Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 3-7-25 by Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

By Adam Reinherz | Senior Sta Writer

The few children who attended last week’s outdoor Squirrel Hill vigil didn’t speak much. Nestled beside their parents, the young Pittsburghers watched adults embrace, stand silently in the rain and proceed to a small, covered stand to memorialize Shiri Bibas and her infant sons, Ariel and Kfir. Surrounded by orange balloons, the tented table displayed photographs of the Bibases and rows of yahrzeit candles. For more than an hour on Feb. 26, community members approached the kneehigh table, reached for matches or lighters and kindled flames in memory of the slain Israeli mother and her two small children.

Nearly 16 months after their Oct. 7, 2023, abduction by Hamas — Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and the boys’ father was taken separately from his family on that day — the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her redheaded sons were returned to Israel. Following a procession attended by thousands, including a now-released Yarden Bibas, the three deceased Bibases were buried in a single casket.

Squirrel Hill resident Yehudit Dvir, 58, watched the funeral online. Hours later she stood with her daughter and granddaughter on the corner of Murray Avenue and Darlington Road. Sheltered from the rain, Dvir said that organizing the gathering was a way of

Jewish Federation, city controller challenge BDS referendum question

reclaiming the senselessness surrounding the Bibases’ abduction and death.

“This is unforgivable, to take a mother and two babies alive to Gaza, to let us know that they are alive and to kill them,” Dvir said. “They’re supposed to bring them back alive. They did what they did — OK — now, bring them back alive. It’s a big deal. It’s a very big deal. This is not something we can forget or forgive.”

Several feet away, Helleny Dvir, 28, clutched her daughter Mika Dvir, 3.

“This is for a mother from a mother,” Helleny Dvir said of the memorial. “Our pain for Shiri Bibas and for this whole story is beyond anything that we can compare to. And it’s not just what happened to them. It’s the way it happened to them — the slaughtering, the way they did it is just not human.”

Authorities from the Israel Defense Forces said Ariel and Kfir Bibas were “brutally murdered” by terrorists in late November 2023. The claim, based on forensic evidence and intelligence according to The Times of Israel, refutes Hamas’ assertion that the boys, who would have been 4 years old and 10 months old in November 2023, died in an Israeli airstrike.

Dr. Chen Kugel, director of Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine, said that after Shiri Bibas’ body was returned to Israel, an

By David Rullo | Senior Sta Writer

all it “Referendum 2: The Sequel.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and a group of community leaders have filed a legal challenge to an antiIsrael referendum that the group Not On Our Dime — and its fiscal sponsor, the Project for Responsive Democracy — are attempting to have added to the May 20 primary ballot.

City Controller Rachael Heisler filed a separate objection to the referendum.

It’s a rematch of sorts to a legal battle that took place last August when a similar proposed referendum was challenged by the same parties. That contest was settled without a court fight when No War Crimes on Our Dime withdrew its petition, acknowledging it fell short of the number of valid signatures required to get a referendum on the ballot.

This time, Not On Our Dime seeks to force the city of Pittsburgh to stop doing business with the state of Israel, or any company doing business with the Jewish state.

The proposed ballot question reads:

“Shall the Pittsburgh Home Rule Charter be amended to align Pittsburgh’s finances with

Rabbi nominated for Shuman oversight

Ben Seidman's “Good Charlatan”

 A child crouches near a stand with photographs of the Bibas family and yahrzeit candles on Feb. 26.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

 Rabbi Seth Adelson, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh President and CEO Jeff Finkelstein and Rabbi Yitzi Genack are challenging for a second time a referendum that would prohibit the city of Pittsburgh from doing business with Israel.

Photo by David Rullo

Headlines

Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel nominated for Shuman oversight board

By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer

Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel first visited a prison nearly five decades ago.

While home in Manchester, England, for Pesach in 1978, the then-student rabbi accompanied his father to visit a prominent community member who had been arrested. When asked why he would take such a long trip to visit someone who brought shame to the Jewish community, Vogel’s father told his son that there is always an opportunity for a person to repent and it is important to bring light into the world.

It’s a lesson he learned well.

Vogel is the executive director of the Aleph Institute, N.E. Regional Headquarters. The organization offers religious, educational and humanitarian services to imprisoned Jewish men and women and their families.

“We’re not allowed to abandon them,” Vogel said. “We’ve got to recognize that they’re our brothers and sisters and that we’re responsible. King David says in Tehillim, ‘Every Jew is responsible one for another.’”

When Vogel returned to Israel after visiting the prison with his father 47 years ago, he began making weekly visits to Jewish inmates at a Jerusalem jail. When he was ready to serve the Jewish community as an adult, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson sent Vogel to Pittsburgh to establish the Aleph Institute.

“Our job is to help them up, dust off the dirt and help them become productive members of society,” Vogel said of those incarcerated.

The Aleph Institute supports Jewish prisoners by providing items for holidays and religious observance — Vogel is currently working on his 35th Purim observance — lends religious books through the statewide prison library system, trains volunteers, coordinates prison visits and records d’var Torahs and holiday messages, among other services.

The institute also works, through its alternative sentencing program, to help community

members who have committed their first, non-violent crime avoid prison. The program involves probation, reporting to the Aleph Institute, three hours of religious and/or social education sessions per week and a minimum of 15 hours of weekly community service, among other requirements.

Realizing those with a loved one in prison may have other needs, Vogel started helping families experiencing food insecurity. That initiative has expanded to a community wide program supporting anyone who needs food assistance.

Late last month, Vogel was nominated by Allegheny County Councilmember Suzanne Filiaggi to serve on a soon-to-be created advisory board of Highland Detention at Shuman Center.

tools to be a part of a healthy community and mature as well-rounded individuals.

phrase “Abolitionists for Palestine.”

She acknowledged her nomination for the board saying that “Zionists and right wing bigots are trying to stop it, and no, I don’t really care. Im doing things on a national level. If I’m picked, cool. If not, that’s cool too.”

Guido also has pushed conspiracy theories, retweeting in January a post from @bonsaisky that said, “The way Zionists are tweeting today, you’d never know that Israel killed the Bibas family using U.S. bombs.”

Last month, Guido reposted an Al Jazeera story about a 15-year-old Palestinian sentenced to 18 years in prison for his involvement in an attack in the West Bank, writing, “I’m in tears. I hate Israel.”

The detention center reopened in 2024 after being shuttered nearly three years ago. It will provide meals, education, recreation and physical, mental and behavioral health services. It currently has the capacity to house 12 juveniles but is expanding to include 60 beds.

Vogel said that over the years, Aleph has worked with a number of juveniles. That need didn’t go away when Shuman closed, he said, and it continues now that the center has reopened.

The rabbi consulted with several advisers when he was approached about being nominated to the board.

“My only fear was, will it take away from the work that I’m doing? Will it hurt? I was assured by many in whom I confided that it would not,” he said.

Vogel agreed to the nomination when he was certain his possible addition to the board would help and not hinder both the advisory board and the Aleph Institute.

The philosophy he brings to his nomination is the same he’s had since he first began working with adult inmates.

“The same rules that apply to one human, apply to another,” Vogel said. “They should have the same tools and concern: No one should be mistreated; everyone should have the opportunity to be rehabilitated.”

Individuals, Vogel said, should be given the

“My goal with this center is to ensure that punishment is used to correct individual errors,” he said.

Incarceration alone, Vogel noted, does not teach lessons. Commitment to the juveniles detained in Shuman will require more services, not fewer, both from the government and society, he said.

“The community should be volunteering to get in the door to help a person. There should be volunteers coming in to put their arms around a young kid to try and help them,” he said. “Yes, it’s a lot of work but we’ve got to give these kids the opportunity to lead healthy lives.”

Other nominees to the board include Maria Guido and Tanisha Long. Both Guido and Long have posted anti-Zionist statements on social media and have expressed support for suspected murderer Luigi Mangione.

Long, a community organizer with the Abolitionist Law Center, has accused Israel of apartheid and genocide and promoted BDS initiatives in Pittsburgh.

On Nov. 7, 2024, Long posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Don’t give Donald Trump credit for ending the genocide when Israel decides that they’ve killed enough Palestinians. Israel was always going to keep going until Trump got elected. Genocide was their electoral strategy.”

Guido is a social worker whose X profile includes a picture of a Palestinian flag with the

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Long and Guido were both nominated to the board by Allegheny County Councilmember Bethany Hallam.

Last year, Hallam introduced legislation calling on Israel to commit to a cease-fire in Gaza, without mentioning Hamas or the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state that launched the current war.

Following Hamas’ invasion of Israel, Hallam reposted a poem on X about breaking down walls and a celebratory video of the terrorists breaking down the security gate on their way to murder, rape and kidnap Israeli civilians, including children. Other anti-Israel posts followed.

Five additional people have been nominated for the board: Kimberly Dunlevy, by C ouncilmember Bob Macey; Robert Marc Davis, by Councilmember Suzanne Filiaggi; Lee Davis, by Councilmember Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis; Terri Collin Dilmore, by Councilmember Dan Grzybek; and, Jason Gagorik, chief police of Whitehall Township, by Council President Patrick Catena.

The council will send one name from the eight for consideration by Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, who will send four selections of her own to County Council for its approval. The council’s recommendation is expected to be made sometime in March. PJC

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

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Photo courtesy of Rabbi Moshe Mayir Vogel

Headlines

Chabad Young Professionals mission to Israel spurs recommitment to growth

By Adam Reinherz | Senior Staff Writer

Taking a community abroad is helping build a community at home. Alongside Rabbi Henoch Rosenfeld and Sarah Rosenfeld, co-directors of Chabad Young Professionals, nearly a dozen Pittsburghers traveled to Israel between Feb. 11-18.

The mission, Henoch Rosenfeld said, was to demonstrate “our strong connection to the land of Israel after Oct. 7, and to roll up our sleeves and do something practical.”

By visiting soldiers, spending time with the sick, volunteering on farms and speaking w ith residents, Pittsburghers not only achieved the goal but experienced something “transformative,” he continued. “Our intention was to make a difference and make an impact, and by doing that we were so impacted. Our intention was to be helpful, and we were helped. Our intention was to uplift, and we were uplifted.”

This wasn’t the first time South Hills resident Polina Neft, 25, visited Israel, but it was the first time she’s been there since Hamas launched the current war.

“The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was that it almost felt like air had been sucked out of Israel — metaphorically speaking — just like there was tension in the air, there was this sadness in the air, and it was a little unsettling,” she said. “At the same time, there was also this overwhelming sense of unity in Israel. People are banding together a lot more, and they are really coming together with a common cause.”

Conversations with Israelis reinforced both realizations, she continued.

“There was something very special about talking to all these people,” she said. “Being with people who are constantly having to find light in their life, it helps you start to find light in your life.”

Reality that ‘should not be’

Like Neft, Shimshon Biton, 30, had been to Israel before the CYP trip. Still, a decade passed since the Greenfield resident last stepped foot on Israeli soil. In the interim, several of Biton’s friends and family moved to the Jewish state.

During a Chanukah party months ago Rosenfeld told Biton about CYP’s mission. Rosenfeld mentioned it again during a follow-up Shabbat meal. Finally, after a third time hearing about the organized excursion, Biton realized that “I’m never really going to make it out there on my own and this is going to be the help I need to get to Israel.”

Visiting the Jewish state with CYP was “enlightening,” Biton said. “We really saw a lot when we were there — you know, good, bad, ugly.”

The group’s itinerary included tours of Jerusalem and Tzfat, as well as a visit to the Gaza envelope and a stop at the Nova Music Festival site.

In some sense Biton knew what to expect during the southern Israel stay, but for 16

“I want people to understand that the way we are going to win the battle of the 21st century is if everybody gets a little more Jewish in their identity — another mitzvah, a little more Torah, connecting to Israel, going, not just from a historical perspective.”

–RABBI HENOCH ROSENFELD

months he largely avoided videos of the Oct. 7 attacks.

“I couldn’t really stomach them. I’m not good with stuff like that — with reality, but reality that should not be a reality,” he said.

“Going there was kind of like me facing what I didn’t really want to see or hear about. It was just so real.”

Throughout the trip there were powerful sights, but not all were devastating, he continued.

D uring a barbecue with IDF members in northern Israel, CYP travelers heard about the soldiers’ lives and experiences away from battle.

“Most of them have full-time jobs. Some of them have been up there for over a year,” Biton said. “Some of them get to go home every week. Some of them don’t.”

Being a small-business owner — Biton operates Samson Garage Doors in Munhall — the stories were impactful, he continued.

“You got to deal with what you’re dealt with and be happy, and always look for the good things even when it’s really, really bad.”

Community takes time

Fox Chapel resident Brad Steiner, 27, had always wanted to go to Israel; work, however, largely precluded the possibility. After five years in finance Steiner left his Miami-based job last year. In the process of applying for an

MBA, he discovered he finally had the time and ability to visit Israel, he said.

Before departing for last week’s trip Steiner didn’t really know Rosenfeld or any of the members of the larger group — along with the Pittsburghers, there was a delegation from Washington D.C. and Raleigh, North Carolina.

“I just met the rabbi briefly before the trip, and I was probably one of the least religious people on the trip, if not the least,” he said.

Those qualifiers don’t matter though, he continued. “Coming back, I feel that it’s important to build a stronger sense of community and be involved with the Jewish community.”

Steiner said that along with becoming more active with CYP he hopes others his age create connections with Israel.

He referenced the declining number of young adults who participate in Birthright or other subsidized trips to the Jewish state, and said that “especially among young Jews, there’s just less of an interest to go to Israel. I think there’s less of a connection to the place. But this should be the time when people want to go. Applications should be surging. People should feel a greater connection to it. People should learn about the history, especially given what you’re seeing on college campuses in the U.S.”

Steiner’s biggest takeaway was learning to appreciate a connection spanning 6,000 miles from Pittsburgh.

“It’s not just their struggle, but ours as well,” he said. “The violence that’s directed towards Jews — if we were in that place it would be directed towards us too.”

With jetlag finally subsiding Rosenfeld told the Chronicle he’s hoping to bring the Pittsburghers together for a post-trip processing session.

