Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 5-10-19

May 10, 2019 | 5 Iyar 5779

Candlelighting 8:07 p.m. | Havdalah 9:12 p.m. | Vol. 62, No. 19 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

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Mother Emanuel survivors Rabbi Sharyn visit Tree of Life, offer strength, Henry solidarity honored at Rodef Shalom Congregation

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Journey to the South

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

R presence and words at his mother’s memorial service were “unbelievable.”

Survivors from the Tree of Life massacre gathered together with their visitors from South Carolina outside the Tree of Life synagogue building on Friday, May 3 as part of the two communities’ continuing commitment to strengthen one another and to heal.

“This is the second time we have been together,” said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light Congregation. “We were down there in January, and met with folks in Charleston from the Jewish community, and from Mother Emanuel. And we spent time with Pastor Manning, who is an inspirational individual and has done wonderful things with the church.”

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, spiritual leader of Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, addressed the two communities gathered in solidarity in front of the Tree of Life building, noting that the intersection of Wilkins and Shady avenues has become “a holy site for the world.” Myers read the names and spoke in detail about each of the 11 victims of the Tree of Life attack, memorials to each of them visible through the windows of the building.

abbi Sharyn Henry’s 20-year tenure at Rodef Shalom Congregation and 31 years of rabbinic service were honored last week with the establishment of an eponymous award and endowment fund.

The Rabbi Sharyn H. Henry Social Justice Award and fund will offer biennial financial support to a social justice cause that has made a significant impact in the region.

“I’m really truly honored by this award,” said Henry. “I think it’s a way for us to connect to people that are working on a project or an idea that we see as valuable and we want to work on, and that it gives us a way to frame what we do.”

“Social justice is a hallmark of Rabbi Henry’s rabbinic career,” said Rabbi Aaron Bisno, Frances F. & David R. Levin Senior Rabbinic Pulpit Rodef Shalom, in a statement. “As a spiritual leader, educator, planner and advocate, Rabbi Henry has partnered with members of the congregation, and with others in the larger community, to ensure that social justice is never far from the top of the agenda. This new award and fund in her honor will continue Rabbi Henry’s legacy of work in Pittsburgh and beyond, deepening the ongoing ripple effect of her personal impact on social justice.”

Since receiving ordination three decades ago, Henry has made social justice a big part of her service. She has led young people and their families on missions to Haiti. She has accompanied students and lay leaders to Washington, D.C., on Religious Action Center-related programs, and has regularly volunteered at the East End Cooperative Ministry and helped with Rodef Shalom’s Empty Bowls event to support the hungry.

While these activities have exemplified Henry’s concern for others, less public

Please see Tree of Life, page 20

Please see Henry, page 20

Local rabbis and community leaders learn about civil rights.

Page 2 LOCAL Jewish NYT writer talks hate Jonathan Weisman recalls being trolled by anti-Semites Page 4

LOCAL Tasty and therapeutic

Getting creative with challah brings surprising benefits.

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 Rev. Eric S.C. Manning, left, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers and congregants of Mother Emanuel gather outside Tree of Life Congregation.

Photo by Toby Tabachnick

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

S

ix months after the murder of his mother, Rose Mallinger, Alan Mallinger finally got a chance to do what he has wanted to do since Nov. 2: thank the Rev. Eric S.C. Manning, pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., for coming to Pittsburgh then and speaking at her funeral.

“You are not alone,” Manning told the mourners that day at the service held in Rodef Shalom. “Charleston stands with you.

We mourn with you. We’re here for you and that will never change.”

Manning was again in Pittsburgh last weekend, along with nine congregants from his church — which is commonly known as Mother Emanuel — in continued solidarity with the three congregations attacked by a white supremacist on Oct. 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life synagogue building: Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, New Light and Dor Hadash.

Mother Emanuel suffered its own racially motivated attack in 2015, during which nine of its members were murdered.

“I couldn’t see the pastor after the funeral, and I’m glad today to finally thank him,” Mallinger said, adding that Manning’s

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LOCAL Yom Hashoah commemoration

WORLD Gaza rocket attacks

OBSERVANCE A new Jewish holiday?

Headlines Civil rights journey to the South opens eyes and hearts — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

T

here are reasons why Pittsburgh is called the City of Bridges, reasons that go beyond the physical connection of neighborhoods to one another, according to Rabbi Jeremy Markiz, director of Derekh and Youth Tefillah at Congregation Beth Shalom.

Markiz returned last week from a three-day civil rights journey to the South, during which he learned about slavery, the evolution of civil rights and how historic inequities were a prelude to current injustices. He traveled along with two other young Jewish leaders from Pittsburgh, and two young leaders from Pittsburgh’s African American community, on a mission designed to educate as well as create social bonds.

“The opportunity to help bridge those connections between various communities and our own various communities is exciting,” Markiz said. “I think, especially in the world we live in right now, the only way forward are one-on-one relationships, in which people actually get to know each other.”

The trip was sponsored by the JCPA (Jewish Council for Public Affairs), and began in Atlanta, Georgia, with 56 participants from 13 states. In addition to Markiz, the Pittsburgh contingent included Josh Sayles, director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Community Relations Council; Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt, spiritual leader of Temple Ohav Shalom; Josiah Gilliam, My Brother’s Keeper coordinator for the City of Pittsburgh; and Lindsay Powell, assistant chief of staff for Mayor Bill Peduto.

Mark Frank, a member of Pittsburgh’s CRC, also participated on the trip.

The trip was organized by Etgar 36, a

pluralistic, nonprofit Jewish organization that runs educational tours.

The itinerary included the National Human and Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta; the Rosa Parks Museum and the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Ala.; the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.; and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Relationship-building was a key component to the trip, said Sayles.

“What we saw here was an opportunity on a civil rights tour to grow black/Jewish relations in Pittsburgh,” he said. “It was an effort to bring a group there that would come back and say, moving forward, ‘What can we do to work together as young, upcoming community leaders to grow black-Jewish community relations in Pittsburgh?’”

The sites visited gave Sayles a greater understanding of the black experience in America.

“In August of 2018, I was in Germany exploring the history of the Holocaust, and I was incredibly struck by the similarities — and the memorials and the stories — between the Holocaust and slavery,” he said.

He found himself wondering what it would be like to be a Jew living in Germany, and having to confront the history of the Holocaust on a daily basis, just as black people in America must continually confront evidence of the history of slavery.

For Sayles, one of the most impactful excursions of the trip was a visit to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and Lynching Memorial.

“There were thousands and thousands of lynchings, and they had a plaque for every county where there was ever a lynching targeting a person of color,” he said. “And the names of everyone they could identify in those counties were placed on these plaques, and you walk through, and it humanized it.”

p The Pittsburgh contingent, from left: Mark Frank, Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt, Lindsay Powell, Josiah Gilliam, Josh Sayles, and Rabbi Jeremy Markiz.

Photo courtesy of Josh Sayles

Likewise, the visit to the Lynching Memorial brought Weisblatt “hauntingly back to visiting Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum,” and educated him on a topic that he did not learn much about while in school.

The North Hills-based rabbi was eager to join the trip, he said, because “social justice is important to my rabbinate, it’s part of who I am as a Jew.” “We can’t bring justice backward, but we can certainly bring it forward,” Weisblatt said, adding that he believes that “every Jew should do this trip. We need experiences like this to shock us out of our daily routine.”

For Powell, who is black, the trip was important “so that as a Pittsburgh delegation we could reflect on how the civil rights movement helped to build solidarity and shared understanding between black and Jewish

people, especially considering recent tragic events in both communities,” she said. “It was moving to stand where so many fought and lost their lives fighting for civil rights.”

As for the fight for civil rights, “we have a long way to go but we’ll only realize an equitable society if we call out injustice when we see it, work collectively and show up for other communities when called upon,” she added.

Gilliam, who lived in Mobile as a child, was eager to “see important civil rights locations from the perspective of an adult, and to hear from local leaders, and personal stories.”

The relationship-building aspect of the trip was also important, he said.

“My work focuses on the intersection of race, equity in general, gender, and economic class,” Gilliam said. When “confronting Please see South, page 20

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Headlines Memories flow as fountain moved to Adath Jeshurun Cemetery — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

G

rowing up in Stanton Heights in the 1950s, Louis Kushner thought his family situation was “normal.”

His father, Morris, was one of four brothers — including Fred, George and Jake — whose parents, Louis and Claire Kushner, emigrated from Russia in 1911. When the four brothers were grown, they each established households within two blocks of one another so that their own children, 12 cousins, could grow up together.

“We developed a real sense of family,” said Louis Kushner, who still lives in Pittsburgh.

“They had each other’s backs in bad times.”

The family gathered for dinners, to celebrate holidays, and to just enjoy each other’s company.

“We thought it was normal,” Louis said.

“What we found out late in life was that it was abnormal,” that most families are scattered, in different neighborhoods, if not different cities.

To honor the familial foundation laid for the Kushner progeny, the 11 surviving cousins have erected a particularly meaningful memorial at the Adath Jeshurun Cemetery where many of their ancestors lie: the stately marble water fountain, previously housed in the synagogue, which had been a gift of the

family to the congregation in the 1950s.

It is a tribute to the four brothers, just as those brothers dedicated the fountain years ago to honor their own parents.

Adath Jeshurun Congregation was founded in 1916 as an Orthodox congregation. It held services in private homes until 1924, when the building of a synagogue was completed on the corner of Margaretta and East Liberty Boulevard in East Liberty. It became known as the “Margaretta Street Shul.”

When Jewish families began moving to other neighborhoods, the congregation’s membership dwindled, and the East Liberty building was sold in 1996. The congregation moved to Monroeville, but closed permanently in 2002.

In the mid-20th century, though, the synagogue was a vibrant center of Jewish life, and beloved by the Kushner family. The four brothers donated the water fountain as a tribute to their parents, and it stood as the focal point of the synagogue’s lobby for decades.

“If you went to the shul, the fountain is what you remember,” said Louis.

“After Yom Kippur, when we were breaking the fast after sundown, the first thing we were able to taste was the water out of that fountain,” recalled Joe Kushner, Louis’ cousin, who also still resides in Pittsburgh.

Four years ago, Louis and Joe hosted a family reunion in Pittsburgh. Nine of the cousins came, along with their significant others and many of their own children.

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p The extended Kushner family poses for a photo at the installation of the fountain at Adath Jeshurun Cemetery.

Photo provided by Louis Kushner

While on a Molly’s Trolley tour of the city, the clan stopped at the building that once housed Adath Jeshurun, now home to a church, and in poor condition.

After the reunion, Louis and Joe got in touch with Pastor Delbert Harris of Inner City Ministries Tabernacle of Faith and asked if they could tour the building.

“He was enormously gracious,” said Louis.

“We went into the building and toured it. It was in disrepair. When we walked into the entrance, there was nothing there except the fountain.”

The cousins decided they would ask permission to remove the fountain so that they could recondition it and erect it at the cemetery. Harris agreed they could take the fountain for no charge, as long as they repaired the wall once it was removed.

Now, four years later, after having the fountain fully restored, after working with a contractor, commissioning architectural drawings and collaborating with the cemetery committee, the fountain has been installed near the graves of the Kushner family.

“It’s in a prominent position,” said Joe. “It gives another piece of history to our family.”

Extended family members gathered last month for the installation, and a formal dedication occurred this week.

“We are grateful to the cemetery committee and to the church,” Louis said.

“When I saw the fountain installed, it was nicer than I remembered.” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Trolled by anti-Semites, New York Times writer confronts hate throughout political spectrum — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

D

uring the height of the presidential campaign in May 2016, Jonathan Weisman, the deputy Washington editor of the New York Times, retweeted a quote from an article by Robert Kagan, a neoconservative at the Brookings Institute.

Kagan’s article examined the rise of fascism in the United States, connecting it to a rise in the popularity of Donald Trump.

Within minutes Weisman received a message on his Twitter account with punctuation he had never seen before: “Hello, (((Weisman))).” The handle of the writer was CyberTrump.

When Weisman replied, “Care to explain?”

CyberTrump responded: “It’s a dog whistle, fool. Belling the cat for my fellow goyim.”

The firestorm that ensued — a barrage of virulent and violent anti-Semitic messages and graphic images from anonymous trollers— is chronicled in Weisman’s book “(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump” (St. Martin’s Press, 2018).

Weisman, who will be speaking at Congregation Beth Shalom on Wednesday, May 15, at 7:30 p.m., became one of many American Jewish journalists targeted by the alt-right with anti-Semitic slurs and threats, the triple parentheses serving as way for likeminded bigots to find those Jews online.

His book, which examines the rise of the alt-right and the resurgence of anti-Semitism across America, was published several months prior to the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue building, and a year prior to the attack at the Chabad of Poway, both allegedly perpetrated by men with white supremacist ideologies.

p Jonathan Weisman

Photo courtesy of Seth Glick

Since his book came out, “things have gotten a lot worse, and a lot more complicated,” because of the rise of anti-Semitism on the political left as well, Weisman said in a phone interview.

While he did discuss left-wing anti-Semitism in his book, his focus primarily was on Europe — including Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, and activism in France — which he described as a “kind of Islamist version of anti-Semitism.”

“At that time, I really did believe that in the United States the anti-Semitism of the left was somewhat overstated,” he said. “And I still believe that white nationalist bigotry is the more clear and present danger because it is clearly violent, it is clearly murderous, and we have seen the results. But I will not dismiss the significance of anti-Semitic sentiment brewing on the left.”

Still, Weisman maintains that while the anti-Semitic tropes being espoused by some Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, and the recent inflammatory cartoon in the international edition of the New York Times, depicting Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog, are “unsettling,” leftwing anti-Semitism is not as dangerous as “white nationalist hatred, because they keep killing us.”

In his book, he takes to task mainline Jewish organizations for failing to clearly speak out against white nationalist bigotry.

“What is amazing is [mainline Jewish organizations] have been willing to speak out so prominently against Ilhan Omar, or right now, this controversy with the New York Times’ obviously anti-Semitic cartoon that was published last week in the international New York Times,” Weisman said.

“But the outspokenness the American Jewish Committee is having right now over Please see Writer, page 5

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Headlines Writer: Continued from page 4

the Ilhan Omar controversy and over this cartoon just points out how silent they’ve been on the rise of white nationalism and white supremacy. It’s weird to me.”

An allegiance to Trump could be what prevents those organizations from speaking out, Weisman surmised, but having Republican sensibilities should not preclude the unambiguous condemnation of right-wing hate.

“They believe that speaking out against right-wing anti-Semitism, against rightwing bigotry is somehow to tar Donald Trump,” he said. “I don’t actually believe that that’s the case. I think there are obviously clear voices against our drift toward authoritarian intolerance coming from the right — coming from people like Bill Kristol and [the late] Charles Krauthammer and Bret Stephens — that show you don’t have to be a liberal advocate or activist to speak out against right-wing bigotry. But somehow, for some reason, this is considered controversial. And it mystifies me.”

Standing up against white nationalist hatred “should not be a call for liberal political activism,” he stressed. “It should not be a call for partisanship. This is about standing up for American values that everyone should stand up for. I just want people to stop weaponizing anti-Semitism and start uniting across the notion that bigotry in all its forms

Measles warning

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our people with measles are currently in Allegheny County. Three of them are visitors to the United States from overseas and one is a county resident.

In addition to the Pittsburgh International Airport on Tuesday, April 16, during the hours of 7:30-10 a.m., and the Enterprise Rent-a-Car (2260 Babcock Boulevard), on Wednesday, May 1, during the hours of 2-5 p.m., there were three additional public exposures, according to information obtained by the Allegheny County Health Department: • Milky Way restaurant (2120 Murray Ave.) on Wed., April 17: 1-4 p.m.; • Red White & Blue Thrift Store (935 Ohio River Blvd) on Wed., April 24: 11:30 a.m. – 2:45 p.m.; and • The National Aviary (700 Arch Street) on Sun., April 28: 12:30-5:30 p.m.

“Measles is a highly contagious disease that spreads through coughing, sneezing or other contact with the mucus or saliva of an infected person,” according to the ACHD. “Symptoms typically appear one to three weeks after infection and include: rash; high fever; cough; nasal congestion; and red, watery eyes.”

The ACHD “is urging anyone who is susceptible to measles or who becomes ill with symptoms of measles to contact their primary care provider immediately. Do not go directly to the office, urgent care center or emergency room, as this may expose other persons.”

Pregnant women should contact their doctor about their immune status.

Those people who are most at risk, according to Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, are: • Infants less than one year of age who are too young to have received the MMR vaccine;

needs to be confronted.”

The attack at the Tree of Life synagogue building did not come as a surprise to Weisman.

“When the Tree of Life happened, I thought this was an inevitable thing,” he said.

“I was surprised how shocked people were. I knew that the combination of the ideology of white genocide and the prevalence of guns in this society would ultimately yield a white supremacist mass shooting.

“And because we as a society have not decided how to deal with rising white supremacy, it doesn’t surprise me that it’s happened again,” he continued. “It is the same impulse that drove the shooter in New Zealand as well. And the shooter in Poway, California — I read his manifesto and he’s calling for more shootings. And I don’t believe it’s going to end until we somehow we can confront it.”

Until it is confronted, and stopped, Weisman supports Jewish institutions taking serious measures to protect their own safety.

