Hameiri, Israel’s first poet laureate, dies at age 79. Born in Hungary, he was studying to be a rabbi when he turned to socialism and Zionism. He also wrote novels, children’s books and memoirs.
April 4, 1968 — Jewish settlement is established at Hebron
Moshe Levinger and several other Israeli Jews pretending to be Swiss tourists check into a Hebron hotel to establish the first permanent Jewish presence in the city since the 1929 massacre of 67 Jews.
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April 5, 1999 — M-Systems patents USB flash drive
Kfar Saba-based M-Systems applies for a patent for the USB flash drive, which can store 8 megabytes, five times the memory of most floppy disks. IBM begins selling the drives in late 2000.
April 6, 1999 — IDF sends medical mission to Macedonia
An Israel Defense Forces medical mission flies to Macedonia (now North Macedonia) to care for refugees from Kosovo. The hospital treats more than 1,560 people in 16 days.
April 7, 1973 — Israel fourth in First Eurovision bid
Ilanit, Israel’s first entrant in the annual Eurovision Song Contest, finishes fourth out of 17 with the song “Ey-sham,” a dramatic ballad featuring “the garden of love.” Ilanit again represents Israel in 1977.
April 8, 1960 — U.N. Head protests Egyptian seizure of cargo
U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold for the first time publicly criticizes Egypt for confiscating Israeli cargo on ships using the Suez Canal. He fails to change the situation. PJC
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APRIL 2, 2021 11
Opinion Another ‘other’
I
— EDITORIAL —
n the last year, Asians and Asian Americans have suffered from a reported surge in hate incidents in the U.S. This disturbing trend seems to stem from some level of “blame” associated with the COVID-19 pandemic which began in China, and the taunting finger-pointing and name-calling that has been shared widely as the dreaded virus spread around the world. In addition, the general deterioration in relations between China and the U.S. in recent years over a variety of economic, political and human rights issues probably adds fuel to the fire. The terms “Asian” and “Asian American” are often used imprecisely, because in current usage they usually refer to people who directly or indirectly come from East Asia, Southeast Asia or South Asia, but excludes those who come from Central Asia, West Asia, and North Asia. In this case, due to the impact of COVID-19 and tensions with China, the uptick in animus seems to be directed against East Asians, especially Chinese, and perhaps Southeast Asians to a lesser extent. The pandemic has put us all on edge. But there is absolutely no excuse for the transfer of blame for the virus or anything associated with it to our Asian American community generally, or to
elderly Asian Americans who have been attacked while walking through the streets of several major metropolitan U.S. cities. It makes no sense. But reading the reports and hearing the disquieting stories of the Asian American victims makes it real. And for our community, the stories are disturbingly familiar. In a recent article in The Washington Post, Jeff Chang described the thinking behind epithets like “China virus” and “Kung flu” as the result of “the twisted logic that connects two opposed, infernal ideas: that Asians and Asian Americans are impure and inferior — and if not stopped, they will conquer our world.” Disturbing, indeed. Replace “Asian” and “Asian American” with “Jew,” and long-lived and reviled anti-Semitic canards are brought back in full color. Quite simply,
blaming a Chinese American grandmother in New York City for the spread of the coronavirus is not much different from believing that your grandmother has control of Jewish space lasers. During the past few years, we have seen a distressing reawakening of aggression and hate crimes against minorities, including a serious uptick in anti-Semitic activity. Indeed, after the massacre at the Tree of Life building, we have experienced an outbreak of physical anti-Semitic attacks, including a spate of attacks against haredi Jews in the New York area, who, like Asian Americans, are relatively easy to pick out by sight. In general those anti-Semitic attacks which were not lethal garnered relatively little coverage in the general media, just as had been with the case with Asian Americans prior to the killings in Atlanta.
“
The pandemic has put us all on edge. But there is absolutely
no excuse for the transfer of blame for the virus or anything associated with it to our Asian American community generally, or to elderly Asian AmerIcans who have been attacked while walking
through the streets of several major metropolitan U.S. cities.
Our sense of complacency has been disrupted. As the poisonous infection of hate grows, other vulnerable communities are inevitably targeted. Suddenly, our nation of immigrants transforms into a nation of scapegoats, as we fall victim to a rising blame culture and the politics of anger. We can do better, and we must. We need to stop the hate and embrace the hated. Our Asian American friends have done nothing wrong. Yet they have suffered a disturbing history of discrimination over the years, including antiChinese immigration laws and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Today’s threats and violence are unfortunately nothing new — the animosity and hate simply never went away. And now, they are simply rearing their ugly heads, again. We urge our community to see the recent threats and attacks on Asian Americans as a wake-up call. This is our opportunity to reach out to our neighbors and to give them comfort, support and empathy. That is the way coalitions of caring and relationships of trust are built. Let’s make clear to our Asian American neighbors that they can count on us. We have certainly appreciated their support when Jews have been the subject of attacks, including here in Pittsburgh after 10/27. But beyond that, it is simply the right thing to do. PJC
Israel in stalemate — EDITORIAL —
O
ne week after Israel’s fourth national election in two years, the country remains in political gridlock. As in previous rounds, in addition to the traditional political, religious and national allegiance issues that that divide them, Israelis are profoundly divided over whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should continue his longest-ever leadership of the Jewish state. Pundits, prognosticators and politicians are having a field day. Scenarios abound with dizzying versions of potential political alliances and compromise possibilities. Yet, in the cold light of reality, most agree that a fifth election will be necessary. In this fourth round of voting, Netanyahu and his right-leaning allies are again a few seats short of the necessary 61 needed to create a governing coalition in the 120 seat Knesset. And those opposing Netanyahu can’t do it, either. While a likely fifth round is no more promising, there are several significant takeaways from last week’s results that could have a bearing. First, of the 120 Knesset seats, 72 will be filled by right-wing or Orthodox MKs. This, of course, would be Netanyahu’s natural constituency. In the normal course, 72 seats held by such like-minded politicians would have little problem forming a right-wing government — hawkish, ultra-nationalist, pro-settlement and annexationist, with plenty of influence for the haredi parties. But right-wing leadership is divided over
12 APRIL 2, 2021
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption and has antagonized many of his former allies. That leaves right-wing politicians who oppose Netanyahu with nowhere to turn other than an unlikely grouping with small center and left-wing parties from the Tel Aviv Bubble, plus the largely Arab Joint List. That is very unlikely to happen. Second, last week’s election was haunted by the ghost of Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was banned from the Knesset for racism in 1988 and who was assassinated in 1990. Some of Kahane’s followers are leaders in the newly constituted Religious Zionist Party – an anti-Arab, anti-LGBTQ, anti-secular amalgamation, which secured a surprising six seats in the election. The prospect of that group being an essential part of the country’s governing coalition is frightening. Nonetheless, based on last week’s results, Netanyahu cannot form a majority coalition without them. Third, the political influence of the Arab MKs has diminished somewhat. In the last election, the Joint Arab List became the third largest party with 15 seats. As a result, for the first time, Jewish politicians were talking about breaking the taboo of welcoming Arab MKs into the government. This time around, the Ra’am Islamist party split from the Joint List. Voter turnout was lower, Ra’am got four seats, and the Joint List fell to six MKs. Prognostication about Netanyahu courting Ra’am and actually getting them to join his coalition seems pretty far-fetched. Fourth, so long as a new government is not installed, and if a fifth election is equally inconclusive, alternate prime minister Benny
INo system of democratic government is perfect, but something has got to change. Israel needs a clear, democratically elected government.
