Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 2-3-23

Federation presents annual security ‘State of the Union’ in anticipation of Pittsburgh synagogue shooter trial

Pittsburgharea Chabads establish lending libraries

By David Rullo | Sta Writer

By David Rullo | Sta Writer

Shawn Brokos, director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, met on Jan. 26 with leaders from various Jewish institutions to discuss Pittsburgh’s Jewish security landscape.

The meeting, which Brokos hosts annually, took on added significance as the community prepares for the trial of the man accused of killing 11 Jews at the Tree of Life building, scheduled to begin on April 24.

Each year, Brokos said, she holds “a meeting with our agency heads to talk about what we saw the previous year in terms of security — the enhancements we’ve made, where we are and where we need to be.”

While the meeting itself wasn’t unusual, Brokos said the accelerated timeline for security needs — typically the briefing looks a year out for security requirements, but is now focused on April 24 — is unique.

“I’m not trying to create panic,” Brokos said. “We’re not in crisis mode but want all of our organizations to be as prepared

as possible. We have the resources. The organizations are not on their own.”

The looming start of the trial wasn’t the only issue addressed by Brokos in what could be described as her security “State of the Union” address. A bevy of facts and figures were presented to those in attendance, including how many people were trained, how much security grant money was received and other details.

Despite there being no direct or indirect threats related to the trial, the region is in an increased “threat tempo,” as Brokos has pointed out in previous conversations with the Chronicle. Over the last year, there were several local antisemitic incidents, including attacks in Squirrel Hill and Greenfield, as well as hate messages on social media sites and area billboards.

Brokos said there were 122 local incidents last year, up from 82 in 2021 and only 44 in 2020. While that rise might seem alarming, she was quick to note that the incidents come with a few caveats. In 2020, for instance, most people were in their homes

Three local Chabad centers endeavor to prove that Jews truly are the people of the book.

Chabad of Carnegie Mellon University, Chabad of Greenfield and Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville all have received grants to create local lending libraries.

The grants were awarded through worldwide raffles as part of an initiative in honor of the 120th birthday of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, and included funds for 80,100 books, the establishment of 360 Chabad community libraries, Torahs to communities without one and other initiatives.

Chabad of Greenfield Rabbi Yitzchak Goldwasser said that the library he is creating will be for people of all ages.

The idea, he explained, is to reach as many Jews in as many ways possible. While for some communities that is accomplished through a Shabbat dinner or Pesach seder, the Greenfield community could benefit most from a lending library, he said.

“Library books for a child or adult that can be taken and read in someone’s own time and

 The Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville is busy filling shelves for its new lending library.

Photo courtesy of Rabbi Mendy Schapiro

 The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh recently unveiled a new QR Code to report suspicious incidents. Photo courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

Headlines

Psychiatrist E. Joseph Charny, who survived Oct. 27 massacre, has died at 95

By Adam Reinherz | Sta Writer

Dr. E. Joseph Charny, a pipe-smoking, dream-interpreting psychoanalyst whose attendance at Shabbat services at Tree of Life Congregation on Oct. 27, 2018, led to national recognition, died on Jan. 10 in Washington, D.C. He was 95.

Born in 1927 in Philadelphia to Russian immigrants, Charny’s story evidenced the zenith and nadir of American Jewish life. Fearing persecution, his parents fled Odessa, opted for the United States over Palestine and raised a family of three sons.

After graduating from Central High School in 1945, he attended Swarthmore College, “almost by accident,” he noted during a 2016 StoryCorps conversation. “When they found out I could run a quarter mile in less than 54 seconds, they were very happy to take me on.”

Before receiving Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honors from Swarthmore, Charny served in the Army. He was stationed in Italy at the end of World War II and later received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed a residency and internship at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Western Psychiatric Institute and taught psychiatry at those two Pittsburgh institutions.

Historians and psychiatrists often refer to the mid-20th century as the heyday of psychoanalysis, and Charny was a devotee of the field.

“Dad went the whole nine yards,” his son Joel Charny said. “I mean he smoked a pipe. He had a couch in his office. He interpreted dreams.”

Apart from running a private practice and later serving as director of clinical services at Woodville State Hospital, Joseph Charny’s scholarly contributions included an analysis of Abraham Lincoln’s rhetoric before the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Society and an article praising Freudian theory in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly.

Charny’s erudition was obvious, but his demeanor wasn’t pompous, Squirrel Hill resident Marcia Stewart told the Chronicle. Stewart was introduced to Charny around 1955 by her late husband, Dr. Mervin Stanley Stewart, a fellow resident at Western Psych.

“Mervin had a great deal of respect for Joe’s Hebrew and Judaic education,” she said.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Charny attended religious school and was bar mitzvahed, but it wasn’t until after his retirement that he became more involved with formal Jewish practice and congregational life, his son said.

A program pairing Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha minyan-goers with day school students enabled Avi Baran Munro, Community Day School’s head of school, to observe Charny’s interactions with the children during morning prayer.

“He made it fun for the students,” she said. “He engaged with them. The relationship was very beautiful.”

Audrey Glickman met the late psychiatrist during a 2015 synagogue trip to Israel. She told the Chronicle she was amazed by his brilliance and humility.

With interests in Shakespeare, Auden, Beethoven and Caravaggio, “he could talk about anything,” she said. “His mind was always open, and if you’re a person with an open mind, that’s a delightful person to hold a conversation with.”

Charny also had a keen interest in history.

Well before he survived the most violent antisemitic attack on U.S. soil — and provided national and local interviews that made his name and image recognizable to thousands — the former Pittsburgher studied combat. During the late 1960s, he and his wife, Peggy, took their three children to Gettysburg, Lexington, Concord and battlefields across the United States.

His surname also holds historical significance, paying homage to Chernobyl, a city 60 miles north of Kyiv where the family held a place of religious prominence. Charny’s grandfather Nahum was named after his ancestor Menachem Nahum Twersky, an 18th-century Ukrainian rabbi who promoted Hasidism and authored “Me’or Einayim” (Light of the Eyes) and ‘Yismach Lev” (A Happy Heart).

Centuries before Charny’s ancestor

encouraged a connection to Judaism through cheerfulness and spirit, another forebear embodied polymathic talents. Shlomo Yitzchaki, a medieval French rabbi better known as Rashi, scribed commentaries requiring knowledge of law, science, history, art and music. Rashi’s writings appear in almost every printed copy of the Babylonian Talmud and Hebrew Bible today; less known, however, are his compositions on contempo-

Years after establishing a yeshiva, as the People’s Crusade passed through Worms in 1096, Rashi witnessed the horrifying murder of fellow Jews. He wrote about the killings within several selichot, one of which is read

Charny told StoryCorps that growing up in Philadelphia he and his brothers made light of the family’s supposed ties to rabbinic greatness, but that his father “insisted we understand how where we’re from affects how we live our lives.”

Writing in his Central High School yearbook, Charny’s classmates recognized his talents and potential almost 80 years before his death:

“‘Handsome Joe’s’ face, perpetually wreathed in a grin, is definitely an institution in the class … He is an excellent, though easy-going, student and a stellar athlete. ‘Joe’ is always ardently enthusiastic about something, and never a dull moment is spent in his company. His keen wit and disregard of convention make every trifling occurrence an adventure. However, he is capable of fine work and thus assured of success in any field of endeavor.” PJC

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

 Dr. E. Joseph Charny attends a Passover seder. Photo courtesy of Joel Charny

Headlines

Rabbi Danny Schiff on his new book, ‘Judaism in a Digital Age’

By Toby Tabachnick | Editor

In his new book, Rabbi Danny Schiff, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s community scholar, tackles topics that will make many readers uncomfortable but are nonetheless crucial to consider as we head deeper into what Schiff calls the “digital age.”

In “Judaism in a Digital Age: An Ancient Tradition Confronts a Transformative Era” (Palgrave Macmillan), Schiff examines the profound changes transforming society that began about 30 years ago. He posits that the Reform and Conservative movements — having served Jews well in the 20th century — will not be the Jewish vehicles leading us into the future. Those movements served to help the Jewish people integrate as Jews into modern American society, and largely have accomplished that mission. But a new set of challenges are presented by the digital age which those movements are not positioned to meet.

New iterations of Judaism must arise, Schiff writes, that will respond in a Jewish way to the profound questions of humanity that are arising at breakneck speed.

Schiff splits his time between Pittsburgh and Jerusalem. The Chronicle spoke with him about his book this week via Zoom. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You say in the preface that this book began as you were struggling to understand why the non-Orthodox movements were on the decline, and that it evolved from there. Can you describe that evolution?

I think that the important thing to understand is that we’ve gone through a big transition. And that transition is already evident all around us. We can see congregations that were once powerful, dominant players in the Jewish landscape now weakening and merging. And in many ways, the younger generation is turning less and less to the sort of institutions and the forms of Judaism that were strong in the second half of the 20th century. So that seemed to me to be something that required explanation because the rabbis of today are not profoundly di erent from a generation ago, and the programs are not much di erent, and nor are the Jewish practices. So what exactly happened that caused this signi cant and obvious decline in these forms of Judaism?

