Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 2-11-22

February 11, 2022 | 10 Adar I 5782

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL A milestone for Jewish women

Candlelighting 5:33 p.m. | Havdalah 6:33 p.m. | Vol. 65, No. 6 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Bridge collapse continues to plague Jewish Pittsburgh

$1.50

An interview with Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

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rom snowstorms to collapsed bridges, presidential visits to setting up his administration, it’s been a busy first month in office for Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey.

When Gainey was sworn in Jan. 3, he said in his inaugural remarks that his administration’s mission is to create a “Pittsburgh for all.”

The city’s first Black mayor spoke with the Chronicle, addressing a wide range of topics that included antisemitism, policing and underserved communities.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Celebrating the centennial of the first bat mitzvah Page 2

LOCAL Asian fusion kosher

 A bus is lifted off the collapsed bridge.

A local food truck offers something new.

Page 4

LOCAL Advocating for those with disabilities

Jillian Zacks receives the Shore-Whitehill Award.

Page 5

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

A

nne Linder can’t stop thinking about the Jan. 28 Fern Hollow Bridge collapse and the difference 30 seconds can make.

Around 6:40 a.m. that day, Linder, a teacher at Community Day School, was on her way to work from her Churchill home.

Her teenage son and 8-year-old daughter were in the car as well. Linder planned to drop off her son at Pittsburgh Allderdice High School before heading to CDS, where her daughter is a student. As Linder drove down South Braddock Avenue toward Squirrel Hill, she prepared to turn right onto Forbes Avenue. She got halfway through the intersection before coming to a halt.

The two cars ahead of her had stopped, so Linder placed her car in park. She noticed a man frantically running down Forbes toward her and telling her to roll down the window. He shouted that the bridge had just collapsed.

Linder put her car in reverse. On her way to Penn Avenue, she saw ambulances and fire trucks speeding past. After traveling through Wilkinsburg, she and her children

Photo by Eli Kurs-Lasky @stillcityphotography

finally arrived at CDS, where they followed updates about the bridge.

Several days have passed, but Linder said she’s still frightened.

“When I think about it, we had angels watching over us,” she said. “Had we gotten there just a little bit earlier, it would have been us that were on the bridge.”

National Transportation Safety Board investigators are determining how and why the bridge collapsed.

The investigation, NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said last week, will be “long” and “technical.”

In the interim, Pittsburghers are trying to resume daily activities and commutes.

Regent Square resident Becca Hurowitz and her family used to cross the bridge regularly when driving to and from Squirrel Hill.

After learning that “thankfully” everyone on the bridge was OK, Hurowitz said her thoughts turned to traffic.

“So far, we’ve had a few issues with one of my kids’ buses, but I’m sure it will even out sometime soon,” she said.

Wilkinsburg resident Abby Schachter said

With the collapse of the 50-yearold Fern Hollow Bridge in Frick Park on Friday, Jan. 28, does improving infrastructure move to the top of your list of priorities?

Absolutely. Coming in, I was laser-focused on how we improve our infrastructure when it came to the Department of Public Works, just looking at that knowing that they hadn’t had any real investment. I mean, they’re using 2011 trucks — these trucks only last five or six years. They’ve been down over 20-some trucks for a long time. Manpower is down.

So, infrastructure has always been important.

In addition to that, let’s add the bridge. We were fortunate there were no fatalities. To see it and see how it collapsed and understand there was a Port Authority bus on there, you had cars on there, you had a gas leak that could have exploded, there were so many issues. If it hadn’t been a two-hour delay of the school district … we should thank God and understand we were fortunate. Absolutely, infrastructure is at the top of the list.

All of this is a pretext for saying you don’t want it to happen, but having the governor here and having the president coming in, they could see it for themselves, particularly

Please see Bridge, page 11

Please see Gainey, page 14

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle

LOCAL Remembering Myron Cope

LOCAL Getting to know: Sam Garfinkel

FOOD Red lentil soup

Headlines Dor Hadash hosts community-wide celebration of bat mitzvah centennial — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Editor

O

n March 18, 1922, 12-year-old Judith Kaplan stood before her congregation at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism on the Upper West Side of New York City and chanted from a Chumash.

She did not ascend the bimah. She did not read from a Torah scroll, nor did she recite the blessing to do so. When she was finished chanting from her Chumash, she returned to the women’s section of the synagogue for the remainder of the Saturday morning Shabbat service.

And with that, Judith Kaplan, the daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Judaism’s Reconstructionist movement, became the first American to celebrate a bat mitzvah.

“It all passed very peacefully,” Judith Kaplan Eisenstein told the New York Times in 1992. “No thunder sounded. No lightning struck.”

Congregation Dor Hadash, a Reconstructionist congregation in Pittsburgh, will mark the centennial of that historic day with a community-wide event on Sunday, March 20. COVID-permitting, the event will be hybrid, with options for in-person participation at Rodef Shalom Congregation as well as streaming. The program will include a catered kosher lunch, workshops and a keynote address by Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism, the movement’s umbrella organization.

“It’s an important milestone for us [as Reconstructionist Jews] and for Judaism as

p Rabbi Deborah Waxman Photo by Jordan Cassway

a whole,” said Carolyn Ban, the Dor Hadash member heading the event committee.

Judith Kaplan’s bat mitzvah bore little resemblance to the contemporary bat mitzvah, which has evolved in the last 100 years. When Kaplan’s daughter publicly read from her Chumash to acknowledge coming to the age of Jewish majority, the concept was still revolutionary, Waxman told the Chronicle.

And it was “no coincidence,” she said, that women were given the right to vote just two years earlier — and that Kaplan was the father of four daughters and no sons.

Kaplan founded the SAJ in January 1922. Then affiliated with the Conservative movement, the congregation became the birthplace for Reconstructionism, based on Kaplan’s view of Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization.

“At one of the very first board meetings in early February 1922, Kaplan said to the board that he would like to inaugurate the ceremony of bas mitzvah, and that he wanted his eldest daughter Judith to be the first person,” Waxman said. “The minutes show the board heartily agreed.

“They set the date for mid-March,” she continued. “The invitations went out. But Kaplan didn’t decide what Judith would do until the night before.” This wasn’t a problem for Judith, though, as she was “incredibly well educated Jewishly,” and had the skills to read a portion from the Chumash without months of practice.

Years later, Judith Kaplan wrote about her bat mitzvah experience, sharing three things that concerned her, Waxman said.

“One was that her mother’s larger family, which was fairly conservative, and Orthodox in orientation, thought it was a really bad idea, and they were arguing with Kaplan not to do it. They thought it was too revolutionary. So that didn’t thrill her, that there was discord in her family.

“The second thing that worried her was she was a teenager, and she felt self-conscious about being out in front of everyone,” Waxman continued. The third thing that concerned her was “leaving the women’s section and entering into male space.”

Her father, though, was committed to expanding the opportunities for girls and women to express their Judaism publicly, Waxman said.

While Judith’s participation at her bat mitzvah was limited, over the years the concept of bat mitzvah, and the greater role of women in public Jewish life, “evolved,” Waxman said.

“It took about 15 to 20 years before the Society for the Advancement of Judaism began to allow girls to have an aliyah on an occasion other than their bat mitzvah,” she said.

“At some point by the early ’40s, girls were actually going to the bimah and were having an aliyah. At a certain point, over the course of about 15 years, what a boy’s bar mitzvah looked like at the SAJ, a girl’s bat mitzvah looked like at the SAJ. They made it absolute parity.”

Ban, who conceived of the Dor Hadash centennial celebration to be held next month, said she did not celebrate her bat mitzvah as a teen.

“I grew up being sent to religious school in a Reform congregation and nobody did bat mitzvahs — and a lot of people didn’t do bar mitzvahs,” Ban said. “We were confirmed; that was very typical in the 1950s. It took a while for it to spread, but it did gradually.”

The first bat mitzvah in Pittsburgh was celebrated at the Conservative Congregation Beth Shalom on April 3, 1925, according to Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center.

It was “exceptionally low-key,” he said.

Four girls celebrated on the same day: Edythe Braemer, Florence Goldstein, Ruth Lieberman and Madeline Safyan. Each girl delivered a talk on a Jewish topic, songs were sung and refreshments were served by the Please see Centennial, page 9

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Headlines

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS 1972-2022

p From left: Ed Bouchette, Bernie Ankney and Tom McMillan

‘Double yoi!’: Myron Cope’s journalistic legacy explored at Point Park — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

T

he irony of Myron Cope’s beloved sputters and neologisms was that behind each “Yoi,” “Double Yoi” and “Bungle” was a print journalist wedded to the specificity of language. Colleagues, academics and even Cope’s daughter reflected on the legacy of the late “voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers” during a one-day symposium at Point Park University on Feb. 7.

For those who lived in Western Pennsylvania or listened to the Steelers between 1970 and 2005, it was “impossible not to know Cope,” said Bernie Ankney, a professor and dean of Point Park’s School of Communication. Less known, however, was the color commentator’s immense talent as a print journalist.

Ed Bouchette, a senior staff writer at The Athletic, and Tom McMillan, the co-director of Pittsburgh Center for Sports Media and Marketing, covered the Steelers during Cope’s tenure with the team and said Cope’s earlier work as a print journalist deepened their relationships with him.

Bouchette called Cope a “perfectionist” in his writing and encouraged attendees to read, or reread, Cope’s older pieces — a 1962 article for True Magazine on Cassius Clay won the E.P. Dutton Prize for “Best Magazine Sportswriting in the Nation” — to better appreciate Cope’s talents.

McMillan pointed to Cope’s 1967 profile of broadcaster Howard Cosell for Sports Illustrated and how, at the magazine’s 50th anniversary, it was selected as one of its 50 best pieces.

Cope’s personality was so big that people tend to forget he was a “literary genius,” McMillan said.

Part of Cope’s gift was that as much as he understood journalism he also understood entertainment, Andrew Stockey, sports director of WTAE, said before sharing clips of Cope dancing, singing and rhapsodizing about the Steelers.

Cope realized he could endear himself

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

p Elizabeth Cope

Photos by Adam Reinherz

to the public by having fun, and he recognized “the magic of the microphone,” Alby Oxenreiter, sports director at WPXI, said.

Verbal oddities like “Okel-dokel,” “Zounds” or “Garganzola,” were central to Cope’s narration. And Cope, noted Bill Hillgrove, the play-by-play announcer of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was “born a storyteller” who knew the Pittsburgh market and how to connect with its people.

Cope was a “brilliant man and a brilliant writer,” Greg Brown, the play-by-play announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates, said.

Cope died in 2008. His daughter, Elizabeth Cope, was 37 at the time. Before the conference, she told the Chronicle that she always appreciated her father but has begun to understand him even more since his passing.

“It’s like peeling back an onion,” she said. “So many things that he tried to teach me, now I get it.”

Cope, she said, was committed to charity: He gave his rights to the Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School in 1996 and, since then, all proceeds of officially licensed “Terrible Stuff ” have supported the school.

He also “was very proud of being Jewish,” Elizabeth Cope said, noting that her father’s signature “Yoi” is a derivative of “Oy vey.”

Born Myron Sidney Kopelman, Cope graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School and the University of Pittsburgh Please see Cope, page 19

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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Headlines Kosher Asian fusion food comes to Pittsburgh — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

A

food truck at Carnegie Mellon University, The Tartan Express, has changed direction, introducing new cuisine to the region’s kosher landscape.

After moving its Mediterranean-style options that were offered from the food truck into an indoor space, Elegant Edge Catering debuted a new style of food and a new set-up in January, owner Judah Cowen told the Chronicle.

“We basically changed the whole truck — everything’s new,” Cowen said. “We thought about what we wanted to do, and I decided to go with an Asian fusion menu. We opened about two weeks ago and business has been great, even though this weather isn’t the best time to open a food truck.”

Elegant Edge’s food truck is stationed in Legacy Plaza on CMU’s campus, near the football field and not far from Forbes Avenue, Cowen said. In addition to the truck, there’s a patio nearby with ample tables and about 50 chairs.

While some items on the new Asianinspired menu are expected — a General Tso’s chicken dish with an interchangeable base of steamed rice or noodles, a sweet and sour chicken — there is also something that

historically long line of on-again, off-again Asian options for Jewish Pittsburghers. Until recently, though, the kosher Asian landscape was a bit of a food desert.

“There were no restaurants, there’s no takeout,” Cowen said.

“There were no options.”

That’s all different now.

Cowen said the first two weeks of his food truck operation have seen a healthy mix of customers — from curious CMU students and staff to Jewish families coming from Squirrel Hill. The truck doesn’t offer delivery yet, but Cowen said people are ordering via Grubhub or by phone, having the food prepared, then picking it up hot.

What does the future hold for Elegant Edge’s food truck? Will the Asian fusion menu move indoors like its Mediterranean offerings, leaving another p Kosher food truck at Carnegie Mellon University Photo by Adam Reinherz opportunity for expansion?

Cowen said is new to kosher Pittsburgh: a “But it was something Carnegie Mellon “I think it’s hard to answer,” Cowen laughed. “We’ll see where it takes us.” ramen bowl, complete with shiitake mush- University was interested in.”

For additional information, go to rooms, bamboo shoots, tofu, and, if you The Elegant Edge menu also includes want it, a serving of chicken. a burnt garlic tofu dish and side dishes eedgecatering.square.site/. PJC “I don’t think there’s ever been a kosher such as egg rolls, fried wonton noodles ramen bowl in the city — it’s not something and Asian slaw.

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living you’d see in every Asian place,” Cowen said.

Cowen’s new operation is the latest in a in Pittsburgh.

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Headlines Jillian Zacks honored with Shore-Whitehill Award for work with people with disabilities — LOCAL —

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

J

illian Zacks said she was speechless when told she would receive the Shore-Whitehill Award for her work with Achieva and Jewish Family and Community Services.

Zacks has served as board chair for both JFCS and The Arc of Greater Pittsburgh (Achieva is the parent company of The Arc, a nonprofit) and a board member of Achieva, Friendship Circle and 21 and Able.

As an attorney at McAndrews Law Offices — specializing in estate planning, special needs trusts, guardianship, estate administration and Orphan Court matters — she assists families in planning for the future of their loved ones with disabilities.

The award, given annually by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Jewish Residential Services, celebrates volunteers who promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in the fabric of Jewish life through advocacy or direct service to those individuals and their families.

“When Robert Whitehall called me and told me I received the award, I didn’t know that I had even been nominated,” Zacks said. “I was so honored. It really took my breath away.”

p Jillian Zacks (left) received the Shore-Whitehill Award in a video ceremony.