“I hate to say it, but my own synagogue in Washington has an armed guard, and when we send our kids there I want them protected,” he said. “Of course I don’t wish for houses of worship to become armed fortresses. I don’t want that. But I could never put at risk the congregants and the children that are going to these places, or say that the presence of armed guards is somehow unhelpful or unwelcoming.

We have to do what we have to do.” PJC

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Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

• Individuals who refused vaccination or who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons; and • Individuals from parts of the world where there is low vaccination coverage or circulating measles.

One dose of the MMR vaccine is 93% effective and two doses is 97% effective. The CDC’s vaccination recommendations include: • Children 12 months or older should have two doses, the first at age 12-15 months and a second dose between 4-6 years; • Healthcare personnel, college students, and international travelers should have two doses of MMR; • Adults born during or after 1957 should have at least one dose of MMR or documented evidence of disease. Adults born before 1957 are considered immune.

For international travel, infants 6-11 months should have one dose of MMR, and children 12 months of age and older should receive two doses of MMR, separated by at least 28 days.

There is no risk in getting an additional dose of the MMR vaccine for individuals who may have already received it, according to the ACHD, which recommends that any person who is due for measles vaccination to schedule an appointment to receive it from their medical provider or from the Health Department’s immunization clinic, located at 425 First Ave., Fourth Floor, downtown Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Clinic hours are: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and on Wednesday: 1-8 p.m. PJC

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— Toby Tabachnick PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

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Headlines William Penn Jewelers & Watchmakers receives facelift but keeps its soul — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

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ike the diamonds underneath its glass, William Penn Jewelers & Watchmakers is freshly polished and ready to shine. After temporary closure following the death of longtime proprietor Yefim Shimenko, the Squirrel Hill store located at 1837 Murray Ave. has reopened.

Though its iconic green carpeting is gone, its pink walls are painted white and a planter now rests where an island display case once was, the mom-and-pop shop still boasts the same family-owned, customer-first feel, said Tina Shimenko, Yefim’s daughter-in-law.

“We’re still here. We’ve kind of reinvented ourselves a little bit, but all of the good is still here,” she said.

For 40 years, William Penn Jewelers & Watchmakers was a place to purchase, repair or size jewelry. Other options existed nearby, but its appeal rested largely on the work of its owner, Yefim Shimenko, a Jewish Ukrainian emigre who arrived in Pittsburgh in 1979.

“He was the best. I bought everything that I own practically over there,” said Mary Ellen Chester, a stylist at Shear Visions

p sdfadfafsda

Photo by

p The old William Penn Jewelers & Watchmakers, top, and the newly remodeled store Photos courtesy of Marshall Goughneour

Beauty Salon, which is three doors down on Murray Ave. “For 20 years, he did my customer repair work,” echoed Dave Masters, a State Farm Insurance agent, whose office is across the street. “There were other jewelry stores that might take advantage of people, or charge a lot more, but Yefim and his prices were always reasonable. And his work was always quality. It was always done on time.”

Shimenko was a master jeweler whose abilities exceeded those of most professionals, said Marshall Goughneour, a former manager at Goldstock’s Diamonds & Fine Jewelry.

“You get guys that can do the bench work, which is setting the stone, sizing a ring, soldering a bracelet, etc., but those guys aren’t necessarily able to sit down and actually make something from scratch,” explained Goughneour. “If you brought him in a doodle on a piece of paper, over the course of whatever time it would take, he could make it into the ring or pendant or whatever it is you were looking for.”

Shimenko passed away in November 2018, just around the time when Goldstock’s (a more than 100-year-old business) closed.

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Headlines Yad points to makers’ intent — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

T

he Talmud teaches that when Bezalel was called upon to design a desert tabernacle, the artist was 13. Though he was said to have crafted pieces more intricate than even the brightest could shape, the simple truth was that on the precipice of adolescence, a teenager had attained wisdom.

That the young are unquestionably capable of creating significant works is something Julie Farber has long understood, which is why in the aftermath of Oct. 27 the now-retired jewelry teacher reached out to teenagers to construct “something extraordinary.”

“When this happened, one of my friends was shot. It hit extra close to home and I wanted to make something that was meaningful,” she said.

Farber contacted several former students, including Tess Roth, a senior at Pittsburgh Allderdice.

“When everything happened in Oct., I felt this overwhelming responsibility to do something, and I wasn’t sure what it was going to be,” said Roth.

She had already joined other BBYO members in hosting a teen-led havdalah service to mark the end of Shabbat, but felt “it wasn’t enough.”

“I wanted to give something,” Roth said.

Farber possessed a similar desire. She also had materials. The group, which included Farber, Roth, Eli Rabin, Andrea Holber and Maya King, discussed possibilities. Roth started sketching designs.

p The yad, made from recycled sterling silver, has 11 leaves stamped with the initials of someone murdered at Tree of Life.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

“After having to redo it a few times, I think I finally got it down,” she said.

With her final drawing in hand, Roth shared the image with others. They agreed it would be a worthy gift, and months ago the teens set out to create a yad. The pointy instrument, whose origin dates back more than a millennium, is typically used by the reader of a Torah scroll to follow along.

By placing the yad against the text, the reader’s impure hands are kept away from the holy scroll.

In the days after Oct. 27, Farber knew that her project could not be “ordinary,” and when it came time to crafting the yad, she retained that mindset. The metal could be

heated until it was molten, placed in an ingot mold, put through a rolling mill and shaped, but context mattered.

Jewish ritual objects reflect both form and function, and a yad is no different.

Though wholly purposeful, its embellishments, be they finials or plated gold, denote time and place.

Making sure the yad “revolved around a tree of life” was critical, explained Roth.

Now the resulting yad is housed in the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. At the item’s end are 11 leaves, each stamped with the initials of someone murdered at the Tree of Life building.

Emanating from the leaves is a recycled

sterling silver vine adorned by flowers. At the tip of the piece, pointing forward, is a hand made of recycled 14k gold.

“We wanted everything to be connected,” said Roth of the symbolism.

The intertwined vine represents the “togetherness of the Jewish community of Pittsburgh,” she explained. The flowers, which bloom and blossom, “represent life that comes out of the Jewish community of Pittsburgh” and signify “all of the love and support we got in those weeks after the horrible shooting” from the world. The 11 leaves, which encircle each other, are harder to describe, said Roth.

“When you are in kindergarten, you are taught that leaves produce oxygen and give us life. I took that with me. Right now I am trying to live for the victims who passed away, and I want to do everything in my power to make sure their memories are not forgotten and will be lived to the fullest.”

The yad is “beautiful and meaningful and I absolutely love the idea that teenagers worked on this in a collaborative manner,” said Cathy Samuels, JCC’s senior director of development and communications. The group effort, she said, shows “we are going through this as a community.”

“Making this yad truly taught me the worth of something,” said Roth. “It’s not what it’s made of or what it looks like, but where it came from in someone’s heart, where the original idea came from, and I really know truthfully that deep down it was made with love and by amazing people that care.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Tasty and therapeutic, baking loaves benefits life — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

T

he key to future happiness may be inside your challah. Seriously, carb loaders beware, there could have been an extra ingredient in your bread last week.

For generations, on the first Shabbat after Passover, many Jewish bakers have traditionally placed keys inside their loaves. This practice of making shlissel challah (schlüssel is key in German) dates back hundreds of years, and while various explanations are offered as to why a baker would deposit metal into dough, one common understanding is that the act is considered a portent of prosperity, as the key symbolizes a mechanism for unlocking heaven’s gates and bringing future blessing, explained Chani Altein, co-director of Chabad of Squirrel Hill.

As a child, Altein was introduced to the shlissel challah practice from her mother.

Since then, Altein has continued to not only make these special key challahs for the Shabbat after Passover, but host regular challah baking events throughout the year.

Often joining Altein at the scheduled get-togethers is Sue Berman Kress, a challah baker and shaper whose talents were recently feted in the Great Temple Sinai Bake-Off (Berman

Kress was one of eight bakers to compete in the March 26 event).

For the past several years, Berman Kress’ and Altein’s programs have followed a particular recipe: Berman Kress offers instruction on how to design a particular challah shape and Altein shares insights and ideas on the parsha or upcoming holiday. When mixed together, the two ingredients yield successful (and tasty) outcomes.

For Rosh Hashanah, Berman Kress and Altein collaborated on making round loaves, which symbolize the year’s circular nature.

For Purim, they partnered on making loaves with chocolate chips tucked inside — the idea being that just like God is present in the Purim story but God’s name is absent from the Megillah, “you make a challah with something inside that you can’t see, that’s kind of a secret, that’s hidden,” said Berman Kress — and for Shavuot, they made flower-shaped breads to represent the springtime festival.

Whether it is making something special for Yom Kippur break fast or a turkeyshaped challah for Thanksgiving, a new twist on your bread baking can be really fun, explained Berman Kress.

Other benefits can rise from the experience as well.

Baking bread every week “is not really creative,” said Berman Kress. “But if you start learning different ways of making it or

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

p Squirrel Hill women baked shlissel challah for the first Shabbat after Passover.

Photo courtesy of Chani Altein

different ways of what you put in it, or what you put on it, or what shapes you braid” it can become a “creative outlet, it’s like a form of art.”

There can also be a sweet social element of making challah, noted Altein.

Twice a month, “I will invite one or two or three friends to come over and we have this nice couple of hours of bonding and catching up,” she said.

Berman Kress agreed and described the therapeutic advantages afforded.

“Kneading the dough, rolling it out, doing the shaping and then baking it and kind of

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

seeing that outcome, it’s very zen, you know.

There’s a start and a finish. The kneading and the rolling are very meditative,” she said.

Overall, it is a “fulfilling” activity, but of all the reasons to make challah “on the top of the list is it’s a really nice Jewish tradition and mitzvah,” added Berman Kress. “Some mitzvahs you do them because you are supposed to do them, or you do them because they’re the right thing to do but they’re hard or they are not convenient. … This is just a really joyous mitzvah where you get to produce something and then everybody else gets to eat it and enjoy it at the end of the mitzvah.”

When Berman Kress began baking challahs a decade ago, she did not anticipate crafting cornucopia bread (she made that for Thanksgivukkah), secret stuffed loaves or even breads baked to resemble keys (the latter is another means of creating a shlissel challah).

What got her into challah baking was the desire to “add a Jewish tradition into my world,” she said. “It’s a feel-good mitzvah: It smells good, it feels good to handle the dough, people enjoy eating it, and when you’re done making it, it’s sort of a gift that you give to your Shabbos table. It’s kind of an all good.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

MAY 10, 2019 7

Headlines Honoring women in the Holocaust on Yom Hashoah — LOCAL —

This year’s ceremony

By David Rullo

“I

n the afternoon I did a round of the hospital barracks one more time. … A young girl called me. She was sitting bolt upright in her bed, eyes wide open. This girl has thin wrists and a peaky little face. She is partly paralyzed, and has just been learning to walk again. … ‘Have you heard? I have to go.’ We look at each other for a long moment.

It is as if her face has disappeared; she is all eyes. Then she says in a level, gray little voice, ‘Such a pity, isn’t it? That everything you have learned in life goes for nothing.’ And, ‘How hard it is to die.’ Suddenly the unnatural rigidity of her expression gives way and she sobs. … ‘Oh, why wasn’t I allowed to die before?’ Later, during the night, I saw her again, for the last time.”

Community Day School student Nealey Barak read the above excerpt on Thursday, May 2, during the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s annual observance of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the JCC Katz Auditorium.

This year’s service, titled “Women and the Holocaust,” is also the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s 2018-19 program theme.

Director Lauren Bairnsfather explains, “The stories of women are neglected in the

made special note of the terrorist attacks at both the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha and Chabad of Poway. historical record, in general, and specifically in the ways that women experienced the Holocaust as women.” The ceremony featured short readings from women’s diaries read by Community Day School students.

The commemoration, attended by more than 400 people, was a mixture of music, prayer, readings and candle lightings, including emotional performances of “Ani Ma’amin” (sung by Jews in Warsaw, Lublin, Lodz and Bialystok as they were taken to their death) and “Keyl Maley Rachamim” (a traditional Ashkenazi funeral prayer chanted in memory of the victims of the Holocaust) performed by Cantor Moshe Taube, a Pittsburgh native and a Holocaust survivor saved by Oskar Schindler.

Q

This year’s ceremony made special note of the terrorist attacks at both the Tree of Life building and Chabad of Poway. Police officers, paramedics and EMTs, firefighters, 911 operators and dispatchers, and other public safety personnel were honored for their service during the attack on Oct. 27. Judah Samet, a survivor of both the Holocaust and the Pittsburgh massacre, and Wendell Hissrich, director of the Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety, lit a candle for the victims of both shootings.

Additionally, Rabbi Cheryl Klein of Dor Hadash gave the service’s invocation, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light led Kaddish and Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha closed the ceremony with a rendition of “Partisan Song” in both Yiddish and English.

After the lighting of six candles for the 6 million Jews murdered, candles were lit for the liberators who rescued the Jews in concentration camps, veterans who served in World War II and survivors of the Holocaust. A final candle was lit by Martina Kopf, granddaughter of Righteous Among the Nations Ludovif Repas. Repas provided two Jewish families with false identity papers. Because of this act, Yad Vashem bestowed the title of Righteous Among the Nations in 2016 to the Christian native of Slovakia. His granddaughter explained, during a moving speech, that she only recently became aware of his bravery and spoke of the pride she felt in his acts.

Leon Zionts sang both the American and Israeli anthems and Bronwyn Banerdt performed several pieces on cello during the commemoration.

Reflecting on this year’s program, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh President and CEO Jeff Finkelstein said, “There were many powerful moments in this year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration, including remembering the 11 Pittsburgh victims of Oct. 27, honoring first responders and hearing from the daughter of a Righteous Among the Nations. But seeing a Holocaust survivor who also survived the shooting at the Tree of Life building shows me the strength we must all have in being resilient in the face of adversity. Together, in unity, our community will be strong.”

Asked why services like this continue to be needed, Bairnsfather replied, “Last year, I would have responded that it is important to preserve the memory of the Holocaust for its own sake. I still feel that, but it is now more important than ever, with the present threat of anti-Semitism in the United States, to have a reminder of where that can lead.”

Temple Sinai Executive Director Drew Barkley agreed with Bairnsfather, saying, “As I listened to the very moving stories, I thought about the importance of education to make sure it never happens here in America.” PJC David Rullo is a local freelance writer.

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

Submissions will also be included in print.

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

The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q FRIDAY, MAY 10 Shabbos and Dance with Me at Moishe House from 7:30 to 10 p.m.

Shabbat dinner will include free dance lessons. Contact moishehousepgh@ gmail.com for more information. Moishe House events are intended for young adults age 22-32. q MONDAY, MAY 13 Join Moishe House and Repair the World from 6 to 8 p.m. for a gardening day. Come in comfortable clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty. Contact moishehousepgh@ gmail.com for more information. Moishe House events are intended for young adults age 22-32.

Congregation Beth Shalom. Guest speaker Jonathan Weinkle, MD is the author of the book “Healing People, Not Patients: Creating Authentic Relationships in Modern Healthcare.” There is no charge to attend, but reservations are requested and can be made at pittsburgh@zoa.org or 412-665-4630.

Music at Rodef Shalom concert with the Clarion Quartet, including Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Marta Krechkovsky, violin; Jennifer Orchard, violin; Tatjana Mead Chamis, viola; and Bronwyn Banerdt, cello.

Sharing their passion for chamber music, their particular interest is in exploring works termed “degenerate” by the Nazis. Known as Entartete Musik, it was banned during the years leading up to the Holocaust through the immediate aftermath of the World War II. There is no charge. Contact Roy Sonne at roysonne@aol.com for more information. q TUESDAY, MAY 14

Women of Temple Sinai will hold a cooking class on grilling from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Leon Edelsack will share tips and tricks for getting the most out of your grill this summer. There is a $10 charge. RSVP to Carolyn Schwarz, 412-421-1268 or 4carolynschwarz@gmail. com or visit templesinaipgh.org/wotscooking-class-12.

Chabad of the South Hills will present Spa for the Soul, an evening of relaxation, depth, beauty and spirituality at 6 p.m. with guest speaker Sara Chana Silverstein, author of “Moodtopia: Tame your moods, De-Stess & Find Balance Using Herbal Remedies, Aromatherapy, and More.” The evening will include a light dinner, spa treatment, silent auction and raffle prizes. Visit chabadsh.com or call 412-344-2424 for more information, location and to register.

ZOA: Pittsburgh will hold the Charlene “Kandy” Ehrenwerth Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m. in the Eisner Commons at

Linda Tashbook, author and University of Pittsburgh law librarian, will give a talk titled “Ten Things Families Can Do to Help Someone

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with Mental Illness Handle Legal Hassles” at 6:30 p.m. at the Shaler North Hills Library.

Tashbook is the author of “Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law.” There is no charge.

Register at shalerlibrary.org or call 412-486-0211.

“This Jewish Moment: The Future of Israel, American Jewry and the Relationship Between Us.” with Yossi Klein Halevi, The New York Times bestselling author of “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor” and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center Katz Auditorium. There is no charge.

Contact Nancy Conaway at Nancy@ TempleSinaiPGH.org or (412) 421-9715, ext.

115 for more information.