I came to understand that what we were experiencing was something within Jewish life — and particularly non-Orthodox Jewish life — that was part of a much larger phenomenon. And as I explored the rise of the “digital age”, I found that many think of the big changes going on around us as being technological developments. But technology really has an extraordinary impact on every part of our civilization — and most certainly on structures of meaning, which is what Jewish life really constitutes.

You first intended to write an article on this topic, right?

It was going to be an extensive article. And then it became clear to me that there was something bigger here that needed to be explored. Once I put the decline of modern Judaism into the context of the decline of modernity itself — and I claim in the book that modernity essentially came to an end somewhere around 1990 — that obviously led to the next question. So something new is emerging — what does that mean for the longer-term fate of everything that was part of modernity? And what exactly does this new period call upon Jews to do and how should we think about Judaism in this new period — because through the centuries we’ve been pretty good at adapting to the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and that will be something that will be necessary in the 21st century.

You largely leave Orthodoxy to the side in this book. Is that because you are predicting that Orthodoxy is going to remain intact going into this digital age, or do you think that Orthodoxy is not going to be flexible enough to respond to it as a new nonOrthodox iteration could?

There is no one thing called “Orthodoxy.” Orthodoxy comprises a range of different types of observance. There are those who call themselves modern Orthodox; there are those who call themselves Hasidic; there are those who have more of a Yeshivatype orientation. And all of these forms of Judaism, which are lumped together under the heading of Orthodoxy, are really quite distinct one from the other. So there are a couple of answers to the question that you asked. The first answer is that I don’t consider myself an expert in the Orthodox world, so in the book I am more focused on the non-Orthodox world — which I start off by saying in the first chapter is more susceptible to the changes that are going on precisely because it is more exposed to the currents of modernity.

That having been said, I also am of the view that many of the parts of Orthodoxy that I’ve described are also subject, to some extent, to the dramatic changes that we’re

experiencing, and therefore will also be transformed by them — but I think to a lesser extent than is true for what we have called up until now “non-Orthodox” Jews. Additionally, there are plainly those Jews who try their very best to shield themselves from the reality of what’s going on in the surrounding culture. They will be less impacted by the upheavals of the digital age, but concurrently, they are also less likely to make a Jewish impact on the world around them precisely because they seek that insulation from the surrounding environment.

You’re always respectful in your tone when you are laying bare some di cult truths about the Conservative and the Reform movements. Still, are you expecting a harsh reaction from some of the adherents of those movements?

I don’t know what reaction to expect. I think that those who give the book a fair reading will acknowledge that a lot of what I describe is actually not predictive about the Reform and Conservative movements, but is already happening. And what I say in the book is that this is not the fault of non-Orthodox Judaism. Civilization has changed in such a way that these forms of Judaism are no longer what is likely to be significantly compelling in the 21st century. So I can certainly understand that people who have been devoted to Reform and Conservative Judaism for much of their lives will experience sorrow or sadness as these movements contract. Part of the argument here is that the extraordinarily rapid change that we’re experiencing is not only difficult but it’s painful and involves loss.

If people think that my analysis is wrong, I look forward to engaging in conversation about that. I think that what we really need to try to figure out is why are we in the circumstances we’re in. So if my explanation is incorrect, then I really want to hear what people think might be the alternative analysis — because the only other analysis that I usually hear is that we simply haven’t yet found the right silver bullet-type of rabbi or program or synagogue structure, and once we do, all will be well. And I’m pretty skeptical of that approach, as the book lays out.

You put forth that you fully expect there will be new iterations of Judaism forming in the 21st century. Are you seeing any buds of those new iterations yet? Have they started?

I don’t think so. I think that even if we were seeing buds, it would be too early to recognize whether they would actually sprout into fullgrown plants, and what those plants would look like. So, just as I say in the early parts of the book, when these transformations take place, you only really get to acknowledge them and understand them once you are some decades into them. I think that we’re still at a period where they’re ahead of us; and I think, therefore, we’re caught in the mist, unable to see very far ahead.

In Chapter 6, you talk about a lot of changes in society — some that are really scary — that are happening very quickly. You put forth in your book that it’s Judaism’s responsibility to come up with a response to these things. Because they’re happening so quickly, and some have already happened, is it too late?

No, I don’t think it’s too late at all. “It’s too late” — it would only be approptiate to use that gloomy expression if we are not prepared to put some ethical constraints around the technologies that we churn out and put into the public domain without a great deal of consideration. So the book, I think, is a caution. It’s a caution that says unless we take ethics and Jewish thinking seriously, unless we start to consider how exactly civilization might be best shaped, we are headed to places that could be very problematic. And as the book indicates — and this is not I think something that is speculative — the digital age is unfolding on an exponential curve. Therefore things are happening faster and faster and multiplying in a way that, unless we get hold of them in the short term, they can get away from us quite quickly.

It’s a huge task, right? Because as you point out in your book there are so many parts of the world that all these technological changes a ect, from jobs, to body enhancement, to immortality. Are you optimistic that Judaism can come up with responses that actually have an e ect on tempering some of these things?

Rabbi [Jonathan] Sacks, alav haShalom, makes a differentiation between optimism and hope. Optimism is for those people who sit around and say, “All will be well.” Hope emerges when you believe the future can be better because you intend to do something about it. In this case, I don’t think optimism is much in play if we are just going to let the current trajectory continue without any course corrections. Hope? There are, to be sure, plenty of reasons for hope if we get to work. PJC

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

See book review on page 14.

 Rabbi Danny Schiff

Photo courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s new artistic director brings diversity — and Judaism — to the ballet world

By David Rullo | Sta Writer

Black, gay and Jewish. Adam W. McKinney is no stranger to diversity.

The new artistic director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre isn’t afraid to lean into the characteristics — all of the characteristics — that make up a person.

“In the book chapter I wrote in the ‘Oxford Handbook on Jewishness and Dance’ called ‘HaMapah/The Map Navigating Intersections,’ I write about the possibility of being many things at the same time and that these notions are noncompeting and signify the possibility and importance of noticing all of who we are as people,” he said.

It was a high school musical director who first suggested McKinney try ballet.

“In my first ballet class, it felt as though I knew what to do,” he recalled. “I knew how to turn, and I knew how to jump. From there started a beautiful relationship with ballet.”

The Milwaukee native went on to study at the Milwaukee Ballet school and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, as he was finishing high school, then earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Butler University, where he concentrated on classical ballet.

“I’ve had the opportunity to perform with classical companies and contemporary companies and modern companies all around the world,” he said. “I’m excited to bring my expertise to Pittsburgh.”

McKinney takes the reigns of PBT in March, and while he may be new to the company, he isn’t new to Pittsburgh.

His father, an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board, lived and worked in the city for a decade beginning in 1998. McKinney said he visited his father regularly.

“I don’t remember if it was Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, but I remember going to shul with my father who introduced me to some of the Jewish community,” McKinney said. “When I was back in 2018, I went to a Chabad for Purim.”

The strength of the Jewish community here is one reason McKinney is excited about coming to Pittsburgh.

And yet, when it comes to Jewish identity, his is more diverse than many.

“I am Black. I am an Ashkenazi Jew. I’m Native heritage. I attended an Orthodox Day School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, called Hillel Academy — shout out to Rabbi Shmotkin and the Chabad community,” he said. “My family attended a chavurah for High Holiday services, which we co-led.”

The idea of Jewish leadership, he said, was

“I am not used to being someone on the receiving end of help. Words can only begin to express how thankful I am for your help and generosity.”

instilled in him early on. As for what Jewish life in Pittsburgh will look like for McKinney and his husband, director Daniel Banks — that is still to be determined.

McKinney is quick to say there are relationships between dance and Judaism,

pointing to Israeli folk dance and its intricate footwork, choreography and often repeated circle motif, which he said is symbolic and “very Jewish.”

Please see Ballet, page 11

your

–JAF Grant Recipient

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We extend a heartfelt Thank You for your Loving Kindness

We extend a heartfelt Thank You for your Loving Kindness

If found guilty, Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s sentencing will be in two phases, judge rules

phases aren’t separated.

Referrals and donations to the Jewish Assistance Fund are ways our community shows how we care for each other

We extend a heartfelt Thank You for your Loving Kindness

Referrals and donations to the Jewish Assistance Fund are ways our community shows how we care for each other

Referrals and donations to the Jewish Assistance Fund are ways our community shows how we care for each other.

With gratitude,

With gratitude,

With gratitude,

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville ruled on Monday, Jan. 30, that if the man accused of murdering 11 Jews in the Tree of Life building is found guilty, the sentencing portion of the case will be held in two separate phases, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

The government is expected to present victim impact testimony about all 11 people killed in the massacre and those who survived, including members of law enforcement.

The U.S. Attorney’s office argued against the motion, saying it would unduly complicate the case and cause jury confusion and delay.

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If the defendant is found guilty, victim impact testimony will be heard by the jury after the government makes its case for the death penalty.

The Tribune-Review quoted Colville as saying his ruling was based on “an abundance of caution.”

Defense attorneys, citing the Federal Death Penalty Act, argued in a motion that victim impact testimony could affect a jury’s decision about the death penalty if the

The trial is expected to begin with jury selection on April 24, four-and-a-half years after the shooting at the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018. Members of Congregation Dor Hadash, New Light Congregation and Tree of Life Congregation were murdered during the massacre, the deadliest antisemitic attack in United States history. PJC

David Rullo

“I am not used to being someone on e receiving end of help. Words can only begin to expre how ankful I am for your help and generosity.”