Award founder Robert Whitehill, Jordan Golin and Nancy Murray also were present. p Jillian Zacks

Photo courtesy of Jillian Zacks

The North Hills resident, a single mother of two adult children on the autism spectrum, said her experiences have fueled her enthusiasm for work in disability law, something she has pursued since law school.

“I was in law school when the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990]

Screenshot provided by JFCS

passed, and I was part of a disability law clinic, so it’s always been a passion of mine,” she said. “Becoming a parent of two children diagnosed on the spectrum early in life definitely directed me as an advocate.”

Her roles as both a parent and advocate gave her an inside perspective, she said, and

allowed her to see the challenges that arise for individuals as they progress through different stages of life.

Zacks was chair of JFCS at the beginning of the pandemic and helped guide the Please see Zacks, page 15

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Calendar Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions also will be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon.

Great Temple Sinai Bake Off. Weidman will lead participants through three very different recipes — one from the Baghdadi Jews of Calcutta, one from Libya and the third from Morocco. 6:30 p.m. templesinaipgh.org/event/meet-n-eat-cooking-classsponsored-by-wots.html#.

q FRIDAY, FEB. 11-MARCH 5

q MONDAYS, FEB. 14-MAR. 28

The Zionist Organization of America: Pittsburgh is accepting applications for its Israel Scholarship Program. Jewish teens participating in qualified programs, who will be a junior or senior in high school in September 2022, are eligible to apply.

Three $1,000 scholarships will be awarded.

Applicants will be judged on their involvement in Jewish organizations, volunteerism and on an essay about Zionism and Israel. Applications will be accepted through March 5. For information and applications, contact ZOA Executive Director Stuart Pavilack at stuart.pavilack@zoa.org or 304-639-1758.

Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.

q SATURDAY, FEB. 12 Join Temple Sinai to Zoom-watch the film “Disobedience,” followed by a discussion of the movie. 7 p.m. templesinaipgh.org/event/movienight-feb2022.html. q SUNDAY, FEB. 13 Temple Sinai presents Kid’s Tikkun Olam: Shoe Making for Sole Hope. Parents and children of all ages can pick up a take-home kit to make shoes for Sole Hope. 12 p.m. q SUNDAYS, FEB. 13-MAR. 27 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. 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q MONDAY, FEB. 14 Join Temple Sinai for Meet n’ Eat Cooking Class with Annie Weidman. co-winner of The

q TUESDAYS, FEB. 15, 22; MARCH 15, 22, 29; APRIL 12 Temple Sinai presents Cooking Like an Ashkenazi Grandmother. This free, online adult education class is perfect for people who are new to Jewish cooking, people looking for new tips or techniques and those who are interested in a new recipe.

6:30 p.m. templesinaipgh.org/event/cooking-likeashkenazi-grandmother.html. q TUESDAYS, FEB. 15-MAY 24 Sign up now for Melton Core 2, Ethics and Crossroads of Jewish Living. Discover the central ideas and texts that inform our daily, weekly and annual rituals, as well as life cycle observances and essential Jewish theological concepts and ideas as they unfold in the Bible, the Talmud and other sacred texts. $300. 9:30 a.m. foundation.jewishpgh. org/melton-2. q WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16 Join the Squirrel Hill AARP for its next open meeting. All attendees are asked to bring at least two nonperishable food items that will be donated to the Squirrel Hill Food Pantry. Hear Pennsylvania AARP Consumer Advocate Mary Bach share AARP’s views on consumer fraud. Bring your COVID card and masks. Call Marcia Kramer at 412-656-5803 with questions. Rodef Shalom Congregation, Falk Library. 1 p.m.

February isn’t just for Valentines — it’s an opportunity to celebrate friendship. Join Temple Sinai for a Pal-Entine’s Day Celebration, an

Join the Chronicle Book Club: ‘Plunder’

T

he Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club’s Feb. 27 meeting, when we will be discussing “Plunder” by Menachem Kaiser. From harvard.com: “Menachem Kaiser’s brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holo caust-sur vivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as ‘The Killer.’ A surprise discovery — that his grandfather’s cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex — leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder.”

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

Your Hosts

Toby Tabachnick, editor of the Chronicle David Rullo, Chronicle staff writer

How It Works

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, Feb. 27, at noon to discuss the book. As you read it, we invite you to share comments and join discussions in our Facebook group, Chronicle Connects: Jewish PGH. We invite you to join now if you are not already a member of the group.

What To Do

Buy: “Plunder.” It is available at Barnes & Noble at the Waterfront, Settler’s Ridge and Monroeville Mall, at Amazon.com and from other online retailers.

Email: Contact us at drullo@pittsburgh jewishchronicle.org, and write “Chronicle Book Club” in the subject line. We will send you a Zoom link for the meeting.

See you later this month! PJC

evening out at Margaux, a café and cocktail lounge in East Liberty. 7:30 p.m. templesinaipgh.org/event/ WoTSPalentine2022. q WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 16, 23 Chabad of the South Hills presents “Meditation from Sinai,” a new Jewish Learning Institute course on mindful awareness and divine spirituality to help you think, feel and live more deeply. $95. 7:30 p.m.

1701 McFarland Road or on Zoom. Call 412-512-3046 or email rabbi@chabadsh.com for more information or to register. q

WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 16-MARCH 30

Bring the parshah alive and make it personally relevant and meaningful. Study the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman.

12:15 p.m. bethshalompgh.org/life-text.

Join Temple Sinai to study the weekly Torah portion in its hybrid class available on Zoom.

Open to everyone. Noon. templesinaipgh.org/ event/parashah/weekly-torah-portion-classvia-zoom11.html. q THURSDAY, FEB. 17 Moishe House Pittsburgh presents Game Night.

7 p.m. RSVP at: bit.ly/moho-021722. q THURSDAYS, FEB. 17-JUNE 30 The Alan Papernick Educational Institute Endowment Fund presents Continuing Legal Education, a six-part CLE series taught by Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff. Earn up to 12 CLE credits. Each session is a stand-alone unit; you can take one class or all six. 8:30 a.m. With CLE credit: $30/session or $150 all sessions; without CLE credit: $25/session or $125 all sessions. For a complete list of dates and topics, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org/continuinglegal-education. q SATURDAY, FEB. 19 Celebrate with Congregation Beth Shalom as it commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first bat mitzvah, as part of it annual Sisterhood Shabbat. Barbara Burstin will be featured as guest speaker and the Sisterhood will honor members Lauren Coblenz, Diane Silberg and Joan Wagman for their efforts on behalf of the Beth Shalom community. Beth Shalom Sisterhood members who would like to participate in the service should email Helen Feder at hrfeder@gmail.com. 9:30 a.m. q TUESDAY, FEB. 22 Join Classrooms Without Borders and in-house scholar Avi Ben Hur to learn more about the ArabIsraeli conflict. The goal is to make the subject accessible to educators and to give them the tools with which to grapple in the classroom with the subject at large and with breaking news. 2 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/arab_israeli_conflict.

Join Jewish National Fund-USA for a series of interviews, panel discussions and more — all meant to facilitate a dialogue and expose the beautiful and diverse facets of modern Zionism and its positive impact on many aspects of our lives, no matter where we are on the globe. 7:30 p.m. jnf.org/eventslanding-pages/conversations-on-zionism. q WEDNESDAY, FEB. 23 Classrooms Without Borders presents Czech Embassy Series: Stories from the Middle East with Journalist Jakub Szántó. Szántó, spent years covering the region. He later published the book

“Behind the Curtain of War,” which describes his eyewitness accounts from the front lines. In his talk, he will take viewers behind the scenes of wartime reporting. 3 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/ stories-middle-east-journalist-jakub-szanto. q THURSDAY, FEB. 24 Classrooms Without Borders, in coordination with Tali Nates, founder and director of the Johannesburg Genocide & Holocaust Centre, and in partnership with the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Liberation 75 and the USC Shoah Foundation, is pleased to present the series Holocaust Museums and Memorials Around the World. 1 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/holocaust_museums_ and_memorials_around_the_world. q FRIDAY, FEB. 25 Join Moishe House for a takeout Shabbat dinner.

Members will be lighting candles socially distanced and masked up, and then you will take home a Shabbat meal to remember. 6 p.m. RSVP at bit.ly/ moho-020422. q FRIDAY, FEB. 25; SATURDAY, FEB. 26 Join Temple Emanuel of South Hills for a musician-in-residence weekend with Jewish music innovators Elana Jagoda and Saul Kaye during Friday Shabbat services and for a special Havdalah and concert. Both events start at 7 p.m.

Registration required for the Saturday night concert. templeemanuelpgh.org/event/jagoda. q SATURDAY, FEB. 26 Join Moishe House and celebrate Havdalah — the last event in February. 3 p.m. RSVP: bit.ly/ moho-022622. q SUNDAYS, FEB. 27, MAR. 6, 13; THURSDAY, MAR. 10 Join Beth El Congregation of the South Hills for its Winter Speaker Series. For a complete list of speakers and times, visit bethelcong.org/events. q MONDAY, FEB. 28 Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh for Success in the Workplace: Engaging People of All Abilities, an event in celebration of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance & Inclusion Month and Jewish Disability Advocacy Day. Inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace is not only good for the community — it’s also good for business. Join the conversation exploring the benefits of a diverse workforce. 5:30 p.m. jewishpgh.org/event/successin-the-workplace-engaging-people-of-all-abilities. q THURSDAY, MARCH 10 Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh for the free event Universal Early Childhood Education: What Could This Mean for Our Jewish Community? 7 p.m. jewishpgh.org/event/universalearly-childhood-education-what-could-this-meanfor-our-jewish-community-4. q SUNDAY, MARCH 20 After a two-year hiatus, Hillel JUC Campus Superstar is back. The show will be at Stage AE in person and livestreamed. The solo singing competition features the region’s most talented college students. The audience votes to determine who will win the $5,000 Ellen Weiss Kander Grand Prize. 5:30 p.m. interland3.donorperfect.net/ weblink/WebLink.aspx?name=hilleljuc&id=48. PJC

www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

— Toby Tabachnick PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

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Headlines Getting to know: Sam Garfinkel — LOCAL —

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

T

he head of a nonprofit working to bridge Pittsburgh’s digital divide didn’t always have her eyes on the tech sector.

Sam Garfinkel became interim executive director of Meta Mesh Wireless Communities in February 2021; eight months later, the nonprofit’s board made its interim decision permanent.

But Garfinkel, a third-generation Pittsburgher who graduated from DePaul University in Chicago in 2017 with a degree in English, started at Meta Mesh in development; her master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University was in rhetoric. Even she admits she had to learn to fly high while still building the plane.

“It was a shift for sure — I always stayed with the humanities in my academic life,” Garfinkel told the Chronicle. “The reason I was able to adapt quickly to the field? When I was an undergrad, my job was being a writing tutor … and that job prepared me in so many ways. It just got me comfortable not knowing the solutions to all problems but knowing what to ask to get there.”

Garfinkel, who is Jewish, grew up in Fox Chapel and Squirrel Hill. She spent every

p Sam Garfinkel Photo courtesy of Sam Garfinkel

summer at the Emma Kaufmann Camp near Morgantown, West Virginia. It was in those early years that her social foundation inspired her to lean toward mission work and serving others — the familiar Jewish ideal of tikkun olam, or repairing the world.

“Jewishness is a huge part of my experience and my identity,” Garfinkel said. “It’s a huge part of how I see the world. And it’s my cultural identity.”

Her mission in 2022? Providing no-cost

Wi-Fi internet services to Pittsburghers in need. Right now, it’s available in Homewood, New Kensington and Coraopolis/ Neville Island, with plans to expand soon in Wilkinsburg.

“In the city of Pittsburgh, nearly 23% of people do not have in-home Internet access,” Meta Mesh says on its website. “To live and work in today’s digital society, it is essential to have access to the Internet. In the 21st century, reliable Internet access is no longer a luxury — it is a necessity, and a right.”

Garfinkel said she jumped the normal steps up the corporate ladder during a period of transition at the nonprofit. She is modest but also an accurate appraiser of the tools in her professional toolbox.

“We needed to do something that had never been done before and run an entirely new kind of program,” Garfinkel said. “My biggest accomplishment was just trying to instill more structure, more process and more documentation.

“I think my strengths serve us well,” she added, “because I’m good with relationships, and I’m a good communicator.”

Essie Garfinkel, Sam’s grandmother, said she never expected to talk to a newspaper reporter about the eldest of her six grandchildren. But now that this is reality, it sort of makes sense.

“She got her master’s at Carnegie Mellon University in rhetoric — I figured she’d go

into teaching or writing,” the elder Garfinkel told the Chronicle. “I’m shocked because she has so much business knowledge now, so much technological knowledge. She learned it on the job.”

Essie Garfinkel praised accomplishments her granddaughter didn’t brag about or cite — such as expanding the net of donors and grantmakers who support Meta Mesh.

“We’re so proud of her, we really are,” she said. “She, being the oldest, has gone the farthest so far. And we’re just delighted.”

So is the younger Garfinkel, though she has faced her share of obstacles.

“Overall, I’ve been lucky and fortunate,” Garfinkel said. “But I have experienced hate related to my [long-term same-sex] relationship and hate related to being Jewish.”

“I think I learned it’s experience [that matters],” she added. “Resistance was very much not there. I hope the professional world is moving more toward inclusion … I don’t want to be a diversity hire.”

Now that she’s heading her own company, Garfinkel is leaning hard into the mission work. Through sponsors such as school districts, she is bridging the digital divide in southwestern Pennsylvania.

“That’s where we come in,” Garfinkel said.

“We offer a tailored solution.” PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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WHO WILL BE THERE TO CARE FOR ME WHEN I NEED HELP? This is one in a series of articles about Elder Law by Michael H. Marks., Esq. Michael H. Marks is an elder law attorney with offices in Squirrel Hill and Monroeville.

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

Rachel’s grandmother Sadie was a relatively healthy and active 80-some year-old; a regular in her congregation and active socially in her building. But then she started to show signs of dementia – memory loss and confusion. There was no one else to help, so Rachel quit her job to care for her grandma full time. It was exhausting but it was a labor of love.

When the pandemic struck though, they both became even more isolated and alone. They could no longer see family and friends outside the apartment, and lost contacts, support and stimulation from not being in touch with others.

Family and unpaid caregivers provide a huge service, frequently with little support and at great personal cost.

There are more than 40 million unpaid caregivers in the US, and more than 15 million caring for someone with Alzheimer’s or other dementia. The value of these volunteer services is estimated at more than $400 billion. The toll on caregivers themselves is immense.

There is a caregiver crisis in our country. Unpaid caregivers work because there is not enough money and not enough resources in the health care and government system to pay for the long term care that elderly and disabled people need.