Perhaps over a Shabbat meal, the group can discuss that “we don’t understand why God brings tragedy but we can understand why God wants us to survive: to bring light into the world,” he said. “I want people to understand that the way we are going to win the battle of the 21st century is if everybody gets a little more Jewish in their identity — another mitzvah, a little more Torah, connecting to Israel, going, not just from a historical perspective. Getting involved in Judaism is how we’ll win against antisemitism. Screaming out against antisemitism is great. But winning the battle isn’t just by battling darkness. It’s by increasing light, and that’s what this trip was about.” PJC

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

Photo courtesy of Chabad Young Professionals

Headlines

“The

Dybbuk” again and again

personality — his inner self which he expressed through his physical self.”

By Eric Lidji | Special to the Chronicle

This is the second of a three-part series.

The Little Theater movement of the late 1920s was an effort by community groups to bring cutting edge modern theater to audiences outside of major coastal cultural centers. They were pushing back against the vapid spectacle of the big downtown theaters. Pittsburgh had at least 15 little theaters, including the IKS Players and the Y Playhouse. A robust system of local drama critics covered and promoted this work.

The Y Playhouse mounted “The Dybbuk” in February 1934. It was an ambitious production with a cast of 60. It strove both for artistic daring and historical authenticity.

Genevieve Jones choreographed dance sequences. After studying modern interpretive dance with Martha Graham in New York, she returned to town in the early 1930s to start the Orchesis Club, which is often credited with introducing conservative Pittsburgh to the beauty of modern dance. The YM&WHA was among her earliest supporters, allowing her to teach dance classes for children as early as 1930.

“The greatness of dance,” she wrote in the Y Weekly in 1930, “does not depend upon the ability of the dancer to kick or leap. Rather it depends upon the breadth of the dancer’s

A young woman named Jeannette Sukolsky designed costumes in consultation with the beloved local cantor Rev. Julius Bloom. Bloom had seen those shtetl garments firsthand in Eastern Europe before immigrating to Pittsburgh in the early 20th century, leading prayers at almost every Orthodox and Conservative congregation in town.

Edgar Kaufmann jr. (he preferred the lower case) designed the sets. According to articles, he conducted a “special study of the architecture of the Polish villages in which the story has its locale” to produce his “vibrant and sensitive” sets. Based on that description, he was likely studying the “wooden synagogues” of the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Perhaps he even recreated their swirling, penetrating painted interiors. No photographs survive.

Kaufmann jr. had been living in Europe since the late 1920s, first studying industrial design at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna followed by a private apprenticeship at Victor Hammer’s printing shop in Florence. For most of his adult life, he told the world he had returned to Pittsburgh in mid-1934 and left that fall for Wisconsin to study architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the Taliesin Fellowship.

Wright scholars Donald Hoffman and Pittsburgh’s own Franklin Toker later determined that Kaufmann had returned stateside in July 1933 before joining Taliesin in late 1934. The missing year has long been

 Gabe Rubin’s Art Cinema downtown hosted the Pittsburgh premier of the film adaptation of “The Dybbuk” in September 1938. An advertisement in the local Y Weekly described the movie as “a picture that oversteps all boundaries of language.” Image courtesy of the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

a mystery. “What is most probable is that he spent the year painting in the studio above the garage in Fox Chapel, which is where Karl Jensen found him ‘dappling with painting’ in September 1934,” Toker wrote toward the end of his bestselling book “Fallingwater Rising.” For at least the early part of that lost year, Kaufmann jr. was spending days in Oakland, working on sets for “The Dybbuk.”

Through interviews, Toker concluded that Kaufmann left Europe largely over his concerns about Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in January 1933.

The best description of Kaufmann’s sets comes from the Jan. 26, 1934, edition of the Jewish Criterion. The lead article in that issue was “Hitlerism’s First Year.” And yet, nowhere in any coverage of the production is the play linked to the events in Europe.

“The Dybbuk” returned to Pittsburgh a few years later in a different form.

as one of the first movie theaters in towns to primarily screen foreign films. According to an early notice, it showed “German talking pictures” and “Russian photoplays.” The Nazi era greatly complicated this business model, requiring Rubin to enforce a self-imposed boycott of German cinema.

In September 1938, Ruben secured the Pittsburgh premier for the recently released Yiddish film adaptation of “The Dybbuk.” It opened here on Rosh Hashana night to raves from the Jewish press and polite confusion from the general press.

Over the next 50 years, “The Dybbuk” haunted Pittsburgh through no less than 11 screenings of that original Yiddish film adaptation. It was shown at the YM&WHA in 1946, 1950, 1955 and 1956; at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in 1957 and 1964; at Hillel Academy in 1964; at the Carnegie Mellon University Department of History in 1973; at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill in 1972, 1974 and 1983; and at the Carnegie Museum of Art in 1990, as part of the “Yiddish Cinema Classics” film series.

In addition to these film screenings, there were two small performances of “The Dybbuk” in Pittsburgh. Alex Segal directed a campus production in February 1942 to earn a master’s degree from the Drama Department of the Carnegie Institute of Technology. The Scotch ‘n Soda alum went on to a career directing drama for television through showcases such as the Actors Studio, the Pulitzer Prize Playhouse, the Celanese Theater, the Campbell Playhouse and the United States Steel Hour, among many others.

According to an obituary in the New York Times, “[Segal] was credited with producing the spirited and openly expressive style of actors that was characteristic of early television drama. It was a style that led to his nickname by one critic during the 1950’s as ‘television’s shrieking genius.’” From that description, it is easy to understand why he would have been drawn to the wild emotional intensity of “The Dybbuk.”

Rabbi Frederic Pomerantz hosted a reading of “The Dybbuk” in 1971 as part of the Rodef Shalom Congregation “adult coffee house series” with film, drama and music.

Pomerantz was raised in the Jewish community of Jeannette and joined Rodef Shalom a few years after his ordination. He quickly became the leading rabbinic voice for local Jewish youth in Pittsburgh during those culture-changing years of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He opened a Greenwich Village-style coffeehouse for teenagers called The Back Door, created the Free High School lecture series, started a college magazine and developed an experimental jazz-rock Friday evening service called “Sim Shalom.”

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Gabe Rubin was the youngest child of Russian Jews who immigrated to Pittsburgh in the early 1890s. He spent six weeks at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law before entering the entertainment business. He started as an usher at the old Nixon Theater on Sixth Avenue and became house manager of the Art Cinema in 1935.

Art Cinema had opened a few years earlier

Each of these figures was utterly of their times. And yet, when it came to finding the cutting edge for Jewish theater, they all came to the same answer: “The Dybbuk.” PJC

Eric Lidji is the director of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center. He can be reached at rjarchives@heinzhistorycenter. org or 412-454-6406.

Headlines

By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer

Aidan Harding, 20, of Crescent Township, has targeted the Pittsburgh Jewish community with antisemitic fliers and made statements online about his interest in “political and revenge driven” mass casualty events, according to Troy Rivetti, acting United States district attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The information was revealed during a Feb. 12 detention hearing. Harding was indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh and charged with possession of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, Rivetti announced Feb. 26.

During the hearing, evidence was introduced that Harding also possessed materials depicting violent sexual assaults, adhered to a racially motivated violent extremist ideology, possessed more than 20 firearms and made references to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter.

According to information released by the district attorney’s office, Harding, who previously had been “adjudicated delinquent for terroristic threats after discussing online his desire to commit a ‘high kill count attack,’” possessed videos of mass shootings and filmed himself re-enacting the Columbine mass shooting at a memorial honoring the victims of the attack.

Harding, the government said, “presented an unacceptable danger to the community.”

He was ordered held without bail. If found guilty, he faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.

Harding has been identified as one of two white supremacists seen late last year on a Pittsburgh bridge waving a Nazi flag. He is associated with at least one neo-Nazi hate group.

Shawn Brokos, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh community security director, said that Harding has long been on the Federation’s radar due to his “blatant antisemitism and ties to neo-Nazi organizations.”

“His extremist ideology, combined with access to weapons, has posed a serious potential threat to both the Jewish community and the broader Pittsburgh

community,” Brokos said. “We are grateful for the swift and decisive actions of law enforcement and federal prosecutors and the ongoing collaboration among agencies working to ensure our collective safety.”

There is no immediate threat to the community, Brokos said, but noted that Federation and law enforcement are taking a deeper look at Harding’s associates to determine what threat potential may exist.

Community members are urged to report any suspicious activity to law enforcement and the Federation at jewishpgh.org/form/ incident-report. PJC

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

By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s board of directors has approved $536,000 in grants to 15 organizations that address antisemitism or young adult engagement.

Six grants totaling $245,000 were awarded to organizations addressing antisemitism. The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, Tree of Life, Inc., JCC/YMCA Partnership, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, BBYO and Prime Stage Theatre all received funding for various programs and educational opportunities.

For initiatives to engage young adults, the board awarded $291,000 to seven organizations: ElevatED, The Friendship Circle, The Edward and Rose Berman Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh and Penn State University Hillel, Chabad Young Professionals, Community Day School, Jewish Fertility Foundation and The Branch.

The grants were awarded through Federation’s new grantmaking process meant to address key community priorities and support programs that promote education, resilience and community building across the region, while reflecting the organization’s mission to build a thriving and inclusive Jewish community, according to Federation officials.

Ilene Rinn, associate vice president of planning and impact, said Federation gleaned through its strategic planning process that the organization should align funding with community priorities that address timely needs.

“I’m proud to say that we are doing that by supporting these important initiatives that not only address antisemitism but also strengthen Jewish identity and community,” she said.

Another round of funding will be awarded this summer. PJC

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

p Rendering of Tree of Life’s proposed new building. Tree of Life was one of six communinty organizations to receive a grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to address antisemitism.

Photo copyright Studio Libeskind

Calendar

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

 SATURDAY, MARCH 8

Families with young children are invited to spend Shabbat morning with Rodef Shalom at Shabbat with You. Drop in for a light breakfast, play date, singalong with Cantor Toby and a Shabbat activity with Family Center Director Ellie Feibus. 9 a.m. $5 per family. Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom. org/shabbatwithyou.

Congregation Beth Shalom’s Sisterhood Shabbat will honor Elaine Catz, Elisa Marlin and Carolyn Slayton. Casey Weiss, CDS head of school and former assistant principal at Hillel Academy, will be the featured speaker. 9:15 a.m. 5915 Beacon St.

q SUNDAY, MARCH 9

Join Rodef Shalom for Tea and Hamantaschen and get your Purim celebration o to a great start with tea, hamantaschen and a joyful community. 10 a.m. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/tea.

Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill at its Evening of Celebration, honoring Dr. Stanley Marks and marking the inauguration of its newly renovated building. 6 p.m. $150/person. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com.

 SUNDAYS, MARCH 9–JULY 27

Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill for its Men’s Teﬁllin Club. Services and teﬁllin are followed by a delicious breakfast and engaging discussions on current events. 8:30 a.m. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com.

 MONDAYS, MARCH 10–JULY 28

Join Congregation Beth Shalom for a weekly Talmud

study. 9:15 a.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.

Join Temple Sinai for an evening of mahjong every Monday (except holidays). Whether you are just starting out or have years of experience, you are sure to enjoy the camaraderie and good times as you make new friends or cherish moments with longtime pals. All are welcome. Winners will be awarded Giant Eagle gift cards. All players should have their own mahjong cards. Contact Susan Cohen at susan_ k_cohen@yahoo.com if you have questions. $5. templesinaipgh.org.

 TUESDAY, MARCH 11

Join Chabad of Squirrel for Torah and Tea, a fourpart class exploring the story of Purim. 7 p.m. $18. Email calteiin@chabadpgh.com for the address. chabadpgh.com/tea.

 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12

The March Squirrel Hill Lunch Bunch will meet at Jodee B’s. Please RSVP to Geri Linder by March 7 at (412) 421-5868. Noon. 3600 Ardmore Blvd, 15221.

Join Chabad of the South Hills for a pre-Purim seniors’ lunch with hamantaschen and a holiday program. Rebecca Byard with Direct Care Physicians of Pittsburgh will speak about insomnia. 1 pm. $5. Wheelchair accessible. 1701 McFarland Ave.

Get ready for Purim with a Hamantash Bake at Chabad of Squirrel Hill. Fun for adults and children. 6 p.m. $12/person. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com/hamantash.

Join Chabad of South Hills for Decoding the Talmud Get inside the story, substance and signiﬁcance of the book that deﬁnes Judaism. 7:30 p.m. 1700 Bower Hill Road. To register, visit chabadsh.com.

Sensory-Friendly

Sunday, March 16 | 10–10:45 AM

Experience the FUN of Purim in a supportive environment.

Do the lights, sounds, and crowds keep you and your family from coming to an annual Purim Carnival? We hear you! Now you can come to Temple Sinai for a quieter time.*

People of ALL AGES AND ABILITIES who want Purim fun without the sensory stressors are welcome!

*Our traditional Family Purim Carnival begins at 11 AM.

$10 Unlimited Play Passes

Purchase online or at the door

5505 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217 (412) 421-9715•TempleSinaiPGH.org



WEDNESDAYS, MARCH 12–JULY 29

Temple Sinai’s Rabbi Daniel Fellman presents a weekly Parshat/Torahportionclass on site and online. Call 412-421-9715 for more information and the Zoom link.

Bring the parashah alive and make it personally relevant and meaningful with Rabbi Mark Goodman in this weekly ParashahDiscussion: Life & Text 12:15 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh. org/life-text.

 THURSDAY, MARCH 13

Join Young Peoples Synagogue to celebrate Purim Megillah reading followed by a sumptuous meal. Members and friends are invited. 7:30 p.m. Forbes and Denniston. Reservations required. Email Rebecca. Spiegel@verizon.net or call 412-421-3213.



FRIDAY, MARCH 14

Join Chabad of the South Hills for Purim in the Palace an animated Megillah reading and royal Purim feast. Create your own magic potion and enchanted edible apples. 5 p.m. Adults $18; children $12; family max $54. 1701 McFarland Road. chabadsh.com/purim.

Celebrate Purim and join Chabad of Squirrel Hill for its Purim Feast. Enjoy a Megillah reading, music, crafts, entertainment and a Shabbat-style dinner. 5 p.m. $18/ adult, $10/child. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh. com/purimfest.

 SATURDAY, MARCH 15

Tree of Life Congregation invites you to Casino Night. The evening will be ﬁlled with casino games, light bites, drinks and great company. There will be blackjack tables, a roulette wheel and craps table. Be sure to bid on wonderful ra e and silent auction items. Dealers on site to teach you any game you want to try. Bronze level $25; silver level $50; and gold level $75. 7:30 p.m. Rodef Shalom’s Freehof Hall. treeoﬂifepgh.org.