The Squirrel Hill Historical Society free May program will be on Gene Kelly and the Jewish Community of Squirrel Hill with speaker Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program and Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center from 7:30 to 9:15 p.m. at 5700 Forbes Ave. Visit squirrelhillhistory.org for more information.

A discussion-based event engaging the community in open conversation regarding the signs and symptoms of mental health issues will be held from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Robinson Building of the JCC. The event is organized by AMOTT. Contact ayalarose102@ gmail.com for more information. q TUESDAYS, MAY 14-JUNE 11

adults, Better Choices, Better Health, for six consecutive Tuesdays from 12:30 to 3 p.m. in Room 2002. The workshops are informative, fun and interactive. All workshop participants get the companion book, “Living a Healthy Life with a Chronic Condition.”

Light refreshments are provided throughout, with a graduation celebration at the end.

Contact Amy Gold at 412-697-3528 for more information and to sign up. q WEDNESDAY, MAY 15 Squirrel Hill AARP will host its meeting at 1 p.m. in the Falk Library at Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave. In addition to the general business meeting, election of chapter officers by the general membership will be held. In honor of Memorial Day, attendees and guests are asked to bring donations of large bottles of body wash, stick deodorant, denture adhesive and cleaners, body lotion, combs and brushes, belts, T-shirts with pockets, umbrellas, rain ponchos and gift cards, including bus passes. Donated items will be distributed to the local Veterans Administration. Bob Cahalan will present an audio-visual program celebrating Pittsburgh.

Meetings are open to the entire senior population of the community. Refreshments will be served. Contact Marcia Kramer at 412-731-3338 for more information.

Congregation Dor Hadash Adult Education will present “From Leo Frank to Tree of Life: A History of Anti-Semitic Violence in America” with Rachel Kranson, associate professor and

The Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh is offering a program for

Please see Calendar, page 10

SPONSORED CONTENT

“WHEN LONG TERM CARE CAN REALLY COST YOU”

Law by Michael H. Marks., Esq.

Michael H. Marks is an elder law attorney practicing at Marks Elder Law with offices in Squirrel Hill and Monroeville.

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

You can manage long term care costs before they occur with the right kind of asset protection advice from an elder law attorney, Here are five situations when long-term care can unexpectedly cost you more than necessary, either through inadequate planning, or sometimes just sheer bad luck.

Assisted-living Facility: Someone who doesn’t yet need nursing home care might just need residential placement in a personal care home or assisted living facility, where they can get assistance with activities of daily living: feeding, dressing, bathing, or toileting oneself, transferring or standing up from a chair or bed, and managing one’s medications.

Medicaid pays for most nursing home care, but does not pay at all for assisted living or personal care home care in Pennsylvania. Veterans Administration benefits may available for a qualifying veteran or their widow, but are capped at a little more than $2000 a month for the veteran and $1000 a month for a surviving spouse. Recent changes, though, has made VA benefits harder to get.

In short, there are only three ways to pay for Assisted Living arrangements: VA benefits, private long-term care insurance or paying

the costs yourself.

to assets that are left behind in a pay-on-death Nursing Home Spend Down: When entering beneficiary format, joint depositors with right of a nursing home, there may be viable, effective survivorship, or similar arrangement. strategies to spend less and save more of your Sometimes people are caught unaware by own money – but you ordinarily won’t hear about the estate recovery rules, when the Medicaid them from Medicaid case workers or from nursing patient leaves behind something titled in his home staff. Other than basic steps like funding a or her name only – such as a house. For those prepaid funeral, Medicaid’s staff and caseworkers in the know, proper strategic asset protection ordinarily only tell you to spend down your assets planning ordinarily involves making sure and resources first, before Medicaid will start to that no assets of value are left behind that will pay anything for you. Telling you to follow the be subject to the claim of the Pennsylvania rules is their job; helping you take steps to save Estate Recovery program. more of your money is generally not.

Non-Payment by Medicaid: Sometimes a nursing Similarly, nursing home staff often feel that their role is limited to advising families how the Medicaid rules apply to you. They are often not qualified or motivated to tell you about proactive, affirmative, creative steps that you can undertake to protect yourself and your inheritance.

That’s what an elder law lawyer is for! Often, only an elder law lawyer (and sometimes senior care and placement consultants) will let you know that there are pre-emptive steps you can take, and that you’re not just at the mercy of the system.

Estate Recovery: After a nursing home Medicaid patient has died, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a right to be reimbursed for payments paid to the nursing home, under a program called “Estate Recovery.” That claim for reimbursement applies to assets left behind by the Medicaid nursing patient that are owned in his or her name only (“probate assets”).

The Commonwealth’s claim does not apply

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home doesn’t get paid by Medicaid (or other payment source) as you expected. Nursing homes that do not get paid often sue patients, parents, spouses and children under Pennsylvania’s “Filial Responsibility” law. It’s possible to defend

against such claims but no one wants to be in that position to start with.

Spouse Living at Home Dies before Nursing Home Spouse: One final unfortunate circumstance can occur if the spouse who is still living at home (the “community spouse”) should pass away before the nursing home Medicaid spouse. Generally, the community spouse will want to transfer assets on death to designated beneficiaries such as children. But when the community spouse dies first, the nursing home Medicaid spouse is required by Medicaid to claim up to one third of the assets of the community spouse to pay for nursing home care.

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

www.marks-law.com

412-421-8944 4231 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217

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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.

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

linda@marks-law.com

MAY 10, 2019 9

Calendar Calendar: Continued from page 9 director of undergraduate studies, University of Pittsburgh Department of Religious Studies, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Rodef Shalom Congregation. There is no charge.

Visit dorhadash.net for more information.

The Derekh Speaker Series, a series of talks by authors from across the country made available through the Jewish Book Council, will feature The New York Times journalist Jonathan Weisman and his book “(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump� at 7:30 p.m. There will be a book sale and author signing at the end. Visit bethshalompgh.org/beth-shalomspeak-series-5779 for more information. q WEDNESDAYS, MAY 15-29 Trauma Resiliency Group: An Integrative Approach to Healing will be offered by Amy Lohr, LCSW, integrative psychotherapist from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, Room 307. This is a drop-in open group supporting personal growth via skills development, self-awareness and education about recovering from trauma form an integrative approach that values mind, body and spirit. Mindfulness practice, meditation, Reiki energy work, spirituality, and other complementary healing techniques blended with traditional psychotherapy will be used to empower you to be well. There is no charge.

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q THURSDAY, MAY 16

q SUNDAY, MAY 19

Temple Emanuel will present Sacred Symphonies with Rabbi Don Rossoff at noon. Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein. Bring your own dairy brown bag lunch; drinks and desserts provided.

Contact the Temple office at 412-279-7600 or templeemanuel@templeemanuelpgh.org for more information.

Temple David Indoor Spring Yard Sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 4415 Northern Pike, Monroeville. Contact jessicar@ templedavid.org for more information.

Temple Emanuel and South Hills Jewish Pittsburgh present “An Evening with Dan Libenson� at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont at 7 p.m. Libenson is founder and president of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future and co-host of the Judaism Unbound podcast, which promotes creativity and innovation in American Jewish life. Visit templeemanuelpgh.org/event/DL for more information about times and ticket pricing.

Shalom Pittsburgh will hold a conversation with Rabbi Danny Schiff, Foundation Scholar, at 7:30 p.m. at a private home. There is no charge. Wine and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. The address will be given upon RSVP. Visit jewishpgh.org/event/a-conversationwith-danny-schiff/ for more information and to RSVP. q FRIDAY-SUNDAY, MAY 17-MAY 26 Front Porch Theatricals will present the first show of its 2019 “Family ‌ Secretsâ€? season with the Pittsburgh professional premiere of “Bright Star,â€? the Broadway bluegrass musical. Visit frontporchpgh.org for more information.

Chabad of Squirrel Hill will hold a Kids’ Mega Challah Event from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at 1700 Beechwood Blvd. The afternoon of challah baking will also include storytelling and Jewish unity and is open to children from preschool through grade five, with a special Bat Mitzvah Club table for girls in grades six to seven. Registration required by May 13 at kidsmegachallah.com. There is a $10 charge.

The Robinson Short Film Competition Awards Gala will hold a celebration of short filmmaking from around the globe and recognition of the best films and winning filmmakers of the 2019 Robinson Competition. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. at SouthSide Works Cinema and includes screenings of seven short films and the awards ceremony where three filmmakers will receive $18,000 in cash prizes and a reception. The competition is in memory of Sanford N. Robinson Sr. Visit https:// filmpittsburgh.org/pages/robinson-shorts for more information and tickets. q WEDNESDAY, MAY 22

q TUESDAY, MAY 21 Chabad of the South Hills will hold a lunch for seniors at noon with a presentation on medications, hydration and sun protection

by Comfort Keepers. There is a $5 suggested donation. RSVP at 412-278-2658 or barb@ chabadsh.com and visit chabadsh.com for more information.

Empowered, Educated and Engaged, E3 – Mix and Mingle Part 2 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Join the ladies of E3 for an evening of cocktail-making and mingling. Steven Kowalczuk, The Cocktail Chef from SteelCity Mixology, will lead a mixology class to make three summer-themed cocktails. Space is limited. Heavy appetizers will be provided. Dietary laws observed. The cost is $35. Contact Rachel Lipkin Gleitman at rgleitman@jfedpgh.org or 412-992-5227 for more information. RSVP by Tuesday, May 14 at jewishpgh.org/women.

Celebrate the 33rd day of the Omer at the Lag B’Omer bonfire with the Moishe crew from 7 to 9 p.m. Come learn about what this holiday means, and hang out with some s’mores, singing and beer. Contact moishehousepgh@gmail.com for more information. Moishe House events are intended for young adults age 22-32. q THURSDAY, MAY 23 The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will present Yom Ha’atzmaut: A celebration of Israel’s 71st Independence Day with international multiplatinum Israeli musician David Broza beginning at 4:30 p.m. with an Israeli food court, community fair and Israeli dancing followed by the concert at 6 p.m.

This concert is being held on Lag B’Omer for the full inclusion of community members who Please see Calendar, page 11

This week in Israeli history May 13, 1975 — Israel, U.S. sign economic pact

— WORLD —

Development, Yerushalayim

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The U.S. and Israel sign an economic agreement focusing on four areas: economic cooperation; elimination of double taxation on income earned in both countries; loan guarantees for investments in Israel; and increased bilateral trade.

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

May 10, 1948 — Meir, Jordan’s King meet Golda Meir, the head of the Jewish Agency’s political department, travels in disguise to Amman, the capital of Transjordan, for a secret meeting with King Abdullah.

May 11, 1949 — U.N. admits Israel

May 14, 1947 — Gromyko backs 1-state solution

Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko addresses a U.N. General Assembly session and calls for one state shared by Jews and Arabs.

The U.N. General Assembly votes to admit Israel as the 59th U.N. member. The approval of Israel’s third application for membership comes after the Security Council votes 9-1 in favor, with Egypt opposed, after a passionate, 2½-hour speech by Israel’s ambassador, Abba Eban.

May 15, 1941 — Palmach founded

May 12, 1965 — Israel, West Germany begin diplomatic ties

May 16, 1916 — Sykes-Picot pact splits Ottoman lands

Israel and West Germany exchange notes establishing official diplomatic relations, completing a process that began with Israel’s acceptance of Holocaust reparations from West Germany in 1952.

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The Palmach is formed as an elite division within the Yishuvâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Haganah military organization to protect Jewish settlers in Palestine from any attack by the Axis powers or Arabs during World War II.

British diplomat Mark Sykes and French diplomat Charles Georges Picot, a former consul in Beirut, complete a secret pact known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, in which France and the United Kingdom agree to divide the former Ottoman Empire territories in the Middle East after World War I.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; PJC

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Calendar Calendar: Continued from page 10 are observing the laws of the Omer. In case of rain, the free concert will be at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Visit jewishpgh.org/ event/david-broza for more information and to register. Young Adult Happy Hour will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at The Porch. Visit jewishpgh.org/event/yad-broza-happy-hour for more information.

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures will present Michael Pollan and the Science of Psychedelics, at 7 p.m. at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall. Pollanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best-selling â&#x20AC;&#x153;How to Change Your Mindâ&#x20AC;? was named one of The New York Times Book Reviewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10 Best Books of 2018. Pollan is also the author of seven additional books, all of which were The New York Times best sellers. A longtime contributor to The New York Times Magazine, he is also a professor at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.

The $23 charge includes a paperback copy of â&#x20AC;&#x153;How to Change Your Mind.â&#x20AC;?

Visit pittsburghlectures.org/lectures/ michael-pollan for more information. q SUNDAY, MAY 26 The Prayer Practice and Learning Committee of Rodef Shalom Congregation invites the community on a bus tour of the Troy Hill and West View cemeteries from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Gain a historical perspective on Rodef Shalom in the Pittsburgh Jewish community. Everyone

will have a chance to discuss or visit familial gravesites. Bring your own lunch. The cost is $30. Visit rodefshalom.org/rsvp for more information and to RSVP.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; q THURSDAY, MAY 30 Pittsburgh-based author Adam Ehrlich Sachs will present his new novel â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Organs of Senseâ&#x20AC;? at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh at 6 p.m. in the South Wing Reading Room on the second floor. He was named a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. He has a degree in the history of science from Harvard, where he was a member of The Harvard Lampoon. Visit pittsburghlectures. org/lectures/adam-ehrlich-sachs for more information and to register. There is no charge.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will hold a donor celebration event in appreciation of contributions to the Federation at 6:30 p.m. at The Pennsylvanian, 1100 Liberty Ave. Eat, drink and enjoy a jazz cabaret. RSVP

by May 18 at jfedpgh.org/celebration. Contact Julia Blake at jblake@jfedpgh.org or 412-9925222 for more information. q FRIDAY, MAY 31 The Butterfly Storytelling: Wandering and Wondering, based on the style of the The Moth, the popular themed storytelling event.

LGBTQ+ Jews and Allies will share stories about their lives at 8:30 p.m. All are welcome.

Contact Kate Passarelli at klpassarelli@ verizon.net for more information or visit templesinaipgh.org/butterfly-storytellingwandering-and-wondering.

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q SATURDAY, JUNE 1 The Pride Tribe and Women of Temple Sinai are partnering to present the annual Pride seder from 7 to 9 p.m., which will take a form reminiscent of the traditional Passover seder, but will share stories and hardships of LGBTQ life, celebrate the freedoms that have been achieved, and explore freedoms not yet gained. LGBTQ individuals beyond the Jewish community and Allies of the LGBTQ community are welcome. The cost is $22/$12 for students with ID. Contact Susan Blackman at susan. blackman@verizon.net for more information or visit templesinaipgh.org/PrideSeder. q SUNDAY, JUNE 2 Community Day School will hold its annual Walk to Remember from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Meet Holocaust survivors and walk the perimeter around CDS six times to memorialize the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and honor the lives forever changed by and lost to anti-Semitism in Pittsburgh, Poway and worldwide. All proceeds will fund Holocaust education at CDS and youth-focused outreach across the Pittsburgh area. This is a family-friendly event Visit comday.org/walktoremember for more information and to register. q TUESDAY, JUNE 4 Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award Dinner honoring Laura Shapira Karet, president and CEO of Giant Eagle, Inc. and

featuring guests Bari Weiss, staff editor and writer, The New York Times, and her dad, Lou Weiss, will begin at 6 p.m. at the Omni William Penn Hotel. RSVP by May 24 jnf.org/Pittsburgh. Contact Amy Cohen, director, Pittsburgh, at acohen@jnf.org or 412-521-3200. q WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 The Beth Shalom Sisterhood Book Club will discuss â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gateway to the Moonâ&#x20AC;? by Mary Morris at 7:30 p.m. Contact Beth Shalom at 412-421-2288 for the location in a private home. Visit bethshalompgh.org/eventsupcoming for more information.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; q THURSDAY, JUNE 6 National Council of Jewish Women Pittsburgh annual meeting features a women-led panel discussion to raise awareness of systemic efforts to deprive people of the right to vote and curtail their political power and identify opportunities to join the fight to remove barriers to the ballot before Election Day. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for a dessert and wine reception in the Palm Court at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh prior to the start of the meeting at 7 p.m. There is a $10 charge in advance, $15 at the door. Visit ncjwpgh.org/ votingrights for more information and to register.â&#x20AC;&#x201A;PJC

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Headlines — WORLD — From JTA reports

Hundreds attend funeral of American killed by Hamas rocket An American citizen killed while running for cover from a Hamas rocket was laid to rest in Jerusalem on Sunday evening.

Hundreds turned out to bury Pinchas Menachem Prezuazman, a 21-year-old American Israeli from Ashdod.

Prezuazman, a member of the Ger Chasidic sect, leaves behind a wife and baby.

He was the fourth Israeli to be killed before the conflict eased with a cease-fire early Monday morning.

He was in the stairwell of an apartment building when it was struck by a rocket late Sunday afternoon. Prezuazman had been running to the building’s bomb shelter. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition and later died of his injuries.

According to Yeshiva World News, his father, Haim Dov Prezuazman, is a prominent rabbi in Beit Shemesh, an Israeli city about 20 miles from Jerusalem.

