Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 12-24-21 by Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

December 24, 2021 | 20 Tevet 5782

Candlelighting 4:41 p.m. | Havdalah 5:44 p.m. | Vol. 64, No. 52 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Community Day School marks golden jubilee

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Revamping teen education

Local college students face varying degrees of antisemitism on campus

The Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Mon, Sep 10, 1973 · Main Edition · Page 10

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By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

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Locals share what they learned during a tough year

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organized Community CDS was located at 6401 Forbes Avenue (corner of Forbes and Denniston) Day School as an nondenominational Jewish day Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Fri, May 9, 2008 · Page 20

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.  Images from prior decades: row, 1970s; second row, 1980s; third row, 1990s; , e ..Top rally in th g mo School oolbottom row, 2010s rld.” fourth row, 2000s; and Photos courtesy of Community h actin hDay c S e wo hanukkah (Marci Caplan) ally, y Copyright © 2016 Newspapers.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Second through fifth graders directed tzedaka contributions to Mollie’s Meals as part of their High Holiday Studies. From left: Rebecca Tanner, Bayla Butler (Mollie’s Meals), Eli Labelle, Frank Smizik (principal), Mollie Kaufer

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Thu, Dec 1, 1983 · Page 99

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being a mom-and-pop type school.” Weinstein said the break was necessary t’s not often that a 30-year-old institution so parents would think about CDS the more bingokid talent show parent decides to change its structure, rewrite its same way they did other respected private bylaws, find a new board and hire a new institutions in town, including Shady Side chief executive officer — but that is exactly Academy and Winchester Thurston School. what Community Day School did in 2002. Founded in 1972 as a non-denominational With Dr. Lois Weinstein at the helm, the private Jewish day school for students in Developments & Fun Facts leaders of the Jewish private Key school decided kindergarten through third grade, the school it was time to leaveNight itsat thepartnership with the added one grade level each year for the next movies Jewish Education Institute (JEI) and return five years until it capped out at eighth grade. recipesThe to its roots as an independent entity. In 1988, CDS had an enrollment of 77 separation was completed on JuneClipped 23,By:2004. students. It added nearly half as many when Cultures Key Developments & Fun Facts That decision launched a new era it merged with the South Hills Solomon for CDS, which is celebrating its 50th Schechter School, swelling the number of students enrolled to 107. Three years later, anniversary in 2022. “It was important educationally, it was the school became part of the JEI. Ronna Harris Askin was board chair important from a financial standpoint, for of Solomon Schechter, housed at Beth the health of the school to break it apart,” Key Developments & Fun Facts El Congregation of the South Hills. She Weinstein said. “The school needed to be totally independent. We needed to control our own finances and destiny. It had outgrown Please see CDS, page 14

ByCDavid Rullo | Staff Writer

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Thu, Jan 19, 2012 · [First Edition] · Page 75

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Community Day School traces its roots to 1972, with the formation of its steering committee. Founders planned an independent, co-educational, inter-idealogical day school. Door opened in September 1973. The school started with only ten children in a combination of kindergarten and first grade classroom. Their teacher was Mrs. Tucker.

The first Officers of the school Board included JoAnne Talenfeld, president; Claire Klein, vice president; Allan Zytnick, vice president; Bernard Bauer, secretary; Bonnie Theiner, recording secretary; Dorothy ChairsLipsitz, of the Community Day Podolsky, financial secretary; Helen Noble treasurer; Michael Hourvitz; assistant treasurer. Members of the Board of Directors included Solomon Abrams, J. Philip Bromberg, David Chamovitz, School’s benefit Kathy Lutins, Ellen Weiss Kander, and RhondaSylvia Freedel, Ram Kossowsky, Harriet Kruman, Lois Lebovitz, Herman Lipsitz, Jack A. Meyers, Max Podolsky, Frank Jacob Davis, David A. Dinkin, Gloria Elbling, Paul Foreman, Horvitz and the SouthSide Works Cinema for “Night at the Movies” Sadofsky, Kurt C. Schreiber, Harry P. Sisser, Albert Smolover, Sam Steinberg, Micha Theiner, and Cyril H.Wecht. Rabbis Abraham Garmaize, Moshe V. Goldblum, Aaron Ilson, Wednesday. County Executive Dan Onorato was honored. Freedman performs with the Drum Walter Jacob, Alex Kaminetsky, Solomon Kaplan, Pincus F. Miller, Kenneth Segel, and Leonard WinogradAri served as advisors. Olam Ensemble from Community Day

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ndrew Cole recently experienced two instances of antisemitism. The first one wasn’t intended for his ears. The second one was. Before recounting the events, Cole, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, said he needed space. He walked a few feet away, paused and explained how he grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, a place where he could count the number of Jewish classmates on his hands. High school was only a couple years ago but a lot has changed, he said. There was a pandemic, students were sent home from college and classes went virtual. Cole missed the lecture halls where professors spoke about American history or urban development. He longed to be with his friends, like those he met while playing a giant dreidel game on Chanukah. As spring semester 2020 rolled along in a virtual world, Cole realized he was struggling. He finished the term, then took a gap year and worked on farms across the country before returning to Oakland this semester for in-person classes. Something is different now, he said, and maybe that’s the reason why the first incident was so disturbing. It happened during a gaming session. Cole wasn’t playing, but heard one of the participants tell a fellow player to “Quit being so Jewish.” Cole thinks the comment was made in the context of a trade. He also doesn’t think it would have been uttered if his presence had been noticed — and that might be the most hurtful part about it, he said. “I don’t even think he considered me whatsoever, which kind of felt worse because it made me feel like I didn’t even

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The Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Thu, Dec 20, 1973 · Main Edition · Page 2

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School in Squirrel Hill.

Under the leadership of the school’s first principal, Jackie Tucker, one grade was added each year through 8th grade.

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The school was located in the Hebrew Institute Building on the corner of Forbes Avenue and Denniston Hill. Students and teachers walked from Denniston ldtbaum Avenue to the JCC for gym classes. CDS graduated its first class of eighth graders in 1981. Sat, Oct 1, 2016 Clipped By: Copyright © 2017 Newspapers.com. All Rights Reserved. Round Hill Farm field trips, Friday all-school Shabbat, and Zimriah — all traditions that began in the 70s and continue today. Also in 1981, CDS’s board of Directors announced the first community campaign of the school; its goal was to raise $1000,000 over a three-year period. ldtbaum Sat, Oct 1, 2016

By 1983 the school, which had started as a “one room schoolhouse,” filled all of the classrooms in the Hebrew Institute Building (corner of Forbes and Denniston); it used an annex building for art and music Copyright © added. 2016 Newspapers.com. All Rights Reserved. classes. Trailers were soon added for extra classroom space, and a Science Lab was Copyright 2016 Newspapers.com. All Rights Reserved. CDS expanded the kindergarten and first grade© programs in the early 1980s, adding a second classroom to each.

CDS sponsored a float for the Israeli day parade on Forbes Avenue in the 1980s. The whole school fit onto one float. The first Eighth grade trip to Israel took place in March 1986.

Natalie Berman became the second principal of the school in the fall of 1986.

In 1988, CDS (with an enrollment of 77 students) merged with South Hills Solomon Schechter School, which had 30 students. In 1991, the school became part of the Jewish Education Institute (JEI), a citywide umbrella agency for Jewish education.

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There was tremendous growth during the 90s and enrollment capped at more than 390 students. For a period of time until the school moved to its new location, the third and fourth grades were housed at Beth Shalom. CDS moved to its current location, on the corner of Forward Avenue and Beechwood Boulevard, in the fall of 1996. The site had housed St. Philomena’s Church and School from 1922 until 1993. The Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh purchased the property from St. Philomena’s and planned to use it a nursing home. Neighbors objected to the nursing home plan, urging instead that the property continue to serve as an educational center. The Federation then deeded the property to the JEI, and the main building was renovated to house CDS. In August 1996, a group of parents built two playgrounds funded by the school’s Parent Teacher Organization. The doors of the school’s new building (and current location) opened on September 3, 1996, CDS implemented its dress code in the 1990s.

Please see Antisemitism, page 14

BY THE NUMBERS

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In 1998, Frank Smizik became the third person to serve as principal of the school. He added an interscholastic sports program and other after-school extracurricular programs, while continuing to improve the academic curriculum of the school.

Key Developments & Fun Facts

Grade Levels: Early Childhood (3-year-old room and Pre-K) through Grade 8 Enrollment: 275

In 2002, the community made a decision to separate the services division of JEI and the School of Advanced Jewish Studies from Community Day School, allowing CDS toFaculty: have44a small, Student-Teacher Ratio: 6:1 focused board and independence. Community Day School became independent on June 23, 2004. Average Class Size: 14 During this time, class sizes averaged about 35 students with two classrooms per grade.

LOCAL

In 2002-2003, CDS middle school students Maya Krasnow, Ingrida Ramanaviciene, and Pam Savitz submitted the winning design for the “Keeping Tabs” Holocaust Memorial; additional students worked on the final concept of the sculpture with artist Elena Hiatt Houlihan. Social studies teacher Bill Walter had started the project of collecting six million tabs from soda-pop cans in 1996; his idea was to help students comprehend the loss of six million Jewish lives during the Holocaust. In total, the project took more than seventeen years to complete; CDS opened the memorial on its campus in 2013.

HISTORY

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

There is holiness in the teaching and learning that takes place in classrooms, and this process is not only about knowledge, but also about transforming learners so they can transform the world.

FOOD

At the end of the 2004 school year, Frank Smizik retired, and Avi Baran Munro became the fourth person to serve as principal / Head of School. Avi had served as Education Coordinator and Lower School Head for six years, and as Teacher Development Coordinator at the JEI for several years. All four of her children have graduated from CDS.

Key Developments & Fun Facts

Under the leadership of Head of School Avi Munro, CDS implemented a “Mensch” program, updates to its curriculum, and organized the school into vertical units known as “Shavatim,” named after the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe includes students ranging from the school’s youngest through eighth graders.

Rabbi turns police chaplain

Gary and Nancy Tuckfelt Keeping Tabs: A Holocaust Sculpture was dedicated to commemorate six million Jewish lives that were lost in the Holocaust. CDS opened a Pre-K classroom in fall 2013 and a three-year-olds’ classroom in fall 2016.

The playground was redesigned with the help of students and parents. And in 2015-2016, with generous support from the CDS Parent Association, a new Ga-Ga court was added to the playground. In January 2016, for the first time, instead of taking the “day off” for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, CDS students came together with the broader Pittsburgh community for a “day on,” learning, serving, and reflecting about the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Green Team parents and student volunteers helped plant raised garden beds on the CDS campus. The Green Team also developed a “Farm Stand” experiential learning program. Through this program, students learn about Jewish tradition, farming, sustainability, and healthy living. They also learn how to make smoothies from a bicycle powered blender, and about participating in commerce at a local Farmer’s Market. In November 2016, the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition honored Community Day School with a “Place Treasure” award. Today, CDS provides a nurturing, modern, academically excellent Jewish day school experience for students age 3 to Grade 8. With state-of the-art science and technology labs, a gracious library, performing arts spaces, two art studios, a music room, multi-purpose athletic field, a beautiful seven-acre campus, and the best teachers in the business, our students are inspired and thriving. They are thinkers, leaders, and friends.

What will they create next?

The oldest Jewish building in town

Panna cotta

Headlines Rethinking the brave new world of Jewish teen education — LOCAL — By David Rullo | Staff Writer

upplemental Jewish teen education is undergoing its largest evolution in nearly seven decades. In Pittsburgh, there are no longer weekly after-school classes for post-b’nai mitzvah students, taught by experts in Hebrew, religion or Israel. Instead, leaders at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh are working to understand where teens are now and how to meet their current needs, said Chris Herman, the JCC’s division director of Jewish life. Since 2015, the JCC’s J Line program offered teen experiences on Wednesdays and Sundays. It was created after the Agency for Jewish Learning shuttered its doors earlier that year. The AJL’s teen supplemental education, J Site, was replaced with J Line; J-Serve, HaZamir Pittsburgh and Hebrew learning programs were also taken over by the JCC. J Line will still exist, Herman said, but it will look different moving forward. “As we’re emerging post-pandemic, our approach to J Line has been to create shorter experiences of four to six weeks that are independent of one another and that are different days and times of the week,” Herman said. “They may explore a specific topic through a Jewish lens or informed by Jewish learning that’s specific to just that area, and then they can dive in and have deep, meaningful conversations.” Herman said JCC leaders have spent the last several years looking at national and local data about teen education and concluded a new approach was needed. “There’s a recommendation that if you’re doing the same thing you were five years ago, you’re probably doing it wrong,” he said.

It became apparent, Herman said, that teens were no longer available or interested in attending regular Sunday morning Jewish classes. Unable to meet in person during the pandemic, Herman worked with JCC leadership to reimagine how J Line could look and operate. The brand will still exist, Herman said, and will still include Jewish subjects, but will also include programs like a college prep series developed by Brenna Rosen, the JCC’s director of Jewish teen life. “We’re going to explore, not only the secular aspects of preparing for the next step of your life, but also look at things like, ‘Here is Hillel, here are Jewish gap year experiences, trade schools.’ We’re doing that through a Jewish lens,” Herman said. The various programs will still be primarily in-person group experiences, but some, like a national Talmud-based class by the Teen Beit Midrash of Hebrew College, will be offered virtually. “We’re interested in asking kids what they want to be doing and what they want to be working on and if they are interested in taking leadership positions,” Rosen said. She said that J Line leaders want to empower teens to create meaningful Jewish experiences. The changes come at a time when the Jewish teen education experience is being examined and rethought both locally and nationally. In March 2019, the Jewish Education Project released its report “Gen Z Now: Understanding and Connecting with Jewish Teens Now.” It worked with 14 youth organizations, studying nearly 18,000 teens, conducting what the organization believes is the largest study of American Jewish teens in history. JEP Chief Program Officer Susan Wachsstock said teens in the study didn’t identify the type of education they preferred;

instead, they articulated where they found opportunities for growth. Teens “could tell you what was happening on the soccer field that helps them grow,” she said. “They could talk about teamwork. They could talk about grit. They could talk about resilience. When they thought about Jewish experiences, it was much harder to make that correlation to where and how it was helping them grow and help their development.” Wachsstock said the decline of the formal Hebrew high school has been taking place for decades. “Our constructs are shifting,” she said, “and the global nature of the world today means that teens are connecting online to different experiences, communities and online learning.” Still, she said, community experiences such as camp are important in helping teens build a sense of self. “I think inherent to the concept of education is that you’re constantly growing and moving and changing, and if the system itself is not growing and moving and changing and is static, that means we’re not recognizing the influence of the world around us on the learner and therefore not providing effective education,” she said. Locally, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is working to help teen-focused organizations understand and plan for teen engagement. Rabbi Amy Bardack, Federation’s director of Jewish Life and Learning, said the organization has created a task force and hired Rosov Consulting to look at the future of Jewish teen learning and engagement in Pittsburgh. “The goal is to design a model for programs and funding that would begin next year under the guidance of consultants and using data through the research we’re starting,” she said. As part of the research, the task force

will meet with adult professionals who work within youth-serving organizations in one-on-one interviews 15 separate times. Five different focus groups, consisting of five to seven Jewish teens, will also be formed. The research will take place in December, January and February, and will include the entirety of the geographical region and the span of Jewish affiliation. Future funding and programming will be decided on the new research. Bardack said when the AJL closed, Federation provided approximately 55% of the former agency’s funding to the JCC for teen education. “We’re now six years into that and it is a good time to stop and look and see what the community wants,” she said. “What do our partners in the community who feed teens to us, what do they think teens need? What do they think our new opportunities might be?” Bardack stressed that while Federation is the convener of the conversations, the JCC will continue to be a partner. “[The JCC is] one of our largest agencies,” she said. “They have reach in the suburbs and city. They run our big overnight camp. There’s no way they’re not going to be implementing teen learning and engagement.” Bardack pointed to programs like the Diller Teen Fellows Fellowship — which Federation helps implement but is coordinated by the JCC — as an example of the partnership between the two agencies. Echoing Herman, Bardack said it made sense to reexamine the Jewish teen landscape every half-decade. “You should always be rethinking things every five years,” she said. “If you’re not, you’re not keeping up with trends and best practices.” PJC David Rullo can be reached at drullo@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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What a relief.

For Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt, being a police chaplain is another way to show love for community

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— LOCAL — By David Rullo | Staff Writer

abbi Jeremey Weisblatt wanted to find a way to give back to first responders after the attack of Oct. 27, 2018. The Ohav Shalom rabbi reached out to offer support to both the McCandless Police Department and the Special Reaction Team to say thanks and offer support, but he wanted to do more. Weisblatt’s initial outreach led to conversations with Detective Sergeant Eric Egli about the possibility of volunteering as a chaplain for the police department. And then the world stopped on March 19, 2020, when COVID-19 forced the closure of, well, everything. Weisblatt thought he might have lost the opportunity to say thanks in a meaningful way to his hometown police department. Nearly half a year later, Weisblatt raised the idea with Shawn Brokos, the director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, who thought it was a great idea. “I have contacts at the McCandless Police Department,” Brokos told the Chronicle. “I introduced him to several officers. I know the chief. It was just a natural fit.” Weisblatt said that Police Chief Ryan Hawk loved the idea. In fact, the rabbi learned that he would not only be the first rabbi to fill the chaplain position, but would also be the department’s first-ever chaplain. Because of his new nondenominational role, the North Hills rabbi is now part of the International Conference of Police Chaplains. “My job is basically to be there for the police,” Weisblatt said. “I’m there as a resource, if they need me in a situation or afterward to debrief, to have confidential pastoral conversations.” Weisblatt said he goes to the department every couple of weeks to talk. Proving his experience as a rabbi isn’t wasted in his new nondenominational role, Weisblatt brings food when he visits, saying he’s learned that “everyone loves food.” Weisblatt calls his chaplain role “a ministry of presence” that lets the officers know they aren’t alone and demonstrates there are resources available and community is there for them. The rabbi finds it interesting that a Jewish clergy member is the first chaplain for a police department that is located in an area not thought of as traditionally Jewish. He is looking forward to a deeper relationship with the non-Jewish officers on the force, he said. “They’ve already asked if they can do some of their training at our synagogue,” Weisblatt said. “We hire them for the High Holy Days as off-duty officers. Now it goes from a transactional relationship to a relationship

 Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt

File photo

of values and of community, saying we value that you’re here. We can add a face to the name. I think it adds a very special layer and it’s important to the Jewish community. I think it’s important for us to know our civic leaders and first responders.” The rabbi, acknowledging there are heightened tensions throughout the country with police, said the support of the community is important for officers who might feel under attack. “It’s only by these relationships that we can deal with the problems out there,” Weisblatt said. “Yeah, there are some bad apples out there, but the community wants to be in relationship because they put their life on the line every single day.” His new role, Weisblatt said, achieves two goals: It helps with his desire to give back, and it helps raise awareness of Temple Ohav Shalom beyond the synagogue’s walls — something he was tasked with when he was hired. Brokos said the chaplain role is vital in police departments, especially for those officers who might not want to reach out to a therapist. “Chaplains fill a much-needed voice for law enforcement members,” she said, “who may not be comfortable with peer counseling or outside therapy. There is still so much stigma out there, unfortunately. But that is not the case with chaplains.” For Weisblatt, being a police chaplain helps fulfill part of his rabbinic philosophy. “Rabbi Joachim Prinz once said, ‘You cannot be a rabbi unless you love people. You do not have to like them but you have to love them.’ That encapsulates my entire rabbinate, this idea of loving people every day. I have tried to find ways to be there for people and community. There are 1,001 ways, but that is one of the guiding core values of my rabbinate.” PJC

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 3

Headlines Pittsburghers share lessons of 2021: Relationships, kind words and managing time — LOCAL — By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

ookended by an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and high rates of new COVID-19 cases, 2021 is a year many are anxious to see end. But before sealing the door on this year, several Pittsburghers used the final days of December to pause, reflect and share lessons learned. For South Side resident Andrew Exler, 2021 felt like “the longest year ever.” In fact, he said, 2021, seemed as though it were “really two years.” As a consultant, expert in social media marketing and director of content and strategy at Lost Tribe, Exler spent much of 2021 helping organizations and individuals bolster their Instagram accounts, LinkedIn pages or total virtual presence. Exler, 30, said regardless of his day job, he’s come to appreciate the value of engagements that can’t be measured by “likes.” “I’m really starting to put a focus on mental health for myself and those around me,” he said. “It’s important for people to separate their personal life from work and social media, and to find a healthy balance and listen to your body.” Exler credits a strong peer group with helping him get through the past year. It’s critical, he said, to engage with those “who love you and support you just because they love you, and not because you can provide some service.” In turn, creating healthy relationships offline can improve online interactions, he said. Social media and the digital world — with a reliance on algorithms — don’t always promote the greatest user experiences, Exler said. People can be callous and hurtful to each other, sometimes without even realizing they’re causing harm. The past year has helped him understand how much “words matter, especially in the digital space.” Mount Washington resident Stephanie Strano also came to appreciate the significance of kind language throughout 2021. As part of her work at the Hillel Jewish University Center in Oakland, Strano, 27, greets visitors. “This year has been crazy adjusting to COVID — just how I interact with other people and with other students,” she said. “I’m trying to be patient, and listen to others. I feel like everyone is struggling.” Taking an extra minute to be especially warm and caring makes a difference, Strano said. Even something as simple as asking someone how they’re doing has impacted students, as well as herself. When people see there’s someone who cares about them, it gives them the strength to say, “I’m not OK, or I need someone to talk to,” Strano said. “And for me personally, it’s made me reflect on my own mental health, how I’m doing. If I’m not OK, it’s given me the courage to step up and say so versus being in my own little corner.” During the past year, many people minimized in-person social interactions due to fears of viral spread, but that separation sometimes created other problems. According to the 4 DECEMBER 24, 2021

 The Brown family

Photo courtesy of Meredith Brown

 Andrew Exler

Photo courtesy of Andrew Exler

National Institute for Health Research, “loneliness and social isolation increased the risk of depression and anxiety in young people.” The past year has made clear that human connection is essential, Strano said. Finding ways to engage with others is “just super crucial right now.” For Dormont resident Alex Goodstein, the

hardest thing this year “was really learning when to do certain things and when not to do certain things.” Goodstein, who works in software, is active in Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Young Adult Division. He said the way he interacts with people has changed throughout 2021 — even the manner in which he connects

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with people. “I used to have a lot of activities that were more presentation-based,” he said. As the pandemic stretched on, many of those meetings transitioned online. Now that some people have resumed physical conference room gatherings again, Goodstein, 34, tries to calculate whether he should meet with others in person or virtually. “It almost takes a pre-discussion or having a meeting to determine if there should be a meeting,” Goodstein said, and although 2021 has helped him determine the specificities of locale, the year has really taught him “how to manage time a little bit better.” Squirrel Hill resident Meredith Brown also said she learned a bit about time management this year — specifically how to “slow down and take it one day at a time.” Decelerating isn’t always easy, though, especially when you work while parenting a first-grader and a 3-year-old. Brown, 40, is community and family engagement coordinator at Community Day School, where her children are enrolled. During the past year Brown and her husband have tried to “be more intentional with our time both inside the house and outside the house,” she said, and not just moving from “one thing to the other.” Brown said she’s learned some important lessons from 2021, but was reluctant to offer grand advice to others. Still, she said, there are helpful questions to keep in mind, such as, “What are three things you remember about the year?” By making time a priority and creating the space to reflect, one can ask an even more important question, she added: “Where do you want to be at this time next year?” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines Pitt student who commemorated attack at Tree of Life awarded international scholarship The exhibit debuted at Pitt, and also was staged at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. “[Students working with Lynn] were among the first to contemplate responses to 10/27 and were the first to look at the event and its aftermath from the perspective of students,” said Lauren Bairnsfather, executive director of the Holocaust Center. “The exhibit was a notable accomplishment. Maja showed herself to be a brave leader in the group and continued to work with the Holocaust Center after the exhibit was completed. We are not a bit surprised to learn that she won a scholarship to continue her studies in the UK.” Lynn said the goal of

— LOCAL — By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

University of Pittsburgh senior who led a student response to the 2018 antisemitic attack at the Tree of Life building has received a special scholarship to study abroad and learn how tragedies are remembered and commemorated globally. Maja Lynn, 23, of Shadyside, recently was named one of the roughly three dozen recipients of the Marshall Scholarship. She plans to relocate to the U.K. in autumn 2022 to study at Queen’s University of Belfast. “As future leaders, with a lasting understanding of British society, Marshall Scholars strengthen the enduring relationship between the British and American peoples, their governments and their institutions,” a statement from the scholarship committee read. Lynn, who majors in anthropology and museum studies, is originally from Philadelphia. Though she is not Jewish, she played an important role in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community when she steered the creation of “To Those Who Grasp It: Responding to October 27” in the summer of 2019.

p Maja Lynn

Photo courtesy of Maja Lynn

her work in response to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was simple: “To capture as many voices as possible.” “A lot of students felt the university community didn’t receive their responses,” she added. “We were trying to be as trauma-informed as possible.” Lynn also worked with professor Rachel Kranson, who heads Pitt’s Jewish Studies program, and Eric Lidji at the Heinz History Center’s Rauh Jewish Archives on the project. She later did an internship with the Holocaust Center. “The scholars were given resources and support but almost no mandate” for the exhibit, Lidji told the Chronicle. “They had a lot of freedom to make the project their own. That can be scary for anyone, let alone for a group of students creating their first exhibit — and on a topic of such sensitivity and importance. It was a pleasure watching Maja and the others navigate the struggle, gain confidence in their ideas and come together as a team.” Lynn, who has German citizenship through her mother, had worked previously in a memorial capacity at the Dachau concentration camp. She said she had been “thinking a lot about antisemitism in that Please see Scholarship, page 15

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Calendar Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. Submissions also will be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q SUNDAY, DEC. 26

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Mitzvah Day is a long-standing tradition where the Jewish community provides services to organizations throughout the entire community. Times and locations vary. Check the website for more information. jewishpgh.org/ mitzvah-day.

q TUESDAY, DEC. 28

q THURSDAYS, DEC. 30-JUNE 30

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh presents a free virtual tax prep information session. Learn how to sign up to help others get the most from their tax refund. 5:30 p.m. jewishpgh.org/event/free-tax-prep-info-session

The Alan Papernick Educational Institute Endowment Fund presents Continuing Legal Education, a six-part CLE series taught by Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff. Earn up to 12 CLE credits. Each session is a standalone unit; you can take one class or all six. 8:30 a.m. With CLE credit: $30/session or $150 all sessions; without CLE credit: $25/session or $125 all sessions. For a complete list of dates and topics, visit foundation.jewishpgh.org/ continuing-legal-education.

q TUESDAYS, DEC. 28-MAY 24

Sign up now for Melton Core 2, Ethics and Crossroads of Jewish Living. Discover the central ideas and texts that inform our daily, weekly and annual rituals, as well as life cycle observances and essential Jewish theological concepts and ideas as they unfold in the Bible, the Talmud and other sacred texts. $300. 9:30 a.m. foundation.jewishpgh.org/melton-2

q SUNDAYS, DEC. 26-JAN. 16

q WEDNESDAYS, DEC. 29-JAN. 26

In the Briva Project’s weekly writing course, Sh’ma-Hear Your Inner Voice, students will reflect and write, moving through Chanukah to Tu B’Shvat. Each class will begin with a communal ritual and creative prompt. 6 p.m. $200 for all eight sessions. tickettailor.com/ events/briyaproject/604183

Bring the parshah alive and make it personally relevant and meaningful. Study the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman. 12:15 p.m. bethshalompgh. org/life-text

q SUNDAYS, DEC 26-JAN. 30

Join a lay-led Online Parashah Study Group to discuss the week’s Torah portion. No Hebrew knowledge is needed. The goal is to build community while deepening understanding of the text. 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org. q MONDAYS, DEC. 27-JAN. 31

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

Join Temple Sinai to study the weekly Torah portion in its hybrid class available on Zoom. Open to everyone. 12 p.m. templesinaipgh.org/ event/parashah/weekly-torah-portion-classvia-zoom11.html In The Jewish Moral Virtues, Foundation Scholar Rabbi Danny Schiff will explore Jewish teaching on critical moral virtues. Based on the qualities listed in the 13th century “Sefer Maalot Hamiddot” (“The Book of the Choicest Virtues”), Rabbi Schiff will explore the contemporary application of these moral virtues to our 21st century lives. $65 for all 13 Zoom sessions. 9:30 a.m. foundation. jewishpgh.org/jewish-moral-virtues

q TUESDAY, JAN. 4

Classrooms Without Borders presents their weekly book discussion. Join them as they explore Rebecca Donner’s “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days,” with Dr. Josh Andy. 4 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/weeklybook-discussions-all-frequent-troubles-ourdays-dr.-josh-andy q THURSDAY, JAN. 6

Join Classrooms Without Borders for The Ringelblum Archives: Virtual Tour and Teacher Training with Dr. Katarzyna Person and Helise Liebermanas. They will explore the “Archive More Important Than Life” and prepare for a community wide teach-in on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, 2022. 4 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/the-ringelblumarchives-teacher-training-workshop-katarzynapersn-helise-lieberman q MONDAY, JAN. 10