 FRIDAY, MARCH 21

Join Rodef Shalom’s Cantor Toby Glaser for a 20s & 30s Kabbalat Shabbat. Get to know other young Jewish professionals and close out the week with apps, wine and great company. 7 p.m. Free. Registration required. rodefshalom.org/lateshabbat.

 TUESDAY, MARCH 25

Sarah Abrevaya Stein presents Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century, sharing her award-winning research on the Levy family and their displacement from Salonica, Greece, to cities around the globe. Free. 5:30 p.m. calendar.pitt.edu/event/family-papers-a-sephardicjourney-through-the-twentieth-century.

 THURSDAY, MARCH 27

Join Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s YAD Philanthropy for Free Throws & Field Goals Sports Trivia Night, its annual fundraising event with a sporty twist. Will your team come out on top and win the grand prize? Register now and ﬁnd out. Open to young adults ages 22-45. Early Bird: $25/person (ends March 17). General admission: $36/person. 7 p.m. PNC Park, 200 W General Robinson Street. jewishpgh.org/event/free-throws.

 SUNDAY, MARCH 30

Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill for Jewish Gems, an afternoon of jewelry making and snippets of inspiration for women and girls. 1:30 p.m. $15/person. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. chabadpgh.com/jewelry.

 SATURDAY, APRIL 5

Families with young children are invited to spend Shabbat morning with Rodef Shalom at Shabbat with You. Drop in for a light breakfast, play date, sing-along with Cantor Toby and a Shabbat activity with Family Center Director Ellie Feibus. 9 a.m. $5 per family. 4905 Fifth Ave. rodefshalom.org/ shabbatwithyou. PJC

Join the Chronicle Book Club!

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its May 4 discussion of “Jews Don’t Count,” by David Baddiel. From Amazon.com: “‘Jews Don’t Count’ is a book for people who consider themselves on the right side of history. People fighting the good fight against homophobia, disablism, transphobia and, particularly, racism. People, possibly, like you.

"It is the comedian and writer David Baddiel’s contention that one type of racism has been left out of this fight. In his unique combination of close reasoning, polemic, personal experience and jokes, Baddiel argues that those who think of themselves as on the right side of history have often ignored the history of anti-Semitism He outlines why and how, in a time of intensely heightened awareness of minorities, Jews don’t count as a real minority: and why they should.”

Your hosts

Toby Tabachnick, Chronicle editor

David Rullo, Chronicle senior staff writer

How it works

We will meet on Zoom on Sunday, May 4, at 1 p.m.

What to do

Buy: “Jews Don’t Count.” It is available at some area Barnes and Noble stores and from online retailers, including Amazon.

It is also available through the Carnegie Library system.

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

— Toby Tabachnick

Headlines

Empire State Building, Brandenburg Gate, Eiffel Tower lit in orange to honor slain Bibas family

Landmarks around the world were illuminated in orange last week to honor Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the Israeli mother and sons killed in captivity in Gaza, JTA reported.

The three were buried on Feb. 26, several days after their bodies were returned to Israel. Their husband and father, Yarden Bibas, was taken captive separately and freed last month. Their plight had been a symbol of national trauma since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking 250 hostages.

Among the landmarks illuminated in orange, the color that came to symbolize the family because of Ariel and Kfir’s bright red hair, were the Empire State Building in New York City, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the City-County Building in Pittsburgh.

The displays were reminiscent of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, when world landmarks were illuminated in blue and white to show solidarity with Israel.

In Argentina, where Shiri Bibas’ father grew up, tributes to the family included a mass demonstration, two days of official national mourning and a vote by lawmakers to rename Buenos Aires’ Palestine Street as Bibas Family Street. Shiri Bibas’ parents, Margit and Yossi Silberman, were murdered on Oct. 7.

Being senator ‘small’ compared to courage of hostages, IDF, families, Fetterman says

Some 50 minutes into his interview with Pennsylvania’s Sen. John Fetterman, one of the most vocally pro-Israel members of Congress, Dan Senor prepared to wrap up the episode of his Call Me Back podcast, JNS reported.

“Senator Fetterman. Thank you for courage, for your leadership and for—,” Senor began.

“It’s not courage. It really isn’t,” Fetterman cut in. “What’s courage is being forced to live in a tunnel, or in the dark for 500 days, or being a soldier and fighting for the survival of your nation, and being in those families, where they’re living under the risk of rocket attacks.”

“That’s courage,” Fetterman said. “Being a senator — that’s small compared to that.”

“Well, then I’ll thank you for your clarity,” Senor said. “How about that?”

Senor said that he could see “a look of embarrassment” on Fetterman’s face when he thanked the senator for his courage.

“He clearly doesn’t think taking an unpopular political stance is courage compared to what the Israelis he’s met have been enduring,” he said.

Facing blowback, Israel’s foreign minister defends siding with Russia at the UN

After Israel joined the United States to vote against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it faced more than a little

Today in Israeli History

March 7, 1965 — Egypt discusses captured spy

Egyptian authorities release details about the Feb. 22 arrest of Israeli spy Wolfgang Lotz and his wife, Waldrud. Lotz is implicated in the sending of letter bombs to foreign scientists working in Egypt.

March 8, 1949 — Ben-Gurion forms 1st elected government

David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai forms a governing coalition with the United Religious Front, the Progressive Party, the Sephardi and Mizrahi Communities, and the Democratic List of Nazareth after Israel’s first national election.

March 9, 1932 — Naharayim power plant opens Pinhas Rutenberg and the Palestine Electric Co. open a hydroelectric plant at Naharayim. It supplies much of the electricity in Mandatory Palestine until Iraqis destroy it during the War of Independence.

backlash, JTA reported.

Now, the country’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, has said the vote was a bid to align Israel’s stance with the efforts of its closest ally, the United States, to bring an end to the three-year war — in part by performing an about-face in American policy on Ukraine. Saar said that Israel still views Russia as the “aggressor” in that conflict.

Saar’s statement comes after a wave of criticism. Bret Stephens, the New York Times columnist and consistent defender of Israel, called the vote “vomitous” in a piece headlined “America’s Most Shameful Vote Ever at the U.N.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell, the California Democrat, tweeted that the group of countries voting “no” — which also included North Korea, Belarus and Hungary — was the latest iteration of an “Axis of Evil.”

Israel previously supported Ukraine in U.N. votes, though it has also sought to maintain relations with both sides — partly due to Russian forces’ presence near Israel’s border.

But in an interview with Politico, Saar said Israel voted “no” to support the American push for an end to the war — and that Israel hadn’t changed its views on the conflict. The Trump administration is flipping U.S. policy on the war by placing diplomatic and economic pressure on Ukraine while growing closer to Russia.

Most American Jews say they rarely or never pray, new poll finds

The proportion of American Jews who pray on any regular basis is down sharply

from a decade ago, according to a new poll of American religion by the Pew Research Center, JTA reported.

In 2014, 45% of Jewish adults chose “seldom/never” to describe their prayer frequency. When Pew asked the question again in 2023 and 2024, the proportion was 58%. The increase exceeds the polls’ margins of error — 5% for Jews in this year’s study — meaning that it is considered statistically significant.

The poll also found that fewer American Jews say religion is important in their lives.

The findings are in line with anecdotal reports from Jewish institutions, which beyond the country’s Orthodox minority are largely struggling to engage and retain Jews. Many are seeking to capitalize on a so-called “surge” in feelings of Jewish affinity in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a subsequent spike in antisemitic incidents.

The proportion of Jews that hardly if ever pray is far higher than among other religious communities. For Muslim Americans, the corresponding figure was 18%, while for evangelical Christians it was 7%. Among religious groups, only followers of the New Age movement had a larger proportion of people who seldom or never pray, at 62%.

The Pew survey’s most prominent finding is that a longtime decline in Christian affiliation in the United States appears to have stopped. PJC

Compiled by Toby Tabachnick

March 10, 1970 — Knesset amends Law of Return’s Jewish definition

Israel’s Law of Return is amended to change the definition of a Jew to “a person who was born of a Jewish mother or who has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion.”

March 11, 1978 — 38 are killed in Coastal Road Massacre

Eleven Palestinians land on a beachhead north of Tel Aviv and carry out one of the worst terrorist attacks in Israel’s history, the Coastal Road Massacre. They kill 38 civilians, including 17 children.

March 12, 2004 — Poet Natan

Yonatan dies

Natan Yonatan, one of Israel’s greatest poets, dies at 80. A native of Kyiv who grew up in Palestine, Yonatan almost immediately gained recognition after he shifted from farming to writing poetry in 1940.

March 13, 1948 — Davidka mortar is first used

The Davidka, a wildly inaccurate but frightening mortar designed and manufactured at Mikveh Israel, is used in combat for the first time in an attack on Jaffa’s Abu Kabir neighborhood. PJC

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

— ISRAEL —

p Wolfgang Lotz (second from right) and his wife, Waldrud, are welcomed to Israel after their release in a prisoner exchange in 1968.

p A surviving Davidka mortar is displayed at the Givati Brigade Museum in Metsudat Yoav, Israel. By Bukvoed,

Senior Living

Improve life with Parkinson’s through exercise

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects millions of people worldwide, causing a range of motor and non-motor symptoms that can significantly impact daily life. While there is currently no cure for Parkinson’s, exercise has been shown to be a highly effective way to manage the symptoms of the disease and improve overall quality of life. Western Pennsylvania is within the Rust Belt, which has the highest concentration of people with Parkinson’s in the country. Even though there is no cure for Parkinson’s, we know that exercise is medicine for people with the disease.

Parkinson’s is characterized by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain, leading to a range of motor symptoms including tremors, rigidity (stiffness), bradykinesia (slow movement), and postural instability (core weakness). Non-motor symptoms such as

depression, anxiety, hallucinations and cognitive changes are also common. The symptoms of Parkinson’s can vary from person to person, but they often worsen over time, making everyday activities increasingly difficult. Many people with Parkinson’s experience slouched posture, shuffling gait, increased falls, masked facial expressions and small slow movements. If you experience any of the symptoms related to Parkinson’s or are diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it is very important to have a competent and comprehensive team of clinicians who can help you succeed: a neurologist specializing in movement disorders to manage the medications; a physical therapist to help with maximizing strength, function, balance and movement; an occupational therapist to help with activities of daily living; a speech therapist to help with loud speaking and cognition; and a psychologist to help combat depression. Getting connected with the Parkinson’s Foundation of Western PA is an invaluable resource that provides education and programming.

In addition to your care team, intense exercise has been shown to be a highly effective way to manage the symptoms of Parkinson’s. In fact, exercise can even decrease the progression of

Parkinson’s. Exercise can improve mobility by increasing your strength, flexibility and ease of moving. Tremors and rigidity can be decreased by aerobic exercise. Exercise can enhance balance and coordination and decrease the risk of falling. Finally, exercise can boost your mood and help with cognitive function. While any form of exercise is beneficial for people with Parkinson’s, some types of exercise are particularly effective. These include aerobic exercise, resistance training, balance training and flexibility or stretching exercises. According to the SPARX II study in JAMA 2018, high intensity aerobic exercise 30-40 mins, three times a week for six months decreased the symptoms of Parkinson’s. Aerobic exercise can cause positive changes in the brain. As with all exercise recommendations, weight training (resistance) is important to combat the natural course of aging and maximize strength throughout life. Balance training is nuanced with Parkinson’s as large amplitude movements and multitasking are emphasized. Since Parkinson’s tends to “shrink” movement, physical therapy usually focuses on the opposite by exaggerating large movements to promote brain changes called neuroplasticity. By moving

with a lot of effort in a big way, people with Parkinson’s can reverse some of the side effects such as shuffling gait, slow movement and poor posture. Multitasking can also prevent falls by engaging the body and the brain simultaneously and enhancing coordination.

Group exercise classes specific to Parkinson’s like PWR! (Power for Parkinson), or Rock Steady Boxing, Delay the Disease or Dance for PD, can promote all the healthy aspects of exercise while providing much needed socialization, comradery and friendship.

While there is currently no cure for Parkinson’s, regular physical activity can help to improve overall quality of life and reduce the impact of the disease. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it’s essential to speak with a healthcare professional about developing an exercise plan. With the right exercise program, it can be possible to take control of Parkinson’s symptoms and live a full and active life. PJC

Jessica Neiss is the owner of To Life! Therapy & Wellness, which provides comprehensive Parkinson’s treatment including PT, OT and exercise classes. tolifefitness.com

Senior Living

Pittsburgh’s Age-Friendly initiative ﬁnds new home at JCC, boosting collaboration and community engagement

By Adam Reinherz | Senior Sta Writer

Agrowing partnership is helping Pittsburgh age. Months ago, Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh moved into the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill.

Relocation afforded Age-Friendly a new office, but the change enabled something greater, Laura Poskin, executive director of the group, said.

“This is a multi-generational space that is just always buzzing with activity,” Poskin said of the JCC. “It’s kind of the world that we want to live in. Age-Friendly is all about making the region more inclusive and respectful of all ages, seeing the potential in every age, connecting with one another. And this space is that.”

Part of the World Health Organization Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities, Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh is one of 1,700 communities in 60 countries. The nearly 10-year-old initiative is supported by Southwestern Pennsylvania Partnership for Aging and the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh is funded by several entities, including the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, the

access the building for programming, meals, socialization and fitness, Feinman said.

Now that Age-Friendly is located a few floors from AgeWell at the JCC it’s a “bonus for the community,” she continued. “This complements the work that we are all trying to do.”

Jason Kunzman, president and CEO of the JCC, praised Age-Friendly and called it a “convener and a voice for the kind of innovation we want to see.” Age-Friendly, through countless efforts, has helped “reframe what aging looks like in our region.”

One such project was launched early last month.

According to Allegheny County’s Area Agency on Aging, approximately 27% of residents are 60 and over — across the U.S. merely 23% of residents are similar age. Similarly, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Partnership for Aging expects a 75% increase in the number of people aged 85 and over between 2030-2045. Regional realities aren’t soon shifting, Poskin said. “That’s an asset. Let’s lean into it. Our older generations have so much to offer and so much to give and are such an integral part of our neighborhoods and all of our lives.”

Jefferson Regional Foundation, The Pittsburgh Foundation and the Heinz Family Foundation. Poskin said that while moving into the JCC will spark new ways of working together, the groups are far from strangers.

For years, Age-Friendly and AgeWell at the JCC have collaborated on issues pertaining to transportation and digital access, according to Sharon Feinman, division director of AgeWell at the JCC.