Gantz of the Blue and White Party will become prime minister in November under the terms of the current coalition agreement. No system of democratic government is
perfect, but something has got to change. Israel needs a clear, democratically elected government. The world moves too swiftly for Israel to be in limbo for so long. PJC
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Opinion This year, I learned the pain and beauty of praying outside Guest Columnist Esther Sperber
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riday night. We are standing in a paved plaza beside Riverside Drive; the air is crisp, the fresh snow is sparkling like diamond dust in the setting sun. We are 6 feet apart and masked (I can’t wait for this combined phrase to become obsolete). We join the hazzan, chanting the Friday evening prayer, welcoming the Sabbath as the sun disappears over the Hudson River. “Come my beloved towards your bride to welcome the Sabbath.” Suddenly I’m choked up, no longer able to sing. My eyes fill with tears and emotions. I have sung these words almost every week of my life — that’s about 2,500 times — but tonight these very familiar words feel new and deeply moving. Perhaps it is the beauty of praying outside. Kabbalat Shabbat, the prayer welcoming, or literally accepting, the Sabbath, is a relatively new prayer service. It was added in the 16th century by the Jewish mystical Kabbalists (note the repeating root) in the holy city of Tzfat in the Galilee. They got into the habit of leaving the city and walking
out to the nearby hills and orchard. Out in nature, they sang and meditated about God’s glory as manifest in the universe and in history. This new service was an instant hit and has become part of the prayer book canon. But for most urban dwellers, it is a rare occasion, maybe on a high school weekend trip, Shabbaton or retreat, to practice it outdoors as the Kabbalists did. Early in the pandemic, our congregation shifted to outdoor services. We thought this would work during the summer. None of us envisioned the weekly service continuing outside through the bitter New York winter. But it did. Perhaps it was the link to the origin of Kabbalat Shabbat, the repetition of a practice through good times and hard times, that moved me so much. We often forget to notice the magnificence of nature in the hyperurban concrete and glass of Manhattan. Prayer is a strange thing. We try to deeply connect with our pain and gratitude, speak to our hopes and regrets. We say these words to ourselves with a divine intention. Prayer is something that should be so personal and private, yet I find it most meaningful when done with a community. I have come to see communal praying as a bit like therapy. In therapy we learn to hear our feelings, accept our pain and cherish our
joys. But it is hard, if not impossible, to do this work alone. We need someone, the therapist, to help us see ourselves better. Someone who can give us permission to feel sadness and encourage us to celebrate success. Community can play a similar role. It legitimizes and creates a place for deep emotions. Together, we dare to say that life is fleeting and that the universe is vast, and history has awful moments and humanity can be inspiring. We can hold these disturbing conflicting ideas because we are doing it together, and together we feel safe and accepted. This need for community is so fundamental that our numbers have grown even as the temperature dropped. Praying on a public New York City sidewalk, I felt exposed and vulnerable at first. Some stared, others took photos on their phone or lingered, while their dog sniffed a shrub, to watch us, or even joined us. Can we do this? I’m sure those who use this spot for yoga on Sunday morning have felt this discomfort too. The reclaiming of public space has been one of the surprising joys of the pandemic: restaurants using the parking lane for seating and closed streets becoming plazas for bikes and pedestrians. I realize how many things we could do outdoors if our city were designed to facilitate these activities. I hope we move toward making outdoor life
in our city more easily accessible to all of its inhabitants. The pandemic has stripped our service to its bare basics. We worship without a space, without chairs, with dim light and no heat. I realized that this was all we really needed. A committed group, willing to stand in the snow and sing together. The hazzan sings, “He removes day and brings night, God is his name” in synchrony with the darkening sky. It is getting harder to read the small print in my prayer book, but I know the words by heart. The lump in my throat loosens and I breathe in the cold air. Marc Cousins, the architectural theorist, said in one of his lectures that, although philosophers will not tell you this, the sign of truth is that upon hearing it one breaks into tears. That night I was touched by truth. Was it the pain and loss of the pandemic? The fragility of life? The support of togetherness? I’m not sure, but it was real, and it was worth bundling up for and seeking out on a freezing, snowy Friday evening. PJC Esther Sperber is the founder of Studio ST Architects. She writes and lectures about architecture, psychoanalysis and culture. Born and raised in Jerusalem, she lives on the Upper West Side in New York City.
Ignore Jonathan Pollard’s terrible advice Guest Columnist Jonathan S. Tobin
I
t was probably inevitable that we hadn’t heard the last of Jonathan Pollard. When the convicted spy landed in Israel last fall, most of the Jewish world heaved a sigh of relief. After 30 years in prison and then another five living quietly in New York after he was paroled, Pollard was finally free to live in the country for which he had sacrificed so much. Almost exactly 35 years after he was turned away from the Israeli embassy in Washington when he was seeking to evade arrest for his crimes, Pollard was personally welcomed to the country by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Long considered by many Israelis to be a “soldier” of the Jewish state who had been abandoned by those who had exploited his desire to aid Israel, the fulfillment of Pollard’s dream of going “home” to Israel seemed to bring his long, tragic saga to a close. The former U.S. Navy analyst who spied for Israel had endured a disproportionate sentence and done hard time in federal prisons. But once he stepped off the plane and shook the hand of the one Israeli leader who had always taken an active interest in his plight, many may have thought that he would be more interested in living a quiet life than in settling old scores or stirring up more trouble than he had already caused. But anyone who thought the freed spy
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would now act in the best interests of Israel and the Jewish people were wrong. He’s a free man living in a democracy and has every right to say what he likes. But while his first public comments in 35 years — an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom — are certainly eye-opening, if he thinks his comments will do no harm, then he’s dead wrong. While Pollard speaks of his love for Israel and the Jewish people, he needs to understand that by supporting the claim that all American Jews have dual loyalty, he is not only handing anti-Semites ammunition but undercutting the hard work of generations of American Jews who have supported the Jewish state. He’s also causing actual harm to an alliance that while shaken by his bad judgement and that of his handlers and their political bosses has also proven strong enough to withstand the real policy differences that have popped up between Washington and Jerusalem over the years. The fact that he has no regrets about his betrayal of his oath and makes extravagant claims about the assistance the intelligence he stole rendered Israel is simply evidence of how clueless he is about the long-term damage he did both to the U.S.-Israel relationship and to American Jews. By saying that any American Jew who finds himself in the same situation that he was in should do as he did, however, he has crossed a line beyond which he no longer deserves the sympathy that Jews in both Israel and the United States have long felt for him. There is no doubt that Pollard has quite a story to tell, and the lengthy Israel Hayom interview no doubt only scratches the surface of it. Even so, there’s far more of interest in the article than can be analyzed in a single column.
That Pollard portrays himself as the hero of the tale is understandable even if he seems not to have undergone much introspection about his actions. Many of the stories he tells about his dealings with his Israeli handlers, and his arrest and prosecution, as well as his life in prison, have a ring of authenticity about them. That’s especially true those about two people of whom he has nothing good to say. Both Rafi Eitan, the late Israel Mossad master spy who ran the Pollard operation out of the Lekem special scientific intelligence-gathering unit that he headed, and Richard Hibey, the Israelifunded attorney that ran his defense, come out poorly and justifiably so. Eitan’s cynical exploitation of Pollard was a disgrace. He knew that Israel had agreed not to spy on the United States, and that taking advantage of an obviously naive Pollard was especially wrong since he was Jewish. Israeli intelligence has generally always shied away from using local Jews because engaging them to spy on their own country — whether a free and prosperous outpost of the Diaspora like the United States or a repressive nation where Jews were already endangered — would do grave damage to local Jews. Eitan also trapped Pollard into taking money and other forms of compensation so as to thoroughly compromise him and put him at the mercy of his handlers. And when Pollard fell under suspicion from his colleagues and superiors at the Navy Department — something that was inevitable given the spy’s unstable behavior and massive scale of his thefts of intelligence — Eitan made no effort to save him even as the Israelis involved in the operation were able to flee the United States.