Join the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh on Zoom to learn more about the Mega Mission 2022. The mission will take place in Israel June 13-21, 2022. This is your

chance to hear the details and ask all of your pressing questions. RSVP required to receive Zoom link. 6 p.m. jewishpgh.org/event/megamission-general-information-session Join the Jewish Mega Mission Virtual Tour of Israel with Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Tour Guide Reuven Zusman will cover Israel’s importance for the main three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam; interesting facts about Israel today; prospects and challenges for the future; and Pittsburgh’s connection with Israel. 7 p.m. jewishpgh.org/ event/mega-mission-virtual-tour-5 q WEDNESDAY, JAN. 12

Classrooms Without Borders presents the fourth session of Confronting the Complexity of Holocaust Scholarship: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Holocaust Studies. Wendy Lower will present “Using Photographs as Evidence.” 3 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/confronting_ the_complexity_of_holocaust_scholarship q THURSDAY, JAN. 13

Join Classrooms Without Borders for a post-film discussion of “In Search of My Sister” with film director Jawad Mir; Sabrina Sohail, executive director of The Peace Project; and Serena Oberstein, executive director of Jewish World Watch. 3 p.m. classroomswithoutborders.org/post-filmdiscussion-in-search-of-my-sister q SUNDAY, JAN. 16

Join the Yeshiva Schools for an evening of cheese and wine and a live raffle drawing to benefit their arts and music program. 7:30 p.m. 403 Greenfield Ave. yeshivaschools.com/ annual-raffle PJC

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Headlines Churchill man falls from roof, lifts himself up by building menorah — LOCAL — By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

andy Boswell fell off a roof. After three surgeries, two weeks of hospitalizations, about 15 days in a rehab center and six weeks of home-based physical therapy, the 73-year-old Churchill resident built a 7-foot-tall menorah. “My attitude is what keeps me going,” Boswell said. “I try not to let anything hold me down.” Apparently, that attitude even holds for injuries sustained from falling 12 feet. Boswell went up on a roof last June to help out a friend from Temple David whose husband had died months earlier. After Boswell offered to do some work around her house, she told him the siding of her home was a bit dirty. Boswell said he could powerwash it, and when she agreed, he ascended the roof. But he noticed the intensity of the powerwashing was inadvertently removing more than just dirt — it was taking the paint off the siding as well. “It startled me and I stepped backwards,” he said. With nothing behind him, Boswell fell one

 Marsha and Randy Boswell stand next to a menorah he made outside their home in Churchill. Photo courtesy of Randy Boswell

story down onto a gravel driveway. “It wasn’t concrete, but I don’t know if it would have made any difference,” he said. “It was still pretty hard.” Boswell thinks the neighbors must have seen him fall and called 9-1-1 because an

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ambulance arrived moments later. “I wasn’t scared — I knew that my leg was broken and my heels weren’t in very good shape — I’ve had other breaks before,” he said. “I felt worse for her than I did for me.” Boswell said his friend expressed

considerable guilt, even though he kept telling her it wasn’t her fault. “I chose to go up there,” he said. “It was just one of those things that happened.” Boswell’s nonchalance belies the severity of his injuries. The fall crushed both his heels, broke his left femur and caused stress fractures in his lower back. In addition to three surgeries and a rod being placed in his femur, he wore a body brace for four months and wasn’t allowed to stand until the first week of October. “I am slowly getting better, but still have pain whenever I walk too much,” Boswell said. “The X-rays of my heels look like someone went on a crazy erector set excursion.” It’s an oddly humorous image, but that’s Boswell’s hope — to draw listeners away from the reality that his bones were shattered, and, instead, make people laugh. He pulled the same tactic right after he fell off the roof. With the Olympics just weeks away, Boswell told those who rushed to his aid, “I tried to stick the landing but it didn’t work.” Boswell’s wife, Marsha, isn’t surprised that’s what came out of her husband’s mouth. “Even if he’s in pain he tries to make Please see Menorah, page 15

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 7

Headlines The oldest Jewish building in Pittsburgh — LOCAL — By Eric Lidji | Special to the Chronicle

o the best of my knowledge, the oldest surviving Jewish building in Pittsburgh proper is a small synagogue on Miller Street in the Hill District. The date pressed into the cornerstone reads 1905, making it a year older than the main sanctuary of Rodef Shalom. High on the three-story building is a Star of David in the brickwork. A stone nameplate below reads, half in Hebrew and half in English, “Beth David Congregation.” Beth David built the synagogue but never occupied it. To explain why requires a brief congregational genealogy. As the local Jewish historian Jacob Feldman once noted: “The Russians created more new congregations and societies than any other Jewish ethnic group in Pittsburgh. By the 1920s, they comprised 20 to 25 percent of its Jewish community, whereas the Lithuanians comprised 45 to 50 percent. But the Russians functioned in smaller units and their synagogues recurrently divided.” Beth Abraham was the first — chartered 1889. Agudas Achim Congregation broke away in 1890. It built a $16,000 debt-free synagogue on Crawford Street in the Hill in 1894. A faction from present-day Ukraine founded Beth Zedeck Congregation around 1899. It was chartered in 1902 and grew rapidly over the next three years, joined by hundreds of survivors of Russian pogroms, including the infamous Kishinev massacre. These newer members broke away from Beth Zedeck in 1905 to form Beth David Congregation. Almost immediately, Beth David spent about $5,000 to buy and raze two houses on Miller Street and another $10,500 to build a new synagogue. It was almost a brick-for-brick replica of Ohel Jacob, the Romanian shul built one street over in 1903. Beth David laid the cornerstone in August 1905. Common for the time, a parade marked the occasion. A brass band led 800 marchers down Miller Street. Each marcher climbed onto a wooden platform over the construction site and waited to sign a scroll. But too many stood on the platform at once. It jackknifed, dropping hundreds into the cellar. “The screams and groans of the men, women and children caught in the wreckage of broken joists and flooring was appalling,” one newspaper article noted.

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p The former Shaaray Tefillah synagogue — seen here in an archival photograph by Gerald Sapir from the 1990s — still stands on Miller Street in the Hill District today. Image courtesy of Rauh Jewish Archives

p The cornerstone of the former Beth David/Shaaray Tefillah synagogue on Miller Street in the Hill District, thought to contain a time capsule.

Image courtesy of Rauh Jewish Archives

A rumor went through the crowd. Someone said several children were trapped in the rubble. A panic started. Police were literally holding mothers back. One can only imagine the momentary horror, as parents who had survived the worst violence of Russia now feared that they had lost their children to a hapless accident in blessed America. No one actually died, thankfully, but many were injured. Rabbi Aaron Mordechai Ashinsky was trampled and badly bruised by people trying to escape. Nevertheless, he climbed out of the wreckage and, after calm was restored, completed the ceremony. Beth David ran out of money before completing construction. Rabbi Moshe Shimon Sivitz mediated a merger with Beth Zedeck in 1906. They formed a new congregation called Sahro Tefilah, later known as Shaaray Tefillah. “Beth David” still marks the façade of the Miller Street synagogue, but it barely operated under that name. The divisions continued. A group broke away from Shaaray Tefillah in 1908 to found Beth Mogen David. It built a

smaller synagogue next door. Shaaray Tefillah became “the big Russian shul,” and Beth Mogen David became “the little Russian shul.” There were other Russian shuls in the Hill. Anshe Volinia was founded in 1907 and became Kesser Torah. Anshe Lubovitz was established the same year and became one starting point of the local Lubavitch community. And there were several Russian landsmenshaftn, or mutual aid societies: the Polodiers, the Pliskovers, the Shpikovers. All these groups eventually left the Hill or disbanded. Shaaray Tefillah moved to Bartlett Street in the 1940s. The Miller Street synagogue became a Baptist church. When the building went on the market a few years ago, I got the chance to walk through it, documenting its Jewish traces: a niche in the former beis medrash where an ark would have been, an imposing stone tablet in the backyard commemorating a renovation in the 1930s, pages from The Forward insulating the walls in the basement, where all those marchers had laid in an injured heap more than a century earlier.

The women’s balcony was untouched, except by time. On a corner of the ceiling was a painting of two fish joined at the tongue over Hebrew words that appear to be “mazel Adar dagim,” “the sign of Adar: fish.” Pisces. It must have been part of a mural representing the entire Jewish zodiac — reminding worshippers of the cosmic scale of divine plans — but everywhere else the paint was flaked and the plaster crumbling. Out front was the cornerstone, stamped “1905.” After all the injured had been treated and the crowd quieted down, the organizers of the event prepared a time capsule. As one article noted: “In a box placed in the cornerstone were copies of papers containing an account of Kishinev and Gomal massacres of Jews by the Russians, a parchment with the names of the contributors to the synagogue, and other church records.” What does that mean: “papers containing an account?” Are they just copies of local newspapers, something you could now find online? Or are they firsthand survivor testimony? The only way to know for sure would be to crack open that cement cube. PJC Eric Lidji is the director of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. He can be reached at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter.org or 412-454-6406.

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Headlines Palestinian terror groups praise deadly West Bank attack — WORLD — By Aaron Boxerman | The Times of Israel

alestinian terror groups were quick to praise a shooting attack that fatally wounded an Israeli man in the northern West Bank on Thursday night, although none claimed responsibility for it. The attack took place outside the Homesh outpost near the Palestinian town of Burqa. One Israeli was fatally wounded by gunfire, and another two were lightly hurt by shards of flying glass, according to medics. All three were apparently students at the Jewish religious school on the nearby hilltop. “Hamas blesses this heroic operation in Nablus against the occupation forces and the murderous settlers,” said Hamas spokesperson Hazim Qasim. “This operation proves yet again that our heroic people will continue their struggle until they expel the occupier.” The deceased Israeli was identified by the Samaria Regional Council as Yehuda Dimentman, 25, a yeshiva student who was married and had a young toddler. The three victims were shot while in their

p Paramedics work at the scene of a shooting attack near Homesh in the West Bank, on Dec. 16, 2021. Photo courtesy of ZAKA via The Times of Israel

car as they left Homesh, a settlement that was meant to have been abandoned as part of a 2005 eviction, but is now the site of an illegally operated yeshiva. “The car was hit by an ambush from the

side of the road,” said Brig. Gen. Avi Bluth, commander of the IDF’s Judea and Samaria Division, named for the biblical term for the West Bank. The Israeli military conducted wide search

operations in pursuit of the perpetrators on Thursday night. So far, no Palestinian terror group has taken responsibility for the deadly attack. “We bless the heroic operation carried out by heroic resistance fighters from among our people, which came as a natural response to the crimes of the occupying soldiers and settlers,” said a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad’s West Bank branch. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which avowedly seeks to commit armed attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, also hailed the shooting. “What happened near Nablus is a statement that our people will not submit to the occupation. The message of the cities of the West Bank is that we will address the occupation in the language of bullets,” senior PFLP official Hani al-Thawabta told official Hamas television. The past few weeks have seen a rise in Palestinian terror attacks, with four taking place in Jerusalem alone, including a deadly shooting committed by a Hamas member in the capital’s Old City. PJC Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.

Violent attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank are up nearly 50% from last year — WORLD — By Shira Hanau | JTA

iolent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank are nothing new. But the phenomenon has reached an alarming new level of frequency this year. Violent attacks perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank exceeded last year’s attacks by nearly 50%, according to a report by The Times of Israel. In 2021, there have been 397 attacks so far, compared to 272 in 2020, The Times of Israel reported based on data from the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency. According to a report in Haaretz, there have been 135 stone throwing incidents targeting Palestinians this year compared to 90 in 2019. The violence was especially evident during the annual fall olive harvest this year, often a time of violent attacks on Palestinians who spend their days harvesting from trees located outside of their villages, which are often close to settlements. Dozens of videos of violent attacks and photos of bloodied farmers and shepherds and the Israeli activists who sometimes accompany them were shared to social media this year. While Defense Minister Benny Gantz has said he will assign more soldiers and police officers to the West Bank to stem the violence, the issue of how to deal with the settlers remains an area of little consensus for the current government, which is composed of a broad coalition of right-wing

p Israeli soldiers guard as Palestinians wait to harvest olives outside the Yetma village, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, Oct. 8, 2018. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90

settler leaders, left and center-left parties, and Arab parties. In a meeting Monday with U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Israeli Minister of Public Security Omer Barlev discussed the issue of settler violence. After Barlev, who is a member of the Labor party, tweeted about the meeting with Nuland,

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who was a leader in the settler movement before becoming prime minister earlier this year, appeared to respond to Barlev’s comments without naming him. In a tweet of his own, Bennett expressed support for settlers on the receiving end of violent attacks. “The settlers in Judea and Samaria have

been suffering from violence and terrorism, daily, for decades. They are the protective wall for all of us and we must strengthen them and support them, in words and deeds. There are marginal elements in every society, they need to be addressed by all means, but we must not generalize about an entire community,” Bennett wrote. PJC

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 9

Headlines coronavirus, according to Haaretz. Most of the cases on the plane were suspected to be from the Omicron variant.

— WORLD — From JTA reports

Israel bars travel to United States as NY consulate staff walloped by latest COVID wave

The Israeli governement has barred Israelis from traveling to the United States due to the outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant there. Over a dozen staff members of the Israeli Consulate in New York have tested positive, according to The Times of Israel. That number includes Asaf Zamir, Israel’s consul general in New York, who had recently attended the Israeli-American Council’s annual conference in Florida. Nearly 150 members of Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, entered quarantine over the weekend after coming into contact with people who tested positive for the virus, according to The Times of Israel. Foreign travelers have been barred from visiting Israel, with few exceptions, since a travel ban was imposed on Nov. 28. The decision to bar travel to the United States comes as the Omicron variant is projected to quickly become the dominant variant in several countries, including the United States. It also follows the arrival of a flight from the United States in which nearly 10% of the passengers tested positive for the

In reset to pre-Trump norm, State Department terrorism report includes extensive reporting on West Bank settler violence

The U.S. State Department has included extensive reporting on West Bank settler attacks on Palestinians in its annual terrorism report, a sign of how seriously the Biden administration is treating the phenomenon. The 2020 report on terrorist violence, released Thursday, includes three paragraphs reporting settler violence, the most it has included in years. The attacks have become a point of contention between the Biden administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, disrupting efforts by both sides to keep relations on an even keel. Violent attacks by both Jewish settlers and Palestinians have increased over the past year. A 25-year-old settler was ambushed and killed in his car by Palestinians on Thursday. The Israel-West Bank section of the 2020 State Department report begins, as it has for years, with an accounting of Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israelis and notes the cooperation between Palestinian Authority and Israeli forces in preventing the attacks. Then it shifts to reporting on settler attacks. “Israelis living in the West Bank also

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committed a variety of physical attacks and property crimes against Palestinians, some of which caused serious injury, according to Israeli human rights organizations and media reports,” the report said. The reports on settler violence under the Trump administration were never longer than a paragraph, sometimes only two sentences. Moreover, the Trump administration stopped citing human rights groups in its second report, for the year 2017.