Separate from AgeWell Pittsburgh — a collaboration between the Jewish Association on Aging, JFCS and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh — AgeWell at the JCC is a senior center located within the JCC that works with older adults who regularly

On Feb. 6, Age-Friendly began promoting its Age-Inclusive Photo Bank. The digital storehouse was created in an effort to demonstrate “real, local people, aging in community in western Pennsylvania,” Poskin said.

A boon to journalists, researchers and policy makers, the photo project was driven by a realization that too often stock images of older adults portray subjects as despondent, lonely or even unusually happy in nondescript locations. The photos in Age-Friendly’s collection are a “source of inspiration” by depicting the real ways older adults live and thrive in the region, Poskin said.

The demographic truth facing Pittsburghers and Allegheny County residents is this area is home to aging populations, she continued.

Kunzman said he’s eager to continue learning from Age-Friendly and working with the initiative to foster a “truly intergenerational, inclusive and supportive community,” as well as partners including “the city, county and other longtime leaders in the aging space.”

Bettering the community requires community organizations working together, Feinman agreed. Having Age-Friendly inside the JCC is a “great example of how that can be done.” Healthy robust communities are predicated on allowing everyone to “truly live life, their entire life,” Poskin said. “The JCC welcoming us into their space underscores their commitment to that too.” PJC

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

Photo by Larry Rippel via Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh

Senior Living

Navigating the transition to personal care: A

Finding a retirement lifestyle that balances comfort, fulfillment and affordability presents a significant challenge for millions of Americans. Successfully navigating this decision often requires thoughtful planning that harmonizes healthcare requirements with personal lifestyle goals.

For many families, recognizing when a loved one needs additional support is a journey filled with complex emotions and can present many challenges. Understanding the options available and how to navigate them compassionately can make all the difference in ensuring your loved ones are healthy, safe and well taken care of.

Recognizing when it’s time

Identifying the right moment to consider personal care requires attentiveness and honesty. Several key questions can guide this assessment: Can your loved one safely care for themselves? Are they able to manage medications and medical conditions? Has their ability to maintain household responsibilities diminished? Are they experiencing mobility challenges or isolation?

The conversation about transitioning to personal care often begins when families notice concerning patterns rather than single incidents. Safety becomes the primary concern, alongside quality of life considerations. Families sometimes hesitate to initiate

these conversations out of concern for their loved one’s independence. However, proactive planning can actually preserve autonomy by involving older adults in making important decisions about their future care.

Understanding personal care options

Personal care communities provide supportive environments designed to maintain independence while helping with daily needs. Unlike skilled nursing facilities that provide intensive medical treatment under the supervision of licensed medical professionals, personal care communities focus on supportive care that enhances residents’ quality of life while maintaining their health and well-being.

These communities offer housing, meals, medication management, and assistance with basic needs like bathing, dressing and mobility. Professional teams create personalized care plans that respect individual preferences and goals, adapting support as residents’ needs change over time.

For individuals living with dementia or cognitive impairments, specialized memory care programs provide additional structure and security. These dedicated communities feature specialized environments, tailored programs and events, and associates specifically trained in memory support techniques. With secured areas, navigation cues and therapeutic programming, memory care provides the additional support needed while maintaining dignity and encouraging engagement.

Beneﬁts beyond basic care

The transition to a personal care community

offers advantages that extend far beyond immediate safety concerns. Residents benefit from:

• Social connections that combat isolation through fun and engaging events, shared meals and meaningful bonds with other residents who share similar life experiences.

• Intergenerational engagement through partnerships with schools and community organizations, which create long-lasting, meaningful connections across generations.

• Whole-person wellness programs that nourish the mind, body and spirit through educational workshops, fitness classes and cultural events.

• Peace of mind for families who no longer need to worry about loved ones facing emergencies alone or struggling with daily tasks.

Oftentimes, families discover that the decision-making process itself proves to be more challenging than the actual transition. Once that threshold is crossed, many observe a remarkable transformation in their loved ones — renewed energy, rediscovered interests and blossoming social connections often replace the strain of maintaining independent living. This psychological rejuvenation represents one of the most overlooked benefits of transitioning to a personal care community.

Financial planning for personal care

Many families hesitate to explore personal care options due to concerns about affordability. However, various financial resources can help make this transition accessible:

• Long-term care insurance may cover portions of personal care costs

• Veterans benefits offer support for eligible individuals and their spouses

• Medical tax deductions can provide relief for qualifying expenses

• Personal funds, including retirement savings and home equity

• Medicare and Medicaid programs with specific eligibility requirements

Personal care communities like Juniper Village at Forest Hills provide comprehensive financial planning guides to help families understand their options.

A compassionate transition

Supporting a loved one through this transition requires patience and empathy. Involving them in decisions about their new living space, bringing familiar items and maintaining regular visits helps ease adjustment periods.

Remember that this transition, while emotionally complex, opens doors to new possibilities, enhanced safety and renewed quality of life. By approaching these changes with compassion and clear information, families can help their older adult loved ones embrace this new chapter with dignity and hope.

Taking the first step — whether attending an open house, consulting with care professionals, or having honest family conversations — sparks a journey toward ensuring your loved one receives the support they need while maintaining the highest possible quality of life.

PJC

Bonnie Caripolti is director of sales and marketing at Juniper Village at Forest Hills.

Senior Living

Best practices for seniors during respiratory virus season

Each year, when temperatures drop and gatherings move indoors, we enter respiratory virus season. During this time, from October through late March, many viruses circulate at a higher rate than any other time of year, the most common of which include influenza, COVID-19 and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). These infections can range from common cold-like symptoms to significant complications such as pneumonia, which can lead to serious illness, hospitalization or even death. As of Feb. 22, flu cases in Pennsylvania were more than one-and-a-half times higher than they were during the same period the year prior. Just two weeks earlier, they were more than two-and-a-half times higher than the year prior.

Seniors are particularly vulnerable to severe illnesses from respiratory viruses because aging naturally weakens the immune system, making it harder for the body to fight these infections. Additionally, underlying health conditions common among seniors, in particular diseases of the heart, lung, kidneys or liver, as well as diabetes or cancer, can further increase their risk. When the body struggles to fight an illness, it can take much longer to recover. This can lead to extended bed rest, which increases the risk of developing pneumonia and blood clots. Infections can also cause dehydration and acute kidney injury, making infection prevention especially important. Seniors can take several preventative measures to help protect themselves from respiratory viruses.

Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent severe illnesses. Vaccines help the body recognize and fight off common viruses like flu, COVID-19 and RSV. Flu and COVID-19 vaccinations are recommended annually, with an additional dose of the

COVID-19 vaccine within six months of the initial seasonal shot. The RSV vaccine is fairly new and was introduced in the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season. Recommendations suggest a single dose for adults, although these guidelines may change in the future. Seniors are at increased risk for pneumococcal disease and pneumonia, so it is important for them to consult with their physicians to determine if they have received the necessary doses for protection. Finally, while it’s not a respiratory virus, shingles can be caused by stress on the body, such as being sick. For individuals over age 50, being proactive with the shingles vaccine can reduce symptoms and severity if an outbreak occurs.

Hand hygiene is a simple yet effective way for seniors to protect themselves from infection and to stop the spread of viruses. Someone who is sick may leave the virus on a surface, which can then be transferred to someone else who touches it and then touches their eyes, nose or mouth without washing their hands. This can happen, for example, if someone eats before washing their hands. Use soap and water, and wash your hands thoroughly before eating or touching your face. If soap and water are unavailable, a hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol is effective at killing viruses. It can be convenient to carry a small hand sanitizer for use in public spaces, such as after using a grocery cart, touching a counter, credit card machine, railing or any other high-touch surface. It is also OK to ask others, like caregivers or medical staff, to wash their hands before providing care.

Regular cleaning reduces the presence of viruses on frequently touched surfaces. Disinfecting high-touch areas including doorknobs, light switches, remote controls, sink handles and toilet flush levers is recommended. If antiviral wipes are available at grocery stores, use them on carts before shopping for additional protection. Increasing the frequency of cleaning if someone in the household is ill can further reduce the risk of virus transmission.

Proper respiratory etiquette also helps prevent the spread of viruses. Always covering coughs and sneezes with a tissue, disposing of it immediately and cleaning your hands afterward is the way to keep germs to yourself, stopping the spread to others. If no tissues are available, coughing or sneezing into your elbow rather than your hands is the next best option. If you have to cough or sneeze into your hands, make sure to clean them afterward. Also, if you must go out while experiencing respiratory symptoms, wearing a mask in public can help prevent the spread of germs. Wearing a mask in public can also help protect you from getting sick.

By regularly following these best practices, seniors can reduce their exposure to respiratory viruses and their immune systems will have much less to fight. PJC

Joyelle Bateman, RN, is infection control and education manager at the Jewish Association on Aging.

Senior Living

Innovative wellness programs at Providence Point earn Fabiana Cheistwer top recognition

By Deborah Weisberg | Special to the Chronicle

Fabiana Cheistwer has been named one of the top five wellness directors in North America for her innovative work at Providence Point/Baptist Senior Family, in Scott Township.

As wellness director of the senior living and retirement community, Cheistwer, 64, earned a Pinnacle Award from the International Council on Active Aging and NuStep, LLC, for developing programs that empower older adults to lead vibrant, healthy lives.

“We educate people in cutting-edge health and wellness concepts and engage them in taking good care of themselves, so they stay independent longer,” said Cheistwer, who has worked in her field for 37 years. “We want our health span to parallel our lifespan as much as possible.”

Since joining Providence Point at its inception in 2009, Cheistwer has utilized a SPICES model to provide meaningful activities for residents and associates.

SPICES encompasses six dimensions of wellness — spiritual, physical, intellectual, cultural, emotional and social — and soon will include a seventh: environmental, which relates to nurturing one’s body as well as caring for the planet, Cheistwer said.

“It’s about what we ingest and what we put on our skin, and well as recycling and reuse for the good of the outside world.”

With her team of eight certified wellness professionals, Cheistwer directs dozens of programs in exercise, stress and coping, brain health and memory. About 140 events, including lectures, entertainment and outings, are offered every month.

Classes range from yoga to tai chi to meditation, while spa services include massage, reiki and reflexology. There’s an on-site chaplain and resident dietician. A partnership with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust provides for visiting musicians and other performers as well as outings to concerts and plays.

Dianne Bellisario, 73, moved into Providence Point 13 years ago because of structural issues with her body, and calls the wellness center “phenomenal.”

“I tell family and friends that it’s like I checked into a deluxe wellness hotel,” said Bellisario, a retired teacher. “Everything is here for your health. All you have to do is get out of bed and the activities continue until 7 in the evening.”

Bellisario recalls first meeting Cheistwer and feeling “an instant connection.”

“She said, ‘My job is to keep our residents healthy.’ That was her goal. I hung on to those words because I didn’t want to have to go into personal care. It has been better than I could have imagined.”

When she was facing the possibility of a difficult surgery Cheistwer “recognized immediately that I was petrified,” Bellisario recalled. “She said ‘How about if we just sit down and do some slow breathing and talk to each other.’ She’s extremely empathetic, very soft and intuitive.”

Providence Point executive director Michelle LoBello calls Cheistwer “one in a million.”

“My 20-year-old daughter would call her vibey,” said LoBello. “Fabi makes everyone feel good.”

Providence Point is home to 350 independent living residents, and another 120 individuals who live in the personal care, memory care and skilled nursing units. Most residents are in their 80s and up, Cheistwer said.

“One of our priorities is slowing down memory decline and maintaining brain health as we age. Engaging people in taking care of themselves helps them to stay resilient and independent, so they are not burdening family or the health care system.”

“I love the concept of empowering people with tools that they can use themselves without having to rely on anyone else.”

In recent months, Cheistwer implemented a program called Contemplating End of Life to promote healthy attitudes about mortality.

“This is a difficult topic people often don’t want to talk about, but our approach isn’t

March Open House

Friday, Saturday and Sunday March 21st -23rd from 10am to 2pm

Friday 3/21

Coffee & Conversation

Stop by for a fresh brewed cup of coffee and learn about the different types of services offered through personal care communities.

Saturday 3/22

10 am Asset Protection: Planning For Your Future

Presentation by Attorney Kathleen Schneider Attorney at Law and Certiﬁed Public Accountant.

run-of- the-mill,” she said, noting that a licensed professional also leads classes in grief support.

Cheistwer’s interest in health and wellness began in childhood, owing to her father, who was a physical therapist and social services worker.

“He was a pioneer…a big proponent of taking care of yourself and learning to stay healthy,” she said. “So, the work I do comes naturally to me. It’s in my blood.”

She was born in Argentina and moved at age 4 to the U.S. Growing up in various cities, Cheistwer was active at Jewish community centers, which infused her philosophy about health, she said.

“In Judaism we are expected to make good decisions about caring for, and respecting, ourselves, each other and our world,” she said.

Cheistwer graduated from the University of Louisville with a degree in biology and women’s studies, and went on to earn a master of science in exercise physiology. “I was the only one in my class who took the preventative route in my master’s thesis,” she said. “I’ve always been interested in preventing disease and decline.”

For many years, she owned a health and wellness consulting company.

Cheistwer moved to Pittsburgh when she married Jeffrey Abramovitz, a professional pilot, whom she met while working as his father’s nursing assistant in Louisville, Kentucky. She and her husband live in Squirrel Hill and have two sons, a daughter and an infant grandson. PJC

Deborah Weisberg is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Sunday 3/23

Free Breakfast

Stop by for a delicious chef prepared breakfast – RSVP’s encouraged

 Fabiana Cheistwer leads an aquatic wellness activity Photo courtesy of Providence Point

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Eyes wide open

Guest Columnist

To say Feb. 20 was a dark day would be the understatement of the year.

It was a dark day that we could see coming, facing inevitable heartbreak that we could try to intellectually imagine yet not emotionally prepare for, even after all this time.

It was one of the darkest days since Oct. 7, 2023, as it reopened old wounds of the pinnacle of evil that many pretended not to see, and reminded us of the astonishing betrayal that we can no longer unsee.

It was a dark day, but it was also a blindingly bright one, as the world was finally forced to see what it refused to for over 500 days.

The story of the Bibases is one of the most widely watched horror stories of Oct. 7, for the sheer display of the worst human depravity: the indefensible, haunting abduction of a family in their pajamas, father bloodied, mother sobbing and clutching her children.