“I don’t understand why this is happening, but I am sure that you have fulfilled your purpose on this earth,” his father said at the funeral. “I had a great blessing to raise you for 21, nearly 22 years.”

Earlier Sunday afternoon, two Israeli men were killed, one when a rocket slammed into a factory in Ashkelon and a second when

a rocket fired from Gaza directly hit a car driving near Yad Mordechai in southern Israel.

Early that morning, Moshe Agadi, a 58-year-old father of four, was hit with shrapnel to his chest and stomach in the yard of his home in Ashkelon after a rocket fired from Gaza slammed into an apartment building. He died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Agadi had gone outside to smoke a cigarette between frequent rocket warning sirens and did not make it to the home’s bomb shelter in time.

Bipartisan slate of senators introduce resolution condemning anti-Semitsm A bipartisan slate of 44 U.S. senators, almost half the body, sponsored a resolution condemning anti-Semitism.

The resolution introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz and Tim Kaine lists a number of classic anti-Semitic slanders and prohibitions on freedoms imposed on Jews overseas and in the United States. It also alludes to recent deadly attacks on U.S. synagogues.

“Jews are the targets of the majority of hate crimes committed in the United States against any religious group, including attacks on houses of worship and Jewish community centers,” the resolution says.

Notably, the text avoids hot-button issues that members of each party have used to depict the other as susceptible to anti-Semitism. It does not mention antiIsrael bias, which Republicans have cited in

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criticizing Democrats, nor does it mention white supremacists and the support that has accrued to President Donald Trump from that movement, which Democrats often cite.

“In just the last few weeks, we have seen it manifested as hateful cartoons in major news publications, anti-Semitic smears in the halls of Congress, and murders at houses of worship,” Cruz said.

“In my home state, we saw white supremacists terrorizing — and even murdering — people in Charlottesville while chanting anti-Semitic slogans lifted from Nazi rallies and a President unwilling to forcefully condemn such an atrocity,” Kaine said, referring to Trump’s equivocations after a deadly neo-Nazi march in 2017.

In total, 39 Republicans and five Democrats are co-sponsoring the legislation at its launch; others still may sign on.

At least two resolutions condemning anti-Semitism have passed recently in one of the congressional chambers, and a number of others have been introduced.

Jews more likely than Christians to be critical of Trump’s Israel policy, study shows American Jews are much more likely than their Christian counterparts to express criticism of President Donald Trump’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a new survey.

The Pew Research Center found that 42 percent of American Jews said that Trump

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was favoring the Israelis too much, while a similar share, 47 percent, said he was striking the right balance between the Israelis and Palestinians. Six percent found that Trump favored the Palestinians too much.

Among Christians, 59 percent said the president was striking the right balance between the two sides and 26 percent said he favors the Israelis too much. The level of support for Trump’s policies on Israel rose significantly in the evangelical community: 72 percent agreed with the balance Trump is striking.

“Partisanship also may be a factor when it comes to the views of religiously unaffiliated Americans who, like Jews, largely lean Democratic,” Pew explained, noting that 47 percent of those who consider themselves to be religiously unaffiliated said they think Trump favors the Israelis too much.

According to a Gallup poll released earlier this year, about half of American Jews identified as Democrats.

Some 52 percent of American Jews identified as Democrat, 16 percent as Republican and 31 as independent in combined Gallup tracking poll data for 2018, which encompassed over 75,000 interviews with U.S. adults, including 938 self-identified Jewish Americans.

Jews were the religious group with the highest percentage identifying as Democrats.

By contrast, 30 percent of Catholics and 27 percent of Protestant and other Christians identified as Democrats, as well as 29 percent of all Americans. PJC

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Headlines 700 rockets, 240 intercepts, 4 dead Israelis: Is the Iron Dome getting worse?

— WORLD —

By Sam Sokol | JTA

A

fter the weekend’s fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army, some Israelis have raised questions about the strength of their country’s missile defenses.

Over the course of the weekend, Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched nearly 700 rockets from Gaza at Israel, killing four people and injuring more than 200.

According to Haaretz, of the 690 rockets launched from Gaza, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted 240.

The number of unintercepted rockets and Israeli fatalities sparked inquiry about the effectiveness of Iron Dome, and whether Hamas and Islamic Jihad have found a way to thwart the system.

Hamas was quick to declare that it had achieved victory, overwhelming Israeli defenses with concentrated barrages of projectiles.

“The Qassam Brigades, thanks to God, succeeded in overcoming the so-called Iron Dome by adopting the tactic of firing dozens of missiles in one single burst,” a spokesman for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said in a social media post quoted by The Times of Israel. “The high intensity of fire and the great destructive ability of the missiles that

were introduced by the Qassam [Brigades] … succeeded in causing great losses and destruction to the enemy.”

The number of Israeli civilians killed in the two-day conflict was only one fewer than during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, a struggle of nearly two months, when Palestinian factions lobbed more than 4,500 projectiles at Israeli cities.

At the time, the Israel Defense Forces said that its Iron Dome batteries had managed to knock down 90 percent of the rockets within their coverage zones — a rate of success disputed by some critics. The IDF claimed a similar level of success this time, too, telling reporters that it had achieved an 86 percent kill rate and that only 35 projectiles landed in populated areas.

However, speaking with The Jerusalem Post, Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser and retired head of the Military Intelligence’s Research Department, said Iron Dome had gaps in its coverage, especially when it came to short-range rockets landing within a few kilometers of the border.

“We don’t have enough time to intercept it,” he said.

Amidor also said that in the case of a car hit by an anti-tank missile near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai on Sunday, killing its Israeli driver, Iron Dome wouldn’t have helped.

“From the point of view of the system, this

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was an open area without people. We don’t intercept such rockets,” he said.

A former deputy military intelligence chief, Brig. Gen. Meir Elran, said that while “Iron Dome has proven to be an effective means of saving lives, which also improves the flexibility of decision makers in Israel,” it is clear that the system as currently constituted cannot provide Israel with sufficient protection in the event of a wider conflict.

In an article published by the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv several weeks before the outbreak of hostilities, Elran warned that “the number of available batteries (some operated by reservists) cannot suffice as a response to the threat, even one characterized by sporadic fire against the Israeli depth. In a full-scale Please see Iron Dome, page 15

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Annual Meeting

A panel discussion at

Feyisola Alabi

p Israeli soldiers walk near an Iron Dome anti-missile battery in the southern Israeli city of Sderot in 2018.

Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Erin Casey

Jennifer Clarke

Tessa Provins

Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 7:00 pm.

Wine & dessert reception begins at 6:30 pm.

Open to the public at the Jewish Community Center Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door.

Register today: ncjwpgh.org/votingrights or 412-421-6118 AWARDS Sarah Blask • NCJW Emerging Leader Award Paula Garret • Ruth & Jerome Lieber Leadership Award Lissa Guttman • Dawn Hirsch Memorial Award Jill Loiben • Presidential Award 2019-2020 SLATE* & BOARD OF DIRECTORS Teddi Horvitz* • President Lynn Farber • Vice President Paula Garret* • Interim Treasurer Sarah Blask • Secretary Debbie Levy Green • Immediate Past President Tanya Bielski-Braham, Sharon Brody, Rachel Clark*, Mallory Gold*, Lissa Guttman, Leah Kamon, Cheryl Kleiman, Anne Witchner Levin*, Meredith Levy, Olivia Payne*, Dani Rovenger*, Lynne Siegel, Robbin Steif, Rochel Tombosky Eileen Lane • Life Board Member, Cristina Ruggiero • Executive Director

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Headlines Celebrating Shabbat in Poway after the deadly shooting — NATIONAL —

By Gabrielle Birkner | JTA

“T

hose who are standing can remain standing,” Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein joked, a nod to the standing-room-only crowd that had packed Chabad of Poway for Friday night services.

For many of those who filled the sanctuary, showing up was an act of faith, of solidarity, of defiance just six days after a gunman entered the synagogue, killing one and injuring three, including the rabbi.

Goldstein dedicated this “Shabbat of healing” to Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, who was killed in the attack. In the synagogue lobby — a scene of carnage the last time the congregation had gathered for Shabbat — women lit candles before sundown under signs reading “Light for Lori.” A large photo of GilbertKaye was perched on a table for all to see.

Despite the tragedy that had taken place in this San Diego-area bedroom community, Friday night’s services were hardly funereal. Congregants wore shades of pink, Gilbert-Kaye’s favorite color, and pinned pink ribbons to their clothing. The rabbi led chants of “Am Yisrael Chai.” Worshippers

p As Shabbat approached, dozens of people lined the route that many congregants walk, or drive, to the synagogue.

Photo by Gabrielle Birkner

danced arm in arm — men danced with men, and women with women — to a medley of Jewish melodies. So spirited, it resembled a wedding hora.

“The antithesis of sadness is joy,” Goldstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I needed to flip the switch in our community,

to begin the healing, and the best way I know how is to dance with such exuberance that the soul begins dancing as well.”

The first Shabbat after the shooting, Goldstein said, felt like a combination of Yom Kippur, a somber High Holy Day when Jews contemplate their deaths, and the

joyful Simchat Torah festivities filled with music and dancing.

“For all the survivors, it was a day of introspection, and at the same time it was a celebration of miracles — like the miracle that my grandson was sleeping in his stroller in the line of fire and survived,” the rabbi said. “Miracles” like those worshippers who ushered children to safety during the attack, and like congregants Jonathan Morales and Oscar Stewart, who confronted the gunman and have been credited with helping to prevent further bloodshed.

In the days since the shooting, Goldstein — along with Morales, a Border Patrol agent, and Stewart, a U.S. Army veteran and an electrician — have become folk heroes of sorts. They have been featured in the national media, and on Thursday they appeared alongside President Donald Trump during the National Day of Prayer service at the White House.

Flying home from Washington, D.C., passengers broke out in applause for Goldstein, both of his hands wrapped in blue casts. (He was shot on the hands and lost a finger in the attack.)

Stewart, meanwhile, says he’s been thanked Please see Shabbat, page 15

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In a world fueled by test scores and state-mandated curricula, camp is in the fortunate position of being a place where the focus can be on the camper as a whole, individual person.

Our focus on camper care at JCC day camps takes many forms: Happiness reports for campers and families, daily communication to families, and staff inspiration and appreciation. Twice weekly we ask campers to evaluate various aspects of camp such as specialty areas, aquatics, food and unit time. We take great pride in celebrating camper achievements. Whether it is conquering a fear and completing a new outdoor adventure element, demonstrating our Jewish value (middah) of the week, passing a swim level, or harvesting their first egg from one of our chickens, campers are recognized by staff and peers.

Our staff is the key to making our camper care program successful. We have changed the title “counselor” to “camper care associate” as a means of indicating to staff and the outside world the importance of this role.

Having a motivated and inspired staff makes the camper experience the best it can be.

Our detailed attention to camper care is what sets JCC camps apart. We are always looking for the next thing we can do to make the experience for your camper and for your family even better than the hour, day, week, or year before.

Katie Warren Whitlatch Assistant Director, Children, Youth & Family Division and J&R Day Camp

C O N N E C T I O N S 14 MAY 10, 2019

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to show solidarity for his “Jewish cousins.”

“I think it’s very important for communities to have dialogue and reach out to each other and support each other at all times,” he

said. “Hopefully, the next time I come here, it won’t be after a tragedy. Never again — that’s my message.”

Many Jewish worshippers, in turn,

welcomed him with the nearly identical Arabic greeting of peace: “as-salamu alaykum.”

Inside the synagogue, Goldstein spoke about a moment he shared with GilbertKaye’s 22-year-old daughter, Hannah, at the hospital where the shooting victims were taken. Before he was wheeled into surgery, the rabbi promised that he’d call her every Friday to say “Shabbat shalom,” continuing a tradition Gilbert-Kaye and Goldstein had begun 19 years earlier.

Gilbert-Kaye’s husband, Howard Kaye, and their daughter were at Saturday morning services.

Goldstein said that Chabad of Poway will find ways to honor Gilbert-Kaye’s legacy, ways to heal and ways to grow from this tragedy, but “we’ve got a long road to recover.”

To that end, he announced Saturday that he and his wife planned to see a therapist to work through this trauma. He also said group counseling would be held at the synagogue.

“Being a rabbi for 35 years, I’ve encountered the stigma of people who seek therapy — they think it’s going to denigrate them or make them less of a person,” he said. “But it’s nothing different than going to the dentist for a filling.”

Amid the horror of it all, many local residents are showing support for Chabad and the wider Poway Jewish community, which is home to three synagogues and about 700 affiliated Jewish families, according to Rabbi David Castiglione of the city’s Temple Adat Shalom.

As Shabbat approached, dozens of people lined the route that many congregants walk, or drive, to synagogue on Friday evening — carrying messages such as “Poway Strong” and “Love All.” And hundreds of floral bouquets lined either side of “Chabad Way.” Cards expressing sympathy and support, some signed “Your Christian Neighbors,” covered the walls of Chabad’s social hall.

The displays brought tears to Irina Shekhtman’s eyes.

“My mom and I started crying,” said Shekhtman, 34, a Chabad of Poway member.

“It brought out so many emotions to see the love for our people. It gives you the feeling that everything is going to be OK.” PJC

The system reduces the need to send infantry troops into Gaza to stop missile fire against population centers.

Despite this weekend’s death toll, Iron Dome acquitted itself well, Times of Israel military correspondent Judah Ari Gross told JTA. The higher than usual level of civilian casualties can be attributed to a combination of bad luck, the intensity of the barrages and Hamas’ use of heavier rockets with larger payloads. Such projectiles can intensify the damage when they do get through.

“In one barrage, they fired 117 rockets toward Ashdod. One got through. Is that overwhelming the system?” he asked. “You can say, yes, it is — especially as that one killed an Israeli civilian — or no, that’s a 99.1 percent success rate.”

The missile that did get through in Ashdod killed Pinchas Menachem Prezuazman, a 21-year old American citizen who was hit while running for cover. Even with a high level of interceptions, with enough metal flying, some are bound to get through, Gross said, adding that it was unclear exactly how the IDF had calculated its claimed 86 percent interception rate.

Uzi Rubin, one of the pioneers of Israel’s earliest attempts at missile defense, told JTA that based on the publicly available data, it appears that the Palestinians “tried to tax the system as much as they could, but the system as a whole held well.”

“Eighty-six percent is not much less than the 90 percent during [Operation Protective Edge], and remember this time most of the fire was concentrated on the area around Gaza, which is short range and harder to defend,” he said.

Israel doesn’t just rely on the Iron Dome to keep its citizens safe. Phone apps warn of incoming missiles, and bomb shelters and “safe rooms” are ubiquitous, if not always well-maintained. In his article Elran suggests that “existing plans for improving public and private shelters should be implemented in other parts of Israel.”

Elran also urged the Home Front Command and municipal leaders to get on the same page when it comes to closing schools and opening public shelters, “issues that continue to be disputed.”

Residents of southern Israel had differing

opinions as to the effectiveness of the IDF’s missile defenses.

Raymond Reijnen, a Dutch immigrant whose house in Kibbutz Nahal Oz was hit by a rocket as he hid in its bomb shelter with his wife and children on Saturday, said Iron Dome’s effectiveness has been exaggerated.

“Everybody thinks [it’s] great, but every mortar they fired at the kibbutz landed and didn’t got intercepted,” he said. “Iron Dome is a bandage to keep the people feeling safe and protected. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great system, but its capabilities are highly overestimated.”

On the other hand, Adele Raemer, a resident of Kibbutz Nirim on the Gaza border, said she did feel safer than in previous escalations.

“We’ve only had Iron Dome for about a year,” she said. “As a resident, I do feel more protected now that we have [it].”

Asked for comment, the IDF said that it was unable to provide information on Iron Dome’s performance or how it calculates interception rates because it was short-staffed due to Tuesday evening’s Yom Hazikaron, or Memorial Day, commemorations. PJC

Shabbat: Continued from page 14

by passers-by while running errands, and that a stranger in line at Starbucks asked to take a picture with him. He’s not used to the attention.

“I don’t deal well with praise,” Stewart told JTA. “I just feel like I did what I’m supposed to do. In a spiritual sense, I feel like I did what God wanted me to do.”

The synagogue, too, now has a national profile — “ingrained in history,” the rabbi said — as the site of the second mass shooting at an American synagogue in six months.

Rabbi Avi Weiss, a longtime activist and leader of the liberal wing of Modern Orthodoxy, flew across the country to spend Shabbat in Poway. The New York rabbi had traveled to Paris in 2015 following a siege at a kosher supermarket killed four, and he was in Pittsburgh the week after the synagogue shooting.

“How could I not be here?” Weiss asked.

Weiss was among the more than 300 people who filled Chabad’s social hall for a Shabbat dinner following Friday services.

Also in attendance were Rabbi Simon Jacobson, a best-selling author and the weekend’s scholar in residence, and Peter Yarrow of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.

The musician led those in attendance in an a cappella version of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” “[How] many ears must one man have — before he can hear people cry?” sang Yarrow, who is Jewish and lives in the area. “Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” Guests joined in for the chorus, “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

By the following morning, worshippers returning to synagogue were greeted outside by Hamad Arghi, 33, and his homemade placard. “Shalom Alechem,” it read. “Muslims stand in solidarity with the Jewish community.”