Executive Director

“I am not used to being someone on the receiving end of help. Words can only begin to express how thankful I am for

help and generosity.”

 Adam W. McKinney Photo by Timothy Brestowski

New kosher dairy restaurant opens at CMU

By Adam Reinherz | Sta Writer

Carnegie Mellon University students, staff and community members craving fresh kosher pizza now have a new dining option: The Edge, located at Resnick House, Tartans Pavilion on the Oakland campus, offers Vaad-certified thin-crust pizzas, bagels, bourekas, pastries and pasta.

In celebration of The Edge’s grand opening, more than 100 attendees enjoyed an evening of free food, balloon art and airbrushed tattoos.

The Jan. 24 event was a chance to enjoy delicious dairy items in the company of friends, said Judah Cowen, chef and owner of Elegant Edge Catering.

Seated beside fellow computer science students, sophomore Serena Yip praised the pastries.

Sophomore Ray Man also touted the offerings and called the grand opening a chance to reconnect with others.

“COVID felt very isolating,” Man said. “It’s good to have these types of events again.”

Weeks before the festivities, Cowen softly launched The Edge.

The chef, who maintains a kosher kitchen inside Congregation Beth Shalom, told the Chronicle that the growth of kosher food on campus is a credit to both CMU and the community at large.

similarly loyal following, while also operating inside Tartans Pavilion.

Squirrel Hill resident Ira Frank attended the come together,” he said. With students, community members and

staff eating together and sharing space, there’s a palpable energy in the room, said Joe Beaman, CMU’s director of dining services. “You couldn’t ask for anything else. This is what

The Edge at Resnick House, Tartans Pavilion, is open Sundays from 5-9 p.m. and Mondays through Thursdays 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Adam Reinherz can be reached at

 Judah Cowen at The Edge Photo by Adam Reinherz

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.

FRIDAY, FEB. 3

All young adults are invited to Temple Sinai’s Shabbat After Hours, an exclusive young adult oneg following the Shabbat evening service. Enjoy wine, great snacks, board games and a chance to widen the Temple Sinai young adult community. Free and open to all young adults. 8:15 p.m. Register at templesinaipgh.org.

FRIDAY, FEB. 3 – FEB. 28

ZOA Pittsburgh is now accepting applications for its Scholarship to Israel Program from any local Jewish teen who will be a junior or senior in high school in September of 2023 and is participating in a qualified, structured, study trip to Israel. Applicants will be evaluated on their involvement in Jewish organizations, volunteerism and on an essay about Zionism and Israel. Three $1,000 scholarships will be awarded. Applications will be accepted through Feb. 28. For information and applications, please contact ZOA Executive Director Stuart Pavilack at stuart. pavilack@zoa.org or 304-639-1758.

SUNDAY, FEB. 5

ADA consultant Joan Stein will share stories on her work “Making Sports Facilities, Performing Arts Venues, & Other Public Buildings Accessible to Everyone” during an onsite and online JDAIM brunch and discussion. Joan has been an Americans with Disabilities Act consultant for more than 30 years. 10 a.m. $10 for brunch or free to Zoom from home. Temple Sinai. Register at templesinaipgh.org.

In “Media Bias Against Israel,” the award-winning Canadian Israeli journalist Matti Friedman examines undue focus and distorted coverage of Israel in modern media. 10 a.m. Zoom. $12. jewishpgh.org/ event/media-bias-against-israel-with-matti-friedman.

SUNDAYS, FEB. 5, 12

Chabad of Squirrel Hill presents the six-week program Jewish Children’s Discovery Center. Children will explore captivating stories of our heroic Jewish fathers and mothers and bake delicious desserts that relate to each one. 10:30 a.m. 1700 Beechwood Blvd. $75. chabadpgh.com.

SUNDAYS, FEB. 5 – MARCH 5

Join a lay-led online Parashah study group to discuss the week’s Torah portion. No Hebrew knowledge needed. The goal is to build community while deepening understanding of the text. 8:30 p.m. For more information, visit bethshalompgh.org.

SUNDAYS, FEB. 5 – DEC. 4

Join Chabad of Squirrel Hill for its Men’s Tefillin Club. Enjoy bagels, lox and tefillin on the first Sunday of the month. 8:30 a.m. chabadpgh.com.

MONDAY, FEB. 6

Join the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the 10.27 Healing Partnership to celebrate Tu B’Shevat in nature on a meditative and gentle forest bathing journey through Frick Park. Meet at the Frick Park Environmental Center, encounter nature, form warm connections and end with a Tu B’Shevat seder and tea ceremony. 1 p.m. To register, visit support.pittsburghparks.org/site/ Calendar?id=104461&view=Detail.

MONDAYS, FEB. 6; FEB. 20; MARCH 6

Join the 10.27 Healing Partnership in the South Hills for Arts in the Community, a collaborative series of therapeutic art workshops with JFCS. This art-based mindfulness program is free and open for all who are interested. The group will explore ways making art can help regulate the nervous system, promote playfulness, imagination, and connect us more deeply to our bodies, emotions, thoughts and worldviews. Attendees will come together in community as we explore di erent art mediums, share our personal

experiences, and reflect on how art can influence us all. South Hills JCC, 345 Kane Blvd. Register at forms. gle/qPu933puGg5fQQK2A.

MONDAYS, FEB. 6 – MARCH 6

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

MONDAYS, FEB. 6 – MAY 15

Understanding the Torah and what it asks of us is one of the most important things a Jew can learn. But most Torah classes begin in Genesis and never finish the first book. If you want a comprehensive overview of the whole Torah, Torah 1 is the course for you. In the first year of this two-year Zoom course, Rabbi Danny Schi will teach Genesis, Exodus and the first half of Leviticus. In the second year, he will complete Leviticus and cover Numbers and Deuteronomy. $225. 9:30 a.m. foundation.jewishpgh.org/torah-1.

TUESDAY, FEB. 7

Join the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh’s Center for Loving Kindness for the next installment of Excerpts We Should Read, Talk About and Act On: Important Passages to Guide Us to Stand UP with Our Neighbors. These Zoom conversations are based on book excerpts from must-read literature that can impact how we live in community. No need to read the books beforehand; we will share excerpts that lead to discussion and understanding. February’s conversation explores Dorothy Robert’s “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty.” 7 p.m. To register, visit jccpgh.formstack.com/forms/ excerptsweshouldread?mc_cid=1828b74f83&mc_ eid=3c266f9d75.

Join Emily Harris from Spirited Fun Improv, AgeWell, and the 10.27 Healing Partnership for the last in a series of four safe and lively events where participants can stay curious, build friendships and lighten up. Improv is PLAY – in a supportive, lighthearted space. 12:30 p.m. JCC of Greater Pittsburgh, Third Floor, 10.27 Healing Partnership Suite. To register, contact Maddie Barnes at mbarnes@jccpgh.org at 412-697-1186.

TUESDAYS, FEB. 7 – MAY 2

In “Israel Literature as a Window to Israel Society,” Rabbi Danny Schi will facilitate an encounter with Israeli society through the pens of Israel’s leading writers, discovering voices that are original, contemporary and honest. This 10-part Melton course takes you on a literary journey o ering a fresh examination of the ever-relevant issues faced by Israeli writers. Together, learners will read poetry and prose that is challenging and self-critical, gaining insights into the Jewish national psyche. 9:30 a.m. $160. jewishpgh. org/event/israeli-literature-as-a-window-to-israelisociety/2023-02-07.

TUESDAYS, FEB. 7 – MARCH 7

Join Temple Sinai for a weekly Talmud class with Rabbi Daniel Fellman. Noon. On site and online. For more information and for the Zoom link, contact Temple Sinai at 412-421-9715.

TUESDAYS, FEB. 7 – DEC. 26

Led by a certified yoga teacher, yoga class at Temple Sinai is welcome to all levels. No experience necessary. 16 and older. $15. Register at templesinaipgh.org.

WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 8 – MARCH 2

Join Chabad of the South Hills for “Book Smart,” a sixpart page-turner that courses through Judaism’s most important titles and the authors who inscribed them. From the Five Books of Moses to the 63 tractates of the Talmud, Book Smart proves that we are called the People of the Book for a reason. 7:20 p.m. At Chabad of the South Hills, 1701 McFarland Road or Zoom. chabadsh.com/civicrm/event/info.

WEDNESDAYS, FEB.8 – APRIL 19

Participate in weekly gentle yoga with a skilled and caring yoga instructor experienced in trauma-informed care. Experience an hour of gentle and calming yoga and learn yoga you can do at home and in stressful

situations, including while seated. 3 p.m. 10.27 Healing Partnership suite inside the Squirrel Hill JCC. Facilitated by Susie Balcom and open to everyone. Register here: https://forms.gle/JQtgrutJyByaMM5K6.

WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 8, 22

Hadassah Greater Detroit invites you to “Beyond

Shtisel: A Closer Look at the Hasidic World,” a fourpart virtual series learning about di erent Hasidic communities, discussing some provocative issues and viewing videos of Hasidim in their home environments. Gain an understanding of what the life of Hasidim is really like. 7 p.m. $10 per session or $35 for all four sessions. hadassahmidwest.org/GDShtisel.