This family became a symbol. Not simply because they were among the purest victims, and not just because they endured the darkest nightmare, but because they embody the ultimate microcosm for Oct. 7, encompassing and exposing the worst of its abhorrent devastation and searing truths.

It was sickly ironic that the haranguing “all eyes on” crowd never could spare eyes for the greatest war crime that has become the single most bizarre afterthought of the entire war: the hostages, whose very existence is so objectively criminal that it cuts through the falsest of narratives to the harshest of realities.

On a day that has become so perverted and propagandized, the Bibas family shines as a neon-orange marquee of impossible-to-deny horror. And the reason why it is was so easy to see the horror is the reason why it had to be hidden from sight.

This family completely blew open the reality of the victims of the attack from which so many have turned away. They showed that these hostages were peace-loving civilians, not genocidal colonizers. They demonstrated both the targeting of families and those of literally every age, as there was no discriminating when it came to stealing Jews. More than anything, they exposed the most denied truth of all: that they were human beings. Humans, who were one moment sleeping soundly, and the next having their lives ripped from them.

By exposing who was attacked, the truth about the attackers was exposed as well.

The only reason we even knew the extent

of the terror experienced that day is because someone sadistically filmed each moment of agony to publicize. Every second of horrific footage not only exposed the victims, but the true, irredeemable nature of the victimizers. Every second showed that these thieves were not freedom fighters when fighting and stealing the freedom of mere children.

bigots into full view, their perfect victimhood and hideous treatment should have elicited universal sympathy. Their story had everything to tug at the human heart. It was the easiest, bare minimum way to provide some sort of sympathy for those victimized by the depths of evil. And yet, somehow the world could not make the effort.

Shame on the world for turning away from the pain and closing its eyes to reality.

Perhaps even more damning than the truth of what they are not, is the truth of what they are. The Bibas family’s abductors, like so many others that day, were not Hamas militants, but the Gazan civilians who the world dotes on, exposing insidious truths: Almost half of the Gazans who broke into and pillaged Israel were simply “civilians”; there is no true delineation between labels of terrorist and civilian; and terror through Jew-hatred is not only woven into this society, but the core feature of it.

The Bibas family didn’t just shine a spotlight on the raw reality of the massacre and the ideology of loathing behind it. It eviscerated the Israelioppressor and Palestinian-victim narrative.

Therefore, like all such dangerous and unacceptable honesty, it had to be hidden, gaslit and perverted. And so this particular family didn’t just reveal the vilest of the antisemitism that has lived among us…it unveiled the abyss of humanity.

In derangement seemingly reserved specifically for Jew-hate, hostage posters were grotesquely defaced and violently torn down, as it burned to see the faces of those who disproved everything. Lies were spun and narratives were spread, from “no evidence” of abduction to being fully deserving of it. A toddler was now an ethnic cleanser. A baby was a Nazi. And a mother bore the ultimate crime by bearing future Zionists.

As sickening as it was to watch the propaganda play out, it was inevitable. This family’s story had to be belittled and denied in its savagery, because to admit the reality of their suffering is to concede the existence of humanity. Obviously this is a completely unacceptable truth to acknowledge, as it clashes with the goal of severing Jews from the ability to possess humanity. And if one can reattach humanity to us, one is then left with the complication of pesky empathy for those worthy of compassion. Therefore, anything and everything became fair game to suppress the brutality that could never be allowed to be seen.

While this family brought the biggest

So in this, the family exposed an even greater truth: the height of global apathy and the rock bottom of societal failing, to levels we didn’t realize existed.

There are a few sobering truths that have surfaced. Many people’s internal concern and external support is contingent upon the political temperature of the victim, and many people simply do not care at all. Too many simply expect this situation for Jews, both in Israel and abroad. Whether that is because they either are so numb to jihadist violence that they genuinely believe it is just a normal part of life “over there,” or perhaps just assume that we must have had it coming.

But as time moved along, the humanity of these hostages had to be ignored and denied for yet another reason: It would confess a gross void of one’s own if the choice were made to never act on knowledge of others’ dehumanization.

Even after coffins of children were paraded around, labeled with “date arrested,” even after it was revealed that children were strangled and a mother was beaten to death, the depressing truth is that the average person will still choose to not see the horror, because it would mean admitting complicity in that they ignored it for over 500 days.

This will always be the most excruciating part of all of this madness.

There will always exist raging bigots in the human population and their actions will always be enraging. Yet hate is nothing new, and so we’ve all adapted our own ways of coping in order to lessen the blow of each time.

What is much worse is the compounding apathy that is much greater in size and in difficulty to fight. Yes, everyone has daily lives to live, but we all live them carrying the knowledge of this family and all the rest who were not allowed to live their own. No one within this comfortably Western world should get away without sharing the burden of those forcibly hidden from public sight, especially when those closest have to retraumatize themselves

daily to have any shred of awareness shared.

Shame on the world for turning away from the pain and closing its eyes to reality.

Shame on the world for making a man have to eulogize his wife and children whom he should’ve had for decades more…and somehow be the one to ask for their forgiveness.

Shame on the world for placing more value and humanity on this family’s abductors, captors and murderers than on the family itself.

Shame on the world for abandoning not only the Bibases, but moral truth.

The same people who found it easy to look away for 500 days will likely continue to do so, as the blinding reality of both the horror and abandonment that this family represents can never be faced.

But we can never look the other way on this. The Bibas family has forced wide open all of our eyes to a reality from which we can never come back.

None of us can coexist with those who deem stealing babies, families, or any human being as justified. Israel cannot tolerate living next to a society that is based upon the desire for another’s demise. The West cannot accept living among people who not only cheer this evil in our streets but defend it in our government.

Jews around the world feel painfully and palpably connected to a family they’ve never met because this devastation truly means something, now and going forward. The only way we can honor their short lives is to have respect for every Jewish life. To ensure that this inconceivable horror can never happen again, through tangible measures to guarantee security and an intangible shift in mindset, and to fulfill a rightfully secure future for Jews to live unharmed in their Jewish homeland.

We owe it to this beacon of a family, to every hostage still waiting, and every Jew that could have been one. We owe it to every past generation that sacrificed to get us to this point and every future generation to come.

Yarden said that his final decision with Shiri was to fight, and that is what we must keep doing.

Fighting until everyone knows these names and crimes despite their best efforts to cover their eyes, and until eyes are wide open to the truth that ignoring unbridled hate when it comes to Jews is no longer something that will be tolerated.

The Bibases deserved better. All Jews deserve better. And, honestly, the whole world should want to deserve better. These truths are not something that should have needed to be exposed, but now that they are, no one should ever look away from them again. PJC

Sarah Kendis is a musician living in Pittsburgh.

Guest Columnist

I’m beginning to come to terms with the fact that I am feeling hate — an unsettling, unfamiliar emotion for me.

And I’m not alone. Congregants who have viewed themselves as peace-loving, balanced and open have talked about the murder of Shiri Bibas and her children, the locked caskets, the unidentified body in place of Shiri’s, and the fact that two of the remaining hostages were made to attend the ceremony where their brethren were freed with vitriol. These congregants spit out invective against Hamas, but it doesn’t stop there. “Maybe it

would just be better to burn the whole place down,” they say, only to catch themselves with looks of horror.

I never thought I would be here. I’ve often admired the compassion and love shown by members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, who forgave Dylann Roof for shooting and killing their fellow parishioners. If I were in a similar position, could

I tap into this well of compassion? Could I see the radical humanity of even the most evil individuals?

Judaism may preach forgiveness, but unlike its Christian counterpart, it’s not so quick to demand it. Judaism allows for hate, it makes room for it, because it understands that it must, but at the same time it puts guardrails

Rabbi Marc Katz

Sarah Kendis

Opinion

Chronicle poll results: Electric vehicles

Last week, the Chronicle asked its readers in an online poll the following question:

“Do you have or are you planning to buy an electric vehicle?” Of the 303 people who responded, 61% said, “no”; 16% said, “yes, a hybrid”; 10% said, “yes, an electric vehicle”; 5% said, “yes, a plug-in hybrid;” and 8% said they were undecided. Comments were submitted by 77 people. A few follow.

I have a 2012 hybrid now and love it. I plan on replacing it sometime soon, but never, ever with a Tesla.

Electric vehicles are simply too much trouble. They are hard to take long trips, impractical and very expensive for what you ultimately get. What we need are cheap conversions for using methanol, ethanol and maybe natural gas for existing cars.

Do you have or are you planning to buy an electric vehicle?

We have one gas-run car and one electric vehicle. If we had to evacuate for any reason we would not depend on the EV.

Electric vehicles are crucial to solving the world’s climate crisis and therefore vital to the future of the Jewish people.

An EV is great if you don’t have a long commute.

I bought a Tesla three years ago and was proud. Because of Elon, I’m now embarrassed to own it.

Chevy Bolt EUV. I can drive knowing that I am not creating any emissions

I have enjoyed driving an electric car for over four years. It is quiet and powerful with good handling. Charging at home beats the gas pump. The only problem now is with the owner of the company that made the car.

We bought a hybrid minivan and love it! We can make a 600-mile road trip on one tank of gas and it will save us money in the long run.

A plug-in or EV won’t work for our family travels, but we went from a gas guzzling Jeep to a Toyota hybrid, and couldn’t be happier. PJC

I live on small farm outside of city. I’m not sure I am going to be able to keep batteries sufficiently charged to be able to count on reliable transportation from a fully electric vehicle. I used to have a hybrid and did not like it. I will probably stick with gasoline engine this year and reconsider next autumn. I’d like to purchase a hybrid, but the cost is prohibitive.

Continued from page 16

around it to ensure it does not consume us.

The first thing that Judaism demands of hate is that it must have a reason. We are often taught that hatred is what caused God to destroy the Second Temple. But the hatred that brought about the destruction of Jerusalem was a specific breed, sinat chinam, baseless hatred. In Hebrew the word chinam means free. It’s unearned hatred. It’s being despised not for what you have done, but for who you are. It’s the kind of hate that has grown so big that the cause is almost forgotten. A hatred without a base has no platform on which to build redemption.

This indeed is a dangerous kind of hatred. But there are plenty of other times in Jewish history, text and liturgy that statements of hatred seem to be tolerated in light of great evils done to us. We are told to blot out the memory of Amalek, who tried to destroy our ancestors while we wandered in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. Our Haggadah preserves our ancestor’s call for vengeance against their oppressors during the Middle Ages. We may diminish our wine during Passover when we recall the plagues, but each day we proudly recite the Song of Sea (Exodus 15) where we call God a “man of war” and praise God for throwing a horse and chariot into the water.

Christianity may preach turning the other cheek, but Judaism takes a more nuanced

Plug-in hybrid gives the best of both. I can drive to/from the office on electric and still drive long distances without restriction or planning.

I don’t have a car of any kind, but I use an electric bike. I prefer to get around by bike or bus. It’s better for our environment and our city, and I avoid most of the expenses and hassles that come with maintaining, fixing and parking a car.

Our 2005 hybrid is brilliant. Having a fully electric vehicle in this rural area would not be feasible.

I am pleased to own an electric vehicle:

When push comes to shove, I can’t let my hatred of Hamas fundamentally transform me.

approach. It can hold the need for peace, forgiveness and reconciliation alongside the very human need to look at those things and scoff, “Not yet, maybe not ever.”

But how can we hate? Is there a healthy way?

I have found two texts instructive on this front.

The first comes in the most unlikely of places: the commandment to avoid hatred in the first place. Leviticus 19:17 reads, “Do not hate your brother in your heart.” While often we focus on the first clause, the command, I’ve always believed that it’s the second phrase that matters more. Picking up on the words “in your heart,” the medieval commentator Maimonides recalls the story of Amnon and Absalom. After Amnon rapes Absalom’s sister Tamar, Absalom stews in his hatred. He never confronts his brother. He seeks no justice. His animosity festers. It grows rotten inside him until one day, he rises up and kills his brother. This leads to his downfall. Soon he finds himself spinning out of control in open rebellion against his father, King David. The story ends with Absalom’s death and a family in complete ruin.

Hatred is dangerous because it rots you from the inside. It’s been described as drinking poison you intend for another. In our world, it’s shameful to feel hate, so we keep it bottled up. But shame is fed through silence and it festers if unattended. In a perfect world, when we speak of our hurt and anger it will lead the one who wronged us to seek reconciliation. Knowing that’s impossible with Hamas, the best we can hope for is that someone will hear our pain and acknowledge it. We have to find productive ways to let it out.

The second teaching comes from another surprising place. The Torah tells us that despite hating our enemy, we must return his lost oxen to him if we find it (Exodus 23:4). Furthermore, if you see your enemy’s donkey struggling under its burden you need to help it (Exodus 23:5). Ideally, this will initiate a rapprochement. But the Torah doesn’t say this. It is possible to go through all the trouble of helping your enemy’s animals and remain foes.

Perhaps this text is teaching something else. In Jewish law there are two types of commandments we might fulfill. Some are completely in our control, like prayer or Shabbat, which are

Compiled by Toby Tabachnick

Chronicle weekly poll question: What is your favorite hamantaschen flavor? Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle.org to respond. PJC

time-bound and we choose to observe. Others we encounter by luck. We gain merit by doing them but don’t always have the opportunity to do them every day. Among this second category is the lost oxen or the stumbling donkey. Imagine one’s joy at gaining the opportunity to return this lost property or help this struggling animal, but imagine one’s chagrin at realizing that it means doing a favor for one’s enemy. Yet if we let hatred become so all-consuming that we pass the chance to perform the mitzvah, we let our enemies rob us of our opportunity to fulfill our ethical mandate. Our hatred of them clouds our ability to do what we think is right. They have won by changing us. Hamas is my enemy, but I refuse to let them change me. I pray every day for Hamas’ destruction. And unlike our ancestor Bruriah, who taught to limit our prayers solely to ones where evildoers repent and change their ways, my prayers this week often include much darker ends. But in my brokenhearted anger and rage I remain steadfastly myself. When push comes to shove, I can’t let my hatred of Hamas fundamentally transform me. If Israel needs to go back to war to wipe out Hamas, so be it. But hatred is not a Rubicon. In the ensuing war, I must couple that feeling with compassion for innocent lives, a hope for a quick end to the violence and prayer for an enduring peace. PJC

We invite you to submit letters for publication. Letters must include name, address and daytime phone number; addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters may not exceed 500 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Send letters to: letters@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org or Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, 5915 Beacon St., 5th Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15217

We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence, we cannot reply to every letter.