Greek-Jewish archives return home nearly 80 years after they were looted by the Nazis

The Greek-Jewish community is celebrating the return of a trove of manuscripts and community documents that the Nazis had stolen nearly 80 years ago. The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) announced in a statement earlier this month that Russia, who was in possession of the archives, has agreed to return them to their Mediterranean origin, after a diplomatic process supported by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Nazis looted Thessaloniki, formerly home to one of Europe’s most vibrant Jewish communities, on July 11, 1942. The Soviet Union came into possession of the archive after their capture of the city on April 23rd, 1945. They took them to Moscow where they remained to be inherited by the Russian federation after the USSR’s dissolution in 1991.

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

Dec. 24, 1969 — Missile boats are smuggled out of France

Israel uses a fake shipping company as a front to purchase five military boats and sneaks them out of Cherbourg, France, defeating an embargo that canceled the original purchase after the June 1967 war.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

Anwar Sadat, who leads Egypt into the 1973 Yom Kippur War and signs a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, is born in Mit Abu al-Kum, Egypt. He is assassinated during a military parade in 1981.

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Dec. 26, 1864 — Land buyer Hankin is born

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Yehoshua Hankin, who personally buys 30% of the land owned by the State of Israel at its independence in 1948, is born in Ukraine. He makes his first land buy, the future Rehovot, in 1890.

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An intersection on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to be named in honor of Shimon Peres

Shimon Peres may have never lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, but soon the late Israeli prime minister will have a New York City street corner named in his honor. The intersection of West 95th Street and Riverside Drive will be renamed “Shimon Peres Place” after the New York City Council approved nearly 200 new street names last week to honor various people. The news was reported by Patch, which noted that while Peres never lived in the city permanently, he did study at both New York University and the New School and frequently visited New York. Peres, who died in 2016, served three times as Israel’s prime minister in addition to serving as president of the country from 2007 to 2014. PJC

This week in Israeli history

Dec. 25, 1918 — Anwar Sadat is born

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“Our history returns home!” the Board wrote in the statement. “Greek Jews with immense emotion welcome the decision of the Russian President Putin that Russia returns the pre-War archives of the Greek Jewish Communities, and especially the archive of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki.” According to KIS, the archives include books and religious artifacts from 30 synagogues, libraries and communal institutions in Thessaloniki.

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Dec. 27, 2008 — Operation Cast Lead begins

Israel launches Operation Cast Lead after Hamas breaks a six-month cease-fire. The 22-day operation aims to stop rocket fire at civilians, stop Hamas terrorism and stop weapons smuggling into Gaza.

Dec. 28, 1907 — Linguist Ze’ev Ben-Chaim is born

Ze’ev Ben-Chaim is born in present-day Ukraine. He is one of the greatest scholars of Hebrew and Aramaic and publishes five volumes of translations of ancient Samaritan texts into Hebrew and Aramaic.

Dec. 29, 1901 — JNF is founded

The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth L’Israel) is launched after Theodor Herzl persuades the Fifth Zionist Congress to approve the half-century-old idea of a land bank on a 105-82 vote.

Dec. 30, 1990 — Weizman is fired over PLO contacts

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir drops Science Minister Ezer Weizman from the Cabinet after accusing him of meeting with a senior PLO official in 1989 and corresponding with PLO head Yasser Arafat. PJC

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Opinion Refusing to be enemies Guest Columnist Idith Gal

n May 2021, the fire of hatred grabbed hold of Israel. Violent events by Israeli-Arabs against Jews, including life-threatening riots, began in Jerusalem and from there spread throughout the country. The violence took place in mixed cities (the Israeli term for cities with both Arab and Jewish populations), such as Jaffa, Lod, Akko, Ramle and Haifa, and in major intersections in northern and southern Israel, including in Karmiel and Misgav. These events undermined the Jewish residents’ feeling of security and caused a great

deal of harm to the fabric of shared society. In several places, Jewish youth started “riots” as a counter-response, presumably in order to “defend” against the Arabs. The police found it difficult to control the rioters. At the same time, Hamas was firing rockets on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and southern Israel. During the riots, a 56-year-old Jewish man was critically injured by rocks thrown at his head by Arabs, and ultimately died from his wounds. In Lod, an Israeli-Arab was killed from gunfire by a Jewish resident during riots (the Jewish resident claimed self-defense). An 84-year-old Jewish man died from his wounds in Akko as a result of arson by Arabs. Hundreds of people, both Jews and Arabs, were injured, and a great deal of property owned by Jews was deliberately set on fire and destroyed. Here in our home, in the villages of Karmiel

and Misgav — which has been joined with Pittsburgh through Partnership2Gether since 1995 — the rioting caused a great deal of pain. Throughout several long days, the lives of the Jewish residents in the region became difficult to bear. Driving on the roads in the Galilee after dark was so dangerous that the police instructed Jewish residents not to drive after sunset. When the fire was extinguished, and when all that was left on the roads were burnt tires, the residents of the region were faced with a difficult dilemma. How do we continue from here? The residents of Arab villages in the Karmiel and Misgav region were our friends. Good friends. We bought things from them and ate at their restaurants, and vice versa. Their children studied together with ours and went to extracurricular activities together.

The fallacy of ‘shrinking the conflict’ Guest Columnist Ivan Frank

an we, as Jewish people, recognize that our commitment to freedom must be extended to the basic rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories? The new American administration and the Israeli government together found a new approach aiming to lower the conflictual tone of the relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians. This was referred to as “shrinking the conflict.” The Americans even used the language of the hopeful “two-state solution concept.” Basically, Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid believe that lowering the

tone with the Americans and others would reduce the conflict. Israel’s leadership also thought it could lower the tone if it granted trinkets to the Palestinians — but without discussions with President Abbas, without peace, and without a two-state solution. Examples of those trinkets include: Israel pushing the nautical miles for Palestinian fishermen from Gaza further out into the Mediterranean Sea; allowing hundreds of Gazan workers to enter into Israel each day; allowing some families in the West Bank to legally reunite; and seeking loans and gifts to rebuild demolished Gaza. The Israelis thought this would pacify the Palestinians, and as one Palestinian researcher said, “lift their expectations.” Bennett, though, did not have any intention of discussing the two-state solution or any other major issues with the Palestinians. In fact, soon after the first mention of “shrinking the conflict,” Israel announced it would build 3,000 new housing units in the West Bank.

In the meantime Palestinians were still being terrorized, and a former soldier delivering water to a Palestinian village on the West Bank was beaten. In response, Defense Minister Gantz called for an investigation. Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank do not receive water on an equal basis with Israelis, nor do they have similar rights in Israeli courts, nor do they have the same socio-economic opportunities that Israelis do. And the United Nations has declared that Israeli settlements on the West Bank violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. By November 2021, the settlers’ attacks on Palestinians were so harsh that Gantz told the Israeli Army that it could not stand by idly while people and property were so harmed. I toured the Negev and the territories in 2017 with Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who runs the NGO Torat Tzedek that helps Palestinians in the territories, the Negev and Jerusalem. On that tour, we saw many Bedouin

There were Jewish residents that could not contain their anger and the feeling of deep insult. They called to boycott the Arab villages and to cut off ties with them. For some, the boycott continues today. But there were others who chose a different way. During the riots, Kibbutz Eshbal (an educator’s kibbutz funded by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh) was hit again and again by Molotov cocktails that caught fire within the kibbutz. The members, together with firefighters, managed to extinguish the fires and prevent a major disaster. It was clear that the Molotov cocktails were thrown by youth from Sachnin, the neighboring Arab village. So how did they continue? Some members of Kibbutz Eshbal decided Please see Gal, page 20

villages that were under the constant threat of demolition. The latest attacks by settlers are now taking place by uprooting olive trees and harassing their owners during the harvest season. Recently, Israel announced it would expand housing units in E1, the corridor between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which further limits the opportunity for a two-state solution. Israel also announced it will build a new settlement, 9,000 housing units at the site of Jerusalem’s former airport in Atarot, although plans for the construction have been delayed. Israeli Palestinian NGOs such as Combatants for Peace, Bereaved Parents, and the New Israel Fund have constantly intervened and tried to educate the Israeli and American public regarding the situation. To make matters worse, Gantz recently designated six Palestinian human rights Please see Frank, page 13

That time ‘I Love Lucy’ confronted antisemitism in front of millions of Americans Guest Columnist Victoria Myers

nice thing about being alive in this current moment in history is that one can say things like, “television is the great American art form” and people will actually take you seriously. And if television is the great American art form, Lucille Ball is one of its most important founders. If you haven’t seen “I Love Lucy,” please, watch more TV. “I Love Lucy” was groundbreaking for narrative television. It was the first television show shot with three cameras (hats off to Desi Arnaz for that). It was the first television show to feature a person of color in a

12 DECEMBER 24, 2021

lead role. One of its three main writers was a woman. Its success led to Lucille Ball being the first woman to own a major studio. And it brought into millions of homes a woman who was not only a funny physical comedian, but who, to this day, remains one of the most ambitious and confident women to appear on screen (even if she usually got thwarted). The first time I saw “I Love Lucy,” I was 3 years old and my mother, in desperate need of a way to keep me distracted, put me in front of the television. It was there that I saw the greatest thing I had ever seen in the entirety of my 3-year-old life: the black-andwhite image of Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo locked in a meat freezer. This was both the start of my obsession with Lucille Ball and of the television becoming my primary caretaker. Over the years, I watched every “I Love Lucy”

episode I could find on VHS. One of my favorite episodes was “Pioneer Women.” This episode is most commonly known as the one where Lucy bakes a 20-foot loaf of bread, but it’s really about discrimination and antisemitism. “Pioneer Women” aired in the spring of 1952 as part of the first season of “I Love Lucy.” In the episode, Lucy and Ethel bet Ricky and Fred to see who can last longer living like it’s 1900. This means giving up all modern conveniences, fashions and technology. Over the course of the episode, Ricky commutes to work via horse and buggy, Ethel churns butter, and Lucy bakes that famous loaf of bread. As a kid, I loved all of this and would re-enact it with my favorite American Girl Doll, Kirsten, herself a pioneer, and think about the great future that lay ahead of us in vaudeville.

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But the episode’s secondary story is where things really get interesting. Lucy and Ethel have applied for membership to an exclusive women’s club, The Society Matrons’ League. At the end of the episode, two representatives from the club show up for a surprise home inspection in order to “look them over.” They arrive to find the Ricardos and Mertzes dressed in their 1900’s garb complete with a butter churn in the living room. Lucy and Ethel are distraught thinking this will ruin their chance of acceptance, but Ricky comes to the rescue by saying that the reason they’re dressed so strangely is because they are rehearsing an act for his club. This backfires. To the Society Matrons’ League the one thing worse than having eccentric taste is being a “show person.” The Please see Lucy, page 20

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Opinion Chronicle poll results: Mitzvah Day

ast week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an electronic poll the following question: “Will you be participating in this year’s Mitzvah Day on Dec. 26?” Of the 121 people who responded, 44% said they do not participate in Mitzvah Day, and 34% said that while they have participated in Mitzvah Day in the past, they will not do so this year. Seventeen percent of those who responded said they would be participating with an in-person mitzvah and 5% said they would be doing a virtual mitzvah. Thirty-five people submitted comments. A few follow. A tradition in our family!

more sense in Elul, not aligned with a Christian holiday.

Too many volunteers were scheduled and there was nothing to do.

An organized Mitzvah Day would make

I am overextended in my volunteer work

outlawed them because Israel has not found a way to find them guilty of fraud. This fall, The Washington Post published two separate surveys of political and social scientists, and the results indicated that the percentage of those who do not believe that a two-state solution is possible rose from 50% to 57% from February 2021 to September 2021. Many of those same social

— LETTERS — Love for Jewish Pittsburgh from afar

I grew up in Pittsburgh, and now that I live across the United States on an island outside of Seattle, Washington, I love reading about my hometown in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. I love the memories, I love recognizing the names of people I know, and I love having this connection to Pittsburgh! Go you, you thriving Pittsburgh Jewish Community! Susan Cohen Freeland, Washington

Greenfield has long been welcoming to Jews — and everyone else

Concerning the article about Yeshiva Schools receiving funding to remodel St. Rosalia, by David Rullo (Dec. 17): Dr. Chaim Oster is quoted, “I don’t know that Chabad is the only reason for growth in Greenfield but I’m confident that it’s one of the primary reasons.” Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum is quoted saying about the Greenfield community, “They’ve been remarkably welcoming to us,” and “They’re looking to maybe do some joint projects with us in the community.” These representatives of Chabad imply that there were no good schools for Jews to attend until they arrived. As a Jewish Greenfielder — born and raised and now living there as a long-time active member of the community — I disagree. I attended public school there and sent my son to public school there as well. Public schools in Greenfield and Squirrel Hill have benefited all students attending them, including the Jewish students. Maybe our public schools also have been improved by having our demanding parents in the neighborhoods. I also attended religious school and became a bat mitzvah at B’nai Emunoh in Greenfield. My mother lived on that same Murray Avenue block when she was a child, in the 1930s. There have been Jews living, working and attending school in Greenfield for a very long time. Moreover, the neighborhood has not been lacking in development (I served on the Greenfield Development & Transportation Committee for many years). When someone moves into Greenfield, we welcome that person as a full-fledged Greenfielder, an equal stakeholder in our community. We expect you at our Memorial Day observance at Boulevard Drive, and you should consider racing your children on the Fourth of July in Magee Field. We invite you to be an active participant in the neighborhood, a part of “us.” Greenfield is proud to be one of the most diverse, welcoming and egalitarian neighborhoods PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

17%

Yes. I signed up to do an in-person mitzvah.

Did it previously with a friend and we were not well-received. Will not do it again.

If we weren’t going to be out of town, we would definitely participate. A great day!

groups as terrorist organizations. These six groups are all respected by international human rights groups, and Al Huq has even won numerous international awards. It is believed by some thinkers that Gantz

a virtual mitzvah.

Not on Mitzvah Day, but I am volunteering on Christmas for a community event for the needy.

I’m in Florida for the winter and I will try to do something in Florida.

Continued from page 12

Will you be participating in this year’s Mitzvah Day on December 26? 5% Yes. I signed up to do

With the rise, again, of various COVID strains (and I’m guessing most participants will be jabbed) I don’t want to be with a lot of people I don’t know.

I wish there were more in-person activities at the South Hills Jewish Community Center as in the past.

Frank:

at the moment. I can’t add another activity!

34%

44%

No. I do not participate in Mitzvah Day.