U.S. Law and Criminal Justice: From the Community Perspective, a three-session community course, geared to lay people, will support learners in their understanding of the U.S. criminal legal process, the systems of justice, and criminal trials. The information presented will help the whole community understand what goes on in the criminal courts, how trials work, what justice can look like and how we might attain it, and the special features and procedures of death penalty cases. Each session, taught by Professor David Harris of Pitt’s School of Law and Squirrel Hill resident, will present on a di erent facet of the justice system, with ample time and opportunity to ask questions. 6:30 p.m. In-person and virtual.

10.27 Healing Partnership Suite, third floor of the Jewish Community Center, 5738 Forbes Ave., 15217. 1027healingpartnership.org/series/u-s-law-andcriminal-justice-from-the-community-perspective.

WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 8 – MAY 24

Registration is now open for “Melton Core 1: Rhythms and Purposes of Jewish Living.” This 25-lesson course will take you through the year’s cycle — the life cycle traditions and practices that bind us together. Explore not just the what is and how is of Jewish living, but the why is that go with them. 7 p.m. $300 per person, per year (25 sessions), includes all books and materials. Virtual. foundation.jewishpgh.org/ melton-core-1.

WEDNESDAYS, FEB. 8 – DEC. 27

Temple Sinai’s Rabbi Daniel Fellman presents a weekly Parshat/Torah portion class onsite and online. Call 412-421-9715 for more information and the Zoom link.

THURSDAY, FEB. 9

University of Pittsburgh historian Dr. Keila Grinberg and Dr. Flavio Limoncic of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janiero will discuss the history of Rio de Janiero’s Jewish community. This talk is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh’s Jewish studies program and Center for Latin American studies. 5:30 p.m. Free. Cathedral of Learning, room 602.

THURSDAYS, FEB. 9, MARCH 9, APRIL 20, MAY 18

Join the JCC Bu alo for monthly virtual readings as part of the Jewish Poetry Series. Hosted by Philip Terman and Baruch November. Each month will feature di erent Jewish poets reading selections of poems that include but are not limited to Jewish themes, values and ideas. 7 p.m. Free and open to the community. jccbu alo.org/events/2023/02/09/artsand-culture/virtual-jewish-poetry-reading-series.

SATURDAY, FEB. 11

Join Congregation Beth Shalom for Clues and Schmooze, a fun trivia event, including a ra e, open bar and snacks. Trivia will be in teams of three to six. Bring your own team or be matched up at the door. Drinks start at 7:30 p.m. Trivia game starts at 8:15 p.m. The cost is $30 per person in advance, or $35 per person at the door. To register in advance, visit bethshalompgh.org/clues-and-schmooze-2023.

SUNDAY, FEB. 12

The Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh and the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center present: “Researching Your Roots with LitvakSIG.” Join Carol Ho man who will survey Litvak genealogical records available online. Free for JGS-

Pittsburgh members; $5 for the general public. Noon. heinzhistorycenter.org/event/jgs-pittsburgh-presentsresearching-your-roots-with-litvaksig.

Classrooms Without Borders and Rodef Shalom Congregation present Israeli actor/director Roy Horovitz in his production of “My First Sony.” The play tells the story of Yotam, an 11-year-old, who becomes obsessed with documenting his life after receiving a children’s tape recorder, his “First Sony.” 2 p.m. Free with suggested donation. Rodef Shalom Congregation, Levy Hall, 4905 Fifth Ave. cwbpgh.org/ event/my-first-sony.

Join Temple Sinai on Zoom to learn about author Howard Mortman’s book “When Rabbis Bless Congress,” which includes the congregation’s Rabbi Daniel Fellman. Free and open to the public. 2 p.m. temple Sinai. Register at templesinaipgh.org.

MONDAY, FEB. 13

Women of Temple Sinai invites you to experience a “Year of Spices” on the second Monday of each month. February’s guest instructor is Leon Edelsack, who will feature Aleppo pepper and Baharat in the menu. 6 p.m. $15 Register at templesinaipgh.org.

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 15

Join the 10.27 Healing Partnership for Creative Journaling. Learn journaling skills that can improve your emotional regulation during stressful situations. 11 a.m. 10.27 Healing Partnership Suite, third floor of the Squirrel Hill JCC, 5738 Forbes Ave, 15217. 1027healingpartnership.org/event/ meditative-journaling.

Spend an evening with the FBI experts as they discuss what to know about violent extremism and how to best prepare in the case of radicalization and hate crimes. The experts will give an inside view on what to expect and what to do when the situation arises. Presented by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. 6:30 p.m. Rodef Shalom Congregation, 4905 Fifth Ave. jewishpgh.org/event/an-inside-look-atextremism-radicalization-and-hate-crimes.

THURSDAYS, FEB. 16; MARCH 2, 23; APRIL 13, 27

This bimonthly Refaeinu healing circle is led by Sara Stock Mayo, a spiritual leader, trained drama therapist, musician and poet. The space will be open to anyone who seeks to create community in shared healing rituals, Jewish texts and music, art making and embodied wellness practices. 10.27 Healing Partnership Suite, JCC of Greater Pittsburgh. 7 p.m. To register, visit forms.gle/pAJoXvNXSJ9Ks3ow9.

FRIDAY, FEB. 17 – SATURDAY, FEB. 18

Join the National Council of Jewish Women for the first Repro Shabbat since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Stay tuned for details on their weekend packed full of events. jewsforabortionaccess.org/ reproshabbat.

SATURDAY, FEB. 18

Celebrate Sisterhood Shabbat with Congregation Beth Shalom as they honor Helen Feder and Shiri Steindel Friedman. Special guest speaker is Rabbi Rachel Adler. 9:15 a.m. bethshalompgh.org.

The Squirrel Hill AARP will host Bonnie Caripolti, director of Juniper Village. Caripolti will present “Ways to Maintain Your Brain as you Age,” discuss the di erences between dementia and Alzheimer’s diseases and share tips that you can do today to prevent memory loss as you age. Refreshments will be served. 1 p.m. Rodef Shalom Congregation, Falk Library. For additional information, contact Marcia Kramer 412-656-5803.

THURSDAYS, FEB. 23 – MAY 17

In the new 10-part Zoom course, “Sacks: To Heal A Fractured World,” Rabbi Danny Schi will explore “To Heal a Fractured World,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ book on the nature of Jewish responsibility for the

Please see Calendar, page 7

Tree of Life hires first chief of staff

Jackie Shimshoni Reese, the former manager at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, will serve as the new Tree of Life nonprofit’s inaugural chief of staff.

“I’m honored by the trust and confidence placed in me by Carole [Zawatsky] and the Tree of Life community as I embark on my journey in this new role,” Reese said in a prepared statement. “I understand the deep responsibility and significance of this role and look forward to serving our community. As we renew Tree of Life, I am excited to work collaboratively to create a sanctuary and site for education that is necessary for our mission to counter antisemitism. The future holds amazing opportunities and I cannot wait to get started.”

Reese is Zawatsky’s first hire since she assumed the role of Tree of Life’s CEO.

As chief of staff, Reese “will manage the day-to-day operations of the organization, including supporting development efforts and the REMEMBER, RENEW, REBUILD. campaign,” according to a press release. Additionally, she will be “a public ambassador” for Tree of Life and work on facilitating community partnerships.

Headlines Calendar

Calendar:

Continued from page 6

broader world. Students will be invited to read this pivotal book and to discuss its contents in order to arrive at a better understanding of the views of Rabbi Sacks on the goals and vision of Judaism. 9:30 a.m. $145 for all 10 sessions. jewishpgh.org/event/sacks-toheal-a-fractured-world/2023-02-2.

THURSDAY, FEB. 23

Tammy Hepps, historian of the local Jewish community, and Dan Bouk, historian of science, will use the publication of Bouk’s “Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them” as an opportunity for the wide-ranging discussion Data, Democracy, and the Census: History and Genealogy in Conversation. The two will look at the ways seemingly bland statistics of the census bureau are actually a rich trove of research material for data scientists and everyday Americans alike. They will demonstrate how close-reading historical census data can acknowledge and honor lives lived at the margins of U.S. society, whether those lives belonged to Jewish people in Homestead or queer folk in Greenwich Village. 5 p.m. Kresge Theater, College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, 15213.

Join the Jewish Fertility Foundation for its Kicko Event, an evening of desserts, drinks and celebration. Free. 7 p.m. JCC Pittsburgh, Levinson Hall. jewishfertilityfoundation.org/KICKOFF.

SUNDAY, FEB. 26

Answer the call and be a part of something Super. Represent your favorite Jewish Pittsburgh agency at

“I truly look forward to working alongside Jackie as we continue to build the reimagined Tree of Life,” Zawatsky said in a prepared statement. “She understands the importance of creating a safe space for our community and becoming a transformative force for peace and justice. As we stand at the crux of change, I am happy to have her on this journey of reimagining the Tree of Life, and empowering people from across the country to join the movement to counter antisemitism.”