Rabbi Marc Katz is the rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, New Jersey. This article first appeared on JTA.

Headlines

Vigil:

Continued from page 1

examination found “no evidence of injuries caused by bombing,” BBC reported.

“Our hearts ache so bad hearing the details but it’s important we hear these details,” Helleny Dvir said. “They’re raw, they’re real, and this happened to our innocent babies just because they were Jewish. They took the innocent of the innocent — the babies, the mothers — and they tore them completely apart, physically, emotionally, and we got to become one, somehow again, as Jewish people come close together.”

While Helleny Dvir shifted between clutching her daughter and hugging attendees, Meredith Brown approached the covered table. Brown, 43, bent down and lit a yahrzeit candle. Her two daughters, ages 10 and 6, stood silently nearby.

The Squirrel Hill resident brought her children to the memorial because it’s “important to remember the family and the community in which we belong,” she said. “We need to remember what happened and we need to be proud as Jews.”

Before arriving at the afternoon gathering, Brown spoke with her daughters about the Bibases and “what is actually happening in Israel” in an age-appropriate way, she said. “I just told them, both of them, that the family was captured by Hamas. And unfortunately they didn’t make it out of captivity, so we were going to honor their memory today.”

Along with explaining what would occur at

Referendum:

Continued from page 1

the City’s moral standards by: (1) establishing a financial policy to divert funds from governments engaged in genocide and apartheid — such as the state of Israel — and corporations doing business with them; (2) implementing investment policies with goals to reduce arms production and promote human dignity; and (3) increasing transparency of City business relationships and investments?”

To qualify for the ballot, Not On Our Dime was required to gather 12,459 signatures — 10% of the number of people from the city of Pittsburgh who voted for the office of governor in the last general election.

The group claimed online that it collected more than 21,300 petition signatures, nearly 9,000 more than required.

That number is disputed by the Federation.

While Not On Our Dime initially gathered 21,416 signatures, the Federation alleges that 2,291 of those signatures were crossed out by the petitioner before they were submitted. Another 240 were eliminated after a cursory review by the Allegheny County Elections Division, leaving 18,885 signatures.

The Federation says that another 12,533 signatures must be stricken for being “in contravention of the requirements” of the election code, leaving just 6,352 valid signatures.

Federation includes in its filing several legal issues it says should disqualify the referendum from reaching the ballot, even if all of the signatures are found to be valid.

Legal issues include the allegation that the referendum is not about a subject “upon which referenda have been specifically allowed” and amending the Home Rule Charter to “prohibit the expenditure of public funds with the state of Israel and other governments that

the outdoor event, Brown offered her children multiple ways to participate, including lighting candles or reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish. She also told her daughters “they could stay silent and just think about the family at this time.”

As she walked with her children down Darlington Road, Brown told the Chronicle that upon reaching home she would talk to her girls about “how we remain strong in the Pittsburgh Jewish community, how we came together in light of the darkness and to always remember the things that we can do to light up the world.”

Days after the gathering, the Pittsburgh City-County Building was lit orange in remembrance of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, following

a request from Julie Paris, MidAtlantic regional director of StandWithUs, according to City Councilmember Theresa Kail-Smith.

The elected official declined further comment in order “not to make it a political effort” and to “keep the focus on the victims and their loved ones who are hurting.”

On the afternoon of Feb. 26, Rabbi Daniel Fellman of Temple Sinai called the Bibas children “gingies,” a Hebrew word for redheads.

“These precious young children, they are our own,” he said. “They are part of our holy people. We remember them with love, and we pray that they are at peace in their mother’s arms and surrounded by God’s love.”

“If this proposal were to become law, it would significantly disrupt the City’s ability to provide the essential services that residents rely on — especially when it comes to public health and safety.”

–RACHAEL HEISLER

purportedly engage in genocide and apartheid and any corporation doing business with those governments” would contravene anti-BDS legislation enacted by both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the United States Congress.

Home rule charters are limited in their authority, the Federation states, and are only able to grant functions “not denied by the Constitution of Pennsylvania, by statute or by the municipality’s home rule charter.”

The referendum would also violate Home Rule Section 2962(f), which states that a home rule charter “shall not determine duties, responsibilities or requirements placed upon businesses, occupations or employers,” according to the Federation’s challenge.

By prohibiting companies from doing business with Israel, the proposed referendum effectively requires businesses to break state and federal anti-BDS laws, the Federation argues. Moreover, the Federation avers, “no authority exists that grants the city of Pittsburgh the power to regulate businesses within or with a foreign state.”

If the referendum were to pass, according to the challenge, the city would be unable to “keep it’s residents healthy, safe and protected.” As an example, the city would be unable to equip the Bureau of Police, according to the Federation.

Heisler’s filing argues that the proposed referendum should be set aside because it violates state law; creates an undue burden on the controller’s office and city government; would significantly

Fellman spoke to attendees from a microphone. An attached speaker played wistful music. Rain continued throughout the gathering. Yehudit Dvir told the Chronicle she brought about 100 yahrzeit candles to the event.

“If I need more I can get more,” she said. Before the program concluded, additional candles were delivered. PJC

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

with a radical agenda that have continually targeted the Jewish community since Oct. 7."

The Beacon Coalition partnered with the Federation to review the thousands of ballot signatures. Jeremy Kazzaz, the Beacon Coalition’s executive director, said the work done by volunteers is “a testament to the strength of grassroots activism and the power of strategic coordination.”

disrupt city operations; and the ballot question does not present voters with adequate information to understand the full scope and impact that the amendment would have.

“If this proposal were to become law, it would significantly disrupt the City’s ability to provide the essential services that residents rely on — especially when it comes to public health and safety,” according to Heisler. “The City of Pittsburgh is not the appropriate entity for determining and responding to complex issues of international law. It just doesn’t work, and it would be misleading to voters to suggest otherwise by putting this question on the ballot.”

Laura Cherner, director of the Federation’s Community Relations Council, said that the legal arguments in her organization’s filing are “very strong” and that the proposed referendum violates state and federal law. She referred to the ballot question as “broad” and “vague” with “sweeping implications that go far beyond Israel.”

Cherner said that Federation was grateful that Heisler filed her own petition because the referendum would impact “not just the Jewish community but the entire community.”

Federation is partnering with StandWithUs in its legal challenge.

Julie Paris, StandWithUs' Mid-Atlantic regional director, said she is proud of the organization's partnership with Federation and the Pittsburgh community that has risen, once again, to a challenge "presented by extremists

“We built a massive petition review process to assist our partners in protecting all Pittsburgh residents, Jewish and non-Jewish, against this latest effort to spread extremist ideologies and to undermine the City of Pittsburgh’s ability to operate,” he said.

Not On Our Dime representative Ben Case said that challenging signatures “is a common tactic we see all over the country in places where people with access to resources want to prevent popular referenda from getting to the voters.”

Case took umbrage with the designation of Not on Our Dime’s referendum as part of the BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) movement against the Jewish state.

“I think it’s based in a universal principle that applies right now to the state of Israel and that’s the main impetus for it,” Case said.

Ron Hicks, one of three lawyers working with Federation, said the case will be litigated before Judge John McVay Jr., who will issue a case management order soon, telling the parties what he expects from them in regard to the signature challenge and legal arguments.

The judge has not yet ordered a hearing on Federation’s challenge, but it is expected to occur sooner rather than later due to the need to print ballots for the May election.

Heisler’s case is scheduled for a March 7 hearing before McVay. PJC

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

p The City-County Building downtown was lit orange to remember Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, by Palestinian terrorists and brutally murdered in captivity. Photo by Julie Paris

p Helleny Dvir holds her daughter Mika Dvir in Squirrel Hill on Feb. 26.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

Life & Culture

Sweet and tangy potato salad

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

I’ve collected a lot of potato salad recipes over many years but I always go back to my mother’s recipe when I’m feeling nostalgic.

I don’t recall if I’ve seen orange potato salad anywhere except for family meals. I must have been a teenager before I realized that everyone else, including the deli, served a different version. The orange color, which I find quite appealing on the plate, comes from using French salad dressing, which adds a lot of flavor to the potatoes. Since most of the flavor comes from the vinegar and salad dressing, you only need a small amount of mayonnaise to bind the salad together.

This recipe has a nice tangy flavor with a slightly sweet twist and it’s my absolute favorite side to serve with fried chicken.

Ingredients

Serves 6-8

2 pounds Idaho potatoes

⅔ cup country French salad dressing

3-4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

2-3 tablespoons mayonnaise

¼ teaspoon sea salt

⅛ teaspoon pepper

⅔ cup celery, finely chopped ¼ cup red onion, finely chopped 3-4 hard boiled eggs, chopped

Peel the potatoes and cut them lengthwise into quarters, then cut each quarter into 3 or 4 chunks that are no larger than 2 inches square.

Boil the potatoes in a large pot until fork-tender, about 20 minutes.

While the potatoes are boiling, chop the celery, onion and eggs. I use red onion for color but you can use white onion or green onion if you prefer.

As soon as the potatoes are cooked, drain the water and immediately add the hot potatoes to the mixing bowl, which will allow the flavor to seep into the potatoes.

Stir the potatoes well into the dressing and allow the potatoes to rest for 15-20 minutes.

Add the onion to the bowl at this point, while the potatoes are still warm to the touch; this softens the sharpness of the onion.

Give the potatoes a good stir and allow them to cool on the counter for an additional 10 minutes before adding the celery, mayonnaise and eggs.

Stir well and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate for at least 3 hours to allow the flavors to meld and for the sharpness of the vinegar to soften. If you taste it right away, the vinegar will seem very sharp but it will mellow after resting.

Add more salt and pepper to taste.

The potato salad stays fresh in the fridge for about 3 days.

Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

Measure and pour the salad dressing (I use Ken’s Steakhouse Country French dressing), vinegar, salt and pepper into a large mixing bowl.

p Sweet and tangy potato salad

Photo by Jessica Grann

Magic, mystery and life’s big questions: Ben Seidman’s ‘Good Charlatan’ comes to Pittsburgh

By Toby Tabachnick | Editor

About 20 years ago, Ben Seidman was bit by a unicorn and has been performing magic ever since.

That’s the “silly answer,” Seidman told the Chronicle when asked how he became a sought-after entertainer, with major television credits and the only person ever named resident magician at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

The “real answer,” he said, is that he “got very lucky.”

“I always loved this stuff when I was young,” Seidman said, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. “I did theater growing up, and I met this man who worked in technical theater who had a history of performing magic. He kind of took me under his wing, and without him, I would not have ended up here. He was the one who taught me the basics, explained that all of the real secrets are in books. And then he was the one who said, ‘Hey, you should move out to Las Vegas.’”

Which is what he did.

Seidman was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended Milwaukee Jewish Day School. He spent his first three years of college at the University of WisconsinEau Claire then finished his degree in theater at the University of NevadaLas Vegas.

“Then, right out of college, I got hired to work as a consultant for a magic TV show with a magician who was famous at the time,” he said. “And that was my that was my first big jump.”

That led to his gig at Mandalay Bay, and then he was “kind of off to the races,” he said, performing shows around the world.

Seidman, who combines sleight of hand and psychological deception, will bring his

perform on cruise ships.

“I met my wife on a cruise ship I was performing on,” he said. “This is her joke, not mine: She said it’s basically the plot of ‘Dirty Dancing,’ but on a boat, me being Patrick Swayze in this example.”

While performing on television and at corporate events has been Seidman’s bread-and-butter, for the past 17 years, he said, he dreamed of doing a different and

very specific show — the one he will be

“You could call it my life’s work,” he said. “It’s the thing that I’ve been thinking about

It’s not “the razzle dazzle, knock them right out of the park immediately” type of show that he does when Coca Cola or Amazon hires him to entertain at a corporate event, he said, but it’s the show he’s been “thinking about, dreaming about.” He described it as “kind of the intersection between magic and crime, and the pick-pocketing, the phony psychics — these techniques that can be used to deceive people instead of for good.”

Finally, last year, after recognizing he had assumed a position of prominence in his field and had an abundance of corporate gigs, he set aside time to write the show of his dreams.

So far, he’s performed “Good Charlatan” just six times, he said, in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Manchester, New Hampshire, and it’s been “incredible.”

Promotional materials say that “At its core, ‘Good Charlatan’ questions the existence of free will and reimagines how one simple lie can unfold into a spiral of truth.”

Seidman elaborated.

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “There are people who use their powers for good and people who do the opposite. And these techniques can go either direction. Look, this is a show about trust above all, and where we put our trust. … We trust people who we feel are

“There are people who use their powers for good and people who do the opposite. And these techniques can go either direction.”

— BEN SEIDMAN

being truthful. But what happens when we’re wrong? Like, there are things in our lives that we are so positive we know the right answer to. There are things that you are confident are true. And I’m really fascinated by these things, especially when it turns out that we were wrong all along.”

Seidman credits his Jewish upbringing with instilling in him a drive for education, which in turn led to his commitment to learn the secrets and techniques of his trade.

“I really attribute the Jewish day school that I went to — and just that cultural norm — with allowing me to pursue what is essentially a crazy job to have,” he said. “No one thinks they could actually be a magician and make a good living, let alone one that’s good enough to own property in Los Angeles. I really think that my Jewish education kind of like steered me in the direction where I was willing to do the work and learn everything I possibly could, and poke this from every single angle, which is at its core what I think so much of Judaism is about — not just taking ‘these are the rules and we have to follow them,’ but examining why we do what we do. And, you know, the discussions that come from a Shabbat dinner with friends, where you’re challenging each other, and arguing and sometimes getting heated. It’s like you’re poking at an idea from every possible angle. And that’s what magic requires, that’s the creative problem-solving that goes into creating a magic trick. And so for me, they really are intertwined in this very strange way.”

Ticket information for “Ben Seidman in Good Charlatan” can be found at trustarts.org/production/95912/ben-seidmanin-good-charlatan. PJC

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

p Ben Seidman

Photo courtesy of the artist

Archaeology students excavating a Warsaw Jewish cemetery are uncovering a forgotten world

By Shira Li Bartov | JTA

WARSAW — In the center of Poland’s capital, a brick wall separates the humming traffic of Okopowa Street from a quiet wilderness filled with graves.

