The Jewish Chronicle February 24, 2011

Style Like teacher, like student American Jewish Museum exhibits work of Samuel Rosenberg’s proteges Page 12

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE thejewishchronicle.net february 24, 2011 adar 1 20, 5771

Vol. 53, No. 43

Pittsburgh, PA

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Penn State Hillel acquires site for new facility

Jews join protest

BY LEE CHOTTINER Executive Editor

Stone Guess, its president and CEO. He said American Urban Radio Network, which produces “The Bev Smith Show” and partners with the center to bring a town hall series to Pittsburgh, is the entity bringing Farrakhan here.

“They wanted to bring Minister Farrakhan in and that’s just part of the program,” Guess said. “They have editorial control. I didn’t want to tell them who or what to bring… we’re not embracing his (Farrakhan’s) viewpoints one way or another.”

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State Hillel has acquired property in downtown State College for the construction of a new center for Jewish student life.

The site of the future center — the corner of Beaver Avenue and Garner Street — was acquired with the help of three Penn State alumni. Hillel is now focusing on a capital and endowment campaign for construction of the center.

The property, a former Citizens Bank drive-thru, formally changed hands Tuesday, Feb. 15, said Aaron Kaufman, executive director of Penn State Hillel.

Kaufman wouldn’t disclose the sale price, but he identified three Penn State alumni — David N. Pincus (’48) and Bernard (’51) and Nancy (’52) Gutterman — who were instrumental in purchasing the property.

“We’re not talking publically about numbers yet, because the process is still ongoing,” he said, “but it’s because of them this is happening.”

The design for the center is still being worked out, but Kaufman said Hillel’s goal is to build a 20,000-squarefoot facility.

That would dwarf the 1,400-squarefoot space Hillel currently occupies in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus.

“We have four offices, a small kosher kitchen and sanctuary space,” he said.

“We currently have five staff and four offices [and] we’ll have six staff next year.”

When Kaufman arrived at Penn State four years ago, the Hillel had 20 to 30 students for Shabbat every week.

That figure has risen to 100, as well as 400 for services and 300 for its Passover seder.

“It (the Pasquerilla space) is not accommodating the programs we have,”

Please see Farrakhan, page 23.

Please see Hillel, page 23.

Photo courtesy Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice

Rabbi Renee Bauer, director of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin, addresses protesters at a prayer vigil at the capitol building in Madison, Feb. 22. Wisconsin public employees have converged on the state capitol to protest the governor’s proposal to eliminate collective bargaining for most public sector employees. Police and firefighters, who are exempt under the bill have also joined the protest. See story, page 14.

Farrakhan to appear at AWC despite anti-Semitic record

BY LEE CHOTTINER Executive Editor

Minister Louis Farrakhan has two faces.

To the black community he’s a champion of black causes such as empowering husbands and fathers through his Million Man March and strengthening the nuclear black family.

To the Jewish community, he’s a rabid anti-Semite who has called Jews “bloodsuckers” and claimed that Jews were responsible for slavery.

Apparently, the two views won’t

converge when Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, headlines a live town hall program, Friday, March 11, at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Downtown. He is expected to address the topics, “The Disappearing Black Community and How We Can Get It Back.”

The program will be broadcast as part of “The Bev Smith Show,” which originates in Pittsburgh and is nationally syndicated.

Farrakhan’s appearance doesn’t mean the August Wilson Center subscribes to his views, according to André Kimo

B U S I N E S S 1 7 /C L A S S I F I E D 2 0 /C O M M U N I T Y 1 6 /O B I T UA R I E S 2 2 O P I N I O N 6 /R E A L E S TA T E 1 9 /S I M C H A S 1 5 /S T Y L E 1 2 /T O R A H 2 0

Times To Remember

KINDLE SABBATH CANDLES: 5:48 p.m. EST. SABBATH ENDS: 6:48 p.m. EST.

2 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Metro Diaspora on film

CMU Film Fest focuses on Jewish migration with ‘Separations’

BY J USTIN J ACOBS Associate Editor

Andrea Seligmann Silva’s mother, Edith, was only 3 when her parents boarded the last boat out of Nazi Germany in 1939.

Decades later, Silva, then living in Europe, and her four siblings were reunited in Sao Paulo, leaving the family to question just how migration — and the trauma of their mother — affected their lives.

It’s not an unfamiliar story for Diaspora Jews around the world, but Silva’s has a twist: it was the subject of an autobiographical film called “Separations.”

Her story comes to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, March 2, 8 p.m., in McConomy Auditorium, with a special preview screening of “Separations” prior to the Carnegie Mellon University International Film Festival. This film’s co-creator, Mieke Bal, a cultural theorist and scholar, will also lead a discussion about her work and migratory culture following the film.

This year’s festival, which runs

March 17 to April 10, includes films from, “all over the world that are somehow connected with issue of migration,” said Festival Director Jolanta Lion, as the 2011 theme is “Faces of Migration.” “[‘Separations’] touches on the subject of identity. It’s about a family who was dispersed and trying to find out why they ended up in the places where their parents came from.

It’s a film about movement and how we identify ourselves regarding ethnicity, or nationality.”

As Silva said in the film’s notes, “So is this my new identity? Am I a ‘Brazilian?’ Or ‘a Latin American living in Europe’? Or ‘the daughter of a Holocaust survivor?’ ” “Separations” isn’t the only film to focus on Jewish migration; the festival closes on April 17 with “Diplomat,” presented in conjunction with the JFilm Festival, which itself opens March 24.

For Mieke Bal, who is based in Amsterdam, the story of Silva pointed to some universal themes ripe for exploration.

“This film is part of a body of work

Mieke Bal

on issues of migration, identity and intercultural relations,” she said. “Migration is a positive phenomenon; it enriches societies and cultures.”

Bal pointed to the danger and

impossibility of what she called “‘mono-cultures,” “as Nazi Germany literally demonstrated,” she said.

Films such as “Separations” were selected for the festival because of their “high artistic quality,” according to Lion.

“These are artworks. They are films that ask more questions than just passing along the message to the audience,” she said. “So we need to create special interactive events — panel discussions or special pre-performances — to engage and interest the public.”

One such question present in “Separations” is how trauma, such as experiencing the Holocaust, can change the process of communication between generations — the “ ‘trans-generational trauma’ or ‘post-memory’ visible in the difficulty of Edith and Andrea to communicate,” said Bal. “This is not an art project, but an endeavor to understand better what happens in the lives of people, what happens in contemporary culture,” said Bal. “Looking back at the films with the audience is another round of analysis.”

(Justin Jacobs can be reached at justinj@thejewishchronicle.net.)

Buy, Sell, Trade in the Classifieds, Call Donna 412-687-1000

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 3

METRO Briefly Taste of Westmoreland will be held Saturday, March 12, 6 to 9 p.m., in the Student Union (Chambers Hall) at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg. There is a charge.

Congregation Emanu-El Israel in Greensburg is sponsoring the event for the 19th year.

Thirty restaurants and caterers of Westmoreland County will set up tasting stations, and the cafeteria is set to seat hundreds of participants.

Along with many door prizes, there will be Chinese and silent auctions; Westmoreland County merchants donated the prizes.

Canned and nonperishable items for the Westmoreland County Food Bank will be collected during the event.

Contact Congregation Emanu-El Israel at (724) 834-0560 or info@tasteofwestmoreland.com, or visit tasteofwestmoreland.com, for more information.

The Hillel Jewish University Center launched a tutoring program to connect undergraduate students at local colleges with elementary through high school students from the community.

Interested families may call or e-mail the program to request a tutor in any subject. Once families are connected with student tutors, they can determine hourly rates, meeting places and times.

For more information or to request a tutor, parents may contact Caryn Goldenberg at (412) 621-8875 Ext. 112 or tutoring@hilleljuc.org.

Sari Gruber, a vocalist and graduate of the Juilliard Opera Center in New York, will perform at Rodef Shalom Congregation, Monday, March 7, 8 p.m.

Gruber, a semi-finalist for the Metropolitan Opera in 1996, has appeared numerous times in recitals at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and New York’s 92nd Street Y. She has performed accompanied by the St. Louis, Cincinnati, Boston and Aspen orchestras.

Benjamin Binder, a pianist and assistant professor of music history and theory at Duquesne University, will accompany Gruber.

They will perform for the Irving Schiffman Memorial Concert.

The Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s AgeWell’s adult department is presenting a Purim Party with the Golden Strolling Strings, Wednesday, March 16, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Levinson Hall in the Kaufmann Building, 5738 Forbes Ave., Squirrel Hill.

Purim will be celebrated with a Strolling Strings ensemble show and a dinner that will include salad, chicken, roasted vegetables, noodle kugel and Hamantashen.

There is a charge. Call Nicole Mezare at (412) 521-8011 Ext. 278 for more information.

Three Pittsburgh Jewish educators were among the 600-plus leaders of North American Jewish day schools to participate in the North American Jewish Day School Conference this month in San Diego.

The area participants were Avi Baran Please see Briefly, page 5.

4 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

METRO Minadeo gets ‘Listening Library’ thanks to bat mitzva project

BY TOBY TABACHNICK Staff Writer

What began as a bat mitzva project four years ago for Ellis School student Becca Lerman has evolved into a Listening Library for second-graders at Pittsburgh Minadeo.

Lerman, who is now a sophomore at Ellis, is working with the nonprofit Children’s Books on Tape, an organization co-founded several years ago

by Faren Silverman, then a middle school student in Jupiter, Fla., to help combat illiteracy.

Lerman read and recorded some 200 books, and enlisted the help of her classmates in recording many more.

The tapes were then packaged along with their corresponding new or gently used donated books.

The idea is for children to select a book, and read along with the recorded voice.

The books are at second-grade level, and consist primarily of picture books, according to Lerman.

“I started by going through my own books,” she said. “I took those to read and record, then donated those books.

We also got some businesses to donate. Target gave us gift cards that we used to purchase some new books.”

The Listening Library consists of 50 recorded elementary level books and tapes in library storage bags along with a display rack, five tape

recorders and tote bags. The recorded books on tape have been used in learning centers within the classroom, as well as circulated with tape recorders home with students.

While Lerman purchased the cassette tape recorders on which she and her peers recorded the stories, Children’s Books on Tape professionally packaged the books, and provided other supplies.

About 60 other listening libraries have been established in locations including elementary schools in Palm Beach, Martin County and Miami, Fla., New Haven, Conn., and Beijing.

All told, Children’s Books on Tape volunteers have recorded more than 3,000 children’s books.

This will be the first Listening Library in Pittsburgh, Lerman said.

The Listening Library will be delivered to Nina Manack’s second grade class at Minadeo in the next week or two, according to Lerman. Manack could not be reached for comment before this paper went to press.

Lerman said she chose Minadeo as the recipient for the library because it is a Title 1 [large, low income student population] school in close proximity to her home.

The donation is valued at $600.

(Toby Tabachnick can be reached at tobyt@thejewishchronicle.net.)

‘Twedding’ day

Photo by Charlie Kalech

Pittsburgh’s Eli and Anthony Pugliese celebrated their Jewish Twedding Thursday, Feb. 17, in Jerusalem. Why call it a Twedding? The entire wedding party was made up of friends the couple had made through the social networking site Twitter — they’d never met before the wedding. “This is a total Internet endeavor,” Eli told the Chronicle before her trip to Israel. “I’ve really been working the web on this.”

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 5

METRO Briefly Continued from page 3.

Munro, head of school at Community Day School, and Avrumi Sacks and Sammy Weinberg from Hillel Academy.

The conference, which ran from Feb. 6 to 8, addressed issues relevant to the day school movement.