We are traveling this year but we so enjoyed Mitzvah Day in the past. It is such a wonderful yearly event as is the idea behind it! I give a lot of charitable donations independent of Mitzvah Day. Every day is Mitzvah Day. We participated for many years, but not in 2020 or 2021 due to both COVID concerns and elimination of the activity we performed. Hoping next year. ... PJC — Toby Tabachnick

No. I have participated in the past but not this year.

This week’s Chronicle poll question:

Do you plan to have, or did you have, Chinese food on either Dec. 24 or Dec. 25? Go to our website, pittsburghjewish chronicle.org, to respond. PJC

scientists believe that Israel is akin to an apartheid state (59% in February, rising to 65% in September). Can we as Jewish people, who recognize the value of freedom, ignore that the Palestinians are being denied the human rights which Israelis enjoy? If we ignore that struggle and allow the new Israeli zealots and the government to destroy the possibility

of a two-state solution while they use reactionary excuses of the difficult history of both peoples, then we will allow the conflict to grow. Thus, we too will be responsible for ignoring the struggle for freedom for all people that represents the true values that Jewish people hold close to their hearts. PJC Ivan Frank lives in Squirrel Hill.

in the City of Pittsburgh. We are glad you will be filling those buildings in the heart of our neighborhood, putting the sounds of children back onto that corner. (Please mind that there is a funeral home across the street.) We already miss the presence of St. Rosalia, where many Greenfielders attended school. We also miss their Lenten Fish Fry. Perhaps, Chabad, you might consider holding a fish fry in the weeks before Pesach, just to be neighborly. Audrey N. Glickman Greenfield

Hebrew calendar unites Jews worldwide

In regard to “A Diaspora calendar to revive Jewish life” (Dec. 17): Seriously!? Jews throughout the world are united through the Hebrew (not Diaspora) calendar. Perhaps United States Jewry considers itself “entitled” to create their own calendar and to separate themselves from Jews throughout the world. I was born, raised and educated in Pittsburgh in a Conservative family. We were affiliated with Beth Shalom synagogue. I’ve lived in Israel for five decades. I have always found it comforting to know that when I say at Rosh Hashanah, “Gut yahr, gut yontif, shana tova,” that I am sharing that with the millions of Jews throughout the world on that same day. Perhaps synagogues in the United States should be less worried about their membership enlistment and pay more attention to the basics of Judaism rather than water their principles down to fit what is popular and or profitable. Carol Hoffman Tel Aviv, Israel We invite you to submit letters for publication. Letters must include name, address and daytime phone number; addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters may not exceed 500 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Mail, fax or email letters to:

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 13

Headlines CDS: Continued from page 1

said that before the merger, both schools were struggling. When the two schools decided to combine, she explained, they reached out to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to see if they could form a committee to help hammer out the details of the merger. The newly configured CDS was located on the corner of Forbes and Denniston avenues in Squirrel Hill. Students from the South Hills were transported to the school on a bus donated by a family. In 1991, CDS became part of the JEI, a citywide umbrella agency for Jewish education. During that time, the student body grew to close to 400 students. The school moved to its current location on Forward Avenue in Squirrel Hill in 1996. Two years later, Frank Smizik was brought on as principal. He is credited with adding an interscholastic sports program and other extracurricular activities. When Smizik retired in 2004, Avi Baran Munro was hired as head of school, a move Harris Askin said was pivotal. “She was the guiding force,” Harris Askin said. “Her leadership, I think, is what caused the school to rise to the ranks that it has. She’s very astute. She’s an educator in her heart and

Antisemitism: Continued from page 1

exist,” Cole said. The second incident occurred at a party. Cole was chatting about music when someone kept asking him about Israel and Palestine. “It felt strange,” Cole said. “I don’t think it was blatantly antisemitic rhetoric, but it felt like it had antisemitic undercurrents.” The way the questions kept coming, “I understood it to be that as a Jew, as an American Jew, I somehow needed to have an opinion on Israel,” he said. Cole found that troubling, he said, because “American Jews are not a monolith. We all are entitled to our opinions, whether that is having any opinion at all or none.” For a significant minority of Jewish students, antisemitism is a part of college life. In the last year, a third of Jewish college students say they’ve experienced it, according to a survey by Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League. Cole said he’s been spending time thinking about his Jewish identity as well as his reactions to the two incidents he recently experienced on campus. After the person at the party kept asking him about Israel and Palestine, he immediately mentioned the episode to friends. But he kept the episode with the gamers to himself for days. “It was just so shocking,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk about it. I felt like I had nowhere to go with it.” His reactions aren’t surprising. According to the ADL-Hillel survey, most incidents of antisemitism and microaggressions go unreported. Delilah Hollander, a 19-year-old freshman at Chatham University, said she hasn’t 14 DECEMBER 24, 2021

soul and she’s the kind of leader that, if she doesn’t know, she knows how to find out.” Munro first worked as the school’s curriculum coordinator and lower school head. She left the school after the birth of her fourth child when she needed a more flexible schedule. The path back to CDS began when Munro was asked to serve on the school’s search committee for a new principal after Smizik’s retirement. She remembers being impressed with the board’s vision for the position and the school. Several friends suggested Munro apply for the position herself, but her lack of administration, fundraising and governance experience caused her to question whether she would be qualified for the role. “I didn’t really think about running a school,” Munro said. “I am an educator. I am passionate about education.” After seeking guidance from several people, she resigned from her position on the search committee and applied for the job. Munro credits the support she has received from the school’s board and staff for the success of CDS, which, she said, is widely considered to be a valued community asset. She pointed to the Gary and Nancy Tuckfelt Keeping Tabs: A Holocaust Sculpture as an example. The sculpture, in the shape of a Star of David, is constructed of glass blocks filled with 6 million soda tabs collected and counted by CDS students over 18 years, representing the number of Jews murdered

by the Nazis during the Holocaust. “To accomplish something that big and have it seen as a community treasure, it was very meaningful for all of us to accomplish that for the community,” Munro said. Appreciation for CDS is reflected in the fact that alumni, such as Rachel Albert, often enroll their children at the school. Albert, who graduated in 1995, said CDS gave her a foundation of education and Jewish values that she has carried through her life — and it is something she is happy to pass along to her children. In fact, Albert had initially enrolled her son, Jonah, at Pittsburgh Colfax K-8, but the insecurity created by COVID-19 motivated her to enroll both of her children at her alma mater. “The uncertainty of the pandemic and what was going on at the time made us feel like it was time to make a change,” she said. “Both my kids are thriving — socially, emotionally and academically. And when I say academically, I mean from both a secular and religious perspective.” Joshua Breslau, chair of the school’s 50th anniversary committee, said there will be a series of events taking place to celebrate CDS, including a party on Jan. 29. The anniversary, he said, “is being used as an opportunity to connect to alumni, who have graduated over the last 50 years. As you can imagine, they are all over the world. And it’s about recognizing past presidents and building

a website that allows people to share their photos and memories and reconnect to each other.” He said the anniversary will allow the school to fundraise and establish resources to put CDS on stronger ground moving forward. Weinstein said CDS has evolved to offer outstanding educational opportunities, a focus on Jewish values and the ability to cultivate students. “That’s what has most impressed me over the years about the school,” she said. “It’s very nurturing. You want your kids to learn as much as they can, but to be nurtured. That’s where the school has gone and I’m very proud to be a part of its history.” Munro, too, is proud of the school, saying it offers a “progressive, pluralistic education” with “a vision of a distinctively excellent, private school for Jewish families.” She’s thrilled with the success of the school and the work of its educators, especially during COVID, when teachers had to adapt to the changing scenarios caused by the pandemic. “I have a lot of optimism for the future of our school and the future of this kind of Jewish community that really embraces all and doesn’t try to water down or diminish the Jewish substance or depth of what we teach,” she said. “We take it really seriously, and people appreciate the learning.” PJC

encountered any overt antisemitism on campus but that she’s been treated differently because of her ties to Israel, where she spent a gap year before college. “It’s something people know about me and something I post about on social media,” she said. Hollander believes her online presence initially precluded relationship-building on campus. She said classmates avoided her in the beginning of the semester and that their hesitancy was hurtful. “People think I’m some angry radicalist who will scream at them for expressing their view, which is obviously not something I would do,” she said. As the semester went on, however, Hollander found spaces where she could engage in dialogue. “College students are conscious of these issues,” she said. “It’s something that’s being worked on and recognized, and trying to be solved by students and faculty.” Sam Zukerman, an 18-year-old freshman at Robert Morris University, grew up in O’Hara Township and graduated from Fox Chapel High School before arriving on campus. Zuckerman said he hasn’t experienced any antisemitism at Robert Morris. “I believe that it’s around and exists, but it’s very minor,” he said. “I doubt I will ever see it anytime as a student.” Zuckerman’s sentiment is consistent with findings from the ADL-Hillel survey: 71% of students said they felt safe as Jews on campus, while 67% described their campus as welcoming and supportive of Jewish students. Gabe Dweck, a Carnegie Mellon University sophomore, said the statistics are in line with his experience. He said even after a group of people painted “Israel is an apartheid state”

on the Fence at CMU in May 2021, he wasn’t too concerned, and five months later, a separate group of students painted “Stronger Than Hate” on the same spot. Ultimately, the amount of publicity the Fence gets is problematic, Dweck, 19, explained. “It’s a massive message on campus and it can be done by three people.” CMU has more than 7,000 undergraduates. If a group of 10 people painted a statement on the Fence, it only represents a small percentage of the student body. Dweck said he understands how students can feel threatened by such incidents, but he’s found nothing but “overwhelming support” since arriving on campus after transferring from the University of Pittsburgh. “I consider myself an Orthodox Jew,” he said. “I keep kosher. I’m pretty comfortable here.” Dweck noted that his roommate isn’t Jewish, yet was so concerned with making Dweck feel comfortable at CMU that their kitchen is now kosher. “I think being on campus in Pittsburgh has opened my eyes to how accepting people are, and that’s not what you expect when you look at what’s happening at other campuses,” he said. Sadie Hilf, who is midway through her senior year at Grove City College, is the only Jewish student at the Christian college located 58 miles north of Pittsburgh. Being a party of one, though, hasn’t resulted in a negative collegiate experience. Hilf has friends on campus, is a cheerleader and majors in mechanical engineering. She also spent last summer in the Jewish state as part of Onward Israel and is an active member of Rimon, an international student-led movement seeking to reimagine Israel education at colleges. Hilf, 21, described her own college

and fellow students as “very pro-Israel.” Grove City regularly organizes trips to Israel, and classmates are constantly asking what they can do to help during times of international turmoil. Hilf did, however, recall a “major” antisemitic event. Following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, she tried to explain to another student how neo-Nazis were among those rioting in D.C. The conversation quickly spiraled, and during a subsequent mediation with the chaplain the student called Hilf a “kike.” Hilf reported the incident to the ADL and spoke with Grove City administrators. She said the college handled the situation “the best they could.” The bigger issue, Hilf said, is what’s occurring on less supportive campuses. In many places, students are arriving for school and being exposed to aggressive marketing from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. College students see these messages and want to make a difference, but at the same time “don’t know the full scope of the organizations they’re getting involved in. They don’t know that BDS is harmful to Israelis and Palestinians.” At the same time, students who want to support Israel or maintain a public Jewish identity need to master a lot of knowledge and jargon. They are expected to understand the 1967 borders, Oslo Accords and potential impacts of a “one-state, two-state or threestate solution.” Yet, on the flipside, someone can just say “Israel is an apartheid state” and others “get on board with that,” Hilf said. There needs to be an easier way for college students to be Jewish and pro-Israel, Hilf said, “otherwise you’ll be fighting a losing battle for the next 50 years.” PJC

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

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

Headlines Scholarship: Continued from page 5

context, and I was really shocked when I came back and two months later [the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting] happened. “I try to be very aware of my role as a German, and in terms of colonialism,” Lynn said. “I try to be very aware of history and my identity, and that’s one of the driving forces for me, for sure.

Menorah: Continued from page 7

other people feel better,” she said. “He just is such an amazing person. In the hospital room he hardly complained. I could hear him laughing when I was walking up the hall. He’s always trying to look at the good side of things.” Rabbi Barbara Symons agreed, and said that’s part of the reason why Boswell was able to help so many congregants during Chanukah this year. Just after completing rehab, and right around the time he finally removed his back brace, Boswell got a call from a Temple David lay leader asking him if he could make a menorah for the congregation. Having already erected a giant electric one for himself, Boswell agreed — because that’s what he does. It didn’t matter that

“I learned so much from this exhibit, and from people from the community,” she added. At Pitt, Lynn studied the Herero genocide, a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German empire in Namibia, then German South West Africa, between 1904 and 1908. It was the first genocide of the 20th century. “Their experience has actually been recognized in Namibia … but the [Herero people] have been oppressed,” Lynn explained. “It’s been a recent attempt to have this

genocide commemorated and I found that very fascinating.” Lynn hopes to continue studying the commemoration of genocides in the U.K. for a master’s degree next year. “I’ve learned from my research and the Pittsburgh community how important commemoration is,” Lynn told the Chronicle. “I hope to go to Belfast [to see] how they work in telling their national story.” Kranson said Lynn’s star shined brightly in Pittsburgh and she expects to hear more

from and about her. “Maja tackled the exhibit with extraordinary focus, maturity and sensitivity,” Kranson told the Chronicle. “In my experience, she brings that sensitivity, focus and maturity to all of her work. She has ambitious plans to study the commemoration of genocide, and I cannot think of a student better poised to take on this important work.” PJC

Boswell was using a walker, or that in order to fashion the piece he’d first have to creep to his garage, retrieve materials and then work at another station. “I was able to do a lot of it while sitting,” Boswell said. Furthermore, making the 7-by-6-foot pine menorah required little more than following his own instructions. “I build these things in my head all the time,” he said. Boswell estimates that apart from spending about $220 on materials, for which the congregation reimbursed him, he dedicated between 16 and 20 hours of labor. “The part that took the longest was the boxes,” he said. At the top of each of the menorah’s branches is an individual container holding a glass vessel containing approximately one-and-a-half cups of oil. It’s a far reach to the top of each box — but Boswell took that into consideration.