Arghi, an IT consultant from nearby Oceanside, said that as a Muslim, he wanted

Iron Dome: Continued from page 13

conflict the [Iron Dome] system would be required to cover primarily military installations and vital national infrastructures,” which would mean that there would be gaps in the system’s coverage of residential areas.

“During a broad and protracted conflict,” Elran wrote, there is a “danger of multiple, simultaneous events that stretch the capacity of response systems.”

The IDF has been beefing up its systems.

Globes reported that the army has been working on improvements to Iron Dome intended to deal with just the kinds of barrages used over the weekend, as well as against the kinds of short-range projectiles used to target communities along the Gaza border. In mid-April, the IDF concluded an air defense exercise combining its Iron Dome and Patriot missile batteries.

Overall, the presence of Iron Dome has allowed Israel additional flexibility in choosing when it wants to escalate conflicts.

p A photo of Lori Gilbert-Kaye at the Chabad of Poway, Calif., last week.

Photos by Gabrielle Birkner

p A Muslim attendee of the Shabbat event at the Chabad of Poway.

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MAY 10, 2019 15

Opinion The New York Times has a problem — EDITORIAL —

T

he April 26 cartoon in the New York Times International Edition showing a blind kippah-wearing President Trump being led by Prime Minister Netanyahu in the body of a dachshund seeing-eye dog was plainly anti-Semitic. That was really bad. And then, just three days later, as the Times was struggling to explain its remarkably offensive gaff and stumbled toward acknowledgment of the significance of its offense, it published a second cartoon caricature of Netanyahu, this time depicting him as Moses-like figure, holding a tablet with an Israeli flag on it, rather than the Ten Commandments, and taking a smug selfie. That made matters even worse.

Long before the offensive cartoons, the Times had been regularly criticized for a decades-long perceived anti-Israel bias in both its reporting and editorial comment, which many viewed as bordering on anti-Semitic. But it took a cartoon to open the floodgates of condemnation.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, commented that the cartoon showed anti-Semitic “stereotypes that suggest Jewish control.” And Bret Stephens, a Times columnist, wrote that the cartoon “checked so many anti-Semitic boxes

p The New York Times building was the scene of a demonstration over a cartoon with anti-Semitic imagery in its international issue.

Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

that the only thing missing was a dollar sign.”

Faced with the uproar, the Times offered an editor’s note that read like the impersonal script of a customer service representative.

It took a second statement for the paper to actually apologize. In that second effort, the Times acknowledged that “such imagery

is always dangerous, and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, it’s all the more unacceptable.”

“Apology not accepted,” the American Jewish Committee responded. “What does this say about your processes or your decision makers? How are you fixing it?”

The AJC comment was fitting, given that a second offending cartoon came next.

Finally, Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger announced: “We are changing our production processes to ensure adequate oversight and address issues with the international Opinion pages that enabled this mistake.”

He also said the Times will stop publishing syndicated cartoons, and would be “updating our unconscious bias training to ensure it includes a direct focus on anti-Semitism.”

That training will be essential. What the choice of the cartoons demonstrates is how desensitized many have become to anti-Semitic notions and imagery. Even five years ago, it is impossible to imagine the Times having made such an error. But with campaign ads featuring photos of George Soros sitting in front of a pile of money, the American public discourse has coarsened and soured. Even international editors of the Times have lost touch with appropriate outrage.

We hope this is a wake-up call for the New York Times, and that these embarrassing missteps lead to serious introspection. AntiSemitism is not acceptable anywhere or under any circumstances. It is hateful, it is corrosive and it is wrong. There is simply no place for it in the paper of record. PJC

Why President Trump desperately needs a White House Jewish liaison Guest Columnist Aaron Keyak

T

he terrorist attack at Chabad of Poway on April 27, which occurred on Shabbat and the last day of Passover, was horrific — and only the latest hate crime among the increasing number of anti-Semitic acts in recent years. The shooting left one dead and three injured.

While the role of comforter in chief is a title no president seeks out, Donald Trump filled this role well, expressing his “deepest sympathies” to the victims and consoling Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, the synagogue’s spiritual leader, in a call Goldstein called “so comforting.”

The scourge of global anti-Semitism must be eradicated and needs to be a top priority of the administration. Like President Trump’s compassionate response to Poway, the recent appointment of Elan Carr as anti-Semitism envoy is a step in the right direction, albeit long overdue.

But from a Jewish communal perspective, there is also the glaring omission that one position remains unfilled: White House Jewish liaison.

President Trump has never had an official Jewish liaison.

For more than 40 years, presidents have appointed liaisons to the Jewish community. They have come from many different backgrounds, from civil rights and domestic policy mavens to international

16 MAY 10, 2019

affairs specialists and campaign operatives, and from an array of denominations and personal shades of the Jewish faith.

President Barack Obama’s second Jewish liaison, Jarrod Bernstein, noted the “diverse strands of the American Jewish community,” and that while “we are one people and one community in many respects, we have a diverse set of issues that matter to us when broken down by region or stream of Judaism.”

When Jeffrey Berkowitz was named to the post in 2005 under President George W. Bush, it was reported as “interesting” that he was Reform, despite the “broad support President Bush has received from Orthodox and more religiously conservative Jews.”

During the Reagan administration, Marshall Breger “was faced with a tough moment [as the Jewish liaison] when Reagan decided to attend a ceremony in Bitburg, Germany, at a cemetery of Nazi soldiers from the SS. Breger could not convince Reagan to change his plans, but he did keep communication lines open between the White House and the Jewish community at a time of crisis, an effort he believed helped sensitize the administration.”

Even when the Jewish liaison wasn’t able to change the position of their boss, a nuanced and full understanding of the Jewish community is essential to advising the most powerful person on earth.

One aspect that unites the more than two dozen liaisons is that they each spoke to the entire Jewish community: liberals and political conservatives, secular and religious, Republicans, Democrats and independents, and of course to the main denominational movements.

That we’re already halfway through Donald Trump’s first term and without a Jewish liaison is not the biggest difference between this president and his six immediate predecessors. When it comes to speaking to U.S. Jewry, President Trump’s strategy is not to speak to all 7 million of us — it’s to not even really try with a majority of us.

While the president continues to get advice from his son-in-law and daughter Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump through a largely Orthodox lens on a wide range of issues, this is no substitute for a dedicated individual in charge of communicating with the Jewish community. Besides, their expansive portfolios leave little time to engage in the day-to-day communal engagement.

The lack of a liaison with regular contact with the diverse Jewish community was on display when President Trump organized a recent White House briefing to ostensibly discuss issues “impacting the community” on the eve of Passover. Not a single movement leader of the two largest Jewish denominations in the United States, neither Conservative nor Reform, was invited.

While fully and honestly including the Orthodox community is, of course, essential to any president’s Jewish outreach effort, this president’s insistence to disproportionately prioritize just 10 percent of Jewish Americans to such an extent is not right, either.

That Orthodox Jewish Americans have taken a larger role in our national political conversation, both on domestic and international issues, is appropriate and welcomed.

However, a president of the United States believing that they can leave out large

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segments of the Jewish community in their conversations with the Jewish community leaves the president’s advice and experience incomplete and, at the very least, hurts the entirety of U.S. Jewry.

Whether it was an Orthodox Jewish liaison for President Obama or a Reform liaison for the second President Bush, the position calls for daily, if not hourly, engagement and the hard work of serving as a conduit to and from the administration.

Were President Trump to have a person in this role, they would quickly see that there is no one denomination or segment of the Jewish community that represents the whole.

Inclusion is a learning process. It was only about a decade ago that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted how some Orthodox Jews attending the Republican Jewish Coalition retreat felt their religious needs weren’t being met. Now, to RJC’s credit, that’s far from the case. Orthodox Jews are now accommodated at its conventions with glatt kosher food and religious services.

With our community again under attack, President Trump’s words are indeed comforting. In contrast to the president’s dangerous response to the Pittsburgh massacre — when he initially suggested the synagogue should have had better security — he got it right this time. But the fact that the White House still doesn’t have a Jewish liaison is a wrong that must be addressed. PJC Aaron Keyak is the former head of the National Jewish Democratic Council and cofounder of Bluelight Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based communications firm.

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Opinion A message to Poway, from Pittsburgh, six months later Guest Columnist Toby Tabachnick

I

ran into an old friend about three weeks after the Tree of Life massacre, a former Pittsburgher, who wanted to talk about the events of Oct. 27. In particular, she wanted to know about one of the survivors, someone with whom she had grown up.

“Is she doing OK?” my friend asked.

I snapped back: “None of us is doing OK.” Then I silently thought, or maybe said out loud, “That’s not even the right question.”

My friend was well-meaning, and I realized almost immediately that my response was out of line, especially because I also had been guilty of spouting platitudes since Oct. 27. How many people had I interviewed who witnessed the unimaginable, or whose loved one was brutally murdered, with whom I began the conversation with the now absurd question: “How are you?”

None of us was OK. Instead, our feelings could have been catalogued like a sideways and distorted al chet.

We were depressed, we were angry, we were confused.

We were questioning our faith, we were questioning our security, we were questioning our place in America.

We were anxious, we were skittish.

We were scared.

Yes, we felt the love of tens of thousands of other Jews and non-Jews from around the globe, who have reached out to us and held our hands, and sent us money, and erected memorials to honor the martyrs slain in what should have been their safe place by an anti-Semite. We felt the love, and we told the world that love is stronger than hate.

But what could we say to each other?

Are there words that offer social connection and salutation, that convey that we care, without sounding hollow, without sounding ridiculous?

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the spiritual leader of Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, told me in the days following the shooting that sometimes using no words is the right choice, that a hug is the way to go. Hugs are good, but not always appropriate, especially between those who are strangers — regardless of the fact that they share the distinction of being part of Jewish Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018.

I, for one, have been unable to find the words, and I still stutter as I begin conversations, slipping into the familiar social constructs of language as I continue to meet

with those flooded with sorrow so that I can try to tell their stories.

“People in mourning tend to use euphemism,” notes writer Zadie Smith in “Elegy for a Country’s Season,” an essay published in 2014. “The most melancholy of all the euphemisms: ‘The new normal.’ … We can’t even say the word ‘abnormal’ to each other out loud: it reminds us of what came before.”

I will say it. The situation that Jewish Pittsburgh has found itself in since Oct. 27, 2018, is abnormal. What came before, the complacent and unspoken conviction that our community is safe is gone, if not forever, certainly for the foreseeable future.

We have seen the worst of humanity, and now so has Poway. But we also have seen the best, in the aftermath, in the unwavering support of so many, and that has helped to ease the pain. The pain is eased but it nonetheless persists as we go about our daily lives in our new abnormal state.

As the weeks and months passed, we resumed the celebrations that are the lifeblood of our people. A community-menorah lighting outside the Tree of Life building was at once a reaffirmation of our dedication to our values and a melancholy reminder of those who were not there to celebrate. By Purim, we were ready for the shpiels and the carnivals, while we continued to be

haunted by the knowledge that life for us is different now.

Then came Passover.

At my own family’s seder I read the Haggadah’s words, that in every generation there are those who want to kill us. I simultaneously recalled the words of a daughter of one of the 11 Jews murdered here, telling me how difficult her family’s seder would be this year without her dad. It was almost too much to bear.

Passover was difficult for many of us in Pittsburgh, but on the eighth day, any bandage straining to cover our deep and personal wound was harshly ripped from our communal skin when we heard the news of the shooting at the Chabad of Poway.

We gathered together outside the Tree of Life building again in vigil, six months to the day of our own anti-Semitic attack.

We are grieving with you, Poway. We feel your loss in our bones. We offer you love, and we offer you solidarity.

But I weep as I tell you, there are no words. PJC Toby Tabachnick is the senior staff writer of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

Since Oct. 27, she has written more than 30 articles about the Tree of Life massacre.

This piece was originally published by San Diego Jewish World.

Why does Holocaust Remembrance Day ignore Middle Eastern Jews?

Guest Columnist Hen Mazzig

O

ne evening as a child in Petach Tikvah, I was in my room listening to the Iraqi Jewish singer Salima Mourad when a siren pierced the air. I rose from my bed and stood in silence.

The siren marked the start of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I was trying hard to think of all those who died in the Holocaust as the loud memorial siren drowned out the Arabic music. I was trying to force myself to feel the pain that my own people, the Jewish people, had endured.

Then the siren stopped. Salima continued singing in Arabic: “My body has become emaciated, my soul has melted and my bones are showing.”

It happens every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day. As a Mizrahi Israeli, I have always had a complicated relationship with the Holocaust.

Growing up in Israel, I learned about the horrific mass murder of one-third of the Jewish people. Hearing stories from Holocaust survivors, and from my friends whose grandparents survived, was always hard. Each year during Yom Hashoah, the shops in Israel close early, they show Holocaust movies on television and a siren commands the attention of all Israelis, compelling us to stop for a minute of silence

and remember what happened to us.

But growing up, I did not understand why.

When I asked my Iraqi grandmother why the Holocaust is significant to us, she answered, “It is a horrible thing that happened to the Ashkenazim,” and that we are one family; we are all Jews.

I could understand that the Jewish people were all one family. But I couldn’t understand what this tragedy meant for me, a young Mizrahi Jew with no real connection to the Jews of Europe.

When I asked my grandmother if our family was oppressed by the Nazis, she said, “No. But if Hitler could have, he would have killed us, too.”

But the Jews of Iraq did suffer in part because of Hitler. In 1941, the government of Iraq was officially Nazi aligned and carried out actions in cooperation with the Germans.

My grandmother had told me about how hard life was for the Jews of Iraq and about the Farhud, the two days of pogroms against the Jewish community in Iraq in 1942, and about how they were expelled from Iraq. But she didn’t realize this connection.

When she told me about these hardships, she concluded with “it was not a Holocaust.”

Perhaps that is why I had such trouble understanding how my people’s history fit into Israel’s history and collective memory, and why I had such a complicated relationship with the Holocaust.

The Jewish community in Europe endured horrific violence; 6 million Jews were murdered. There is no denying how terrible it was and how much grief and suffering they experienced.

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When these survivors and refugees arrived in Israel, they wanted to grow out of that darkness but still remember what happened to them. The biggest Holocaust museum in the world, Yad Vashem, documented everything that happened to the Jews of Europe in a professional yet emotional way.

I remember visiting Yad Vashem as a teenager and looking for the story of the Iraqi Jews, but I could not find it. The history that I had consisted only of the stories that my grandmother told me.

The persecution and suffering of Mizrahim, never mind the expulsion of 850,00 Mizrahim from the Arab countries of their birth after the creation of Israel, is never recognized with the wail of a siren.

During my visit, I did find a small part of Yad Vashem dedicated to North African Jews, noting that 50 Tunisian Jews were killed during the Holocaust. At the time I glossed over it.

But since then I’ve learned that for parts of 1942 and 1943, Tunisia was under direct Nazi rule. Some 5,000 Tunisian Jewish men, including my grandfather, were conscripted to almost 40 detention camps and forced labor areas. Conditions in the camps were horrific. Even after being worn down by the Allied forces, German authorities continued to persecute the Tunisian Jews.

So while Yad Vashem reports the number of Tunisian Jews killed in the Holocaust at 50, Dr. Victor Hayoun, the author of a study about Tunisian Jews in the Holocaust, argued in 2017 that the number is closer to 700.

I am in pain for the 6 million Jews who were brutally murdered by Nazis and their

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collaborators. A third of the whole Jewish people was erased. But growing up, being told to feel and connect to this collective trauma that I never felt fully connected to was almost impossible.

Until recently, the traumas of the Mizrahi community were never acknowledged fully and dismissed as irrelevant. The stories of North African Jews in the Holocaust were never fully told or acknowledged. Mizrahim were not allowed to truly connect to the Holocaust, an Ashkenazi experience that we were not supposed to be a part of.

I hope that one day Mizrahi children in Israel and around the world will learn about our trauma and what happened to our community during the Holocaust. That they will find a place to deal with our tragic memory of our community and our history. I hope they are taught about the Vichy regime in North Africa, the Nazi-led Free Arabian Legions and how the long arm of the Third Reich reached the Middle East.

But I also hope that they are taught about the Farhud, the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab and North African countries and the suffering they have endured.

Learning these stories will not diminish the memory of the Holocaust. It is only when Mizrahim are invited to fully be a part of the communal mourning, and only when we are heard, that all Jews will be able to truly mourn together. PJC Hen Mazzig is an Israeli writer, international speaker, commentator and marketing consultant from Tel Aviv.

MAY 10, 2019 17

Life & Culture Hungry reading: ‘The 100 Most Jewish Foods’ and ‘The Brisket Chronicles’ — BOOKS —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

>> “The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List” Publisher: Artisan, 2019 >> “The Brisket Chronicles” Publisher: Workman, 2019

G

ive the gourmand steak au poivre and the literati Ulysses because sometimes all you’re craving is familiar meat and a quick read. Those mildly hungry for books dedicated to Jewish cuisine should look no further than “The 100 Most Jewish Foods” by Tablet’s Alana Newhouse, and “The Brisket Chronicles” by Steven Raichlen.

Like peanut butter and bananas, the two texts can be paired or enjoyed individually, as each offers beautiful photographs, accessible writing and the ability to allow readers to nibble away at passages without any need of finishing the whole.

Newhouse’s work is a “highly debatable list,” as she puts it.