Before being hired by Tree of Life, Reese worked at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh for five years, where she

led efforts related to marketing, grant writing, exhibits, digital programming and assets. She also managed special educational projects, including the writing

the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Super Sunday. The organization with the most participants will receive $1,800. There will be three sessions beginning at 9:30 a.m. 2000 Technology Drive. For more information and to register, visit jewishpgh.org/event/super-sunday.

MONDAY, FEB. 27

Scott Benarde spent six years combining his love of Judaism, journalism and rock ‘n’ roll to research and write “Stars of David: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Jewish Stories,” about how Judaism influenced popular music and the people who created it. Hear Benarde talk about his book at Temple Sinai. Free and open to the public. 7 p.m. Register at templesinaipgh.org.

THURSDAYS, MARCH 2; APRIL

6; MAY 4; JUNE 1

Join local clergy from Jewish and Christian backgrounds for the Christian Jewish Dialogue, a monthly discussion exploring topics of similarities and di erences. Noon. Rodef Shalom Congregation. rodefshalom.org.

SUNDAY, APRIL 16

The Pittsburgh Girls’ Choir and Congregation Beth Shalom’s Derekh program proudly present “The Beauty That Still Remains,” a concert of hope and reflection through song in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. PGC Chamber Choir will sing Linda Tutas Haugen’s powerful piece featuring words directly from Anne Frank’s immortal diary. Rounding out the evening’s program in our beautiful sanctuary: Ani Ma’amin (arr. Caldwell and Ivory) and Psalm Trilogy by Srul Irving Glick with the participation of Bodiography Dance Company. 7 p.m. Tickets and info at bethshalompgh.org or pittsburghgirlschoir.com. PJC

 Jackie Shimshoni Reese Photo courtesy of Shannon Craig Straw

“The future holds amazing opportunities and I cannot wait to get started.”

–JACKIE SHIMSHONI REESE

and designing of the CHUTZ-POW! Teacher’s Resource Guide. PJC

Toby Tabachnick

Lita Brillman announces primary run for City Council, District 5

aspiring young politician.

Lucy Gabriel has known Brillman since the sixth grade; that’s more than 15 years.

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Lita Brillman was born and raised in Squirrel Hill, but she was working for the nonprofit America Votes in Washington, D.C., when the synagogue shooting of Oct. 27, 2018, occurred. She later said it was a “call to action.”

“I want to be home,” she remembered thinking when panic spread over the antisemitic attack at the Tree of Life building. “I want to be with my community.”

Brillman was inspired to enter the arena of public service in Pittsburgh and, soon after the shooting, enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Now set to graduate with a master’s degree in April, she has her eyes on another prize: Pittsburgh City Council.

Brillman announced plans to run in the spring primary for the District 5 City Council seat occupied by Barb Warwick.

She sees her graduate education as a kind of launching pad. GSPIA, she said, “has been about building up my ability to be a responsible leader and a knowledgeable leader.”

Brillman, 27, points to projects she’s completed at grad school to tout her interest in civic government, such as one on Black maternal mortality in Pittsburgh, and another on housing in Hazelwood.

“I’m able to be hyper-local in my focus,” she said.

A Greenfield resident and longtime member of Temple Sinai — her parents were

married there and she became a bat mitzvah there — Brillman says Jewish community safety and inclusion are near the top of her priorities. But she’s also quick to point out she’s no one-trick pony. She wants to talk about community-centered policing and ensuring that Hazelwood, in terms of displacement and gentrification, doesn’t become the next East Liberty.

Brillman also believes labor should not

be pitted against the environment when it comes to civic priorities.

“I don’t believe that, and I won’t settle for that,” Brillman said. “They’re tied together.”

“Strong-minded, ambitious, strong values, strong sense of empathy.” That’s the way Armani Davis of Shady Side Academy, who was Brillman’s faculty lead during a fellowship with the City of Pittsburgh, thinks of her when asked to describe the

“She’s truly one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met — she really does her homework and believes in everything she’s said,” said Gabriel, who grew up in Squirrel Hill and is a fourth-year medical student at Pitt. “She has really gotten to know the community. She’s worked with and found little ways to make a big difference.”

Part of that big difference is the voice she’s developed at GSPIA, according to Hannah Bisbing, another second-year graduate student in the school.

“The first thing that really struck me about her is how intelligent she is,” said Bisbing, who lives in Shadyside. “She’s fearless and a brilliant person. I think she’d be great in a position of authority — she’s a great candidate.”

Next, the voters decide.

But first comes the campaign. Brillman is inviting residents of District 5 — which includes Glen Hazel, Greenfield, Hays, Hazelwood, Lincoln Place, New Homestead, Regent Square and Squirrel Hill South — to attend a “coffee and bagels meet and greet” at Temple Sinai at 11 a.m. on Feb. 26.

The municipal primary in which Brillman plans to run is on May 16. Warwick and Matt Mahoney have also declared their candidacy for the seat, formerly occupied by Corey O’Connor. O’Connor resigned the seat last summer after he became Allegheny County Controller. Warwick won the seat in November in a special election. PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

Rabbi of firebombed NJ synagogue: ‘We’ve unfortunately been preparing for this’

to a picture that police distributed.

By Philissa Cramer | JTA

ANew Jersey synagogue is crediting recent safety improvements after a Molotov cocktail thrown at its door overnight caused little damage.

Still, Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield canceled activities on Sunday as the police investigated, marking the second time in recent months that the suburban congregation suspended activities because of an antisemitic incident.

Last November, the Reform synagogue of about 500 families near New York City briefly closed its doors while the FBI investigated a “credible threat” against New Jersey synagogues; an 18-year-old man was later arrested for making a threat online.

The latest incident took place around 3 a.m. Sunday when, according to security camera footage, a man approached the synagogue and threw what appeared to be a Molotov cocktail, a homemade bomb, at the door before fleeing. The man was wearing a ski mask and a shirt that appeared to have an image of a skull and crossbones, according

The building suffered only superficial damage, an outcome that Rabbi Marc Katz attributed to the safety investments made over the past several years, funded largely by state homeland security grants. The synagogue has added shatterproof glass to its door and upgraded its security cameras, which generated a relatively clear image of the man who threw the device.

“Everything worked the way it was supposed to,” Katz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Sunday afternoon. “We’ve unfortunately been preparing for this day for a while and we were ready.”

The synagogue canceled religious school, where roughly 200 children had been expected, and a rehearsal for the year’s Purim play largely out of concern that it would be upsetting for community members to see evidence of the assault and the investigation, Katz said. On Monday, a scheduled book talk by Rabbi Joshua Stanton, whose recent book tackles the challenges facing American religious institutions, has been postponed to make way for an evening event focused on the incident.

But Katz emphasized, including in his communications to community members, that the community’s normal activities were also

ongoing. On Sunday morning, he said, he had officiated at a baby naming, and other activities would proceed as planned on Monday.

Katz said there had been no warning prior to the Sunday incident. But he noted that Montclair has experienced multiple apparently antisemitic incidents in recent years, including swastikas found on playgrounds and etched on desks in the high school.

“Every few months, something happens. But this is the first time that there’s something directly against our congregation to this magnitude,” he said. “If things had been different, like even the wind blowing differently, we could be having a very different conversation. …That’s what’s so scary about this.”

Katz said that even as the incident had left him and his congregants shaken, it was not just antisemitic incidents such as the attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh; Poway, California; and Colleyville, Texas, that had created an atmosphere of fear in the community. He said that every year he asks teenagers in the congregation where they feel more unsafe, at synagogue or at school, and every year the answers come back split.

“Our kids are suffering and they’re not just suffering because they’re Jewish,” he said. “So we have to be responding with a bit

of a wider lens even than just what our own community is facing.”

In his letter to congregants, Katz noted that Ner Tamid’s trauma stood alongside other crises in the United States, alluding to multiple shootings targeting Asians in California and the release of footage showing police officers beating a Black man to death in Memphis.

“This has been a horrible week for many, for the AAPI community, for the African American community, and yes, for us,” Katz wrote. “If you don’t know what to do in light of this, then offer up support to a community who is equally at a loss. Perhaps in our collective anger and grief, we can find a way out together.” PJC

 Lita Brillman

Photo courtesy of Lita Brillman

 Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, New Jersey, was targeted by a masked man who threw a Molotov cocktail at its door on Jan. 29, 2023. Photo via Google Maps

Half of 25 most generous philanthropists in US are Jews, but few give to Jewish groups

Jews made up nearly half of America’s biggest philanthropic donors last year, according to a calculation by Forbes of who gave the most money away in 2022, JTA.org reported.

In a year that saw their fortunes take a hit amid declines in the stock market, America’s 25 “most generous givers” donated a collective $27 billion, up from $20 billion in 2021, for a lifetime total of $196 billion, according to Forbes. They included 12 billionaires with Jewish backgrounds — a dramatic overrepresentation when compared to the proportion of Jews in the overall U.S. population.

The Jews on the list include financier George Soros, who gave away at least $300 million to racial justice and humanitarian work in Ukraine and other causes; businessman and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg with $1.7 billion in donations to charter schools, clean energy and fighting heart disease; and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose charity donated more than $900 million, with much of the money going to fund research into artificial intelligence and genomics at universities.

One thing that stands out about these Jewish philanthropists is that almost none focus on giving in the Jewish community.