In order to light the wick within each box, a person standing on the ground can use one of Boswell’s handmade torches — wooden sticks with white cotton socks draped at the ends. It’s one of several touches, like a Star of David, Boswell added in order to “gingerbread” the menorah, he said. When the large menorah was finally used at Temple David, Boswell was pleased to see his creation. “Everybody was commenting about it,” he said. “They were going on about how beautiful it was.” Symons agreed and noted how the menorah reflects its maker. “That Randy Boswell created this chanukiah this year is a testament to his own fighting spirit and ability to bring light to others,” she said. Boswell said he’s humbled by the kind words so many people offered, and

is just “proud” he could contribute to the congregation. “I always want to be able to continue to do so, and this kind of helped me get back into it,” he said. In the process of taking down his own personal oversized menorah on his lawn, Boswell had a fright. As he was holding the fiberglass menorah onto his dolly, it somehow slid off and broke. This time, however, instead of jumping backwards upon a scare, Boswell stood still. “You learn from your mistakes,” he said. “I’m out of that stage from trying to stop things from falling.” And lest anyone fret about Boswell’s broken menorah, the situation is already under control. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have some ideas how to fix it.” PJC

Subsidized dance classes for Jewish women offered in Squirrel Hill

hanks to a grant from the SteelTree Fund — a project of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh — weekly modern dance classes are available to Jewish women for a suggested donation of $3 per class. Dubbed “The Rikud Dance Company,” the classes are held on Sundays from noon to 1 p.m. at Bodiography Center for Movement, 5824 Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill, and are taught by a professional instructor. (Class will not meet on Dec. 26, but will resume on Jan. 2). “No prior training is required,” Susan Jablow, a member of the class said. “Past classes have been attended by everyone from beginners to those with years of dance training. Women of all ages and from any background are encouraged to participate. The classes are intended to build community, enhance health and nurture artistic expression.” To register, or for more information, contact Elektra Davis at Elektra@ bodiography.com. Participants must wear masks. PJC

u The Rikud Dance Company

Photo courtesy of Maria Caruso

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

Federation makes final COVID relief distributions

he Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh made its final COVID-19 relief distribution on Dec. 14, providing a total of $121,000 to four Pittsburgharea Jewish organizations. Since 2020, the Federation has provided a total of $9,750,450 to help preserve health and education in Pittsburgh and overseas during the pandemic. Following the latest distribution, the Federation’s COVID Relief Committee disbanded. “The pandemic is not over, and many people are still in emergency situations,” Jeffrey Finkelstein, the Federation’s president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “The Federation will continue to support Jewish agencies that help those devastated by COVID. What the end of the COVID Relief Committee means is that the Federation has incorporated COVID-related projections into budgeting and fundraising goals. With COVID infections rising locally, need

remains acute and so does our collective responsibility for community members.” The final distributions will fund COVID testing for staff at Jewish Residential Services; a financial counselor for JFunds’ clients (the distribution was to Jewish Family and Community Services); COVIDrelated staffing and response at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh; and support for staff and testing at the Jewish Association on Aging. Members of the COVID Relief Committee were: Meryl Ainsman (chair); David Burstin; Alan Himmel; Judi Kanal; Simone Karp; Dr. Matthew A. Keller; Jan Levinson; Marsha Marcus; Marcie Solomon; David Sufrin; and Woody Ostrow. The $9,750,450 of the Federation’s COVID relief included $2.5 million from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation. PJC — Toby Tabachnick

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— Toby Tabachnick

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 15

Life & Culture Easy and elegant: Panna cotta In a glass bowl, add the milk, then sprinkle the gelatin powder over it. You may need to use 2 packets of powdered gelatin to get a full tablespoon. Most packets contain about 2 teaspoons of powder. I find that Lieber’s plain clear gelatin works well. Let sit for 5 minutes. You will see a film on top of the milk. Pour the milk and gelatin mixture into a large saucepan and bring to just under a boil over medium heat. Be careful during this step because you don’t want the gelatin to dissolve, which happens if it goes into a full boil. Slowly stir in the cream, honey, sugar and salt with a whisk. Continuously stir for 6-7 minutes or until the granulated sugar has dissolved. If you want to make the orange version, whisk in the orange zest. Remove the pan from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes if you’re going to be using glass or ceramic cups to serve. If you’re using plastic cups, allow to cool for an additional 5 minutes. Pour into cups or glasses of your choice until they are half full, leaving room to add the fruit when it’s time to serve. I’ve used crystal wine glasses, ramekins and even small glass cups with lids. Refrigerate 6-8 hours, or up to 2 days before serving. These usually keep well for 4-5 days. Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

— FOOD — By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

anna cotta is a lovely dessert or special snack that both children and adults enjoy. I think a lot of us buy prepared puddings and other milky desserts because we don’t realize how simple it is to make them at home. I’m sharing my basic recipe, which is beautiful with fresh berries, but you can choose any seasonal fruit. I’m also including an option to add orange zest, which creates an elevated version of an orange Creamsicle. A word of warning: Do not substitute the whole milk for something with lower fat or the pudding won’t set. This is a great make-ahead dessert if you have the refrigerator space for it. Ingredients: 1 cup whole milk 1 tablespoon plain gelatin 3 cups whipping cream ⅓ cup honey 1 tablespoon sugar Pinch of salt Fresh fruit, or 1 rounded teaspoon orange zest (for the orange version)

16 DECEMBER 24, 2021

p Panna cotta

Photo by Jessica Grann

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Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

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Life & Culture A chat with the son who wrote the viral obituary for his ‘plus-sized Jewish lady redneck’ mother — CULTURE — By Julia Gergely | JTA

hen Andy Corren’s mother, Renay Mandel Corren, died on Dec. 11 in El Paso, Texas, at age 84, he did what many bereaved children with a creative bent would do: He wrote an obituary. “A more disrespectful, trash-reading, talking and watching woman in NC, FL or TX was not to be found,” Corren wrote in the obituary that was published in the Fayetteville Observer, the newspaper of the North Carolina city where Mandel Corren lived for many years. He honored his “plussized Jewish lady redneck” mother thusly: “Hers was an itinerant, much-lived life, a Yankee Florida liberal Jewish Tough Gal who bowled ’em in Japan, rolled ’em in North Carolina and was a singularly unique parent.” The loving yet warts-and-all obituary of the “zaftig good-time gal” quickly went viral after crime writer Sarah Weinman tweeted it on Wednesday evening to her 380,000-plus followers. This was much to the surprise of Corren, who describes himself in the obituary as “her favorite son, the gay one who writes catty obituaries in his spare time, Andy Corren, of — obviously — New York City.” “When it comes to writing, you meet

people where they are,” Corren told the New York Jewish Week, of how his words captured his mother’s essence. “That was the crux of my mother’s genius, it was to just completely meet you where you live.” In the obituary, Corren describes his mother, who was known as Rosie, as someone who “played cards like a shark, bowled and played cribbage like a pro, and laughed with the boys until the wee hours, long after the last pin dropped.” She was also, at some point during the 1980s, according to the tribute, “the 11th or 12th-ranked woman in cribbage in America, and while that could be a lie, it sounds great in print.” Corren, a talent manager and writer who splits his time between New York and Los Angeles, said he never expected the obituary to go viral. In hindsight, though, he said he understands why the piece touched so many — and that it’s a fitting coda to his mother’s legacy. “This time of the year, with the pandemic, the government, and the environment, things are feeling really bad. It’s nice to laugh, too,” he said. “That was my mother’s specialty, laughing in the face of quite a bit of tragedy.” Corren is one of Mandel Corren’s six children, and said he grew up in the ’70s and ’80s on a military base in Fayetteville. The

family is “100% Jewish,” he said, although he stressed they were non-denominational and not particularly observant. Funds were often low; in the obituary, Corren mentions his mother’s poor credit rating, multiple bankruptcies — and, intriguingly, an alleged affair with Larry King in the 1960s. “Obviously there are poor Jews,” Corren said. “People just aren’t used to hearing that side of the story.” Corren’s grandparents on his mother’s side were Hungarian Jews who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s who settled in Miami, and his father’s parents were Brooklyn Jews, themselves the children of Jewish immigrants. His maternal grandparents, Corren explained, were deeply religious. His mother, however, was less spiritually or religiously invested in Judaism as much as she was culturally — actually, make that culinarily — interested. He remembers how his grandparents would bring Jewish deli items with them whenever they visited from Miami, and Corren took up the tradition when he moved out of North Carolina. “My mother never lived near a Jewish deli,” he explained, “so I was constantly traveling with oily meats and stinky tongue from Katz’s in my checked suitcase to bring back for her.” “She was a Jew, and she was a proud Jew,” Corren told the Jewish Week. “It was a

p The late Renay Mandel Corren and her son Andy, whose obituary for his mother went viral

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humongous part of her self-image and her projected one, which is that she was a Jewish girl through and through, from McKeesport [Pennsylvania, where she was born] and until the day she died in El Paso.” For those interested in a “very disrespectful and totally non-denominational memorial,” Corren and his siblings are planning a party at B&B Lanes in Fayetteville on May 10, 2022. “Bowling parties were a feature of our life growing up,” he said. “My mom worked at the bowling alley and that is exactly how we’re going to send her off on her birthday.” Corren’s tribute to his mother has now been shared tens of thousands of times. Some people online said they plan to attend the memorial; others offered compliments such as, “This brief, brilliant obituary is funnier and more moving than most of the novels I’ve read in my lifetime.” Twitter can be a “deranged cesspool,” Corren admits, “but it’s also this magical, charmed place where the story of a heavyset matriarch of this dirtbag American family justifiably gets her praises sung for surviving, for thriving, and for raising kids.” “Please think of the brightly-frocked, frivolous, funny and smart Jewish redhead who is about to grift you, tell you a filthy joke, and for Larry King’s sake: LAUGH,” the obituary concludes. “Bye, Mommy. We loved you to bits.” PJC

Photo courtesy of Andy Corren

DECEMBER 24, 2021 17

Celebrations

Torah

Engagement

What’s in a name? Everything. Randy Frankel, Terri Greenberg, and Debbie Frankel are thrilled to announce the marriage of their son David Frankel to Jamie Mayer, daughter of Julie and Joel Mayer of Los Angeles, California. David and Jamie were married on Nov. 21, 2021, at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. They both graduated from the University of Michigan. David is employed by LinkedIn and Jamie works for ReviewTrackers. The newlyweds reside in Chicago, Illinois with their dog Frankie. PJC

Nazi flag flying in Etna

A posting on Nextdoor showing a photoNazi flag has been displayed outside graph of the home and the flag caught the a home on Dewey Street in Etna for attention of Jewish residents throughout the past several weeks, according Greater Pittsburgh, according to Brokos. to Shawn Brokos, director of community “It is frustrating when we security for the Jewish see actions such as this,” she Federation of Greater said. “And it is a reminder Pittsburgh. The flag was that we cannot control the hung by a tenant living actions of others. But that in the residence and not is why we work hard in our by the owner of the propcommunity to protect our erty, Brokos said. citizens, whether through The flag was first training or physical security displayed several months enhancements. We teach ago, Brokos said, and was situational awareness, and brought to her attention p Nazi flag flying the importance of reporting. by a Jewish community outside home in Etna And that provides a sense of member. At that time, “the Screenshot from Nextdoor agency when the actions of situation was addressed,” others are beyond our control.” and the tenant did take the flag down, but Brokos urged community members to rehung it in November. continue to report antisemitic incidents or “The Federation is working with law enforcement and community members to displays to the Federation’s security team at address this from both a security perspec- jewishpgh.org/security. PJC tive and a community relations perspective,” Brokos told the Chronicle. — Toby Tabachnick

Join the Chronicle Book Club: ‘The Lost Shtetl’

he Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club’s Jan. 30 meeting, when we will be discussing “The Lost Shtetl” by Max Gross, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for 2020 and the Jewish Fiction Award. From Amazon.com: “What if there was a town that history missed? For decades, the tiny Jewish shtetl of Kreskol existed in happy isolation, virtually untouched and unchanged. Spared by the Holocaust and the Cold War, its residents enjoyed remarkable peace. It missed out on cars, and electricity, and the internet, and indoor plumbing. But when a marriage dispute spins out of control, the whole town comes crashing into the twenty-first century.”

Your Hosts

How It Works

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, Jan. 30, at noon to discuss the book. As you read it, we invite you to share comments and join discussions in our Facebook group, Chronicle Connects: Jewish PGH. We invite you to join now if you are not already a member of the group.

What To Do

Buy: “The Lost Shtetl.” It is available from online retailers. Email: Contact us at drullo@pittsburghjewish chronicle.org, and write “Chronicle Book Club” in the subject line. We will send you a Zoom link for the meeting. See you in next month! PJC

Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel Parshat Shemot | Exodus 1:1 – 6:1

he second book of the Torah is called “Shemot.” Is that because that is the second word of the book? Or is there a deeper reason for that name? The word “Shemot” means “names.” The first verse states, “These are the names of the Children of Israel who came to Egypt,” and the Torah continues with their names. But what is the significance of the word “names” to the grand tale of the slavery and redemption of the Children of Israel which follows those introductory lines? In fact, “Shemot” is the secret to surviving exile. Exile causes far more than physical suffering. The misery and the oppression threaten a person’s very essence, causing them to forget who they are. They end up without an identity, and that is the ultimate human tragedy. A person reduced to a use. The Children of Israel emerged from Egypt with their identity intact. Their faith in G-d, which they inherited from their parents and grandparents, was there for them when they needed it to follow Moses to freedom. They

retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation. And it is the last purpose, rehabilitation, that pains me. Much is said about it, but to our misfortune and national shame, not enough is actually done about it. Too often, a person emerges from prison worse off than when he or she came in. They have been ruined, not rehabilitated. My purpose here is not to cast aspersions or assign blame. Instead, perhaps we could take a page out of the Torah and institute a simple, easy measure: Prisoners should be called by their names. Prison staff and guards risk nothing by simply using the prisoners’ names. The more dignity afforded a prisoner, the more dignified the prisoner can become. And certainly dignity lies right at the soul of rehabilitation. By using the inmate’s given name, we help him or her recall their true identity: who they really are, what they really believe and what they stand for. Is this asking too much? I think it is not. We are told that the Children of Israel not only emerged from exile stronger and better than before, but also that their stay in Egypt elevated Egypt itself. Imagine if inmates felt that their stay in prison was a mission to make prisons better places and to improve the lives of their fellow inmates?

Their faith in G-d, which they inherited from their parents and grandparents, was there for them when they needed it to follow Moses to freedom. They knew who they were and what they believed in and stood for. knew who they were and what they believed in and stood for. That saved them. And how did they retain their identity? Where did they get that strength and ability from? From their names. Before lowering them into slavery and exile, G-d calls them by name. “These are the names of the Children of Israel coming to Egypt: Reuven! Shimon! Levi!” and so on. By calling them by name, G-d imprints in their identities, deep in their minds and hearts — deeper than exile can reach. They are called by their names, and their names enable them to hold on to themselves, to keep their wits about them through the most dehumanizing experiences, and to emerge on the other end, not only alive and well, but stronger than before — ready to receive the Torah at Sinai. That is the power of a name. As the director of the Aleph Institute Northeast, an organization dedicated to the lives and needs of Jewish men and women behind bars, this message hits a raw nerve in my heart. Prison has four purposes:

What might a sense of a higher purpose do for a dispirited man or women, whose lack of purpose played a large part in the crime they’re now paying for? Doubtless, assisting the prisoners in discovering a healthy sense of identity and purpose would go a long way in making their stay behind bars a productive and constructive one, leading to a vastly higher chance of their returning to society as self-respecting members, contributing to the welfare of those around them. Then, if inmates are motivated and empowered to penitence, prisons will have earned their title of “penitentiaries.” All that just by using people’s names? This is a simple and powerful lesson from the Torah, one that we who work with inmates ought to take to heart and, more importantly, take to work. PJC Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel is executive director of The Aleph Institute — North East Region. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Pittsburgh.

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

— Toby Tabachnick

18 DECEMBER 24, 2021

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Headlines BERG: Judith E. Berg. On Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021, age 78, of Penn Hills. Beloved wife of 48 years to Joel H. Berg. Stepmother of Stacey (Mary Brandt) Berg, Mitchell (Roberta) Berg, and Rachel (Colleen O’Brien) Berg. Sister of Stephen (Kathlene) Marlovits, Jr., and Frances (Charles) Peronne. Dear friend and cousin of Randy (Janie) Thomas. Also survived by loving cousins, nieces and nephews. Friends were received Sunday, Dec. 19, 2021, at the Hahn FH & Cremation Services Inc. 123 North Avenue, Millvale. Mass of Christian Burial was held Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, at St. Matthew’s Parish, Holy Spirit Church. Judy was a loving wife, a lifelong Penguins and Steelers fan, a lover of cats and a generous spirit. In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to the charity of your choice. LANDERMAN: Edgar “Ed” Israel Landerman, beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, uncle and friend to many, passed away peacefully in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. He was 98-and-ahalf years young. His wisdom, humor, generosity and insight will be sorely missed by all. In 1944, he graduated from Carnegie Technology Institute, now Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with a degree in metallurgical engineering. He obtained a master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh in the same field. He briefly served in the United States Army and was honorably discharged. Ed’s career as a metallurgical engineer, with a specialty in nuclear power, continued at Westinghouse for a span of 35 years. Ed took great pride in being an integral part of four advisory engineering committees to oversee standards that ensured the safety of nuclear power worldwide. At the center of Ed’s life was his beloved family. Inkie, his wife of 53 years, was his true soul mate and together they raised their cherished daughters. He took pure pleasure in his role as the family patriarch.Ed was an active participant/board member for Allegheny County MH/MR, Allegheny County Board of Public Assistance, Outward Bound at CMU, and PERSAD (founding member with Inkie). Ed was always active in Democratic campaigns on into his 90s when he served as a Democratic Committee man for his ward. He dedicated his time and enthusiasm to organizations such as the Chautauqua Soviet Union Program, Japan/America Society, the

Career Development Center of the Jewish Family and Children’s Services, and the Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh (board member), Parkinson’s Chapter of Western Pennsylvania, and the American Jewish Committee-Pittsburgh Chapter. Ed and his wife were among the Founders of NEED (Negro Educational Emergency Drive), a scholarship program for regional students. Ed’s involvement in ALL (Academy of Lifelong Learning) OSHER at CMU was also a source of great pride for him, serving as one of the 40 founding members and co-chairs of the curriculum committee. Ed was extremely social ... always loved a party, the bigger the better. He was an avid tennis player, winning several tennis championships in his late 80s. He took tango lessons and tap-dancing lessons with his daughter Emily in his mid-80’s, following up with attendance at lectures and theater. Ed and Inkie took many trips to New Hampshire to visit his daughter Laura and her family. Ed was a longtime member of the Tree of Life Congregation and in later years, at Rodef Shalom. The latter included active involvement in the Temple Brotherhood there, being named Volunteer of the Year. In 2011, the Jewish Association on Aging honored him as one of the “8 Over 80” awardees for his contributions.Ed was predeceased by his parents, Rae and Morris Landerman, and sister Hilda (Lou) Frank and brother Nathaniel (Nancy) Landerman. He is survived by his daughters and sons-in-laws, Emily (Landerman) and Richard Goldberg, Laura Landerman-Garber and Ben Garber. He is also survived by his grandchildren Zoe Garber, Mollie (Garber) and Nachum Ozeri, Reid and Harrison Goldberg (Rika), as well as his cherished great-grandchildren, Leora, Gideon, Eliezer, Shmuel and Yackov. Additionally he is survived by his loving companion, Edie Twersky. Graveside services and interment were held at Homewood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh, 601 E. 8th Avenue, PO Box 798, Pittsburgh, PA 15120; Jewish Association on Aging, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217; Persad Center, 5301 Butler Street, #100, Pittsburgh, PA 15201; or Holiday Cards 4 Our Military, c/o Holiday Card Challenge, PO Box 103, Hollis, New Hampshire, 03049. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

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THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday December 26: Hyman Cohen, Bessie Coltin, Jack Ginsburg, Jesse B. Guttman, Cecile G. Kluger, Tinnie Lange, Dr. Emerson N. Milligram, Ruth Friedman Oshry, Nathan Ripp, Ralph Hyman Rosenthal, David Silverstein, Abraham Teplitz, Freda Winerman Monday December 27: Helen Bloom, Perry S. Brustein, Arthur Cohen, Ella R. Finn, Lottie Gerber, Dr. Hyman D. Goldberg, Hyman D. Dr. Goldberg, Rhea Golden, Ruth S. Harris, Miriam Kaufman, Janet Martin, Rebecca Podietz, Louis Schwartz, Isaac Sunstein, Manuel Joseph Topp, Jack E. Wise Tuesday December 28: Morris J. Ackerman, Abner Crumb, Martin Falk, Lillian Adlow Friedberg, Dr. Robert Stanley Goldbloom, Nell Schechter Greenberger, Marc Alan Hersh, Esther Horvitz, Rose Jacobson, Julius Kertman, Harry Lazier, Murray S. Love, George Marcus, Mary Zweig Miller, Mark H. Rossen, Lena Weinstein, Marian Weiss, Meyer Weiss, Ida Finkel Williams Wednesday December 29: Jeremias Becker, Simon Beigel, Leon Bluestone, Oscar Blustone, Max Boodman, Israel Chaiken, William G. Dubin, Fanny Frankel, Harry Friedman, Irving Friedman, Herbert A. Gold, Frances Kendal Haberman, Isadore E. Lample, Max T. Levine, Anna Lewis, Sol Lieber, Alvin Lippard, Joseph Littman, William Lubow, Mendel Miller, Dorothy Cottler Richman, Berel Louis Sachs, Dorothy B. Schneirov, Rose Serbin, Louis (Happy) Solomon, Lena Star, Caro Talisman, Abe Zwang Thursday December 30: Samuel Bernstein, Rose Schwartz Bodek, Charlie Brown, Pauline Caplan, Renee Cohen, Nathan Dektor, Leroy D. Fienberg, Freda Florman, Arthur W. Fried, Zola S. Heller, Sylvia Kalmick, Max Kalson, Pearl Klein, Jack Lange, Rita Marks, Byrde Marlin, Nellie E. Rudolph, Harry Selkovits, Samuel Solow, Sarah Rachel Teplitz, Morris Vinocur, Dora Zeidenstein Friday December 31: Ruth Boimel, Abraham J. Epstein, William L. Kann, Max Levenson, Esther Mallinger, Julia Mankin, Rose H. Mirskey, David Newman, Eugene Neil Reuben, Meyer M. Snyder, Rae Solomon Saturday January 1: Philip Backer, Bernard Bigg, Aaron H. Braunstein, David Dugan, Louis Fineberg, Abraham J. Friedman, Sam Gerson, Harry Glick, Nathan Greenberg, Frances S. Winsberg Gusky, Samuel Harris, Sarah Kallus, Betty Lenchner, Jacob Linder, Violet Semins Paris, Minnie Pecarsky, Charlotte Rubin, Ben Scolnik, Jacob Shapiro, Dr. Bernard J. Slone, Jennie S. Solomon, Ann Tergulitza, Freda Venetsky

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 19

Obituaries Obituaries: Continued from page 19

SCHLOSS: Phyllis Selma Schloss (Pisetsky), 85, of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, formerly of West Hartford, Connecticut, passed away peacefully at her home in Pittsburgh on Dec. 9, 2021. Phyllis was the third of five children of Mildred and Benjamin Pisetsky, and was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the loving mother of three children: Laura (Brian) Davidson of Mt. Lebanon; Renee (David) Metsch, of North Andover, Massachusetts; and Michael (Sharon) Schloss of Unionville, Connecticut. She was an adored Bubby to six grandchildren: Michelle (Brad) Caswell, Stephanie Schloss, Benjamin, Maxwell and Sarah Davidson and Benjamin Metsch. She was predeceased by her husband, Sherwin

Gal: Continued from page 12

not to let hate win. When the winds calmed, they went to Sachnin which is adjacent to Eshbal. They went to all the businesses they had supported throughout the years…and gave them flowers. “We wanted to say to them that we are still friends. We know not everyone participated in the riots and that most of the people here want to live in peace and quiet and friendship,” they said. So they went from one business to the next, and they were welcomed with excitement and joy mixed with sadness. The people of Sachnin explained that the rioters were “irresponsible teens” and that they were “against everything that happened.”

Lucy: Continued from page 12

representatives admit that a few seasons ago they did start allowing one or two “show people” — because they needed money — so they might be willing to “make allowances.” Lucy questions why, exactly, they feel the need to “make allowances” for show people. The women double down. The episode ends with Lucy telling the women that they can go back and report that she has looked them over and has no desire to be part of their club. Ricky, Fred and Ethel cheer her on, and then the four of them celebrate by eating some bread. I grew up in Ohio in a town with a country club that, up until the early ‘90s, did not admit Jews; where I was not allowed to visit some of my kindergarten classmates because I was Jewish; and where “Jews control Hollywood” was a common refrain (and something I interpreted as career advice). When the women from the Society Matrons’ League wanted to keep out “show people,” I knew exactly who that was code for: Jews. There were no Jewish characters on “I Love Lucy” (although the first iteration of Lucy’s maiden name was Teitelbaum — it was changed after it was deemed too Jewish), but there were Jews behind the scenes. Jess 20 DECEMBER 24, 2021

Schloss, and her older siblings Libby Beatman and Marvin Pisetsky. She is also survived by her younger siblings Calvin (Elaine) Price of Florida and Felda Deena Yron of Israel. She graduated from Weaver High School and Central Connecticut State University and married her high school sweetheart, “Shep,” on Dec. 15, 1957. They raised their family in West Hartford while she worked as an elementary school teacher at the Mark Twain School and taught religious school at Beth Israel. Phyllis volunteered with Meals on Wheels and earned her master’s degree as a reading specialist. She created a marvelous Jewish, home including gourmet holiday meals and weekly Shabbat dinners, and was an active member of Beth El Temple. She was an avid reader, excellent knitter and enjoyed a challenging game of bridge. Funeral services were held at Beth El cemetery, Avon, Connecticut. A service of

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A week after the riots ended we returned to our “regular” hummus place in Sachnin and were welcomed with joyful greetings of “Ahlan and Sahlan.” Over the years, we went almost every Friday afternoon to the same restaurant. We were always greeted with warmth, so we thought we should make it clear to the owners of the restaurant that we knew they were not to blame for what happened and that we had to restore the feeling of shared society that existed before the events earlier that month. The restaurant, which usually would be packed with lots of residents from Misgav and soldiers that came home for the weekend, was nearly empty. It was so sad. On the way back from Sachnin to Karmiel we passed by the Yuvalim intersection, a main junction in Misgav. There were dozens of women standing at the intersection. There was no mistaking that there were both

Jewish and Arab women, some from Misgav villages and Karmiel and some from Arab villages in the region. They stood together and gave flowers to drivers passing by the intersection and held up signs calling for peace and coexistence. As an educator I believe that everything begins and ends with education, so together with principals from other schools I took part in different initiatives attempting to rectify the situation. Countless initiatives were born under the title “Jews and Arabs refused to be enemies” — between educators, between students and between communities. In my school, this is the third year of a program called “Connecting Worlds.” Students from Jewish and Arab schools belonging to the ORT educational network connect with one another — one class from each school. The students choose a topic to study together.

This year they chose to study photography. Together they meet and take classes on photography and go on walks together to take pictures. Through joint learning, connections are made. Teens spend time with one another and discover to their surprise that they are all human. Different but also so similar… The difficult events that set Israel on fire were hard on everyone, but we all live in the same space, and no one is going anywhere. Each side has hardships and difficulties, and all we can do is find solutions of mutual respect, love and peace. PJC

Oppenheimer was the creator, producer and head writer of “I Love Lucy.” Lucille Ball was the one who asked CBS to hire Oppenheimer after she’d worked with him on “My Favorite Husband,” the radio program that was the antecedent to “I Love Lucy.” The person Ball really had to fight for CBS to hire, though, was Desi Arnaz, who would be appearing in front of the camera. Executives thought Americans wouldn’t believe that “Lucy” was married to someone who was Cuban-American. And Lucille Ball herself, although white and Protestant, had grown up in a small town where the combination of a family tragedy and liberal outlook, made her an outsider and gave her a window onto alienation from American middle-class morality. During the period when “I Love Lucy” was being produced, there were a number of Jews working in Hollywood. But no matter how well they had done, there were neighborhoods they couldn’t buy houses in, clubs they couldn’t join, and people who wouldn’t have them over. Because of this discrimination, most overt Jewishness did not make it onto the screen (a notable exception was “The Goldbergs,” a radio and later TV program), but was instead coded into seemingly non-Jewish material. Jewish viewers could often pick out the Jewish references and gestalt — and also pick out who involved was Jewish — while

non-Jews remained oblivious. Though Hollywood was in many ways created by Jews, there were lots of reminders that the ideal audience they were creating for were non-Jews, those non-“show people,” “real Americans” out there in the Midwest. Something I only came to appreciate later was exactly how clever the structure of “Pioneer Women” was in its combining of the Society Matrons’ League and the pioneer days storylines. Lucy Ricardo got up to a lot of mishegas. There was no shortage of things the writers could have had her do that would have made her a Society Matrons’ League reject, but out of all of them they chose to have a set-up that not only led to Ricky saying they were in show business, but that also had the cast dressed as a piece of Americana. As the club representatives stand there and evaluate them, it’s a reminder of how many institutions have tried to evaluate who gets to be a real American (even my American Girl doll, who had a similar costume to Lucy’s in the episode, didn’t have a Jewish counterpart until 2009). Having Lucy give her rebuke dressed as an American pioneer, highlights the notion that the concept of “real American” is as phony as a theatrical costume and that, in reality, the American story is multivariate and made up of all sorts of people. I’ve never been able to find anything that

confirms that this was the intent of “Pioneer Women.” Oppenheimer, like a lot of Jews of his generation, never spoke much publicly about antisemitism he faced, but he did have a history of adapting family history into “Lucy” episodes (an episode where Lucy can’t get a passport was based on his Americanborn mother’s citizenship being challenged). Still, for me, who first saw “Pioneer Women” 40 years after it originally aired, it was perfectly clear what it was really about. And even if the creators never commented on the true undercurrent of the episode, Lucy Ricardo’s boundless confidence in herself — whether that she could be a star or that she could tell bigots exactly what she thought of them — rubbed off on at least one viewer (me, and maybe you, too) and is another reason why “I Love Lucy” has more than earned its place in the hall of fame of the great American art form. In this next year, may “Pioneer Women” finally be made available to stream, and may we all have Lucy Ricardo’s confidence in telling antisemites to go to hell. PJC

SCHNEIER: Joseph Schneier, 62, of Squirrel Hill, on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Joe was selfless and cheerful. He was well known for his kind acts that helped so many. His great sense of humor delighted kids and grown-ups. Loving husband of Mindy Frohlich for 35 years. Caring and loyal brother to Ezra. Loving uncle to Lane. Devoted, adoring father of Sara. Graveside services and interment were held at Homewood Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com SIEGEL: Phillip Siegel (Buzer) of Boca Raton Florida, formally of Pittsburgh, passed away on Dec. 9, 2021. Beloved husband

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for 66 years of Chellee Miller Siegel. Father of Lili and Jerome Sachar, Stephen Miller Siegel and BJ and Danielle Siegel. Grandfather of Hilary (Rich Rebidue), James (Allison) Sachar, Brianne (Josh) Noparstak and Jules Siegel. Great-grandfather of Zachary and Elliot Rebidue. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, a member of ΠΛΦ fraternity. Owner of Wally Electrical Supply Company and a member of Congregation Beth Shalom Pittsburgh. Commemorative services were held at Congregation B’nai Israel of Boca Raton on Dec. 12, 2021. He will be laid to rest at South Florida National Cemetery. Phil, I will love you until my last breath. Chellee. PJC

Idith Gal lives in Karmiel, Israel, and is the Partnership2Gether co-chair. Partnership2Gether is a program of the Jewish Agency for Israel supported by the Community Campaign of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

Victoria Myers is a New York based writer who loves television and would very much like her own television show. She was born in Akron, Ohio, which is known for rubber manufacturing. This first appeared on the Forward. PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

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DECEMBER 24, 2021 21

Life & Culture — CULTURE — By Jesse Berman | Contributing Writer

here are members of the American Jewish community who may honestly have a preference for lo mein over latkes, for hunan chicken over hamantaschen, for beef with broccoli over brisket and even for a plate of moo shu chicken over (scandal of scandals) a bowl of matzah balls. Even if that’s not the case, there’s no denying that American Chinese food has become a beloved staple of the American Jewish diet. But how exactly did cuisine from East Asia gain such an important place on the Jewish dinner table? The Baltimore Jewish Times spoke with a trio of experts — Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut of the Metropolitan Synagogue of New York, author of “A Kosher Christmas: ‘Tis the Season to be Jewish;” Ted Merwin, author of “Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli;” and Jennifer 8. Lee, author of “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food” — to uncover the secret history of Jews and Chinese food.

Open for Christmas?

There is a longstanding theory that Jewish people like Chinese food because Chinese restaurants were one of the few that were open on Christmas. However, Plaut refutes this theory. He said that Chinese restaurants being open on Christmas originally had nothing to do with the start of the growing fondness of Jews for Chinese food. “Is that how the affinity began with Chinese food? Absolutely not,” said Plaut, who holds a doctorate in Judaic studies from New York University. “The affinity for eating Chinese food on Christmas was probably the last development. “Probably, it was the eating out to casual Chinese restaurants during the week, to going out on Sundays, and then from there to patronizing Chinese restaurants on Christmas,” Plaut said.

Safe treyf

Both Plaut and Merwin, who holds a doctorate from The City University of New York, said that the Jewish affinity for Chinese food originated in New York City’s Lower East Side. An early reference to Chinese food’s growing popularity in the Jewish community comes from an article from the 1920s in Der Tog, a New York-based newspaper written primarily in Yiddish. The title of the piece, said Merwin, was “Down with gefilte fish, up with chop suey.” “It obviously starts on the Lower East Side, at the turn of the 20th century, when Jews and Chinese [people] lived sort of cheek by jowl with each other, along with lots of other ethnic and immigrant groups,” said Merwin. While there were of course other immigrant communities with restaurants in the area, many had Christian iconography, such as pictures of venerated saints, that could be a turn-off to Jewish customers, Plaut explained. This, however, was not the case in Chinese restaurants, said Lee, producer of the 22 DECEMBER 24, 2021

documentary “The Search for General Tso.” She said that Chinese restaurants had a more welcoming attitude toward Jewish patrons. “At a time when a lot of Jews were very sensitive about how American they were, Chinese restaurants never looked down on Jews,” Lee said. “Because at least on the spectrum of American-ness and Eurocentric-ness, at least Jews were from Europe. So those restaurants were comfortable and welcoming in different ways.” Additionally, there was no mixing of meat and milk in Chinese restaurants, Plaut said, which was a significant plus for the restaurant-goer who was looking to keep kosher. This of course is not to say that Chinese food was inherently kosher, as many of the dishes included pork. However, this did not prove to be the obstacle one might have expected. “Chinese food uses a lot of pork and a lot of shellfish,” Lee said. “But for whatever reason, the rules were sometimes waived inside Chinese restaurants because it didn’t look like pork, it didn’t look like ham, it didn’t look like bacon, so like the little bits of meat inside an egg roll, or even, oddly, pork spare ribs, were kind of exempt from this rule. “And I still have Jewish friends who are my generation, where the families don’t eat pork except in Chinese restaurants,” Lee added. Plaut largely concurred, explaining that pork would often be hidden in things like wontons. “They considered Chinese food safe treyf,” Plaid said. “It was something they enjoyed, it wasn’t an overt violation of dietary and kosher laws, and so you could eat there, and still enjoy it with a smile on your face ... without feeling like you were really violating Jewish tradition.”

Open for business

Another important factor may have been that Chinese restaurants did not operate on a Christian calendar, said Lee. As such, they were typically open on Sundays, when many other restaurants were closed for the Christian sabbath. Plaut also believed Christian practices on Sundays had a hand in nudging Jews toward Chinese food. “[Sunday] was church day for most Americans, followed by a lunch, and American Jews may have felt left out of that Sunday tradition amongst many Americans, and therefore went out to eat at restaurants on Sundays,” Plaut said. “And the patronage included Chinese food.”

A double life

In the earliest days of this tradition, other motives for eating at Chinese establishments may have included the inherent novelty

of eating out at all, particularly for new immigrants who hadn’t had that option in the old country. “There’s this whole tradition in the 1890s that immigrants started to eat out, something they never did in Eastern Europe,” Plaut said. “And it was prevalent really among immigrants who came from Eastern Europe, not really the resident German Jews in New York.” Merwin, however, said the phenomenon began more with the children of those immigrants. “We’re really talking about the children of immigrants, and we’re talking about how they were beginning in that interwar period to move more into the mainstream of American society,” Merwin said. “I would say it’s not so much the immigrant generation, even though there was that proximity of Jews and Chinese people to each other, probably less so them, but much more so for their children, because their children wanted to be American.” Merwin saw a connection between an increase in secularization in America’s Jewish community during the early 20th century, which he saw as stemming partly from the antisemitism of the time, and the growing interest in Chinese food. “During the 1920s, there was a pretty precipitous decline in the number of Jews who were keeping kosher,” Merwin said. “There was a lot of secularization that was going on in the Jewish community.” During the 1920s and ‘30s, Jewish residents of places like Brooklyn or the Bronx might have kept kosher at home or when going out to a Sunday evening meal with their extended family, as in these situations they might be in view of their older relatives who consistently kept kosher, Merwin said. But when coming into Manhattan for their professional or social lives, these same Jews would be much more flexible about what they ate, creating a “bifurcated lifestyle” in which they kept kosher at some times while branching out to other cuisines at others.

Cosmopolitan cuisine

According to Lee, by the 1920s, eating Chinese food had become a way for American Jews to impress others socially by showing they were sophisticated, worldly and cosmopolitan, particularly those who had been born in Europe themselves. “There was a time when there were Jewish immigrants who were much more sensitive about where they had come from,” Lee said. “Many had come from rural backgrounds, and Chinese food was a way to show you were worldly and sophisticated.” Merwin saw things similarly, though he

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attributed the desire to appear cosmopolitan more to the grandchildren of Jewish immigrants in the 1950s and ‘60s. “They were into traveling to foreign places, they were into sampling all different kinds of food, they were into showing that they were really cultured,” Merwin said. “And so Chinese food was something exotic and it was something sort of exciting.” At the same time, there may have been an uglier side to how Jewish customers of that generation viewed Chinese restaurants and their staff. “Chinese people were still of a lower status than Jews were in society,” Merwin said. “So there was a kind of, for [lack] of a better word, a kind of racism that was inherent in being able to go to the Chinese restaurant and sort of feel culturally superior for the first time.”

Fusion of Chinese and Jewish

As Jews began moving out of major cities like New York and into other areas of the country, Chinese restaurants followed their customers, helping to account for their ubiquity today, Lee explained. “You definitely see a flourishing of Chinese restaurants where there was a strong Jewish presence,” Lee said. Today, Chinese food may be more closely tied with Jewish culture than ever. Lee noted how several of her Jewish friends commonly order Chinese for Shabbat dinner, while Merwin pointed to kung pao singles events for young Jews, as well as a Chicago deli, called the Eleven City Diner, which gives out fortune cookies on Christmas Eve. Lee also noted attempts to fuse Jewish and Chinese dishes, such as with pastrami egg rolls, and Chinese restaurants whose names give little nods to their Jewish customers, like Chai Peking in Atlanta and Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles.

Turning the Peking duck?

Despite all this history, times could be changing, with a wide variety of other cuisines more available now then perhaps ever before. “My children didn’t grow up eating Chinese food,” Merwin said. “They grew up on Indian food. They don’t really have a huge fondness for Chinese food. They certainly don’t see it as a Jewish thing.” Merwin saw the gravitation of Jews toward Chinese food as something that occurred for many reasons during a particular time in American history. And now, American Jews are gravitating away from it, he said, partly because culture moves toward whatever is new and fashionable. “Now you can’t even go to a Chinese restaurant without having sushi and pan-Asian, and now it’s hard to even find a decent Chinese restaurant in a lot of places, because people want to have such a huge amount of choice in terms of what they eat. They want to have a whole smörgåsbord every night for dinner,” Merwin said. “It’s inevitable, under those circumstances, that Chinese food is going to lose its specialness, when all these other kinds of food have come to the fore.” PJC Jesse Berman writes for the Baltimore Jewish Times, an affiliated publication where this first appeared. PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Photo by BrittaKokemor via iStockphoto

The secret history of Jews and Chinese food

Community Sunday funday with The Friendship Circle The Friendship Circle along with community partners hosted the “You Are Enough” teen wellness event at the Squirrel Hill JCC. This event welcomed more than 100 attendees,

including local teens and community members, who enjoyed a variety of wellness booths. Guest speaker Robert Anthony shared his story and inspired listeners to be their best selves. The Friendship Circle also launched its “aWEARness” merchandise sale in collaboration with Project Healthy Minds, promoting teen mental health awareness.

p FC staff stand with representatives of the PA Youth Advocacy to spread awareness of the importance of teen mental health support

p Guest speaker Robert Anthony stands with FC teens and staff in support of wellness and friendship. Photos courtesy of The Friendship Circle

Chanukah fun at CDS Community Day School students marked Chanukah with meaningful explorations

p Rona Shelef, Marissa Steiman and Middle School Jewish Studies teacher Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Sneiderman make olive oil while learning about the oil that fueled the Chanukah miracle.

p David Masulis makes a mosaic Chanukiah

Photos courtesy of Community Day School

Cook now, serve later

Volunteers from the JCC’s Center for Loving Kindness, Allison Park Church, Calvary Church Irwin and Islamic Center of Pittsburgh cooked three vegetarian Afghan dishes on Dec. 19. The food will be frozen and given to new Afghan refugee families once they start arriving again in January, according to JFCS representatives. p Participants gather in the Temple Sinai kitchen.

p JFCS staff Yesmina Salib and JFCS board member Noah Jordan

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Photos courtesy of JFCS

p Volunteers put food into containers to be stored.

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

DECEMBER 24, 2021 23

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It’s time to support the Chronicle — ‘If not now, when?’ believe this is healthy, even though there are times when some — including myself — may strongly disagree with certain articles. This is because the Chronicle is not an organ of any branch or organization of our community. It is an organ of our collective community. I have read Jewish newspapers from other cities, and I don’t believe any of the others can rival what the Chronicle provides in terms of local news and views. The Chronicle cannot normally provide the instant world news that internet news services provide. But it is the only source for what is happening throughout Jewish Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, numerous Jewish publications throughout the country, as well as many secular publications, have folded because of economic pressures, and especially now due to the impact of COVID. The Chronicle is subject to the same economic pressures and, as a result, faces serious financial pressures that threaten its ability to continue to serve our community. Sometimes we don’t truly value something until it is no longer there. I hope that it will not take a crisis at the Chronicle for us to fully understand its value. For the future of our community’s paper, we now need everyone’s financial support. Not only will your financial support aid the Chronicle, but it will also benefit our entire community. And as Hillel stated, “And if not now, when?” PJC

Guest Columnist Charles H. Saul

hen I think of some of the most enjoyable Jewish events I have attended, I think of those where members from all elements of our community have come together. Whether it be a communitywide celebration, a Federation annual meeting or some other type of gathering, the connection with all our fellow Jews is what has made such events truly special to me. The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle connects us in a different way. We connect each week through learning about events and people in our community. We together read thoughtful articles on a variety of Jewish subjects. We consider opinions from a range of perspectives. The paper is, therefore, not just informative — it is a community connector. That is why the paper’s masthead states, “Connecting Jewish Pittsburgh.” I have been blessed with being part of our Pittsburgh Jewish community. Hebrew Institute, Beth Shalom, College of Jewish Studies, ADL, Hillel, B’nai Israel, YMHA, the IKC’s, JCC, JEI, AJL, Federation, Chabad on Campus, ZOA, Yeshiva and Lubavitch Center have all played an important part in my life. As an attorney, I have also had the privilege of representing numerous temples, synagogues and other Jewish organizations. I have seen through the years how the Chronicle has played a vital role for these organizations and for our community as a whole. That is why I am proud to be a member of the Chronicle board. Our board is purposefully diverse. Members are from different branches of our

December 3, 2021 | 29 Kislev 5782

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No news is not good news

Charles H. Saul is a member of the board of trustees of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and is an attorney at Margolis Edelstein.

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