Without recognition or support, caregivers’ physical and mental health suffers. After COVID especially, 40% of all adult caregivers suffered from anxiety or depression, and even suicidal thoughts Every day 10,000 aging baby boomers turn age 65! As they age, many may need long-term care, services and supports.

Caregivers provide assistance ranging from dressing, bathing, toileting, grooming, preparing meals, managing medications, shopping, transportation including trips to the doctor, and just plain companionship. Sometimes they even provide complex medical and nursing tasks.

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Many caregivers don’t see themselves or think of themselves that way. Instead they say, “She’s my mom, or He’s my brother, or I am her only family.” Our country can’t manage without these unpaid caregivers, who need to stay healthy themselves as well as to care for others.

Half of unpaid caregivers are under age 50; one third are over age 65. More than half of caregivers are female. Caregivers more frequently attend to a spouse or partner. Those receiving care are often but not always elderly. Caregiving often interferes with employment, and burnout is prevalent.

The COVID pandemic has produced twice as many unpaid caregivers as before. Factors driving this increase include the aging population; rising healthcare costs; and even young couples delaying child rearing, leaving them next in line as caregivers. Disadvantaged communities and communities of color suffer the most.

Individual care recipients are vulnerable to harm in many ways. One way is that the vulnerable elderly suffer physical abuse, though the vast majority of cases are never reported.

Only a tiny fraction ever come to light.

The elderly are also vulnerable to financial exploitation. To minimize your risk, appoint someone you know and trust, and in whom you have confidence, as your Agent under Power Of Attorney (though someone must first be trusted before they can abuse that trust!). You can also give a trusted confidant “view only access” to your finances, without giving them actual access or control. Credit monitoring services can promptly detect financial wrongdoing, and help alert you if it occurs.

To assist an elderly loved one to avoid financial or personal abuse, visit often, including at times when you are not expected. Most of all, pay attention, stay in contact, and maintain communication. When hiring privately instead of through an agency, check references and pay if necessary for a thorough background check.

A checklist of legal and related actions for caregivers and care recipients might include the following: •

Most important - Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - among all family members and with

•

•

all involved about what’s needed and who will do what. Discuss everything openly and directly.

You may not get unanimity, but clarity in itself is invaluable and can reduce friction. Make a plan and even put it in writing, to lesson confusion and conflicting recollections of responsibilities.

Prepare and preserve important legal, financial and other papers, starting with Power Of Attorney and financial records; but also family history documents regarding birth, marriage, divorce, citizenship, and military service.

When appropriate, consult professional help to access all available services and benefits, public, private and through organized volunteer efforts

Most everyone wants to stay at home and “age in place.”

Safety is a priority and home modifications can make the environment safer. Changes such as level entry (for wheelchairs, walkers and gear), stair lifts, bathroom grab bars and remodeling are among the most common and helpful changes. Technology solutions can also help.

Connectivity online and through video calling can ease loneliness and isolation. Medical alert systems, different kinds of monitors, alerts and remote controls can provide safety and oversight at a distance.

Legislatively, a couple of states have pioneered pilot programs to privately pay caregivers. National legislation, both proposed and passed but awaiting implementation, can help. The proposed Recognize, Assist, Include, Support and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act is one. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed but awaiting Implementation, will provide resources for older adult mobility and transportation, pedestrian safety, and internet access for underserved populations.

Finally, look ahead. Who may need your help and assistance in the future – especially if their present caregiver becomes unavailable?

At Marks Elder Law, we help people every day with issues like these. I invite your questions and feedback. Please let me know how I can help you and your family.

helping you plan for what matters the most

With the increasing costs of long-term care, having the help of a legal professional when planning for your family’s future can help you make better decisions that can result in keeping more of your money.

We help families understand the strategies, the benefits, and risks involved with elder law, disability and estate planning.

www.marks-law.com

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

412-421-8944

Michael H. Marks, Esq. michael@marks-law.com member, national academy of elder law attorneys

4231 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

7

Headlines — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

S

ari Cohen loves living in Pittsburgh and would like to see its Jewish community grow — she just wishes the city’s kosher landscape was a bit different.

Compared to New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, Pittsburgh doesn’t have many kosher eateries. And while it’s nice to dine at a restaurant occasionally, the bigger concern, Cohen said, is the lack of kosher takeout options.

About twice a month, Cohen orders food for Shabbat from one of the area’s five kosher caterers. She and her family enjoy the dishes and would order more frequently if there were more options, she said.

“We are a lactose-intolerant family, so there’s only so much Milky Way we can have,” Cohen said.

Squirrel Hill resident Ilana Schwarcz has similar concerns. “Kosher takeout in Pittsburgh is great,” she said, “but limited.”

Schwarcz has long supported kosher caterers in the city. What’s changed since the pandemic began, however, is Schwarcz’s buying habits.

“We order five times more than we did at the start of the pandemic,” she said. “We are so busy with work, school, virtual learning and

taking care of the house — it’s a relief to have a healthy meal that we don’t have to cook.”

The uptick in Schwarcz’s purchases is consistent with national trends.

As of early spring 2021, consumers across all age groups were ordering more takeout and delivery for dinner, according to the National Restaurant Association.

The pandemic, busy lifestyles and a desire for “convenient alternatives to homecooking” have caused global revenues in

the online food delivery segment to nearly double since 2017, according to Statista, a company that tracks consumer data.

Kosher caterers throughout Pittsburgh agreed that buying habits have changed since March 2020, but cited staffing concerns and a rise in costs as significant impediments to their operations.

Aryeh Markovic, co-owner of Murray Avenue Kosher, described how, due to a lack of employees the day he spoke with the

Chronicle, he and three staffers were continuously running around the shop stocking shelves, helping customers check out and managing myriad other responsibilities.

Along with spurring the “great resignation,” the pandemic reshaped the way business is done, Markovic explained.

At first, typical catering events dried up during quarantine, but even now — nearly two years post-March 2020 — parties, office meetings, even funerals and shivas, are smaller than they were before the pandemic, Markovic said.

While there’s been a decrease in the numbers attending catered in-person events, the availability and cost of items also have shifted.

“It’s hard to get product,” Markovic said.

“Prices are constantly increasing on us, unfortunately, and we do the best we can; that’s all we can do.”

Moishe Siebzener, of Creative Kosher Catering, said he also has faced supply chain issues.

“Every time we walk into a store, we see prices go up,” he said.

In a Feb. 3 report, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization confirmed that food prices in January reached their highest level in a decade.

Siebzener said rising prices are only one Please see Takeout, page 15

The Jewish Women’s Foundation is pleased to announce its 2021 Jewish and general community grants The Jewish Women’s Foundation funds grants that

JEWISH COMMUNITY IMPACT GRANTS:

effect positive social change for women and girls through collaborative philanthropy. Individuals who are

Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh $20,000 Sacred Spaces $25,000

interested in a different approach to their annual giving have the opportunity to act collectively with each other and with grant seekers to make effective, informed grantmaking decisions. Since 2003, JWF has invested more than $1.6 million in improving the lives of our community’s women and girls.

Interested in learning more?

Contact Judy Greenwald Cohen, jcohen@jwfpgh.org

Barbara Rosenberger, Chair Laurie Gottlieb, Grantmaking Co-Chair Gerri Sperling, Grantmaking Co-Chair Judy Greenwald Cohen, Executive Director Melanie Weisbord, Program Associate

JEWISH COMMUNITY KEYSTONE GRANTS: B’nai Emunoh Chabad $3,000 Classrooms Without Borders $2,000 JFunds $10,000 Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh $10,000

GENERAL COMMUNITY KEYSTONE GRANTS: Alina’s Light $5,000 Allegheny Health Network $10,000 North Hills Affordable Housing (HEARTH) $5,000 Open Field $10,000 Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania $10,000 The Neighborhood Academy $10,000 When She Thrives $6,500 Women’s Center and Shelter $7,500 Women’s Law Project $6,000

www.jwfpgh.org

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Israeli cuisine: esik fleisch by Olga Mazyarkina via iStock Photo

Kosher takeout options limited by supply, demand and staffing

Headlines A gay Jewish liberal (and rabbi’s husband) is running for Congress in deep-red West Virginia — LOCAL —

By Lee Chottiner | JTA

B

arry Wendell hardly fits the mold for a West Virginia politician. Not only is he a liberal Jew in a red state, he’s a recent arrival and a gay man married to a rabbi.

Yet Wendell, 72, could still be the Democratic Party’s candidate this fall in the state’s Second Congressional District.

The retired two-term Morgantown city councilman recently decided to run for Congress, waiting until the filing deadline to see who else would run to represent the newly redrawn district.

“Somebody had to do it and I just felt like I needed to step in,” he said.

He will meet Angela Dwyer of Martinsburg, a political newcomer who is African American, in the May 10 Democratic primary. Wendell knows he would face a quixotic, if not impossible, challenge to win the general election in November. Every county in heavily Republican West Virginia went for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, giving him nearly 70% of the state’s votes.

West Virginia lost one district in the 2020 census, meaning the Democratic candidate in Wendell’s district will likely face one of two Republican incumbents. GOP Reps.

David McKinley and Alex Mooney have name recognition and campaign war chests topping $1 million — an advantage Wendell said he can’t match.

“As a Jew, of course I believe in miracles that happen every day,” Wendell said. “But it

working for the Social Security Administration in Miami for six years.

In 1984, he moved to Los Angeles, where he turned to substitute teaching, worked as a cantorial soloist and tutored b’nai mitzvah students.

He and Hample married in 2008.

The couple moved to Morgantown, in the northern part of the state, in 2012, and Wendell was elected to the city council in 2017 and 2019.

On his Facebook p Barry Wendell, a Democratic congressional candidate page, he says he in West Virginia, is married to Rabbi Joe Hample of Congregation Tree of Life in Morgantown, rear. supports restarting

Photo courtesy of Barry Wendell via JTA the Extended Child Tax Credit, raising the probably would take a miracle.” national minimum wage and making sure Wendell wouldn’t be running, he said, were benefits are available to miners suffering it not for his husband, Rabbi Joe Hample of from black lung disease. “I am adamantly Congregation Tree of Life in Morgantown, pro-choice,” he added. the home of West Virginia University and The lack of a marquee name on the the most Democratic city in the state.

Democratic ballot speaks to the party’s “He really encouraged me to do this,” weakness in the Mountain State, according Wendell said. “If he had said, ‘I don’t think to John Kilwein, chair of the political science you can do it do this,’ I wouldn’t have done it.” department at West Virginia University.

Hample explained it this way: “Isn’t it a Famously or notoriously, depending on one’s Jewish value to stand up and be counted? At politics, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin hangs the beginning the Book of Numbers, we stand onto his seat by frequently parting ways up and we are counted. I think that’s huge.” with his party.

A native of Baltimore, Wendell studied “There’s a problem with the Democratic urban affairs at Tulane University before Party when there’s not someone more

Centennial: Continued from page 2

girls’ parents afterward. The girls continued to participate in services throughout the year.

“In 1925, Beth Shalom had been around for six or seven years,” Lidji said. The congregation’s rabbi, Goodman Rose, “was very innovative and progressive.”

But bat mitzvahs at Beth Shalom were sporadic during the 1920s and 1930s, Lidji said: “I found a notice from 1938 claiming to be the first bat mitzvah held at Beth Shalom, which means everyone had forgotten about the ones 13 years earlier.”

The umbrella group United Synagogue of America began encouraging bat mitzvah ceremonies at Conservative congregations in 1928, according to Lidji, and B’nai Israel Congregation in East Liberty began offering them that year.

The first bat mitzvah at Pittsburgh’s Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation, was Barbara Carol Linder’s, on Oct. 10, 1957, according to the congregation’s archives, said Aya Betensky, who is on that congregation’s committee to mark the centennial.

There was “no write-up, just a name in the bulletin,” Betensky said.

Before the mid-1960s, Rodef Shalom Congregation, a Reform congregation, PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

p Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan in 1916 along with his wife, Lena, and their four daughters: Judith, Naomi, Selma and Hadassah Photo courtesy of Reconstructing Judaism

did not offer bar or bat mitzvahs to Jewish teens but rather promoted confirmation as the coming-of-age ceremony — which served the dual purpose of creating equality between the genders and “kept them in the building another few years,” Lidji said.

But many Rodef Shalom families wanted their children to celebrate their bar and bat

mitzvahs, so they became dual members at Tree of Life to do so, Lidji said. In 1966, responsive to the wishes of his congregants, Rabbi Walter Jacob instituted bar and bat mitzvahs at Rodef Shalom.

The Orthodox Shaare Torah Congregation in Squirrel Hill held its first bat mitzvah ceremony in January 1964, Lidji said.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

prominent, maybe a member of the House of Delegates or [state] Senate, who’s running,” Kilwein said. “That Mr. Wendell is the guy should sound the alarm bells for the West Virginia Democratic Party.”

Though supportive of his husband’s campaign, Hample said he will limit his participation during the race.

“I have to be the rabbi of the Democrats and the Republicans,” he said. “But I feel like I can stand up strongly for inclusion issues. I believe in a society where everyone is validated, and everyone has dignity, and everyone has rights. I will take a stand on those kinds of issues.”

Wendell’s campaign comes at a frightening time for American Jews, with the hostagetaking at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and vandalism at Chicago synagogues recently making headlines.

Still, neither man is prepared to let the times muzzle them.

“It’s too late for us to die young,” Hample said. “People who believe in democracy don’t deserve to prevail unless they have the courage of our convictions and the willingness to stand tall.”

Wendell simply added, “I personally can’t live a fearful life.”

Over the coming months, Wendell will learn how local voters will react to a liberal, gay, Jewish candidate, But he believes he may be the kind of person West Virginians need to hear from — locally and in Washington, D.C. “I get that it’s odd,” he said, “but maybe it is the ideal candidate, somebody who can come in and say something completely different from what they expect.” PJC Several congregations in the Greater Pittsburgh area plan to mark the centennial of the first bat mitzvah at their Shabbat services on March 18 and 19. Temple Sinai is also collecting its members’ reflections on their bat mitzvahs — or their reflections on not having one.

“There are many of us that never had one,” Betensky said. “I’ve since learned to chant trope for Torah. But this is making me think I’d like to have a ceremony.”

(The Chronicle is collecting bat mitzvah recollections and photos to be published in its March 18 issue. See story on pg. 18.)

Meantime, workshops at the Dor Hadash event include a history of bat mitzvahs in Western Pennsylvania, led by Lidji; a session on the adult bar mitzvah; and a session on the “b’mitvah” led by local transgender Jewish professionals.

And the SAJ and the Jewish Women’s Archives will co-host a national Shabbat celebration marking the centennial March 18-20.