Only Lynn and Stacy Schusterman of the Tulsa oil dynasty, who are paired together on the list, are prominent donors to Jewish causes.

White supremacist Nick Fuentes returns to Twitter with spree of antisemitic comments

The white supremacist and far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes was reinstated to Twitter on Jan. 24 and returned to the social media platform with a volley of antisemitic posts and comments, including praise for Hitler.

Fuentes is a Holocaust denier who first gained prominence after participating in the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and was banned from Twitter in July 2021, amid the platform’s crackdown on far-right extremists, particularly in the wake of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He burst back onto the public stage in November, when he and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, had dinner with former President Donald Trump.

Fuentes’ reinstatement comes as Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter last year, restores the accounts of many people who were banned for advancing far-right extremist ideas on the platform.

Fuentes made clear upon his return to Twitter that he planned to pick up where he left off, posting a series of comments reflecting the brand of antisemitism that he has spread.

Today in Israeli History

Feb. 6, 1951 — Raid on Arab village kills 9

Majority in Netherlands don’t know the Holocaust a ected their country

A recent study of the Dutch population conducted by the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany showed an alarming lack of education about the Holocaust in the Netherlands, JTA.org reported.

A majority of Dutch respondents across all age groups didn’t cite their own country as a place where the Holocaust took place, despite the Netherlands being the setting of the world’s most widely-read Holocaust memoirs — Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl,” which has been translated into more than 70 languages. About 75% of the country’s Jews were killed during the Holocaust, one of the highest rates in Europe.

The study, for which Schoen Cooperman Research surveyed 2,000 people across the country of over 17 million, also found that a majority of respondents (54%) and a slightly larger share of those in the millennial and Gen Z generations (59%) did not know that the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis totaled 6 million. Many said the total was 2 million or fewer.

Australian government mulls banning entry to antisemite Kanye West

An Australian minister said on Jan. 25 that American rapper Kanye West, also known as Ye, could be denied a visa to enter

the country due to his “awful” antisemitism, JNS.org reported, citing Reuters.

“People like that who’ve applied for visas to get into Australia in the past have been rejected. I expect that if he does apply, he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions that they did,” said Australian Minister for Education Jason Clare, according to the report.

News that West would visit Down Under to meet the family of his partner, Bianca Censori, who grew up in Melbourne, generated a major backlash.

The Australian Jewish Association called on authorities in Canberra to deny West a visa to enter the country because his planned visit constitutes a threat to the local Jewish community.

Israel’s housing slump worst in 25 Years

New home sales and building starts in Israel face the worst declines in at least 25 years, Globes reported, citing Central Bureau of Statistics data.

Just 1,819 new homes were sold in October, compared to 5,648 in October 2021, and the new home sales rate has dropped more than 50% since August 2021.

The statistics bureau said new home buys have declined about 5% monthly since August 2021, but since July, the rate has accelerated to 8%. PJC

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

Feb. 3, 1919 — Zionists present case to Peace Conference

A World Zionist Organization delegation makes the case for a Jewish homeland in Palestine to the Paris Peace Conference. The delegation asks that the proposed British Mandate support Jewish immigration.

Feb. 4, 1921 — New syllabus is sought at Greek Jewish schools Meeting in Salonica, the Conference of Greek Zionists declares that the education provided at the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools does not support Jewish national aspirations and calls for a new syllabus.

Feb. 5, 1890 — 1st Tu B’Shevat planting in Land of Israel

Zichron Ya’akov educator Ze’ev Yavetz takes students to plant trees on Tu B’Shevat, starting a holiday tradition in the Land of Israel that the Jewish National Fund and teachers unions adopt in 1908.

Israeli soldiers launch an overnight raid on Sharafat, a village of about 200 Arabs just south of Jerusalem, in retaliation for a deadly Arab raid into Israel. Nine villagers, including five children, are killed.

Feb. 7, 1999 — King Hussein dies

Jordan’s King Hussein, the second Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel, dies of complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 63. He became king at 18 after the assassination of his grandfather Abdullah.

Feb. 8, 1878 — Philosopher Martin Buber is born

Philosopher Martin Buber is born in Vienna. His grandfather teaches him Hebrew. He becomes involved with the Zionist movement while a student at the University of Leipzig and makes aliyah in 1938.

Feb. 9, 1953 —

Soviet embassy is bombed

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle invites you to join the Chronicle Book Club for its Feb. 5 discussion of “Waking Lions” by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. The novel was a joint winner of the prestigious 2017 Jewish Quarterly Wingate literary prize. From the New York Times: “Eitan Green, the protagonist of the Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s novel ‘Waking Lions,’ is a respected neurosurgeon who has been forced by a professional dispute to relocate from Tel Aviv to Beersheba, a desert town where dust is everywhere, ‘a thin white layer, like the icing on a birthday cake no one wants.’ Speeding through a remote area in his S.U.V. late one night, he hits an Eritrean man walking by the roadside. And when he decides that the victim is beyond help, he impulsively flees the scene. ... ‘Waking Lions’ is a sophisticated and darkly ambitious novel, revealing an aspect of Israeli life rarely seen in its literature.”

Your Hosts:

Toby Tabachnick, editor

David Rullo, staff writer

By Dana Friedlander,

The Soviet Union’s embassy in Tel Aviv is bombed, injuring three people, in an attack blamed on the Kingdom of Israel terrorist group. Despite Israeli apologies, the Soviets break off diplomatic relations. PJC

How and When:

We

What To Do Buy: “Waking Lions.” It is available from online retailers including Barnes & Noble and Amazon (new and used editions). There are also several copies available in the Carnegie Library system.

Happy reading! PJC

Toby Tabachnick

 A Jewish family is seen in 1917 in Salonica, where the Alliance Israelite Universelle opened a school in 1873.

 The former Soviet Embassy, known as Levin House, still stands at 46 Rothschild Blvd.

Israeli Ministry of Tourism

— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb

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Security:

Continued from page 1

during the early months of COVID-19 and the numbers reported for that year were mostly online incidents, including Zoom bombings.

On a more positive note, the rise in numbers could be attributed to the fact that more people are reporting incidents — possibly due to community training.

Last year, there were nearly 6,000 people trained in Pittsburgh during 105 separate trainings, and local Jewish institutions received more than $1.5 million in state security grants spread across 27 organizations.

To assist in the reporting of incidents, Brokos unveiled a new QR Code, making it easier for community members to report suspicious activity using their phones.

And while she said security preparedness

Libraries:

Continued from page 1

comfort level was a need I didn’t think was being reached until now,” Goldwasser said.

The rabbi knows of what he speaks when discussing the benefits of a Jewish library. His father and uncle partnered with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in the 1970s and ’80s to create a Jewish section in the public library.

“They had that for about 30 years,” he said. “In the Carnegie Library, an entire couple of rows were Jewish books.”

Word has started to spread about the new lending library, and Goldwasser said that people are getting excited.

“At the end of the day, there’s nothing like having a book, whether it’s over the weekend or on Shabbos to just be able to read,” he said.

And while cloud libraries and opportunities to learn virtually are modern conveniences, Goldwasser said there’s a reason physical items like vinyl records are popular again.

Ballet: Continued from page 4

“It’s not unlike the circles we create during Simchat Torah when we draw circles around each other and a bima if there is one present,” he said. “It is also kapparot, the historical nature of circling a chicken around our heads for Yom Kippur and the circling around Shabbat candles. The notion of circles of tikkun olam is a circle of remembrance and repair,” he said.

Tikkun olam and creating social change through ballet is something the PBT’s new artistic director has considered. He said that as a country we are at a remarkable moment where we are trying to understand who we are and what we value

is one part of the puzzle as the trial approaches, Brokos noted there is another aspect to the region’s readiness: the emotional well-being of the community.

“We’re working closely with the 10.27 Healing Partnership and mental health professionals to make sure the community has the support network in place,” she said. “It’s important to think about a layered approach.”

That’s vital, she explained, because while the community has worked to harden targets and increase training, those measures, as well as fear of the unknown, might cause anxiety.

One area where anxiety could impact security, she explained, is preparing for the possibility of an active shooter.

“In Pittsburgh, that’s a big one,” she said.

Brokos said Pittsburgh has a security network that includes security staff at day schools and other institutions, as well as partners in both law enforcement and the Secure Community Network, the

“I think, as much as we’ve moved on to virtual, books are still coming out,” he said. “People are still buying them.”

Rabbi Mendy Schapiro is also convinced that many people, including families, desire books.

“This is definitely a big deal,” the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville rabbi noted. “We’re very excited about it.”

Because the Chabad centers have only recently learned that they would be receiving the grants for the libraries, word has just started to leak out to the regulars who attend shul weekly or classes at the center, Schapiro said.

“Those people are intrigued by a lot of the titles that might interest them,” he said. “They’ve seen me starting to display them already — some people have borrowed them already.”

That, despite the fact that the library hasn’t officially opened.

It isn’t only families and older adults who will benefit from the libraries. In Oakland, Chabad of Carnegie Mellon University is also launching one.

— and how we should construct systems of support to ensure that our values are represented and embodied.

Dance, including ballet, he said, has always been subversive.