Participants examined issues and approaches changing the face and direction of Jewish day schools, from making special education a priority, to harnessing technology to enhance and strengthen curricula and classrooms, to maintaining financially sustainable institutions of quality.

The North American Jewish Day School Conference was a joint initiative of the Solomon Schechter Day School Association, RAVSAK: The Jewish Community Day School Network, the Institute for University-School Partnership at Yeshiva University, and Pardes: The Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools. This is the second year that the organizations, representing the arc of Jewish movements and educational approaches, joined to organize the conference and explore common issues.

The theme of the 2011 conference — The High Performance, High-Tech Jewish Day School of the Very Near Future — underscored how Jewish educational professionals are transforming their individual institutions, and the day school movement itself, into inclusive venues of educational quality and value utilizing proven, effective and emerging approaches.

The North American Jewish Day

School Leadership Conference was sponsored by the AVI CHAI Foundation, the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education, the Covenant Foundation, ERB, the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, The Kohelet Foundation and several anonymous funders.

Rabbi Mark Mahler of Temple Emanuel of South Hills, and Executive Director Saralouise Reis, recently attended the Kellogg School Management Program for Jewish Leaders at Northwestern University.

Seventy-nine rabbis and administrators from across the nation attended the program to study cutting edge leadership and management skills.

This year’s program, which was started in 2008, drew 50 rabbis, two cantors and 26 executive directors from all three major streams of Judaism, from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Kellogg program is currently enrolling participants for 2011. Contact Dina Jacobs, academic director, at dinah-jacobs@kellogg.northwestern.edu for more information.

Sara Hecht, an international singer and composer, will appear at the Eddy Theatre, Chatham University, Monday, Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m. The concert for women will be a celebration of Jewish music as well as Jewish femininity.

It will provide an opportunity for women in the community to enjoy a night of celebration and entertainment.

Hecht, a 25-year-old singer originally from Australia, has inspired audiences across the globe with her soulful melodies and warm personality.

The program is partially funded by

the Chatham student government and is co-sponsored by the Chatham Student Activities Council and Student Affairs, Chabad House at Chatham, Chabad House at the University of Pittsburgh, Chabad of Carnegie Mellon University and Lubavitch Women’s Organization.

There is a charge. Contact Chabad at chabadchatham@gmail.com, or Sara Weinstein at sara@chabadpgh.org for more information.

The Jewish Federation’s Centennial Fund for a Jewish Future, in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp, is offering $1,000 grants to children attending Jewish overnight camp for the first time for a period of 19 consecutive days or more.

Visit onehappycamper.org to submit an application. For children attending Jewish day schools, contact Sally Stein at (412) 992-5243 or sstein@jfedpgh.org.

Congregation Beth Shalom is hosting a winter film festival class with discussions by expert facilitators. The last movie in the series, “Ajami,” (2008) will be screened Sunday, Feb. 27, 7 p.m. in the Samuel and Minnie Hyman Ballroom, 5915 Beacon St. Refreshments will be served, and all are welcome to attend.

“Ajami” is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami. Deborah Fidel of the Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee will facilitate.

There is no charge but donations are appreciated. Call Beth Shalom at (412) 421-2288 or visit bethshalom.org for more information.

Aliyah Donsky, daughter of Temple Ohav Shalom Rabbi Art Donsky, is one of the scheduled speakers at the upcoming J Street International Conference in Washington, D.C. Donsky, a freshman at Princeton University, will a panel discussing the topic, “The Campus Challenge: Changing the Conversation in an Environment of Extreme Polarization.”

The conference runs from Feb. 26 through March 1.

Ohav Shalom is in Allison Park, in the North Hills.

J Street describes itself as a pro-Israel pro-peace organization for liberal Zionists.

The Traveling Kosher Pickle Factory will be making a stop at Chabad of Carnegie Mellon University, Thursday, Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m. Students will leave with a jar of Kosher pickles which they will have made themselves, a better understanding of Kosher and pickles, and a night to remember.

The Traveling Kosher Pickle Factory was created by Rabbi Shmuel Marcus of Cypress, Cal. His many visits with an 86-year old pickle-maker sparked the idea. The, designed to teach children about upcoming holidays through the shofar and m,atzah factories and the olive oil Press. Since it began in 2005, 4,000 people have prepared personalized pickle jars.

The event is open to all university students, thjough there is a charge for those fromother schools. For more information, contact Chabad at rabbi@chabadofcmu.com.

6 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Opinion

The Jewish Chronicle

Two people, same dreams

Barbara Befferman, CEO EDITORIAL STAFF Lee Chottiner, Executive Editor Justin Jacobs, Associate Editor Angela Leibowicz, Community Editor Toby Tabachnick, Staff Writer SALES STAFF Susie Mangel, Senior Sales Associate Roberta Letwin, Sales Associate PRODUCTION STAFF Dawn Wanninger, Production Manager Nancy Bishop Production Artist BUSINESS STAFF Jennifer Barill, Comptroller Josh Reisner, Office Manager Donna Mink, Classified & Subscriptions Marcy Kronzek, Receptionist BOARD OF TRUSTEES Davida Fromm, President Richard Kitay, Vice President Cindy Goodman-Leib, Secretary Lou Weiss, Treasurer Lynn Cullen, Past President Carolyn Hess Abraham Brian Balk Daniel Berkowitz Stephen Fienberg Malke Steinfeld Frank Stanley Greenfield David Grubman Thomas Hollander Larry Honig Evan Indianer David Levine Judy Palkovitz Amy W. Platt Jane Rollman Benjamin Rosenthal Dodie Roskies Charles Saul Andrew Schaer Ilana Schwarcz Jonathan Wander Published every Thursday by the Pittsburgh Jewish Publication and Education Foundation 5915 Beacon St., 3rd Flr. , Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Phone: 412-687-1000 FAX: 412-521-0154 E-Mail: newsdesk@thejewishchronicle.net SUBSCRIPTION: $44 in Pennsylvania $46 East of the Mississippi $48 West of the Mississippi and FL NEWSSTAND PRICE $1.50 PER COPY POSTMASTER: Send address change to THE JEWISH CHRONICLE, 5915 BEACON ST., 3RD, FLR., PITTSBURGH, PA 15217 (PERIODICAL RATE POSTAGE PAID AT PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY AND FEATURE SERVICE) USPS 582-740 Manuscripts, letters, documents and photographs sent to the Jewish Chronicle become the property of this publication, which is not responsible for the return or loss of such items.

The Chronicle does not endorse the goods or services advertised in its pages and makes no representation to the kashrut of food products and services in said advertising. The publisher is not liable for damages if, for any reason whatsoever, he fails to publish an advertisement or for any error in an advertisement. Acceptance of advertisers and of ad copy is subject to the publisher’s approval. The Chronicle is not responsible if ads violate applicable laws and the advertiser will indemnify, hold harmless and defend the Chronicle from all claims made by governmental agencies and consumers for any reason based on ads appearing in the Chronicle.

n page one of this week’s Chronicle, we report that Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who is notorious for his anti-Semitic rhetoric, will appear at the new August Wilson Center, Downtown, Friday, March 11, for a town hall program.

Among Farrakhan’s, or at least Nation of Islam’s, claims about Jews is that we are somehow responsible for slavery and the “black genocide.” This is contained in his new book Nation of Islam is putting out titled “The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews.”

We were curious, so we took a look at some pages from the book, which are posted online. Yep, the slavery accusations are there.

So are several bulleted statements taken from Jewish publications over the years that say the Nation of Islam is antiSemitic (they apparently disagree).

One of those quotes is from — you guessed it — The Jewish Chronicle, 1963 to be exact: “The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh labeled the NOI ‘the anti-Semitic Negro extremist group known as the Black Muslims,’ the book says.

That’s the extent of the quote, no context, no explanation.

We searched our archives, but couldn’t find the quote. No matter, we did find lines from other stories from 1963 where the wording is similar, so we’ll assume the quote is accurate.

O

With that in mind, here’s a shout-out to our Chronicle staff of yesteryear: Nice job fellows!

The stories the Chronicle ran that year were accurate and true — Nation of Islam has been guilty of some of the most hate-filled, vicious anti-Semitic statements and claims in American history.

So perhaps many Jews are anti-Nation of Islam, the same way they are anti-Nazi.

Can you blame them?

But we’re not anti-black. If anything Jews have walked in black people’s shoes, and they in ours.

Here’s a passage from a 1963 Chronicle editorial that Nation of Islam chose not to reprint: “We believe Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association of Colored People, says correctly that Negro anti-Semitism, ‘is not virulent and exists among relatively few Negros.’”

Amen, we still believe that. Sadly, we also believe that many of those “relatively few” people of color who hold anti-Semitic views congregate under the Nation of Islam banner.

How else can you explain such a hatefilled and heartless statement such as this one by Malcolm X, which was reprinted in a April 19, 1963, Chronicle story about the Black Muslims (CBS news reported the quote first): “When these Jews come up in your face, trying to get you to cry for them over what happened to them, you tell them you

don’t have any tears left. You have shed too many tears for your own kind.”

That’s too bad, because Jews do have tears for those other than our own kind.

We have reported many times in this paper about Jews rallying to the cause of Darfur refugees who have been rousted from their homes, robbed, raped and murdered by their fellow citizens of Sudan.

And, yes, Jews stood with blacks during the Civil Rights movement, risking their very lives — in some cases giving their lives — for the cause. Cases in point: the freedom riders and walking with Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery.

Russell Simmons, a blogger for the Huffington Post and founder of globalgrind.com, said it very well: “So for generations, Jews and Blacks have marched together in the streets of Birmingham and Washington, and shared the stage at venues in Harlem and elsewhere. Our two communities are not afraid to stand side by side, continually defying those who would prefer to see us behind solitary bars and forgotten, not in front of cheering crowds.”

We’re disappointed that Farrakhan will appear at so prestigious a Pittsburgh cultural address, but when the program ends, nothing will change.

Blacks and Jews are still two people forged by similar experiences and the same dreams.

Superb new book shows reality of the Displaced Persons era Menachem Z. Rosensaft

NEW YORK — Most people would not consider a mere five years to be an “era,” that term generally being reserved for far longer spans of time.

And yet, as is evident from Ben Shephard’s masterful book, “The Long Road Home, The Aftermath of the Second World War,” published this month in the United States, the five years following the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of World War II in the spring of 1945, when hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors as well as non-Jewish erstwhile forced laborers from various parts of Eastern Europe languished in Displaced Persons (DP) camps, indeed constituted an era.

“The concept of the ‘displaced persons,’ ” writes Shephard, “determined the shape of the Allied humanitarian effort after the war . . . because, as it turned out, the war’s most important legacy was a refugee crisis. When the dust had settled and all those who wished to had returned home, there remained in Germany, Austria and Italy a residue of some 1 million people who were mot inclined to go back to their own countries — Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Yugoslavs.”

By way of full disclosure, my father, Josef Rosensaft, who headed both the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone of Germany and the Jewish Committee that administered the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, is featured in “The Long Road Home,” and Shephard graciously refers to me in his acknowledgments.

The complex, often-haphazard efforts by the Americans and British military to regulate humanitarian relief efforts in the context of rapidly changing geopolitical challenges are laid forth in comprehensive detail in “The Long Road Home.” So is the inability of the victorious Allies and different relief agencies to adequately deal with the physical and psychological human condition of the men, women and children who found themselves stranded in a political, cultural and economic no man’s land. The public anti-Semitic utterances of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, the decorated British Army officer who served as chief of operations of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, proved to be a major distraction until he was eventually fired from his post.