“This is not a list of today’s most popular Jewish foods, or someone’s ideas of the

tastiest, or even the most enduring,” she writes.

“What’s here, instead, are the foods that contain the deepest Jewish significance — the ones that, through the history of our people (however you date it), have been most profoundly inspired by the rhythms of the Jewish calendar and the contingencies of the Jewish experience.”

Caveat accepted. Which is perhaps why brisket, horseradish and kichel appear, but falafel and Sunkist Fruit Gems do not.

The book presents each food accompanied by a short vignette and recipe.

Occasional information is sprinkled throughout the pages, such as the rise in sesame-related eats (see “Halvah”) and insights into Soviet cuisine (see “Borscht”), but overall the text is light on history. Those thirsting

for taxonomic entries seasoned with origins and etymologies should read Gil Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food — the comprehensive collection offers more than a mouthful for most Jewish readers. What Newhouse’s text brings to the table is an array of entertaining writers (or, as she calls them, “an unexpected collection of contributors”), including Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Zac Posen and Shalom Auslander. Sometimes, as Newhouse points out, the contributors are more interesting than the food themselves, as evidenced

by Auslander’s searing take on cholent: The author’s sad childhood memories are combined with an imaginary Oliver Twist and an encounter with the divine.

“The Brisket Chronicles” is less diverse, honing in

on what Raichlen calls “the world’s most epic cut of meat.” Apart from explaining how to purchase, prepare and serve brisket, Raichlen packs his pages with mouthwatering images and instructions.

In a passage dedicated to “a real deal Texas-style brisket,” he writes, “Well, here’s the big kahuna: fourteen pounds of pure proteinaceous awesomeness. The brisket that makes reputations — and fortunes...

I suggest serving it unadorned so you can appreciate the complex interplay of salt, spice, smoke, meat and fat. Texas tradition calls for a loaf of spongy factory-made white bread. Or up the ante and serve it with garlicky Lone Star Toast.”

Raichlen’s writing offers a particular flavor that, like its subject, teeters between bravado and subtle sweetness. When discussing brisket sous vide and its secondary status to “the real McCoy,” Raichlen notes, “Cooking brisket involves struggle — man against meat, as it were. Struggle in rendering the fat, converting the collagen into gelatin, in caramelizing, even in controlled-burning the animal proteins into a crust. In a very real sense, that struggle comes through in Please see Books, page 19

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Investors can adopt full sustainable investing portfolios or incorporate individual equity or fixed income strategies into their existing portfolios over time. They can use any combination of the above sustainable investing approaches to shape portfolios in a way that meets their individual goals.

Building a portfolio you can feel good about

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managed assets are invested with sustainability in mind and that the use of ESG integration specifically is growing at a rate of 17 percent per year.2 Fifty-eight percent of investors believe sustainable investing will be mainstream in 10 years, and adoption of sustainable investing is expected to grow significantly, from 39% of investors today to 48% over the next five years, according to UBS Investor Watch, “Return on Values.”1 Sustainable investing is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You have the choice to take small steps toward sustainable investing with a few small changes in your portfolio or dive in with a more extensive approach.

But one thing is certain, your portfolio won’t become more sustainable unless you take action. UBS is here to help.

“UBS Investor Watch: Return on values,” 2018, https://www. ubs.com/magazines/wma/insights/en/investor-watch/2018/ return-on-values.html.

2.

“From ‘why’ to ‘why not,’ McKinsey and Company, 2017, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/private-equity-andprincipal-investors/our-insights/from-why-to-why-notsustainable-investing-as-the-new-normal.

1.

This article has been written and provided by UBS Financial Services Inc. for use by its Financial Advisors.

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Life & Culture Is the Jewish world ready for a new holiday?

Backers of a ‘Day of Justice’ think so — OBSERVANCE —

By Lev Gringauz | JTA

L

iberal Jews are often accused of replacing Judaism with social justice and giving their cause a name — tikkun olam, or healing the world — that happens to be the only Jewish thing about it.

But a new Jewish holiday in development means to dispel that idea by making social justice a full part of religious life, backed by the mainstream American Jewish community.

“If Abraham can lobby God … why do we not have at least one day a year when we do this?” asked holiday founder Andrew Mandel, a longtime activist and former Wexner Heritage Program fellow, in a 2018 presentation. “Where we advocate in solidarity with our neighbors. A Yom HaTzedek.”

Yom HaTzedek, literally Day of Justice, was mulled into existence by Mandel after he saw how few Jews came to protests and advocacy work, contrasted with the masses that “begrudgingly attend” synagogue for the High Holidays.

“And here we are doing things that are actually quite profound, that could have a real impact, that speak our values out loud in a way that might inspire or give comfort or solidarity to others, and we’re not doing it,” said Mandel, a rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Recent additions to the American Jewish calendar, like Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), have come from Israel. Both are civil holidays that Jewish communities outside of Israel have adopted, with varying religious and secular rituals.

But a new Jewish holiday created by a social justice activist seems all too easy for mainstream Jewish life to dismiss. That is, unless lay leaders and institutions come to the table to help create it and fit it to their needs.

So Mandel and a core group of friends have created an open process in which all the details of Yom HaTzedek — the date, ritual, liturgy, etc. — will be built from the ground up over the course of two design sprints.

The main event will be held on June 17 in New York City, when professionals from a variety of Jewish organizations will work in groups to blueprint the holiday and vote on a final version. Mandel says that some participants are officially representing their organizations, while others haven’t made clear whether they only represent by affiliation.

Elad Nehorai, a progressive Orthodox Jewish activist, is coming to the design sprint both as a member of Torah Trumps Hate, a progressive Orthodox advocacy organization, and Hevria, the Jewish blogging community.

More broadly, at the design sprint, he intends to represent Orthodox Jews, who often are left out of the Jewish conversation on social justice that happens in more politically and religiously liberal circles.

“I care a lot about trying to find a way that

p Andrew Mandel, right, founded Yom HaTzedek (literally Day of Justice) after he saw how few Jews came to protests and advocacy work, contrasted with the masses that “begrudgingly attend” synagogue for the High Holidays.

this will not just be about activism, but about deeply connecting to the Jewish experience as well,” Nehorai said.

And though there’s no way to know if Yom HaTzedek will be a success, “starting a new Jewish holiday is not a simple matter, and that’s part of what makes it exciting.”

Participants from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and other organizations already are confirmed for the event, which will also be live streamed online.

If all goes well, Yom HaTzedek will launch in 2020.

But to prepare for the big day in New York and troubleshoot the design process, a more laid-back and intimate design event was held in Jerusalem on April 9, Election Day in Israel. A group of mostly liberal American rabbinical students studying in Israel for the year came together in a spacious room of the Hebrew Union College Jerusalem campus.

With a Simon and Garfunkel-themed playlist as background, there was a palpable excitement and little doubt of the holiday’s future.

“This feels like the start of something,” said Shirah Kraus, an HUC rabbinical student and part of the team organizing Yom HaTzedek.

“I have a lot of faith in the group of us that are making it happen that it’s not gonna just peter out. Honestly, the way I see it, the worst-case scenario is that we’ll learn from the experience and create something even better.”

Kraus compared the event to the creation of tech giant Microsoft in Bill Gates’ garage.

“This is that moment, too,” she said. “I want to be able to look back and go, ‘I was there.’”

The event borrowed from startup culture as well. It was spent introducing and initiating the design sprint, with six groups brainstorming Yom HaTzedek and presenting their final proof of concepts, which will be shared with the New York event.

Some ideas, like the shofar as the holiday’s symbol and bagels as its food, were widely recommended. But one group actively

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decided against using the shofar, as a participant was worried that it would be seen as a liberal Jewish appropriation of Rosh Hashanah. That group instead chose the image of Jacob’s ladder ascending to heaven.

The tug of war between social justice and Judaism was something of an unofficial theme of the event. At the beginning of the day, Mandel referenced the book “To Heal The World?” by Jonathan Neumann, in which the author argues that social justice and tikkun olam is a made-up New Age idea with no real connection to Judaism.

“The truth is that tikkun olam and its leftist politics have no basis in Judaism,” wrote Neumann, who also writes for Commentary magazine.

While Mandel also dislikes the bumpersticker nature of tikkun olam, he insisted that the Torah’s laws on the acceptance of strangers and the statements of prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah, who criticized the Israelites for their treatment of the poor, are an ultimate rebuttal to Neumann’s thesis.

Even defenders of tikkun olam have warned that its practitioners should “resist the temptation of reducing Judaism to our favorite political or social ideas,” as Andres Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, wrote in eJewish Philanthropy.

Lisa Feld, another HUC rabbinical student and the April 9 design sprint facilitator, said, “Jews are constantly told you need to put your Judaism in this box and keep it away from worldly matters, and you need to keep your social justice in this box and keep it away from your Jewish identity. Neither is welcome in the other’s space.

“That’s wrong because trying to create a better world is part of trying to serve God,” Feld said, “and if I have to leave both aside from each other, I’m only doing either as half a person.”

That’s why she is so invested in Yom HaTzedek.

“It’s the old joke: two Jews, three opinions. To have this many Jews and this many

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p Lisa Feld is also involved in the holiday planning. Photos by Lev Gringauz

opinions, but to have them coming together is tremendously exciting,” Feld said. “It gives me hope that the things that I am hoping for from this holiday — that it’s going to allow me to integrate both sides of me — are things that other Jews want.”

Mandel is confident that the collaborative design process will legitimize Yom HaTzedek for Jews across the religious and political spectrum. With the New York event including many of the American Jewish world’s heavy hitters, he sees the holiday as a chance to bring some unity to a community fractured by left vs. right, social justice vs.

Judaism, and Diaspora vs. Israel politics.

In fact, Mandel says, that’s sort of the whole point.

“If the people who end up celebrating Yom HaTzedek are the people who are doing the spirit of Yom HaTzedek anyway without a holiday,” he said, “then we really didn’t achieve much.” PJC

Books: Continued from page 18

the taste.” Later, when lionizing his Aunt Annette’s holiday brisket, he writes, “Long before my indoctrination into barbecue, I ate brisket. So did every other Jewish kid in the neighborhood. Brisket was the ultimate holiday dish, and nobody made it better than my aunt, Annette Farber... Lavished with apricots, prunes and other dried fruits, it was the sort of sweet-salty, meaty-fruity mash-up typical of so much Ashkenazi cuisine.”

Elements of Raichlen’s rhetoric feel a bit overseasoned, but in general the narrative flavoring works throughout. Ultimately, the book bodes well as a multi-seasonal gift or instruction manual. Part investigator, part cookbook, part food porn, “The Brisket Chronicles,” offers a bit of what so many readers are searching for: a delightful way to satiate their hunger. PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

MAY 10, 2019 19

Headlines Tree of Life: Continued from page 1

“None of their names should be here,” Myers said.

Myers and Manning then co-led the recitation of selected Psalms.

“We are here not to mourn, not to grieve, but to uplift each other,” Myers said. “To say we will not give evil a posthumous victory. … Good will always win. We stand here as proof of that.”

Longtime Mother Emanuel member Charles Williams could relate to the feelings of those survivors of the Tree of Life attack. The nine people murdered at Mother Emanuel were all friends of his, he said.

“These times, you have to be strong,” he stressed. “Your faith has to be strong.

Faith is the key.”

Faith is what motivated Williams to purchase and install a camera at Mother Emanuel about

Henry: Continued from page 1

endeavors have also also embodied such care.

For years, Henry has met with b’nei mitzvah and helped them prepare divrei Torah to be shared. These informal engagements, and others, have enabled Henry to create meaningful connections lasting far longer than a milestone service.

Talking to Henry about her tenure, she recalled an individual who just became a

South: Continued from page 2

realities of hate,” such as the Tree of Life massacre and the killing of Antwon Rose II, the “intentional building of bridges and relationships” is paramount.

The JCPA trip highlighted continued injustices in America, and the necessity of working together with diverse communities to rectify those injustices, explained Markiz.

He will be leading a group of about 30 people, mostly from the Beth Shalom community, on a similar trip from May 19-21.

“As a congregation, I think we should have a commitment — and I believe that we do — to understand American history, our place in

six months before its 2015 attack. That camera was the one that captured images of the killer, and led to his quick identification by the FBI and to his arrest shortly thereafter.

“I had to buy that camera,” said Williams, who remembered the name of the Radio Shack employee who sold it to him, as well as the name of the contractor who installed it. “No one told me to, but I just knew we needed it. I said, ‘God,’ maybe one day you will show me why I had to do this.”

“We share something now,” Williams said of his congregation’s connection to the survivors of the Tree of Life massacre.

“It’s a bond,” added his wife, the Rev. Ruth Williams.

Despite his unfathomable loss, Williams said that his “faith is intact. It’s stronger now that it’s ever been. You have to hang in there.

God is in the mix always.”

It’s not a club anyone wants to be a member of, but there is something empowering about

being in the presence of those who have suffered from the same type of trauma, noted Carol Black, a member of New Light, who hid in a closet as the murderer executed her fellow congregants on Oct. 27, including her brother, Dr. Richard Gottfried.

“They’ve been there, and know what we’re going through, and they have found a way to forgiveness,” Black said. “That’s something I may struggle with forever.”

The visit from Mother Emanuel “gives us a lot of strength because they’ve been through what we’ve been through,” said Andrea Wedner, who was seriously injured in the shooting, and is the daughter of murder victim Rose Mallinger. “They know how we feel, and we know how they feel.”

“The outpouring of love has been overwhelming,” Wedner added. “It’s very therapeutic, and it helps me immensely.”

Both faith communities have “gone through the same thing,” said Manning.

“They can strengthen one another and encourage one another toward perseverance.”

Myers has been grateful for the support of the Mother Emanuel congregation, especially that of Manning. The two faith leaders have kept in close contact since the Tree of Life massacre.

“God sent an angel to me,” Myers said, referring to Manning. “God is there for me.

I’m keenly aware there are many whose faith has been challenged, or perhaps even lost.

But we are all going to figure it out together.

That’s why this visit is so important. It’s not a first or a last, but on a continuum of a longterm relationship.”

The four congregations joined together for Shabbat services Saturday morning at Rodef Shalom, where Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha and Dor Hadash are currently housed. PJC

board member at Rodef Shalom.

“She is someone that I’ve known since I got to Pittsburgh in 1991. I was there with her family for her bat mitzvah and when her mother died, and I was there at her wedding and her kid’s bris and naming. She comes to my house for Rosh Hashanah and Seder, and now she’s on the board,” said Henry. “This is a person I’ve known for most of her life. I think she’s 37 now, so this is the kind of thing that makes me feel really proud.”

In addition to building lasting relationships Henry is happy to have been a part of

the congregation’s development.

“I am really proud of the inclusion work that we’ve done here and of the prayer opportunities that we’ve created,” she said.

“With Don Megahan and Molly May, we’re creating, all the time, worship that we feel is engaging and helps you connect with the holy and with each other.”

The Rabbi Sharyn H. Henry Social Justice Award and fund were formally recognized at Shabbat services on Friday, May 3. Also announced that evening was that Rodef Shalom teen Jordana Avigad, because of her

“exceptional and extraordinary volunteer record,” had won the Walter Ellman Social Action Memorial Award.

Henry supports the honors being presented in tandem.

“I’m hoping that both of these awards are aspirational for people to take social action and social justice more seriously, and that people will say, ‘Oh, wow, look, you can get an award for this, it’s that important.’” PJC

it, and ways we can make the world better,” he said. “If this trip now allows me the ability to understand my neighbor, their lived experience better, then I can be a better neighbor to them.”

The Federation is planning a communitywide mission to the South in March 2020.

Sayles hopes that the relationships formed on the recent JCPA trip will help recruit both Jewish and black participants for the mission next year.

“I think this was a unique experience,” he said. “When we talk as a Jewish community and we want to share how important Israel is to us a Jewish community, we are constantly telling people, ‘Oh, you’ve got to get to Israel, you’ve got to see it for yourself.’ Or, when we want to educate people about the Holocaust, we say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to get to Germany,’

or ‘You’ve got to get to Yad Vashem or the Holocaust Museum in D.C.’ And I think this experience is no different. If you really want to understand in a meaningful way — as somebody who is not a member of the black community — slavery and the civil

rights movement and how that connects to criminal justice reform today, then you need to go to the South and learn about it.” PJC

The Readers and Writers Workshop Testing • Tutoring • Consultation Summer 2019 New Programs for High School Students ✔ Writing Fundamentals for the ACT and SAT: Grammar, Punctuation, and Paragraph Structure – June-August ✔ “Story Time”/Fun with Fiction: Students will write a short story – June-July.

Call Dr. Shandel Gilbert at the Workshop to learn more about the programs: 412-421-1895.

20 MAY 10, 2019

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Tree of Life attack inspires Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to welcome first-ever comfort dog

T

he newest member of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police may be the best snuggler in the bunch. Zane, a 9-week-old purebred golden retriever, was welcomed as the Bureau’s “first-ever comfort dog” in a Facebook post last week complete with (as expected) super cute photos.

Pittsburgh Police Sergeant Carla Kearns explained that following the Tree of Life attack she was inspired to find a capable canine to serve in this capacity.

“I watched people during the debriefings at that time who were anxious and didn’t want to be there, but as soon as the dogs came in, you could just see their anxiety levels dropping,” she said.