“People see this as such a significant event,” Ban said. “On the organizing committee for our event are three rabbis, all women. And one of them said at one of the meetings that, ‘We would not be here as rabbis if this had not happened.’” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

9

Headlines the Anti-Defamation League that had criticized Goldberg had welcomed her apology for saying the Holocaust “isn’t about race.”

Goldberg’s initial comments came during a segment about a Tennessee school board’s decision to remove “Maus,” the classic Art Spiegelman graphic memoir, from its eighthgrade curriculum. Goldberg described the Holocaust as reflecting not racism’s toxic consequences, but “man’s inhumanity to man.”

“I should have said it was about both” race and inhumanity, Goldberg said. “I stand corrected.”

— WORLD — From JTA reports

Son of a Jewish judge pleads guilty to Jan. 6 charges

Aaron Mostofsky, a Jewish judge’s son who wore fur pelts and a bulletproof vest when he entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, pleaded guilty to several charges in a federal court on Feb. 2.

Mostofsky pleaded guilty to civil disorder, theft of government property and entering and remaining in a restricted building, although prosecutors dropped the most serious charge of interfering in an official proceeding.

Because the civil disorder charge is a felony, Mostofsky faces up to five years in prison, although many of the 200 or so people convicted so far in the insurrection received minimal sentences. He will be sentenced in May. Mostofsky is the son of Steven (Shlomo) Mostofsky, a Kings County (Brooklyn) Supreme Court Judge and former president of the National Council of Young Israel, an Orthodox synagogue association.

Nobel Prize won by man saved by Kindertransport sells for $457K

A Nobel Prize in chemistry won by a man saved from the Holocaust by the Kindertransport sold at auction for $457,531.

Walter Kohn received the award in 1998 for his development of the densityfunctional theory. He died in 2016.

Kohn was born to Jewish parents in Vienna in 1923. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938 and declared the Anschluss, or the unification of Austria and Germany, he was kicked out of school and his father’s business was confiscated.

In 1939, Kohn was sent to England as part of the Kindertransport, a program in which Jewish children were brought from Europe to the United Kingdom on the eve of World War II. He arrived in England a month before the outbreak of World War II. Both of his parents were killed in the Holocaust.

After arriving in the United States, Kohn earned a Ph.D. in physics at Harvard University

Whoopi Goldberg suspended for Holocaust comments

ABC suspended Whoopi Goldberg as co-host of “The View” morning TV talk show for two weeks amid criticism of Goldberg’s characterization of the Holocaust.

ABC News President Kim Godwin announced the action on Feb. 1, hours after

Amsterdam-based publishing house Ambo Anthos, which printed the Dutch-language translation of a controversial book alleging that a Jew betrayed Anne Frank, apologized for not reviewing the material more critically and ceased printing new copies of it.

“The Betrayal of Anne Frank” by Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan hypothesizes that the teenage diarist and her family were turned over to the Nazis by Arnold van den Bergh. He was a notary and a member of the Jewish Council, which the Nazis established to better control Dutch Jews.

Since its publication, several critics, including well-known historians who specialize in the Frank family’s history, said the probe’s conclusion was inconclusive and irresponsible.

Feds to probe harassment complaints by Jewish students at Brooklyn College

A federal investigation was launched into complaints by Jewish students at Brooklyn College who said they were subjected to “severe and persistent harassment” in the Mental Health Counseling master’s program.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights last week informed the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which prepared the complaint, that it opened the probe.

The students allege they were “bullied and

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

Feb. 11, 1986 — Refusenik Sharansky reaches Israel

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After eight years in a Siberian labor camp, Anatoly Shcharansky is released to American custody in Berlin and flies to Israel, where he arrives under his new Hebrew name, Natan Sharansky.

Feb. 12, 1994 — Israel has first Winter Olympian

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The Winter Olympics open with an Israeli team for the first time, consisting entirely of figure skater Michael “Misha” Shmerkin, 24, a Soviet native who finishes 16th in Lillehammer, Norway.

Feb. 13, 1931 — British PM rejects White Paper

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Dutch publisher stops printing controversial Anne Frank book

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harassed in class discussions and on social media by student peers, who target Jewish students using the same ethnic stereotypes, anti-Semitic tropes and divisive concepts that faculty members promote in their courses.”

The complaint cites a professor who claimed that Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to the United States have become “oppressors.” Another complaint mentions a professor who allegedly rebuked a Jewish student for ranking the student’s Jewish identity before their white identity.

Sixteen Orthodox yeshiva teachers in France arrested over conditions for students

French police raided a prominent Orthodox Jewish boarding school near Paris, arresting 16 teachers for alleged child abuse and placing dozens of teenaged boys temporarily under state custody.

Police began investigating Beth Yossef in July after a student left the institution and sought the help of staff at the U.S. embassy in Paris, Agence France-Press reported.

The prosecutor’s office of Meaux said in a statement that it raided the school, which enrolls students from Israel, the United States and France, because investigators found that students were being mistreated. The entire faculty was arrested.

The raid was in response to “sequestration, confiscation of IDs, unsuitable living conditions, maltreatment, denial of access to education and other services without the possibility of allowing [students] to return to their families,” the statement said. PJC

This week in Israeli history

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In a letter to Chaim Weizmann, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald disavows the threats posed by the 1930 Passfield White Paper, which calls for restricting Jewish immigration and land purchases.

Feb. 14, 1896 — Herzl publishes ‘Jewish State’

Theodor Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”) is first published in Vienna with a run of 500 copies. The pamphlet calls for Jews to organize themselves to gain a territory and eventually a state.

Feb. 15, 1975 — Cairo Jewish leader Salvator Cicurel dies

Salvator Cicurel, a former leader of Cairo’s Jewish community and a 1928 Olympic fencer, dies. He was forced to sell his department store to Muslims after the 1956 Sinai war and left for France in 1957.

Feb. 16, 1932 — Writer Aharon Appelfeld is born

Author Aharon Appelfeld is born near Czernowitz, then part of Romania. He is sent to a Nazi concentration camp in 1941 and escapes at age 10. He makes aliyah in 1946.

He receives the Israel Prize in 1983.

Feb. 17, 1948 — State Department tries to stop partition

The State Department’s policy planning staff sends a memo to President Harry Truman and Secretary of State George Marshall to argue against the implementation of the U.N. partition of Palestine. PJC

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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Headlines Bridge: Continued from page 1

she won’t venture into Squirrel Hill now without relying on Waze and its satellitesupported navigation system.

Although Schachter could take Penn Avenue, Commercial Street or the Parkway to get to Squirrel Hill, the difference in time can be significant, she said; while one route might take 12 minutes, the other could take twice as long.

Schacther knows that a 12-minute differential may not be a major concern for residents of other cities, “but for us, it’s a huge increase in time,” she said.

The other factor Schacter’s been considering is Shabbat. Every Saturday, she and her family walk from Wilkinsburg to Squirrel Hill for services. Last weekend they stayed home, calling it “bridge collapse Shabbat.”

But this weekend the Schachters plan on resuming their regular trek.

The plan, for now, is to walk through Frick Park, Schachter said. But the strategy isn’t ideal, given the potential for icy paths along the way.

While a viewing area in the park, where people could observe the collapsed bridge, is closed, the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department announced on Feb. 2 that the Clayton Loop, Biddle Trail and Homewood Trail are open.

Tranquil Trail is closed within 100 yards of the collapse site, and Undercliff Trail is also closed.

For Squirrel Hill resident Maggie Feinstein, the bridge collapse adds another

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husband taught their 8-year-old daughter how to walk safely to and from school.

Before heading out the door on Feb. 1 — the first school day post-bridge collapse — Feinstein and her husband gave their daughter instructions again. This time, it was how to head safely through the park and avoid dangerous areas.

Along with which path to follow, Feinstein said they told their daughter how to respond to a park ranger if she is stopped. The situation isn’t ideal, but as working parents, without busing to and from school, “we are p Ava Velazquez, Anne Linder and Alexander Velazquez

Photo courtesy of Anne Linder just in a place where we have to teach her how to be more indewrinkle to family routines. pendent,” Feinstein said.

Well before the Jan. 28 event, Feinstein’s Rabbi Shimon Silver, who oversees the daughter used the Fern Hollow Bridge to city’s eruv, said the bridge collapse is an get to the Environmental Charter School on opportunity to come together.

South Braddock Avenue.

Every Shabbat, many Jewish people rely on After busing options were lost due to a the eruv — a wire and string-bound strucdriver shortage, Feinstein said, she and her ture that creates an enclosure and permits

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people to carry items or push strollers on the Sabbath — and every week, the eruv needs to be checked, Silver said.

But as national investigators continue inspecting the site, Silver isn’t sure how he and others will access restricted areas to note potential damages to the eruv.

“We’ll just have to find out who we need to speak with,” he said.

The bigger concern, Silver continued, is the small number of people who cover the $45,000 annual cost of keeping the eruv intact.

“There are about 55 people giving, and that’s not good,” Silver said.

“Everybody should be giving,” he continued. “As Jews, we support communal obligations. It’s an obligation.”

There’s something else that may be helpful to keep in mind, said Ava Velazquez, Linder’s 8-year-old daughter.

Last Friday morning, she was frightened when the man ran toward her mother’s car to tell them the bridge came down, she said.

“I didn’t know what was going on at first,” Ava said. “I kind of freaked out because he told us that the bridge collapsed, and I haven’t really been in a situation like that before.”

But time has offered some perspective, the third-grader continued.

People should know that “when anything hard happens, it’s gonna be OK. You just have to get through it,” she said. PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Opinion Federation stands with Israel in the face of antisemitic ‘criticism’ Guest Columnist Jeffrey Finkelstein

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n Feb. 1, Amnesty International released a report accusing Israel of “apartheid against Palestinians.” In a Times of Israel interview, the authors revealed that the first two countries evaluated as apartheid regimes were Myanmar and Israel.

Any nation, including Israel, is subject to criticism, but why would Amnesty International single out Israel for examination among all nations that have been accused of human rights abuses? Antisemitism is a likely answer.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism includes “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

Amnesty International’s biased report goes beyond the scope of criticism of Israel.

In response to this report, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh joined numerous organizations in signing Jewish Federations of North America’s letter to the secretary general of the United Nations.

Pointing to the constant anti-Israel criticism that the Amnesty International report represents, the letter urges the U.N. to end

its open-ended “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel [COI].” The U.N.’s Human Rights Council focuses 20% of its resolutions against Israel and maintains Israel as a permanent agenda item—exactly the form of antisemitism that falls under the IHRA definition.

The Jewish Federation stands with Israel unequivocally, so signing JFNA’s letter was a natural extension of the extensive work we do to support Israel. While criticism of Israel is not always antisemitic, antisemitism and Israel sadly remain inextricably linked. Our Israel work takes three primary forms, and each one touches on our work to combat antisemitism and to reinforce our unshakable bond with Israel: funding important needs, advocacy and education.

The Federation has funded support for the people of Israel since the early days before independence. This funding intensified as Federations played a critical role in saving Jews from the Holocaust by resettling them to Israel.

Federation funding helped resettle more than 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab and/or majority Muslim countries who fled for their lives after the U.N. approved the establishment of Israel, and those countries responded by attacking Jews within their borders.

Our rescue and resettlement efforts more recently included Israel’s absorption of more than a million former Soviet Jews as well as the immigration of Ethiopian Jewry. The

horrifying rise in antisemitism worldwide makes that resettlement still critical today, as Jewish Federation dollars save immigrants fleeing anti-Jewish terror or instability in nations as different as France, Ukraine and Yemen. Our peoplehood is inextricably bonded to Israel, and the nation is currently home to approximately half of the global Jewish population Federation’s Israel funding touches a variety of areas linked to antisemitism. Our longtime support for Israel’s Fund for Victims of Terror gives immediate support and psychological relief to civilians injured and families of civilians killed in antisemitic terror attacks as recent as the indiscriminate rockets fired in 2021 by Hamas. Jewish Federation also funds programs designed to reduce antisemitism by fostering shared society between Arabs and Jews in Israel, such as the successful Hand in Hand School that brings together Arab and Jewish students to study and to build connections.

Our education and advocacy programs connect young people to their Jewish identities, preparing them to live in a world with rising antisemitism. Among the demonstrated ways to make these connections, one of the strongest is by exposing people to their Jewish homeland and by building person-to-person connections between Pittsburghers and Israelis. Jewish Federation funds Birthright Israel for first-time Jewish visitors, Onward Israel for summer interns in Israel, and

Honeymoon Israel for interfaith couples who want to explore how they will incorporate Judaism into their homes. Jewish Federation contributes significant dollars to underwrite the Emma Kaufmann Camp’s Staff In Training trip to Israel, the Community Day School eighth-grade trip and every teen trip that might interest young people. Our Campus Ambassadors program trains college students to counter disinformation about Israel, which is often connected to antisemitic movements or people. Jewish Federation links the Jewish communities of Pittsburgh to Warsaw, Poland, and the Karmiel/Misgav region of Israel through Partnership2Gether. All of these programs link Israel, Judaism and identity in a way that relies on our support for Israel.

Just recently, the Federation relaunched our generous Israel scholarship program for teens to travel to Israel, announced our Momentum Israel trip for younger moms, and set the orientation date for our MEGA MISSION for hundreds of local members of our Jewish community in June.

While others may work to delegitimize the only Jewish country in world, we are leaning into our relationship. Our fundamental ties to the only Jewish country in the world and our continuing fight to save Jews from antisemitic violence both depend on it. And while others may only speak out in defense of Israel, we act. PJC Jeffrey Finkelstein is president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

‘Maus’ is not ‘Auschwitz for Beginners’ — and that’s why it needs to be taught Guest Columnist Andrew Silow-Carroll

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rt Spiegelman once complained that “Maus,” his classic memoir about his father’s experiences in the Holocaust, was assumed to be intended for young adults because it took the form of a comic book.

“I have since come to terms with the fact that comics are an incredible democratic medium,” he told an interviewer.

“Adults” seemed to agree: “Maus” won a Pulitzer Prize citation and an American Book Award and remains 36 years after its first appearance in hardcover one of the most searing accounts ever written of the Shoah and its impact on the children of survivors.

I remembered Spiegelman’s concern after a Tennessee school board voted last month to remove “Maus” from middle-school classrooms, citing its use of profanity, nudity and depictions of “killing kids.” The reaction to the ban from outside McMinn County was swift and angry. Booksellers offered to give copies away. A professor offered local students a free online course about the book. Sales soared. The fantasy writer and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman tweeted, “There’s only one kind of people who would vote to ban Maus, whatever they are calling

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

themselves these days.”