It took the Americans and the British quite some time to figure out that Jews who had emerged from death camps and whose families, homes, and communities had been completely destroyed had radically different needs and aspirations than Polish or Ukrainian Christians who had endured a far different plight. While the Jewish DPs strove to rebuild their shattered lives and played a critical role in the struggle to establish the State of Israel, the non-Jewish DPs had no clear

ideological or other mission other than to exist while waiting, mostly passively, for the next chapter of their lives to unfurl.

Shephard’s discussion of the critical rehabilitative function of Zionism for the Jewish DPs is especially instructive.

David Ben-Gurion, who visited some of the DP camps in the fall of 1945, intuitively understood the public relations value of Jewish survivors of the death camps clamoring for a homeland. When Bartley Crum, an American member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, urged a young Jewish DP to have patience, the latter replied, “How can you talk to us of patience? After six years of this war, after all our parents have been burned in the gas ovens, you talk to us of patience?”

At the same time, Shephard neither idealizes the prevailing conditions nor ignores the obstacles faced by Jewish Holocaust survivors in their efforts to forge a destiny for themselves. When many of them ultimately decided to go to the United States, Canada and elsewhere, Rabbi Abraham Klausner, a Jewish chaplain in the American Zone of Germany who had played a pivotal role in organizing the survivors there into a political force, argued that the DPs “should be forced to go to Palestine . . .

They are not to be asked but told what to do.”

In sharp contrast, Shephard vividly describes my father’s disillusionment during an April 1949 visit to the newly independent State of Israel where he had been “received at the highest levels.” “His presence,” Shephard writes, “happened to coincide with the arrival of Please see Rosensaft, page 9.

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 7

OPINION

Letters to the editor 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 300 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Mail, fax or e-mail letters to: Letters to the Editor via e-mail The Jewish Chronicle News@pittchron.com 5917 Beacon St., 3rd Flr. via fax Pittsburgh, PA 15217 (412) 687-5119 Web site address thejewishchronicle.net

Preserve NEA funding The House of Representatives is on track to cut $43 million from the National Endowment for the Arts’ budget of $167.5 million. That’s a 26 percent cut — the deepest in 16 years.

Our senators should prevent these

deep cuts from happening when they take up this legislation at the end of this month.

The arts mean jobs. According to Americans for the Arts, the nonprofit arts industry generates $166.2 billion annually in economic activity, supports 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs in the arts and related industries, and returns $12.6 billion in federal income taxes. Measured against direct federal cultural spending of about $1.4 billion, that’s a return of nearly nine to one.

Federal funding for the arts leverages private funding. The NEA requires at least a one-to-one match of federal funds from all grant recipients — a match far exceeded by most grantees.

Please see Letters, page 9.

8 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

OPINION

Day schools need new Israel ed. approach Gary Rosenblatt

NEW YORK — An eye-opening and somewhat discomforting new study of day school students’ attitudes about Israel has me wondering whether we need to rethink and recalibrate our approach toward traditional Zionist advocacy.

The study, first reported in [The New York Jewish Week] last week (“Students Seen ‘Suspicious’ Of Israel Education”), found that many of the 43 U.S. high school juniors interviewed by a research team from the Melton Center for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University were somewhat doubtful of their schools’ attempts to convince them of certain pro-Israel points of view. And a frequent criticism is that the schools and teachers are “biased,” according to Alex Pomson, senior researcher at Melton.

In part, he explained, this reaction reflects a natural tendency of teenagers to mistrust adults and to react negatively to people who try to shape their opinions.

These findings indicate it may be more effective to present students with information on both sides of an issue — particularly one as complex as Israel — and let them form their own opinion rather than shielding them from criticism or being perceived as forcing on them the

“correct” response.

The students interviewed were from four Jewish day schools from different parts of the country, two Modern Orthodox and two community schools. Pomson, who kept the identities of the schools secret, discussed the findings and showed video clips from the interviews with students last week at the North American Jewish Day School Conference in Los Angeles, where the study was unveiled.

Judging from the remarks shown in the clips, it seemed the students at the Orthodox schools were somewhat more positive but one-dimensional in their views on Israel than the community school students, who expressed ambivalence at times.

For instance, “Mike” (a pseudonym), who attends an Orthodox school, said he felt a strong and unwavering commitment to Israel as “the foundation of my existence.” But he also acknowledged that he believed he has been “spoon fed propaganda” about the Jewish state by his teachers over the years.

“It’s too late for me,” he said wistfully, at the tender age of 16, in terms of changing his mind about Israeli policies.

He and several other students who spoke almost robotically about their views sounded like their connection to Israel was a mile wide and a few inches deep.

“Naomi,” another student at an Orthodox school, said she was reluctant to talk about Israel and was not sure she would call herself a Zionist but plans to spend a post-high school year in the Jewish state.

(In general, the students were vague and uncomfortable when asked to define

“Zionism,” and whether they considered themselves “Zionists.” Clearly, the terms have taken on negative baggage; one teacher at a conference session geared to high school educators noted that it was “painful to watch these day school students who can’t define one of most simple values of the Jewish community,” adding: “And I’m sure the students in our school would answer the same way.”)

Students from the community day schools tended to speak of the situation in Israel as “complicated,” “difficult” and “a struggle,” but “rich in opinions” and “working hard” to resolve conflicts.

Pomson cautioned against reading too much into a study of relatively few students, each of whom was interviewed for about 35 minutes. But he did note that the data represented “the tip of the iceberg,” and that “there is a lot going on beneath the surface for our students.

“The challenging conclusion,” he said, is that young people are “suspicious” of what they hear from adults and “distance themselves from what they hear in the classroom.”

The hard truth is that few Jewish day schools in this country, including prestigious ones in the New York area, offer any full-term courses focusing on modern Israel. And now we learn that those that do may be pushing Israel’s case too hard, creating an unintended and worrisome backlash among students.

Tuvia Book, a teacher in several local day schools and author of “For The Sake Of Zion,” a curriculum of Israel studies published by the Jewish Agency for Israel, says, “You can’t teach about Israel through rose-colored glasses anymore.

These are savvy students.

“It’s a different generation,” he added, noting that today’s teens were raised during the intifada rather than Entebbe or the Six-Day War. “The old-fashioned ‘my country-rightor-wrong’ doesn’t work for thinking kids; it’s two-dimensional.”

What does work, he said, is bringing in Israelis with different ideologies to offer their viewpoints. “A multicultural approach makes the students more openminded” and counters their feelings of “being duped.”

Educators also need to consider that, based on the study’s results, students are more willing to accept strong ideological messages from programs they are exposed to at summer camps or youth organizations outside of school rather than

in the classroom itself, perhaps in part because the latter setting is involuntary.

What seems clear is that the most successful means of instilling positive and lasting feelings about Israel in students is to have them experience the country firsthand, the younger the better.

Pomson acknowledged in an interview that while he had been skeptical of the benefit of school trips to Israel for seventh and eighth graders, because they are so young, he now believes that the earlier youngsters are exposed to “the real rather than the theoretical Israel,” the stronger their ties, which are heightened by social networking with Israeli peers they meet on their trips.

Thanks to Facebook, Skype and other new technology, the American youngsters often stay in touch with their Israeli guides and the children of their host families, deepening their understanding of Israel’s daily as well as political life, and deepening their personal relationships.

Educators should recognize and take advantage of this social capital, according to Pomson, who encourages teachers to use as many tools as possible in connecting students to Israel in a positive way, from curriculum to school programs to keeping in touch with Israelis on Facebook.

“Keep in mind that even when schools don’t know what they’re doing, their students do,” he said, explaining that youngsters pick up on whether the schools are approaching Israel in more academic or emotional ways, and they respond accordingly.

Pomson also observed that for many day school students, key positive feelings about Israel are established in the home, with schools providing history, context and supplemental support.

(Students from interfaith families, the study found, felt more distant from Israel. One girl in the video chillingly said she felt as little connection to the Jewish state as she did to Greenland.)

The Melton study is part of a larger project looking at what it takes for day schools in both Australia and the U.S. to connect students to Israel.

(Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of The New York Jewish Week. This column previously appeared in the Week.)

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 9

OPINION LETTERS

TO THE

EDITOR

Continued from page 7.

On average, each NEA grant leverages at least $7 from other state, local, and private sources.

Private support cannot match the leveraging role of government cultural funding.

Diane Samuels North Side (Diane Samuels is a Jewish sculptor whose studio is in the Mexican Wars Streets neighborhood. Among her bestknown work is “Luminous Manuscript,” a mosaic depiction of a Talmud page, which contains more than 80,000 pieces of glass, and is on permanent display at the Center for Jewish History in New York.)

Reoccupy Sinai The Israeli government should make it clear that, if Egypt abrogates the peace treaty with Israel, as recently threatened by prominent Egyptian figures, Israel will also cancel the treaty, rescind its concessions under it and consider reoccupying the Sinai desert.

Israel relinquished the Sinai, together

Rosensaft: Continued from page 6. a transport of Jews from Belsen, and he was shocked by the living conditions in the transit camp they were sent to. A previous transport, forced to live in waterlogged huts, had even asked the Israeli authorities to send them back to Belsen.” Upon his return to Belsen, Shephard continues, my father “gave a powerful speech to the Jews in the camp, telling them that Israel was a wonderful but difficult country. He urged them to go there as long as they were prepared for the harsh conditions they would encounter there. He also warned them that they would be on their own. ‘Ben-Gurion will not meet you at the boat,’ he said, ‘and Eliezer Kaplan [Israel ’s first finance minister] will not

with its precious oil fields and airbases, and uprooted 5,000 Jews living in Yamit under the terms of the treaty. It is a contractual undertaking by both sides and requires the faithful performance of all treaty obligations. It is unthinkable that Egypt can retain all the concessions made under its terms by Israel, while Israel simply loses all it had been promised by the treaty — peace and recognition.

Egypt cannot renounce the peace treaty without automatically forfeiting whatever it gained by it. Israel should be making this crystal clear to those in authority in Cairo.

If Egypt rescinds the treaty, the United States should also end the $2 billion in aid it gives Egypt under it. By doing so, Israel and the United States may play a valuable, stabilizing and restraining influence on Egypt.

By showing that significant negative consequences could flow from Egypt abrogating the peace treaty, Israel and the United States would reduce the likelihood of Egypt doing so.

Morton A. Klein New York (The author is national president of the Zionist Organization of America.)

present you with a check.’ ” With its thorough and compassionate depiction of the DP era as a whole, “The Long Road Home” establishes beyond question the period’s pivotal importance as an integral element of, rather than a mere postscript to, the respective, intertwined histories of both World War II and the Holocaust. It is also a book that should be required reading for anyone who seeks to obtain an insight into the capacity of ordinary individuals to confront and, for the most part, overcome the consequences of persecution and dire devastation.

(Menachem Z. Rosensaft, an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School, distinguished visiting lecturer at the Syracuse University College of Law, and vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, can be reached at menachemr@thejewishchronicle.net.)

10 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Globe Obama bucks pressure

U.S. still backs Israel in U.N.; vetoes controversial settlements resolution

By JTA Staff

NEW YORK — In the run-up to last week’s U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal, the Obama administration faced a dilemma.

The administration views Jewish settlements in the West Bank as illegitimate, and has made few bones about saying so, but it also rejects the notion that the place to settle the matter is the United Nations, with its long tradition of antiIsrael resolutions.

Put in a seemingly awkward position, the administration had to decide whether to veto a resolution, the substance of which it essentially agreed with, at a time when the Arab street is looking for signs of the Obama administration’s proclivities on Middle Eastern issues, or discard America’s long-standing tradition of vetoing one-sided U.N. resolutions on Israel and anger many Israel supporters.

While some left-wing Jewish groups such as J Street and Americans for Peace Now urged the president to break with U.S. precedent and shun the veto, adding to the pressure on Israel, the reaction from Capitol Hill showed that it wasn’t a stance endorsed by the left or right wing in Congress.