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Pollard has every right to heap abuse on Eitan’s memory. While it may be hard to believe that, as Esther Pollard claims, Eitan actually told her that his only regret about the caper was that he hadn’t had Pollard killed so as to silence him, it is nonetheless in keeping with the way the spy was considered expendable. While Eitan was a legend who was involved in the capture of Nazi mass-murderer Adolf Eichmann and many other intelligence coups, and later went on to a successful political career, his legacy is tarnished by his role in the Pollard affair. Also deserving of abuse is Hibey, whose incompetent defense not only ensured that Pollard would get the worst possible treatment from the U.S. legal system but also doomed future appeals. He may not, as the Pollards seem to imply, have been instructed by Israeli officials to harm the case, but his conduct was so bad that he might as well have been paid to throw it. Omitted from the account is the fact that the life sentence imposed on Pollard by an unsympathetic judge — egged on by a U.S. security establishment ought for revenge—was largely his own doing. His jailhouse interview with Wolf Blitzer, then a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, in which he justified his crime, allowed the prosecution to claim that he had violated the plea bargain that would have netted him a much lighter sentence. Other elements of Pollard’s account strain credibility. The notion that an unnamed Israeli official in the presence of an unnamed U.S. military officer would have told Pollard to kill Please see Pollard, page 20
APRIL 2, 2021 13
Headlines Center: Continued from page 1
were touched very deeply by this and are committed to making sure we can intervene in this problem.” In addition to assembling a team of researchers, the Collaboratory will also partner with various community stakeholders. “We have people who know about technology, people who know about communications, people versed in extremism, in the science of addiction, in child psychology, and so much more,” Blee said. “We have in this community people who have worked on a number of issues surrounding hatred, and the Collaboratory is meant to bring together these people and give them a forum to create multidisciplinary teams to make headway in this area.” Several local Jewish organizations have already inquired about partnerships with the Collaboratory, including Tree of Life Congregation. “We look forward to learning more from their forthcoming research projects and exploring opportunities to partner as we prepare to welcome a new beginning at Tree of Life,” the congregation’s leadership said in a prepared statement. The idea for the Collaboratory first arose when former Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and former CMU President Jared Cohon served on a committee created by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to advise on the distribution of donations after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The university leaders were inspired then to join together Pitt and CMU in the fight against hate-motivated violence. The concept of a research center occurred
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Rabbi Aaron Meyer of Temple Emanuel of the South Hills will participate in the event, along with several community members and the families of survivors who will light candles and speak. As part of the program, the Holocaust Center, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, will display photographs and mementos of the many Yom HaShoah commemorations the Center has held over its history. The Center began partnering last year with Together We Remember, a national nonprofit dedicated to preserving the memory of those killed in genocides. The collaboration helped the Center commemorate Genocide Awareness Month and become part of a larger network. “We’ve created a coalition, which is really global,” Bairnsfather said. “It’s Holocaust museums and centers. It gives us the opportunity to program in partnership with organizations around the world. It became really important last year when everything went virtual and allowed us to do things which would have been cost prohibitive, like partnering with organizations in Africa and Europe and across the United States.” As part of its recognition of Genocide 14 APRIL 2, 2021
Logo designed by Josh Quicksall
to Nordenberg after a trip to New York, where he spoke with a content designer of memorials and museums who “indicated that sometimes the most meaningful memorials are not brick-and-mortar,” Nordenberg told the Chronicle. After approaching their respective successors, Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher and CMU President Farnam Jahanian, Nordenberg and Cohon got the green light to create a research center. Nordenberg said he is confident in the alliance of the two schools, which have collaborated on other projects, including the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. “There are no two research universities in the world that have done a more effective job of partnering to advance the
greater good,” Nordenberg said. “We have a great track record.” Cohon echoed those sentiments, and stressed the increasing need for the Collaboratory in the current climate. “It seems that every week brings another outrage,” Cohon said. “It’s become an epidemic in itself. We think that by joining the strengths of the two universities, we can make a contribution to stem this violence.” Dan Leger, a member of Dor Hadash who was seriously wounded during the Oct. 27, 2018, shooting, called Nordenberg the day the universities announced the launch of the Collaboratory to convey his support. “The idea that there’s a concerted collaborative effort that will objectively look at why things like this happen, that can conceivably stop people from acting on things inside
“It seems that every week brings another
”
outrage. It’s become an epidemic in itself.
— FORMER CMU PRESIDENT JARED COHON
themselves that make them violent, is amazingly encouraging,” said Leger, a nurse. “I think it’s really necessary and I’m excited it’s happening here in Pittsburgh with two universities that have such talent, skill, knowledge and ability.” Leger has reached out to government officials about stemming the flow of hate, but found them to be ineffective and indifferent, he said. “It was frustrating to see how reluctant they are to do anything,” he said. “It’s so distressing to see the rise of these kinds of acts of hate again as we begin to lift ourselves out of the imposed isolation of the pandemic. As we begin to come close to each other again, we have to face this hatred and I’m glad this project exists as we head into the next phase of our society.” The Collaboratory offers the community a sense of comfort, said Jeff Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. “We can see what’s happening in the world, in the hatred against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, the Black community, other diverse communities, and, of course, in the continued hatred against the Jewish community,” Finkelstein said. “For us in Pittsburgh, the act of anti-Semitism that took place on Oct. 27 is still on our minds, and it gives us some sense of comfort that an initiative started here is trying to combat hate. It gives us some pride.” Leger remains optimistic in the power of the Collaboratory Against Hate to break boundaries. “I hope efforts like this collaboration will help move past that polarization and find some common ground, because it’s there,” he said. “We’re all human beings.” PJC Dionna Dash is a writer living in Pittsburgh.
Awareness Month, the Holocaust Center is teaming with Prime Stage Theatre to present an original production of “Miracle in Rwanda.” The play is based on the life of New York Times bestselling author Immaculée Ilibagiza. It stars Rwandan actor, singer, poet and social justice activist Malaika Uwamahoro and is directed by Steve Wilson. The performance can be viewed live online on Saturday, April 10, and the recorded performance will be available
to view April 16-26. The production will include a Prime Stage education program, The Global Classroom, which will connect local students with students in Africa through a partnership with The Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre. The Holocaust Center has a history of collaborating with Prime Stage for training events, and worked with the theater as consultants for a 2018 production of “The
Diary of Anne Frank,” Bairnsfather said. When Prime Stage leaders reached out to the Center to create a production for Yom HaShoah, Bairnsfather suggested doing something for Genocide Awareness Month instead. The Holocaust Center also will participate in the POLIN Museum of Warsaw’s Daffodil Campaign throughout the month of April. The campaign raises awareness of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on April 19, 1943. Participants create and wear paper daffodils as a sign of solidarity, resistance and memory. Photos of the daffodils can be shared on social media using various tags including #WarsawGhettoUprising, #POLINMuseum, #DaffoldilCampaignPGH and #HCofPGH. Those interested in making and wearing daffodils can find a flower pattern, instructions and a video at polin.pl/en/ Warsawghettouprising. Genocide Awareness Month is a natural extension of the Holocaust Center’s mission, according to Bairnsfather. “What we do is based in our knowledge of the Holocaust,” she said. “We strongly believe that knowledge of the Holocaust helps us understand before and since genocides, and hate and intolerance now.” PJC
Nicholas Haberman, a teacher at Shaler Area High School, lights a candle at a Yom HaShoah commemoration in 2018. Photo courtesy of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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Headlines Nonprofit: Continued from page 3
education than malice. Even friends of hers, she said, used to mock her around Pesach for eating matzah — or “Jew crackers,” as they called them. Yafa Schnadower recalls anti-Semitic incidents in a Mexico university in the 1990s. Schnadower attended Universidad La Salle, a Catholic school in Mexico City, and found many students’ political and social conservatism frequently leaned into anti-Semitic territory. “It was ‘Do you Jewish people really grow horns at night?’, things like that,” Schnadower told the Chronicle. “They’d say, ‘I’m sure the U.S. is trying to get all the oil in the Middle East’ or ‘Why do Jews steal land from Arabs?’ I’d always tell them, ‘It’s not a simple answer because the history is very long.’ But, sometimes, I didn’t know what to say.” Even university staff, she said, made stereotypical assumptions, with one professor asking her about a local JCC exercise program’s cost. He said he asked
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communism, Lazar said, the regulations on selling and storage made it impossible to keep its kosher for Passover certification. In Azerbaijan, Isayev said, “you could make the matzah, but were only allowed to sell it in a regular bakery. Next to the bread, which of course meant Jews couldn’t consume it as kosher.” To get kosher matzah, Jews across the former Soviet Union would come to underground supply points — typically private residences — for a few pieces. The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv had an underground matzah bakery that operated secretly for four decades until the 1990s. The oven was built by a Jewish engineer. Patrons would bring their own little paper bag of
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are generally not at the forefront of Israeli voters’ minds when they cast their ballots. But this year, the status of Reform Jews in Israel — who are not recognized by the country’s Orthodox rabbinate — became a campaign issue. Earlier this month, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the state must grant citizenship to people who underwent Reform and Conservative Jewish conversions performed in Israel. The ruling sparked protest from haredi Orthodox religious leaders, as well as a stream of derogatory comments about Reform Jews from haredi politicians and campaign ads PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG
Schnadower about it “because Jews have lots of money.” Schnadower said she never encountered anti-Zionist academia at the university, an area of increasing concern for people who monitor anti-Semitic or anti-Israel content. One student writing to IAC’s School Watch said a teacher at his California school assigned the class to write about how Jews were mistreating Palestinians during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the IAC website. Holtzman Schwartz worries. Decades ago, she confronted her neighbor, a Christian boy who threw religious slurs at her. While they were fighting, the boy’s mother came to the street telling her son to “kill that Jew.” When it comes to anti-Semitism, modern times remain dire times, she said. “I personally think things are worse because now they have license,” Holtzman Schwartz told the Chronicle. “They’re coming out of the woodwork. And, frankly, it scares me.” PJC
Yiddish:
Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
matzah flour and the staff would use it to bake the matzah. The bakery has since been modernized and expanded under Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich. Until 2014, it supplied 200 tons of matzah annually, mainly to Russian-speaking countries. But demand plummeted that year following the territorial conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has paralyzed bilateral trade. Russia has its own matzah factory, but “it’s never enough and we need to import from Israel,” Lazar said. Dnepro, a city in eastern Ukraine, has another factory, Tiferet Hamatzot, that specializes in shmurah matzah, a handmade product that some Jews favor because of the strict kosher standards of its production. “I think there’s a special pride and satisfaction that goes into getting matzah here,” the city’s chief rabbi, Shmuel Kamenetsky, told JTA.
In Dnepro, many local Jews buy matzah, which in the former Soviet Union is available only in a handful of kosher stores and at synagogues, “to give it to their non-Jewish friends as something exotic and interesting,” Kamenetsky said. The late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, often recalled how his father, Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, who lived in Dnepro, clashed with Soviet authorities over matzah. The elder Schneerson obtained permission to produce kosher matzah. “But it made him enemies, and that’s the reason he was arrested ultimately,” Kamenetsky said. Levi Yitzchak Schneerson was exiled from Dnepro in 1939 and died in Kazakhstan in 1944. “Ultimately, Russian-speaking Jews risked their lives to have matzah,” Kamenetsky said. “So it’s no wonder they like it a little more than other Jews.” PJC
mocking them. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed, without evidence, that the ruling could lead to Israel being “overrun” with “fake” Jewish converts from Africa. The spat over the conversion ruling came while haredi politicians vowed that they would not work with Kariv in the Knesset, or even count him in a prayer quorum. In February, a haredi journalist lamented a photo of Kariv hanging a mezuzah on the doorway of Labor’s headquarters. Kariv portrayed the attacks as one more reason to fight the haredi monopoly over Israel’s religious policies — something advocates for religious pluralism have long opposed. A resident of the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim, Kariv grew up secular and attended
an Orthodox synagogue before finding a home in Israel’s small-but-active Reform movement. For more than a decade, Kariv has fought for religious pluralism in Israel, calling for recognition of non-Orthodox conversion and marriage, greater separation between religion and state, and a space for non-Orthodox worship at the Western Wall. “Because of the monopoly, the rabbinic establishment has become more and more haredi and extremist over the years,” Kariv wrote on Facebook this month. He called for “breaking the monopoly and opening new alternatives for a relevant and welcoming Israeli Judaism.” Although almost all the votes are counted, it will likely be weeks, if not longer, until Israel’s next government takes shape. Labor
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word predominantly known by an English name. To that end, Viswanath points to Israeli pronunciation of “sandvich” for sandwich or Russian fill-in words like “mobilka” for mobile phone. “People are very loyal to their family’s dialect,” Viswanath said. “There is definitely pride in the Yiddish community. I’m looking forward to see how this happens.’ Duolingo launched its Hebrew course in 2016. To date, about 900,000 have registered to learn that language, which Awodey said is a good estimate for what the company expects of its Yiddish program. Duolingo, which was founded in Pittsburgh in November 2011, offers 100 courses across nearly 40 distinct languages. “We want to ensure that anyone who wants to learn these languages, can,” Awodey said. PJC
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will be part of the governing coalition only if Netanyahu’s disparate opponents manage to cobble together a majority. Otherwise, it will be part of the parliamentary opposition. But whatever his role will be, Kariv says that his very presence in Knesset is itself a victory. “This is the first time in Israel’s Knesset, according to all the exit polls, that we’ll have direct, clear, unprecedented representation for Reform Judaism,” he said in a Facebook video last week. “We’ll wait and see what the results are but one thing is clear: We have made it into Israel’s Knesset, with our messages, with our values. We’re sounding a Jewish, egalitarian, democratic voice that strives for social justice, loves humanity and strives for peace.” PJC APRIL 2, 2021 15
Life & Culture Reviews: Failed case, treasure hunt compels — BOOKS — By Jesse Bernstein | Contributing Writer
One Man’s Treasure
“Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure” Menachem Kaiser Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
W
hat distinguishes memorabilia from curios, or either category from treasure? What’s the difference between plunder, spoils and mementos? How do we unpack something that is at once fetish object, family heirloom, sacred relic and despicable artifact? Menachem Kaiser does not claim to have the answers to these questions — one of the many delightful things about his new memoir, “Plunder” — but he’s willing to ask them of himself and of you. Kaiser’s story about his attempt to reclaim a Polish apartment building that was expropriated from his grandfather prior to the Holocaust is a fascinating tale. His commitment to ambiguity, along with a keen sense of story, genre and the weight of expectations, makes for a compelling read. Kaiser, a magazine writer, understands that the story he’s written will be read by readers who have encountered many such variations before, and that those readers have ideas about how these stories should go. So he’s weary of “dancing my stupid nostalgia dance,” of taking a “memory-safari” where he’d treat readers to some preordained emotional journey that didn’t really belong to him. Though he never says it directly, Kaiser is writing an “American-Jew-returns-to-theold-country-for-family-but-also-personalgrowth” story in the world that Jonathan Safran Foer created, and there’s a readership to be won by sticking to the basics. It’s easy to see why Kaiser once felt inclined to write this book as a novel: There’s his pink velour tracksuit-wearing Polish lawyer nicknamed The Killer, bizarre and seemingly anti-Semitic questions from reactionary Polish judges, a massive network of treasure-hunting conspiracy theorists with ideas about a secret underground Nazi train, mistaken identities and long-dormant familial strife brought back into the light. But he went with a memoir, which only
GET THE
“Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics,” by Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick Courtesy of the New Press
“Plunder: Family Property and Nazi Treasure,” by Menachem Kaiser
makes the absurdities, strange coincidences and trajectory-changing twists more compelling. Kaiser writes as if he’s speaking aloud, like a stranger telling you a surprisingly interesting story on a night you didn’t expect to be out so late. He builds his narrative with reporting, memory, poetry, court transcripts, legal documents and memoir, and never fails to treat the people he encounters with humanity on the page, even if he had contemplated less noble actions in the reality he recounts. His friends and colleagues provide substantive objections to the ethical nature of his reclamation project, and Kaiser’s responses may or may not convince you. There are long digressions on the nature of conspiracy theories, especially as they relate to Nazis and the occult, and vignettes that illustrate the curious, semi-mystical status of the region in Poland where the story takes place. Every place he found to dig with purpose and respect, Kaiser grabbed a shovel, and “Plunder” is better off for it.
confusing book. Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Temple University, and Mitchell Plitnick, co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace, seem to have written the book before they knew exactly what they wanted to accomplish. The book’s introduction and conclusion both read as if they were tacked on as an afterthought, as the book’s chapters often have no bearing or relevance to the main claim. Both Hill and Jewish Voice for Peace endorse the boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel, and neither supports the continuation of Israel as a Jewish state. “Except for Palestine,” in its promotional copy, promises to be “a searing polemic and cri de coeur for elected officials, activists and everyday citizens alike to align their beliefs and politics with their values.” The authors seek to explore why mainstream American liberals seem reluctant to apply the humanistic, universal values that they claim to hold dear to the plight of the Palestinians. They wonder: Why would those whose impulse is to support the rights of the downtrodden at home not take seriously the rights of Palestinians abroad? The problem is that the authors don’t make a serious attempt to answer these questions or even substantiate the book’s central claim:
“Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics” Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick The New Press “Except for Palestine” is a muddled,
Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
that progressives exceptionalize Palestine. The only evidence they present are the actions of some Democrats in Congress in recent years and a few unsourced assertions about apathy and silence. There’s no attempt to grapple with what made support for Israel a rallying point for large portions of the left for many years. And there’s a long history of the term “Progressive Except Palestine” on the British left, an exploration of which might have provided some useful context; this goes unmentioned. The book, instead, is a retelling of the story of contemporary Israel and U.S. support for its ascendant right wing, which makes for a weird dissonance between what the authors claim to be arguing and the actual words between the covers. In the meat of the book, the authors consistently dodge chances to make the case for specific points. How can an argument decrying the end of U.S. aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East interact so superficially with the objections made to its continued existence? How can the authors argue that the Israeli government unfairly stonewalled Yasser Arafat during negotiations without saying why they believe the government’s objections were incorrect? How can they assert Hamas “showed flexibility” following its ascension to power in Gaza without detailing this flexibility? How can they make the serious claim that Israel had a hand in the creation of its “bad neighborhood,” as the region is often called, and devote only one line to the government’s treatment of the Palestinians? This is all bad argumentation. It’s not as if they’re not capable of solid rhetoric. When Hill and Plitnick discuss the criminalization and stigmatization of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in this country, or the despicable treatment of Jews and non-Jews alike who deviate from the received wisdom on Israel and Palestine, they use facts to back up their arguments. Those are points with the moral power to persuade. But I don’t think they were part of the book’s main goal in being written, as their relatively small place in the larger argument makes clear. Jesse Bernstein writes for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication.
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Headlines
PBS postpones debut of ‘Til Kingdom Come’ documentary on evangelicals and Israel for ‘editorial review’ — WORLD — Stephen Silver | JTA.
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BS has decided to postpone airing the documentary “Til Kingdom Come,” which examines the close relationship between American evangelicals and Israel, in the light of accusations that the film misleadingly spliced together two separate parts of a speech by former President Donald Trump. The film, which was directed by the Russian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Maya Zinshtein, was released as a rental for in-home viewing in late February ahead of a planned broadcast premiere on March 29 as part of the “Independent Lens” series on PBS. It garnered significant media coverage, including in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But the documentary did not air as scheduled on Sunday, and the “Independent Lens” website and Twitter account said the broadcast had been postponed for an editorial review. “PBS takes the issue of editorial integrity very seriously,” PBS told JTA in a statement Tuesday. “After consulting with our producing partners at Independent Lens, we have decided to postpone PBS’s broadcast of ‘Til Kingdom Come,’ while an independent review of the film is conducted.” The review appears to have been triggered by a report, issued March 21, by the pro-Israel watchdog group CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. CAMERA said the documentary contained inaccurate editing of a quote by Trump during a January 2020 appearance
with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after releasing his long-awaited Middle East peace plan. Per CAMERA, the documentary presented the then-president’s quote as stating that “the United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel, including the West Bank described so vividly in the Bible.” This is the actual quote by Trump: “The United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel,” with the reference to “the West Bank described so vividly in the Bible” coming from a different part of the speech. The word “including” also is not part of the original quote. A CAMERA statement said PBS has notified the watchdog group that the editorial review is in progress, the premiere has been postponed and the Trump quote has been corrected. Trump’s Middle East peace plan delineated a possible framework for an expanded Israeli state and an official Palestinian state. It gave the Palestinians the majority of the land in the West Bank while allowing Israel to keep the settlerheavy areas it currently occupies and retain security control of the entire West Bank. The Trump administration subsequently pressured Netanyahu against unilaterally annexing the West Bank last year. “CAMERA commends PBS for taking seriously concerns about the film’s editorial integrity,” the organization said on its website. PBS has not said how long it plans to take for the editorial review. “Til Kingdom Come” remains available for rental. PJC
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Let everyone sit at our table Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman Parshat Pesach | Exodus 13:17-15:26
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few weeks ago, I had a first in my introduction to Judaism class: Three separate students who preferred the gender pronouns “they/them” — three individuals who considered themselves gender-fluid and unconfined to the conventional protocols of identity. It took a small amount of getting used to — I just needed to think a little harder before referring to a student’s comment in the third person — but overall it was no big deal. It was just the latest example of a shift in the population I have served as a rabbi. I’m in my 11th year of teaching Introduction to Judaism, spread across two different cities (Denver and Pittsburgh) and my 16th year of sitting as a rabbi or studentrabbi on a Beit Din for conversion, and I can tell you from my experience that the liberal Jewish community is experiencing some real and notable shifts. As the years go by, Jews are becoming more and more diverse. I have seen more and more gays and lesbians for conversion in recent years, and many more self-identified queer individuals of all types across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I have seen a growing number of Asians, and Blacks, and Latinx individuals coming to my classes, too. Many express to me that they find Judaism to be a more inclusive and accepting community than one they grew up with — one they can find a home in. They understand a religion of action, a religion of justice. They understand and appreciate a tradition that encourages debate and dissent rather than squelches it. They see Judaism as a welcoming, open tent after a life that often comes with a lot of judgment and disadvantage for minorities. And our tradition of caring for and welcoming the stranger means that not only do we accept folks that are different, we celebrate the act of welcoming them in. And many of these diverse individuals may have come to Judaism a generation or
Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman is the rabbi of Brith Sholom Jewish Center in Erie, Pennsylvania. He lives in Pittsburgh. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Rabbinic Association.
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two ago — they now have Jewish children and grandchildren. Many of these Jews have practiced the religion all their lives, but are often perceived by folks as “other” because they have an intersectional identity — they’re Asian, so we see Asian first when we see them in shul. They’re trans, and so we get mentally get stuck on that aspect of their essence, rather than their yiddische neshama, their Jewish soul. In preparing for the seder, I came across a commentary by Rabbi Shmuel Avigdor HaCohen, a modern Israeli rabbi who was an author and scholar, but is most known for hosting the weekly “Parshat HaShavua” television program. He was considering one of the sections of the Haggadah that seems to carry an unnecessary redundancy: In the beginning of Maggid we say “let all who are hungry, come and eat; let all that need come and have Pesach.” Why say both clauses? Rabbi Avigdor teaches, “What does it mean ‘all that need’? We are commanded to invite and bring close those that are not there because they are hungry or crave food, but rather those that lack the fellowship of other people and the joy of the holiday. There are people that, more so than they need food, they need a kind word and to feel included in the experience as a partner.” This principle is not just one that extends to our seder tables, but to each and every aspect of the modern Jewish life. It’s been thousands of years since we transmogrified from an ethnicity, a people and a nation, into a religion — a multiethnic, multicultural and diverse religion. Your shul’s kiddush is more diverse than ever before, and it will only keep getting more diverse as the years press on. Remind yourself to make everyone feel welcome, included and part of the community as often as you can, in all your words and your actions. Let everyone sit at your table. PJC
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Obituaries ALTER: Beatrice S. Alter, on Wednesday, March 24, 2021. Beloved wife of the late Philip D. Alter. Loving mother of Rosilyn Alter, James S. Alter and the late Marilyn Mallery. Mother-in-law of Patrick Mallery and the late Keith Bush. Sister of Anulda Carpe, the late Rose Elinow, Pauline Kartub, Arthur Chaiken, Evelyn Golden and Annetta Gottlieb. Grandmother of Jeremy Mallery and Caroline (Kevin) O’Brien. Great-grandmother of Audrey and Colin O’Brien. Also survived by many loving nieces and nephews. Services and interment private. Contributions may be made to the Jewish Association on Aging, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com GOLDSMITH: Sandra G. Goldsmith. A longstanding resident of Fox Chapel, Sandy passed away peacefully on March 21, 2021. Born and raised in New York, Sandy graduated from New Rochelle High School and Chatham College in Pittsburgh where she studied fine arts. She was the beloved wife of the late Ronald Goldsmith who she met on the Chatham tennis courts. Sandy was a member of the National Council of Jewish Women. She worked for over 30 years as a real estate associate broker and appraiser. An accomplished tennis and paddle tennis player, Sandy was an active member of the Fox Chapel Racquet Club and a tournament regular. Sandy is survived by her beloved Jake, her two daughters, Leslie Goldsmith of Chicago and Dr. Wendy Bernstein of Baltimore; her son-in-law Dr. Andrew Bernstein; and two grandchildren, Jamie and Ryan. A memorial service will be held at a later date due to COVID-19. Donations can be made in her honor to the Southwest Pennsylvania Retriever Rescue Organization (sparro.org) or the Audubon Society (audubon.org). Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. family owned and operated. schugar.com KAUFMAN: Jill Kaufman, age 65, after a courageous battle with liver disease, on March 25, 2021. Beloved mother of Adam (Katie) Treelisky and grandmother of Maggie Treelisky; devoted sister of Susan Kaufman Zelicoff and Sherri Kaufman Pfefer; and loving partner of Tim Wilkes. Also survived by wonderful nieces, nephews, stepchildren and “Crayons,” the youth at Cray Youth & Family Services where she worked. Jill’s passion to serve the community was endless and her work at Cray continued through
her final hours. Cray’s motto, “We Make Life Better For Kids,” was also Jill’s motto, touching hundreds of lives over the years through her work at Cray. Always putting others first and doing so with a smile on her face, regardless of the situation at hand. She effortlessly comforted others and used her own life experiences to teach valuable lessons to those who had the privilege of being in her presence. She had a strong love for family, food, shopping and regular visits to Florida to unwind from the daily grind. Private interment was held on Tuesday, March 30, in Pittsburgh. A memorial service will be held at a later date. Contributions may be made to Cray Youth & Family Services(crayyouth. org); Jewish National Fund (JNF) (jnf.org); or plant a tree in Israel, through the JNF (usa.jnf.org/jnf-tree-planting-center/). NEFT: Lynne Suzanne “Suzie” Neft, 75, passed away March 10, 2021, in Scottsdale Arizona, where she and her husband Howard lived since 2008. Originally from Peoria, Illinois, she and her husband lived in Pittsburgh for two years. Lynne received a bachelor’s degree from University of Michigan and a Master’s in Education from Carnegie Mellon University. She was a longtime member of Am Yisrael Congregation in Northfield, Illinois, a member of Hadassah and served on the board of Brandeis University Women’s Committee. In Arizona she was a substitute teacher in Fountain Hills, a volunteer tutor at the Navajo School and a Palomino Library volunteer. Lynne enjoyed cooking and entertaining. She loved reading, yoga, hiking with her dogs and spending time with her grandchildren. She is survived by her husband Howard, children Jordan Neft and Rachel (Chris) DePalma, grandchildren Isaac and Adeline DePalma, and loving nieces and nephews, including Bryan (Julie) Neft and Andrew (Nonna) Neft. A private burial was held in Scottsdale, Arizona. Donations can be made to the Association of Frontal Temporal Degeneration or Boxer Rebound of Phoenix. SHULMAN: Gloria Gusky Shulman, on March 28, 2021. Wife of the late Mitchell Shulman. Daughter of the late William and Rose Kaufman Gusky. Beloved mother of Ellen Shulman Lapson (Beril), Russell Shulman (Agnes), and Jay Shulman (Dr. Karen). Grandmother of Gideon Lapson (Delilah), Michael Lapson (Tatyana), Dr. Joshua Shulman (Melissa Geiger), Benjamin Shulman (Elizabeth), Jordan Shulman, Noah Shulman, and Ethan Shulman, and great-grandmother of six. Services and interment were private. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com. PJC
Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following: A gift from … In memory of … A gift from … In memory of … Anonymous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tillie L. Gallagher Anonymous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sylvia Rita Lipkind Podolsky Amy R. Kamin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hannah Kamin Anchel & Sheila Siegman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harry Siegman Edward M. Goldston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sam Labovitz Fred & Deborah Rubin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Rubin Harold & Cindy Lebenson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dora Stein Leslie Ripp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marcia Ripp Lessa Finegold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A. Mitchell Caplan Marc M. Bilder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Shirley Bilder Marc M. Bilder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Milton Bilder Simma & Lawrence Robbins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sadie Nadler
THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday April 4: Sadie Gelb Braunstein, Max Fischman, A. Morris Ginsburg, Edith Glosser, Celia Greenberg, Abraham Horowitz, Hannah Kamin, Isador Klein, Samuel Klein, Abraham Jacob Kwall, Bernard David Levine, Mattie Goldie Levine, Michael Liff, Rose H. Lowy, David Myers, Max Pretter, Nettie Rosenthal, Dr. Zanvel Sigal, Myer Solomon, I. Weinbaum Monday April 5: Marvin Adams, Lillian Ethel Brown, Samuel Feldman, Anna Goldman, Sidney M Levine, Florence Rosenfeld Myers, Lillian Rogoff, Sylvia Rosenfeld, Jennie R. Rush, Jacob Sadwick, Solomon Stalinsky, Edith G. Steiner Tuesday April 6: Sarah Alpern, Benjamin Americus, Alter L. Baker, Morris Benjamin, Morris Bergstein, Sherry Hilda Berkowitz, Sadye Burnkrant, Arthur R. Cohen, Robert M. Colnes, Myer Farber, Louis Freedman, Abraham Goldberg, Ida Cohen Hahn, Pfc. Lee Robert Katz, Benjamin Paul Krause, Harry Levine, Fannie Mayer, Sadie Nadler, Sol Niderberg, Edward J. Pearlstein, Anita Closky Rothman, Ida K. Samuels, Dorothy Z. Sandson, Julius Schwartz, Freda Ferber Thorpe, Emma Winer Wednesday April 7: Isadore Ash, Jennie Breakstone, Sam Dizenfeld, Robert F. Glick, Zelda Glick, Sarah Harris, Celia Jacobson, Margaret Green Kotovsky, Sam Labovitz, Mildred Levine, Ethel Mallinger, Beatrice Blumenfeld Nathan, Morris Perelstine, Louis Rubin, William Sacks, Bess H. Strauss, Bertha Swartz Thursday April 8: Sara Altman, Zachary Caplan, Lester Wolf Cohen, Philip M. Colker, Isabel Glantz, Adel Horwitz, Maier Krochmal, Hyman Lederstein, Ben Levick, Nathan Levy, Isadore Mendelson, Rae Pariser, Leah Simon, Earl Roy Surloff, Isidor Weiss Friday April 9: Shirley Bernstein, Fannie Caplan, Irene Elenbaum, Pearl Rebekah Friedman, Julia R. Goldsmith, Betty Shermer, Beatrice P. Smizik, Frieda Troffkin, Lawrence Martin Wallie, Jacob Young Saturday April 10: Israel Blinn, Morris D. Canter, Clara Esther Choder, Bennie Chotiner, Mollie S. Davis, Rebecca Fineberg, Lillian Forman, Rachel Hodes, Max Kalser, Albert Katzman, Sarah Kramer, Julian H. Rozner, Ida Schmidt, Henry Singer, Benjamin William Steerman, Irving M. Stolzenberg, Sylvan B. Sunstein, Belle Treelisky, Sara H. Udman, Morris S. Unger, David Whitman, Leroy L. Williams
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Opinion Pollard: Continued from page 13
himself is hard to believe. The same applies to his story of an escape arranged for him that would, had he taken advantage of it, have led to his murder—presumably at the hands of American operatives—because of what he claims was a threat to tell all about the Iran Contra affair before it became public. The Pollards are convinced that his spying saved Israeli lives, and it’s possible he did. He’s also innocent of the charge that he indirectly betrayed U.S. agents in the Soviet Union. But the notion that he did no damage to the United States is simply untrue. His theft of the U.S. Radio and Signal Intelligence Manual cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. The sheer magnitude of the volume of material he stole gives the lie to his claims of merely helping Israel without hurting the country to which he had sworn loyalty. Also dubious is the notion, repeated more than once, that Israel would have known nothing about Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons without Pollard since it’s highly likely that the Mossad knew more about what was going on in Iraq than the CIA. The interview does go into great detail about how Esther Pollard befriended the imprisoned spy. Pollard’s wife, Anne, who had been part of the operation, had also been jailed. He divorced her while in prison and eventually married the woman who took up his cause as her own. Their unlikely romance is touchingly presented, though the account skims over the fact that once Esther entered the picture, Pollard appears to have cut off relations with his family. Both his father, Dr. Morris Pollard, and his sister Carol had worked tirelessly for his cause but were reportedly dropped once the woman he married in prison became the only person he appeared to trust. Both Morris and Carol contacted me in an
attempt to get me to aid Pollard early on in the case, as did Esther later on. Pollard also wrote to me from jail for a while. The idea that his family did anything to harm his cause or spread disinformation about him is preposterous. The Pollard saga was also a family tragedy. Still, the most important element of the interview is the passage where he not only speaks of his lack of regrets but goes on to speak about dual loyalty. Pollard clearly has an axe to grind against the organized American Jewish world, which was slow to embrace his cause. He depicts himself as a hero not only for helping Israel but by refusing to help anti-Semitic
irredeemably anti-Semitic nation and that it can never be a true home to Jews. No country has ever been a friendlier haven for Jews in the history of the Diaspora. Jews have been accepted in every sector of society, including the highest levels of government and the military, and have been able to do so as proudly observant of their faith. Jews are at home in the United States because it is their right, not out of sufferance on the part of righteous gentiles. Pollard makes much of his claims that America held back intelligence from Israel that it should have shared, and that this somehow justifies his spying. But that wasn’t his call to make, and he seems insensible to the fact that
“ What’s really wrong here is the way
Pollard speaks of the United States as an irredeemably anti-Semitic nation and that it can never be a true home to Jews. investigators pin crimes on other Jews. And yet, American Jewry had good reason for not embracing someone who was doing so much harm to the alliance they had nurtured. Nevertheless, American Jews and their organizations did take up Pollard’s cause once his disproportionate sentence (he received more severe punishment than anyone who had ever spied for a friendly nation), rather than his crime, became the issue. The idea that “no one in the Jewish community had an issue with the life sentence” is simply false. But what’s really wrong here is the way Pollard speaks of the United States as an
he could have done more to alter that policy by resigning and speaking out than by becoming a spy. It’s hard to blame him for this kind of self-justification since it probably helped keep him going all those years in prison. But more objective observers understand that his claims to heroism have more to do with his needs than those of Israel. Pollard’s spying also happened at a time when the Reagan administration was upgrading the relationship with Israel from friendly support to a real alliance based on mutual interests. Pollard did more damage to that effort than any of Israel’s foes, including Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger, who played a role in the imposition of Pollard’s draconian sentence. The idea that Pollard would, as he told his interviewer, tell a young Jew working in U.S. intelligence to do as he did is astounding. He not only seems unaware of how his crime cast a pall over every loyal American Jew working to defend the world’s greatest democracy, but seems to think it doesn’t really matter. To claim that the choice is as simple as one between saving Jews and being silent is mere self-dramatization. Relations — let alone intelligence-sharing, even between these two close allies — is always more complicated than that. While early Zionists spoke of the negation of the Diaspora, from Theodor Herzl’s time to our own, the cause of the Jewish state has never been about hurting friendly democratic countries or undermining the rights of Jews to live wherever they want. Even a superficial reading of the history of the past century leads to an understanding that the United States is not just another country where Jews are alien wayfarers destined someday to be expelled. For Pollard to advise young American Jews to betray America isn’t just bad advice to be ignored, it’s the sort of thing that does as much to discredit the just cause of Zionism than all the calumnies of BDS anti-Semites. Pollard has had a rough time, and after more than three decades years in jail, he deserved parole and to live out what’s left of his life in Israel. Yet he has no right to attack an American Jewish community that he betrayed just as much as he did the U.S. Navy. Nor has he any right to do more to call into question the loyalty of the many American Jews who continue to sacrifice and serve their country while also supporting its steadfast Israeli ally. PJC Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS— Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
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Life & Culture
Paula Shoyer updates Jewish cuisine for Instant Pot cooking — FOOD — By Eric Schucht | Contributing Writer
Q
uick and simple. That’s what Paula Shoyer likes about the Instant Pot. Instead of using a pot for her spaghetti, another pot for her sauce, plus a colander, she just uses the multicooker and is left with only one thing to clean. It’s this perk of the combination pressure and slow cooker that led to Shoyer’s latest cookbook, “The Instant Pot Kosher Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Nourish Body and Soul.” Shoyer is a French-trained pastry chef and author of “The Kosher Baker,” “The Holiday Kosher Baker,” “The Healthy Jewish Kitchen” and “The New Passover Menu.” She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
How did you get into Instant Pot cooking?
I resisted the Instant Pot craze for quite a while. A kosher kitchen is a very congested place with so many groups of dishes and appliances that I thought, Oh, do I really need to buy yet another appliance? And my fans of my other books who are getting really into Instant Pot cooking kept asking me for Instant Pot versions of
Vegan zucchini rolls with cashew cheese
my recipes. So, finally I bought one. And I thought, this is great. It’s such a time saver. It cleans so easily. I was hooked. How does Instant Pot cooking compare to other forms of cooking?
It’s a pressure cooker, so it cooks everything really, really fast, which is so great for all of our classic Jewish foods, right? Like soups and stews are such a key component of how we eat and what we serve on Shabbat and holidays. It’s definitely so much faster. What was the impetus for the book?