For decades the Bureau has operated a K-9 unit — a Facebook page dedicated to the group posts photos of dogs wearing body vests, dogs doing training exercises and reminiscences on K-9 Rocco, who died five years ago while “protecting the citizens of Pittsburgh and his fellow police officers” — but while current members of the K-9 unit

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

are unable to be pet while on duty, Zane’s human interactions will be critical to his service, explained the Bureau.

“Zane will be pivotal in helping calm victims of violent crime during interviews, as well as during critical incidents and events.

He will also be out in the community for meet and greets when he’s ready to serve,” said the post.

Zone 4 Pittsburgh Police Officer Victoria Butch, who is a community resource officer specially trained in critical and traumatic incidents, crisis intervention and community outreach, will care for Zane. “Officer Butch was the perfect fit as Zane’s handler,” added the post.

The Bureau expects Zane’s official swearing in to take place six to eight weeks from now.

Until then, Zane will complete training, receive shots and attend obedience school.

Upon completion, “Zane will have a badge and all the rights of any other police K-9.”

—Adam Reinherz

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines Jewelers: Continued from page 6

On the recommendation of a friend, Goughneour was connected with Tina Shimenko. The two met for coffee at 61C Cafe in Squirrel Hill and discussed possibilities.

“When Yefim passed, we were deciding whether to close all together, consolidate, maybe close Regent Square, maybe close this one,” she said.

In the end, the Shimenko family (Tina’s husband, Michael, is also a jeweler) decided to keep both stores running, hire Goughneour and redo the Squirrel Hill site.

Though Goughneour was committed to maintaining a store consistent with the family’s reputation, he had some immediate ideas for what was going to change: the dated sign, the paint color and large island display case.

“When I first walked in the room, [my thought was] there was no way in hell I was doing this,” he said. “But as we started to go through the process, it was just one thing led

slightly into another.”

Smaller remodels led way to larger changes and months later, the space is now complete. Shimenko is proud of the look and the fact that the store is still there. Customers are happy, too.

“I’m glad that they reopened it,” said Chester.

Masters agreed.

“I’m glad they opened next-door, to be honest. I mean, not that I don’t want to go visit Tina and Michael over in Regent Square, but it’s just easier. I could walk across the street,” he said.

Masters has a watch battery that needs to be replaced. Chester had hers done a while back. That sort of work, general repairs and new purchases are among the myriad things that can be presented to a jeweler on a daily basis, explained Goughneour.

The ability to juggle such responsibilities, understand the intricacies of the craft and handle each customer’s needs “takes years to develop,” said Shimenko.

“The biggest thing is that people are just

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people,” said Goughneour. “You just take each customer for what they want and what it is that they’re looking for and try to do your best to make that dream come true. Because when you’re talking about jewelry, it is a dream.

For most people, whether they’re dropping a couple hundred dollars on a fashion line or a couple thousand dollars in that engagement case, their money is hard spent.”

Goughneour and Shimenko both talked about changes in the jewelry trade — and the way the internet has wreaked havoc on independent shop owners. Although there is a value in technology, customer service should not be dismissed, noted Goughneour.

“Sure, you can go online and buy an engagement ring, but isn’t it nice to be able to come in the store and see it and know that we’re here to polish it, clean it, size it?” said Shimenko. “I have customers from 20 years ago that they bring their jewelry back in, and my husband will still do little things for no charge, just because they’re our customer.”

“The internet, the big department stores and the big box stores, they’ve taken so much

of the business over the years. It’s really quite a struggle to be a mom-and-pop store,” she continued. “It cracks me up because somebody was sharing on Facebook to ‘make sure you shop local, even if it’s 10 percent more.’

And my answer back to that was, ‘Who said I’m gonna be 10 percent more?’ Everybody assumes that the internet is cheaper. I have the freedom to do as I want. Why can’t I have the better price?”

Mom-and-pop stores also foster warm relationships.

“Yefim, he was like an institution,” said Chester.

Pointing to a part of the store, Shimenko recalled her deceased father-in-law and the magnifying loupe he regularly wore. “He had his little bench right here where he would always wait on customers,” she said.

Added Chester, “I miss him, but I like having it open next door so I can just go over there. It’s like part of him is there.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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MAY 10, 2019 21

Celebrations

Torah

Engagements

Holiness as a last resort Rabbi Joe Hample Parshat Kedoshim Leviticus 19:1-20:27

Yahr/Bloxberg: Janie and Chuck Yahr joyfully announce the engagement of their son Joshua to Ariel Bloxberg. Ari is the daughter of Cheryl Bloxberg and Roger Bloxberg, of Los Angeles, Calif. Josh received his MBA from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He is a marketing associate at Pom Wonderful in Brentwood, Calif. Ari received her BS in fashion merchandising at Indiana University. She is an assistant buyer for Ross Dress for Less in Los Angeles. Josh and Ari became engaged in Amsterdam in 2018 and plan to be married Sept. 22 in Los Angeles.

B’nai Mitzvah Eli Firman, son of Irv and Mindy Firman of Squirrel Hill, will become a bar mitzvah on Saturday, May 11 at Rodef Shalom Congregation. Eli is the brother of Brian Firman and Lucy Firman. Grandparents are Anna Lee and the late David Firman and Bernard and Evelyn Sobol.

Caroline Rock, daughter of Steven Rock and Amy Schulman of Mt. Lebanon, will become a bat mitzvah on Saturday, May 11 at Temple Emanuel of South Hills. Caroline is the sister of Melanie and is the granddaughter of Fred and Sally Rock of Pittsburgh and Jerry and Lorraine Schulman of Allentown, Pa. PJC

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I didn’t become a rabbi until I was 52. I couldn’t have done this job in my earlier years — I wouldn’t have had the patience. I might have known enough Hebrew, enough Bible, enough Jewish history. I could’ve bluffed my way through the prayers; they’re all printed in the book anyway. I could’ve taught myself a little Talmud and midrash from reference materials. But that stuff isn’t the rabbinate.

The essence of being clergy is being nice to everyone, whether you like them or not. My congregants won’t know or care if I confuse Abraham with Moses, but they’ll sure know if I confuse Herbie Klein with Harry Stein. You can’t learn that in a classroom or from a syllabus.

There’s only one other rabbi here in Morgantown, my Chabad counterpart.

Occasionally, I’ll see him on a Jewish holiday, but I have more frequent contact with liberal Christian clergy, at street fairs and panel discussions and political events. It is with these non-Jewish colleagues that I can really let my hair down. They understand what’s tough about my profession: not the scripture or the ceremony, not the committees or the deadlines, but the draining task of embodying holiness.

I know what holiness is not. It is not vanity, pettiness, bitterness, selfishness. The rabbi should not be the first to take refreshments at the oneg — it’s unspiritual. The rabbi should not talk over others, nitpick about trifles, ignore people’s pain, cut someone off — it’s unsupportive. From my own days as a congregant, I know what congregants want and deserve.

That doesn’t mean it’s at the tip of my fingers.

Recently, I had coffee with a Mennonite pastor and we compared notes. He’s an introvert, he said; what’s hardest for him is approaching strangers, working the crowd, sustaining the conversation. Those aren’t my challenges. What’s hardest for me is being humble, attentive, considerate. Those qualities don’t come naturally. I have to fake it till I make it. As I tell the b’nei mitzvah kids about their sermons: Pretend it’s a scene in a play.

If you’re in the paper clip business, your raw material is steel; if you’re in the galoshes business, your raw material is rubber; but if you’re in the religion business, your raw material is your own personality. You need to process

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your awful self into something that resembles piety. I struggle with this constantly.

However, it is slightly more attainable than when I was 25 or even 40. In youth, I had a brittle temper, a crackling presumption, an arrogant certitude about everything. Decades of social debacles (and therapy) softened my attitude. Even in my first rabbinical internships or part-time pulpits, I threw a tantrum if expectations were unclear. I lost a couple of jobs before I got more user-friendly.

This week’s Torah portion is from Leviticus, the scariest of the five books. Leviticus is mostly rules and rituals, and many of those are off-putting to the modern sensibility.

In “Reform school” — Hebrew Union College — I took a course on Leviticus, the gist of which was, how can we find ways to appreciate an unappealing text? There are a number of strategies that may help.

The middle part of Leviticus, called the Holiness Code, makes sanctity available to the whole population. The conventional wisdom is that this week’s portion — chapter 19, the ethical chapter — is the pinnacle of Leviticus. Accommodate the disabled (19:14), avoid gossip (19:16), bear no grudges (19:18), respect elders (19:32) — surely that goes down easier than the dietary laws (chapter 11), the mikveh (chapter 15), Yom Kippur (chapter 16) and agricultural taboos (chapter 25). But it is more difficult to be a sensitive, compassionate person than to honor arbitrary tribal constraints. We can be proud of Leviticus 19: It is to the credit of Judaism that the Torah requires these things, but it is by no means simple to comply.

This week’s haftarah gives me permission to lean on my non-Jewish associates in my inadequacy. The passage says, “To Me, O Israelites, you are just like the Ethiopians, declares the Eternal. True, I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir” (Amos 9:7). Jews are not so different from anyone else. God just tests us a little harder: “For I will give the order and shake the House of Israel through all the nations as one shakes sand in a sieve, and not a pebble falls to the ground” (Amos 9:9). Sounds like a bumpy ride! If you find common decency as stressful as I do, that’s what we’re up against.

But our success is part of God’s plan. PJC Rabbi Joe Hample is spiritual leader of Tree of Life Congregation in Morgantown, W.Va.

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Lisa Campbell.................................Sidney Friedman

Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey L. Kwall ..............Clara Sigal Kwall

Joelle Caplan ................................... Zachary Caplan

Howie & Shelley Miller .......Mildred Greenwald Miller

Sherry Cartiff ........................................... Morris Zeff

Toby Perilman .............................. Solomon Stalinsky

Jay & Janet Coltin ...................................Ruth Coltin

Jo Anne Persons ......................... Wolf Morris Kaiser

Bruce, Paula (Stern) Epstein & Family ... Morris Stern

Donna Kwall Smith .........................Clara Sigal Kwall

Ruth K. Goldman ............................... Milton Golanty

Sharon Snider ......................................... Max Snider

Shirley Kurtz .................................. Joseph Rothman

Judith Waldman.................................... Paul Mainzer

Shirley Kurtz .................................. Samuel Rothman

Claire & Morris Weinbaum ................ Grace Lebovitz

Shirley Kurtz ....................................... Lois Goldman

Roberta Zarin......................................Ruth Solomon

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday May 12: Pauline Schlesinger Americus, Louis Berlow, Ida Rose Diamond, Julius Goldberg, Dr. Joseph Irwin Greenberger, Samuel Judd, Rose Markowitz Klein, Jerome J. Levenson, Rose Marks, Melvin Murman, John Rothman, Freda B. Saltsburg, Sol Sieff, Yetta Weinberger, Minnie Gertrude Wolf, Harry Yecies Monday May 13: Harry Auerbach, Joseph Braun, James A. Eckstein, Lena Fish Freedman, Sidney Friedman, Samuel Laskowitz, Louis P. Rosenberg, Vivian Baltin Rosenthal, Ruth E. Sherman, Morris Zeff Tuesday May 14: Stanley Friedlander, Isadore Gerber, Ida Ginsburg, Penina Reva Goldberg, Lawrence R. Katz, John J. Klein, Sam Klein, Samuel Mermelstein, Hymen Oawster, Marcus Schwartz, Fay L. Sidler, Rita W. Silverman, Milton Snyder, Esther Supowitz Wednesday May 15: Isaac Adler, Paul Beerman, Fred Gluck, Michael N. Lutsky, Rose Mannison, Max Neustein, Fannie Rapoport, Morris Rosenberg, Dr. Herman A. Saron, Albert Schwartz, Florence Simon, George Simon, Philip Sugerman, Jay Weinthal, Norman Leonard Weissman Thursday May 16: Hilda Parker Cohen, William Feivelson, Max Geltner, Lena Gescheidt, Samuel Goldblum, M.D., Grace Lebovitz, Samuel H. Miller, Elva Hendel Perrin, Mary Evelovitz Rom, Andrea Sue Ruben Serber, Florence Specter, Morris Stern, Cecelia Tepper, Louis E. Walk, Maurice Wilner Friday May 17: Jeanne Gettleman Cooper, Isadore Cousin, Louis Diamond, Regina Friedman, Bennie M. Granowitz, Sam Greenberger, Isadore Gutkind, Solis Horwitz, Hyman Kramer, Anna Finestone Levit, Samuel Monheim, Louise Plotkin, Joseph Price, Leonard J. Singer Saturday May 18: Larry Abelson, Rosella Lillian Barovsky, Rita Marcus Faberman, Paul M. Fierst, Fannie Glick, Sarah Viola Heller, Saul I. Heller, Anne Marks, Samuel Mendlow, Ruth Nusin, Harry Sandson, Dr. Joseph R. Simon, Benjamin Weinberg

Obituaries BERLIN: Cantor Richard Berlin, on Wednesday, May 1, 2019. Beloved husband of Mary Berlin. Loving father of Elizabeth Berlin (Mike Speranzo) and Katherine Berlin (Paul Kelly). Brother of Julie (Don) Friedman. Brother-in-law of Albert (Naoko) Adams. Loving grandfather of Jordan Berlin Speranzo, Brooke Evita Kelly and the late Reeva Alexis Kelly. Surrogate father of Nathan Sulivan and Norman Peterson.

Beloved uncle of Ellen (Avram) Rosen, Joseph (Shoshana) Friedman and Jennie Friedman. Also survived by many more beloved family and friends. Services were held at Parkway Jewish Center. Interment Betty Rosenberg/Parkway Jewish Center Cemetery, Churchill. Contributions may be made to the Cantor Richard and Mary Berlin Scholarship Fund, H.L. Miller Cantorial School of the Jewish Theological Seminary,55 S. Miller Road, Suite #201, Fairlawn, OH 44333. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com BROWN: Dorothy Mervis Brown of Pompano Beach, Florida, peacefully passed away at her residence on April 10, 2019, just after celebrating her 98th birthday. Dorothy was born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, on Feb.16, 1921. She was blessed with two wonderful marriages to Pittsburgh natives: Earl Mervis for 27 years and then Maurice Brown for 37 years. She is survived by two children from her first marriage, son, Joel Mervis of Lake Tahoe, Nevada; and

daughter, Phyllis Mervis Itkowitz of New York City; and grandson, Jacob Itzkowitz. And Dorothy embraced Maurice’s grown children: Judith and John Levy of Richmond, Virginia; Alexis Brown of Miami, Florida; and Marshall Brown of Palm Springs, California. Dorothy was also loved and cherished by his six grandchildren: Shoshanah, Jonah, Alexandra, Abram, Shana and Bram and 11 great-grandchildren.

Dorothy loved “cheering on” the Pittsburgh Steelers along with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was an avid golfer, card player and baker. She led a supportive life to all that knew her for her strength and determination and will be greatly missed.

The family is grateful to the love provided

by Dorothy’s dear health care companion Marcia Malcolm. Dorothy was laid to rest at the B’nai Israel Cemetery beside her first husband, Earl. Memorial donations can be made to Temple Shalom Pompano Beach, Florida, or a charity of your choice.

Please see Obituaries, page 25

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New Trump Laws Make 2019 the Best Year for Millions of Americans to Do a Roth IRA Conversion: PART TWO 2200 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217 412-521-2732 www.paytaxeslater.com

James Lange, CPA and Attorney

H

ow do you know if a Roth IRA conversion would be a good idea for you? How much should you convert? When is the best time to make the conversion? Should you do it all at once or perhaps make a series of smaller Roth IRA conversions over a period of years?

Unfortunately, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” answer to those questions. That’s why I recommend “running the numbers.” “Running the numbers” involves constructing plausible scenarios using reasonable assumptions for your current and future tax brackets, your spending, earning, and investing patterns, and then testing different courses of action. It is a combination of art and science.

The first projection may exclude all Roth conversions, which allows you to see where your finances will stand at the end of your life and what maintaining the status quo will mean for your heirs. A second projection might use the same assumptions but show the outcome if you convert your entire traditional IRA to a Roth

“ It would be a smart move for many taxpayers to analyze the merits of a Roth IRA conversion. And, if previously you determined that a Roth IRA conversion was not in your best interest, you should probably revisit the idea — times have changed.”

IRA in one tax year. A third projection might include a series of partial conversions, perhaps over four years during the years after you retire, but before you turn age 70 when you will have required minimum distributions and will be receiving your full Social Security benefits. Taking the time to construct different scenarios is critical, because the best time to do a Roth IRA conversion is not the same for everyone.

One major consideration that is overlooked by many advisors is Social Security. The classic “sweet spot” to make a Roth conversion is after you retire but before age 70. At that point, you won’t have income from your job or required minimum distributions from your retirement plans.

But I go so far as to recommend that the primary wage earner of the family delay applying for their full Social Security benefits until age 70. When planned and orchestrated, all of these factors can come together in a perfect symphony of financial opportunity, leaving your income tax bracket at an all-time low, and cued-up for a Roth IRA conversion.

An additional benefit of “running the numbers” is that you may find you are not a good candidate for a Roth IRA conversion. Many IRA

owners will have higher Medicare Part B premiums if their taxable income is increased because of a Roth conversion. Other IRA owners will suffer a reduction in the benefits of the qualified dividend exclusion, and others will face additional tax in the investment income area.

Many of these disadvantages may pale compared to the benefits, but the only way to know is to run the numbers first.

Ultimately, the new tax laws mean that Roth IRA conversions can benefit many more people even before retirement or who are currently in retirement. This is because, if you are married and file a joint return, you can have up to $315,000 in taxable income and still fall within the expanded 24% tax bracket. Many taxpayers who are still working, or who are over age 70 but previously sat in a high enough tax bracket to make a Roth IRA conversion unprofitable, may now find that this is the best possible time to make the change. This is especially true if you believe tax rates are likely to increase in the future.

So, what is the big take-away? It would be a smart move for many taxpayers to analyze the merits of a Roth IRA conversion. And, if previously you determined that a Roth IRA conver-

sion was not in your best interest, you should probably revisit the idea—times have changed.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t just about dying with the most money—you must also evaluate your priorities. One of the benefits of creating a master plan is to determine how much you can safely spend, and with a very high probability that you will never run out of money. Perhaps it won’t matter to you that your heirs could be a million dollars better off because you want to spend more money yourself. Perhaps you want to buy a second home in your dream location even if you have to use part of your Roth IRA to do it.

These are personal decisions and each piece needs to fit into your retirement and estate planning puzzle. Roth IRA conversions, although financially beneficial for many people, are only one piece of puzzle.

Please read Ripe Time to Roth at http://paytaxeslater.com/forbesarticle This article, published in Forbes magazine, features Jim Lange’s Roth IRA conversion advice. Consider whether now may be a great time for your own Roth IRA conversion. If you would like our team to “run your numbers,” the next step is to call 412-521-2732 and request a free consultation.

Reprinted with permission by www.forbes.com, an online magazine where Jim is a regular contributor.

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

24 MAY 10, 2019

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Headlines Obituaries: Continued from page 24

COHEN: Howard “Bennie” P. Cohen, age 75 of Squirrel Hill, died peacefully at home surrounded by family on May 5, 2019. Son of the late Rose and Edward Cohen. Beloved husband of 19 years to Denise DeStefinoCohen. Father of Lori Schiller and Melanie Cohen. Loving grandfather to Sophie and Allie Schiller. Stepfather to Leslie Ashman and Carly Blackstone. Brother of Sanford Cohen. Also survived by many special cousins and close friends. “Bennie” was a graduate of Youngstown University as well as a Vietnam Veteran. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment Homewood Cemetery. Contributions may be made to American Lung Association, 810 River Ave # 140, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 or a charity of the donor’s choice. schugar.com C O L K E R : James Colker, on May 1, 2019. James (“Jim”) Colker, a 91-year-old innovative entrepreneur and lover of the arts, died peacefully at his Pittsburgh home of heart disease. He spent his last weeks surrounded by family, listening to jazz and watching Turner Classic movies. Jim was well known for his leadership in helping transform Pittsburgh from a struggling rust belt city to a high tech innovation hub. But he would say his biggest accomplishment was his 59 wonderful years of marriage to Janice Seiner Colker, who died on August 9, 2009. He also had a passion for growing things, including flowers, vegetables, investments and businesses. After a year of art studies at Carnegie Tech where he became friends with Andy Warhol, Jim transferred to the University of Pittsburgh and graduated with a B.S. in physics in 1949. Jim’s first professional job at R.C.A. reflected his lifelong fascination with radios, and his home eventually became filled with antique radios that he restored. In 1957, Jim took a job with J.W. Fecker where his boss was Joe Kalla, who later became his business partner. In 1964, with four young children to support, Jim took the courageous step of helping purchase Goerz Optical (later acquired by Contraves) with Joe Kalla and Ken Kemp. Meanwhile, Jim and Janice began to travel, spending time in Paris, San Tropez and Palm Beach. They also enjoyed going to the ballet, chamber music, opera, and symphony, acquiring art and visiting their children and grandchildren. Jim’s wine collection was meticulously tracked in a spiral binder, reflecting his engineering background and attention to detail.

Likewise, his beautiful garden was the envy of the neighborhood. While working as president of Contraves, Jim simultaneously initiated many local economic development activities and worked with PA governors on a bipartisan basis to improve the business climate. In 1981, he helped form the

Pittsburgh High Technology Council, becoming its first president and then chairman of the board. In 1985, “Business Week” named him as one of the top 50 U.S. business leaders. He also was on the board of several nonprofit organizations, including Magee Women’s Hospital where he was intimately involved in key expansion initiatives, Blue Cross, and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. In 1987, he left Contraves and founded the CEO Ventures Fund, which focused on nurturing Pittsburgh’s growing start-up community. He enjoyed mentoring young entrepreneurs, helping them turn their new ideas into successful enterprises.

In recognition of his decades of work in the venture capital field, he received the Lifetime Entrepreneurial Achievement Award from the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association in 2009. Jim is survived by his four children: David Colker (Alexis Mitman Colker), San Mateo, California; Hank Colker (Laura Andrews Colker), Pittsburgh; Ruth Colker (David Levine), Columbus, Ohio; Sarah Colker (Joseph Moskowitz), Hoboken, New Jersey; a brother Alan (Lynne) Colker; and seven grandchildren. Visitation will start at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 5 at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., 5509 Centre Ave., Shadyside.

Services will be at 2 p.m., followed by interment at Homewood Cemetery/Star of David Section. Contributions in his memory may be made to Carnegie Mellon University, Janice Seiner Colker (A ’51) Undergraduate Research Fund. schugar.com KIMELMAN: On Sunday, May 5, 2019, Marc R. Kimelman.

He was the beloved husband of Nancy Amdur Briskin and the late Linda Burnbach Kimelman. Loving father of Rick and Dot Kimelman of Greensboro, N.C., and grandfather of Dave Kimelman. Also survived by loving extended family, Stephen and Margie Briskin, Claire and Mark Rast, Kenneth Briskin and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Marc completed his undergraduate degree at the Pennsylvania State University. Marc was the head of the Alumni Association Phi Epsilon Phi, the vice president of the Skull and Bones Society, and the business manager of Penn State Froth. Marc was also a member of the National Federation of Temple Brotherhoods and the Jewish Chautauqua Society. Marc was an insurance broker for over 50 years starting his career at the Murray Klein Agency and finishing his career at the Wagner Agency. He was always one to never forget an important date in someone’s life and would always greet everyone with a smile. Graveside services and interment were held on at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Make donations to the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and St Judes. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., schugar.com family owned and operated.

MUNTNER: Myrna Muntner passed away peacefully on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, at age 87, in Pittsburgh. She was the loving mother of Joel Armstrong-Muntner (Amy),

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Jill Horvat (Michael) and the late Ellen Denise Muntner; loving grandmother to her three grandchildren, Eliza Rain and Ella Rose Horvat and Emma Rae Armstrong-Muntner; sister to the late Dr. Robert Weiss; and many treasured friends. Interment at Kether Torah Cemetery, Reserve Township, Pa. Memorial donations can be made to your preferred charity in Myrna’s name. Myrna was an inspiring art educator and talented artist, who stood up for civil rights and women’s rights in River Edge, New Jersey. She raised three children as a single mother, while earning her master’s degree in education and spending 26 years as an acclaimed art instructor in the Fair Lawn, New Jersey, school district.

She was a lifetime Hadassah member.

Professional services trusted to Thomas M. Smith Funeral Home & Crematory, Ltd. (Blawnox). thomasmsmithfh.com STARK: Sidney Stark Jr., of Squirrel Hill, passed peacefully in his sleep on Sunday, April 28, 2019. Cherished father of Seth Stark and his wife Sharon, grandfather of Majack Alexander-Stark and her husband Spyke, great-grandfather of Yofi Stark, preceded in death by his beloved wife Shirley and son Sidney Stark, III. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, where he raised his family, was a successful businessman, and fully immersed himself in the city’s arts, music and cultural offerings. Sidney graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in English in 1951. Sidney founded SOS Technologies, where he served as president and CEO until the age of 80. Sidney was a season ticket holder of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for 75 years, from the age of 15, and an active supporter of the Pittsburgh Opera and many other music and cultural organizations. He also frequently traveled to New York City to attend performances by the Metropolitan Opera, which he continued to experience in later years by simulcast performances in Pittsburgh theaters.

Sidney managed the Rodef Shalom music series for over 20 years, auditioning and bringing young classical artists to perform in Pittsburgh from across the country. He was an accomplished amateur pianist, and played trios for 40 years. Sidney and his wife Shirley were voracious travelers, visiting five of the world’s seven continents in their 59 years of marriage. Sidney’s love of life and conversation were and will continue to be an inspiration to his family and many friends for many years to come. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Contributions may be made to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 600 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 or the Pittsburgh Opera, 2425 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. schugar.com ZEVE: Florence Haspel Zeve died peacefully in her Oakland apartment May 2, 2019. She was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. August 18, 1930, the youngest child of Martin and Anne Haspel, from Romania. Her family moved from Brooklyn to Danbury, Connecticut,

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in 1931. Florence at t e n d e d pu b l i c schools in Danbury, graduating in 1948.

She was the editor of the school newspaper, co-editor of the 1948 yearbook, a cheerleader and voted “most beautiful lips.”

Graduated from the all women’s Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y., with a B.A. in English in 1952. She met her husband-to-be in her junior year, at synagogue during Rosh Hashanah services. Florence was a copy editor for Pellegrino & Cudahy Book Publisher in Manhattan and was proud of being an independent woman in NYC, having her own apartment. She married Harvey Zeve at the Hotel Ambassador in NYC, May 2, 1954. After their honeymoon, they moved to Youngstown, Ohio. Birthed David, 10 months later. Her second son, Lincoln, was born 17 months later. They moved to Pittsburgh in 1959 and birthed Bradley in October. In 1978, Florence obtained her master’s degree in public administration from GSPIA, University of Pittsburgh. She lived in Oakland for 52 years and in the 1970s was president of the Shadyside Action Coalition and an active member of SNAP. She served as executive director of Western PA Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation, and executive director Western PA Chapter of the Hemophilia Foundation. She was a longtime board member of Pittsburgh City Theater and Sage Colleges. Florence had a zest for life and was active socially — a member of the Pittsburgh Golf Club, Duquesne Club, Concordia Club, Rodef Shalom, American Jewish Committee. She was diagnosed with MS in 1956 and refused to allow her life to be defined by it. Her hobbies included tennis, golf, skiing, attending theater and the symphony, reading daily papers (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the late Pittsburgh Press, and The New York Times), thinking about the next meal and what the family would have for dinner — she always made sure the table was set for breakfast before going to bed. She was a devoted Steelers fan, a season ticket holder since 1966. Florence was loved and appreciated for her wit and tenacity. She was a relentless advocate for education, women’s rights, government responsibility, plus proper grammar, etiquette and manners. She was a major supporter of the Sage Colleges, an early supporter of the Pittsburgh Promise and established the Zeve Family Foundation Scholarship at the Promise. Other organizations of significant interest included the Pittsburgh City Theater, Pittsburgh Symphony, WQED, Phipps Conservatory, Jewish Federation, Carnegie and Frick Museums. She was married 59 years until Harvey’s death in 2013, and passed away on what would have been the day of her 65th wedding anniversary. She is survived by her three sons, David, Lincoln (Deneice) and Bradley, seven grandchildren, two nephews (one passed) and two nieces. Services were held at Rodef Shalom Congregation. Interment Homewood Cemetery. Donations in her honor can be sent to the Pittsburgh Promise and/ or Pittsburgh City Theater. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC

MAY 10, 2019 25

Community Yom HaShoah event

Jewish Federation donor appreciation celebration Tuesday, April 30, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation hosted a donor appreciation celebration at the Senator John Heinz History Center to honor the more than 350 people who have made a legacy gift with the Grinspoon Life & Legacy program. In the program’s first year, all participants raised more than $18 million for Jewish community organizations in Greater Pittsburgh

p The first Zikaron BaSalon (witness in the living room) in Hebrew took place on erev Yom HaShoah. More than 30 people attended to hear Judah Samet’s story of surviving the horrors of Bergen-Belsen as a child alongside his brave mother. This is a joint program with Israeli-American Council and Classrooms Without Borders.

Photo courtesy of Anat Talmy

Jewish Action p Attendees posed for photos to wish the program’s founder, Harold Grinspoon, a happy 90th birthday. From left: Jenny Jones, Emily Richman, Jane Rollman and Shoshi Butler.

p Members of Bend the Arc Pittsburgh showed solidarity with all workers at the May Day march in Squirrel Hill on May 2. From left: Tammy Hepps, Jonathan Mayo, Rachel Kranson, Daniela Shear, Sasha Forrest and Jamie Forrest Photo courtesy of Sara Stock Mayo

Weiszmann Institute gathering Last month, some 40 guests gathered at the home of Barb Weizenbaum and Dr. Bob Gorby to meet two doctoral students from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

Barbara and Fred Gilman also served as co-hosts. The Weizmann Institute is a leading multidisciplinary research institution that addresses crucial problems in medicine and health, energy, technology, agriculture and the environment. Young scientists from across the globe pursue advanced degrees at the Institute’s Feinberg Graduate School. The students, Omer Karin and Daoud Sheban, shared their passion for science and their experience of pursuing research under the guidance of experts and praised the world-class facilities, collaborations and mentorship at the Weizmann Institute. Attendees were inspired to hear from these young innovators, who are driving the technological and biomedical revolution that defines modern Israel.

p The Grinspoon Life & Legacy program contributes funds to organizations that secure a specific number of legacy commitments. Representatives from Temple Emanuel of South Hills posed with their “check.” From left: Beth Schwartz, Carol Rose, David Weisberg, Aaron Meyer, Leslie Hoffman and Matthew Schwartz Photos by Josh Franzos

Light It Up for Lori After hearing news of Lori Gilbert-Kaye’s murder at Chabad of Poway in San Diego, Mushky Rosenblum of Chabad of the South Hills knew that she wanted to do something to honor Gilbert-Kaye’s memory and came up with “Light It Up For Lori,” a campaign to encourage women to light Shabbat candles in her memory.

Rosenblum reached out to women in the community and many were eager to help out. One hundred-twenty packages that the volunteers put together were delivered to women all over the South Hills. Twelve women volunteers delivered packages that contained candles, challah, a homemade cookie and a letter explaining the project.

“Light It Up For Lori” hopes to continue the project and keep spreading the light.

Photo of Abby Levy courtesy of Mushky Rosenblum

p From left: Omer Karin, Daoud Sheban, Barb Weizenbaum, Dr. Bob Gorby and Barbara and Fred Gilman Photo by Lauren Renee Photography

26 MAY 10, 2019

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Community JFCS fun and awards

Torah mantle dedicated

Jewish Family and Community Services Volunteer Coordinator Andrew Van Treeck received United Way’s 2019 “Champions of Learning” award, which recognizes adults in Western Pennsylvania who go above and beyond to create opportunities and motivate students to meet their greatest potential. Van Treeck is JFCS’ coordinator of After School Club, a program that helps children of refugees do homework and succeed at school.

On April 30, a Torah mantle specially commissioned by the Cantors Assembly was dedicated and placed upon Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha’s regularly read Torah.

The Cantors Assembly is the international association of cantors and is a much-beloved professional organization of Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers of TOL*OLS, who has served as a trustee on its executive council.

The mantle features 11 gold stars signifying the 11 lives lost and colored circles, representing the “river” of comfort that flowed down from all over the world to reach the Pittsburgh community. The first word of the text is Chayim (life), the Hebrew name of p Torah cover design by Cantor Steven Stoehr of the Cantor’s Assembly in Chicago one of the victims, Cecil Rosenthal, who regularly carried the Torah for the congregation. This special gift, which was designed by Cantor Steven Stoehr, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, was supported by 40 of Myers’ colleagues as a demonstration of love, support and remembrance. Following the dedication, the Torah mantle will travel among synagogues across the country and will return to Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha at a later time.

p Andrew Van Treeck receiving his award

Photo by Jenna Baron

p Some members of Team JFCS are having fun at the pre-Pittsburgh Marathon Pasta Party. JFCS staff runners ran two relay teams and a half marathon on Sunday, May 5. From left: JFCS Board Chair Dr. Matthew Keller; President and CEO Jordan Golin, Psy.D.; Director of Development & Communications Rebecca Remson; Career Counselor Erin Barr; and Trauma Therapist Angelica Joy Miskanin.

Photo by Sandra Chile

At Temple David t Rabbi Barbara Symons of Temple David and Rabbi Ron Symons, senior director of Jewish Life, Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, were awarded Honorary Doctorates of Divinity, as well as the Graduate Medallion, in recognition of their 25 years of distinguished professional service at the 2019 Ordination and Graduation for the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on Wednesday, May 1. On Friday, May 3 the Temple David community honored the Symonses at the Oneg Shabbat following the erev Shabbat service.

u “Gibbs” White gives comfort to Rory Pihony and Callie Sloan after Temple David’s Yom HaShoah service on April 28. Gibbs lives with JoAnn White, center, and Mark White, far right.

Photos courtesy of Temple David

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p Cantor Steven Stoehr

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Photos courtesy Michael Schroeder

MAY 10, 2019 27

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