“It offers the opportunity to create the world in which we want to operate and live,” he said. “As an organization, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is working to create those worlds artistically, certainly in terms of the programming we offer internationally from an infrastructural, organizational perspective, but also the ways in which we are reaching outside of ourselves.”

The goal, he said, is to widen the doors and enlarge the table so that more people feel represented and included.

“That, too, is subversive,” he said. “A form that was historically meant for some is now

official safety and security organization of the Jewish community in North America.

Rodef Shalom Congregation Executive Director Barb Feige said the Shadyside congregation spent time and money hardening its building, which also houses Tree of Life Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash.

“We are aware of the trial, and we are aware of our need to heighten our awareness,” Feige said.

The congregation, she said, has partnerships not only with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police but maintains relationships with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University police forces as well.

Congregation Beth Shalom Executive Director Robert Gleiberman said his congregation, like other Pittsburgh Jewish institutions, is always focused on security.

“With what’s coming up, we’re going to

On a college campus, Rabbi Shlomo Silverman said, it’s crucial to have a large variety of books covering a wide range of subjects for students.

“It’s definitely going to help expand the educational part of our educational system,” Silverman said, noting that while he already has a large library, opening a lending library is something new for the center and required additional titles.

“Once I go down this path, I think about the titles, like ‘Oh, I need to get Lord Jonathan Sacks — he just put out a book and that will be amazing to have on campus.’ I’m going to be adding that.”

Silverman, like Goldwasser and Schapiro, said the initial grant and titles are just the beginning. They will continue to expand the libraries they are building intending to have books covering a broad range of Jewish subjects and ideas.

All three rabbis are hard at work building shelves and working out the logistics of how to operate the libraries. Silverman doesn’t anticipate beginning to lend books until next semester. Greenfield and Monroeville will

meant for all and that’s one of the reasons I was so interested in the organization — because I know of its commitment to the high caliber programming and its commitment to community.”

Before accepting the position of artistic director at the PBT, McKinney was a tenured associate professor of dance in ballet in the School of Classical and Contemporary Dance at Texas Christian University, teaching classes in classical ballet, modern dance and choreography. He co-founded and co-directed DNAWORKS, an organization committed to healing through arts.

He has danced with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and

www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

be even more vigilant and keep our ears up and keep our eyes open,” he said.

Several miles from the city, Leslie Hoffman, executive director of Temple Emanuel of South Hills, said that the congregation is grateful for its strong partnership with the Mt. Lebanon Police Department.

“We work in concert with them and Federation to ensure the safety of all those that come to our building, whether it’s for religious services, programs and speakers or educational opportunities,” she said.

The community, Brokos said, will have an opportunity to spend an evening with FBI experts as they discuss violent extremism and how to best prepare in the case of radicalization and hate crimes, on Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 6 p.m. at Rodef Shalom Congregation. PJC

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

both open their doors to borrowers sooner, but still have details to puzzle out, like dedications and sponsorships, that will help the libraries grow.

“Even people looking to partner on a smaller scale would be great,” Goldwasser said. “A book can cost $18 or $20, a nice set of books can be $100, so it all counts. Every book is a book that someone will take home and read and grow from it.”

As luck — or divine intervention — would have it, several of the different Chabad centers are teaching a new course, “Book Smart.”

Schapiro sees a connection.

“There’s a vast knowledge available with books and libraries in Jewish teaching going all the way back from Mount Sinai until now,” he said. “Books and education have always been of value to Jews.”

Chabad of South Hills also received a separate grant, allowing it to hire Rabbi Levi and Hindy Rosenblum to direct all children, teen/youth and family programs. PJC

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

Milwaukee Ballet Company.

Pittsburgh, he noted, is almost geographically midway between his native Milwaukee and Boston, his husband’s home town. Because of the time he spent here over the years, and its location on the map, the city is inviting, he said.

“So, this notion of coming home feels warm to me,” he said. “Certainly, participating in community from a Jewish perspective is important. The convergence of the rivers is beautiful and metaphoric. The art and cultural landscape is vibrant.”

Not everything he’s looking forward to, though, is quite as highbrow.

“We hear the food is great,” he said. PJC

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

Imposter syndrome and b’nei anusim

Guest Columnist

Barbara Aiello

“Feeling like an imposter is bad enough; being treated like one is worse.”

The young woman who came to me was clearly nervous; she twisted a tissue in her hands and trembled when she spoke. It didn’t take long for the tears to flow, especially when she related the treatment she had received from a rabbi with whom she had recently met.

“It took all my courage to speak with him,” Emma (not her real name) said. “For years, I’ve had this affinity to Judaism. That’s because I grew up with a grandmother who taught me about our family’s Jewish roots. Our family had been Catholic, but there were stories about how our Jewish ancestors escaped from Spain during the Inquisition. So I went to the rabbi. I said, ‘I know I have legitimate Jewish roots, but I feel like an imposter.’ The rabbi responded that he understood about my imposter feelings. ‘You feel like an imposter because you are!’”

The rabbi went on to explain that 500 years ago Jews like Emma’s ancestors had a choice. Either they could submit to forced Christian conversion or they could remain Jewish and face an “auto-da-fe,” which meant

being burned alive in the public square. Because Emma’s ancestors had chosen forced conversion, they and their descendants had effectively renounced Judaism and now were considered apostates.

According to the rabbi, Emma’s “imposter syndrome” feelings were legitimate, but not for the reasons you might think. Emma couldn’t be considered Jewish because her ancestors had accepted Christianity. The Jews who refused adult Christian baptism were killed. Emma’s ancestors who qualified as authentic Jews, said the rabbi, were the dead ones.

First described nearly 50 years ago by psychologists Suzanne Imes and Pauline Rose Clance, the term “imposter syndrome” was first applied to graduate students who doubted their abilities and obsessed that deep down they were unqualified and undeserving of the positions they held. These students worried that eventually they would be discovered as frauds by those around them.

In recent years, “imposter syndrome” has found its way into the Jewish community, where Jewish converts, who, after having successfully completed course work, synagogue observance, an examination before a beit din (rabbinic court), and a ritual mikveh immersion, still felt that they were not authentically Jewish.

Today, rabbis have begun to take the situation seriously, like Rabbi Rochelle Tulik who addressed the problem head on. In an Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon (5782), titled “You

are NOT an imposter,” Rabbi Tulik had this to say about the feelings of inadequacy that often plague newly minted Jews: “The most challenging nature of imposter syndrome is that it is often most strongly triggered when we actually feel we are in a place where we DO belong. Or when we feel that we have a right to be there. But then doubt kicks in.”

Given the fragile nature of Jews who have recently made conversion, imagine the fear and trepidation that someone like Emma felt — a young woman who desperately wanted to connect with her lost Jewish roots.

As a rabbi of a b’nei anusim synagogue in Calabria, Italy and director of a cultural center whose mission it is to remove these imposter-like obstacles, I welcome men and women like Emma who want to claim their Jewish heritage — especially those (like myself) who have suffered the all too common slight, “You can’t be Jewish. You’re Italian.”

Jews by Choice often worry that they will be “found out” — that someone will call them out for not belonging, for not being Jewish enough. B’nei anusim like Emma, who attempt to connect with the long-lost Judaism, not only fear that they don’t belong, but those fears are often confirmed by a Jewish hierarchy that all too often dismisses b’nei anusim out of hand. Or, as Emma described it, “Feeling like an imposter is bad enough. Being treated like an imposter is worse.”

Within the Jewish community, the issue of anusim-related “imposter syndrome” has begun to command attention by some Jewish professionals, comparing Jewish imposter syndrome to a “dybbuk,” or a dislocated soul. Indeed, in an article in The Forward, John Kunza writes, “I identified as being Jewish since a very young age ... Be it born with a Jewish soul, or lost Jewish lineage in my family tree ... I always knew that I was a Jew before fully knowing what it meant to be Jewish. My soul was at Sinai and there was no way of escaping that.”

Emma and so many others like her who have discovered their lost Jewish heritage represent a unique opportunity for established Judaism. When we understand that imposter syndrome is a part of b’nei anusim baggage, we can take action to alleviate the stress. We can become less skeptical and instead acknowledge to b’nei anusim that they are not imposters. Instead, their attraction to Judaism, which has deep roots in ancient Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Italy, and beyond, is a gift to be treasured, rather than a problem to be solved. PJC

Rabbi Barbara Aiello is the first woman and first non-Orthodox rabbi in Italy. She opened the first active synagogue in Calabria since Inquisition times and is the founder of the B’nei Anousim movement in Calabria and Sicily that helps Italians discover and embrace their Jewish roots. She is originally from Pittsburgh. This column first appeared on The Times of Israel.

Israel’s critics continue to hold the Jewish state responsible for Palestinian terror

Guest Columnist

Jonathan Tobin

Throughout the course of the Palestinians’ century-long war on Zionism, the narrative about their terrorist campaigns against the Jews with whom they had no intention of sharing the land has always been framed as a “cycle of violence.”

That was as true for the pogroms launched against Jewish communities in the 1920s and 1930s as it was for the massacre in Jerusalem — on International Holocaust Remembrance Day — of seven people, and the wounding of three others, by a Palestinian Arab.

The violence has always been rooted in the Arab claim that Jewish presence in the ancient Jewish homeland is a crime that must be expunged. But somehow, each instance of bloodshed can always be explained, rationalized or even excused as a response to some specific action, gesture, or even the mere possibility of either, on the part of Jews.