(Gili Yaari / Flash 90 / JTA)

Construction workers labor at a construction site in the Har Homa neighborhood, south of Jerusalem, Feb. 20, a day after the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction as illegal.

Republicans and Democrats both said that using the United Nations to pressure

Israel was out of bounds. Leading members of both parties — including Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the minority whip — urged the president last week to veto “any U.N. Security Council resolution that criticizes Israel regarding final status issues.”

When the resolution finally came to a vote at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 18, the administration’s decision to exercise its veto earned praise from fellow Democrats.

“I praise the Obama administration’s veto, and call on the U.S. to reject any future resolutions at the U.N. that unfairly target Israel, and instead push the Palestinians back to negotiations where they belong,” said Rep. Shelly Berkley (D-Nev.). “I hope the Arabs, having failed to force the issue at the U.N., will return to the negotiating table immediately and begin the real process of reaching a solution.”

The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, B’nai B’rith International and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee all issued statements expressing appreciation for the veto.

“Exercising the veto is a painful decision, particularly for an administration with a deep and sincere commitment to multilateralism,” said David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee. “That is why we salute President Obama and his team for their courage in vetoing this mischievous resolution, which would have caused irreparable damage to the future prospects of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Obama used the veto for the first time after pursuing a compromise proposal — a nonbinding Security Council statement calling settlements a “serious obstacle to the peace process” — that ultimately failed.

The United States has reliably vetoed dozens of Security Council resolutions condemning Israel going back nearly four decades.

The Obama administration’s willingness to countenance the compromise resolution, and its refusal to say in advance whether it would veto the resolution, suggested to many that its reliability with the veto was in question.

Obama has put the issue of settlements squarely in his sights as part of his Middle East peace push, and he has been generally warm toward J Street, dispatching top Middle East adviser Dennis Ross to address the group’s upcoming conference even as Israeli officials have shunned it.

While not fundamentally altering U.S. policy, which under several presidents officially has opposed settlement expansion, Obama has been far more vocal on the subject. All of which prompted reactions from Israel’s allies on Capitol Hill and beyond, several of whom reacted strongly to reports that the administration was pursuing a compromise.

Speaking in the council chamber on the day of the vote, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, rejected the resolution as unhelpful to restarting negotiations between the parties. But she was withering about the administration’s view of settlement activity.

“Our opposition to the resolution before this council today should therefore not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity,” Rice said. “On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.

“For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties and threatens the prospects for peace.”

Americans for Peace Now said Obama’s use of the veto represented a missed chance to exercise leadership that could yield a peace agreement.

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 11

GLOBE Briefly JTA

An Israeli backpacker was among dozens killed in an earthquake that devastated the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and destroyed its Chabad center.

At least 65 people are reported dead and many buildings toppled, including the city’s Chabad house, in Tuesday’s temblor, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale.

The Israeli, who has not yet been named by his country’s embassy officials, was in a car with three other Israelis when a building collapsed on them, according to Chabad Rabbi Shmuel Friedman.

At least 100 others were believed to still be trapped in buildings Tuesday night in what Prime Minister John Key, the son of a Jewish refugee who escaped Europe to England on the eve of the Holocaust, said could be the nation’s “darkest day”.

Israel, which has hundreds of nationals trekking in New Zealand every year, offered to send food and medicine to help; Magen David Adom is assessing the possibility of sending rescue personnel. Israel’s Foreign Ministry believes there could be up to 150 Israelis currently in Christchurch.

Friedman, a New York-born emissary at the Chabad House in Christchurch, was inside with an Israeli backpacker when the quake jolted the city just before 1p.m. local time.

“All of a sudden walls, ceilings started coming in on us, the shake was shifting us side to side,” said Friedman, who has been in the largest city on the South Island for less than three months. “We just ran. I have no idea how we managed to get out of there.”

The Chabad House had the city’s

only kosher cafe.

Friedman said he gathered about 60 Israelis, including the three survivors from the car, in Latimar Square in downtown Christchurch, where he offered counseling and support.

“A group [of Israelis] went in to help evacuate people in buildings which were collapsing. They were experienced in the army,” he said, adding that some came out bloodied with scratches and wounds.

Wellington-based David Zwartz, a former president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, said he received a text message from Bettina Wallace, the immediate past president of Canterbury Hebrew Congregation, the main synagogue in the region, reading “Shul damaged but fixable.”

The quake came less than six months after the last tremor rocked the city in September. Although it registered higher on the Richter scale, it did less damage, with the Chabad House and the main synagogue surviving intact.

Of New Zealand’s 7,000 Jews, about 2,000 live in Christchurch, with the majority in Auckland and Wellington on the North Island.

The two organizational arms of the Reconstructionist movement are set to merge.

Following a year-and-a-half of negotiations, the boards of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation have voted to form one body that will be responsible for Reconstructionist Judaism in North America.

Reconstructionist leaders say the merger will permit better use of limited resources and allow the movement to focus more effectively on its main concerns: education, movement services and social justice.

Please see Briefly, page 19.

12 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Style Classroom and canvas Samuel Rosenberg’s students’ work collected in new exhibition

BY JUSTIN JACOBS Associate Editor

That artist Samuel Rosenberg could have been a star had he moved to New York in the early 1900s is a common belief among local fans and critics. But had he left Pittsburgh, it’s hard to say whether he would have had such an impact on so many future artists.

Here, that impact was huge, and it’s displayed in beautiful color through “A Painter’s Legacy,” the newest exhibition at the American Jewish Museum, which showcases the work of 54 local artists who, at some point during Rosenberg’s nearly six-decade career, studied under him.

Melissa Hiller spent a year and a half assembling “A Painter’s Legacy,” and she could have gone on working for years. Decades even.

“I could spend the rest of my curatorial career grouping these works together,” said Hiller, the AJM’s director. “I could do that for the next 30 years.”

The number of possible artists who could have been tapped for the exhibition is seemingly endless: “A “Monday Washday, 1945” by Abe Weiner Painter’s Legacy” taps only a fraction of Rosenberg’s students, whether they “connected with the artists and somepainted with him at the Carnegie Tech times their children to find that Rosen(now Carnegie Mellon University), the berg influence,” she said. “That kept me Irene Kaufmann Settlement in the Hill rooted in the process.”

District or the Y in Oakland.

Walking around the exhibition, Jane But short of an Andy Warhol piece Haskell couldn’t help but smile. Three (easily Rosenberg’s most famous stu- examples of her work were included; dent), Hiller’s exhibition won’t leave vis- Haskell took a class at the Y with itors wanting. Exhaustively curated, the Rosenberg in the 1950s. exhibition includes statements from “Sam’s workshop — he didn’t consideach living artist on Rosenberg’s impact er it a workshop for art students,” she on their work. said. “He considered it a workshop for To track down the artists, Hiller “be- professionals. He treated us all as came a Nancy Drew art history sleuth,” equals.” through word of mouth and extensive reHaskell’s minimalist “Study: Window search, she said. “I visited every artist Series” from 1982 might seem at odds [still living in the area]. It was very ex- with Rosenberg’s styles (he evolved citing, terrifically exciting, to walk into from a portrait painter to a realist and people’s homes and see how they live became “more gestural as he got older,” with the art, and how it became integrat- said Hiller), but that never mattered. ed into their daily fabric.”

“I think he gave me the freedom to Hiller found work in artists’ and col- explore and go my own way. He never lectors’ homes, as well as in museum col- imposed his work or put a finger on any lections, to piece together the exhibition, of our works,” said Haskell. “He was and set guidelines for what could be critical, but not judgmental.“ deemed “Rosenberg-influenced.”

Though Rosenberg was an active First, Hiller only included pieces from painter from 1915 to 1972 and taught Rosenberg students who had themselves countless students, there was no resultbecome professional artists — a testa- ing “Rosenbergian school,” in terms of ment to Rosenberg’s influence as a style, said Hiller. “That would’ve been teacher, if there ever was one. She also, antithetical to Rosenberg, or to any good

Photo courtesy American Jewish Museum

“A Painter’s Legacy” is so varied, from sculpture and sketches to painting, realism to abstraction. The lush, soft details of Abe Weiner’s “Monday Washday, 1945” (not totally unlike Rosenberg’s own portrayals of life in the Hill District) sits side by side with Ruth Selwitz’s bold, glowing abstract oil painting “Untitled.”

The artists’ statements are often just as arresting. From Ray DeFazio, whose “Keeler Done at Sunset” is a masterful look at light and shadow: “[Rosenberg] was serious. He was intense.

He was a gentleman at all times. He showed me that Bohemianism wasn’t necessary to be a Bohemian artist.”

Modestly hanging amongst the other pieces is the exhibition’s only Rosenberg piece. It’s an unfinished painting, depicting Rosenberg’s son sitting at a blank easel, himself a painter as well. The delicate painting shows an unobtrusive scene: Rosenberg watching another of his many students, likely guiding him along but never

with harshness.

“He’s aware, clearly, of his own role as a teacher standing behind a student [in the piece],” said Hiller. “He was always standing behind his students’ shoulders, spurring them to do something beyond their comfort zones. And the students wanted to perform.”

With one look around the AJM, it’s clear they have.

(Justin Jacobs can be reached at justinj@thejewishchronicle.net.)

Chronicle photo by Justin Jacobs Jane Haskell, an artist and former Samuel Rosenberg student, looks around “A Painter’s Legacy,” which includes three of her works.

professor who wants to teach students how to have confidence in their own style.”

Maybe that’s why the art collected in

Want to go?

A Painter’s Legacy: The Students of Samuel Rosenberg Open through April 7 Opening reception, March 13, 1 to 3 p.m.

Fine Perlow Weis Gallery and Berger Gallery American Jewish Museum, Jewish Community Center (412) 521-8011

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 13

STYLE

Read this book if you wished you knew Sarah Bernhardt Book R eview

BY NEAL GENDLER For the Chronicle

For such a slender book about someone dead for 88 years, “Sarah” provides a surprisingly vivid feel for one of the most-adored, most-remarkable women of the 19th century.

In just 219 generously illustrated pages, author Robert Gottlieb paints a strong portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, the theatrical phenomenon who enthralled audiences across much of the globe, their fascination enhanced by what for its time — or even ours — was a lavish and loose lifestyle.

Many biographical details are speculative, with unreliable accounts coming from friends, enemies and Bernhardt herself. Gottlieb writes: “She was a complete realist when dealing with her life but a relentless fabulist when recounting it.” Yet the book has reliable accounts of her theatrical prowess, taken from sometimes-effusive reviews. It also quotes from negative reviews, some of them vile and anti-Semitic.

Gottlieb’s narrative is casually erudite, yet very accessible, as one might expect from someone who has been editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, Knopf and the New Yorker. In addition to photos of a gorgeous young Bernhardt and of

Book Review “Sarah: the life of Sarah Bernhardt,” by Robert Gottlieb, Yale University Press, 233 pages.

many of the people in her life, 16 pages show her in starring roles as diverse as Phèdre and Hamlet.

Waif-like Bernhardt, a fiery redhead of frail health raised by a “distant and disapproving mother” and no father, lived a life of defying convention. Loathing some of her training at Paris’ Conservatoire, she decided to become the world’s greatest actress. She succeeded by using “a voice of gold,” creating her own electrifying style and applying enormous intensity to her craft. Even in her later years, colleagues testified to “her almost rabid attention to detail, her constant rethinking of her roles, and her insatiable energy.”