Somebody brought to my attention a Facebook group called “Kosher Instant Pot.” So I go on the Facebook group and I start going through the feed and seeing what kind of recipes were there. And a constant theme in the comment thread was frustrations at always having to adapt the recipe [to be kosher]. I thought somebody should write a kosher Instant Pot book. My big joke is sometimes you have to fake it until you make it. I went to my publisher after having used this device three times and put together a list of 80 recipes and said, “Hey, I want to write a book,” and they were all over it. What goes into creating a recipe?
water for 5 hours 2 teaspoons lemon juice, from 1 lemon ¼ cup water 4 large basil leaves ½ teaspoon salt Pinch black pepper Zucchini rolls 2 large zucchinis, about 1 pound, 3 ounces total 1 ½ teaspoons salt 1 ½ cups marinara sauce
Vegan zucchini rolls
Photo by Bill Milne
Jewish Week, an affiliated publication.
Pareve, Vegan Advance Prep: Soak cashews for 5 hours, soften zucchini for at least 15 minutes and as long as 1 hour Hands-on time: 12 Minutes Time to pressure: 10 Minutes Cooking time: 6 Minutes Button to use: Pressure Cook Release type: Quick Release Advance prep: Cheese or completed dish may be made 2 days in advance Serves 4–6 as a side dish and 2–3 as a main course. Cashew cheese 1 cup raw cashews, soaked in 1 cup of cold
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About 20 minutes prior to processing the cheese, slice the zucchinis vertically (the long way) into ¼ inch pieces. You can use the mandolin if you are very brave, but as I have injured myself too many times using it, I use a knife to cut the slices by turning the zucchini on its side and then carefully cutting the long slices. Any rejects or end pieces can be saved in the fridge or freezer for soup or the vegetable stock. You will need 8 slices for this dish, but I always slice 9 or 10 pieces so I can use the most pliable ones for the recipe, reserving the rejects for soup. Line a cookie sheet with two layers of paper towels. Place the zucchini slices on top. Sprinkle the salt over the slices and let them sit for 15 minutes. Rinse the slices with cold water and dry them. Line the cookie sheet with a fresh layer of paper towels and place the zucchini slices on top to dry further. To make the cheese, drain the cashews and place them into a food processor. Add the lemon juice, water, basil, salt. Add pepper and process into a paste, scraping down the sides of the bowl multiple times. Place the steam rack into the inner pot and add 1 cup of water. You will need a
For this book, my agenda was essentially, OK, if I’m writing something that’s going to be called the “Kosher Instant Pot” book, there should be classic Jewish favorites, both Ashkenazi and Sephardi. And then it was like, OK, I want to make sure there is something for every Jewish holiday. I work very hard when I’m writing my recipes to stand in the shoes of the person making the recipe and consider how much effort they want to put into it. My approach is always like, how can I simplify? What can be added together? So I really work that way. Do you have any favorite recipes in the book?
The spaghetti with flanken bolognese is definitely one of my favorites. Every time I’ve made that for an event, it’s been really popular. The other one is my quinoa and beet salad, because it cooks super-fast. Do you have any general advice for Instant Pot cooking?
Number one, don’t be afraid of it. There’s all these buttons on it, but you’re going to use like four buttons. Honestly, I don’t need so many buttons. There is a soup button. There is a beef button. Never used those. I use the manual one all the time. So that’s number one. 6- or 7-inch pan to make this recipe; I prefer the 7-inch one. Add the marinara sauce to the pan. To make the rolls, take one of the zucchini slices and spread about 1 ½ tablespoons of the cheese over the entire slice to the edges. Roll up from the smaller end. One side of the roll may be prettier so that part should face up. Place the roll into the sauce, leaning the end of the roll into the side of the pan to keep it from unrolling. Repeat for the other rolls and place one or two into the center. Create an aluminum foil sling. Place the pan on the foil and lift up the sides to insert the pan on top of the steam rack. Secure the lid, ensuring that the steam release handle is in the Sealing position. Press the Pressure Cook button and set the cooking time for 6 minutes. When the cooking time is complete, press Cancel and turn the steam release handle to the Venting position to quickly release the pressure. To serve, scoop up a roll and place it on a plate, adding more sauce around it. Beet and mint salad
This simple beet salad is perfect served with gefilte fish, Shabbat lunch, or whenever you just want to take a prepared dish out of the fridge to serve at room temperature. You can make this a few days in advance, but add the remaining mint leaves before serving. Gluten-free, pareve, Passover, vegan Hands-on time: 4 Minutes, plus 10 Minutes to cool beets Time to pressure: 9 Minutes Cooking time: 30 Minutes Button to use: Pressure Cook Release type: Quick Release
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Was it difficult to come up with 100 recipes for the book?
This is what I’m good at. So if you told me right now, “Paula, would you write a cookbook on recipes with honey?” — give me two hours and I’ll write down 100 ideas to use with honey. What effect would you like the book to have?
Honestly, what I say about Instant Pot cooking is that it mostly creates comfort foods, right? There’s a lot of different recipes here. But there’s a lot of soups and stews and salads, things that hold up really well. So I feel like Instant Pot cooking are the kinds of dishes that are very easily packed up and shared. I want people to cook from this book and use it to share, uplift, celebrate and help other people through this difficult time. Because honestly, yes, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and things are getting better. But we’re still not there yet where our lives are completely normal. And there will be people who will be stuck at home a lot longer. And we can bring them up a container of soup and put a smile on their face. PJC Eric Schucht writes for the Washington Jewish Week, an affiliated publication. Advance prep: May be made 3 days in advance; Serves 8 1 cup water 4 medium beets, about 2 pounds, scrubbed clean 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 large navel orange, sliced in half; remove the flesh from half and cut it into ½ inch pieces, and then juice the other half 2 tablespoons chopped red onion, about one-quarter of 1 small red onion 12 large mint leaves, chopped 1 tablespoon water ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Place the water into the inner pot and insert the steam rack. Place the beets on top. Secure the lid, ensuring that the steam release handle is in the Sealing position. Press the Pressure Cook button and set the cooking time for 30 minutes. When the cooking time is complete, turn the steam release handle to the Venting position to quickly release the pressure. Press Cancel and remove the lid. Remove the beets to a colander and let them cool for 10 minutes. Use gloved hands to rub the skins off of the beets. Cut the beets into 1-inch cubes and place into a large serving bowl. Meanwhile, place the oil, orange juice, red onions, half of the mint leaves, 1 tablespoon water, and the salt and pepper into a small bowl and whisk well. Add the orange pieces and stir. Add to the beets and mix well. When ready to serve, add the remaining mint leaves. Reprinted from “The Instant Pot Kosher Cookbook.” Used by permission. APRIL 2, 2021 22
Community Making memories at JAA’s model seder
Raise your glass
Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s Melissa Hiller, top left, and Rabbi Ron Symons, top center, joined local faith leaders for a Passover dinner party on March 26. The digital event enabled 60 attendees to hear about Jewish, Sikh, Christian and Islamic traditions.
Screenshot courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh
Springtime at the Jewish Association on Aging Jen McCay, right, lends a hand during the March 25 model seder.
Joan welcomes spring at Ahava. Shirley greets spring with a painted pink flower.
Liz Powell, left, and Norman enjoy the Passover holiday.
Photos courtesy of Jewish Association on Aging
Macher and Shaker Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh planted trees in Israel’s JNF forest in honor of White Oak Christain faith leader Mark Pudlowski for his ongoing work with Ahavas Achim Cemetery on Ripple Road. Photo courtesy of Jewish Cemetery and Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh
Following along in the Haggadah
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Photos courtesy of Jewish Association on Aging
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APRIL 2, 2021 23
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