This is Warsaw’s main Jewish cemetery and one of the largest in Europe, a sprawling forest of 83 acres and the final resting place of some 200,000 Jews. Since 1806, the cemetery has held generations of cultural luminaries, rabbis and political activists — from the writers S. An-ski and I.L. Peretz to Ludwik Zamenhof, who created the inter national language of Esperanto, to Mark Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Some gravestones stand tall and pristine. But deeper into the cemetery, amid a tangle of maple, birch and acacia trees, more and more bend under the weight of time and neglect. Their inscriptions have faded and succumbed to ivy, leaving thousands of nameless stones in the thicket. An estimated 50,000 Jews who lie there have no stones at all — they were killed by hunger, disease or execution under the Nazis and consigned to two deep mass graves.

For decades after World War II, a long silence engulfed Poland’s Jewish history and the atrocities committed there. Nine in 10 Polish Jews were killed, many survivors left the country, and those who stayed often concealed their Jewishness under the Soviet Union. With family chains severed and few left to remember the dead, the cemetery became a forest. A place that had no trees before the war grew about 8,000 of them, while falling leaves transformed into new layers of soil and further buried the dead.

But in the last few years, a new form of life has come to the cemetery. Young people stand in between the gravestones, chattering, laughing and digging with shovels.

It’s a strange sight in a Jewish burial ground, where religious law says the dead must remain undisturbed in perpetuity. These newcomers are archaeology students from the University of Warsaw, who convinced Poland’s Jewish authorities to let them work on restoring the cemetery’s pre-war infrastructure — beneath the soil and debris piled over the untrodden paths to Jewish graves.

It started in 2020, when students discovered that COVID-19 restrictions were shutting down archaeological sites around the world. Panicked over completing the digs required for them to graduate, they asked about working in their own city at the Okopowa Street cemetery. Soon they came head-to-head with the Rabbinical Commission for Cemeteries, which protects Jewish burial sites in Poland.

Witold Wrzosinski, the cemetery director and a member of Warsaw’s small Jewish community, watched these negotiations.

“The rabbis obviously said, ‘Go away, you’re crazy — stupid idea, digging around

in a Jewish cemetery,’” said Wrzosinski. “But they kept insisting.”

The students wanted to prove that they could dig without breaking Jewish law. So they studied it, returning to the rabbis over and over to demonstrate that their excavations would not disrupt the original soil.

The rabbis were suspicious, said Wrzosinski. How could the students be trusted to differentiate between old and new earth? But eventually, they allowed a survey on a small patch of land in the cemetery, watched closely by Aleksander Schwarz from the Rabbinical Commission.

Schwarz had distinct credibility with Poland’s Jewish leaders. A specialist in Jewish cemetery and burial law, he has served the commission for 25 years, mostly overseeing searches of unmarked graves in death camps like Sobibor and Belzec. Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich sent Schwarz to live for days at these camps, supervising archaeologists as they drew the historic borders of burial sites while ensuring that they met religious rules.

Before the project on Okopowa Street, Schwarz had never taught archaeologists to work in a Jewish cemetery. But he agreed to it. Over the past four years, with funding from Poland’s Cultural Heritage Foundation, he has trained senior archaeologists and a rotating group of about 30 students. Everyone has to pass through his lectures and learn to dig under his eye, said Schwarz, who calls himself “a very demanding person.”

He tempers the typical archaeologist’s appetite to dig deep. Instead, he teaches them to interpret soil, a practice of care and imagination. The historical level of the cemetery lies only 20 to 30 centimeters below the surface. Students are never to disturb a grave — and if they happen on human remains, they must quickly block off the area and leave their discovery untouched. One mistake here could prompt Schwarz to end the project.

“We have trained them not to pick up any bones,” he said. “They work a bit like forensic technicians. If they find anything that is very shallow, a bone or a fragment of a bone, then they call me — or I’m already

there — and the commission makes a decision about what happens.”

The students were spurred by an early victory: They uncovered a cobblestone path from the cemetery’s original layer. As far as Wrzosinski knows, no one in Warsaw remembered this path ever existing. Now it is an ordinary part of the place again, near the entrance, gently guiding visitors between the graves.

Gradually, the students were allowed to work in more and more sections of the cemetery. They found fallen, buried tombstones and the names of people buried there. Some of these records did not exist anywhere else, since the Nazis destroyed the pre-war cemetery archive and many Jewish birth, marriage and death certificates.

Some discoveries remain mysterious. Nineteenth-century gravestones that turned out to be half-buried had surprises waiting just below the surface, such as sculptures of squirrels and dragons that looked unfamiliar on Polish Jewish graves, said Wrzosinski. Rabbis are still interpreting whether they had any symbolic significance.

There were also remnants of war, like bullets and shells, bullet holes in gravestones and a pistol from the Warsaw Uprising that was typical of the Polish Underground. One day in July 2020, the students discovered an unexploded German mortar just seven centimeters below the surface. Police evacuated the cemetery and a bomb squad quickly removed it without any damage.

Kacper Konofał, a 23-year-old archaeology student working in the cemetery, is writing his bachelor’s thesis about an uncovered collection of glass vessels, likely used for the ritual washing of bodies. For Konofał, the project has opened access to a world that only lived in vague stories from his childhood. His great-grandmother used to speak about her childhood friend, who was Jewish, and her father, who carried Jews to Sobibor in his cart on German orders.

“When I arrived there on the first day, it was something extraordinary — a calm, quiet, almost magical world behind the wall, in the center of a huge city,” said Konofał.

Wrzosinski also discovered this world as a student, long before becoming the cemetery’s

director. Growing up as a secular Jew in Warsaw during the 1980s and ‘90s, he always knew he had family buried in the cemetery, but he never went there. Without a registry, there was no way to look for graves — and without knowing the Hebrew alphabet, there was no way to read them.

Wrzosinski made his way to studying Hebrew at the University of Warsaw. In 2006, near the end of his degree, he saw a job ad seeking someone to clean and index the cemetery. He began the ongoing endeavor to catalog every gravestone in an online database. So far, Wrzosinski and his colleagues have indexed 82,372 names and inscriptions. He found pleasure in decoding the language of the stones, where Polish and Jewish life intertwined: Hebrew letters, written in Yiddish to spell Polish surnames. Then, in 2008, he found his great-great-grandfather.

Wrzosinski knew he would eventually see the graves of his ancestors, and he supposed it would be satisfying to know where they were. But the discovery changed him more than he expected.

“When I stepped on that stone and I cleaned it, and I realized that’s my ancestor, I felt something stronger, different,” said Wrzosinski. “Kind of a sense of belonging to this weird place — just an orphaned stone in a neglected forest, and it’s somehow mine. I needed to take a few deep breaths and stop for a moment.”

Now, Wrzosinski has found seven direct relatives to visit in the cemetery. He believes that his great-grandfather lies in one of the mass graves, although he cannot know for certain. Through his database and the efforts of the student archaeologists, he is gratified to watch other visitors experience the same moment of connection that he did.

Even during its long abandonment, the cemetery remained important for many who experienced the loneliness of being Jewish in postwar Poland. Patrycja Dołowy, a writer and artist who formerly headed Warsaw’s Jewish Community Center, grew up like Wrzosinski in Warsaw during the 1980s. Being Jewish was mostly an unspoken subject in her family, both publicly and at home.

But she saw the wildly overgrown cemetery as a “secret garden,” a refuge for Polish Jews that mirrored the obfuscated memory in their own homes. “Those stones, the matzevot , the names on them were covered by nature, not so visible — a little bit like in our memories, the names of our ancestors, and these gaps in our family histories,” said Dołowy.

Dołowy said her community was happy to see the archaeological restoration, of a piece with other efforts to revive Jewish heritage across Poland. She also believes the wildlife that grew over the cemetery is inextricable from its story, even as the trees continue to battle against the graves.

“Nature heals what was so difficult, so unimaginable,” said Dołowy. “In my opinion, this overgrowth should be an important part of places like cemeteries. But there’s always a dilemma, because nature is also destroying the graves.”

p Polish archaeology students at work excavating a Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, September 2024.

Photo by Shira Li Bartov

God moves

In transitional moments, we all want to know what will happen next. When I went off to college, my expectations were shaped by the reminiscences of my parents and grandparents, who had attended college in an earlier, languid era of card playing and effortless drifting toward the career of one’s dreams. The picture they painted was utterly unlike the frantic competitiveness of campus life in my generation. The oracle was mistaken. The same at each subsequent pivot in my journey. Whenever I changed jobs or addresses or relationships, someone tried to predict my new reality. They were miles off. What can you do about a thing like that?

At this point in history, a time of division at home and challenges abroad, Americans are apprehensively wondering what is about to unfold. Likewise in Israel: Domestic turmoil and foreign peril prompt fevered speculation about the future. A thousand pundits offer sophisticated guesses, but they’ve all been wrong before.

slowly People

On Shabbat Zachor, the maftir (final Torah verses) is Deuteronomy 25:17-19: “Blot out the memory of Amalek... Do not forget!” Amalek is the cruel tribe of Haman’s ancestors (I Samuel 15:8, Esther 3:1). Remembering to forget is a marvelous paradox, although modern readers are often troubled by the curse on an entire nation. As Abraham might say, what if there were 10 righteous persons in Amalek?

We have been oppressed in Spain, in Russia, in Germany — but all Spaniards or Russians or Germans are not our enemies. All Palestinians are not our enemies. All immigrants are not our enemies, and all who urge stricter border controls are not our enemies. All who decry racism are not our enemies, and all who think racism is licked are not our enemies. All transgender people are not our enemies, and all who see gender as an immutable biological trait are not our enemies. We’d better get used to complexity and ambiguity.

In Hebrew, Amalek has the same numerical value as safek, “doubt.” Perhaps our only perpetual enemy is doubt: It was doubt that surprised us on the march, when we were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in our rear. Perhaps that is the

This week’s Torah portion describes a clairvoyant device called the Urim and Thummim, apparently kept inside the high priest’s 12-jeweled breastpiece, or else synonymous with the breastpiece (Exodus 28:15-30). How does it work? The Talmud (Yoma 73b) imagines that it bears the names of the 12 tribes, and the letters in the names stand out somehow, one by one, to spell God’s message. It is a kind of divine Ouija board.

Alas, we no longer have the Urim and Thummim. But on Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat before Purim, we might recall another fortune-telling technique practiced by Esther’s uncle Mordecai. When Mordecai hears Haman has picked a date to kill the Jews, he finds three pupils emerging from the schoolhouse and anxiously asks what they studied today. Each youngster quotes a different Biblical verse promising deliverance from danger, and Mordecai takes heart (Esther Rabba 7:13).

“Out of the mouths of babes” comes God’s decree. Jimmy Carter, who died a few weeks ago, was once ridiculed for asking his small daughter to name America’s most pressing issue; but really, who better to ask? Children haven’t learned to dissemble, at least not as effectively as adults. They speak an uncomplicated kind of wisdom.

lesson of Shabbat Zachor: Amalek is our own insecurity. Quash it, and keep quashing it! When my Morgantown congregation hired me from California in 2012, I moved to West Virginia with much trepidation. What did I know about West Virginia? My old friend Michael Kelley was raised in Kenova, near Huntington — but of course, he was someone who’d chosen to leave West Virginia. Nothing Michael told me accurately forecast my own largely happy experience here. I’m glad I didn’t treat him as my oracle.

You are nervous about tomorrow. People have always worried about destiny — what could be more human! That’s what God is for: to reassure us that there’s a plan, even if we can’t discern its outlines at this instant. God moves gradually, with calm deliberation, sometimes too slowly for our taste. A thousand years is like one day in the sight of God (Psalms 90:4). But never doubt that God is in charge, that God will have the last word, that truth and justice will prevail in the end. PJC

Rabbi Joe Hample is the spiritual leader of the Tree of Life Congregation in Morgantown, West Virginia. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.

CEO Howard Swimmer, Medical Director Dr. Caroline Simard Swimmer, DVM, Dixie Ray and Mabel Z

Obituaries

LITMAN: James (Jim) Litman, age 98, passed away on Monday, Feb. 24. He will be buried with his wife Bernice (Bea) Smilovitz Litman in New Jersey, where they lived after their marriage in 1950. He was the brother of Thomas (Tim) Litman, 93, of Pittsburgh. Jim and Bea had three children, eight grandsons and nine great-grandchildren. May his memory be a blessing to all who knew him.

MANDELL: Edward Mandell, 89, of Pittsburgh, passed away on Feb. 26, 2025. He was married to his bashert, Phyllis Mandell (Grossman) for 62 years. In addition to his wife, Ed is survived by his daughter Sarah Leah and son Kenneth Evan. Ed was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, to Hymen and Anna Mandell. He was proceeded in death by his brother Jerry Mandell and sister Charlette Shiner. Ed enlisted in the Army then continued his service in the Army Reserve during the 1960s. Ed graduated from Slippery Rock University with a bachelor’s degree in education. He also received a Master of Arts in history from the University of Dayton and a Master of Science in library science from the University of Pittsburgh. Ed’s professional career began as a teacher at Hillel Academy in Pittsburgh. Ed spent more than 40 years promoting public libraries as community centers. He served as branch manager and director of community libraries in Dayton, Ohio, and Fort Worth, Texas, and library director of Peter White Library in Marquette, Michigan. In 1992, he became director of the Penn Hills Library, where he established the Penn Hills Library Foundation to raise funding for construction of a new facility. His efforts came to fruition with the October 2007 opening of the William A. Anderson Library of Penn Hills. In 2009, Ed was the recipient of the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences Professional Achievement Award. Ed was active as a volunteer and board member of the Rodef Shalom Brotherhood, where he received a lifetime achievement award for his dedication to service. Graveside service and interment were held at Beth Abraham Cemetery. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, please consider donating to your local public library. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com

SPIEGEL: Leslie Elaine Spiegel, on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. Beloved wife of the late Arthur David Spiegel; loving mother of Randi Weinstein (Ellis) and Jodi Lerner (Stephen); adoring grandmother of Jared (Ellie) Weinstein, David Weinstein, Sam Lerner, Mira Lerner and Nathan Lerner. Proud “GiGi” of Rosie Weinstein. Leslie was a very loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was active in the Jewish community, volunteering with Hadassah, The Friendship Circle and Ronald McDonald House. Leslie cherished her friendships, new and old, always comforted by visits and calls. Graveside services and interment were held at Tree of Life Memorial Park. Contributions may be made to Hebrew Free Loan of Pittsburgh or The Friendship Circle. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