That insatiable energy went beyond the stage, what Gottlieb calls “her unquenchable need to be the center of attention” increasing her celebrity. Her life was a drama: important career help from her mother’s contacts; a practice of bedding her leading men; an apparently little-concealed parade of lovers, and no concealment at all of her out of wedlock son. Subject of her utmost devotion and indulgence, he often accompanied her on tours and at receptions. Apparently, even in the Victorian age, super-stardom could perfume away the scent of scandal.

She toured widely to acclaim, even nine times to the Americas although speaking only French. She became a sculptor and writer and created her own Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, spelling her name across the facade in 5,700 light bulbs. Fiercely patriotic, she endeared herself to her countrymen during the Franco-Prussian war, turning a closed theater into a military hospital, stocking it with supplies and tending the wounded.

Bernhardt, likely born in 1844, was baptized at her father’s insistence just before turning 12 and attended a convent school for six adolescent years.

She publicly professed Catholicism but practiced little religion, called herself “a daughter of the great Jewish

JCC bests Pittsburgh Project; faces Career Connections in GPIBL finals

BY Z ACHARY W EISS Chronicle Correspondent

Despite losing to Pittsburgh Project in both regular season matchups, the JCC defeated Pittsburgh Project by a score of 58-53 in the Greater Pittsburgh Independent Basketball League (GPIBL) semi-finals.

Ben Katz led the scoring for JCC with 19 points. Teammates Ryan Seiavitch and Jesse Goleman netted 12 and 11 points respectively. Pittsburgh Project’s leading scorers both nailed 14 points.

The first quarter was back and forth with Pittsburgh Project ultimately carrying a 15-14 lead after the quarter.

JCC came back in the second quarter, dictating the pace of play, leading Pittsburgh Project 28-26 at half-time.

The third quarter was the trouble period for JCC in its previous two meetings with Pittsburgh Project. The

team would get the lead at half only to see Pittsburgh Project outscore them in the third and get the victory.

Pittsburgh Project once again outscored the JCC in the quarter 1612 taking a 42-40 lead into the fourth quarter.

The JCC took control of the final quarter, outscoring Pittsburgh Project 18-11 and earning the five-point victory as the buzzer sounded.

With the win the JCC will meet Career Connections tonight, Thursday, Feb. 24, against for the GPIBL championship. The matchup is going to be played at the JCC where each team won a game against each other during the regular season.

The game is also a rematch of last year’s title game which was won by Career Connection by a score of 6261. With a win, JCC will win its third GPIBL championship.

(Zachary Weiss can be reached at yngzc@yahoo.com.)

race” and defended Dreyfus. Her Jewishness runs like a slender thread through much of Gottlieb’s account.

Gottlieb is a smooth writer, blessedly restrained with French phrases. But while identifying Alexandre Dumas or son as “Dumas pere” and “Dumas fils” is a bit charming, less so is identifying some important characters without first names, using instead untranslated titles, as in “le duc de” and “le compte de.” He refers to women sometimes by title and last name – for example, Mme Agar (no period indicating abbreviation) — sometimes by last name, sometimes by first name, and Bernhardt as Sarah.

This can be jarring in the same sentence: “One day Agar asked Sarah to read a new verse drama.”

Despite such quibbles, “Sarah” is an enjoyable, easy read, using the words of the actress and her contemporaries to color in the life details, mannerisms and fierce determination that explain her fame.

I can’t say that “Sarah” leaves me feeling quite as if I knew her, but it very much makes me wish that I had.

(Neal Gendler is a Minneapolisbased writer and editor.)

14 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2010

GLOBE Jews joining union showdown in Wisconsin over gov’s proposal

BY SUE FISHKOFF JTA

SAN FRANCISCO — A growing number of Jews in Wisconsin are joining the protests in Madison against a budget-cutting proposal by the governor to eliminate most collective-bargaining rights for public-sector employees.

“Judaism has long stood for the rights of the worker, beginning with the biblical injunction of Deuteronomy: ‘Do not take advantage of the hired worker who is poor and needy,’ ” said Rabbi Bonnie Margulis.

Margulis joined two other Madison rabbis on Tuesday at a news conference at the state capitol building organized by the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal.

This is the second week of protests against the bill, which prompted the 14 Democrats in the state Senate to flee the state on Feb. 16, two days after the bill was introduced. Under Wisconsin legislative procedure, their continued absence effectively blocks any vote on the matter in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Rabbi Bruce Elder of Glencoe, Ill., was one of two clergy members to offer the Wisconsin Democrats sanctuary, via an initiative of Interfaith Worker Justice. He said he has not heard back from the legislators.

“We don’t know where they are, but we assume they are OK,” he wrote in an email. “Our offers of sanctuary remain open and standing.”

In a “fireside chat” Tuesday night,

JTA photo

Jews in Wisconsin have begun protesting a budget cutting proposal by the governor to eliminate most collective-bargaining righhts for public sector employees.

Walker, a Republican, defended his proposal, saying it has nothing to do with curtailing workers’ rights. “The legislation I’ve put forward is about one thing,” he said. “It’s about balancing our budget now and in the future.”

Some Wisconsin rabbis and Jewish rights groups disagree, saying the proposal is an attempt to break the unions, who have agreed to take an 8 percent pay cut but refuse to give up their bargaining power. Similar battles between unions and state government have spread to Ohio and Indiana.

Rabbi Jonathan Biatch of Madison’s Temple Beth El, who is Margulis’ husband, told JTA this is “absolutely” a Jewish issue.

“For years in America, the Jewish community has supported workers’ right to organize, to bargain collectively, and for other purposes,” he said.

“These rights are now in danger in Wisconsin because of Gov. Walker’s proposal to eliminate collective-bargaining agreements with public sector employees.”

Arguments have focused on the ef-

fect Walker’s proposal will have on teachers, but it also would impact sanitation workers, bus drivers and other municipal and state workers, Biatch and Margulis said. Police, firefighters and other public safety employees are exempt.

Rabbi Renee Bauer, director of the Interfaith Coalition, says Madison’s Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal congregation, Shaarei Shamayim, is drafting a letter opposing the governor’s bill and hopes to get the city’s three other congregations to sign on.

The Jewish federations of Madison and Milwaukee have decided not to take a position on the issue.

“It’s really due to the diversity of our donor base,” said Jill Hagler, executive director of the Madison federation.

“This is a very important issue, and we have a number of diverse opinions.”

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Milwaukee also is refraining from taking a position, and for the same reasons, according to director Elana Kahn-Oren.

She noted that the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body representing 14 national and 125 local federations and JCRCs, put out a resolution several years ago supporting the right to collective bargaining and that the American Jewish community “has deep roots in labor.”

But, Kahn-Oren pointed out, not all Wisconsin Jews oppose the governor’s bill. “There are Jews who support Walker and those who have joined the protests,” she said.

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011— 15

Simchas Births Fishman/Reichenberg: Stephanie and Teddy Davis announce the birth of their grandson, Chaim Shabtai Fishman, Aug. 15, 2010. Parents are Debra and Ben Fishman of Tel Zion, Israel.

Chaim Shabtai is also the grandson of Jerry Fishman of Philadelphia and the late Randi Fishman. Great-grandparents are Janet and Lawrence Grotstein of Pittsburgh, the late Morris Sedaka, Jan Sedaka of Bethesda and the late Oscar and Hilda Reichenberg.

Chaim Shabtai is named in loving memory of his grandfather, Chaim Shabtai Reichenberg, father of Leora, Debra and Ariel.

B’nai Mitzva Bert Cham, son of Maggie and Michael Cham, will become a bar mitzva Saturday, Feb. 26, at Rodef Shalom Congregation.

Grandparents are Holly and Ed Dobkin and Marcia and Kenneth Cham.

Harrison Cham, son of Maggie and Michael Cham, will become a bar mitzva Saturday, Feb. 26, at Rodef Shalom Congregation.

Grandparents are Holly and Ed Dobkin and Marcia and Kenneth Cham.

Alex Steven Goldstein, son of Lynne and Michael Goldstein, will become a bar mitzva Saturday, Feb. 26, at 10:30 a.m. at Temple Sinai. Grandparents are Carol and Harry Adelsheimer of Pittsburgh and the late Sarah and Saul Goldstein.

eadline for submitting Simchas D is Thursday, 4:30 p.m. Sendannouncements (preferred method) in body of e-mail with photo attachment in JPG format to announcements@thejewishchronicle.net.

There is a $12 charge to publish a photo. Announcements are free for subscribers and $44 for nonsubscribers. You can also mail typed copy, photo and appropriate fee to The Jewish Chronicle, 5915 Beacon St., 3rd Flr., Pittsburgh, PA 15217.

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16 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Community A C L O S E R

Celebrating 100 days Yeshiva Schools photo

Yeshiva Schools held their 100th day of school Wednesday, Feb. 16. The firstgraders celebrated their 100 days together by playing fun games themed around the number 100. Activities included making 100th day crowns, ribbons, and glasses, counting how far 100 steps would take them, 100th day gym and more. Each child received a certificate showing completion of 100 great days of school.

Immigrants to citizens Temple David photo

Eighth- and ninth-graders from Temple Sinai and Temple Emanuel joined the Temple David sponsored trip, “From Immigrant to Citizen,” to New York City to trace the path of our immigrant ancestors from the first sighting of the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island to the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side. Extras included a kosher meal at Ben’s Deli with lots of pickles, a visit to Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum, a scavenger hunt and shopping in Times

A meeting with the Bishop

L O O K

Stan Franzos photo

David Ainsman, chairman of the Community and Public Affairs Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, asks Bishop David Zubik a question Thursday, Feb. 17, while Federation President Jeff Finkelstein, center, looks on. At the Federation’s offices in Oakland, Zubik met with 40 leaders of the Jewish community to brief them on the recently concluded Pursuer of Peace Pilgrimage to Rome and Israel.

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 17

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The Jewish Chronicle on the web -- www.thejewishchronicle.net

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18 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL JUNK REMOVAL

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• • • • • •

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TO PLACE YOUR AD

Expires 03-31-11

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CODE JC010111

CODE JC010111

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CODE JC010111

ISSUE 2 IS ALMOST HERE!

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MAGAZINE

Jewish Pittsburgh Living

R EAL E STATE • C LASSIFIED B USINESS & P ROFESSIONAL

Jewish news around the world and around the block ...as it happens!

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 19

GLOBE an April 10 meeting in Philadelphia. If approved, the new organization will have one board, staff and chief executive.

Briefly JTA

Continued from page 11.

The federation represents the movement’s 105 congregations; the college is the Reconstructionist movement’s sole rabbinical seminary.

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, which represents more than 300 member rabbis, endorsed the move and its rabbis will have a formal role in the newly merged entity.

The proposal will be voted on during

The Jewish Chronicle

Germany’s first newly built Reform synagogue since World War II was dedicated during ceremonies in the city of Hameln.

The building was constructed on the site of the former synagogue destroyed on the night of Nov. 9, 1938 in the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews, their property and institutions.

A Torah scroll for the new synagogue was dedicated Feb. 4 in New York at the American headquarters of the World Union For Progressive Judaism.

Founded in 1997, the Hameln congregation of some 200 members is led

by Rabbi Irit Shillor.

Congregation president Rachel Dohme said the new building, which is shaped like an ellipse, “gives us the feeling of being together and still progressing and developing. It is just one step of many along the way to create a vibrant Jewish life in Hameln.”

As with many congregations across Germany, most members are immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Due to the influx of former Soviet Jews, Germany’s Jewish population has grown from about 30,000 in 1989 to about 240,000 today. More than half

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that number are not affiliated.

Three other Reform synagogues were dedicated in Germany in recent years, but all in pre-existing buildings, said Jan Muhlstein, who heads the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Twenty-three congregations in Germany belong to the Progressive Union, while several other non-traditional congregations are not members of the union, he said.

“It is another sign of the continuity of liberal Judaism in Germany today, particularly in the state of Lower Saxony, where Reform Judaism had its start 200 years ago,” he added.

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Dining room with enormous lead windows and cushion window seat. Marble fireplace, mini conservatory, morning room, Euro style kitchen and lovely perennial gardens. $850,000 Tucky Wolfson

5 Unique homes All remodeled and updated Move-in condition $140,000-$275,000 3 years interest only financing available GLICKMAN REAL ESTATE 412-521-9555

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Here’s your opportunity to take advantage of below market values. $190,000 — 716 Park Plaza (128 N. Craig Street) One of Oakland’s premier buildings. Original 3 BR, 2 bath unit was converted to large 2 BR. Has additional private storage room and cedar closet. Spectacular space! Same apartment lower floor sold for $255,000. STEAL THIS!

$360,000 — 115 Yorkshire Drive Tudor with 5 BRs, 2 1/2 baths on a wonderful Point Breeze cul de sac.

2-car garage, balcony off master suite over-looks private rear yard.

Teenager’s hideaway on 3rd floor.

Phil Marcus, GRI, CRS, IAAO Associate Broker RE/MAX Realty Brokers 412-521-1000 x330

“Mortgage Rates Are Low” Think of the advantage of Buying or Selling OAKLAND CONDOS WINCHESTER — 2 Bed & 2 Bath Contemporary, pool, exercise & guest suite, great location Priced $229,500 220N DITHRIDGE — Terrific 2 bed 2 bath, balcony, pool & party rm, 2 guest rms, exercise & party rm. Priced $219,500 220 N. DITHRIDGE NEWLY OFFERED! 3 BR, 2 1/2 bath. Beautiful condition. W/D in unit. Asking $389,000.

PARK PLAZA — Large 3 Bedrooms, 21/2 Baths, eat-in kitchen, Tons of closets - Extra large private storage room. Priced $329,500

SQ. HILL CONDO BEACON PLACE - 1 Bed & Bath Move in - perfect condition Priced $102,000. Reduced $97,500

SQ. HILL BEECHWOOD BLVD. — A home for all to enjoy. Truly a beautiful gem of a grand old house completely restored but kept its original charm. Asking $1,250,000

For information call Tamara Skirboll 412-521-2222 x220 Cell 412-401-1110

Visit us at thejewishchronicle.net

20 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

CL ASSIFIED

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Call Today 412-687-1000

HELP WANTED

POSITION WANTED

B’NAI ABRAHAM Synagogue in Butler, PA. Is searching for a rabbi or spiritual leader/cantor. We are 45 min. north of Pittsburgh.

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••• CHILD CARE 35+ hrs. /wk.

Sq. Hill. Inquisitive, lively & fun 6 year old girl seeks engaging energetic & devoted nanny before & after school.

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••• NANNY NEEDED for a healthy 5 month old, 12 hours/week, afternoons in my home. Must be fluent in English with experience, references & physically fit.

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••• CAREGIVER WITH all criminal clearance certifications in CPR, first aide & exercise.

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Contact Sonya Boyd 412731-0279.

••• MR. & MISSY House cleaning. Leave the mess to us.

Affordable flat rate, free estimates, appliance cleaning available. Call Missy 412641-0730.

POSITION WANTED THE CARE REGISTRY INC. is a state licensed company providing screened & experienced nurse aids & companions. Reasonable rates, top quality & caring management also available. For more information Call Andrea Seewald, LSW 412421-5202 or visit www.TheCareRegistry.com.

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••• CAREGIVER CONNECTION A PA. Licensed home-care registry, Jewish Family & Children’s Service refers screened, JF&CS trained caregivers providing short/long-term personal care services to seniors at affordable rates. Available 24/7, call 412-422-0400 or 877-243-1530 (toll free).

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••• DETAILED CLEANING just the way you like it to be done. Great references.

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BUYING AUTO/TRUCKS C A R S -T R U C K S -VA N S SUVS- Quite driving, death, wrecks, antiques, classics, Junkers. Denny Offstein 724287-7771 dennyoffsteinusedcar@zoominternet.net.

CERAMIC TILE

DRIVER NEED A RIDE? Call Norm, he will drive you. Doctors, shopping, anything that needs to be done. Experienced, insured, great references and reasonable rates.

Available le for airport pickup or departure. Norm 412521-6999.

ELECTRICIAN ARMSTRONG PLUG & Switch, LLC. Registered-Insured, electric breaker box upgrade, lighting, additional outlets, code corrections, dedicated circuits, rewires & repairs.

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GOLF PARTNER GOLFER WANTED, Pittsburgh Spring, Summer & Fall 2011. Need partner for upcoming season. Jimmy Cohen @ 412-491-6781.

HANDYMAN NO JOB TOO SMALL or a honey to do list! Call Dave at Maids & More 412-824-3540.

HOME REPAIRS GENERAL HOME Repairs, interior/exterior, retaining walls, dry wall, flooring, ceramic, laminate, painting, plastering, pressure washing, kitchen & bath remodeling. PA licensed & insured.

412-731-1496.

INSURANCE SPECIALIZING IN Whole Life, Term, Indexed Annuities, Fixed Annuities, Disability & Final Expense insurance. I help people stretch their retirement resources. Call Joel Kruman 412-257-3598 PA Licensed Producer.

Portion of the Week RABBI PAUL TUCHMAN TEMPLE B’NAI ISRAEL, WHITE OAK Vayakhel, Exodus 35:1-38:20

Construction of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary, is the main subject of Vayakhel, this week’s Torah portion.

The gathering of materials, the appointment of artist/managers, the fabrication of cloth and furnishings, the dimensions of all the parts and their assembly — these are presented in great detail.

Even so — and this is a constant feature of the Tanakh — there is not enough detail. For example, we read (Exodus 36:8) that a design of cherubim was worked into the strips of cloth that were joined (sewn?) together to comprise the innermost sanctuary.

We are not told, however, what these cherubim actually looked like. We might imagine fiery angels such as those who guarded the Garden of Eden against Adam and Eve’s return. Or the elegant human-like figures with long wings depicted on the lid of the “Lost Ark” in the first Indiana Jones movie. Or the chubby winged toddlers who flit about in Italian Renaissance paintings. These cherubim — were they standing, bowing, flying?

Our text gives no clue.

Almost the last item mentioned in our Torah portion (38:18) is the “screen of the gate of the enclosure”: 30 feet long, seven and a half feet high, and embroidered in blue, purple and crimson yarns with fine linen. Now we understand embroidery, and we know that it isn’t

random. It involves pattern, figure or both.

A screen is simultaneously an enticement to go beyond and an obstacle to doing so. Its function is to make us hesitate, to consider what makes the space on the other side so special — even holy — and to prepare to exist within it.

What was embroidered on that mishkan screen? The “Ten Commandments” enjoin us from depicting anything encountered in nature, but clearly the figures of cherubim were permissible. What pattern or figure would have been conducive to establish the mood of awe and receptivity in one who passed beyond the screen?

Neither you nor I can tell. So let’s ask a different question, a personal question.

What pattern or figure on that screen would evoke both your awe and your spiritual yearning? What would make you pause and prepare before entering a holy place?

Architects and artists have been presenting their answers to these questions for millennia. Who has not been stirred and uplifted by successful synagogue architecture and décor?

You might want to approach an answer to this question through the technique of visualization. Sometimes, for example, a meditation leader will ask that we close our eyes and visualize the letters of God’s ineffable Name, or the number 1.

Your own spiritual “trigger” is likely to be something else entirely.

Let the Torah’s instruction to embroider a screen stimulate you to re-affirm or find your entrance to holiness.

And then, step beyond it.

(This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Rabbinic Association.)

Buying or Selling

MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT

T HE JEWISH C HRONICLE’S

THE HOT MATZOHS, Pittsburgh’s #1 Klezmer Band, is available for your Wedding, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Corporate or other special event! The dynamic band, featuring violinist Barbara Lowenstein (founder), offers many styles of music in addition to Klezmer, e,g, classical, jazz, swing and folk. Call 412-344-3338 or 412-3030746. Or e-mail:barbsviolin@gmail.com.

Real Estate Directory is the best source.

Call 412-687-1000 to place your ad.

Rates starting at $10.25.

PERSONAL

O’LEARY CERAMIC Tile SVC. New & repair work since 1977. Re-groutingcaulking, fully insured. PA HIC Lic. #004228. Call 412731-0440.

WILL TRAVEL TO meet a special Jewish lady. Jewish male (50’s) located in Central PA enjoys sports, comedy, Starbucks & much more.

Please contact me at billtownmagic@hotmail.com.

COMPUTER

PIANO LESSONS

NICE JEWISH Boy, offering the full range of computer services, from advising and teaching to repair and support. I will come to your house or apartment, fix any problem you’re having & teach you what you need to know to use it. I have 14 years’ experience working with people of all ages. . No job is too large or small, and nobody is too computer illiterate. (Really) CALL JASON 412-4011204, or visit my web www.computerwizard.us.

References available.

TORAH The embroidered screen

BEGINNERS, CHILDREN or Adults, with or without talent, customized, classical instruction. Experienced, patient, reasonable rates, at my studio or your residence. Call Paul 412421-6583.

TRANSLATOR HEBREW, ENGLISH & Spanish translator looking for more clients. 412-918-1836 or 412-853-5109.

VOICE/PIAN0 VOICE/PIANO LESSIONS with CMU graduate. Info.

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YOGA INSTRUCTOR AVAILABLE FOR Private & class style yoga instruction.

Instruction can vary from beginner to intermediate/ advanced. If interested please email ferris.glick@gmail.com or call 412-855-6027.

SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS Tell them you saw their ad in

The Jewish Chronicle

LEGAL NOTICE ESTATE NOTICES Letters have been granted on the estate of each of the following decedents to the personal representative named, who requests all persons having claims against the estate of the decedent to make known the same in writing to him or his attorney, and all persons indebted to the decedent to make payment to him without delay:

STRICKER, Rose C., deceased, of Scott Township, PA, Allegheny County; No. 02-1100524 or to: Joyce A. Slaughter and Susan M. Chabala, CoExecutrices, c/o Philip H. Rubenstein, Esq., 312 Second Avenue, Carnegie, PA 15106.

3Th 338, 331, 324

LEVINE, Barbara., deceased, of Wilkinsburg, PA. No. 0211-00664 or to: Kimberly S. Steinberg,Executrix, c/o Philip H. Rubenstein, Esq., 312 Second Avenue, Carnegie, PA 15106.

WACHTEL, Sandra, deceased, of Pittsburgh, PA, Allegheny County; No. 0210-07644 or to: Joel Pfefffer, Esq., Meyer, Unkovic & Scott LLP, 535 Smithfield St., Suite 1300, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

3Th 338, 331, 324

3Th 338, 331, 324

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24 2011 — 21

ENVIRONMENT Rambam has the cure

Is ancient Kabbalah recipe a new cancer-fighting vitamin?

MORNING SERVICES - 9:30 A.M.

BY KAREN KLOOSTERMAN

Dr. Fuad Fares has a huge secret. It’s big enough to make sure his laboratory is locked tight when he’s not there. The Israeli scientist has been looking into the potency of ancient herbal treatments, and has discovered what he believes is a new family of antioxidants.

He’s tested the secret compound based on an inedible plant that grows in Israel, and has found it shows excellent results in stopping prostate and colon cancer in mice, and in human cancer cells in vitro.

Unable to disclose the plant’s variety until further tests are made, Fares is hoping that this plant, first described for its medicinal value in Arabic centuries ago, produces an entirely new antioxidant molecule which can stop cancer in its tracks. It could be ingested as a food additive, or like a vitamin, he hopes.

The body of research in scientific literature on antioxidants to stop the spread of cancer is growing. Scientists know that antioxidants such as lycopenes, found in tomatoes, fight free radicals, which can lead to cancer. They also know that glucosinolates found in cabbage varieties have anti-cancer properties too.

New tests on the mystery compound done at the University of Haifa lab, in the Carmel Medical Center in Israel, have been overwhelmingly good, and in the future could be added to our arsenal for fighting cancer.

A significant difference in fighting cancer Using a crude extract of the plant, Israeli-Arab Fares gave his test plant to mice as a preventive “medicine.” Then the mice were introduced with cancer.

Those that were given the crude extract were able to fight off the cancer tumors much better than the control group — only 20 percent of the treated mice developed cancer, while 80 percent of the control developed cancer.

An additional point to note, Fares tells ISRAEL21c, is that in the test group, the tumors were significantly smaller than the control.

In a second test, mice with cancer were given the plant-based extract as a medicine. “When we looked at the cells inside the tumors we saw these compounds induced cell death and decreased the tumors by 70 to 80 percent compared to the control group,” Fares says.

He also tested the extract on human cancer cells in vitro and saw “a dramatic effect.”

After Fares purifies the compound, he

Did the Rambam’s (Maimonides) ancient book of herbal recipes give clues to finding a new anti-cancer vitamin?

hopes it will yield a brand new class of antioxidants.

Inspired by Kabalistic cures?

“Just used as an extract it seems to be effective,” says Fares, who besides hunting for the next plant-based drug, is also a director of Modigene, a company he created while doing post-doctoral work at Washington University.

Modigene is a biopharmaceutical company using patented technology to develop longer-lasting, proprietary versions of approved therapeutic proteins that currently generate billions in annual global sales.

Now Fares is working on identifying the mystery substance, and will apply for a patent — and release the secret — if the compound is indeed unique.

After purifying it, he might get even more startling results. And it could well be a medical breakthrough, agrees Fares, who found mention of the plant in an ancient herbal remedy book written centuries ago in the region.

“It’s known that antioxidants help cancer prevention and treatment. We are focusing on plants not known in the literature. It’s not food, but a medicinal plant,” says Fares, who declines to say whether or not inspiration came from a book by Rambam — Moses Maimonides, a famous Jewish doctor writing medical treatises in Arabic in the 12th century.

The plant, he says, is something that grows in Israel and it’s something that people don’t eat. As for more details, he is sorry, but we will just have to wait.

(Stories from The Green Prophet appear here by agreement with its editor, Karin Kloosterman. For more Green news from the Middle East, visit The Green Prophet at greenprophet.com.)

Contact the Green Prophet at karin.kloosterman@gmail.com.)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27: ROSE ABRAMS, FLORENCE AMDUR, LENA BRAND, AARON CHARAPP, FAY SEINER COHEN, ROBERT DAVIS, EDNA FOSTER, HERMAN FRANK, DAVID GLICK, RHEA RYAVE GOLDSTEIN, IDA GUCKENHEIMER, MOLLIE GUTKIND, SOLOMON HANDEL, GERTRUDE HARRIS, LENA HECHTMAN, ABRAHAM HYMAN, ISADOR KAMENS, LILY JUNE KANAREK, CARL KATZ, SAMUEL S. KIMBALL, ANNA KREMER, LENA BRODIE LEBOVITZ, DORA LEIBER, GERTRUDE LEVENSON, REBECCA LEWINTER, GERSHEN LIEPACK, DR. SIMON W. MARICK, SADIE L. MARKS, MOLLIE WAX MAZER, HAROLD MEYERS, T/SGT. SHERWYN W. MEYERS, PAULA R. MITCHEL, GERTRUDE NEVINS, JOHANNA RAUNER, ESTHER RIDER, ISAAC ROSENBERG, KATIE RUBEN, A. MAX SCHMUCKLER, LENA G. SCHWARTZ, FANNIE SHAPIRO, HANNAH SHIFFLER, YESHIA HIKEL SHURE, JACK ISADORE SLOMOFF, SAMUEL STAPSKY, REGINA STEINER, PAUL TABOR, DOROTHY S. ZAKUTO. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28: JOANNE BRODELL ALPERN, ADA ALPERT, LEWIS L. BAKER, SARA BAKER, ABE BARRON, ABRAHAM LOUIS BARRON, MARVIN BERMAN, MATILDA HELFGOTT BRAND, WILLIAM BRAND, JANE B. COOPER, BENJAMIN B. CRONE, MILTON E. ENGEL, OSCAR FEDERBUSCH, RABBI ABRAHAM FEINBERG, WILLIAM H. FIENBERG, JENNIE FISHER, DORA BELLE GOLDENSON, SARAH GOLOMB, DAVID GOTTDIENER, ESTHER GOTTLIEB, LOUIS GOULD, EVELYN HARRIS, EVELYN HARRIS, JOSEPH HARRIS, LOUIS HIRSCH, ANNA HEISLER JACOBS, YOLAN KATZ, GOLDIE KLEIN, GOLDIE R KLEIN, HANNAH KLEIN, SADIE KLEIN, FRANI ZIMMERMAN KLINE, HYMAN KRAMER, ETTA KRAUS, KATHRYN LEVENSON, LENA LEVINSON, DR. HERMAN MEYERS, HERMAN DR. MEYERS, ETTA MIRVIS, PEARL G. MOLTZ, SAM MOSKOWITZ, MISCHA MUELLER, OSCAR ORRINGER, OSCAR PARIS, ANNA PODOLSKY, WILLIAM ROSEN, SARAH ROTHSTEIN, ETHEL RUDZOVSKI, JOSEPH SACK, JENNIE SCHOEN, ANNA M. SEDLER, MEYER SHALANSKY, ESTHER ANNA SHAMBERG, HANNAH SHAPIRA, BESSIE SHAPIRO, FRANK SHAPIRO, EUGENE SILVERMAN, ISADORE SMALLEY, ELI SNYDER, MAX TULCHINSKY, SARAH VERBIN, GLORIA L. WALD, CHARLES HERMAN WEINHAUS, J.N. WOLK, ESTHER WOLOVITZ. TUESDAY, MARCH 1: FANNIE ALMASI, GERTRUDE ALPERN, GRACE BAHM, SAMUEL BARRES, RUTH BECKER, LOUIS WILLIAM BENNETT, SARAH FREIBERGER, FANNIE FRIEDMAN, HAROLD A. GOLOMB, MARY GORDON, AUDREY BROWN GREEN, MORRIS HARRISON, JOSEPH HERRON, GOLDIE HOLTZMAN, SAM KAMERMAN, MAX KATKISKY, IDA V. KINGSBERG, JACOB KLEE, EDWARD J. LEVINE, HENRY S. LEVINE, MATTHEW MARCUS, AARON MAX, CHARLES DAVID MERVIS, HERBERT MEYERS, EMANUEL MORRIS, HARRIS NEUMAN, ESTHER OKLIN, IDA PAVLOFF, SAMUEL PORTNER, HERMAN S. RADIN, S.J. ROGALSKY, HERBERT ROTHMAN, RAY SIDEMAN, HIMAN SIGAL, BERNARD BERYL SIROTA, ETTA LEAH SOLOMON, ROSALIND C. SOLOMON, SIMON SPATZ, EARL STERN, SAMUEL WEINTHAL, MAX WEISBEKER, PAUL WELTMAN, DORA WILSON, HARRY ZIFF, REBECCA ZIV. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2: ISABEL B. BELINKY, FREDA BENOWITZ, BERT BERNHARDT, TILLIE Z. BROWN, ALLEN COHEN, MARY COHEN, LIBBY R. FARBER, DAVID FELDMAN, SONIA FOGEL, VERNER WILLIAM FRIEDMAN, ESTHER GLICK, MAX GLICK, DAVID GLICKMAN, FANNIE O. GOLDBERG, MORDECAI GOLDSTEIN, SAMUEL DAVID HARRISON, ISAAC E. HIRSCH, SELMA BELBER HORN, DAVID HOROWITZ, HORTENSE R. ISRAEL, JACOB KATZ, MORTON C. KATZ, JOY ELLEN LEVIN LEFF, LEO ABRAHAM MD LEVINE, LEO ABRAHAM LEVINE, MD, WILLIAM J. LEWINTER, CELIA LINDER, FRANK MANDEL, JOSEPH L. MANDEL, HANNAH MARICK, MORRIS MOSS, SOPHIE NEWHOUSE, EVA PRENSKY, SARAH PUNCH, JOSEPH QUINT, HENRY LOUIS ROSENBURG, JULIUS ROSENFELD, AARON SHENSON, MENDEL SHERIN, FANNIE SIDRANSKY, BESSIE SPIEGLE, BENJAMIN UNGER, SAMUEL YANKS, ANNA ZIMMER, AMELIA F. ZUGSMITH. THURSDAY, MARCH 3: ALBERT ABEL, BESSIE BERNSTEIN, HARRY BIRNKRANT, SAMUEL CARLIS, ROSE COPPELMAN, SARA ESTHER DICKTER, JOSEPH EISENBERG, MARY RIVA EPSTEIN, JOSEPH FELD, LOUIS FRANK, HYMAN A. FRIEDMAN, ISAAC FRIEDMAN, HENRY A. GOLD, SARAH GOLD, ANNA FANNIE GREEN, CHARLOTTE GRINBERG, RICHARD S. HALF, NATHAN HANDELMAN, MAYER HANDLEY, BESSIE KAPLAN, HENRIETTA KAUFMAN, ABRAHAM LEVENSON, ALFRED MARVIN LEVEY, OSCAR K. LIGHT, CELIA MERVIS, MARY MERVIS, BELLE G. MEYERS, HILLEL L. NYDES, SAMUEL OSTFIELD, HERMAN PERIS, JOSEPH PLATT, MEYER ROGOWITZ, ROWENA M. ROSENTHAL, MARY W. ROTH, MOSES J. SADOWSKY, LENA SAMOWICH, ELLIS I. SAUL, BENJAMIN J SCHWARTZ, MILTON SCHWARTZ, ELLA M. SHAEFFER, LOUIS SIDLER, BERTHA C. TALENFELD, RACHEL VERK, LEONARD WEISS, ETHEL ZAMSKY. FRIDAY, MARCH 4: NOAH BOBROW, ABE BRAVER, ROBERT COHEN, ABE DENMARK, HENRY DENTEL, MAX FISHOFF, LEONA FRANKLIN, HERMINE GELDER, JOSEPH GLASSER, RITA SERRINS GLAZER, SOLOMON GOLDBERG, BENJAMIN GOLDMAN, LIBBIE GOLDSPINNER, GRACE HARRIS, HAROLD P. HARRIS, JOSEPH HARRIS, MORRIS HARRIS, MORRIS H. HARRIS, HANNAH HERSHMAN, LOUIS KAPLAN, FANNIE KLEIN, JOSEPH KLEINERMAN, EDWARD KORNSTEIN, MAX KUGLER, BELLA LENCER, EZRA LEVENSON, HERMAN S. LEVIN, LESSOR E. LEVY, MORRIS R. MANDELBLATT, GUSSIE MARCUS, MARKUS MARKOVITZ, SARAH MENDELSON, LEAH MILLER, RACHEL MUELLER, REV. LOUIS NAUMBURG, MANFRED PELS, CLARA PERLMAN, ESTELLE REISS, CHARLES ROBBINS, GERTRUDE K. ROTHENBERG, HELEN R.B. SAND, TIBIE S. SAPPER, MOLLIE SCHONFIELD, SAMUEL SCHWARTZ, JACOB SHERMAN, ROSE SIGAL, NELLIE SILVERSTEIN, LEONA SISENWAIN, PAUL STEIN, JACOB M. STONE, SARA SUSSMAN, PEARL TAFEL, SHLOIME TARMY, BERTHA VICTORIUS, NATHAN WEINBERG, FLORENCE LEONA WEINBERGER, DOROTHY ARFIELD WISEMAN. SATURDAY, MARCH 5: JOSEPH AMERICUS, FRANK APTER, ELEANOR P. BACKER, BERTHA BERGER, IDA BLATT, LOUIS H. BROUDY, NATE BURSTEIN, SAM CARTIFF, ADELE CHERKOSLY, PAUL COHEN, DORA DANENBERG, FREEDA DUTCH, ISAAC GOLDMAN, ISAAC GOLDMAN, MIRIAM GOLDSTEIN, SOPHIE HERMAN, LIBBIE BROIDA HIRSH, NETTI JANOWSKI, ETTA KLINE, SARA LOUISE LEFF, JACOB LEVINE, SAMUEL LEWIS, ALEXIUS LOBL, MAX LOEFSKY, MICHAEL LOFFER, BESSIE LEAH MARCUS, EVELYN SELKOVITS MARCUS, LAURA MARTIN, MINNIE P. MILLER, SAMUEL L. MILLER, BERNARD MOSKOWITZ, BERNARD MOSLOWITZ, JACOB OPACHEVSKY, GEORGE PEARLE, JACOB H. 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22 — THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011

OBITUARIES COOK: On Friday, February 18, 2011, David M. Cook, beloved husband of Norma (Reuben) Cook; loving father of Michael Cook of Philadelphia and Cindy Cook-Katz of Pittsburgh; brother of the late Freda Margolis and Sidney Cook; loving “Papa” of Adam and Alyse Katz; also survived by many nieces and nephews. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., 5509 Centre Ave., Shadyside. Interment Homewood Cemetery/Star of David Section.

JACOBSON: On Sunday, February 13, 2011, in Stuart, FL, Elliott M. Jacobson; beloved husband of Betty J. Jacobson and the late Bernice L. Jacobson; loving father of Paul S. Jacobson, the late Alan C. Jacobson, Lawrence P. Jacobson, Dawn M. Stept, George B. Wintner and Kerry W. Smooke; devoted brother of Joyce J. Leavitt and Marty Jacobson; beloved grandfather of Jeremy Jacobson, Heather Van Syckle, Courtney and Brooke Jacobson, Chelsea and Jamie Jacobson, Matthew Marcus and the late Elizabeth Marcus, Eric and Molly Smooke, Bakara and Micah Wintner; great-grandfather of Kean and Rory Van Syckle and Hannah Marcus. Contributions may be made to the Treasure Coast Hospice, 1201 SE Indian Road, Stuart, Florida 34997. Arrangements by Cox-Gifford-Seawinds Funeral Home, Vero Beach, FL. KURTZ: On Sunday, February 6, 2011, Saul Kurtz, beloved husband of Shirley Kurtz; father of Michael (Susan) Kurtz and JoAnn (Charles) KurtzAhlers; brother of Jack Kurtz; grandfather of Beth Erin Kurtz and Steven

Kurtz; stepgrandfather of Chris Ahlers.

Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., 5509 Centre Ave., Shadyside. Interment Ohav Zedeck Cemetery, Shaler Township.

LEVAUR: On Wednesday, February 16, 2011, Ruth Lieberman, 100, beloved wife of the late Bernard D. Levaur; cherished mother of Marcia Levaur of Pittsburgh, and Barbara and Donald Werner of Hermitage, PA and Boca Raton, FL; sister of the late Libbie (late Sol) Prince, the late Ethel (late Isadore) Prince and the late Leonard (late Sylvia) Lieberman; adored grandmother of Susan Morrow of Chicago and Beth and Martin Katz of Greenbrae, CA, and stepgrandchildren Roni Werner Rosati, Eric and Craig Werner; beloved greatgrandmother of 12; also survived by devoted caregivers, Linda Biskup, Mary Ann Manno, Marlene Peterson and Toni Slayton. Services were held at Rodef Shalom Temple. Contributions may be made to Ruth & Bernard Levaur Contemporary Lecture Series at Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 or Sivitz Jewish Hospice, 200 JHF Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Arrangements by Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. LUICK: On Friday, February 18, 2011, Howard M. “Butch” Luick; beloved son of Lenora “Babe” Luick of Pittsburgh and the late Carl Luick; brother of Cathy Luick (Bill Ozanick) of Pittsburgh, Elysa Luick of Baltimore, MD, and Marc Luick also of Pittsburgh.

Services and interment private.

Arrangements by Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc.

Please refer to www.thejewishchronicle.net for regularly updated obituary information.

SWARTZ: On Wednesday, February 16, 2011, J. Elliott Swartz, beloved husband of the late Jean Swartz; beloved father of Patricia (Robert) Gillman and Bobbi (late Dr. Edward) Elmer; brother of Louis (Marcy) Swartz; brother-in-law of Ethel Ackerman; grandfather of Drew, Jamie, Amy and Todd; also survived by nieces and nephews. Graveside

services and interment were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 960 Penn Avenue, Suite 1000, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 or Family Hospice & Palliative Care, 50 Moffett Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15243.

Arrangements by Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc.

Wolhendler never harbored hate for Germans despite Holocaust

BY TOBY TABACHNICK Staff Writer

Jacob Wolhendler, a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was murdered by Nazis during World War II, managed to escape the same fate by wits, luck and his blond-haired, blueeyed looks.

He died Monday, Feb. 14, at the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill. He was 97.

Wolhendler came to Pittsburgh to live with an aunt and uncle after leaving a Czech displaced persons camp in 1947, according to his cousin, Irene Goldszer. He owned and operated a furniture store on the South Side, serving steel mill workers and their families, until the late 1980s.

His road to Pittsburgh was a rough one.

Wolhendler and his father fled their small town in Poland in 1939 when word came that the Germans were rounding up and shooting Jewish men. After taking refuge in a farmhouse about 30 kilometers away, Germans soldiers soon discovered them and shot Wolhendler’s father in cold blood.

Having no time to tend to his father’s body, Wolhendler fled to the woods, making his way back home to his mother and younger siblings.

“His mother knew that things were not getting better, and the borders were still open,” said Goldszer. “So she sent her son west to Germany to work on a potato farm. She thought that with his blue eyes and light features he might manage to get by as German, Catholic boy.”

Wolhendler lived for six years with a farmer in Germany, until the end of the war.

“He was fairly certain the farmer knew he was a Jew,” Goldszer said.

“But the farmer never exposed him, and they never discussed it.”

In 1943, Wolhendler’s mother and four siblings were deported to Auschwitz, where they were all killed.

Although Germans were responsible for the death of Wolhendler’s family, he never forgot that it was also a German who saved his life.

“He was one of those people who never manifested hatred toward Germans” Goldszer said. “He used to say,

‘I’ve known some Germans who were good to me, and some took my whole family.’ ” Wolhendler, who never married, became a philanthropist in the Jewish community, donating funds to organizations such as the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, the Holocaust Center of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, and the Jewish Association on Aging.

“He didn’t allow himself any finery,” said Bicky Goldszer, another cousin. “He thought it was more important to take care of others than himself.”

Wolhendler did take good care of himself physically, though, recognizing early in his life the value of good nutrition and exercise. He typically walked at least four miles a day, either at the Schenley Park golf course, in good weather, or at the track in the JCC when the weather was inclement, said Irene Goldszer.

While Wolhendler funded educational programs at the Holocaust Center, including a lecture series that bears his name, he never spoke openly about his experiences during the Holocaust, and remained a quiet man throughout his life.

“He was a person of few words,” said Irene Goldszer. “He was terse and pithy. He survived by watching and not speaking. For six years he was able to masquerade in Germany by not speaking. He didn’t want people to detect a Yiddish inflection, so he didn’t talk.”

While he did not speak of his Holocaust experiences to his family until he was in his early 90s, he gave interviews to authors of Holocaust books, Irene Goldszer said. His experiences were among those chronicled in the book, “Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust.”

Wolhendler is also survived by two cousins, Dr. Louis Goldszer of Squirrel Hill and Anne Krieger of Oakland, and their children.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Holocaust Center of Greater Pittsburgh, 5738 Darlington Road, Pittsburgh 15217.

(Toby Tabachnick can be reached at tobyt@thejewischronicle.net.)

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THE JEWISH CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 24, 2011 — 23

METRO Continued from page 1. said Ryan Gianola, president of the Hillel student board. “The way we’re growing right now, it can’t accommodate us anymore. We just need a place to accommodate Jewish life on campus.”

Additionally, Gianola, 21, a junior hospitality major from Fox Chapel, said the current Hillel location inside the Pasquerilla Center does little to recruit Jewish students to Penn State.

“It’s not anything that has our name on it,” he said. “People don’t really know where to find Hillel at Penn State; we’re just a couple offices in a building.”

The new center will afford Hillel the “freedom” to program in ways that will attract students, he added.

The new site, which is at one of the highest traffic blocks in State College, is

Farrakhan: Continued from page 1.

Whether the center hosts any given speaker or program is determined by whether it fits in with its mission, he continued.

“We believe in dialogue,” Guess said.

“You can’t just dismiss anyone out of hand, say they’re different and we’re dismissing them as that. One thing the center is is inclusive.”

Asked hypothetically if the center would ever permit a member of the Ku Klux Klan to speak there, Guess replied, “Absolutely, if it were in the scope of what we were trying to do.”

Farrakhan’s attacks on Jews continue unabated.

“Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism never went away,” said Oren Segal, director of the Center on Extremism at the AntiDefamation League, Washington, D.C. “He never truly acknowledged his antiSemitism, let alone make amends for it or apologize.”

In the last 18 months, in fact, Segal said Farrakhan has given several speeches that have been “rife” with conspiracy theories about Jews, about Israel, discussing Jewish control of the government, Jewish control of finance in Hollywood.

“He’s left no doubt whatsoever antiSemitism remains a central part of his

anticipated to become a mini-student union, where even non-Jewish groups can rent space.

“We want it to be open to the entire university community,” Kaufman said.

Penn State Hillel serves an estimated 6,000 Jewish students, of which Gianola estimates, 500 actively affiliate, meaning they attend programming beyond an occasional Sabbath or holiday dinner.

Penn State Hillel is considered one of the fastest growing in the nation, according to Hillel International.

The new property was purchased directly from Citizens Bank, which was using only one of the four drive-through stalls at the time “It was a beautiful piece of land that was underutilized,” he said, “and we thought we could convince them they didn’t need it. It worked out for the best, I think.”

(Lee Chottiner can be reached at leec@thejewishchronicle.net.)

message,” Segal added.

Farrakhan is currently promoting a new book put out by his organization titled “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.”

“Essentially, what this books does is insult the integrity of the Jewish religion,” Segal said. “It distorts history; it essentially argues that slavery in the New World was initiated by Jewish ship owners and merchants.”

The Nation of Islam infrastructure, which Farrakhan controls, “is geared toward demonizing Jews, and this has been especially true in the last 18 months are so,” he added. “It is troubling that some mainstream leaders, including elected officials in some parts of the country, continue to ignore this blatant record of anti-Semitism. It provides him with the level of credibility that, A, he does deserve, but, B, would not be afforded to any other known anti-Semite in this country.”

A spokeswoman for the American Urban Radio Networks did not return a call from the Chronicle seeking comment.

“We are not in any way shape or form saying we agree with everything Rev. Farrakhan says,” Guess said. “This is an open forum. You can come, get tickets and voice your views on the subject.”

(Lee Chottiner can be reached at leec@thejewishchronicle.net.)

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