But the debate over “Maus” has in many ways done a disservice to Spiegelman and his epic project. Because to read some of the comments from defenders of the book, you’d think “Maus” is a challenging but ultimately tween-friendly introduction to the horrors of the Nazi years — a sort of Shoah textbook with mouse illustrations.

However, “Maus” is not, as Spiegelman once pointed out, “Auschwitz for Beginners.” It is not — or not just — a book about “man’s inhumanity to man,” the phrase that actor Whoopi Goldberg got in trouble for using to explain the Holocaust. It is infinitely wilder and woolier and more unsettling than that. It is about the complex relationship between a father who has experienced the worst a person can experience, and a son raised in relative middle-class comfort. It is about mental illness and how a mother’s suicide haunts the child who survives her. It is about guilt in many forms, and how it can be transmitted through generations.

I hadn’t looked at a copy of the book in years before the current controversy, yet I could still recount by memory its opening almost frame by frame. A 10- or 11-year-old Artie is playing with friends in his neighborhood in Queens, when they abandon him on the way to the playground. Artie comes home to find his father Vladek in their driveway and explains through tears that his friends had skated away without him.

“Friends? Your friends ...,” says Vladek. “If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week ... THEN you could see what it is, friends!”

With this little slice of childhood trauma, we are suddenly deep into the world of “Maus,” where, as the first chapter proclaims, Vladek Spiegelman “bleeds history.” Art Spiegelman does not deliver saintly characters oppressed by cartoon villains. His father, like his son, is deeply human and anguished, buffeted by his time in the camps and his wife’s suicide and consumed by his own ingrained if understandable prejudices.

At one point in the second volume, Vladek complains to Spiegelman and his wife about the “coloreds” who he says used to steal from their co-workers in the Garment District. It’s an unflattering version of his survivor father that Spiegelman could easily have left out of the book, but there is nothing easy about “Maus.”

This week a writer asked me to consider publishing his essay about “Maus,” in which he objects to the portrayal of Vladek’s miserliness, both Spiegelman’s “narcissism” and the book’s examples of “Jewish self-loathing.”

He’s not wrong, exactly. But the triumph and tragedy of “Maus” is its veracity – a commitment to the facts of Auschwitz matched by its honesty about the complexities and ambiguities of its victims and survivors. In an interview for the book “MetaMaus,” Spiegelman explains that his

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book “seems to have found itself useful to other people in my situation, meaning children of survivors. … The mere idea of a child of survivors resenting and resisting his parents was breaking a taboo that I hadn’t expected.”

I for one don’t see the harm in exposing children to books that may be beyond their years. And given the flood of content that comes the way of any child with a cell phone, laptop or television set, I find the idea of “protecting” kids from violent and sexual imagery in the name of education incredibly quaint.

But let’s not pretend that “Maus” is readymade for the teen market. “Maus” is “adult” not because of its depiction of corpses, its nudity and the acknowledgment that people have sex. It is adult in that it refuses to sugarcoat not just the horrors of the Holocaust, but the personalities of its victims.

It is not, in short, a book I’d give to a tween without hoping to discuss it, before and after — to help them understand not only what they might not understand, but to confront the things that none of us understands.

In short, it is a book that should be taught, and taught well. PJC Andrew Silow-Carroll is the editor in chief of The New York Jewish Week and senior editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, where this first appeared.

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Opinion How inclusive are we willing to be?

Guest Columnist Rabbi Amy Bardack

This op-ed was first published on eJewish Philanthropy.com. ast week, a 26-year-old Jewish educator named Jessie Sander filed a lawsuit against her former employer, a flagship Reform synagogue, claiming she was fired because of her anti-Zionist beliefs,

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in violation of New York State law.

While I cannot speak to the legal claim, I have been thinking about the value of inclusivity which many Jewish organizations espouse. Lately, one would be hard pressed to find a synagogue, JCC or federation whose mission statement does not include words like “welcoming, inclusive, everyone.”

Westchester Reform Temple itself, the synagogue that dismissed Sander, expresses on its website its intent to create a “warm and welcoming community.”

I believe our institutions are sincere in wanting to create a community where diverse

kinds of people feel included. Many of our communal organizations welcome with open arms a full spectrum of people with various racial or gender identities, sexual orientations, religious practices or beliefs. Many of these organizations proport but one acceptable form of ostracism, and that is toward those who express anti-Zionist viewpoints.

The number of Jews who think like Sander is not insignificant. A June 2021 poll by the Jewish Electoral Institute found that 34% of American Jews agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States,” 25% agreed that “Israel

is an apartheid state” and 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” The percentages are even higher when you isolate adults under age 30.

The above data should give us pause. Across our communal landscape, donor bases of legacy institutions are shrinking. Synagogue membership is dwindling. Is it wise to shun Jews like Sander, at a time when Jewish affiliation and literacy are at an all-time low?

To be sure, opposition to Israel can sometimes overlap with antisemitism. But the Please see Bardack, page 20

Anti-Zionism in Jewish institutions: The limits of ‘inclusivity’ Guest Columnists Lauren Baldel Julie Paris

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hould anti-Zionist Jews be employed at Jewish organizations that support Israel as one of their core values? That question was raised by Pittsburgh rabbi Amy Bardack in a recent op-ed published by ejewishphilanthropy [and reprinted above] titled “How inclusive are we willing to be?”

Bardack’s piece was written in response to a lawsuit filed by Jessie Sander, a Jewish educator who claims she was terminated by the Westchester, New York, synagogue where she was employed because of her anti-Zionist beliefs.

Bardack takes up Sander’s cause and suggests that Jewish legacy organizations should spend less time labeling anti-Zionist Jews as antisemitic and instead welcome them into “the tent” — even when those organizations hold support for Israel as a key tenet. We disagree.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (z”l) was clear, and we agree: Anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism. We are not simply talking about those who “wrestle with Israel,’’ nor those who speak with harsh criticism.

Rather, we refer to those who reject Israel’s right to exist and undermine its existence at every opportunity. Look no further than self-proclaimed anti-Zionist Jessie Sander to understand the anti-Zionist ideology. On her blog “Making Mensches,” she and co-author Elana Lipkin accuse Israel of genocide, reject the Zionist claim to the land of Israel, refer to Israel as an apartheid colonial state and refute the notion that Zionism is a core value of Judaism. Teaching otherwise, they warn, is outright dangerous. In their blog, they refuse to capitalize “Israel” in what we can only assume is a further attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist, and go so far as to wish “Zionists” an “antiZionist journey as transformative as ours.”

This is rhetoric we hear repeatedly from our adversaries, but we cannot accept this internalized antisemitism from those employed by our mainstream Jewish organizations.

One would be hard-pressed to find a federation, congregation or day school that does not reference Israel in its mission statement, hold support of Israel as a core value, and/or devote resources to cultivating a love of Israel in the community. They are doing what has been done for 2000 years: building a community where the heart and soul of the Jew turns toward our ancestral homeland, through prayer, study and tzedakah. Perhaps most importantly, these organizations Please see Baldel/Paris, page 20

Chronicle poll results: Bridge collapse

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ast week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “In light of last week’s bridge collapse, how concerned are you about the soundness of our area’s other bridges?” Of the 255 people who responded, 60% said they were “extremely” concerned and 32% said they were “somewhat” concerned. Just 8% of respondents said they were “not very”

or “not at all” concerned. Sixty-seven people submitted comments. A few follow.

transportation for this to become an even worse issue than it already is.

My biggest concern is those who inspected the bridges in past months/years, and how there may have been temporary fixes applied to much bigger issues — if they were not ignored altogether. There are too many bridges residents rely on for daily

I think this is a good time to visit the infrastructure in our area and find ways to incentivize alternatives to driving like public transit and biking.

— LETTERS — In protest of ‘modern-day gibberish’

Josh L. Sivitz is a man after my own heart: an individual who listens carefully to words! (“Resurrecting ‘Tucky’,” Feb. 4) He devotes a large portion of his essay to his incredulousness over the use of the word “so” to begin a sentence. He is on target, and he has only scratched the surface of modern-day gibberish.

There are so many ridiculous fillers in the speech of even the most erudite, educated individuals in this era.

What do we make of “I’m, like, ...” and my favorite foolish phrase of this era, “kind of ”? The declarative statement has died. Today, everything seems to be “kind of ” or “sort of.” A local meteorologist tells us that a weather front will “kind of ” come in, that it will be chilly enough that we will “kind of ” want to take a jacket with us. A local reporter tells us that he will step out of the camera shot so that we may “kind of ” see the action behind him.

A local news anchor referenced a religious figure as having been subjected to “beautification” rather than “beatification.”

I also prominently note the endangered species of the noun, which is so often missing in action. A meteorologist tells us that he will deliver his “seven-day,” people suffer with PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

as the “City of Bridges,” then the least our political leaders can do is make sure that we do not become notoriously known as the “Community of Falling Bridges.”

The concern grows greater when considering structural inspection: How thorough

If we are proud to be famously celebrated

Please see Poll, page 20

“Alzheimer’s,” and a recipe uses “marinara” and “provolone.” Phrases must be shortened — Sept. 11, 2001, has become “9/11.” I imagine that if the attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred in this era, it would be known as “12/7.”

Of course, there is the old favorite, “you know,” which continues to rage. Many individuals are unable to utter a sentence without it.

The English language is deteriorating in this age of, “If you know what the person meant to say, there is no reason for the individual to have stated it properly.” I must laugh lest I weep.

Oren Spiegler Peters Township

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Headlines Gainey: Continued from page 1

as we’re talking about a bipartisan infrastructure bill. We have more bridges than any other city in America. We’re built on mountains. We need these bridges if we’re going to be successful. I don’t have to sell it anymore.

I just have to say go see it for yourself. It’s the funding we need to make sure that we can do what’s necessary to repair our bridges.

What are your other priorities for your first year?

We’re going to become a more welcoming city because we will plant a seed of change.

What does that mean? One, it’s about putting the right people in the right positions to be able to succeed and bring change by having a diverse workforce. The second is we have to really talk about how we celebrate each other’s culture. I think culture has always been the bedrock of America, and we have so many diverse cultures that we could celebrate.

We need to invest in our public works. To come into this job and see they haven’t had any investment — we’re down manpower, personnel power … Your No. 1 responsibility when you come in here is really talking about how you fund public works in a way that they can get the job done. Now, does that mean we can ever win the war on snow?

Every year we talk about snow. We live on a mountain. But there are things that we can do to ensure that we have the equipment necessary for our personnel to do the job.

That’s what we’re focused on.

Former Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto had good relationships with the Pittsburgh Jewish community and worked to ensure its safety. What will you do continue this priority?

Coming in, I wanted to make that a priority.

Because I’ve talked about making sure that we have relationships throughout the city, building on those relationships so that you’re connecting cultures together. I met with the JCC. I met with the Jewish Federation. I went out there and I started meeting with them early so that I can have this conversation, because you and I know one of the main things is safety, and how we feel safe.

People have heard me say that I want to make this city the safest city in America. We have to make safety a priority or investment doesn’t come here. So, when I reached out to the JCC, the Jewish Federation, that was the seed to say, ‘Hey, listen, I’m with you, whatever I can do to help, I’m here.’ I want to help. I understand the safer we are, the more investment we get, the more investment we get, the more jobs we get. The more jobs we get, the more families we have, the more families we have, the more entertainment we have. We’ll have money to spend on the local economy. It’s all connected.

As we talk about putting a public health plan together, I wanted to hear from the Jewish community. My mother was one of

the medical examiners that went into the Tree of Life. To this day, she talks about how traumatic it was. We have to understand a public health plan is how you build the backbone of a new economy that helps heal one another.

to show people why love can conquer hate. It gives us the opportunity to say our light can shine in darkness. It gives us the opportunity to say we’re not going anywhere. We’ll fight to find peace, even in the midst of a storm.

How do you balance that with your priority to demilitarize the police force? I know that some minority communities are concerned about overpolicing, but in a situation like that at the Tree of Life building, some of the police resources you’re talking about were used to save lives.

What can you do as mayor of Pittsburgh to improve the state of our public schools?

That’s a question that I think everybody is grappling with right now. How do we do that?

We want police to do their job because that’s how they protect lives. We understand that.

But during peaceful protests, during other issues, we don’t need military-style garments.

We also have to demonstrate that we’re trying to build throughout neighborhoods a level of connectivity that says, ‘Hey, listen, we’re here to serve you. We’re here to make sure you’re safe. We’re here to protect you.’

That’s why you hear me talking about more police walking the beat because that’s critical. The more we build relationships in every community, then there’s that sense of, ‘I know this officer, I know this community leader,’ whether their community leader by title or and indigenous leader, like a grandma on the block. I think that’s critical, particularly if you’re talking about building trust that has eroded in several communities, low-income communities.

Second, we’re talking about overpolicing in neighborhoods because overpolicing never stops crime. Never stops murder, never stops violence. When we talk about overpolicing as a strategy, no, I don’t want overpolicing in certain Black and brown neighborhoods because it hasn’t been successful.

And then thirdly, let’s go back to dignity.

We don’t want the police not to do their job.

They were phenomenal with the Tree of Life, and they deserve every credit that they get.

We want that throughout the city. That is what we’re working towards.

There’s been a rise in antisemitism, locally and nationally. What’s your understanding of why this is taking place and what role can the city play in stemming hate?

That’s an excellent question. We’ve seen what happened in Florida, we’ve seen what happened in Texas. I don’t have an answer to why people hate people because of their religion or the color of their skin. I don’t have that answer. What I do know is that we have to fight. We don’t know where it will rear its ugly head. What I do know is that we have to come together. I wish we didn’t have hate in society. But we do. We had hate before us, it will be here afterwards.

What I’ve come to realize is that in the midst of hate and these tragic events that have happened throughout the course of history — and it’s happening today — is it gives us a chance to express our love. It gives us a chance

I think there’s a couple of things that I can do.

I have to have a relationship with the superintendent. I don’t need the city nor our children to see us divided, pointing fingers at one another, because that doesn’t grow anything.

What our children need to see is us working together to solve some of these issues that are plaguing society. I think a lot of times we tend to blame our children for this violence as if they started the culture of violence. They’re too young to have created it. So that means the culture of violence had to be created amongst people our age and inherited by our children.

We have to work together to understand, as adults, how we play a part, such as fighting over masks, bringing guns to school — it gets to the point that as adults, it gets violent. I’m going to work with the school superintendent.

We’re going to partner together.