Rachel Spokane, on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. Beloved wife of the late Harold Leo Spokane. Loving mother of Susan Spokane Germaine and Marsha Spokane (Dr. Michael) Keefe. Sister of Dr. Sarah Papier. Beloved “Gram” of Dr. Frank (Lauren) Spokane, Dr. Meagan Sara Keefe and Edward Michael (Katherine) Keefe. Great-grandmother of Jacob and Nathan Spokane and Emilia Keefe. Also survived by six loving nephews and one niece. Graveside service and interment were held at Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to the Temple David Library Fund, 4415 Northern Pike, Monroeville, PA 15146. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com PJC

Sunday March 9: Frances A Barniker, Libby Berlow, Esther R Broad, Samuel Cushner, Mary J Darling, Maurice Firestone, Anne Davis Ginsberg, Rebecca Goldstein, Joseph Horvitz, Marion H Jacobson, Gertrude Judd, Marvin L Kaufman, Lilly Lakey Malt, Ethel Mallinger, Emanuel Mervis, Mildred Platt, Emanuel Ripp, Harvey James Roth, Azriel Mayer Sachs, Bernard Weiss, Isaac Young

Monday March 10: Tillie Berenfield, Shirley L Borcover, Louis C Burstin, Hyman Cahen, Dora Cohen, Morris Gilbert Davidson, Pauline Davis, William Davis, Charles Glick, Eleanor Granowitz, Jack Greenfield, Julius L Gusky, Sondra Hansell, Florence L Hochhauser, Samuel Hodes, Mollie Koss, Esther Mandel, Thelma Marder, Jacob Marks, Max A Moses, Estelle S Nernberg, Fannie Orlansky, Nat Rubin, Rebecca Rubin, Max Seltman, Markus Sherman, Fannye Taper, Israel Whiteman, Samuel Williams, Josephine Olbum Zinman

Tuesday March 11: Minnie Abelson, Frank B Bortz, Ethel Chesterpal, William Davis, Eva Fox, Harvey N Goldstein, Minnie Herring, Isadore S Levin, Oscar Levine, Joel Litman, Sophia S Meyers, Dorothy Morantz, Sadie Pearlstein, Abe Platt, Lester Poser, Julius Rosenberg, Louis S Rosenthal, Freda Rubin, Jean G Semins, Ida Shieff, Ethel Simon, Goldie Simon, Harry Uram

Wednesday March 12: Isadore Bergstein, Joseph H Braemer, Ida Dektor, David L Ekker, Jack Elkovitz, Anna Finer, Rebecca (Baron) Greenberg, Marvin L Gusky, Earl Herman, Harry I Horwitz, Harriet Isaacson, Elinor Kann, Ida Kramer, Edward Oring, William Oskie, Pearl Wintner Rosen, Maurice F Sadowsky, Kenneth S Samowich, Milton Weisenberg, Samuel Yanks

Thursday March 13: Samuel Cohen, Harry Davis, Mary Farber, Eva Fingeret, Emanuel B Friedberg, MD, Belle S Friedman, Gary Lee Kress, Anna Kuperstock, Ben Leshney, Samuel Lewis, William A Lubarsky, Steven L Ochs, Lena Pavilack, Cecelia F Rosen, David Rosenthal, Bessie S Schulman, Frances L Shaeffer, Malie Silverman, Dorothy Sloan, Myer Solomon, Miriam W Steerman, Silvia Stuhl, Lea S Teplitz, Helen Tepper, Sidney M Wolk, Martin Zamore, Sarah Lea Ziner

Friday March 14: Dorothy Adler, Arlene Y Apter, Israel Backer, George Bonder, Daniel M Emas, Anna Feinberg, Mollie F Ganelin, Minnie Gottesman, Maurice Greenberg, Hyman Greenspan, Rose Harris, Melvin W Helfant, Max Janavitz, Harry M Kamin, Harriett W Kopp, Jack Lebovitz, Lewis Levick, Julius Markley, Leonard Nadel, Freda R Selkovits, William H Silverman, Esther K Stutz, Nellie Swartz, Isadore Winerman, Phillip Zamsky

Saturday March 15: Pearl Auslander, Max L Bluestone, Merle Blumenfeld, Dr Paul Cramer, Philip Ellovich, Pearl Erenstein, Max Freedel, Samuel M Gordon, Betty I Greenwald, Joseph Honig, Winifred Joyce Hynes, Lena Kline, Jacob Kunst, Louis Lawrence, Howard Mamolen, Samuel Marcovsky, Gertrude Robinowitz, Isabelle I Sachs, Irwin J Schultz, Becky Schwartz, Harry Swimmer, Ida Valinsky, Sidney Weisberger

Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from

Headlines

Murdered hostage Shlomo Mantzur laid to rest

By JNS Staff

Shlomo Mantzur, 86, the oldest hostage held by Hamas prior to his murder in captivity, was laid to rest on Sunday at Kibbutz Kissufim, where he lived for more than 70 years.

The Mantzur family invited Israelis to stand by the side of the road with Israeli flags as the funeral procession passed, with thousands attending.

Mantzur was abducted from his home during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Hamas terrorists handcuffed him, beat him and took him by car to Gaza, where they later murdered him. His body was held by Hamas for 509 days.

He would have been 87 this month.

The kibbutz described his death as a profound loss, calling him the “beating heart of Kissufim.”

Mantzur was born in Iraq in 1938. When he was 3 years old, he experienced the 1941 Farhud massacre in Baghdad, during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in his

p Shlomo Mantzur Photo courtesy of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum

eulogy at the funeral, described Mantzur’s journey “from the rivers of Babylon to Zion” while expressing deep regret for Israel’s failure to protect him during the Oct. 7 massacre, acknowledging the painful lessons learned from this tragedy.

“You, dear Shlomo, came to this land — from the rivers of Babylon to Zion — with longing, yearning, and love for your homeland. Around us lie the fields that shaped your life. Your home in Kissufim — so dear to you, which you built with your own hands. The home where you and Mazal raised your

“If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.”

Lee & Lisa Oleinick

children and grandchildren with immense love and dedication. The home from which you were torn so cruelly and where you fell into the hands of the cursed, diabolical murderers,” Herzog said.

“In this agonizing moment, as a servant of the Israeli public, representing the entire state of Israel, I ask you, Shlomo, for forgiveness. Forgiveness for our failure to protect you in the very place that was meant to be your fortress. Forgiveness from you, from your family, from the members of Kissufim, and from all the residents of the western Negev — for not saving you on that bitter, terrible day,” the president continued.

The kibbutz issued a statement in mid-February, upon learning of Mantzur’s death, saying: “This is one of the most difficult days in the history of our kibbutz. Shlomo was much more than a community member to us — he was a father, a grandfather, a true friend and the beating heart of Kissufim.

“His smile, modesty and human warmth were an inspiration to us all. Our hearts are broken that we were unable to bring him back to us alive. The entire community grieves his loss and is united in grief and pain.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responding to news of the death,

said, “My wife Sara and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the late Shlomo Mantzur upon receiving the heartbreaking news of his murder by the Hamas terrorist organization.”

Herzog extended his support to the family and the Kissufim community.

“Shlomo was a talented carpenter, a modest and kind-hearted family and community man who radiated warmth and love to all those around him,” the president said.

On Monday, Itzik Elgarat, whose body was also recovered from Gaza, was laid to rest at the cemetery of Kibbutz Nir Oz.

The kibbutz said in a statement: “Itzik, who was kidnapped at the age of 68, came to Nir Oz following his brother and was a beloved figure in the community. For years he served the kibbutz with dedication as a gardener and was responsible for plumbing, gas and steam work. He was an integral part of the social landscape, loved to hang out at the local pub, host friends and connect generations.

“Itzik left behind two children, a brother and two sisters. We will remember him for his laughter, his huge heart and his willingness to always be there for anyone in need. May his memory be a blessing.” PJC

Former antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt says she turned down Columbia job

By Philissa Cramer | JTA

Deborah Lipstadt, who was the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism under President Joe Biden, revealed in an essay published Sunday that she had turned down a position at Columbia University because of the school’s role in recent pro-Palestinian protests.

In the essay, published in The Free Press, Lipstadt said she was not convinced that the Ivy League university was sincere in its efforts to improve the campus climate — and that she was worried that she would face harassment while teaching.

She also said she worried that spending a semester at Columbia while on leave from her appointment at Emory University could whitewash a crisis at Columbia and its affiliated women’s college, Barnard.

“I fear that my presence would be used as a sop to convince the outside world that ‘Yes, we in the Columbia/Barnard orbit are fighting antisemitism. We even brought in the former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism,’” Lipstadt wrote. “I will not be used to provide cover for a completely unacceptable situation.”

Columbia has been a hotspot of protest over the Israel-Hamas war since it began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The school was the birthplace of last year’s nationwide encampment movement.

Lipstadt said she had been heartened by Barnard’s decision to expel two students who interrupted an Israeli history course with a pro-Palestinian protest — and then dismayed when the school allowed student protesters who occupied a campus building last week to leave without consequences.

“Watching Barnard capitulate to mob violence and fail to enforce its own rules and regulations led me to conclude that I could not go to Columbia University, even for a single semester,” she wrote, adding that Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, had personally called her after she conveyed her decision on Friday.

The Free Press was founded by Bari Weiss, the crusading journalist who grew up in Pittsburgh and first rose to prominence calling out anti-Israel sentiment at Columbia, from which she graduated. PJC

p Deborah Lipstadt speaks at a conference arranged by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, May 26, 2022. Photo by Shahar Azran

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Life & Culture

Long-starved ‘Shtisel’ fans can take a bite of ‘Kugel’

By Jacob Kamaras | JNS

Much like the loyal “Shtisel” fans from around the world, actor Sasson Gabay was yearning for a fourth season of the Israeli television drama series.

That season never arrived. But for Gabay, “Shtisel” paved the way for a more prominent role. After playing the brother of one lead character (Shulem Shtisel) and the uncle of another (Akiva Shtisel), he now stars in the “Shtisel” spin-off series.

The first season of “Kugel,” the prequel to the award-winning show, launched on the Israeli global streaming platform IZZY.

“I was hoping deeply in my heart that ‘Shtisel’ would continue,” Gabay, who plays Nuchem Shtisel, told JNS. “Would it be another season and in what form? I had a gut feeling that it was going to happen. And when they proposed the part in ‘Kugel’ to me, I immediately said yes, and I didn’t have to think twice.”

In Shtisel, Nuchem was a visitor in Jerusalem’s Haredi neighborhood of Geula. Despite his objections, Nuchem’s daughter, Libi, got engaged to her cousin, Akiva. Libi would later die offscreen between the show’s second and third seasons.

Written and directed by Yehonatan

Indursky, the co-creator of “Shtisel,” “Kugel” is set years earlier in the Haredi community of Antwerp, Belgium. Nuchem is a jewelry dealer whose wife, Yides (played by Mili Avital), asks for a divorce due to his dishonesty and crooked business practices.

After Yides leaves him and their daughter Libi (played by Hadas Yaron), Nuchem spends his days trying to save his marriage and achieve his dream of being a mogul, and his nights courting a recently widowed woman who inherited a restaurant that specializes in Jerusalem-style noodle kugels. Against the backdrop of her parents’ crumbling partnership, Libi (age 22) struggles to find a suitable shidduch (“match”) and instead devotes her energy to becoming an author.

“The moral complexity of a woman who is not living the life that goes along with her core values because her husband lies — and

lies a lot, and in really extreme ways — made for a very juicy character,” Avital told JNS about her part as Yides. “I was constantly uncomfortable emotionally. I wasn’t sure if I like Nuchem or dislike him, or if I believe him or don’t believe him.”

Yet her stance on the real-life Sasson Gabay is unambiguous.

“I’ve been wanting to work with Sasson for many years,” she said. “I’ve known him from the world we’re in, but I’ve never worked with him.”

She continued, “It’s just a challenge that I wanted to be part of. … As soon as I heard there was a spin-off of ‘Shtisel,’ without even knowing the name of the new show, without even knowing who was leading it, I immediately mentioned it to my agent. I said, ‘I want to do this. This sounds like exactly the kind of thing I love.’”

When confronted with Nuchem’s dishonest actions, such as selling one of her family heirlooms or approaching newly bereaved widows about paying for expensive jewelry under the false premise that their late husbands had commissioned the pieces for them, Yides experiences an array of conflicting emotions.

“On one hand, I have to live for my daughter because in that [Haredi] world, obviously, if a couple gets divorced, it affects the quality of the match they can find for their daughter,” Avital said. “But at the same time, how much do women need to give away of themselves for their family? When is it going to be OK to just care for yourself? I think that’s where Yides is at. To meet such characters that are complex, especially in a time of crisis, is super interesting.”

While acknowledging his character’s flaws, Gabay simultaneously emphasizes the attributes of Nuchem that may elicit some sympathy from viewers.

“He is forced into this situation because his wife left him,” Gabay said. “He tried his b est to make Yides stay at home, but she wouldn’t stay, and he’s left alone with his daughter, who is the apple of his eye. … There’s a lot of sadness and a poetic sense in this series. Nuchem loves Libi no matter what and he will do anything for her. He will try again and fail again, but he never gives up. He’s a big survivor. He’s forgiving about the flaws of other people as he tries to forgive himself for his own flaws.” PJC

The Tree of Life’s new traveling exhibition about American antisemitism, what happened on October 27, 2018, and the community’s response to the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history

Opening to the Public on March 27, 2025

The University Club Library University of Pittsburgh, 123 University Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

p Nuchem Shtisel (played by Sasson Gabay) rides a bicycle through Amsterdam in “Kugel.” Photo courtesy of IZZY

Community

Big Night 2025

Community members donned Olympic gear and gathered at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill for Big Night 2025. The March 1 program welcomed more than 850 people and raised over $900,000 toward scholarship funds and program costs for the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. The event’s Olympic theme signaled an eye toward this August’s 2025 Maccabi Campus Games.

Community

Members of Sharaka, a nonprofit striving to build the foundations of a peaceful Middle East through person-to-person diplomacy and cultural exchange, visited Pittsburgh and spoke with students, community leaders and volunteers about life in Israel, Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. On March 2, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh Girls High School students simulated a trip to Israel across time. Students transformed classrooms to depict scenes from modern-day and historic cities including

p Where’s the DeLorean?

Photo by Joshua Franzos

Photos courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh

It’s OK to be salty

Day School hosted a three-part cooking series with Chef Brandon Blumenfeld. The private chef and hospitality consultant is an

Photo courtesy of Community Day School

p Students take a pre-Purim trip to Hebron.

Photos courtesy of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh