Rosenthal, a former community relations manager for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was one of the opening speakers at last year’s summit. This year, her role is different, as she brings her sports expertise to help combat hate.
Eradicate Hate Global Summit returns to Pittsburgh
The idea that sports could be an avenue to battle prejudice, bigotry and violence had its genesis last year. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, spoke at the 2021 summit and was impressed with the event. She called it “one of the most intriguing projects she’s seen anywhere in the world,” Ellsworth said. “She wanted the U.N. to stay really close to it.”
Photo by Lindsay Dill Rabbi ofspiritualcareerreconstructsBardackAmyasleaderDorHadash
By David Rullo | Sta Writer
Rosenthal became determined to do what she could to prevent other families from suffering the same pain and grief her family endured. Like Rosenthal, Laura Ellsworth felt compelled to act after the massacre at the Tree of Life building, which left 11 people dead and six seriously injured, including four first Ellsworthresponders.isaformer candidate for governor of Pennsylvania and an attorney with the law firm Jones Day. As first partnerin-charge of the firm’s Global Community Service Initiatives, she leads the firm’s rule of law initiatives around the world — in 43 offices on five continents — which includes a hate crime task force that represents victims pro Ellsworth,bono.along with her friend Mark Nordenberg, chancellor emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh, wanted to ensure that Pittsburgh would be remembered for the way it responded to the attack at the Tree of Life building rather than the massacre itself. Their response was to create the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. More than 600 in-person and 1,000 online participants attended the inaugural three-day conference last year, uniting experts and leaders from around the world dedicated to eradicating all forms of hate-fueled violence and implementing effective solutions for change.
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Please see Summit, page 10 Please see Bardack, page 10 Maggie Feinstein moderates a discussion on trauma informed care for extremism survivors during the Eradicate Hate Global Summit 2021 on Oct. 20, 2021, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh.
By David Rullo | Sta Writer
Rabbi
65, No. 36 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org $1.50 NOTEWORTHY NewLOCALevidence revealed in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting case Prosecutors say Gab posts indicate motive Page 2 GettingLOCAL to Know: Kate Kim The journey of a dedicated Jewish professional Page 3 BatikLOCALcan’t be beat Israeli artist comes to Fair in the Park Page 13
Michele Rosenthal never expected that she would have a prominent role in the fight against antisemitism and hate. That changed nearly four years ago when her brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal were murdered in the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018.
Rabbi Amy Bardack was ready for a new challenge after leaving her role as director of Jewish life at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh in March. Bardack told the Chronicle then that she would seek a pulpit position, saying: “It happens once every 20 years when there are not enough rabbis for the jobs. There are going to be jobs unfilled.” It turns out Bardack’s remarks were prescient. On Aug. 31, she announced on Facebook that she was the new rabbi of Congregation Dor Hadash. “I found out they were looking and assumed they had hired someone,” Bardack said. “Then in early May, I ran into [Dor Hadash member] Dan Leger, and he said, ‘Amy, will you please consider being the rabbi at Dor Hadash?’” After her initial conversation with Leger a slow process began with the Reconstructionist congregation housed at Amy Bardack Photo courtesy of Rabbi Amy Bardack p.m. | Havdalah p.m. | Vol.
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EDITORIAL Toby Tabachnick, Editor ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org412-228-4577
Prosecutors in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting case describe evidence for trial
Federal prosecutors disclosed in a court filing last week evidence they intend to introduce at the trial of the man accused of murdering 11 Jews in the Tree of Life building. The evidence includes many of the defendant’s antisemitic posts on the social media site Gab and videos and news items the defendant sent to family members espousing his hatred for Jews.
Prosecutors said the evidence will show that the defendant held Jewish people “responsible for white disempowerment because of their support for refugees and immigration,” and will confirm the defen dant believed that “Jewish groups had sponsored or otherwise supported a caravan of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States.” The defendant’s alleged “anti-Semitic animus” is “intrinsic” to his motive, prosecutors wrote. If convicted, the defendant faces the death penalty. No trial date has been set, although U.S. District Judge Robert Colville indicated it will be next year. In their notice, prosecutors wrote that the defendant created a Gab account in January 2018 under the username @onedingo, and that he wrote “jews are the children of satan” on his profile Prosecutorspage.said the defendant’s Gab account was filled with antisemitic content and described some of his posts in the weeks before the shooting, including an image appearing to be a human body “burning in a Holocaust crematorium.” Above the image, the defendant wrote: “Make Ovens 1488°F Again.” The number “1488,” prosecutors wrote, refers to a “numerical combination commonly used by white supremacists: ‘14’ for the 14 words in the white supremacist saying, ‘we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children;’ and ‘88’ for ‘Heil Hitler,’ as H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.” The defendant also reposted antisemitic content from other Gab users, according to prosecutors, “such as an image showing a road sign that reads, ‘GAS THE JEWS,’” and another stating “Kick the jews OUT! This is Not Their HOME! No One Wants
the Whiny kikes!” In the weeks before the massacre, the defen dant posted numerous comments indicating that he believed Jews were responsible for bringing immigrants to the U.S. and thereby threatening white empowerment, according to prosecutors, including a repost from a Gab user stating, “Every time a white country is being invaded by people of color you will find evidence that the Jews are behind it somehow. Here is a picture from the now 4000 strong caravan headed for our southern border. Note that the truck carrying the migrants has a Star of David clearly visible on it. The Jews are trying to erase you white man so that they can control the whole world. You are the ONLY thing left standing in the way of their (((Globalist))) One World Order. Call me a racist or a Nazi. I don’t even care anymore. All I know is that my people are under attack, and we’re losing. #RiseUp #14Words.”
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Some of the defendant’s posts and reposts, prosecutors said, were aimed at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). About two weeks before the massacre, he posted a screenshot on his Gab account of a HIAS webpage announcing a National Refugee Shabbat, “and linked to a list of Jewish congregations across the country hosting the event. Notably, the list included Pittsburgh’s Congregation Dor Hadash.” Dor Hadash was housed at the Tree of Life building and was one of the three congregations the defendant allegedly attacked. The defendant added commentary to that post, according to prosecutors: “Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us? We appreciate the list of friends you have provided.” Before entering the Tree of Life building, the defendant posted on Gab: “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” according to the notice of evidence. Prosecutors said they will also be introducing evidence obtained from the defendant’s cell phone, which law enforce ment seized following the attack on Oct. 27, 2018. While the defendant had implemented enhanced encryption features on his phone and deleted “a significant portion” of its contents, FBI analysts were able to recover some information, including multiple photos of the defendant’s firearms and screenshots from a video of Jared Kushner speaking at the dedication of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
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In a notice of evidence of “other crimes, wrongs or acts” — which is required pursuant to federal law in a criminal case — prosecutors must articulate the purpose of the evidence; permitted purposes include “proving motive, opportunity, intent, prepa ration, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.”
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Another photo depicts the defendant making the “OK” hand sign “that is often used
Kim cited the school’s approach to educating students about kashrut as evidence of its desire to introduce students to an array of Jewish thought and practice. and that’s OK; we’re just here to present the whole gamut of what is out there Jewishly,” she said. has approximately 130 students and recently expanded from grades K-8 to include high school offerings — is that rabbis from both Beth Shalom, a Conservative congregation, and Rodef Shalom, a Reform congregation, believe in the mission “and care about that experience for their families,” Kim said. this information and keep families in the synagogue system is because “our kids are really the future of our congregation,” she continued. “We want to make sure that the kids and their families are getting what they need from our communities, that they’re getting involved and that they stay with us because they’re the ones who make our congregation.”Kimknows from experience that synagogue membership isn’t always an easy sell, especially for young people on tighter budgets.
Getting to know: Kate Kim
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JJEP’s pluralistic model is guided by respect, Kim explained. “Our message is there are lots of ways to be Jewish, and we’re here to teach,” she said. “We’re not here to teach a dominant denom ination. We’re here to present everything — Judaism in all its spectra — and then it’s up to you to create your Jewish experience from that and to find what’s meaningful.”
By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer Pittsburgh Jewish professional Kate Kim brings an international perspective to her local work. The former assis tant director of the Joint Jewish Education Program of Pittsburgh and current director of marketing and communications at Rodef Shalom Congregation credited her years living in Thailand and South Korea with helping her understand the importance of finding community. Kim, 36, is enmeshed in Pittsburgh Jewish life, but reaching this point, she said, involved a “long and winding journey.” After graduating from George Washington University with a degree in international affairs concurrent to the 2008 financial crisis, Kim decided to live abroad. She ventured to Thailand and earned her TEFL certification — an internation ally recognized professional credential that certifies an individual to teach English as a foreign language — while teaching English to communities affected by the 2004 tsunami. “A lot of these adults there worked in the tourism industry and realized they needed a certain amount of English in their reper toire to be able to communicate with tourists in the event of an emergency,” Kim said of her students. She eventually moved back to Washington, D.C., and took a job helping elemen tary through high school students travel throughout the United States and overseas on educational trips.
“I hadn’t been a member anywhere as a young adult, and it wasn’t till I had my kid and I realized that it’s up to us to pass this While synagogue affiliation may help individuals experience and transmit the importance of Judaism, there’s also a collec tive benefit, she explained. “You can’t do it alone. You can’t do it in a vacuum. It’s really hard to make your kids see how important this is,” Kim said. “It takes a village to raise a child. And the one thing about joining a congregation — I belong to two now — is that it gives youAlthoughcommunity.”some find their place within the Jewish fold without congregational membership, Kim said she isn’t one of those individuals: “The first friends I made in Pittsburgh were through Rodef Shalom and Beth Shalom.” Kim wants to help the community under stand how much Jewish Pittsburgh and its congregations offer. “You just have to take that first step of walking in the door or calling us, and we’re ready to connect with you,” she said. “There’s so many special people and programs to find in these places. And I hope that everyone can find something to connect to here because it’s really a valuable experience when you Adam Reinherz can be reached at — LOCAL — p Kate Kim and her daugher, Jia, visiting South Korea Photo courtesy of Kate Kim p Kate Kim Photo courtesy of Kate Kim
The work was engaging, but Kim had already been “bit by the travel bug” and decided to again move abroad, she said. She headed to South Korea and taught English to preschool and kindergarten students. While in South Korea, she met her future husband. In 2015, the couple decided to return to the States. They came to Pittsburgh because Kim had family here. Given her love of education and working with children, Kim accepted a position with JJEP, a collaborative, pluralistic religious school by Rodef Shalom Congregation and Congregation Beth Shalom Congregation which is open to all K-12 students in greater Pittsburgh, she said. Working at JJEP allowed Kim to use her educational insights and also perform administrative duties, such as partnering with congregational representatives and supporting a group of about 15 part-time teachers and scores of families.
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Join a lay-led Online Parashah Study Group to discuss the week’s Torah portion. No Hebrew knowledge is needed. The goal is to build community while deepening understanding of the text. 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.
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Chabad of the South Hills presents Seniors in the Sukkah. Enjoy holiday music, a special Sukkot program, delicious lunch, shake the lulav and etrog, raffles. $5 suggested donation. Noon. 1701 McFarland Road. Call 412-278-2658 to preregister. chabadsh.com.
SUNDAYS, SEPT. 11-OCT. 16
Tali Nates, founder and director of the Johannesburg Genocide & Holocaust Centre, and in partnership with the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Liberation75 and the USC Shoah Foundation is pleased to present “Remembering the Holocaust in the United Kingdom.” 2 p.m. cache-buster=1.museums-and-memorials-around-the-world/?cwb-cwbpgh.org/event/holocaust-PresentedbytheJewishFederationofGreaterPittsburgh,thefour-partcourse
Advanced Community Active Threat Training (CATT) With Defensive Tactics will address the mind of an active shooter, predator versus prey, situational awareness and survival mindset; explore basic self-defense using techniques such as Krav Maga and is hands-on for those wishing to do so; explore weapons awareness and disarming techniques and will build on skills learned adding more advanced defensive tactics to include team tactics and reality based training. 5 p.m. Squirrel Hill threat-training-catt-with-defensive-tactics.jewishpgh.org/event/advanced-community-active-JCC.
Chabad of the South Hills presents a men’s event, Scotch in the Sukkah. 7:30 p.m. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com. PJC
The Jodee Harris Gallery Seton Hill Arts Center presents “From Darkness to Light: An Exhibition of Mosaics Inspired by the Tree of Life.” Reception and gallery talk, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2 p.m. 205 W. Otterman St., Greensburg, 15601. RSPV at ncche@setonhill.edu.
annual meeting at the Heinz History Center. Review the achievements, challenges and direction of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, as reflected in the activities of the Jewish Federation. 7 p.m. federation-of-greater-pittsburgh-annual-meeting-5jewishpgh.org/event/jewish-
The Squirrel Hill chapter of AARP will hold its September meeting at Rodef Shalom Congregation, Falk Library. Sam Arnold will present “Shape Training.” Refreshments will be served. 1 p.m. Call Marcia Kramer, 412-656-5803, with questions.
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PJC — Toby Tabachnick www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
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Join Chabad of the South Hills for a Pre-High Holiday Seniors Lunch. Immunization clinic by Pathways Wellness program. Lunch, honey cake, hands-on holiday presentation and raffle prizes. Noon. Preregistration recommended. $5 suggested donation. 412-278-2658.
The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its Oct. 2 discussion of “Antiquities and Other Stories” by Cynthia Ozick.
Jewish Residential Services is seeking nominations for its annual Shore-Whitehill Award, which celebrates those who are dedicated to disability inclusion in the Jewish community. The award is named for Barbara Shore and Robert Whitehill. A nominee must be a volun teer working in the Jewish community; a paid professional working in the Jewish commu nity “who has gone above and beyond to support inclu sion outside of their working hours”; or an individual who promotes inclusion within the Jewish community but is not associated with a specific orga nization, such as a landlord, caregiver, first responder or business owner. Nominees can be either Jewish or non-Jewish. Nominations will be accepted from individuals, congregations, organizations, businesses and other groups on an online form and must be received by Sept. 30. The recipient of the 2023 Shore Whitehill Award will be honored at an inclusion event to be held during Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month in February. For more information, contact Alison Karabin at akarabin@jrspgh.org or 412-325-0039.
Join Classrooms Without Borders for “Etty: Writing as Resistance,” a one-woman play adapted from the writings of Etty Hillesum. Adapted and performed by Susan Stein and directed by Austin Pendleton. 7 p.m. Levy Hall at Rodef Shalom, 4905 Fifth cache-buster=1.cwbpgh.org/event/etty-writing-as-resistance/?cwb-Ave.
Join the 10.27 Healing Partnership’s holistic support group as they partner with Sunny’s Community Garden on a journey to address grief through the healing power of gardening and herbs. This five-week program involves self-expression through gardening and writing. The group is open to all adults who have experienced grief, no matter where they are on their healing journey, and offers an opportunity to connect and grow with others. 10 a.m. 5738 Forbes. Ave. seeds-of-resilience.1027healingpartnership.org/
WEDNESDAYS, SEPT. 14-OCT. 19 Bring the parashah alive and make it personally relevant and meaningful. Study the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman. 12:15 p.m. Joinbethshalompgh.org/life-text.TempleSinaitostudythe weekly Torah portion in its hybrid class available on Zoom. Open to everyone. Noon. weekly-torah-portion-class-via-zoom11.html.templesinaipgh.org/event/parashah/
MONDAYS, SEPT. 12 -OCT. 17
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From The New Yorker: “Five and a half decades after her belated début, [Ozick] has established herself as one of our era’s central writers, with an ample supply of exquisite fiction and belles-lettres; and she is still going. To publish a novel in your early twenties is impressive; to publish one at the age of ninety-three is something else altogether ... A brisk work of some thirty thousand words, [‘Antiquties’] explores her favorite subjects — envy and ambition, the moral peril of idolatry — in her favorite form. As you might expect, it also has much to say about last things, and the long perspectives open to the human mind as it approaches its terminus.”
FRIDAY, SEPT. 16
Join Classrooms Without Borders for “The Hippocratic Oath at the Umschlagplatz: The Jewish Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto.” Moderated by Tali Nates, founding director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Center. For this program, there will be a limited pre-screening of the documentary film “No One Told Me,” directed by Sean O’Sullivan. Guest speaker Dr. Maria Ciesielska, Medical Review Aushwitz Project and Luc Albinski. 2 p.m. Joinjewish-doctors-of-the-warsaw-ghetto.event/the-hippocratic-oath-at-the-umschlagplatz-the-cwbpgh.org/ChabadoftheSouthHillsfor
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Join Classrooms Without Borders for an online post film discussion of “The Students of Umberto Primo” with director Alessandra Maioletti and executive producer Diane Boulanger. Moderated by Avi Ben Hur. 3 p.m. students-of-umberto-primo/?cwb-cache-buster=1.cwbpgh.org/event/post-film-discussion-theq
Chabad of the South Hills presents a ladies’ event, Soup in the Sukkah, with a special guest speaker. 7:30 p.m. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com.
4 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG Calendar
Registration is now open for Melton Core 1: Rhythms and Purposes of Jewish Living. This 25-lesson course will take you through the year’s cycle — the life cycle traditions and practices that bind us together. Explore not just what is and how is of Jewish living, but the why is that go with them. 7 p.m. $300 per person, per year (25 sessions), includes all books and materials. Virtual. foundation.jewishpgh.org/melton-core-1.
q THURSDAYS, SEPT. 29-DEC. 15 Register now for the virtual course “Melton: Social Justice – The Heart of Judaism in Theory and Practice.” This 10-part Melton course highlights the Jewish call to action and provides a practical approach for achieving lasting change. Drawing from classic and modern texts, the course explores the communal connection that compels us to support the most vulnerable. 7 p.m. social-justice-the-heart-of-judaism-in-theory-and-practice.foundation.jewishpgh.org/melton-
PJC Toby Tabachnick
What To Do : “Antiquities and Other Stories.” It is available from online retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Email : Contact us at discussionyouinandpittsburghjewishchronicle.org,drullo@write“ChronicleBookClub”thesubjectline.WewillsendaZoomlinkforthemeeting.Happyreading!
Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly Talmud study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.
Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions also will be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon.
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Your Hosts Toby Tabachnick, editor of the DavidChronicleRullo, Chronicle staff writer
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Shofar Factory, a blast for the entire family. Create your own authentic shofar, learn how a shofar is made, braid your own challah and taste Rosh Hashanah delicacies. 4 p.m. $12/shofar free for those in Discovery Club. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com/shofar.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 22
JRS accepting nominations for Shore-Whitehill Award
The Embassy of the Czech Republic, in collaboration with Classrooms without Borders, invites you to the online discussion with novelist, poet and translator Marek Toman 3 p.m. Jointranslator-marek-toman/?cwb-cache-buster=1.czech-embassy-series-featuring-novelist-poet-and-cwbpgh.org/event/theJewishFederationofGreaterPittsburghforits
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How It Works We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, Oct. 2, at noon. As you read the book, we invite you to share your favorite passages on a shared document you will receive when you register for the meeting.
THURSDAYS, SEPT. 15-OCT. 6 Join the 10.27 Healing Partnership and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy for a four-week healing, consciousness-building forest bathing series at the Frick Park Environmental Center. We will take 90-minute gentle walks throughout Frick Park while nurturing our connection to the natural world through reflective practices. If you feel disconnected from nature, yourself or others, consider joining our community and participating in this forest bathing series. Registration is required. Series is free. 9 a.m. Frick Park Environmental Center. 1027healingpartnership.org/forest-bathing.
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Classrooms Without Borders, in coordination with
SUNDAY, SEPT. 18
Join the Chronicle Book Club!
SUNDAY, SEPT. 11- SEPT. 30
ADL officials address rise in antisemitism
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The ADL is a nonprofit, so it doesn’t comment on political campaigns, but Pasch said it is “dangerous and irresponsible” for any politician, elected official or civil servant to promote or work with Gab. The spread of hate online can be seen in crimes targeting various communities, Goretsky said, pointing to both the massacre at the Tree of Life building and the Buffalo Tops Friendly Market shooting that targeted the Black community.
The menu includes: Beef Brisket with Braised Onions, Apples, & Gravy Chicken Breast Scallopini with Crimini Mushrooms & Spinach Barley & Squash Cake with Tomato Sauce Roasted Beet Salad with Apples & Pecans Roasted Maple Carrots Tzimmes with Golden Raisins Honey Apple Cake with Cinnamon Ice Cream Cost: $29.50 per person (BYOB)/$10 per child (ages 6–12)/ for kids 5 and under (seating is limited) online by 5 PM on Tuesday, Sept. 20 TempleSinaiPGH.org/programs-eventsat: Fast (a light snack to break your fast) follows N’ilah Visit TempleSinaiPGH.org to order your Card of Admission for High Holy Day Community & Tot Services or contact Helene Kessler Burke at (412) 421-9715 ext. 115 reasons,*DonationHelene@TempleSinaiPGH.org.orrequested.Forsecurityregistrationisrequiredfor all services.
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“There’s a reason why the world is gathering for the second year in a row in Pittsburgh for the global Eradicate Hate conference,” Pasch said, adding that ADL officials will speak on several panels at the summit. “All the best minds from around the world are descending in the city to share ideas and concepts and to learn from another so that we all know what to do to fight hate.”
Photo by Armstrong County resident
Western Pennsylvania has seen a steady rise in antisemitism, according to Anti-Defamation League Regional Director James Pasch, whose territory includes Pittsburgh.
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Pittsburgh, a Worthington businessman courted controversy by creating messages on digital billboards he owns that feature a Nazi flag and the words “FBI The Gestapo.” Pasch said the sign is an insult to the Pittsburgh Jewish community, which was Please see ADL, page 21 p John Placek believes he is making a political point with a billboard featuring a Nazi flag.
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Many of the perpetrators of hate-mo tivated shootings used similar language online, Pasch said. “They talked about the great replacement theory. The ability to both spread and share that hate online has created a really dark network that has led to significant levels of violence,” he said. Pasch said that cable television also has helped spread misinformation and extremism.“Atrendin the last couple of years of what used to be conspiracy theories making their way into mainstream thought process in America — a large part of that growth is not just online hate but also airtime in prime time on our television seen by millions of Americans,” he said. Some of those conspiracy theories, he said, have migrated from cable television hosts to elected officials.
TOT Sunday,ROSHSERVICESHASHANAH*September25, 2022 7:45 PM Erev Rosh HaShanah Service Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10 AM Rosh HaShanah 2nd Day Morning Service YOM Wednesday,KIPPUR*October 5, 2022 1:30 PM Beit Midrash 2:45 PM Minchah Afternoon Service 5:15 PM Yizkor and N’ilah Service Break
This year have a catered dinner at Temple Sinai before Erev Rosh HaShanah Service. No cooking. No cleaning up. No hurrying to get to service on time. a relaxing community dinner to start off a sweet new year.
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The ADL has added board members from Pittsburgh and also plans to add staff from here as well. “The challenges in Pittsburgh are not unique,” Pasch said. “They are similar to what we are seeing across the nation and they require an increase of attention.”
“It needs to be taken seriously,” he said, “because as the city of Pittsburgh knows all too well, antisemitism is not just something that hurts people’s feelings. It’s damaging. It threatens the lives of Jews, period.”
The spike in online hate speech is driven, in part, by the upcoming state elections, Philadelphia’s Regional ADL Director Andrew Goretsky said. He called Gab a “cesspool of racism, antisemitism, hate andSocialextremism.”mediasites like Gab have a financial interest in attracting views so they monetize hate, he said, adding, “The model of revenue generation for online platforms is to get likes and clicks.”
Speaking about recent activity on Gab aimed at Pennsylvania state Rep. Dan Frankel and the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, Pasch said the social media platform is a factor in the rise of antisemitism and hate.
Last month, it was revealed that Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candi date state Sen. Doug Mastriano’s campaign paid $5,000 to Gab for “consulting services” which directed all new subscribers to auto matically follow Mastriano. His account was removed from Gab after he received widespread criticism from both Democrats andGoretskyRepublicans.pointed to a 2019 report published by the ADL and the Network Contagion Research Institute on geno cidal language and conspiracy theories that looked specifically at Gab and 8chan, now known as 8kun. “It showed how Gab perpetuates homi cidal and genocidal fantasies,” he said. “So, one of the concerns is when they’re targeting individuals, but it’s a concern for the whole community at the same time.”
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Israel and Japan signed a defense agreement allowing for greater military equipment and technology cooperation on Aug. 30 in a sign of closeness as they mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year, JTA reported. Israel Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Japan trip comes at the tail end of a visit to the United States, where he discussed Iran’s nuclear program and other security issues with top officials, and as Japan faces height ened tensions in the Pacific following Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own.
The name change is pending tribal approval.
Hundreds of reptiles, turtles caught in Ben-Gurion Airport smuggling attempt
The prosecution’s sentencing recommen dation noted that Joshua Pruitt, in his efforts to impress other Proud Boys, a far-right group, made antisemitic comments in encrypted chats. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, addressing Pruitt on Monday, said that his sentence, one of the toughest so far in pros ecutions of the hundreds of people charged in the deadly rioting, was informed in part by Pruitt’s approach toward Schumer, the Jewish New York Democrat who was then the Senate minority leader. In its sentencing recommendation, the prosecution also described Pruitt’s entry into the Proud Boys just weeks before the rioting, and how he sought to enhance his credibility, including by making antisemitic statements in online chats. PJC — Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
Sept. 13, 1984 — Peres becomes premier Shimon Peres becomes Israel’s eighth prime minister, leading a national unity government of his Alignment, Likud and six other parties. Peres agrees to yield power to Likud’s Yitzhak Shamir after two years.
Sept. 9, 1993 — PLO, Israel recognize each other Four days before they sign the selfrule agreement of the Oslo Accords in Washington, the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel formally recognize each other’s existence.
Sept. 11, 1921 — Moshav Nahalal founded Moshav Nahalal, a new kind of agri cultural settlement combining a kibbutz’s communal principles with private land ownership, is founded in the Jezreel Valley between Haifa and Afula. Sept. 12, 1977 — Singer Idan Raichel is born Singer, composer and producer Idan Raichel is born in Kfar Saba. His music incorpo rates Middle Eastern, Ethiopian and other sounds through the award-winning Idan Raichel Project.
Sept. 10, 1923 — Gush Shalom Founder Uri Avnery is born Three-time Knesset member Uri Avnery, who founds the Gush Shalom peace move ment, is born in Germany. He fights in the 1948 war then advocates a partnership with the Arab national movement.
According to Willamette Week, Joyce McClain discovered the mountain’s existence last year and petitioned the volunteer-run Oregon Geographic Names Board to change it. At a meeting this month, the board said it would support a name change to Mount Halo, named after Chief Halito, who led the area’s Indigenous Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe in the 1800s.
Israel, Japan sign new defense agreement
Oregon’s Swastika Mountain to be renamed Fifty miles southeast of Eugene, Oregon, reaching an elevation of more than 4,000 feet, lies Swastika Mountain.
A Community Day School student will be charged with harassment following an investigation into comments they made on a social media platform, Pittsburgh Police told the Chronicle.AviMunro, head of school, notified parents in an Aug. 30 email about the “concerning online comments.” “We have been reassured that there is no immediate threat to the CDS community at this time,” Munro said in the email.
Israel Police said there was an undercover operation at the airport stemming from intel ligence received by the Border Police. The suspects are all in their 20s and are suspected of smuggling. Yeshiva U. asks Supreme Court to weigh in on LGBT student club Yeshiva University is asking the Supreme Court to block a New York court order mandating that the Orthodox Jewish univer sity recognize an LGBT group as an official campus club, New York Jewish Week reported. The emergency request comes after an appeals court rejected the school’s motion to delay a previous court order to recognize the YU Pride Alliance. Both rulings were victories for the Pride Alliance and setbacks for the university, where administrators argue that having to recognize the LGBT student group would violate the First Amendment rights of the institution.
“There’s nothing I’d share publicly other than we’re working with local law enforcement, and we’re working to mitigate any threats,” Brokos said. Brokos stressed, however, “there have been no additional threats.”
Sept. 14, 2014 — Ex-Justice Abdel Rahman Zuabi dies Abdel Rahman Zuabi dies at 82. A judge on the Nazareth District Court for 20 years, he becomes the first Arab justice on Israel’s Supreme Court when he fills a nine-month vacancy in 1999. Sept. 15, 2009 — Goldstone presents Gaza War report Judge Richard Goldstone presents his U.N.-sponsored report criticizing Israel and Hamas for their actions in the 2008-09 Gaza war. In April 2011 he recants suggestions that Israel inten tionally killed civilians. PJC p Richard thatacknowledgedGoldstonein2011his2009reporton the Gaza conflict was flawed.
“I can confirm there will be harass ment charges filed against the student in question,” Mueller said. “Because the student is a juvenile, I can’t discuss much beyond that.” Munro advised parents on Aug. 30 to “please remember that if you ‘see something, say something’ and to report any suspicious activity in-person or online.” —Justin Vellucci —
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Jan. 6 Proud Boy rioter who approached Chuck Schumer and who made antisemitic jokes in chat sentenced to 4.5 years A federal judge handed down a 55-month prison sentence to a Proud Boy initiate who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 and rushed toward Sen. Chuck Schumer, JTA reported.
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Japan announced plans to increase its defense budget and develop longer-range missiles to counter threats from China and Russia. Gantz said the new agreement “will strengthen the defense capability of each country as well as our joint contribution to peace and stability in our regions and all over the world.”
Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.
The event will take place from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 at the Expo center in Tel Aviv. Foreign nationals who have not received one of the available coronavirus vaccines are barred from entering the United States or Canada, and Djokovic has stated that he will not get vaccinated even if this means missing out on key Djokovictournaments.alsoskipped the Australian Open in January, despite previously claiming to have secured a government exemption to compete in the competition without a vaccination record.
The history of Swastika Mountain predates Nazi Germany. It was named after the now-de funct town of Swastika, which acquired its name because a local rancher used to brand his cattle with the symbol. Before the Nazis turned the swastika into a symbol of hate, it signified good fortune and well-being in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Djokovic to compete in Israeli tennis tournament Serbian tennis great Novak Djokovic will compete in the Watergen Open 2022 in Tel Aviv in September, his camp confirmed, after being forced to withdraw from the U.S. Open due to not being vaccinated against COVID19, JNS.org reported.
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Israel Police reported that three people were caught with numerous snakes, reptiles and turtles in the luggage when their flight from the Netherlands landed at Ben-Gurion Airport on Aug. 29, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Today in Israeli History
“CDS took this extremely seriously and acted quickly,” Brokos said. “I cannot stress how seriously they are taking Amandathis.”Mueller, Pittsburgh Police’s deputy public information officer, confirmed on Sept. 2 that Pittsburgh Police were involved in the investigation.
It’s unknown how many Jews have climbed it. But the unfortunate name, nearly a century old, will likely soon be replaced thanks to the efforts of a resident, JTA reported.
Gay sex is forbidden by nearly all Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law, although attitudes toward individuals who identify as queer have eased somewhat in many Modern Orthodox settings in recent years. The university’s request is to only block the immediate implementation of the club until another appeal of the decision is heard.
CDS student to be charged with harassment
“The student was dismissed to a parent/ guardian and will not be allowed to return to campus until the investigation is complete and appropriate actions have beenJenniferdetermined.”Bails, a spokesperson for CDS, declined to identify the student, give details about the nature of the comments or talk about the root of the security risk. “Security at Community Day School continues to be our most sacred responsibility,” Bails told the Chronicle. “With the support and partnership of Jewish Federation security and local law enforcement, we use every means possible to ensure our students and staff are safe at school.” Shawn Brokos, director of commu nity security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, also declined to provide details about the nature of the student’s comments online.
Ken Burns’ PBS documentary ‘The U.S. And The Holocaust’ asks hard questions about how Americans treated Jews and immigrants during wartime
Bostein’s father (Bard College President Leon Botstein) was born in Switzerland in 1946, to two Polish Jews who had met in medical school in Zurich and later came to the United States as refugees. She is a first-generation American and said making the film helped her better under stand her family’s survival.
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The filmmakers take a wide sweep in estab lishing the racist political climate of the time, discussing the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 19th century; Theodore Roosevelt’s love of eugenics; Henry Ford’s public campaign of antisemitism; and Jim Crow laws, which rendered Black people second-class citizens and which Hitler would eventually draw from when crafting his own race laws.
“There was a way, because we were relating it to the U.S., that you could get a different and perhaps fresher kind of picture,” Burns said.
“The United States doesn’t do anything, and then all of a sudden it does. They’re bad guys, and then they’re good guys.”
By Andrew Lapin | JTA
graphs, letters and newsreel footage — often read aloud by celebrities, including Meryl Streep, Liam Neeson, Hope Davis and Werner Herzog. They voice the stories of Frank and others like him who sought refuge in the United States but died in gas chambers and concentra tion camps instead. It is also supplemented by extensive inter views with Holocaust survivors and historians, most prominently Deborah Lipstadt, an influ ential Holocaust scholar and currently the State Department’s special envoy on antisem itism. Lipstadt delivers what the directors saw as the film’s most haunting conclusion: that the Nazis achieved their goal of permanently crippling the global Jewish population, which has not been fully replenished in the decades since the Holocaust.
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p President Franklin Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 9, 1943 Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration see Documentary, page 21
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Novick, meanwhile, was raised in the United States, in a secular Jewish family that had already been here for generations. For her, the project was eye-opening in a different way.
“I understand better now, I think, the world that my grandparents, or sometimes great-grandparents, grew up in, and how antise mitic America really was,” she said. Like most projects by Florentine Films, Burns’ production company, “The U.S. And The Holocaust” tells its story with copious
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“It was important to us to look at a way in which you can rearrange the familiar tropes so that you see: This is a family that is getting the hell out of Germany, and hoping eventually to put more distance between them by going to the United States, which basically in the majority of the citizens and in the policy of its government does not want them,” Burns told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Burns is the foremost documentarian of American history, with iconic works such as “The Civil War,” “Jazz” and “Baseball” (where he explained the real hidden ball trick, an on-field sleight of hand), turning PBS programs into must-see TV multiple times over the past four decades. His latest, “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” premieres on the public broadcaster Sept. 18 and will air over three nights. The project took seven years to complete. In 2015, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum reached out to Burns with a request: Would he consider making a film about America during the Holocaust? Burns and his longtime co-directors, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, along with writer Geoffrey C. Ward, had already been consid ering such a project. Their 2007 miniseries about World War II and their 2014 project about the Roosevelts covered historical periods that overlapped with the Holocaust but did not explore the subject in depth — and their makers recognized the gap. Produced in partnership with the museum and the USC Shoah Foundation, and drawing on the latest research about the time period, the resulting six-hour series explores the events of the Holocaust in granular detail. But it also chronicles the xenophobic and antisemitic climate in America in the years leading up to the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews: a nation largely hostile to any kind of refugee, particu larly Jewish ones, and reluctant to intervene in a war on their behalf. The series paints a picture of a country largely failing the century’s greatest moral crisis, through a combination of bureaucratic inept itude, political skittishness and open bigotry emanating from the streets to the most vaunted chambers of power — while a handful of heroes, working mostly on the sidelines, succeeded in helping small numbers of people.
One of the first people introduced in Ken Burns’ new documentary series about the Holocaust is Otto, a Jewish man seen in the series’ first episode who tries to secure passage to America for his family but gets stymied by the country’s fierce anti-immi gration legislation.
The filmmakers hope such a message will have modern resonance, especially as it arrives in a very different world from the one in which work on it began: amid a growing climate of authoritarian governments, right-wing extremism, Holocaust denialism and fierce debates over how to frame American history in the classroom. For these reasons and more, Burns said, “I will never work on a more important film.”
It isn’t until the third episode that viewers learn that Otto’s daughter is nicknamed Anne, and the pieces fall into place: He’s the father of Anne Frank, the Holocaust’s most famous victim. Burns calls the delayed detail a “hidden ball trick,” hoping that an audience with only passing knowledge of the Frank family will not immediately clue into the fact that Otto was Anne’s father. Burns and his co-directors, two Jewish filmmakers, want their viewers to ponder the question of what the U.S. govern ment felt Anne’s life was worth when she was still a living, breathing Jewish child and not yet a world-famous author and martyr of the human condition.
“My grandmother used to say to me: ‘If someone shook you in the middle of the night, what would you say? Are you an American? Are you a Jew? Are you a woman? Are you Sarah?’” Botstein said. “Because her identity had defined everything that ever happened to her, and I didn’t have that experience living in a fairly liberal part of New York State.”
The American focus means the film takes 30 minutes to arrive in Germany. The timeline begins not with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power but with the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, an American law that set national quotas on all immigrants to the country and would come to factor heavily into U.S. refugee policy during Europe’s mass expulsion of Jews.
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The film was an especially personal journey for Botstein and Novick, who are both Jewish.
All these years later, the memories of those events are still haunting, coming as they did at the world’s most prestigious sporting event and in the very country where, in 1936, the Nazi ideology of Adolf Hitler received the legitimacy of the world in hosting the Berlin Olympics.
a terrorist group, ultimately leaving the matter in Israel’s hands to deal with it alone.
Guest Columnist Rabbi GoldschmidtPinchas
Related to this is the way the international community reacts to Israel under assault. This is seen most clearly in recent years when Hamas launches hundreds of rockets specifically targeting Israeli civilians. Time and again the world stands by and does nothing in the face of these assaults by
8 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG Opinion
The first was regarding international terrorism. Munich should have been a wake-up call to the dangers of terrorism, particularly with the theme of provoking this brutal inhumane violence when the whole world is watching in the belief that the world will fail to respond in the proper way.
The failed lessons of the Munich massacre
And, of course, at some point, Israel is obligated to protect its citizens and bloody conflict follows.
So, too, with regard to Munich.
The Munich massacre should have been an occasion to focus the international commu nity on pressuring the Palestinians to give up on their rejectionism and terrorism, which had characterized their politics already for decades. This might have been a moment to bring the Palestinians into the real world, which could have brought about a two-state solution and dramatic change in the region for both parties. Minimalism stood in the way. The handling of the Munich massacre reminds us of the gap between the aspira tion of how sports can bring people together and how this plays out around the world. Unfortunately, we see hate manifesting itself too often at major sporting events around the globe. Indeed, athletics can provide the frame work for greater respect among peoples. It must, however, be worked at by all. Unfortunately, as we look back 50 years at Munich, what happened in those tragic days and in the years since did not provide the moral and practical framework to make this a better world. PJC Kenneth Jacobson is deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League. This first appeared on The Times of Israel. Guest Columnist Kenneth Jacobson
Ihave a confession to make. For a long time, the Conference of European Rabbis knew without a doubt that we should give President Mikhail Gorbachev our most prestigious prize. We have awarded European statesmen who support Jewish life in Europe with our HaRav Lord Jakobovits Prize, and the poli tician who most deserved this prize was, without question, the last Soviet leader. It was President Mikhail Gorbachev who opened the gates of the Iron Curtain and allowed Jews to emigrate to Israel and to other countries. It was he who allowed Jews again to lead a Jewish life, study Hebrew, go to synagogue and be openly Jewish within the Soviet Union for the first time in decades. So why didn’t we give Mikhail Gorbachev this most well-deserved award? We didn’t want to enrage the Kremlin, whose current leader has described the demise of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” It was under Gorbachev that my wife Dara and I arrived in the Soviet Union in 1989 to restart the Jewish community in Russia, which has subsequently been destroyed by the Soviet regime. We built kindergartens, schools and synagogues, starting during the Gorbachev years and later after the putsch (a failed coup in August 1991), when the Soviet Union fell apart and the new Russian state was born under President BorisTheYeltsin.lasttime I went to visit Gorbachev was in 1996, before the presidential elections in Russia. He asked me: “Should I run?” I jokingly answered him: “Yes — in Israel. There, you are very popular!” When I told the story weeks later to acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres (after the traumatic assassination of Yitzhak Rabin), he thought I was being serious. Facing a tough election of his own, he said, “We have enough candidates in IsraelWhilealready!”Gorbachev remained very popular throughout the years among Soviet Jews and in Israel, he had very little public support within Russia itself. The horren dous economic difficulties which befell the greater part of the Soviet population during and after Soviet collapse, the withdrawal of the Soviet safety net, the product shortages, and the shame felt by many Soviet citizens about the disintegration of the system they have been made to believe in for so long, all contributed to this. These are the very feelings that the current government has used as an excuse to launch its latest invasion into Ukraine in order to recreate the lost dream of the Soviet Empire. But the notion that these feelings are shared by the majority of Russian citizens today is totally false: they are mainly expressed by members of the elite organs which ruled the Soviet Union, such as the KGB. If there were actual broad public support for this brutal invasion, there would have been no need for the draconian shutdown of all independent journalism and social media within Russia, not to mention the arrest and repression of tens of thousands who oppose the war. It is only through censorship, repression and propaganda that the current regime maintains its power. Mikhail Gorbachev deserves honor and accolades from all people — not only the West, and not only Jews, but from every citizen of the former Soviet Union for bringing down one of the most repressive totalitarian and stupid regimes, which enslaved a big part of humanity. It is bitterly ironic that his death comes at a time when the freedoms he sought to institute are being snatched away from the Russian people once again. May his memory be a blessing. PJC Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt served as Chief Rabbi of Moscow from 1993 to 2022 and is president of the Conference of European Rabbis. This piece first appeared in the Forward.
Mikhail Gorbachev deserves honor and accolades from all people — not only the West, and not only Jews, but from every citizen of the former Soviet Union for bringing down one of the most repressive totalitarian and stupid regimes, which enslaved a big part of humanity.
For the Jewish people, this horrendous event not only conjured up the terrible past of antisemitism and exclusion — it also forced reflection on how little the world had learned despite that invidious history. This is reflected in a series of developments at the time of the massacre and ever since. First was the way the Olympic committee handled the shocking assault. It would be an understatement to say that the International Olympic Committee took a minimalist approach to the matter, not surprisingly since Avery Brundage was still head of the committee in 1972. This is the same Brundage who, as head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, cozied up to the Nazi regime in 1936 and allowed his priority of the games’ success to trump the blatant antisemitism and racism of the host country. After the Munich massacre, the games went on largely as if nothing catastrophic had taken place. There was no suspen sion of events and no serious reflection on what had happened. This immediate reaction set the stage for what failed to happen at the Olympics for the next four decades. Nary a commemoration of the Munich massacre at follow-up games until international pressure finally forced a moment of silence at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo games in 2021. Jewish life was cheap once again.
If inaction and minimalism were the themes of the massacre, this also applied to two other areas where nothing was learned.
The fact that the Olympic Games in 1972 proceeded as if nothing much had happened and that the events were not even commem orated going forward sent a message that terrorism is normalized and the goals of the terrorists, to intimidate and disrupt, were movingSecond,forward.isinregard to the Palestinians.
This week we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by Black September terrorists at the Munich Olympic Games.
And so it was, which opened the path to the explosion of terrorism over the years ahead, culminating in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.
Mikhail Gorbachev dismantled the Iron Curtain — and allowed Russian Jews to live openly again
Lee Golden Rehovot, Israel
Censorship never helps. It just drives it underground. I’d rather know what people are thinking and take the pulse of current levels of antisemitism. It’s naive to believe censorship would help reduce it. PJC
I know we have freedom of speech, but if it hurts others we need to take those that are hateful down.
Last week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following ques tion: “Should social media platforms be doing more to censor antisemitic posts?”
I don’t trust a for-profit company to decide what is or isn’t bigoted, and compa nies trying to do that have caused a lot of harm with false positives. Censor little centrally and empower consumers to decide — give us better filtering controls.
We need to honor the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, but reasonable people need to agree what crosses that line, and it shouldn’t be that difficult.
This is not exactly what we now know as the “Protestant work ethic.” The rabbis of the Talmud did not tie hard work and economic success to divine salvation. No doubt, they understand that people need to and should work for a living. “In traditional sources, work is often regarded as necessary, and certainly better than idleness (which can lead to sin),” according to a helpful article from My Jewish Learning.
Censorship is wrong regardless of the subject. If we draw lines, “they” will draw lines that we don’t like.
If you can’t try a man who emerges from a crime scene carrying the murder weapon, maybe you should stand aside and let the commonwealth prosecute the state criminal homicide charges.
Chronicle poll question:
Justice should be swift, but failing that it must be certain.
Guest Columnist Andrew Silow-Carroll social media platforms be doing more to censor antisemitic posts?” Yes. 88% No. 5% I'msure.not 7%
We still have freedom of speech, even if we do not like what is said.
Hardly ever do I say I’m “not sure” about something like this. But I’m not. It depends upon who is doing the censoring and how. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech. The vehicle should make clear what its policies are before seeming to offer total freedom of speech.
The federal government insisted that its case proceed first. Clearly, the Justice Department and federal court are incapable of trying the defendant. After two presidents, two federal judges and multiple attorneys general, the case remains untried.
Besides, we need to know what bigots in positions of power or running for office are saying; imagine the damage come No vember if Gab had suppressed Mastriano’s garbage and people thus thought maybe he was OK.
heard of “quiet quitting” until about 10 minutes ago. Since then every major news outlet has done a story on this purported trend, defined as a movement among office workers to draw firmer worklife boundaries by doing less work. It means closing your laptop at 5 p.m. when your cubi cle-mate is staying late to finish a project. It means turning off notifications on your phone so you can’t check your work emails after hours. It can mean doing the bare minimum and still hanging onto your job. On a grander scale, it means cooling your hottest ambitions in favor of a saner work-life balance. Of course, to a certain kind of devotee of the attention economy, this sounds like nothing less than slacking off. “Quiet quitting isn’t just about quitting on a job, it’s a step toward quitting on life,” huffed Arianna Huffington, in a LinkedIn post. The Fox News host Tomi Lahren said it’s just a euphemism for being “LAZY” (she added an expletive). I don’t have a dog in this fight, since I am not a “quiet quitter.” (I am more a “person without any hobbies or little kids, who if he closes his laptop at 5 p.m. doesn’t know what to do with himself.”) But I understand the impulse. Technology and corporate culture conspire to blur the lines between work and office. The demise of unions has shifted the workplace power balance to employers. For those who could work at home, the pandemic obliterated the boundaries between on and off hours.
Ihadn’t
Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org to respond. PJC Federal case against Pittsburgh synagogue shooter is ‘mockery of justice’
“Quitting” is a terrible way to describe what is really doing your job, no more and no less. It only feels like “quitting” to a culture that demands that you sacrifice private time to your employer or career. This peculiarly American “ethic” shows up, for instance, in vacations: Americans get on average 10 fewer vacation days a year than Europeans because, unlike the European Union, the United States does not federally mandate paid vacation or holidays.Justreading a New York Times article about how eight of the 10 largest private U.S. employers are using tracking software to monitor their employees made me feel guilty and anxious — even though I was reading the article as part of my job. If quiet quitting were actually slacking, it would run afoul of Jewish law. “Jewish employees are obligated to work at full capacity during their work hours and not to ‘steal time’ from their employers,” writes Rabbi Jill Jacobs in a responsa — legal opinion — called “Work, Workers and the Jewish Owner,” written for the Conservative movement in 2008. And yet this warning aside, Jewish law is much more concerned with employers who take advantage of employees rather than the other way around. Jacobs — now the executive director of T’ruah, the rabbinic human rights group — describes nine principles of workplace justice in the Torah, and nearly all are addressed to the employer. These include treating workers with “dignity and respect” and paying them a living wage and on time. “The ideal worker-employer relationship should be one of trusted partnership,” she writes, “in which each party looks out for the well-being of the other, and in which the two parties consider themselves to be working together for the perfection of the divine world.”
And yet, because the study of Torah is considered the ideal use of one’s time (assuming you are a man, anyway) the rabbis were clearly wary of occupations and ambitions that demanded too much of a worker. In Pirkei Avot, the collection of ethical sayings from the Mishnah, Rabbi Meir says, “Minimize business and engage in Torah.” The rabbis, My Jewish Learning explains, “were clearly worried that excessive pursuit of material well-being would distract from higher pursuits.” The artist Jenny Odell’s 2019 manifesto about quitting the “attention economy,” “How to Do Nothing,” similarly rejects “a frame of Please see Quitting 25
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‘Quiet quitting,’ the sudden trend in work, sounds sort of … Jewish? (Hear me out.)
Are you planning to attend any High Holiday services in person this year?
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It’s way overdue. Also, we need to “out” these dangerous social media platforms so unsuspecting visitors know in advance not to go there, even out of curiosity.
I don’t believe that the government should curtail speech. But social media platforms have to decide what sort of culture they want to foster. If they are “Truth Social,” there is a specific audience that they have in mind; Facebook Twitter and Instagram, just to name a few, have a much bigger reach and, I believe, more responsibility to moderate hate speech.
Hate speech of all kinds should not be allowed in cyberspace! It should be criminal!
It has been three years and 10 months since the murders in the Tree of Life building without a trial. How can the community and its leadership remain silent?
I’m not such a fan of social media censoring anything not illegal. But if they are going to censor (and they do), then they need to do a better job of censoring antisemitism; they seem to censor everything except for that.
Chronicle poll results: Censorship of antisemitic social media posts
The current situation is a mockery of justice as the defendant runs out the clock hoping that witnesses die, evidence is lost and memories fade. It is beyond the time to demand expedited state prosecution.
PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 9 Opinion
Should
Of the 198 people who responded, 88% said yes and 5% said no. Seven percent said they weren’t sure. Comments were submitted by 41 people. A few follow.
In addition to the plenaries, there are seven specific tracks throughout the summit, allowing for deeper conversations, including “Violent Extremism in the Police and Military,” “Prevention in Practice,” “Legal Strategies” and “Education and Public Awareness.”
“We’re very excited and thrilled to have Rabbi Amy Bardack here to work with us and to provide the spiritual and religious educational component we’ve been seeking,” Herschlag said. PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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Bardack’s new position, she said, is about collaboration and leading from the center.
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Unlike last year, the 2022 summit is open to the public. Those attending the event at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center will have the chance to attend plenaries including the “State of Hate,” “Violent Extremism in the Police and Military” and several sessions about the May 14 Buffalo shooting at Tops Friendly Markets.
Dor Hadash’s educational structure will remain intact as well. Karen Morris will continue as the religious school principal, Herschlag said, with Bardack — a former Judaic studies director at a day school — available for consultation regarding curriculum, methodology and topics.
The conference was purposely broad last year, Nordenberg said, to build a common knowledge base and community, so most of the sessions included the entire group of participants. This year, though, “about half of our time will be invested in plenary sessions that keeps the entire group together, but the other half of the time is going to be invested in these focus tracks that permit people to dig deeper, to focus on problems and discuss possible solutions,” he said.
“We used to say in rabbinical school that we’re all secretly Reconstructionist Jews because we’re very aligned theologically — most non-Orthodox rabbis — with the concepts of Reconstructionism.” Bardack said she intends to maintain her position on the Conservative Rabbinic Assembly Executive Committee while becoming an associate member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. In addition, she plans to continue profes sional development in the Reconstructionist movement and will most likely find a mentor in the field.
“You’re seeing the people who were here last year come back,” she said. “You’re seeing them bring their colleagues, you’re seeing them on panels with people who they’ve been working with actively in the year since the last summit. And, you are seeing them come back to Pittsburgh because the one thing we’ve heard again and again is, this is unprecedented and never happened anywhere in the world before.”
Experts in the field of violent extremism and community leaders who will be presenting include Oren Segal, vice pres ident, Center of Extremism with the Anti-Defamation League; John Tien, deputy secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism; and Christopher Buckley, a veteran and activist with Parents for Peace. Ellsworth and Nordenberg said that the Eradicate Hate Global Summit has expanded beyond their expectations. “I felt like we planted a seed last year,” Ellsworth said, “and I was really hoping that it would grow. What we unexpectedly experienced is that there is a field around us. There are so many people coming out of the woodwork to be a part of the summit and what this community has built. It has exceeded my hopes.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Herschlag said Bardack’s Conservative background isn’t a problem for the“She’scongregation.aprogressive and open rabbi who has espoused inclusion values consistent with the congregation’s values, and we look forward to working with her,” he said.
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“Registering people to vote, supporting refugees, those are all issues that we strongly are working for and toward,” he said.
Dor Hadash has grown over the years, Herschlag noted, which has necessitated the need for a permanent rabbi.
The success of the initial summit, Ellsworth said, is evidenced by the people returning this year.
A month after last year’s summit, Nderitu told Ellsworth the U.N. wanted to focus on how sports could be used to combat hate and violent extremism and asked if the summit organizers had any connection to the sports world. Ellsworth knew Rosenthal would be perfect for the assignment. A working group was created that met at the U.N. under Rosenthal’s leadership, Ellsworth said. That group will create an action plan during this year’s summit, working with leaders of various sports orga nizations including the MLB, NASCAR, NFL, Major League Soccer and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. That’s only the beginning, though. “I just don’t want anyone to go through what I went through,” Rosenthal said. “We have an opportunity to use the platform of sports to make a difference and let the world know that any form of hate is just unacceptable. I think to use an analogy with sports, sometimes a lot of society stands on the sidelines. And we have to stop standing on the sidelines. We have to be a player in the game.” The 2022 summit, which runs from Sept. 19-21, includes more than 100 sessions and more than 250 speakers.
Another area that is not a concern for either Bardack or the congregation is the rabbi’s views on Zionism.
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The congregation completed a 20212024 strategic plan that identified hiring a clergy member as one of its goals, said Bruce Herschlag, president of Dor Hadash’s board. The plan, available on the Dor Hadash website, called for a clergy member to provide “support to lay leaders, leading the congregation in singing and providing service leadership as scheduled, while helping support and maintain a sense of belonging within a participative and lay-ledAlongculture.”withassisting the lay leaders, the clergy member would provide pastoral counseling, support for life events and educational programming as requirements.
Bardack has posted articles online critical of Israel and wrote an op-ed in February titled “How inclusive are we willing to be?” in support of Jessie Sander, a former teacher at a Reform congregation who was fired, she said, for her anti-Zionist views. “They (Dor Hadash) are putting into prac tice exactly what I called for on that opinion piece, which is the inclusion of all Jews, no matter their perspective on the IsraelPalestine conflict,” Bardack said. She noted that the congregation has members who consider themselves non-Zionist or Diaspora-centric as well as traditionalist Zionists. For that reason, she said she will not be discussing politics from the Bardack’sbima.appointment will not change any of the congregation’s positions, said Herschlag, and Dor Hadash will continue its strong social action commitment.
Bardack: Continued from page 1
Summit: Continued from page 1 Rodef Shalom Congregation, Bardack said. “I observed Shabbat services. We had several interviews. I had a trial Shabbat in mid-June,” she explained. “We were both very discreet and kept it very quiet until it was a done deal. We signed the contract Aug. 31, and I started Sept. 1.” The rabbinical post is a return to her roots for Bardack, who began her rabbinic career as a pulpit rabbi for a small syna gogue in Greenwich Village. She gave up delivering weekly sermons from the bima when she moved to California with her husband and began a 17-year career working in day schools. She continued her career as an educator when her family relo cated to Boston. Her previous positions, Bardack said, made sense when she was raising chil dren and needed the stability of a mostly 9-5 job. As an empty-nester, though, the rabbi said she could begin exploring other opportunities.“Now’sagood time in life to go back to the pulpit,” she said. “That was one of the reasons I left Federation — the unprece dented opportunity for pulpit rabbis.” Since its founding in 1963, Dor Hadash has been lay-led, although it has employed various cantors and rabbis on a part-time basis through the years. Bardack, whose position is part-time, is excited to collaborate with the congrega tion’s leadership, she said. Dor Hadash has a history of having two people lead services, and Bardack will continue that tradition. In fact, she said that one of the reasons she was hired was to help train the next generation of the congregation, which is experiencing a growth spurt. “There are new members who are joining, some of them are young people in their 20s, some young families and they don’t neces sarily have those skills,” Bardack said. “So, one of the things they really wanted was for me to empower congregants to learn more.”
“It’s much more difficult to have a totally lay-led congregation administering the needs and wants of 250-plus members,” he said. “I think that the increase in size, the people’s desire to have more professional spiritual guidance and at some point, as you grow, you probably need more Ordainedhelp.”asaConservative rabbi, Bardack does not see her training and background as a barrier to serving the Reconstructionist congregation. She noted the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, was a professor at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary.
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Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin found that older adults who engaged with individuals outside of their usual circle of close friends and family were likelier to be physically active, have better moods and harbor fewer negative Berman-Kressfeelings.said that she and her colleagues are always looking for ways to introduce residents to one another.
Fraternizing isn’t just fun — it can also be good for one’s health. Research suggests that getting out and expanding one’s social circle is important to healthy aging.
Senior Living:A Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle special advertising section
In recent months, authors, artists and even Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey have visited Weinberg Terrace, Berman-Kress said. At Concordia of the South Hills, a number of prominent local educators, authors and historians regularly speak with residents, explained Christie Wahlen, director of marketing at Concordia of South Hills. Each month, Todd DePastino, director of the Pittsburgh-based Veterans Breakfast Club, discusses war-related history. Radio personality and journalist George Savarese reviews current events. Rabbi Alex Greenbaum of Beth El Congregation of the South Hills addresses contemporary topics, and children’s author Judy Press leads a bimonthly creative writing workshop, Wahlen said. The programs — along with regular book clubs and groups dedicated to poker, bridge and mahjong — provide opportunities for residents to leave their apartments and socialize, Wahlen said.
Book clubs, speakers and gardening: Senior living centers help community members stay active and social
The Jewish staffer said that she and her colleagues are constantly working with residents to ensure they feel “connected and included in our community” and offer a range of programs seeking to satisfy a plethora of unique interests.
By Adam Reinherz | Sta Writer
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For instance, she said, during warmer months, ice cream socials are great vehicles for getting people to venture outdoors and engage with staff and other residents. Wahlen said she makes a point of encouraging Concordia’s 140 residents to express their interests, even when they might think there may be no one else who enjoys the same things. “If you’re interested in it then someone else will probably be interested in it as well,” Wahlen said. That’s how community-building occurs, Weinberg Terrace, Weinberg Village and AHAVA Memory Care have about 120 residents, while The New Riverview houses slightly more than 200 residents. The ages of JAA residents range “from their 60s to over 100 years old,” Berman-Kress said. “Our community is a very welcoming place, and we want everyone to feel involved,” she added. Wahlen offered a similar sentiment: “Concordia of the South Hills is a great place, we have great residents here and we love to have new residents.”
Pittsburgh’s senior living centers are helping older community members stay active and social. At Weinberg Terrace, Weinberg Village, The New Riverview and AHAVA Memory Care Center of Exellence, residents enjoy a host of engaging and meaningful activities, said Leah Berman-Kress, Jewish Association on Aging’s marketing and public relationsWhethercoordinator.it’sthrough monthly volunteer-led boards and councils — where residents discuss changes they’d like to see at Weinberg Terrace and The New Riverview — participating in regular bingo games, art projects, holiday-themed events or helping with spring and summer gardening, “our residents are really involved in the places that they live,” Berman-Kress said.
After describing how much residents and staff enjoyed a recent visit from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police’s first comfort dog, Zane, Berman-Kress said, “We have tons of activities throughout the day. There is Adam Reinherz can be reached at — LOCAL — Photo courtesy of Jewish Associaion on Aging Pittsburgh Bureau of Police’s comfort dog, Zane, visits a JAA resident. Photo courtesy of Jewish Association on Aging Mayor Ed Gainey visits Weinberg Terrace. Photo courtesy of Jewish Associaion on Aging Adobe Stock
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Senior Living South Hills club brings sunshine to seniors
Chabad of the South Hills also has hosted informational events with orga nizations such as the Mt. Lebanon Police Department and held miniature immuniza tion clinics, she added. One of Rosenblum’s main projects, though, is creating and delivering baskets. She orga nizes them around a theme — say, a Shabbat meal — and includes little must-haves like grape juice and a loaf of challah. She delivers them to older Pittsburghers living in care facilities and always makes sure to follow whatever COVID-related rules are in place. The message of sharing Jewish-themed items with the elderly has deep roots for Rosenblum. When she was growing up, she frequently visited senior care facilities and sang for audiences there. “It was something I saw make such a big difference,” she told the Chronicle. “It’s really bringing the joy of Judaism to a widerRosenblumdemographic.”isalways looking for volun teers, particularly now as she is preparing her High Holidays-themed baskets. “Support from the community,” she said, “will make that go farther.”
PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
— LOCAL — p Reuben Abromowitz and Hilda McNabb enjoy their time together at a Chabad of the South Hills seniors luncheon. Photo courtesy of Batya Rosenblum PA
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It’s called “The Sunshine Club,” and it’s making a difference in the lives of senior citizens in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. Batya Rosenblum is the spouse of Rabbi Mendy Rosenblum, with whom she co-di rects Chabad of the South Hills. The concept of the Sunshine Club, she said, is simple: to organize visits and gift drops with Pittsburghers living in senior care facilities. “It is really just to bring them happiness — sunshine and a smile,” she said. Though the visits and delivery of gifts slowed during the height of the pandemic, they are gradually coming back, facility by Anotherfacility.senior program Rosenblum has championed is “A Taste Of,” as in “A Taste of Shabbat” or “A Taste of the High Holidays.” Each program includes a craft or the singing of relevant songs, as well as a nosh on foods related to the particular holiday. “That’s been something that we’ve been doing a while. And it’s been very nicely received,” she said. Chabad of the South Hills also hosts monthly senior luncheons, where they welcome older Pittsburghers who are still able to drive to their Mt. Lebanon location.
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By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle
“It’s something we started as a place for seniors to have an outing and a luncheon, a kosher luncheon,” Rosenblum said.
Amit, who was born on a moshav in pre-state Israel in 1945, is one of nearly 100 artists participating in A Fair in the Park, an annual event hosted by The Craftsmen’s Guild of Pittsburgh. The fair runs from Sept. 9-11 in Mellon Park, Shadyside.
“I do harder and harder things where I need more control of the wax, more fine details,” he said. Amit has come to Pittsburgh for A Fair in the Park several times.
We are big advocates of planning to “stretch” your IRA and Roth after you are gone (i.e., keep as much as allowed in the pre-tax environmentfor as long as possible). Your heirs (children and even grandchildren) could potentially be hundreds of thousands of dollars better offif they“stretch”the Inherited IRA. The third chart presents a convincing Stretchinggraphic.willbecome trickier if Congress kills the stretch IRA as we know it (which is the recommendation of the Senate Finance Committee), though we do have recommendations of what to do now to prepare for the pending law change. Please see our book, The Ultimate Retirement and Estate Plan for Your Million-Dollar IRA.* Whydo I exclude the Roth?What is so Special about Roths? Roths grow tax-free. If you plan strategically, paying the taxes up-front to benefit from long-term, tax-free growth creates a unique opportunity to generate wealth. This is a complicated topic. We offer limited information about Roth IRAs and Roth IRA conversions in Retire Secure!, but for a complete analysis of Roths and Roth IRA conversions (a fantastic strategy most retirees miss) please see our book, The Roth Revolution, Pay Taxes Once and Never Again.* P.S. If you are interested in more financial information (we have written 5 best-selling financial books, many peer-reviewed articles, have 185 hours of our radio archives, etc.), we encourage you to visit our website, www.paytaxeslater.com. It has a wealth of valuable free material of special interest to IRA and retirement plan owners,or please call (412)521 2732 to see if you qualify for a free second opinion consultation.
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Batik artist coming to Pittsburgh with insights on art and Israel
Jane Bryant Quinn joked in a 2004 Newsweek column that my mantra was “Pay Taxes Later.” It was true then, it is true now. My fundamental tax strategies have not changed because they work; that’s the beauty of timetested strategies. Although, it is more complete to say: Don’t pay taxes now, pay taxes later, except for the Roth. This advice is critical for each stage of your retirement planning.We broadly define three critical stages: 1.The Accumulation Stage when you are saving for retirement. While you are working, (subject to the Roth exception which we will explain), we generally recommend you contribute as much as you can afford to your retirement plan at work, assuming you have one available to you. If you are self-employed, start your own retirement plan, like a one-person 401(k) plan. The first graph quantifies the difference between accumulating money inside a retirement plan versus saving money outside a retirement plan. Imagine a $1.5 million dollar difference and the difference isn’t saving or not saving, it is saving in a retirement plan versus saving outside a retirement plan. (For details please see Chapters 1-3 in our flagship book, Retire Secure!).* 2. The Distribution Stage when you are withdrawing money from your portfolio after you retire.
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Amit received an agriculture engineering degree from Hebrew University but told the Chronicle his passions were elsewhere: “You couldn’t study landscape architec ture in Israel, so I came to the States and got a master’s.” By the time he completed his grad uate work at California Polytechnic State University in 1975, Amit had already dedi cated himself to art. At first, he focused on Judaica and ethnic designs. Over time, though, his styleHechanged.focuses more on music and nature now and has adopted increasingly chal lenging techniques.
“There are a couple of us in America in the art circle who are still doing it, but we’re all old,” Amit, 76, said. “Young people don’t want to invest the time that it takes.”
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“I like the place,” he said. “I like the people who run it, and I like the educated public who come to the show. They like to know about the technique, and they like to converse. It’s fun.” Amit lives in Los Angeles but spends much of his time traveling for work. “I do about at least 25 shows a year,” he said. “I do shows in the winter in Florida, in spring in Texas and in the summer in the Midwest.” He enjoys Park City, Utah, and Bethesda, Maryland, but said he has an affinity for Pennsylvania and particularly StateCentralCollege.Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts is a show that “I’ve been doing for over 20 years,” he said. “The area is beautiful. The alumni come and appreciate the work.” The Israeli artist thrives on engaging with his audiences; spontaneous conversa tion reminds him of growing up in Israel, where people would socialize — and still do LOCAL — p “Music for the World” Image courtesy of Amos Amit p Amos Amit Photo courtesy of Amos Amit p “Tree of Life” Image courtesy of Amos Amit Please see Artist, page 21 SPONSORED CONTENT 2200 Murray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15217 412 521 www.paytaxeslater.com2732
By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer Amos
Amit begins his process by drawing a design on fabric. He then applies hot wax to prevent dye from penetrating the cloth, leaving blank areas in the dyed fabric. Then he adds dye, followed by more wax. The Israeli-born batik artist continues the process until he finally removes the wax by ironing the work between sheets of paper.
Let’s assume that you are retired and you have two stacks of money. The first is IRA or an equivalent that will be taxed upon withdrawal (pre-tax). The second stack is money you have paid taxes on (after-tax). Generally speaking, we recommend that you spend the after-tax stack before you spend your IRA money. The second chart dramatically plots the different outcomes depending on which stack you spend first. (For full details, please see Chapter 4 in the most recent update of our flagship book, Retire Secure!).* 3. During the Estate Planning Stage when you are considering your heirs.
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Amit’s finished product is a piece that looks like a painting but is not. The amazing part, he explained, is that batik isn’t so much an illusion as it is a vanishing technique.
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What’s the take from Elaine Cappucci, the operations and wellness director at JCC of the South Hills? “We love pickleball here,” she laughed. Pickleball programming started several years ago in Pittsburgh’s South Hills but, last year, the organization brought in a certified pickleball pro who teaches individual and group lessons, Cappucci said. Cappucci echoes familiar senti ments about why the game is so hot among seniors. “It’s very popular with senior adults, especially those who’ve played other racket sports,” she said. “And the court is easier on the “Sincejoints.”thecourt is smaller, you’re closer to the people you’re playing with,” she added. “It’s made to be a fun game. It’s meant to be fun and to be social.” Nancy Deegan has played pickleball at the JCC of the South Hills for a while now, she said. The Castle Shannon mother of six, who retired in 2001 from a career as a secretary and medical assistant, used to play mixed doubles tennis with her husband. After he passed away, she discovered the new “Pickleball’sgame. not as stringent as tennis, where you want to kill your opponent,” Deegan laughed. “I just love it. It’s a funNormangame.”
Childs estimates he plays pickle ball about seven or eight times each week, most regularly at the courts at Schenley Oval. He picked up the sport in Florida, where he spends his winters. “Where we live, they built eight pickle ball courts,” said Childs, who lives in North Oakland in the summer. “The day they cut the ribbon, I tried it … and didn’t stop.”
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Pittsburgh seniors’ growing taste for pickleball
Lynn Kisseloff joined the Jewish Community Center of the South Hills to exercise a bit but eventually, like many, she became entranced at the facility by pickleball. “It’s kind of a different game than tennis — there’s a smaller court, and it’s social because you switch out partners,” said Kisseloff, a retired pediatric physical therapist who has lived in Mt. Lebanon for more than 25 years. “We just like it because it’s different rules and almost anybody can do it. Plus, you don’t have to run as far. More and more and more people are playing it.” On that last point, Kisseloff couldn’t be more right. In 2021, roughly 4.8 million Americans were playing pickleball, double the number from just five years earlier, according to the 2022 Sports & Fitness Industry Association Single Sport Report on AccordingPickleball.tothe Medical University of South Carolina, racket sports boost the cardiovascular system, which helps prevent many of the problems of older age like hypertension, stroke and heart attack. Pickleball and its smaller court — just 44 feet by 20 feet — gives players a good aerobic workout without as much stress and strain on joints and muscles, which is another reason it’s good forAlanseniors.Mallinger started pickleball activities at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill about five years ago. He said JCC leadership got word of the sport from members who played it in Florida, and bringing it to the JCC in Pittsburgh was a naturalToday,decision.Mallinger, who retired from the JCC in October, plays pickleball with friends. Sometimes, he’s at the JCC — he jokes that he’s still there almost every day — and some times, he plays at outdoor courts at Schenley Park or Frick Park. Additional courts are being installed at a newly renovated park in Greenfield, he said. Mallinger said he loves the game, in part, because the court is smaller and easier to “There’smanage.obviously not as much of it to cover,” he said. “But you still get a pretty good workout.”
By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle
Childs played tennis years ago but finds a doubles match of pickleball more fulfilling. “At any age, at any level, you can play pickleball,” he said. “It’s not a game where you have to be a great athlete … And as you play, you get a strategy. As you play, it’s like a chess match.”
PJC Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
— RECREATION — Adobe Stock Your loved one is in good hands. JAA’s residential and community services lend a helping hand to seniors so they can enjoy the best possible lifestyle as they age. jaapgh.org | 412-420-4000 | 200 JHF Drive | Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Community Services AgeWell at Home / AgeWell Pittsburgh Anathan Adult Day Memory Care Services JAA Home Health Services HUD Service Coordination Sivitz Hospice & Palliative Care Mollie’s Meals Kosher Food Delivery Outpatient Therapy at JAA / PT @ JCC Residential Services AVAHA Memory Care Center of Excellence Harry & Jeannette Weinberg Terrace The New Riverview Apartments Residence at Weinberg Village The Arbor at Weinberg Village JAA424-PJC_H_General-FINAL.indd 1 9/1/22 11:25 AM Senior Living
Jessica Neiss Please see Balance, page 21 Senior Living
It’s also more common for older adults to require bifocal lenses. While convenient to use, bifocals do reduce your peripheral vision. If you rely on vision for balance, this can cause a serious problem. I recom mend that people with bifocals and balance issues switch to single-vision glasses to maximize their visual field beyond just the midriff level up. It’s also extremely important to have good lighting in every environment, especially at night. If you awaken and move at night, make sure your entire pathway is well lit, not just the destination.
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“I’m not going to do that because I’m afraid I am going to fall.” I have heard this phrase countless times during my years as a physical therapist. Many people have given up their treasured activities in fear of the dreaded fall. Often when I hear “I’m too old” to do something, it really means “I’m too scared.”
It’s easy to become disoriented when rising after sleep, so it’s important to clearly see your path at all times, including having well-litSensation,stairways.especially feeling the ground, is another factor. Even if you experience loss of sensation, you can visualize the ground beneath your feet. Imagine your foot as a triangle with three contact points to the ground: the ball of your big toe, the ball of your baby toe and your heel. Practice grounding yourself with these three points, and notice what happens as you shift your weight. If you feel anxious about your balance, widen your stance, ground yourself with the above technique and take a deep breath. Pausing for those few moments will help you to regain your sense of balance and will allow you to clearly think of your next move. Your vestibular system consists of your inner ear, vision and parts of the brain; together they manage how you feel your head in relation to your body. You may have difficulty turning your head quickly, walking in crowded places or looking around while walking. If you have a true vestibular issue, see a vestibular physical therapist. But minor deficits can improve with practice. First, start seated and turn your head while focusing on an object. Once that becomes easy, stand during the exercise. Progress to standing on one foot while turning your head and focusing, and then progress to walking while turning your head and focusing. Your home environment is often an overlooked balance factor. Make sure to remove throw rugs, which could pose tripping hazards. If you do keep any small rugs, tape down all edges and corners. Install handrails on ALL stairs — even that single step up to the porch. Set yourself up to win! You may not need handrails now, but having them there on an off day will make all the difference. Declutter your spaces. If you have been a collector (i.e. hoarder), have that yard sale or start donating. More clutter requires more agility and equals more tripping hazards. The medicines you take may affect your balance. Physicians may prescribe meds that have unintended negative interactions. Ask your pharmacist to run a simple, free inter action screen. Some meds may also cause your blood pressure to drop when changing positions (e.g. standing up), which may cause dizziness. If this happens, ask your doctor to evaluate your blood pressure in many posi tions and see if a med change is recommended. Lastly, and very importantly: Strength declines as we age. Walking is not enough — even five miles every day. You still need to lift weights. Muscles naturally lose strength every decade, starting in our 40s, according to the APTA. Lifting weights is vital to maintain the muscle strength needed for everyday activities. Otherwise, you end up living a “1-REP lifestyle” — meaning that you use your maximum effort and expend all your energy on a single task like standing Columnist
It’s true that our bodies change with age, but we can be empowered to fight those declines. Balance can improve over time with the right amount and type of practice. Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries in adults over 65. Falls are also responsible for significant disability, hospitalization, loss of indepen dence and reduced quality of life, costing more than $34 billion annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These scary statistics are constantly barraging our aging population. Fearmongering is common, with many clini cians advising against engaging in certain activities “because you could fall.” The reality, though, is that you can do something to maintain activity and balance throughout your life. It’s important to understand the components of balance and how they change organically with age. That way, you can identify any deficits and practice strengthening them to set yourself up to win. Several factors contribute to your balance: vision, sensation, your vestibular system, environment, medicine interactions andOurstrength.vision naturally declines with age, according to the National Institute of Aging. We lose the ability to see up close and to distinguish between colors, and we need more time to adjust to changing light levels.
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Avoiding the dreaded fall: Tips for improving balance
Engaging and supporting seniors across the lifespan JHF demonstrates its commitment to supporting our aging population through all stages of life in our senior engagement initiatives, including caregiver support and education on quality at the end of life.
Seniors matter to us . . . now more than ever
Guest Columnist Karen Wolk Feinstein
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For our work with seniors, JHF received the 2008 Samuel K. McCune Award for Distinguished Service from Presbyterian SeniorCare; the 2011 Allegheny County Medical Society Benjamin Rush Individual Award; the 2017 UPMC Senior Champions, Community Champion, Creating Better Lives for Seniors Award; and the 2022 University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing Honorary Alumni Award. COVID-19 took a devastating toll on older adults: those over 60 years old accounted for 24% of COVID cases but 95% of deaths. About 8% of people living in long-term care facilities in the United States died of COVID-19 — nearly one in 12. The pandemic laid bare key deficiencies in the structural, oper ational and training realities of skilled nursing facilities.
Since its inception more than 30 years ago, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) has disbursed more than $75 million to Jewish aging programs and partnerships within our community, vastly exceeding the original endowment of $45 million. More than $60 million has gone to activities of the Jewish Association on Aging. Above that, JHF has established itself as a national leader — and even global leader — in improved models for skilled nursing care; training the older adult work force; advocacy for policies that support caregivers and quality at the end of life; and medical advances in the physical and mental health of seniors.
Putting expertise into action JHF responded quickly to the crisis that COVID-19 brought to seniors by partnering with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to provide training, program development and new workforce models to support the front lines of care. As lead educator for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) and Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Regional Response Health Collaborative Program (RRHCP) during the height of the COVID outbreak, JHF provided critical education to health care providers across the commonwealth. In 2021, JHF received the UPMC Senior Services Community Champion Award, given annually to recognize exceptional leadership to improve the lives of seniors, for the RRHCP program’s impact in westernEarlierPennsylvania.thisyear, DHS named JHF lead educator for the Pennsylvania Community HealthChoices Long-Term Care Learning Network for nursing facili ties. This work advances the DHS strategic quality incentive program through weekly webinars and quarterly learning collabora tives in partnership with several managed careAsorganizations.ourpopulation ages, the need for longterm care grows, but the skilled nursing workforce has not kept up. JHF addressed workforce challenges through the Revisiting the Teaching Nursing Home initiative, a pilot program to trial a better model of residential care for the commonwealth’s frailest residents. Through partnerships among skilled nursing facilities and schools of nursing, the program aims to improve the care of older adults in nursing homes, bolster the workforce and achieve better health status for residents. During the height of pandemic, JHF convened a group of key experts and stakeholders to advance policy and prac tical solutions. JHF funded and guided the creation of an acclaimed documentary, “What COVID-19 Exposed in LongTerm Care,” and a study from Leading Age LTSS Center @UMass Boston, “The Case for Funding: What Is Happening to Pennsylvania’s Nursing Homes?” Armed with these resources, JHF joined with advocates and our partners in the Pennsylvania Health Funders Collaborative to advance proposals for additional funding in the commonwealth, ultimately influencing Pennsylvania’s budget dedicated to long-term care. In July, the Pennsylvania Legislature and Gov. Tom Wolf agreed to infuse funding to hire and train more staff at the commonwealth’s nursing facilities, providing much-needed aid to an industry struggling with high staff turnover. This includes a roughly 20% increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates — the first substantial increase in Medicaid rates in nearly a decade.
JHF staff created and now leads the state’s efforts in training communi ties to support individuals living with dementia, their families and care partners through Dementia Friends Pennsylvania.
JHF established free programs such as Fit with a Physician and the Virtual Senior Academy as a safe way for older adults to incorporate physical activity and an online learning platform in their daily lives. The future These commitments will continue into 2023. In addition, JHF has long supported the health issues facing older women, from breast cancer, to heart disease, to poverty, to physically and emotionally disabling conditions. JHF plans a 2023 campaign for greater equity in health care as women age. PJC Karen Wolk Feinstein, PhD, is president and CEO of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.
Senior Living
Senior Living
Staying
It’s all here!
Helping older adults stay happy, healthy and whole
happy, healthy and whole as you age is not just about covering up new wrinkles, adjusting to stiffer joints or trying to prevent a bit of forgetfulness. Maintaining independence as body and mind go through changes — a natural result of aging — is about all that, and more.
Guest Columnist Sharon Feinman jccpgh.org
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Focusing on a holistic and evidence-based approach to “aging well” will keep us healthy and independent, and feeling great longer so we can continue doing the things we love. We live in an exceptional community here in Pittsburgh that includes many agencies with services dedicated to the aging continuum. AgeWell at the JCC, at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, has a dedicated team that is ready to help you find your unique path to wellness. AgeWell at the JCC focuses on programming and services for older adults living independently who want to continue that lifestyle for as long as possible. On site and virtually, AgeWell at the JCC provides fitness, wellness, education and enrichment; these and many activities and dedicated physical spaces facilitate the piece of the puzzle that is so important to the well-being of many older adults: socialization and community. Putting it simply: At the JCC, older adults can work out, hang out, learn new things and enjoy community. For those who live outside the area or are unable to leave home, the JCC’s Virtual Senior Academy is an online way for older adults to connect, learn and laugh together. Building and maintaining fitness is so important for all of us, especially older adults. The JCC houses comprehensive SilverSneakers and older adult fitness classes and programs at both the Squirrel Hill and South Hills locations. These group fitness classes are designed for older adults and focus on strengthening muscles and increasing range of movement for daily life activities. The bonus: Working out with others can boost motivation and foster a sense of community. While you are working on strengthening your body, why not learn a new sport? Pickleball (see story on p. 14) is one of the fastest growing sports in the country and is a great exercise for your mind and body. Pickleball is a paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton. In addition to being a great workout, learning and playing pickleball is about teamwork and socializing — and it’s a blast. Not interested in hitting the treadmill and squat rack? Swimming and aquatic fitness are great workouts that are easy on the joints. The JCC in Squirrel Hill and the South Hills both house temperature-controlled pools where individuals can swim laps and join friends for Aqua Aerobics — another win-win. Another key to aging well is keeping an active mind. In-person and virtual programs are offered on weekdays through AgeWell at the JCC including discussion groups, crafts, interesting speakers and special programming. Even if the weather isn’t great, you can still dive into a world of learning and explore new and interesting classes through the Virtual Senior Academy. VSA participants expand horizons and make new friends through live virtual learning experiences on Zoom. So many topics are offered, including health and wellness, arts and music, book clubs, history, current events and much more. Class facilitators are community members who want to share their knowledge and passion. Did you know that volunteering in your free time has been proven to be good for your physical and mental health? There is a lot of research that has shown the proven health benefits of sharing your time with others. We have opportunities through our CheckMates program, where volunteers make calls to isolated and homebound seniors weekly to decrease loneliness. Our volunteers report back about the relationships they have formed with their new friends over the phone, and it really does benefit the mental health of both the senior and their caller. We also have wonderful volunteer opportunities in our J Cafe lunch program in the Squirrel Hill JCC. We offer nutritious and tasty kosher lunches made fresh on site on weekdays for registered participants, but the pillar of the program is our volunteers who make it possible. These volunteers help serve, wipe tables and assist seniors as needed.
The J Cafe offers both our older adults and volunteers the chance to enjoy each other’s company and socialize over a meal. Besides the programming and services offered here at the JCC, AgeWell at the JCC is part of AgeWell Pittsburgh, an 18-year-old collaborative program of the Jewish Association on Aging (JAA), Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh (JCC) and Jewish Family & Community Services (JFCS), offering a one-stop resource that links older adults, their family members, friends and caregivers to solutions for issues related to aging to maximize health and independence. Together, we can help you find the right resources that you need when you need them. Everyone has their “why” for wanting to stay healthy. AgeWell at the JCC would love to help you find your “how” for achieving those goals. Stay happy, healthy and whole! PJC Sharon Feinman is division director of AgeWell at the JCC.
Lprogram of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, will receive a fouryear extension called LIFE & LEGACY PLUS, according to officials at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, which partners with HGF. “By working with the Grinspoon LIFE & LEGACY program to secure planned giving commitments, the Jewish Federation has helped our synagogues and Jewish agencies continue to meet needs, many of which we can’t even anticipate today, for future generations,” said Jeffrey Finkelstein, the Federation’s president and CEO, in a preparedThroughstatement.LIFE& LEGACY, donors aim to provide support for the next generation of their Jewish communities and organizations through legacy gifts and endowments. The donations are made after the donor’s death, either through their will or insurance policy. HGF is working to approve plans and release funding to make LIFE & LEGACY PLUS the next generation of the program. Over the four-year extension, HGF will make a 2-1 match for funds raised per community: up to $50,000 the first year, $45,000 the second, $40,000 the third and $35,000 the fourth. The matches will come from LIFE & LEGACY partner Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. LIFE & LEGACY operates in 73 communities across North America. There are 19 participating organizations in the Pittsburgh area.
Life & Legacy gets 4-year extension
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PJC Toby Tabachnick Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
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The new science of the aging brain Charles Darwin predicted what modern neuroscience has now proven: “If I had my life to live over again, I would make it a rule to read some poetry, listen to some music and see some painting or drawing at least once a week, for perhaps the part of my brain now atrophied would then have been kept alive through life. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness.”
Contributing Writer
Preventing Alzheimer’s disease: The new science of the aging brain Senior
By Dr. Paul E. Bendheim
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The new science of the aging brain is founded on two fundamental principles. The first is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to rewire, improve and fortify itself. Neurologists have known for many decades that a child’s brain can take advan tage of this inherent property to compensate for injuries occurring in childhood. We have learned over the past few decades that neuro plasticity can be activated throughout the lifespan. New cells can be generated — espe cially in the hippocampus, the seahorse-shaped structure responsible for new memory forma tion — and new synapses (connections) can be formed between brain cells. The second fundamental principle is cogni tive reserve, also called brain reserve. Cognitive reserve is like physical reserve. Physical reserve results from regular physical exercise, a heart-healthy diet and controlling medical risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking, cholesterol and obesity. Physical reserve significantly reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke; it hastens your ability to recover from the flu, COVID-19 or an Similarly,operation.cognitive reserve is preserved, built and strengthened by practicing brain-healthy lifestyle behaviors and managing the same risk factors. There are six evidence-based life style components that contribute to cognitive reserve and to happier, healthier aging: Brain workouts that engage, stimulate and fortify your inherent abilities to learn, think and remember; modest physical exercise on an almost daily basis; an active social life; healthy nutritional habits; stress reduction; and memory strengthening sleep. Cognitive reserve is an insurance policy. Building and maintaining it will not guar antee that you will not get Alzheimer’s disease but it greatly reduces your risk and will enrich your life. Preventing cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease In 2015, “The Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability” (FINGER Study) was published in The Lancet, the leading British medical journal. This scientifically rigorous clinical trial involved 1,200 aging Scandinavians. It showed that it is possible to prevent cognitive decline by employing a multi-component lifestyle intervention in at-risk older people. Individuals participating in the active arm of the study received cognitive training, physical fitness, socialization, nutritional guidance and monitoring and treatment of medical
Until recently, we thought today’s grim facts about Alzheimer’s disease could not be changed. According to the Alzheimer’s Association “2022 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures”: One in three seniors dies from Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. More than 6 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s disease. Since 2000, heart disease deaths are down 7.3%, but AD deaths are up 145%.
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Dementia will cost the U.S. $362 billion in 2022, projected at $1 trillion by 2050. Years ago, when I was a fourth-year medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, I had the privilege to spend several months at the Neurological Institute of Columbia University in Manhattan. Dr. Houston Merritt, emeritus chairman and perhaps the most famous neurologist in the history of American medicine, met with our group of students every week. On one of those occasions, he noted that the worst thing about getting old was listening to his brain cells commit suicide. That seemingly programmed, self-destructive behavior of brain cells (neurons) was the central dogma of the aging brain until the last 20 years. This old dogma stated that the human brain — the most complex, creative and remarkable object in the universe — started to unravel at about the age of 40. If you were “lucky,” it unraveled slowly and you maintained mental agility into your 60s, 70s and beyond. If you were “unlucky,” it unraveled more rapidly and you became senile — or in modern medical parlance, demented.
— SENIORS — Please see Alzheimer’s, page 26
It is true that the normal wear and tear of the aging brain causes some loss of gray matter brain cells and the white matter connections between them and results in an 80-year-old brain not being as nimble as a 40-year-old brain. But if properly maintained, the brain, even in those 90 or even 100 years of age, can maintain its sharpness, agility and creativity. Alzheimer’s disease is not an inevitable conse quence of aging.
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This is one in a series of articles about Elder Law by Michael H. Marks., Esq. Michael H. Marks is an elder law attorney with offices in Squirrel Hill and Monroeville. Send questions to michael@marks-law.com or visit www.marks-law.com.
Ownership of annuities and insurance policies is most often kept outside the trust. The beneficiary or contingent beneficiary may be changed so the proceeds flow into the trust at the right time, e.g. on the death of the second spouse or parent.
Not making plans for how beneficiaries will inherit. Everyone is different. It’s important to give thoughtful consideration and careful drafting as to when and how inherited funds are made available for your children, grandchildren, etc., for what purposes, and sometimes with limitations and controls.
“We used to have to really think through a problem because there weren’t any diagnostic tools of that magnitude,” Tucker said. “We used to agonize over a problem. Is this a pattern of a tumor? Is this a pattern of abnormality with a stroke? In those days we had to work harder, but it was fun.” Not one to stay idle for too long, Tucker decided to attend ClevelandMarshall College of Law at Cleveland State University after serving as an expert witness in a case. He found the legal system exciting and said he was determined to stay in law school and finish his degree — all while continuing to practice medicine. He graduated and passed the Ohio Bar Examination at 67 years old. Austin Tucker and Taylor Taglianetti, the director/producer of “What’s Next?”, hope the film about Tucker will show the inspiring power of older generations — and the challenges that Tucker has overcome to stay relevant in a changing medical profession. They said they consider Austin’s grandfather a “prime example of what just one person can do to change the world.” PJC This story was originally published in the Cleveland Jewish News. Dr. Howard Tucker holds the Guiness World Records certificate recognizing him as the oldest active physician in the United States. Photo courtesy of Dr. Howard Tucker
— SENIORS —
Likewise, if a beneficiary has a handicap or disability and receives public benefits like Medicaid that are also based on financial need, then leaving them an inheritance outright or in the wrong kind of trust can bar them from getting benefits they rely on. You need to Include “Special Needs Trust” provisions, so they keep their benefits, along with enjoying the added value of the inheritance from you.
Michael H. Marks, michael@marks-law.comEsq.
Born in 1922, Tucker knew he wanted to pursue a career in medicine while a student at Cleveland Heights High School.
The day after his 100th birthday on July 10, Dr. Howard Tucker headed downtown to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Cleveland Guardians baseball game.
“I just hope I can get the ball to the plate,” Tucker said beforehand with a laugh. “I’ve beenTuckerpracticing.”hasa solid track record around practicing — certainly when it comes to medicine. Last year, the Guinness Book of World Records verified the Cleveland Heights, Ohio, resident as the world’s oldest practicing doctor. He still teaches medical residents at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland and takes on medical-legal expert witness work in his spare time. One of his 10 grandchildren, Austin Tucker, is currently producing a documentary about his life titled, “What’s Next?” “I have to keep doing things because I can’t stand being at home,” Tucker said. “As long as people accept me, I’m going to continue to practice. I enjoy myself.”
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.
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“My chief at the Cleveland Clinic had said to me, ‘You’re capable of learning more than I can teach you, so I want you to apply to the Neurological Institute of New York. It made all the difference in the world. It was a great experience,” Tucker said. Not only did the institute play a pivotal role in Tucker’s medical career, but it also was where he met his wife, Sara, who at 88 is a practicing psychiatrist. The couple are active members of Park Synagogue, a Conservative congregation in Cleveland Heights. “At the time, I was teaching third-year medical students,” Tucker recalled. “One day I said to myself, ‘That’s a cute-looking girl.’ Six months later, I saw her on the street and we started talking, and that’s how I got married. I’m very lucky.” Tucker has witnessed many advances over the course of his career, both in medicine and in technology. The CAT scan, for instance, hadn’t yet been invented when Tucker began practicing neurology.
Failing to update certain beneficiary designations in connection with the trust. Some of your property, like your real estate, bank accounts and non-IRA investments, can be moved into the trust to be owned by you within the trust. However, other assets either should not or can not be owned by you inside a trust.
Similarly, your IRAs, retirement accounts and other tax qualified retirement assets cannot be owned by you in your trust. But your beneficiary can inherit the IRA through a trust.
Leaving IRA or retirement account money for beneficiaries through a trust can result in bad income tax consequences. It’s complicated and technical. Let your lawyer help you with the right planning. Note that charitable contributions through an IRA is advantageous because a charity doesn’t pay income tax on the inherited IRA like individuals do.
A Revocable Lifetime Trust can be a very effective estate planning tool. You create it during your lifetime by signing an Agreement of Trust and moving assets into the trust. Used properly, it avoids the extra legal hassle and expense of the formal probate estate administration process, saving your estate and successors time, energy and money.
Naming an inappropriate trustee. Almost always, the client or husband-and-wife clients are the initial trustees of their Revocable Trust, sometimes with a trusted adult child as cotrustee. But it’s crucial to name your choice of successor trustees, as backups or substitutes, for when you can no longer serve or have died. This is all about you making your choices to make sure that the people you want to be in charge are in charge at the right time, to do what you want them to do, then writing it down and signing it, to make it stick later. “Who” is at least as important as “what.” The vast majority of my clients choose their closest family members, in whom they have confidence, whom they “trust” to handle their affairs properly for them. Choosing the wrong family member, or co-trustees who will fight, can lead to disaster. Sometimes when there is more money involved, or if my clients have no family or close associates, then a professional trustee from a trust company or bank can be a great choice. MISTAKES TO AVOID WITH YOUR REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST
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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.
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“Anyone who was discharged from the Navy for neurological reasons, if his residence was east of the Mississippi, I had to examine him before he could be discharged,” TuckerAfterrecalled.thewar, Tucker trained at the Neurological Institute of New York. He remembers his “remarkable training” at the institute, which featured 14 floors of all things related to neurology and psychiatry.
Addressing the Needs of a Disabled Beneficiary.
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But common mistakes can undermine your efforts and spoil the value and savings. Here are foreseeable mistakes to avoid making with your Revocable Living Trust.
Trying to do it yourself and not using an estate planning attorney. Nowadays people try to create their own legal documents – wills, powers of attorney, and even trusts – by themselves, using forms from the Internet. Bad idea! Do-ityourself estate planning puts at risk everything you’ve ever worked and saved for, and your family’s future. Take advantage of the knowledge, skills, experience and advice of an attorney whose job is to answer your questions and help you identify and accomplish your goals.
A 100-year-old Jewish doctor in Cleveland is officially the world’s oldest practicing physician
By Kristen Mott | Cleveland Jewish News
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Believing that a revocable trust will protect assets against the cost of long-term care. Because it’s revocable, and you can take it back at any time and put the money back into your individual pocket, your revocable trust is still counted as an “available resource” for you for Medicaid purposes, and will interfere with your eligibility for benefits to pay for nursing home care.
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“In those days, neurology was a truly intellectual pursuit,” said Tucker. “There’s something mysterious about the brain. There’s a mystique. That’s why I went intoAfterneurology.”graduating from high school in 1940, Tucker attended The Ohio State University in Columbus for his undergraduate degree and then medical school. Once his training was completed in 1947, Tucker served as chief neurologist for the Atlantic fleet at a U.S. Naval Hospital in Philadelphia during the Korean War.
Not “funding the trust” by retitling assets into the trust. To finish implementing the plan after you sign your trust, you need to put certain property into the trust. You retitle it by changing the ownership from yourself as an individual or individuals to (usually) yourself as Trustee of your trust. Not putting the right assets into the trust – not packing your clothes into your empty suitcase –is not helpful at all.
targeted in the most violent act of antisem itism in U.S. history. “The swastika is the most prominent form of antisemitism, and it should never be displayed like that,” he said. “I would urge the owner, no matter his claims or intent, to remove the billboards and figure out another way to display his message.” The ADL officials said that commu nication is the most important tool to combat hate. “We have to talk, even to our families, where we are engaging online and where we are not,” Goretsky said. Hate, harassment and extremism, he said, can be found on all online platforms, including online gaming sites. Goretsky said it’s important to report online racism and antisemitism, explaining that even Gab has a reporting policy. Pasch said the ADL continues to work in Pittsburgh, creating partnerships with groups including schools and congregations and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. “We all have a role in combating hate and extremism,” he said. “We’re all in thisGoretskytogether.”agreed, saying the fight against the rise of hate is a group activity. “We need to all actively speak out against racism, antisemitism and extremist rhetoric,” Goretsky said. “We can’t afford to remain silent any longer and hope it goes away.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
“It took me a while to really get my mind around the idea that there was a significant voice within a powerful Jewish American commu nity that [believed] we shouldn’t say too much because it will just stir the pot and awaken more antisemitism,” Novick said. There were heroes on the homefront, too, and the film relays their stories. Varian Fry and Raoul Wallenberg, who traveled to Europe to rescue as many Jews as they could, are depicted, as are the efforts of the U.S. War Refugee Board and American diplo mats such as John Paley. The advocacy of figures such as Jan Karski, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Ben Hecht and Peter Bergson is also spotlighted.
The film’s treatment of Franklin D. Roosevelt is also notable given Burns’ demonstrated interest in the U.S. president. Many historians today fault Roosevelt for failing to take more decisive action to prevent further bloodshed at key moments in the war. The director noted that the new series is more critical of FDR’s actions during the Holocaust than his earlier series “The Roosevelts” was, but Burns still believes the president was mostly acting within his means as a politician.
To depict the history, the filmmakers relied heavily on their advisory board (they have one for every project they take on) to determine how much time to devote to various historical events, whether to show certain images or merely describe them and how to describe them. “We don’t go anywhere without our board of advisors,” Botstein said.
Continued from page 7 Artist: Continued from page 13 — differently than in the States, he said. “You don’t have to make an appointment to go to a friend. It’s much more simple,” he said of social interactions in Israel. “That’s the part that I miss, and I feel like I cheated my kids a little bit. They would have had a lot more exciting childhood if they had lived in Israel.” Amit left Israel in 1974 but remains connected by returning twice a year to visit family. “I love my culture,” he said. “Maybe I’m not religious, but I like the tradition that I have carried with me throughout all these years. And I’m not embarrassed to show it in my work or in my interaction with the people.”
While there are Israeli and Jewish artists who “hush” their identity, Amit said, he is not one of them. And his work appeals to audiences of diverse faiths, he added.
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Evidence: Continued from page 2 as a ‘white power’ symbol: with a circled index finger and thumb to denote a ‘p’ for ‘power,’ and the remaining three fingers to denote a ‘w’ for ‘white,’” according to Theprosecutors.prosecution said it also plans to introduce videos and news items the defendant emailed to family members in the two or three years before the massacre that reflect his “hatred of Jewish people,” some associated with antisemitic, racist and anti-immigrant conspiracy theories “pertaining to Q-Anon, the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017, and Black land repossession in SouthProsecutorsAfrica.” said the evidence will be used to help prove the defendant is guilty of committing hate crimes.
“To set the table meant we had to go pretty far back,” Novick said. The chronological approach places partic ular emphasis on what had already transpired in Europe by the time Americans got signifi cantly involved: the “Holocaust by bullets,” for example, in which more than 1.5 million of what would ultimately be 6 million dead Jews were slaughtered by gunfire and dumped in mass graves throughout Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe before the concentration camps were even constructed.
Documentary:
“He could not wave a magic wand,” he said. “He was not the emperor or a king.”
For “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” the advisors included Holocaust historians such as Debórah Dwork, Peter Hayes and Richard Breitman, as well as scholars of race history such as Nell Irvin Painter, Mae M. Ngai and Howard Bryant. Often the advisers disagreed on how to depict moments in history, and this disagreement is sometimes reflected in the film itself. A debate over whether the United States should have bombed Auschwitz, or even the trains leading into the death camp, echoed in the advisers’ room just as much as it did in the highest levels of government in the war’s waning months. The film reproduces those debates, quoting from historians who argue both points.
As it details the horrors unfolding in Europe, the film focuses on the rise of Nazi-sympathizer movements on the homefront, including the America First Committee, and breaks down the tensions within the State Department, where antisemitic officials in positions of power under mined efforts to intervene diplomatically on the behalf of Jews. The film also discusses divisions within the American Jewish community over whether to let in so many Jewish refugees. Twenty-five percent of American Jews at the time didn’t want to let any more in, some because they looked down on the Eastern European refugees as poor and unassimilated, and others because they were scared of making life worse for the Jews still in Europe if they spoke out too forcefully.
All Burns films are released with teaching guides and are intended for use in the class room, but getting “The U.S. and the Holocaust” into schools was of particular importance to the filmmakers because they saw an opportunity to fit it into the dozens of statewide Holocaust education mandates that have been passed. And also, Novick said, because the filmmakers have noticed the rise of various far-right, white supremacist ideologies, including many figures who espouse Holocaust denial. “It’s a neverending battle that has to be fought,” she said. The film itself doesn’t engage with such denialists. In their publicity for the film, Burns and company are partnering with several orga nizations to try to bring the Holocaust’s lessons into the modern day, including the International Rescue Committee, a refugee aid agency, and the U.S. government-funded think tank Freedom House. The producers asked JTA not to give away the details of the film’s ending — an unusual request for a Holocaust documentary. But the reason is that Burns and his team don’t end with the camps’ liberation in 1945. Instead, they come up to the present, in unexpected ways. “Most of our films come up to the present,” Burns said. “And we would be remiss if we did not take on this most gargantuan of topics, and not say that this is rhyming so much with the Whenpresent.”askedwhy the film makes some of the connections it makes, Burns quoted a line Lipstadt delivers in the film: “If ‘the time to stop a Holocaust is before it happens,’ then it means you have to lay on the table the ingredients that go into it. Maybe these ingre dients don’t add up to it ... But if you’re seeing people assembling, in the kitchen, the same ingredients, you’ve got to say, you cannot wait until the meal is prepared.” PJC
Balance: Continued from page 15 up from a chair or walking to the kitchen. If you’re not a gym person, contact a phys ical therapist or trainer to help create an appropriate home fitness program. But do make sure that you progressively increase the weights over time. My rule of thumb is if you can complete 15 repetitions with ease, it’s time to increase the weights. I like to train people at about 60-80% of their 1-REP max, meaning they can complete six to eight reps of a certain weight at a time. There are some simple balance exercises that you can practice at home. First, start with static balance. With your back against a corner, stand with the heel of one foot touching the toes of the other and a chair in front. Once that becomes easy, make it harder by moving and trailing along a wall.
In another court filing last week, defense attorneys sought permission from the court to ask potential jurors about their reli gious affiliation to ensure that Catholics, and other religious groups that might be opposed to capital punishment, not be improperly excluded. The defense is requesting a one-question survey of potential jurors regarding their religiousProsecutorsaffiliation.have until Sept. 19 to respond. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.at
ADL: Continued from page 5
Whereas art shows and fairs provide a chance to speak with people about Israel, the irony, Amit said, is that it’s Jewish people “who are the ones that want to talk politics.” He typically gives the same response to questions about government policies or prac tices, he said: “I tell them I live here. I’m not involved. Unlike in America, where you can live in Israel and vote in America, in Israel to vote there, you have to live there. So I don’t have the right to say what’s going on there.” Amit is looking forward to coming to Pittsburgh — both to meet people and to sell some art. “People should come to the show and judge for themselves my work,” he said. “They don’t have to buy. They can come talk and ask questions.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
Then progress to add head turns. Finally, progress to uneven surfaces. Just remember to set yourself up to win. If you don’t feel comfortable practicing balance on your own, contact a physical therapist to help. And remember, there’s no stigma in using an assistive device. If you are having an off-bal ance day, use a walker or two canes to help. It is much better than the alternative! With these techniques, you can manage your fear of falling and become more confident in your balance so that you can fully enjoy your life. PJC Jessica Neiss is a physical therapist with 20 years of experience. She owns To Life! Therapy & Wellness, a new center in Squirrel Hill that offers physical therapy, occupational therapy and exercise classes for older adults and people with neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis. tolifefitness.com
Place a heavy pot over medium heat to warm for a few minutes. Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil and allow the oil to heat for a minute before adding the eggplant to the pot. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the onion and cook for another 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Depending on your burner and the pan that you’re using, you may want to reduce the heat to medium-low.
I do suggest investing in a large cast iron pot with an enamel coating. You can easily find affordable brands online, and it’s a tool that will elevate your cooking because it truly turns out a better result than a stainless pot or a casse role dish. If you don’t have a cast iron pot, you can use a stainless pot on the stovetop, but you will need to transfer the vegetables to a lidded casserole before placing the dish into the oven.
I especially love ratatouille because you can make it a day before serving and it pairs well with chicken or with meat.
Place the eggplant into a bowl or on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt. Let sit for 20 minutes before rinsing off the salt. If you have time, you can pour water over the eggplant and let it soak for 10 minutes before rinsing. Pat the eggplant with paper towels before cooking to remove any excess water after rinsing. The color of the skins may bleed brown onto the flesh of the eggplant, and that’s OK.
I’ve mentioned in other articles that I like to cook vegetables in a certain sequence so that the entire dish doesn’t turn into mush. I stand near the stove and chop the vegetables while I’m cooking because I find it saves time overall.
22 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG
Life & Country-styleCultureratatouille
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F, and place the oven rack toward the bottom ⅓ of the oven.
There are beautiful versions of ratatouille where cooks lay out the vegetables in concen tric circles. My version takes much less time, as all of the ingredients are cut up roughly, sautéed and then finished in the oven.
— RECIPES — p Country-style ratatouille Photo by Jessica Grann Murray Avenue Kosher1916 MURRAY AVENUE 412-421-1015 • 412-421-4450 • FAX 412-421-4451 We Prepare Trays for All OccasionsHOMEMADE SALADS & SOUPS CATERING SPECIALISTS DELI PARTY TRAYS DELICIOUS FRIED CHICKEN UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF VAAD OF PITTSBURGH WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO LIMIT QUANTITIES. ORDER DEADLINE SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 PRICES EFFECTIVE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11-FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2022 Candle Lighting Time Friday, September 16, 2021 • 6:57 p.m. We are now taking your Holiday meat and poultry orders: 412-421-1015. Rosh Hashana Menu 5783 • 2022 SOUP Chicken Soup Chicken KreplachMatzoMushroomNoodleBarleyBalls KUGELS Potato Kugel Noodle Kugel Apple GlutenZucchiniKugelKugelFreePotato Kugel SIDE DISHES Kasha & Bows Carrot & Prune Tzimmes Candied Sweet Potatoes Bread Stu ng Glazed Baby Carrots Farfel & Mushrooms Wild FreshRoastedRiceVegetablesFruitSalad APPETIZERS Chopped Liver Gefilte Fish (Cooked) Teriyaki Salmon Orange Dill Salmon ENTREES BEEF Cooked Single Beef Brisket Stu ed Cabbage Sweet and Sour Brisket Glazed Corned Beef TURKEY Roast Turkey Breast Half Roast Turkey Leg (Drum & Thigh) CHICKEN Roast Chicken - Whole Only Roast Chicken Leg Roast Chicken Breast Honey Mustard Glazed Leg Honey Mustard Glazed Breast Sherry Mushroom Boneless Chicken Breast GROCERY COOKED FOODS DELI MEAT SPECIALS REDRASHIORWHITE$10.991.5LTRPERAJPITITA$19.99750ML MONDAY & TUESDAY DINNER SPECIAL Beef ButteredStewNoodles $22.99 WINE SPECIALS TAKE-OUT SPECIAL STORE HOURS Sun. • 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. Mon-Wed.• 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. Thurs. • 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. Fri. • 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. Chuck Roast $1089 LB XTRA CORNEDLEANBEEF $1999 LB EMPIRE TURKEY PASTRAMI $1099 LB KALAMATAOLIVES $799 LB A & H SALAMI CHUB $2099 32 OZ BEEF MINESTRONESOUP $1199 QT SWEET N CHICKENSOUR $1499 LB BOLOGNA BBQ $1299 LB VINEGAR SLAW $499 LB ChickenBonelessBreast$799 LB Chuck Steak $1099 LB DATESCHWARTZSPREAD $319 EA LIEBERS HONEY BEARS $519 12 OZ BAKERS COCOA $739 15 OZ FRUIT A PEEL 3 FLAVORS $239 EA
By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle
While the onions are cooking with the eggplant, chop the zucchini and squash into 1- to 2-inch cubes, leaving the skin on. I peel the skin off the tomatoes, but you can leave it on if it’s easier for you. If you have a little less or more of any vegetable, it’s perfectly fine to add it in; you don’t need perfect measurements for this recipe. Peel and slice the garlic, about 5 pieces perAdclove.dthe zucchini and yellow squash, stirring for another 5 minutes before adding the sliced garlic. Stir for one minute until fragrant before adding the tomatoes, tomato paste, salt and pepper. Drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil over the top, and gently place the rosemary and thyme on top of the vegetables; I just put them in a loose bundle to one side. Cover and cook in oven for 1 hour. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving or cool completely and store in the refrigerator if you want to prepare something lovely ahead of a Shabbat or holiday meal. Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.
I suggest salting and soaking the eggplant before preparing it. When eggplant is in season, it’s not necessary to do so, but I like to be sure that any bitterness has been removed beforeDicecooking.theeggplants in 1- to 2-inch-sized cubes (none of the vegetables in this recipe need to be perfectly uniform.)
Ingredients: 2 large eggplants, cubed, about 8 cups 1 large sweet onion, cubed 1 large sweet bell pepper; I typically choose orange or yellow for color 2 medium-sized zucchini, cubed 2 medium-sized yellow squash, cubed 4 large tomatoes, stemmed and cubed, about 3 cups 4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly sliced 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon tomato paste 2 sprigs fresh rosemary 8-10 sprigs fresh thyme 1.5 teaspoons sea salt ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Ireally appreciate cooking with fresh local produce, and now that it’s later in the summer season, produce markets are bursting with fresh tomatoes, squash and eggplant. Ratatouille is one of my favorite vegetable dishes. I enjoy the simplicity of fresh herbs, garlic and salt in the way that the French have perfected.
PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 23 At Emma Kaufmann Camp, we’re celebrating a great summer! Campers Alumni SplashGame,summertogethergatheredthisatEKC’sSet,event Financial assistance provided to campers states and countries including El Salvador, Israel, Columbia, Spain, France and Canada toneedneurodiverseidentifiedcampersandinclusiveDedicated,spacesresourcesforwhoareasortheresourcesbesuccessful Survey Results: of campers formed a strong relationship with other campers said camp helped them build character said camp helped their camper grow and try new things said camp created a feeling of being part of a larger Jewish community from including frominternationalJewishstaSta Israel,Countries:France, UK and Argentina 125+ 690 Sta -In-Training Israel Trip Participants 350 asSummerreceivedRegistrationsfor2023of8/31/22 Camper care specialists embedded in each unit to support camper success Give today to EKC’s Annual Fund: donate.jccpgh.org/emmakaufmanncamp
You’re Jewish, Italian, and, of course, American — what has your background taught you about the similarity of comfort food across cultures?
I think that comfort foods speak to the story of people. We had a little bit and we had to make do with what we had – it’s a running theme that we all have in common. I feel like that’s the universality of comfort food to me.
I think it’s our endless ability to adapt. We were exiled, moved somewhere else, started all over and managed to come up with some thing delicious that comes out of that. So I think that’s very much a story of American Jewish food. You know, so many of the foods here in the U.S. that we consider quintessen tial Jewish foods, really were born out of our immigrant experience.
What happens when one gives that tradi tion an uber-contemporary twist?
JTA: What is comfort food for you?
Comfort food is all about connection and, in these past few years that have been so hard for so many people, food can serve as a way of finding connection. So, I think comfort food very much speaks to this moment. I think it can be a point of connection beyond just Jews themselves, but helps us see the things that we have in common with other other people from all over the world and the ways in which the food tells our stories and that we can relate to one another.
I would tell them to make the sweet and sour meatballs or the schnitzel. They’re not compli cated and if you learn how to fry some chicken and make some meatballs then you can make any kind of meatball and you can make any kind of fried thing. Just principles of doing those two tasks can translate to lots of different kinds of dishes. These are also dishes that I make for my family on rotation all the time.
What’s your favorite recipe in the book?
While Sam and Alan’s sessions make up the bulk of the show’s early episodes, they’re soon replaced by Alan’s grappling with his strained relationship with his son, Ezra (Andrew Leeds), who became Orthodox (I think Chabad, though it’s never specified) during college. Through Alan’s flashbacks, we see the effect Ezra’s choice had on his
By PJ Grisar | The Forward
Another hope for this book is that it will teach people a little bit about where the dishes came from and that it helps preserve these recipes and stories. Our family and our community life as Jews has changed so much in 100 years and 50 years, right? We’re not living in the same multi-generational communities as our parents and grand parents did, so it’s natural that some of the recipes and techniques behind dishes are lost. I want to share some of those how-tos in a visual way, and also share where these recipes fit into our history and into our next chapter as Jews.
Life & Culture Mac and cheese kugel, funfetti mandel bread, vegan shakshuka: ‘Modern Jewish Comfort Food’ gives classics a 21st-century spin
This is very much a cookbook for home cooks, for people who want to learn, and for people who are going to really make the recipes. I wanted it to be something that people actually use in their kitchens.
Carell’s character needn’t have been Jewish, and initially he wasn’t. Fields and Weisberg said the decision was made later to add “spec ificity and depth” to their drama. The show is excellent and tense and largely achieves that depth, but finds it in a familiar place: the arena of fathers and sons. It works, but is less inter esting territory than the conflict between Jew and non-Jew that it often seems to be teasing.
SS : I think it’s relatable. I think it’s unpretentious and that’s what I love. I can appreciate a fancy meal and I certainly can appreciate what those chefs do, but that’s the opposite of what I fall in love with and the opposite of what I want to produce.
I fell in love with Georgian food very much through my job at the Nosher when years ago we went to create a video at this Georgian kosher restaurant in Queens called Marani. I was just enamored by the khachapuri and khinkali. I was eating some thing completely new to me but it felt like something I’d known all my life. So when I decided that I wanted to do different kinds of dumplings, I knew I wanted to do khinkali, which are Georgian meat dumplings. I spent a very long time watching YouTube tutorials in Russian at 11 o’clock at night on the couch with my husband over and over again. When I got it right, I was so happy and they’re so delicious. PJC — FOOD — p Sarna drizzles melted chocolate over coconut macaroons, one of the sweet recipes in her book.
After writing your last book, what inspired you to write about comfort food?
For someone who’s just now learning how to cook at home but craving something cozy, what’s the recipe you recommend?
What’s something you learned about comfort food in the process of writing the book?
I think comfort food also speaks across cultures. What should readers expect in the book?
As I was doing research for the book, I really came to understand that there were so many parallels between the immigrant experience of Jews coming here and Italians, Irish and Chinese immigrants all living together in the same neighborhoods in New York and influencing one another. That’s why you have rainbow cookies at every shul kiddush; that’s how you got lox on a bagel, and also spaghetti and meatballs. There were so many parallels of how these immigrant communities started out very poor, came here, used their resources and came up with these new dishes that were based on where they came from.
24 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG
I think one of the things I’ve learned in my role as editor of the Nosher is about how people learn visually, so having the step-by-steps in “Modern Jewish Baker” was an aspect that I wanted to recreate in this book.
JTA Asteaming bowl of chicken soup. Crispy, flaky schnitzel. Rich, choc olate rugelach. These are the foods that come to mind for many when they hear the term “Jewish comfort food.”
What makes Jewish comfort food different from other cultures?
Afew weeks ago, the creators of “The Patient” defended their decision to cast the non-Jewish Steve Carell as a Jewish therapist. Having just binged all 10 episodes of the FX thriller, I can see why. I’m not going to weigh in on who should play Jewish, except to say that Carell gives a powerful and credible performance. I will come out to declare this one of the most Jewish shows to grace this era of prestige TV. It’s more Jewish than “The Shrink Next Door,” which saw Carell’s “Anchorman” costars Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell honored with an aliyah. Is it Jew-ier than “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”? I don’t remember Midge saying the entire kaddish. Or imagining herself in the barracks of Auschwitz. Or, in a tense moment of recognizable coreligionist prej udice, dismissing Orthodox Judaism as a “cult.” Let’s call it a possible tie. Joel Fields’ and Joe Weisberg’s show, which is streaming on Hulu, doesn’t have a particularly Jewish premise. In it, Carell, as Dr. Alan Strauss, finds himself in a situa tion not unlike the one depicted in the film “Misery.” Only in this case, the Kathy Bates part is a young man named Sam (Domhnall Gleeson), a serial killer hoping to curb his homicidal urges by holding Alan hostage in his basement to continue therapy.
— TELEVISION — Please see Patient, page 25
By Caleb Guedes-Reed |
‘The Patient’ is one of the most Jewish shows on television — should it have been more so?
Take classic chicken soup — yes, she includes all the hits, along with her exper iments — which is presented in a few versions, including a Yemenite style that incorporates ingredients such as ginger paste and marrow bones. Sarna’s shakshuka, the Israeli tomato and egg-based dish, can be modified into a Mexican-inspired version or a smoky vegan version. The full package is mouth-watering and beginner friendly. Sarna spoke to JTA about what comfort food means to her and what she hopes readers will take away from her book in trying times.
Photo by Doug Schneider
Some answers can be found in Shannon Sarna’s second cookbook, “Modern Jewish Comfort Food,” which was published last Tuesday: Thanksgiving turkey kreplach, funfetti mandel bread, mac and cheese kugel. Sarna, who focused on giving baked goods the 21st-century treatment in her first book, “Modern Jewish Baker” (think banana bread chocolate chip challah and s’mores hamantaschen) is also editor of the Jewish food blog The Nosher (which is owned by 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company). Her site regu larly publishes content on international Jewish cuisine, so she naturally brings that Diasporic lens to her own recipes, too.
Deadline for Wednesday,submission:September 21, 2022 (11:59 pm)
In an unforgivable show of favoritism that keeps replaying in Alan’s mind, Beth serves ice cream to their daughter’s nonOrthodox children after dinner as Ezra and his sons look on. Ezra and Alan lock eyes, their pain palpable. Incredibly, the show doesn’t explain what is happening. Gentiles unhip to the amount of time kashrut requires between meat and dairy courses might well be confused — or think that ice cream is somehow off limits for the Orthodox. The show doesn’t care, trusting that a savvy viewer will fill in the blanks. And it’s right to. For all its Jewish bona fides — a soundtrack that includes Leonard Cohen, Debbie Friedman and “Dodi Li,” casual deployments of terms like “Ben Torah” and “Kibud Av V’Em,” a dream sequence with Viktor Frankl and the Kabbalistic notion that we’re all “broken vessels” — the show seems to be driving at a subtler Jewish theme to which it isn’t quite ready to commit. At the close of the first episode, Sam tells Alan he “met with three different Jewish therapists,” and chose him to be his captive. The line is a kind of tell. Sam, who is non-Jewish and working-class, has internalized stereotypes about Jews. If he needed an accountant, I’ve no doubt he’d be hunting for synagogue treasurers. Sam doesn’t seem to be an antisemite — he even attempts the kaddish later on — but his identification and selection of Alan as a Jew jolts their dynamic with a crueler subtext. Alan engages with epigenetic fears. He imagines himself in the gas chamber, the sunken eyes of prisoners from the “little camp” at Buchenwald staring at him. It’s not clear if Alan is a descendant of victims or survivors, though it’s maybe a logical place for his mind to go as he is chained to a bed and at the mercy of a young killer. But the borderline sensationalism of these Shoah sequences, shot in black-and-white, feels easy compared to the flashes we get of
Organizations are encouraged to contact the foundation in advance of submission to discuss proposal ideas. For guidelines and more information: Email Judy Cohen at jcohen@jwfpgh.org Visit jwfpgh.org/grants_guidelines.html
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What most people want, I suspect, is simply more control over their time and mindspace, and to keep work from leaking into their private lives — and maybe vice-versa. They want to do work that matters, and the private time to decompress, reconnect and take care of stuff. It’s telling that there is no commandment in Torah to work, but there are plenty to rest. Shabbat is a literal day of rest, but it is also a mindset. It strictly defines profane productivity, in order to carve out space and time for the sacred. This Jewish attitude toward work and rest is not about quitting, but it is about occasional quiet. PJC Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor in chief of the New York Jewish Week and senior editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He previously served as JTA’s editor in chief and as editor in chief and CEO of the New Jersey Jewish News.
Quitting: Continued from page 9 mother, Beth (Laura Niemi), a cantor for a Reform shul. Beth lashes out, bristling at the rules Ezra’s denomination has about women and insisting on singing at his Orthodox wedding, causing a scandal.
reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of one’s career, and individual entrepreneurship.” Easier said than done, however. Her antidote — to “stand apart,” to embrace “solitude, observation, and simple conviviality” — is perhaps more feasible if you are an artist rather than an office-worker, let alone a factory worker, home health aide or Amazon warehouse runner. (She spends a lot of time birdwatching and retreating to mountain cabins.) To her credit, Odell quotes Samuel Gompers, the Jewish-British immigrant and labor leader who championed the eight-hour workday as far back as 1886. In an address asking “What Does Labor Want?”, Gompers answered by quoting Psalms: “It wants the earth and the fullness thereof.”
The Jewish Women’s Foundation seeks to fund work that positively impacts the lives of self-identified women and girls through social change grantmaking. JWF supports work that empowers them in the areas of health, education, legal rights, economic security and safety. For this year’s funding cycle, JWF will consider both programmatic and operating funding requests up to $10,000 and Impact Grant funding requests greater than $10,000 and up to $30,000.
Alan’s own experience. Left alone for long stretches, the doctor free-associates. He recalls a patient saying she never went to a “Jewish funeral.” Walking through a college campus, where he teaches, he’s stopped in his tracks by a flyer: “March against the radical Zionist agenda,” the graphic for which is an Israeli flag with a swastika in the place of the Star of David. If the marquee traumas of Alan’s life include estrangement from his son, Beth’s death from cancer and his forced therapy sessions with Sam, there is also the sideshow stressor of being a Jew among gentiles eager to other him. It may seem like a small thing, but, as we learn from Alan’s own reflections, those microaggressions have major power. When Alan imagines a session with his dead therapist, Charlie (David Alan Grier), in a book-lined room (yeshiva shel ma’ala, perhaps) it is the small interactions that lead to breakthroughs. Alan comes to realize that even a well-meaning compliment, for example telling his daughter-in-law she made the “best kosher steak,” was received as a slight. Unconsciously, Alan had been signaling that Ezra’s path was less legitimate, too fringe — being just as rigid about how one should live his life. With Alan and Ezra’s relationship, Weisberg and Fields, the latter of whom is the son of a rabbi, provide a father-son dynamic easily grasped by any audience, even if the specifics of the rift might seem obscure. (All viewers really need to know is that Ezra is, in Alan’s words, an “extreme Jew” and that Alan and his wife are not that kind.) Bubbling under the surface is a more urgent story that was maybe too niche, if, at least to Jews, far more universal, a kind of Jewish “Get Out.” As it is, “The Patient” handles Jewish content well, giving us moments that feel authentic and don’t deign to explain themselves and in the final reckoning does not at all vilify Orthodox Judaism as one might fear. But the deeper Jewish questions too often feel like Easter eggs in a montage of Oedipal jousting. Alan dreaming he is at Auschwitz is one thing. Recalling a synagogue shooting or the likely fears he had of Ezra becoming visibly Jewish, would be something else entirely. Being a Jew in America isn’t as dramatic or dire as being held hostage and fearing for one’s life. But sometimes it is — and, more often, it can feel like it.
PJC Patient: Continued from page 24
REQUEST FOR 2022 JEWISH COMMUNITY PROPOSALS
5915 Beacon Street • Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman
“If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest ...” the Torah instructs in this week’s parsha, Ki Teitzei, you should endeavor to act with compassion. “Do not take the mother together with her young,” we read. Instead, one should shoo away the mother as a means of humane treatment of animals.
Members of the Board of Directors and volunteers will be available on site to give assistance For additional information call
rosh hashanah sunday, september 25th 7:00 pm monday, september 26th 8:45 am tuesday, september 27th 8:45 am
5915 Beacon Street • Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Friendly, Egalitarian, Conservative JOIN NEW LIGHT FOR THE 2022 HIGH HOLY DAYS services to be held ON-SITE in the ballroom and via ZOOM registration required: janet@newlightcongregation.org
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman
Friendly, Egalitarian, Conservative JOIN NEW LIGHT FOR THE 2022 HIGH HOLY DAYS services to be held ON-SITE in the ballroom and via ZOOM registration required: janet@newlightcongregation.org rosh hashanah sunday, september 25th 7:00 pm monday, september 26th 8:45 am tuesday, september 27th 8:45 am yom kippur kol nidre: tuesday, october 4th 6:20 pm wednesday, october 5th 8:45 am neilah: wednesday, october 5th 5:15 pm cemetery visitation sunday, september 18th 10:00 am - 12:30 pm on-siteregistrationmasksrequirementsoptionalrequired Registration Membership:website:janet@newlightcongregation.orgInformation:newlightcongregation.orgDebiSalvin:724-444-6324
“If you build a new house,” we read in the very next verse, “you shall make a parapet for your roof.” Anticipating that someone may climb onto your roof, it is your respon sibility as a homeowner to take precautions to ensure the safety of your neighbor.
Friendly, Egalitarian, Conservative JOIN NEW LIGHT FOR THE 2022 HIGH HOLY DAYS services to be held ON-SITE in the ballroom and via ZOOM registration required: janet@newlightcongregation.org
rosh hashanah sunday, september 25th 7:00 pm monday, september 26th 8:45 am tuesday, september 27th 8:45 am yom kippur kol nidre: tuesday, october 4th 6:20 pm wednesday, october 5th 8:45 am neilah: wednesday, october 5th 5:15 pm cemetery visitation sunday, september 18th 10:00 am - 12:30 pm on-siteregistrationmasksrequirementsoptionalrequired Registration Membership:website:janet@newlightcongregation.orgInformation:newlightcongregation.orgDebiSalvin:724-444-6324
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman
5915 Beacon Street • Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Sunday, September 11 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. Sunday, September 18 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. Sunday, October 2 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Susan Cohen: 412-508-0817 risk factors. Participants in the control arm received only general medical advice. The results were so noteworthy that two years later, they made the cover of Scientific American (April 2017). “A Success in the Fight Against Alzheimer’s: New Ways to Stop the Fog of Dementia Before it Starts.” The authors, Miia Kivipelto and Krister Håkansson, wrote “A gold-standard clinical trial provides evidence that diet, exercise and an active social life can help prevent cognitive decline.” One final note: There are numerous causes of memory problems and dementia, some of which are treatable and reversible. If you, a loved one, or a friend are experiencing increasing memory lapses, forgetfulness or have any concerns about your brain health, I urge you to speak with a health care provider. PJC Dr. Paul E. Bendheim is a clinical professor of neurology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and author of “The Brain Training Revolution: A Proven Workout For Healthy Brain Aging.” Bendheim is also the founder, chairman and CEO of BrainSavers, Inc. Alzheimer’s: Continued from page 19 5915 Beacon Street • Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Friendly, Egalitarian, Conservative JOIN NEW LIGHT FOR THE 2022 HIGH HOLY DAYS services to be held ON-SITE in the ballroom and via ZOOM registration required: janet@newlightcongregation.org
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L’Shana Tova Adath Jeshurun Cemetery | 4779 Roland Road | Allison Park, PA 15101 All cemetery plots will be on sale for $1,000 through October 4, 2022. WhatIsAHealthcarePatientAdvocate? ForAFREEConsultation,Contact Jeff Weinberg, M.ED,M.PH,NHAAt Caregiver Championat 412-952-6944 jeff@caregiverchampionadvocate.com JeffWeinb erg Nation allyCertifiedProfession al PatientAdvocate • Representsthefamilytohelpnavigatethehealthcare bureaucraticmaze • Providesresourcesandinformationtoempower familiestomakeintelligent decisionsabouttheircare • Protects rightsofpatientsat home,hospital or nursinghome
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26 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG Celebrations Torah 2022
rosh hashanah sunday, september 25th 7:00 pm monday, september 26th 8:45 am tuesday, september 27th 8:45 am yom kippur kol nidre: tuesday, october 4th 6:20 pm wednesday, october 5th 8:45 am neilah: wednesday, october 5th 5:15 pm cemetery visitation sunday, september 18th 10:00 am - 12:30 pm on-siteregistrationmasksrequirementsoptionalrequired Registration
Of the 74 commandments in this week’s parsha, these two stand out as gems of morality that transcend the ages, but they also share an important common word: “if.” Both of these commandments are predi cated on chance: If you happen to encounter this situation, you must behave in an ethicalFrommanner.timeto time, we will stumble upon chances to live our highest values. They may come as a surprise, like encountering a bird’s nest on our path. They may come as an unintended consequence of unre lated actions, like having the opportunity to ensure the safety of others when building a home for ourself. The Talmud links these two command ments with parallels from the book of Exodus: If you see your enemy’s donkey lying under its burden, you must help to raise it, and if you meet your enemy’s animal wandering, you must return it. When we stumble upon opportunities to be our best selves, even when doing so might benefit our enemies, we should indeed live our highest values. But the same passage that raises up this idea goes on to explain how it falls short:“Hezekiah said: ‘Great is peace, for in connection with all other precepts in the Torah it is written, “If thou see” (Ex. 23:5), “If thou meet” (Ex. 23:4), “If there chance” (Deut. 22:6), “If thou buildest” (Deut. 22:8) [implying] if a precept comes to your hand, you are bound to perform it; but what is written in connection with peace? Seek peace, and pursue it (Ps. 34:15) [meaning] seek it in your place and follow it to another place.’” (Derekh Eretz Zuta 2c) Yes, we should strive to be our best selves when the opportunity is presented to us, but even more so should we seek out opportunities to become our best selves.Aswe approach our High Holy Days, may we not only notice the opportunities to live our values that are present in our lives but actively pursue the chance to make the world more peaceful. PJC Rabbi Emily Meyer is an educator and the founder of Doodly Jew on Facebook. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.
rosh hashanah sunday, september 25th 7:00 pm monday, september 26th 8:45 am tuesday, september 27th 8:45 am yom kippur kol nidre: tuesday, october 4th 6:20 pm wednesday, october 5th 8:45 am neilah: wednesday, october 5th 5:15 pm cemetery visitation sunday, september 18th 10:00 am - 12:30 pm on-siteregistrationmasksrequirementsoptionalrequired Registration
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman
Becoming our best selves
yom kippur kol nidre: tuesday, october 4th 6:20 pm wednesday, october 5th 8:45 am neilah: wednesday, october 5th 5:15 pm cemetery visitation sunday, september 18th 10:00 am - 12:30 pm on-siteregistrationmasksrequirementsoptionalrequired Registration
Rabbi Emily Meyer Parshat Ki DeuteronomyTeitzei21:10 – 25:19
Legal Notice Lucille C. Katz, Deceased of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania No. 02-22-4896
Membership:website:janet@newlightcongregation.orgInformation:newlightcongregation.orgDebiSalvin:724-444-6324
Friendly, Egalitarian, Conservative JOIN NEW LIGHT FOR THE 2022 HIGH HOLY DAYS services to be held ON-SITE in the ballroom and via ZOOM registration required: janet@newlightcongregation.org
Membership:website:janet@newlightcongregation.orgInformation:newlightcongregation.orgDebiSalvin:724-444-6324
5915 Beacon Street • Pittsburgh, PA 15217
ADATHCEMETERYJESHURUN HOLIDAY VISITATIONS
GROSS: Sanford P. “Sandy” Gross, on Tuesday, Aug. 30. Beloved father of Keshira haLev/Sarah (Tim) Fife and Rachel H. Gross. Sandy is survived by three former wives including Susan K. Gross, mother of Keshira and Rachel. Eldest brother of Marshall (Lorna), Howard (Marcy) and A. Jay Gross. Also survived by nieces, nephews, cousins and a host of extended family and beloved friends. Born on Sept. 1, 1935, Sandy lived much of his life in Pittsburgh and was a graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School, the University of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne Law School. Sandy was a member of the Allegheny County Bar Association for 50 years, and in his spare time, he was an avid fisherman and a longtime collector of antiques, glassware and art. He was happiest in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, or anywhere else, as long as his adoring children were nearby. Sandy and his family owe a debt of gratitude to the staff at AHAVA and Sivitz Hospice for their exquisite care and support, and his children will forever be grateful for the way they tended to him with such compassion and good humor. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel Inc. Interment Torath Chaim Cemetery. Contributions may be made to the Jewish Association on Aging, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217 or to The Innocence Project (innocenceproject.org/ donate/). schugar.com
BROSTOFF: Miriam Kathleen Brostoff, on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Beloved daughter of Dr. Leon and Teresa Brostoff. Loving granddaughter of the late Drs. Philip and Anita Brostoff, and the late Jack and Helen Kissane. Sister of Noah Alexander Brostoff and Dr. Séverine Cambier and the late Emily Lara Brostoff. Much loved Aunt Mimi of Ezra Philippe and Atreyu Leon Brostoff. She is also survived by her loving aunts, uncles and cousins. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. Interment Homewood Cemetery. schugar.com
Contact the Development department at 412.586.3264 or development@jaapgh.org for more information.
WEITZMAN: Steven Irwin Weitzman, age 68, passed away peacefully surrounded by family on Wednesday, Aug. 31, at his home in Plum. Born in 1954, he was the third son of the late Leonard and Harriet Reich Weitzman. He grew up in Swissvale and Squirrel Hill, attended Wightman School and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1972. A talented salesman, he worked in retail businesses for most of his career. He is survived by his son, Aaron Weitzman of New York City; his former wife, Teri WeitzmanFilip of New Hampshire; two brothers, Richard of Plum (Judy), Mark of Mt. Lebanon (Marylynne), and two sisters, Barbara Kelly of Kirtland, Ohio, and Nancy Weitzman of Monroeville. He was the uncle of Linda Weitzman of Churchill, Ari Weitzman of Shaler (Katie), Daniel Weitzman Please see Obituaries, page 28
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Wednesday September 14: Justine Becker, Pessie Esman, Nathan Glantz, Leah A. Gluck, Toby Goldberg, Martha Hirsch Green, Bess Z. Kaufmann, Morris Kessler, Leah Tobias Levy, Rose Mikulitzky, William Miller, David Pecarsky, Goldie Rubin, Lena Ruttenberg, Estelle Rae Sable, Martin S. Taxay, M.D., Joseph N. Verk
Thursday September 15: Minnie E. Aberman, Emanuel Hyman Bennett, Isadore Brown, Ted Brown, Norma Cohen Dobrushin, Marilyn B. Neuwirth Herron, Julia Kitman, Fannie Liebman, Lillian E. Friedman Pachtman, Sadie Rebecca Ruttenberg, Benjamin C. Simon, Meir A. Weiner, Meyer Wolk, Irving S. Zamore
Friday September 16: Sam Carson, Elizabeth Marine Chaiken, Esther F. Cohen, Sadie Friedland, Leonard H. Goldberg, Samuel Henry Harris, Ella Herman, Henry H. Katz, Anna C. Kenner, Samuel G. Osgood, Benjamin L. Schulman, Md, Yetta B. Sirota, Ruth Soffer, Bennie Star, Lawrence Swartz, Harry H. Wyner, Oliver Zimmer Saturday September 17: Isadore Ackerman, Sadye G. Adler, Anna Amdur, Milton Saul Baseman, Isadore Cohen, Arnold Deutelbaum, Harold Glick, Joseph Klein, Sylvia Lebenson, William Leibovitz, Isadore Liberman, Pearl Love, Lena Mandelblatt, Lena Morantz, Bessie Wilkoff Osgood, Alick Portnoy, Sarah Rosen, Albert Ross, Morris Schachter, Elsie Skigen, Anne Skirboll, Hyman Stearns, Louis Herman Weiss Anonymous Joseph Gelman Anonymous Charlotte Charapp Annette Alper Bella Weiner Bonnie Blackman Mimi Lawrence Ellen Blum Patty Danovitz Karen and Allison Broudy Sylvia Lebenson Hyla & Sandor Caplan Louis Sadowsky David and Judith Clovsky William Phillip Clovsky Richard Feldstein Abram Goldberg Edward M. Goldston Ted Brown Stanton Jonas Simon Jonas Phyllis D. Katz William M. Katz Michael Kweller Leon Kweller Harold & Cindy Lebenson Sylvia Lebenson Joyce and Len Mandelblatt. . . . . . . . . . . Adelyne S. Crumb Howie & Shelley Miller Isreal Miller Howie & Shelley Miller Harold B. Cramer Mrs. Alvin Mundel Mark J. Mundel Larry & Maxine Myer Lena Myer Ellen Pearlstein & Steven Vecchio David Pearlstein Ellen Pearlstein & Steven Vecchio Jeanette Pearlstein Joan Privman Sadie Margolis Charlotte & Evan Reader Ethel Kwall Simma & Lawrence Robbins Francis Nadler Jerry & Ina Silver Joseph Mirow Marilyn L. Silverman Esther Friedberg Levy Sheila Winkler Slewett Harold Leighton Winkler Mitchell & Elly Toig Pearl Beck Levy Edris Weis Mildred Tannenbaum Edris Weis Saul Weis
LEWIS: Charles David Lewis, on Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, with his sisters by his side. Chuck, as he was known to us, was the youngest of four siblings born to Samuel E. Lewis and Marilyn Berkman Lewis and named for his maternal grandfather, Charles Berkman. He was preceded in death by his parents and his older sister, Renae Better. Chuck is survived by his sisters Sheryl Lewis-Ferry (David Ferry) and Charlene Lewis, brother-in-law Saul (Becky) Better, nieces Marissa and Abigail Ferry, Brooke (Joshua) DeMarco, nephew Brent Better (Kelly Garasich), two great-nieces and one great-nephew. Chuck was a lover of music from the age of 2 and went on to become a disc jockey at many of the bars and clubs in the Pittsburgh area over the years until he became ill. We will remember him for his wonderful sense of humor, his love of family and friends and for his ability to start every day with a fresh attitude, despite his many chal lenges. We would like to express our gratitude for the wonderful care he received at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital and Select Specialty Hospital. Funeral arrangements were private.
THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS —
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ARKUS: Jane Callomon Arkus, on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. Beloved wife of the late Leon Anthony Arkus. Beloved daughter of the late Florence Madeline (Schoenthal) and Dr. Verner B. Callomon. Sister of the late James V. (late Judith Cohen) Callomon. Aunt of Betsy Callomon. Also survived by Wendy Thomas, close, personal friend. Jane graduated cum laude from Vassar College in 1950. She dedicated over 40 years to her field of marketing communications, beginning as creative director at Lando, Inc. in 1951 and retiring from Burson-Marsteller, an international marketing communications agency, in 1992 as vice president and senior creative director. Throughout her career, Jane was awarded many honors, including a “Clio” for TV advertising (1969), Ad Day’s “Top Creative Directors in the East” (1971), American Advertising Federation “Addies” (1977-1987), first place at Business and Professional Advertising Association (1980), International Film & TV Festival Award (1986), Hollywood International TV Festival Awards (1986), American Marketing Association “Effie” for the United Way of Allegheny County fundraising campaign (1987), Women in Communications Matrix Awards (19911993), and American Association of Museums Marketing Award (1993). Even after retire ment, Jane could not step away from marketing communications, choosing to consult with local Pittsburgh organizations, including The Frick Art & Historical Center, Animal Friends, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and Braddock Hospital. She was also a guest speaker at Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University and the University of Pittsburgh. Jane and her late husband, Leon, shared a passion for art and the city of Pittsburgh. In the 1960s, she wrote “Open Season,” an original revue produced by the Pittsburgh Playhouse. In the 1970s, she wrote satirical lyrics for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s production of “Die Fledermaus.” Jane also wrote the nationally-awarded music video “Pittsburgh, The Livable 1,” celebrating Pittsburgh as the “Most Livable City” in the United States in 1985. In 2012, she published “An Accidental Life: The Memoirs of Leon A. Arkus” about her late husband. A dedicated citizen of Pittsburgh, Jane served on the board of many local orga nizations, including Pittsburgh Playhouse (1957-1967), Winchester Thurston School (19791985), City Theatre (1985-1995 and 2001-2008), Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting (1990-1996), Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (1999-2001), Urban League of Pittsburgh (19932003), Museum of Art Women’s Committee (1969-2022), and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (1987-2022). She was recognized for her efforts with the YWCA Tribute to Women Leadership Award, Communications (1987), Winchester Thurston School Alumna of the Year (1989), City Theatre’s Robert M. Frankel Award (2000), New Hazlett Theater’s Women in the Arts “Instigator” (2007), and named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania by Gov. Tom Ridge (2000). Services were held at Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Avenue (at Morewood). Interment West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Contributions may be made to the Cultural Trust of Pittsburgh, 803 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or Carnegie Museum of Art, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, family owned and operated. schugar.com
FRIEDMAN: Iris Rosen Friedman. Originally from a farm in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, Iris Rosen Friedman found her joy in city life. After graduating from Simmons College in Boston in 1972, she earned her MBA from Columbia University in 1974 and lived in New York, Philadelphia and their environs for most of her life. She passed away on Aug. 29, 2022. Professionally, Iris held several prestigious positions, including as a CPA at Coopers & Lybrand, an acquisitions specialist at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and as a director for hospital finance for the State of New Jersey. Known for her extreme generosity and acerbic wit, Iris was a people connector, a role she relished as the oldest of three girls. Her early leadership skills were honed as president of her District 3 BBG youth organization, encom passing several states from which she maintained a connection to the Pittsburgh community. She cherished her family and her friends with a fierce commitment and loyalty and an ever-present drive to do and share more. To her, everyone was immediate family, including her friends.
Sunday September 11: Morris Abrom, Michael Balmuth, M.D., Jacob Berman, Mendel Binstock, Ben Cartiff, Martin David Gillis, Goldie Harris, Simon Jonas, Esther Friedberg Levy, Charles Papernick, Charlotte Levy Pollack, Louis A. Robins, Florence H. Szobel, Cyril Freda Wolfson
Those who knew and loved her feel robbed that she was taken so soon by pancreatic cancer because there was still so much life left in her. Contributions may be made in Iris’ memory to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, (pancan.org), 1500 Rosecrans Avenue, Suite 200, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266.
PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 27 Obituaries
Monday September 12: Ben Astrov, William Flom, Aaron Green, David Lester, Frances Nadler, Mamie Grace Rosenbloom, Pauline Roth, Shiffra Schneirov, Pauline Naomi Shorr, Mendel Silverman, Edith Simon Symons, Emanuel L. Wasser
Tuesday September 13: Regina Berg, Ethel Borovetz, Celia Grudzinsky Catz, Joseph Gelman, Lillian Ohringer Girson, Louis Goldberg, Barbara Goldstein, Louis Hershenson, Herbert Isaacs, Leon Kweller, Leon Lappin, Pearl Beck Levy, Norma Lewis, Essie Jacobs Marcus, Martin S. Morrow, William Richman, Rose Leib Rothman, Mollie Steinman, Selma Volkin, Joseph Weitzman, Belle Strauss Wilder
Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following:
She is survived by her loving husband, Dr. Robert Friedman, daughters Dara (Rob Kostow) and Jena (Josh Epstein), sisters Sara (James) Guttman and Beverly (David) Brinn, grandchildren Leo and Margot Kostow and many adoring nieces and nephews. Iris remained sharp until the very end, maintaining her darkly humorous spirit even when faced with such a terrifying diagnosis.
Lee & Lisa Oleinick When we are lost and sick of heart, We Remember em. 1533 Asbury Place $450,0001533 Asbury Place $450,000 “Looking to buy or sell a great house? Call Greathouse!” Cheryl Gerson | REALTOR® Coldwell Banker Squirrel Hill Cell Phone: 412-401-4693 Cheryl.Gerson@PittsburghMoves.com Tamara Skirbol | 412-401-1110 Call Tamara at 412-401-1110 or Cheryl at 412-401-4693 Tamara, Cheryl & Sophie FOR SALE: Sq Hill Condo Spacious 2 bedroom 2 bathroom! All new carpet, freshly painted balcony, generous closet space, & indoor parking. Call for appointments! FOR SALE 2 Crypts Star of David allHomewoodWallCemetery$18,000inclusive Call 412-999-8102Ray FOR SALE FOR SALE Obituaries
28 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG
Real Estate
of Plum, Eric Kelly of Waco, Texas, and Hannah Kelly of Arizona. He is also survived by his first cousin, Mindy Kart of Squirrel Hill. Graveside services and interment will be held on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, at 1:30 p.m. at West View Cemetery of Rodef Shalom Congregation. The family requests memorial contributions to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank at pittsburghfoodbank.org or by surface mail to, 1 N. Linden Street, Duquesne, PA 15110 or to Meals on Wheels, mealsonwheelssouthwestpa. com or by surface mail to 517 Sangree Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15237. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com PJC
Obituaries: Continued from page 27
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From the singular voice of Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This is a Booker Prize finalist and a New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2021—a love letter to the endless scroll of social media and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection.
30 SEPTEMBER 2, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG 2022 / 23 Subscriptions and single tickets available at pittsburghlectures.org In-person and virtual subscriptions available! In-person subscriptions start at $150/seat, virtual season passes are $130/person. Links to watch the livestream will be emailed to all ticketholders and viewable for one week.
National Book Critics Circle Award-winner, #1 New York Times bestseller, and Ten Best Books of 2021 list maker, Clint Smith examines the legacy of slavery in America and how history and memory shape our lives in his landmark work of scholarship brought to life through story.
TaitDaniellephoto:Author WilburMakitaphoto:Author
The Book of Form and Emptiness is bold, poignant, playful, humane, and heartbreaking.
Hanya Yanagihara follows her critically-acclaimed A Little Life with the #1 New York Times bestseller To Paradise, a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment. “A tour de force [that] changes the novel landscape.”
Prize-winning New Yorker journalist and bestselling author of Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe, provides andcomplexitieshumanbehavetheengagingreported,meticulouslyhypnoticallyprofilesonmanywayspeoplebadly—adeeplyportraitoftheofcrimecorruption.
Booker Prize-finalist Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. With its blend of brilliantlyandcharacters,sympatheticrivetingplot,vibrantsubjects,herinventive
Winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in AbdulrazakLiterature,Gurnah’s Afterlives is a multi-generationalsweeping,saga of displacement, loss, and love, set against the brutal colonization of east Africa. “A novel, that gathers [those] meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure.”
River of the Gods is a peerless adventure story, set against the backdrop of the colonialist powers’ race to exploit the African continent.
SweeneyKatephoto:Author DemmeAmandaphoto:Author
VersluisPaulphoto:Author GavionCalvinphoto:Author MontgomeryPhilipphoto:Author HoaxGrepphoto:Author
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New York Times bestselling historian, Candice Millard, reveals the legacy.RiverexplorationharrowingoftheNileanditscomplicated
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr follows All the Light We Cannot See with Cloud Cuckoo Land —a triumph of imagination called a “wildly inventive, humane and uplifting book for adults that’s infused with the magic of childhood reading experiences.”
Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light is a selection of fifty poems to celebrate three-term US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s fifty years as a poet. She is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the author of nine poetry collections and two memoirs, most recently Poet Warrior Hanif Abdurraqib is an award-winning poet, essayist, and cultural critic. A Little Devil in America, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and a National Book Award finalist, is a andcultureBlack“masterpiece”sweepingexploringart,music,andinalltheirglorycomplexity.
Thanks for your service
The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh hosted a Mega Mission Reunion at Vietnam Veterans Pavilion in Schenley Park. The Aug. 30 event was a chance to reminisce, eat, laugh and hear stories from the June 13-21 mission to Israel.
PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE 31
p Yonah Rittri is all smiles on the first day. Photos courtesy of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh p Sarah Friedman and Mussie Rosenfeld stop for a sweet photo during the ice cream social.
Fast friends
The Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh held its 127th Annual Meeting. The program was a chance to recognize volunteers, thank retiring board members, welcome new board members and officially launch the special, permanent installation at the Irene Kaufmann Building on the agency’s history and noteworthy moments since 1895.
Oh, the memories
p Along with eating food from Elegant Edge Catering and watching videos produced by Treehouse Media, participants caught up. t Sophie Kahn, George Whitlatch, Simon Braver, Nate Whitlatch and Aaron Kahn hang out during the summer gathering. Photos by David Bachman p Nachi, Yosef and Rabbi Dovid Hordiner arrive at school.
WelcomeCommunitybacktoYeshiva
After a great summer vacation, Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh welcomed students back to class.
p JCC President and CEO Brian Schreiber and outgoing board chair Billy Goodman Photo courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh p Pittsburgh Shinshin Michal Dekel met Rabbi Barbara Symons of Temple David. Photo courtesy of Rabbi Barbara Symons
32 SEPTEMBER 9, 2022 PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG Price effective Thursday, September 8 through Wednesday, September 14, 2022 Empire Kosher Fresh Boneless Chicken Breasts•All-natural poultry — whole chickens, breasts, wings and more •All-natural, corn-fed beef — steaks, roasts, ground beef and •Varietymoreof deli meats and franks Available at select Giant Eagle stores. Visit gianteagle.com for location information. KOSHER MEATS Available at and 74 9 lb.