It starts with letting the kids know that they’re valuable. Let’s begin to talk about a long-term strategy of what we can do in two areas. One, in the midst of a pandemic, we don’t know that another variant won’t come and the effects that has on our children being in an isolated situation. We need a plan from a city and school district. Two, we need to figure out how to create more inclusive environments where kids can succeed. The biggest part is our kids didn’t create violence.

You have to learn that. We inherited what our generation created. You go on the news, you see a Nazi in Texas, violence in Texas, voters’ rights, these issues have an impact on society.

The bigger issue … is how do we interface and talk with each other. Do we spur hate or love on the internet? Do you wake up with positive or negative energy? What relationships did you build? When you saw a child on the street, did you say good morning? We want the big picture, understanding pyramids are built one layer at a time, not overnight.

I know that your agenda is looking to shore up resources for underserved communities.

Do you have any proposals in mind to help improve mental health resources in those communities?

One of the issues we market a lot in America is violence — domestic violence, gun violence. It all ends with the word violence.

In other countries you hear peace — peace in the streets, peace resolution, peace treaty and peace solution. I want a plan to focus on peace. How do we break down barriers of institutional racism and poverty, education, housing and equity? Those are the building blocks. It’s not going to happen overnight.

We need to invest more in public health.

Public health is the reason why people get healthy, not public safety. Public safety is there to protect and serve. If we’re really

p Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey Photo courtesy of Ed Gainey

going to do something, we need to deal with the pandemic called violence, in a way that treats it on the historical context of how we got here. That’s critical because it helps us understand culture, it helps us understand society and it helps our kids have more tolerance, love and respect for one another.

Both Bill Peduto and Rep. Dan Frankel proposed gun control bills. Did you agree with that? Where do you stand on gun control in the city?

I introduced a bill to ban all assault weapons in the House. I introduced some other gun bills and supported others. I think that the city should be able to preempt state law and come up with our own laws, because I’ve been fighting in this gun battle for decades.

I was telling people then that there are too many guns on the street, and now the number of guns has tripled. More of our young people are getting guns.

The Second Amendment, to many, has become a religion. When I was at the state for Gun Advocacy Day, they had a big sign that said, “Guns, God and Glory.” That has nothing to do with the Constitution. That should be concerning to everyone because if that’s the thought process, where do we begin to talk to your children? They should not have guns. We say our biggest asset is our children but yet it’s OK for them to have guns? Even though guns are illegal they still get in kids’ hands. It’s causing death. I lost my sister to gun violence. I understand it quite well. The drug culture is also a major issue. There are overdoses every single day.

One of the things that I asked law enforcement was if we were winning the war on drugs. They use billions of dollars to fight this war on drugs. We still have drugs — fentanyl, crack. America has been getting high since the beginning of time; she’ll be high till the end. As long as the investment is on incarceration and things of that sort, we will never have enough funding for rehabilitation, recovery and education. We must change the paradigm if we’re going to do something with guns and drugs. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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Headlines Pittsburgh Federation signs letter to U.N. condemning anti-Israel report

T

he Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has signed a letter in response to the recent Amnesty International report accusing Israel of apartheid. The letter, written by the Jewish Federations of North America, calls upon the U.N. secretary general to make a clear statement that it is unacceptable for U.N. institutions to use their global platform to unfairly target Israel and that the Amnesty report should not be used by the U.N. or its bodies.

As of Feb. 3, almost 200 Jewish organizations around the country had signed the letter.

The letter states, in part: “The Amnesty

report traffics in false claims against the sole Jewish state, distorts international law, questions the very existence of Israel, and ignores the violence and terrorist assaults on Israeli civilians — Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. We are very concerned that this report will be positioned to influence the COI [United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory] and lead to a review by the International Criminal Court of a democratic country in which multiple faith communities live under the rule of law, participate in civic life, contribute to the economy, and serve in the highest levels

of government. Amnesty calling for the UN Security Council to impose a military embargo on Israel sends a clear message to this effect.” “[I]f the UN and its organizations allow irresponsible and biased investigations such as the COI to proceed, they seed a platform for harmful reports such as the one by Amnesty, create a narrative used too often for antisemitic attacks, and undermine important steps toward peace such as those embodied by the Abraham Accords,” the letter continued.

“We call on you to use the moral authority of your high office to make a clear statement

that it is unacceptable for UN institutions, including the Human Rights Council, to use their global platform to unfairly target Israel.

Such inexcusable targeting undermines peace in the Middle East and contributes to a narrative that can foment antisemitic bias.

In that spirit, we ask you to urge the Human Rights Council to terminate the Commission of Inquiry and make clear that the Amnesty report should not be used by the UN or its bodies to further unfairly attack Israel.”

The full text of the letter can be found at jotform.com/220324936989973. PJC

Zacks:

dedication and passion for advocating and supporting people with disabilities and their families,” said Nancy Murray, senior vice president of Achieva and president of The Arc of Greater Pittsburgh.

Murray said that Achieva, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary, was founded by families of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. The organization provides “lifelong services,” beginning with early intervention services for infants and toddlers, as well as “advocacy and family support,” she said.

Murray isn’t surprised by the amount of time and energy Zacks gives to others.

“That’s just the way Jillian is wired,” she said.

Some of the most passionate volunteers are those who have children with disabilities, Murray added.

“You quickly become aware that there are other families out there that might not have the time or ability to speak up,” she said. “If you do, then you have to do it for others.

That’s the kind of person Jillian is. She would not have been content to just advocate for her children.”

One of the award’s namesakes, Bob

Whitehill, said its genesis can be traced to Leviticus 19:14: “You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind.”

The award, Whitehill explained, was created in 1996 when he and Barbara Shore chaired a special needs task force for the Pittsburgh’s Federation. The pair recognized a disconnect in the Jewish community between the needs of those with disabilities and the services offered.

Zacks received the award on Jan. 16 — two weeks before the start of February, which is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month — in a video ceremony because of COVID-19. He hopes to present next year’s award in-person again.

Jewish Residential Services Executive Director Nancy Gale said Zack’s double nomination speaks to the reach of her work.

“She’s so well known, not just in the Jewish community, but in the larger disability support and advocacy community,” Gale said. “I think that’s just wonderful.”

The Shore-Whitehill Award is endowed through a fund in the Jewish Community Foundation, Lily Wein, the Federation’s human resources manager said.

“It’s a great example of ways that

community members have used Foundation endowments to continue their legacy to improve Jewish communities and the greater Pittsburgh community,” Wein said. “We are honored to be able to partner and celebrate champions of inclusion in our community.”

Friendship Circle Executive Director Rabbi Mordy Rudolph said the ShoreWhitehall Award is a fitting honor for former board member Zacks.

“She’s a wonderful, thoughtful and caring parent and professional,” Rudolph said.

“We were so fortunate to have her commitment for several years and are truly grateful for her service.”

Zacks isn’t planning to rest on her laurels now that the community has recognized her work.

“I’m going to continue doing what I do, which is provide information in all the forums I can, continue to be an advocate, write articles and make sure individuals have information on what’s moving forward,” she said. “All of that will continue into the future.” PJC

to cook each week, there are fewer leftovers — which has its pluses and minuses, Siebzener said.

Judah Cowen, owner of Elegant Edge Catering, said the pandemic has forced his company to pivot from large-scale catering to takeout, then back to catering, all while managing economics and community interests.

When the pandemic began in March 2020, Elegant Edge started offering takeout for Shabbat. The meals were often themed and the menu changed weekly.

“It was very heartwarming to see people support the business — and it kept us very strong knowing that we had what to provide — despite the fact that all of our events had been canceled,” Cowen said.

But as the pandemic continued, and staffing issues affected Elegant Edge, Cowen was forced to adjust.

“The thing that was supporting the business the least had to go,” he said.

Cowen said he still receives calls from customers asking for takeout.

“If I had unlimited staffing, I would probably continue it, but I have to prioritize what’s best,” he said, noting he’s had a greater demand for event catering and food on college campuses.

Takeout is priced à la carte, Cowen said, and to keep the prices reasonable “you have to have a high volume.”

Although Elegant Edge no longer offers takeout, Cowen isn’t averse to bringing it back.

“We’ll try to offer it when we can, on a pop-up basis, and if we see there is a big demand we will possibly look into a more permanent option,” he said.

There are approximately 49,200 Jewish adults and children, comprising an estimated 26,800 households, in Pittsburgh, according to the 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study. About 15% of Pittsburgh’s Jewish adults keep a kosher home.

For comparison, Miami — which boasts more than 100 kosher restaurants and seven kosher takeout places, according to Kosher

Miami — has approximately 123,200 Jewish people and 55,700 Jewish households, with approximately 20% of households keeping a kosher home, according to the 2014 Greater Miami Jewish Federation Population Study.

Both Pittsburgh and Miami’s Jewish population totals pale in comparison to New York, and its eight counties served by the UJA-Federation of New York, which have more Jews than the Jewish populations of the metropolitan areas of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. combined.

Approximately 1,538,000 Jews live in 694,000 Jewish households, with approximately 18% of non-Orthodox and 93% of Orthodox people keeping a kosher home, according to the 2011 New York Jewish Community Study.

Cowen knows some Pittsburghers want more kosher takeout options, “but it’s not like we’re sitting in New York City or Miami,” he said. PJC

Continued from page 5

organization through necessary changes to ensure staff members were safe and clients were served, Jordan Golin, JFCS’ president and CEO said.

“She’s pretty incredible,” Golin said of Zacks, noting the effort Zacks put into her volunteerism, her work as an attorney and as a mother.

“I have absolutely no idea how she is able to squeeze all of her activities into a day,” he said. “I honestly don’t. And despite it all, she has an incredibly positive attitude and a lot of creative ideas. She’s a real collaborator. She works really well with partners of all kinds and just gets along with everybody.”

Zacks’ nomination by both JFCS and Achieva is the first time in the award’s history that two organizations nominated the same candidate. Both nonprofits nominated her without knowing the other had already done so.

“I think it highlights the fact that two pretty large, well-known, well-established organizations realized her commitment,

Takeout: Continued from page 8

factor he and Deena Ross, of Deena’s Dishes, have had to manage.

“We’ve had to reinvent ourselves,” he said.

“We’ve had to be more online and have had to sell to the community on a different scale.”

Prior to the pandemic, Siebzener and Ross operated Shabbox, a Squirrel Hill-based store stocked with Shabbat-ready takeout food.

Staffing the store became difficult, though, and Siebzener and Ross closed the operation.

Siebzener said they’d consider opening Shabbox again under the right circumstances, but that their business has changed so much since March 2020.

“We really make to order,” he said. “We don’t want to end up with leftovers.”

When Shabbox was open, anything that didn’t sell ended up as Siebzener and Ross’ Shabbat meals. Now that the store is closed, and the duo has a better idea of exactly what PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

— Toby Tabachnick

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

15

Life & Culture Filling and flavorful red lentil soup country has a different name for it, but I call it Ades soup.

I’ve is also seen it labeled as Esav’s (Esau’s) soup because Esav in the Torah traded his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. It must have been a really good recipe!

Ades (red lentil) soup Serves 4 • Ingredients: 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 7 cloves garlic, peeled and minced 3 large carrots, sliced 2 large celery stalks, chopped 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced 1 32-ounce container  Ingredients for red lentil soup Photo by Jessica Grann (4 cups) of store-bought vegetable broth 1 cup red lentils — FOOD — 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste 1 teaspoon cumin, or more to taste

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle ½ teaspoon cayenne or Aleppo pepper ’ve been incorporating more vege- 2 lemons tarian dishes into our meal rotation. Parsley for garnish

I

This simple red lentil soup has a bright, lemony flavor and is also filling.

Red lentil soup is a common meal in Eastern Mediterranean countries. Every

Note: I often add ingredients to the pot one at a time when making recipes like soup; it saves time to chop the next vegetable I’m

adding into the mix while I’m watching the pot.

Peel and chop the onion.

Heat the stove to medium, and let the pot warm up for a minute before adding the olive oil. I suggest using a medium-sized burner — avoid using a “power burner” because the ingredients are delicate and can scorch easily.

Heat the oil for 1 minute, then add in the onions and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add the chopped celery.

While the onions and celery are cooking, peel and chop the carrots and potatoes, then add them immediately to the pot with 4 of the cloves of garlic.

Cook for another 5 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften.

Stir in the lentils and vegetable broth, then lower the heat and simmer covered for about 30 minutes.

Remove the lid and add the remaining minced garlic, bay leaves and 1 lemon, rinsed and halved with the rind still on. (I know it sounds unusual to cook a lemon, rind and all, but this infuses a lemony depth of flavor into the soup.)

Continue to simmer uncovered for another 10-15 minutes.

Juice half of the remaining lemon; slice the other half into wedges for later use.

Turn off the burner, remove the bay leaves and stir in the remaining lemon juice.

Add in the salt, red pepper of your

choice and the cumin.

Purée the soup to your preferred consistency. I like a smooth texture, so I run an immersion blender through the hot soup until it’s about half-puréed. (You could also remove half the soup and run it through a regular blender, but it creates more to clean up than an immersion blender. I rarely recommend kitchen tools, but an immersion blender is a must.) If you want a really smooth soup, purée it all.

Once the soup is blended, put the pot back onto the burner over medium-low heat. Cook for about 5 more minutes so the spices blend in well.

Remove from heat and serve immediately.

I like to garnish with fresh lemon wedges and chopped parsley to add a little color to the bowl. This soup can be cooked ahead of time and warmed easily over low heat, and the recipe can be easily doubled for a larger crowd. It also freezes well.

Vegetable-based soups can sometimes taste a little weak. My best tip to remedy this is to drizzle a little more olive oil into the pot — or even a splash of olive oil right across the top of the soup bowl.

I love to serve this recipe with a fresh baguette and plenty of good quality butter.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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Life & Culture

Richard E. Rauh

‘Breaking Bread’: A cholent of identity and culture — FILM —

By David Rullo | Staff Writer

B

eth Elise Hawk’s new documentary “Breaking Bread” takes an intimate look at the A-Sham Food Festival in Haifa, Israel.

The festival, launched in 2015 by microbiologist Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, the first Muslim to win the Israeli cooking competition MasterChef, pairs Jewish and Arab chefs. Atamna-Ismaeel said the festival aimed to move beyond the conflicts of the region because there is no room for politics in the kitchen.

Hawk opens the film with AtamnaIsmaeel describing her identity.

“I am a Muslim. I am an Arab. I am an Israeli. I am a Palestinian. I am a woman.

I am a scientist. I am the first Arab to win Israel MasterChef. It caused a lot of happiness in society,” she says.

Filmed during the 2017 and 2018 festivals, Hawk spotlights several chefs, highlighting their backgrounds and differences, while showing the synergy food can create.

Haifa chef Shlomi, who operates the restaurant started by his grandfather after the family patriarch came to Israel at the end of World War II, is paired with ArabIsraeli chef Ali. Ali’s family immigrated to Israel from Syria and lives in Ghajar Village, on the border between Lebanon and Israel.

The Arab chef is quick to note that, despite his Syrian roots, he views himself as Israeli.

“I am part of the nation,” he says, after pointing out that the Israeli military protects his village.

Ali’s food honors his Syrian roots; Shlomi’s that of his Eastern European grandfather.

Despite the differences in backgrounds, food, it appears, is a common denominator.

“I’m going to work with Ali Khattib on the dish for the festival,” Shlomi says. “It’s not my style of cooking at all, but that’s what’s nice — it’s my mother’s style because her roots are Egyptian.”

The film succeeds as an exploration of identity. Each chef discusses how they see themself and what they bring to their dishes from their background and heritage.

Each chef also acknowledges that despite their various backgrounds — Jewish, Syrian, half Christian/half Jewish, Arab, Moroccan — they are all Israeli.

“In our neighborhood,” Jaffa-based chef Salah says, “we spoke Arabic. We laughed in Hebrew. We cursed in Romanian. We got upset in Moroccan. And it was all ‘sababa’ (OK).”

Removed from the constraints of the conflicts that might have weighed heavier if the festival were held in another city, Haifa is presented as touched by its past and influenced by its ethnicities but, most importantly, as a foodie’s paradise — eclectic and cosmopolitan.

Despite making occasional references to the conflicts that have scarred the country and region, the documentary mostly achieves Atamna-Ismaeel’s goal of a politics-free festival.

Instead of discussing the tensions that exist in the country, the film highlights the inclusive nature of Israel — Osama, a chef from Akko talks of the synagogue, two churches and two mosques in his neighborhood. Former Haifa mayor Yona Yahav points to the peace in the city between Jews and Arabs which celebrates Ramadan, Christmas and Chanukah.

The film doesn’t take a deep dive into the various conflicts that exist between cultures, instead celebrating the food and eateries of those cultures.

Ingredients are presented in raw and prepared states, and the chefs profiled are shown cooking in their restaurants. Chickpeas and fish markets share the screen with outdoor cafes and high-end restaurants.

While “Breaking Bread” advances Atamna-Ismaeel’s mission, it doesn’t take a deep dive into the festival, nor does it present a completely inclusive point of view, as most of those featured in the film are male chefs.

Hawk’s documentary opens with a quote from Anthony Bourdain: “Food might not be the answer to world peace … but it’s a start.”

The same might be said for documentaries about food.

“Breaking Bread,” was previously screened as part of the 2021 JFilm Festival. It will open for a run Feb. 18 at the Manor Theatre in Squirrel Hill. PJC

JCC Sr. High Musical

Katz Performing Arts Center 5738 Darlington Road in Squirrel Hill

Purchase tickets at the QR Code below!

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Thursday February 17 • 7 pm Saturday February 19 • 7:30 pm Sunday February 20 • 2 pm Wednesday February 23 • 7 pm Thursday February 24 • 7 pm Saturday February 26 • 7:30 pm

Masks & Vaccination ages 5+ required Doors open 30 minutes before the show For more information: Chris Herman, cherman@jccpgh.org

 Chef Nof Atamna-Ismaee

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Reserved: $12 General Admission/Adults: $10 Seniors (65+)/Students: $8 Photo courtesy of Cohen Media Group

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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Celebrations

Torah

Birth

The counterfactuals of Torah Michael and Katie Kilmer of Erie, formerly of Pittsburgh, are very excited to announce the birth of their second daughter, Aria Lynn Kilmer, born July 29, 2021. She joins her very happy sister Mina. Aria is the granddaughter of Marsha and Randy Boswell of Churchill. Aria’s paternal great-grandparents were Daniel and Gloria Miner, formerly of Squirrel Hill.

Engagement Lois and Alan Kopolow and Debra and Doug Whitman are happy to announce the engagement of their children, Adam Jacob Kopolow and Hannah Beth Whitman. Adam and Hannah live in Regent Square. Adam works in logistics and Hannah is a psychotherapist.

Adam is the grandson of Muriel Friedman and the late Max Friedman, and the late Marge and Oscar Kopolow. Hannah is the granddaughter of Dr. Robert and the late Frommie Whitman, and Shirley and Francis Urbassik.

An October 2022 wedding is planned.

Wedding Rachel J. Krasnow and Jeffrey and Debra Krasnow are so pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter, Melissa Beth Krasnow to Corey Nicholas Cochran.

Corey is the son of Luanne and Donald Cochran of La Plata, Maryland. Melissa is the granddaughter of Jocelyn (Big Zuzi) Lehman and the late Nettie and Edwin Krasnow. Corey is the grandson of the late Rose and Gail Cochran and Dorothy and Louis Buchanan. Surrounded by family and friends, the wedding took place Oct. 2, 2021, in the bride and groom’s Squirrel Hill backyard. PJC

Share your bat mitzvah memories

W

hat are the most cherished memories of your bat mitzvah?

Next month marks the centennial anniversary of the first bat mitzvah in the United States.

On March 18, 1922, Judith Kaplan, the daughter of American rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, celebrated her bat mitzvah at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York City.

Local congregations will be marking the occasion with events the weekend of March 18

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

18-20, including a community program hosted by Congregation Dor Hadash in collaboration with other organizations.

The Chronicle invites its readers to send bat mitzvah memories (100-300 words) along with photos (then and now) for publication in its March 18 print issue and online.

Send memories and photos to newsdesk@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org, and write “bat mitzvah’ in the subject line. PJC — Toby Tabachnick

Rabbi Daniel Yolkut Parshat Tetzave | Exodus 27:20 - 30:10

W

hat would have happened if JFK survived that fateful Friday in Dallas? Or if the South won at Gettysburg? These questions have inspired film and literature, exploring the fascinating territory of “the what-ifs of history.” At the same time, there is a healthy debate among contemporary historians arguing whether alternate history is merely an entertaining distraction or a valuable tool to better appreciate that the paths of history are, in fact, far from inevitable. Indeed, there is actually a rich tradition of considering counterfactuals that can be demonstrated in the works of a number of ancient Roman historians (including Plutarch and Livy) who wrote about the counterfactuals of Alexander the Great having lived to confront Rome!

It has become increasingly clear to me that considering counterfactuals is a significant, if unrecognized, tool in classical Jewish thought. A familiar passage in the Pesach Haggadah, “had God not taken us out of Egypt, we our children and our grandchildren would still be enslaved to Pharoah in Egypt,” is nothing short of an open invitation to explore what that path not taken might look like, and other sources contemplate the implications of scenarios in which Moshe would have led the Jews into Israel, King Hezekiah had become the Messiah or if Esau had received a different education that changed his life’s trajectory.

One of the most elaborate counterfactual Torah scenarios involves the Mishkan, the temporary sanctuary that accompanied our ancestors in the wilderness and is the major focus of the second half of Shemot. While the Torah presents the command to create the Mishkan prior to its description of the story of the Golden Calf, in a number of places (Shemot 30:16, 29:1 and Devarim 10:8) Rashi insists that this presentation is

not sequential, and that in fact, the Mishkan was commanded as a reaction to the Golden Calf. An even more dramatic presentation of this idea is developed by Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno (c.1475-1550) in the Kavvanot HaTorah, the introduction to his commentary on the Torah, where he suggests that the shadow remains of a pre-Golden Calf system of divine worship can be discerned in Exodus 19 and 24. In those sections, the implications are of a much simpler form of worship, where an earthen altar suffices rather than an elaborate sanctuary, where sacrifices are all based on optional pledges rather than formal obligations, and where there is no formal priestly caste clad in magnificent vestments: an alternate history of how Jews would connect to God. In other words, while a path not taken of divine service existed, the Jews needed a highly disciplined, aesthetic and structured system to compensate for the unaddressed spiritual needs that exploded in the Golden Calf episode.

While counterfactuals contribute to a richer appreciation of history and the turns that it makes, from a religious perspective there is an even greater lesson to be learned from this mode of thinking. Maimonides (Hilchot Teshuva ch.5-6) makes a very strong case about the centrality of free will in Judaism. Without the basic assumption that we have agency in the choices we make in life, the very notion of accountability and responsibility lack all significance, and the whole idea of teshuva — that we have the ability of repent from our sins — is rendered nonsensical. The counterfactuals of Torah reveal how significant the stakes of our decisions are: that God has left momentous choices in our hands whose ramifications may impact not just ourselves, but the course of history itself. PJC Rabbi Daniel Yolkut is the rabbi of Congregation Poale Zedeck. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle poetry contest

O

ur readers are invited to submit poems to the Chronicle’s poetry contest. Winning entries will be published in our March 18 issue, just one month before Passover. The theme is “freedom.”

Three winners will each receive a $54 gift card to Pinsker’s Books and Judaica, supplied by an anonymous donor. All submissions must be received no later than March 4.

Guidelines:

Poems must be submitted to newsdesk@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Please type “Poetry Contest” in the subject line. The poem must be in a Microsoft Word file. No pdfs or handwritten entries will be accepted.

• One submission per author • Must include the author’s name, address, phone number and email address • Poem should reflect the theme of freedom • Unpublished poems only PJC — Toby Tabachnick

www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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Obituaries KRAMER: Elliott B. Kramer, peacefully, on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022, age 96. Beloved husband for 30 years of Bobbee Slotsky Kramer, and the late Marilyn Kramer. Father of Kathy (Alan) Pattak of Pittsburgh, Robin (Michael) Boles of Scotland, Michael Slotsky of Pittsburgh, Marcie (Hank) Katzen of Orlando, Florida, and Caryn Slotsky and her husband, Thad Zeitler of Newton, Massachusetts. Brother of the late Byron Kramer. Brother-in-law of Edie Kramer. Grandfather of Cory, Barrie (Alex), Blair, Malcolm, Max (Elana), and Mason.

Great-grandfather of Arthur and Teddy. Also survived by nieces, nephews, many friends, and treasured companion Joe Blume. Elliott was a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps stationed at Foggia, Italy, during World War II. He was awarded the Air Medal for his 35 combat missions over Europe as a Flying Fortress Ball Turret Gunner. His service during the war was probably his proudest accomplishment. His greatest pleasure was playing golf with his buddies at Westmoreland Country Club and traveling with Bobbee throughout Europe and the United States. He always said that he was blessed twice with two wonderful wives. He especially loved having great-grandchildren and seeing them on WhatsApp. He

Cope: Continued from page 3

before beginning his career with the Daily Times in Erie. Following a job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he became a

was a past president of Hebrew Free Loan and was honored as one of the Eight Over 80 by the JAA. He was a loving, sweet, unassuming man and will be deeply missed by all who loved him. Graveside services and interment were held at West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Contributions may be made to Family House, 5001 Baum Boulevard, Suite 545, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 or Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, 3459 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

decades. One of her embroidered Torah covers adorns the pulpit in the sanctuary. She proudly volunteered as a docent with the Carnegie Museum of Art for over 30 years and enjoyed giving tours to school children. Millie was an expert knitter, needlepointer and flower arranger. She was a kind person and good friend. She and Artie loved traveling the world with family and friends. Millie is survived by her daughters, three granddaughters, Caryn Reese, Amy Davidoff, and Ariel Magid, and two great-grandsons, Benji and Blake Davidoff.

Private graveside services and interment.

Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

ROGOW: Millie Rogow, nearly 100 years old, of Pittsburgh and California, died on Feb. 2, in San Luis Obispo, California. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1922 and raised in Washington D.C. She attended George Washington University and married the late Arthur Rogow of Pittsburgh in February 1946. They were married for 62 years and had two daughters, Barbara Mendlowitz and Sally Rogow. Millie ably chaired Rodef Shalom’s Pulpit Decorations Committee for

SINGER: Carol Ellen Singer passed away on Feb. 5, 2022, at the age of 60, due to interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, which she fought mightily to the end. She was the beloved daughter of Barbara Felser Singer and the late Sidney Singer; beloved sister of Susan Singer, Linda Singer, Debra Pickholtz (Jeffrey), Nancy Axler (Marc) and the late

freelancer for publications including Sports Illustrated and the Saturday Evening Post, but it was his work with WTAE and the Steelers that got the most attention.

“He would be very touched by all this,” his daughter said.

Learning about Cope’s legacy is important for fans and younger students, as at each stage of his career — first in print, then in radio and television — he used journalism and the specificity of language as bridgebuilding tools, Ankney said.

Mark Singer; and cherished aunt of Emily Pickholtz, Joseph Axler and Stephanie Axler.

Carol was raised and spent most of her life in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, graduating from Gateway Senior High School and Lake Erie College in Geneva, Ohio. Carol worked at UPMC Western Behavioral Health at McKeesport prior to her illness, and she devotedly advocated for those suffering from mental health and drug-related issues. She also had a passion for helping homeless veterans. The strength Carol showed in overcoming life struggles was an inspiration to all who knew her. Carol had a big heart and deeply cared for her family and numerous friends in Pennsylvania and Ohio. She loved playing cards, crafting, and rooting for her Pittsburgh sports teams. Services were at Temple David, 4415 Northern Pike, Monroeville on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the UPMC Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease, 3459 Fifth Avenue, NW 628, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 or Temple David, 4415 Northern Pike, Monroeville, PA 15146.

Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC “He brought together diverse communities,” Ankney continued. “His legacy is immeasurable.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Habits are Destiny

by James Lange, CPA and Attorney

The habits that we create and stick with as well as the behaviors that don’t become part of our regular routines all influence the broad trajectory of our lives.

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I think most people understand the interplay between habits, behavior, and outcomes. We know, for instance, that when we want to lose weight, de-stress, sleep better, or be more productive, changing our habits is essential. But it’s one thing to understand which bad habits we want to break and which good habits we want to incorporate and another thing to successfully create and sustain those desired behavioral changes—there can be a painful gap between what we want and what we actually do.

How “Autopilot” Helps with Sustaining Habits You Want to Embrace As many of you know, I’ve spent the last few decades trying to develop and maintain habits that improve my overall health and fitness...with varying degrees of success.

On the one hand, I have successfully cut sugar, dairy, and gluten from my diet. On the other hand, maintaining a consistent weight (like so many of us) eludes me. In no small part because I’ve struggled to break my snacking habit. If only my gluten, dairy, and sugar free “ice cream” could be calorie free too!

“ The easier a behavior is to do, the more likely the

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Why is it that some habits are easier to maintain than others? Is there some factor working to stack the deck in favor of my success when it comes to “kicking” my sugar/gluten/dairy habit that isn’t in play when it comes to limiting snacks? Absolutely!

When my wife, Cindy, and I set out to transform our diets, the first thing we did was to hire Lauri Lang (no relation), a nutritionist who is available to provide advice to additional clients (https://LauriLang.com). Lauri, in concert with our functional medicine doctor, developed individualized dietary plans for me, Cindy, and our daughter, Erica. Lauri and her assistant prepare most of our meals (sorry, neither are available for more shopping or cooking).

All we must do to eat a good, healthy meal that meets all of our dietary restrictions is open the fridge. I recognize how helpful it is for me to have this aspect of eating on autopilot. We don’t need to expend extra energy—physical or mental—to maintain our good habits.

In fact, I’ve been proselytizing about the benefits of putting any number of tasks on autopilot for so long. When I was struggling to maintain a weekly workout regimen, I hired an in-home personal trainer.

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Looking back, I can see that building in an autopilot function helps me cement the behavioral changes I want to encourage. And vice-versa.

Habits I have broken also seem to have a common feature—they required extra energy that was difficult for me to find or harness.

Research Seems to Support the Autopilot Function A substantial body of behavioral science research indicates that, new behaviors that strain time, money, physical capacity, or mental energy, or that do not fit into a person’s pre-existing routine without requiring many adjustments, are far

less likely to successfully become habits.

B.J. Fogg, a Stanford behavioral scientist, in his book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything, identifies each of these factors (time, money, physical effort, mental effort, and routine) as a link in the “Ability Chain.” And the chain “is only as strong as its weakest link.”

In my case, by reducing the amount of energy I need to expend to feed myself healthfully, I strengthened the ability chain for my dietary regimen and increased the likelihood that my efforts would succeed over the long-term.

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

19

Headlines Bardack: Continued from page 13

profile of anti-Zionist Jews is not uniform, and some participate actively in Jewish life.

They can be found devoting significant hours to Talmud study (at yeshivot like SVARA), to social justice learning (at organizations like Repair the World), and to training for the rabbinate (at several seminaries). They can also be found in some Haredi communities. Jessie Sander appears to be passionate about Judaism. She is pursuing a master’s degree in Jewish professional studies. She

Baldel/Paris: Continued from page 13

facilitate trips to Israel, such as our local Federation’s upcoming MEGA MISSION, Hillel JUC Birthright trips, Community Day School’s eighth-grade graduation trip, or tailored synagogue experiences. How could organizations like these effectively operate

Poll: Continued from page 13

and how accurate are these evaluations, and, if inspections speak to defects, what is the timeline for addressing them?

is a co-founder of the startup “Making Mensches,” whose goal is to create Jewish communities that “explore Jewish values within the context of our daily lives.” Jews like Sander find inspiration from Jewish heritage and teachings. In fact, they approach the ethical questions of Israel/Palestine through the lens of the very Jewish values they were taught at our schools, camps and JCCs. Of course, our synagogues and organizations are fully entitled to hold Zionism and support for Israel as core values. Millions of Jewish philanthropic dollars go to support The Jewish Agency for Israel, along with a variety of social service programs within the state. Jewish

educational institutions from day schools to youth groups to camps highlight Zionism in their curricula. We cannot expect our institutions to abandon their core principles. But neither should we keep all anti-Zionist Jews “outside the tent,” while at the same time claiming to be inclusive and welcoming.

In the Talmud, we learn that Jews who have been excommunicated cannot cut their hair or launder their clothes. Nor can their relatives perform acts of mourning after they die. But excommunicated Jews are allowed to teach Torah (Moed Katan 15b). Even though they are shunned in several ways for their wrongdoing, they are nevertheless

when employing anti-Zionists?

Stakeholders entrust their charitable dollars to Jewish organizations because they assume that the institution, its employees and lay leaders will distribute those dollars in a way that aligns with their mission. If the priorities and views of individuals working for Jewish organizations do not align with the mission, we fear they will undermine the organization, create distrust with donors and ultimately lead to

irreparable fractures in our Jewish community.

We hope that Jewish organizations will continue to invest in professional leadership training, community education, and advocacy efforts to combat the kind of lies and misconceptions that anti-Zionists spread.

Instead of shying away from difficult topics around Israel, we should be deeply engaged as a community so that we are prepared to challenge those who conflate issues around

social justice and inclusivity with the belief that the disappearance of Israel as a Jewish state will bring about justice or peace.

Inclusion is important, but Jewish organizations must ensure they do not compromise their core values for the sake of including those who seek Israel’s destruction. PJC

Allegheny County should scrap the ridiculous plan to build a new airport and use that money to repair the bridges.

In light of last week's bridge collapse, how concerned are you about the soundness of our area's other bridges?

collapsing as with getting struck by lightning! Nada.

These days I hold my breath whenever I go over a bridge and am filled with relief when I make it safely to the other side.

5%

Not very concerned.

A gift from ...

In memory of...

A gift from ...

Amy Bardack is a rabbi in Pittsburgh.

The views expressed here are her own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

Lauren Baldel and Julie Paris both live in Pittsburgh.

I do not have faith in the inspection process after this most-recent bridge failure.

Too much politics involved.

Concerned, but it’s not a problem that can be solved overnight.

32%

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following:

3%

Not at all concerned

permitted to teach Torah to others, and we are permitted to learn from them.

Our institutions have to wrestle with the reality that increasing numbers of passionate Jews do not support the state of Israel. Is it in our best long-term interest to be welcoming to everyone but them? I propose that we spend less time labeling all anti-Zionist Jews as antisemitic, and more time figuring out how to be truly inclusive. PJC

Somewhat concerned.

60%

Extremely concerned.

Inspection ratings should be posted before each bridge just like restaurant inspections! PJC — Toby Tabachnick

In memory of...

Anonymous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Max Green

Lynne Gottesman and Debra Ritt . . . Merle Blumenfeld

Rachel Letty Americus . . . . . . . Bessie Taback Americus

Amy R. Kamin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph Honig

Rachel Letty Americus . . . . . . . . . . . Leo Morris Americus

Ida Jean and Robert McCormley . . . . Miriam Silberman

Dava Berkman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bernard Berkman

Paul & Diane Pechersky . . . . . . . . . . . Mildred Pechersky

Paula W. Callis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Gilbert D. Callis

Charlotte & Evan Reader. . . . . . . . . . .Nathan Louis Land

Dr. Stanley Cohen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sara F. Cohen

Linda & Jeffrey Reisner & FamilyJoanne Brodell Alpern

Lois Fishman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frank Levine

Linda & Jeffrey Reisner & Family . . . . . . . . William Davis

Edward M. Goldston . . . . . . . . Norman `“Hemmy” Stern

Myron Rosenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sam Rosenberg

Jerry Gordon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel Gordon

The Love and Rutman Families . . . . . . . . . . . . Rose Pitler

This week’s Chronicle poll question: To paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel, our situation is “Like troubled bridges over water.”

I am as much concerned with a bridge

Do you think that Whoopi Goldberg’s two-week suspension from “The View” was an appropriate response to the comments she made about the Holocaust? Go to our website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org, to respond. PJC

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday February 13: Isadore Bergstein, Ida Dektor, Anna Finer, Rebecca (Barron) Greenberg, Marvin L. Gusky, Earl Herman, Harry I. Horwitz, Elinor Kann, Edward Oring, William Oskie, Maurice F. Sadowsky, Milton Weisenberg Monday February 14: Samuel Cohen, Mary Farber, Eva Fingeret, Emanuel B. Friedberg, Md, Belle S. Friedman, Anna Kuperstock, Ben Leshney, Cecelia F. Rosen, David Rosenthal, Bessie S. Schulman, Frances L. Shaeffer, Myer Solomon, Miriam W. Steerman, Silvia Stuhl, Lea S. Teplitz, Sidney M. Wolk, Martin Zamore Tuesday February 15: George Bonder, Anna Feinberg, Mollie F. Ganelin, Minnie Gottesman, Maurice Greenberg, Hyman Greenspan, Melvin W. Helfant, Max Janavitz, Jack Lebovitz, Julius Markley, Freda R. Selkovits, Esther K. Stutz, Nellie Swartz, Phillip Zamsky Wednesday February 16: Pearl Auslander, Max L. Bluestone, Merle Blumenfeld, Pearl Erenstein, Max Freedel, Samuel M. Gordon, Betty I. Greenwald, Joseph Honig, Winifred Joyce Hynes, Lena Kline, Jacob Kunst, Louis Lawrence, Samuel Marcovsky, Irwin J. Schultz, Becky Schwartz, Harry Swimmer, Ida Valinsky, Sidney Weisberger Thursday February 17: Dr. Simeon Allen, Bella Bonder, Ida Sisser Bortz, Clara Cohen, Isidor Davis, Mildred Cohen Feldman, Alexander Handmacher, Bessie Kempler, Ella Klein, Ella Miller Lewine, Adolph Lobl, Helen Miller, Lucille Pollock, Aaron Pretter, Evelyn Rebb, Jean Y. Shapera, Mollie Silverman, Minnie L. Sokole, Sadie M. Speer Friday February 18: Dorothy Friedken, Rachel E. Goldberg, Dr. Norman Golomb, Lillian Hellman, Gerhart M. Horewitz, Ida Levy, Isaac Marcus, Sylvia L. Samuels, Hyman David Segal, Manuel Selker, Edna M. Siegal, Goldie R. Siegel, Genevieve Stern, Nathaniel Stutz Saturday February 19: Joseph Abravanel, Louis Cohen, Esther S. Finkelhor, Mollie Friedman, Nisan Gilboa, Harry H. Green, Johanna Halle, Harold M. Harris, Martin A. Hepps, Ruth Kaplan, Samuel Katz, Rosia Kauffman, Rose Kertman, Albert C. Kramer, Edward Lewis, Shirley F. Little, Judith Moritz, Benjamin Rambach, Sam Rosenberg, Mayme Sukolsky

20

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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Life & Culture ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’ explores love and awkwardness on the bar mitzvah circuit — FILM —

By Stephen Silver | JTA

A

new Jewish coming-of-age movie begins with the hero, at age 12, getting rejected by an older girl at a bar mitzvah.

Then the movie jumps to a decade later, as the main character embarks on a career as a bar mitzvah “party starter.”

It’s an unlikely vocation for a character who isn’t Jewish, especially one created and played by someone who isn’t, either.

But that’s the premise of “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” one of the more highly regarded films that debuted last month at the (virtual) Sundance Film Festival. Directed by and starring the young filmmaker Cooper Raiff, and acquired by Apple TV+ for a $15 million distribution deal, the film uses the bar mitzvah circuit as a backdrop for an aimless young man’s maturation. Its title, a lyric from the ubiquitous DJ Casper dance track “Cha Cha Slide,” will prompt a Pavlovian response from anyone who’s attended any shindig overseen by the likes of this film’s protagonist.

The movie was filmed in Pittsburgh. Locals with a keen eye may recognize a familiar face or two as background performers.

Raiff plays Andrew, a familiar type in coming-of-age cinema: He’s a recent college graduate without much direction or ambition. One Saturday, accompanying his younger brother (Evan Assante) to a bar mitzvah, Andrew succeeds in getting the kids, including an autistic girl named Lola (Vanessa Burghardt), to dance.

Despite not being Jewish himself, Andrew is “swarmed by Jewish mothers” and persuaded to start something of business, as a “Jig Conductor” at area bar and bat mitzvahs — a potentially lucrative hustle, as anyone who’s ever had to plan a kosher preteen dance party to accompany their child’s Torah reading knows all too well. He also gets close with Lola’s mother, Domino (Dakota

 A still from “Cha Cha Real Smooth”

Johnson), and the entire process puts him on the path toward adult responsibility.

The movie’s bar mitzvah parties fall in line with most mainstream Hollywood depictions of the occasion, where it appears that the entire class at school, as well as their parents, are invited to each week’s festivities.

We do see candle lighting and Hamotzi and Kiddush blessings, although the music tends less toward “Hava Nagila” and more toward pop. When Raiff ’s character plays Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s raunchy hit “WAP,” it leads to the accusation, from one of the mothers, that “you embarrassed Rabbi Steinberg.”

But there’s another, more subtle Jewish connection to the film’s music: Its score was composed, in part, by Este Haim, of the rock band Haim, and whose sister Alana starred in “Licorice Pizza,” another recent Jewishthemed coming-of-age movie.

Photo courtesy of Picturestart

Like his character, Raiff, whose previous film was the college-set 2020 indie hit “S#!%house,” isn’t Jewish himself. In an interview with Variety, Raiff noted he went to bar mitzvahs “every weekend” as a kid. His film nevertheless captures many aspects of the bar mitzvah party experience, from sneaking off for first kisses, to kids being nervous about being the first one to get up and dance.

There are plenty of Jewish performers in the cast, including Brad Garrett as Andrew’s stepfather, and Israeli actress Odeya Rush, best known from “Lady Bird” and the Israeli drama series “Baalat HaChalomot,” playing a casual girlfriend. And Leslie Mann, who plays Andrew’s mother, is married to prolific Jewish director Judd Apatow, who has made several movies like this one about 20-something man-children (sometimes played by Seth Rogen) taking belated steps toward growing up.

The film depicts a relatively secular culture in which seemingly every family in town with a kid that age, whether Jewish or not, gathers together each week at a bar or bat mitzvah. It’s a place where Jews feel comfortable welcoming their gentile neighbors into the synagogue, while also trusting a non-Jew to get the dancing started. Johnson’s character even says, at one point, that she sometimes envies Judaism.

Whether all this represents a heartwarming example of interfaith harmony, or a shameful watering down of the sacred coming-of-age ritual — with the non-Jewish protagonist profiting from his cultural appropriation — may very well emerge as a contentious debate once people start seeing the movie.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” will arrive on Apple TV+, although there’s no word on the timing of its release, or whether it will have a run in theaters as well. PJC

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Community JCC is for every body

Time to hoop

Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh Gesher Young Adult Program participants are out and about at the JCC enjoying games in the dance studio, art classes and swimming.

This program serves young adults with physical or intellectual disabilities while focusing on relationship-building, independence, life skills and gross motor development. For more information about Gesher, please email Rachael Speck at rspeck@jccpgh.org.

Middle school girls basketball teams from Community Day School and Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh competed last week.

p Making art is beautiful.

p What goes up …

p It’s swim time.

p If it’s gotta be, it starts with me.

p Playing with a parachute

Photos courtesy of Community Day School

Photos courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

Fun times at the lanes

t Rabbi Barbara Symons laughs during a recent bowling outing with Temple David Weiger Religious School students.

Photo courtesy of Rabbi Barbara Symons

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p Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh girls varsity team gather after playing St. Teresa of Avila.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

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FEBRUARY 11, 2022

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