Unsurprisingly, this was what the international media did in relation to the heinous mass killing that took place in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem on Friday night. Much of the press (i.e. Vox) — as well as apologists for the war on Israel, such as

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — claimed a moral equivalence between the act of wanton murder at a synagogue and the Israel Defense Forces operation earlier in the week to capture a cell of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin, during which nine were eliminated.

But more than just a fallacious attempt to depict what’s going on as a mere tit-for-tat between two equally intransigent sides in the conflict, the immediate context for the misleading coverage is the ongoing effort by the opposition to Israel’s government and its foreign cheerleaders.

The New York Times’ summary of the week’s events combined the “both sides” cliché with an equally tendentious assertion — in a story headlined “Amid Spasm of Violence, Israel’s Far-Right Government, Raises Risk of Escalation”— that what had happened was a product of a democratic Israeli election. In this telling, and despite disclaimers acknowledging that terrorism didn’t start the moment that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s allegedly extremist coalition took office a few weeks ago, the problem is primarily Israel’s fault.

The argument is that by giving a stable majority to the Likud Party and its religious partners, the Israeli electorate set in motion a series of events that fuels the “cycle of violence.” It assumes that the rhetoric of some of the coalition members, in particular Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is both unacceptable and responsible for provoking Palestinian terrorism.

This is absurd.

That’s not just because Netanyahu and his partners were elected in no small measure because of the Israeli public’s justified perception that the government they replaced had failed to sufficiently address Palestinian terrorism. The problematic nature of most coverage of the conflict is rooted in an unwillingness to concede that the longevity and virulence of anti-Israel violence go beyond bogus comparisons between counter-terror operations and terrorism.

It’s not just that the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected peace offers and compromises that would have satisfied any desire for them to have an independent state, assuming that they were willing to live in peace with Israel. It’s that their war on Zionism is inextricably linked to their national identity.

That’s why they keep saying “no,” and their leaders — whether the “moderates” of Fatah who rule Judea and Samaria (the West

Bank) or the Islamists of Hamas — are incapable of accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish state, regardless of where its borders might be drawn. It also explains one of the most horrifying, yet all-too-familiar aspects of this latest tragedy: the way Palestinians celebrate acts of terrorism.

As bad as it was, the Times article had one virtue. Unlike most Western coverage of the attack, it included a mention and one picture of the disgusting jubilation that spread throughout the Palestinian Authority in response to the murders in Jerusalem.

As the photos and videos posted on social media indicate, the celebratory incidents were not isolated. On the contrary, whole swaths of Palestinian society turned out on Friday night to hand out sweets at impromptu rallies and parades in honor of the Jew-killing. Even the mother of the perpetrator, who was gunned down after murdering every Jew he possibly could, was seen cheering the action of her

To admit that Palestinians’ political culture has not just normalized terrorism, but treats it as the highest expression of their national identity, contradicts the basic assumption of all rightthinking liberals about Israel and its foes.

Chronicle poll results: Bagels

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

“Jan. 15 was National Bagel Day. Where do you buy your bagels?” We offered no multiple-choice responses, but rather asked readers to list their favorite place to buy bagels and to share why it is their favorite.

Popular responses included: Trader Joe’s, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Pigeon Bagels, Giant Eagle, Costco, Bruegger’s Bagels, Oakmont Bakery, Aldi, Panera, Bagel Factory and Gussy’s Bagels & Deli. Some out-of-town readers weighed in with favorite bagel shops in West Virginia, Maine, New York and Israel. Several readers said they made their own bagels, others said they do not eat bagels and many people lamented the fact that they couldn’t get a good bagel in Pittsburgh. We received responses from 136 people. A few follow.

I used to go to Pigeon but find their politics objectionable and can no longer support them. I was thrilled to recently discover Gussy’s in Oakland. They have delicious, fresh, reasonably priced bagels.

Bruegger’s! Their bagels have seeds on top and bottom!

Tobin:

Continued from page 12

“martyred” son while handing out candy.

For most media outlets, even noting the above in passing, as the Times does, is often considered in bad taste. Worse, even accurately reporting on active Palestinian support for, let alone indifference to, the immoral nature of such an awful crime is viewed as racist. To admit that Palestinians’ political culture has not just normalized terrorism, but treats it as the highest expression of their national identity, contradicts the basic assumption of all right-thinking liberals about Israel and its foes.

To accept that the even Palestinian “moderates” are cheered by the spilling of Jewish blood — the mother of the killer can, after all, now look forward to receiving a hefty pension from the Palestinian Authority — gives the lie to the concept of a two-state solution’s being the answer to Israel’s problems. It exposes the lies of the Israeli left and American liberals as absurd misreadings of Palestinian intentions and goals, based either in naivete or obfuscation.

Just as important, the focus on the Israeli government’s supposed fault for taking seriously its obligation to root out terrorism demonstrates where the campaign to delegitimize Netanyahu and his partners has inevitably led. The Israeli left has had no compunction making deliberately false claims

A Slice of New York (Manor, Pennsylvania) because they bring the bagels in from New York.

I bake them myself. I haven’t bought a bagel since the start of the pandemic.

Not in Pittsburgh. The bagels here mostly stink.

Pigeon because it is both heimish and edgy.

Costco. Best value.

about the ruling coalition’s plan for judicial reforms. It’s been denouncing the endeavor as a war on democracy, when its actual goal is to preserve the power of an undemocratic, liberal, elite minority to thwart the will of the majority with impunity.

But the hyperbolic portrayal of the government as a proto-authoritarian group of wild extremists has played right into the hands of the Palestinians, as well as those abroad who think their duty is to override the verdict of Israeli democracy and save the country from itself. This is more than a matter of the opposition’s trying to score political points against the coalition. The falsehoods it’s perpetuating are helping to encourage both terrorism and foreign pressure on Israel to tolerate a certain amount of mass murder so as to avoid antagonizing the Palestinians.

Some of the protesters assert that the Palestinian flags at their demonstrations are only being waved by extreme leftists, whose views don’t reflect the sentiment of most participants. But the main beneficiaries of their attempt to nullify the results of the last election — which they and their American supporters would blast as “insurrection” and a coup d’état if it were the right that was seeking to unseat a recently installed leftist government — is the P.A. and those in the Biden administration who would like nothing better than to defeat Netanyahu.

Still, the way that the Israeli left is providing ammunition to Israel’s foes doesn’t get the U.S. media off the hook. There is no “cycle of

Pretty much wherever I am when I want some. There are some places I won’t buy them, and I won’t buy packaged or frozen ones. There are enough places making fresh ones around our area.

My daughter bakes them from scratch, and they are delicious!

As much as I like to support local businesses, Bruegger’s has the closest thing to my childhood favorite, Bageland.

Three Brothers Bagels. They are really tasty and freeze well.

violence” in which the victims are as blameworthy as the murderers. Those who fault Jewish victims for the efforts of Palestinians to murder them for the crime of being Jews living in Israel aren’t just engaging in routine bias. They are also giving a pass to the fomenters, champions and subsidizers of terrorism.

Is ignorance bliss?

Ressler’s in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The flavor is great.

Wherever they are the cheapest for what we want.

The Bagel Factory, Costco (Einstein Bros. brand) and Oakmont Bakery.

I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore. If I did, I would buy bagels on Murray Avenue. However, none of the bagels in Pittsburgh come close to what we had in past years with Herman’s, Rosenbloom’s, Waldorf and Silverblatt’s. I visit Pittsburgh a lot and can actually find better bagels in Atlanta, where I live. This is an opportunity in Pittsburgh not only for making bagels but a good deli as well.

It used to be Bruegger’s. But, since there are no Bruegger’s, or even bagel places in the South Hills, it has been a long time since I had a good bagel.

Murray Avenue Kosher. They are the best. PJC Toby

Tabachnick

Chronicle weekly poll question: How important is a Jewish day school education? Go to pittsburghjewishchronicle. org to respond. PJC

That’s not just slanted coverage; it’s a moral disgrace. PJC

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate), where this first appeared.

In the Chronicle’s 60th anniversary edition, the paper ran a piece informing the readership of the Democratic candidate for PA House District 34 — Abigail Salisbury (“Jewish candidate runs for Summer Lee’s vacant PA House seat,” Dec. 30). Although the article mentioned her opponent, a neighbor of mine from the 34th District, retired police officer (canine division) Robert Pagane (HopeFor34.com), it failed to inform us of any Pagane’s positions as it did for attorney Salisbury.

My perception as this being unfair is sadly consistent with current partisanship in many media, public health, educational and other previously trusted and perceived fair American institutions.

In fact, as I am witnessing in canvassing, most District 34 neighbors are completely unaware of this upcoming Feb. 7 special election!

Pagane’s positions are more nuanced than many typical GOP candidates. Pagane, an unassuming laid-back/good listener favors reducing excessive school tax burdens for seniors, freeing up more resources for good/fair policing and safer schools, fighting for parents’ voices and discussing the legalization of recreational cannabis, among his other ideas to prioritize listening to his constituents. However, local media is barely covering this special election. Is this intentional — to keep the public “in the dark” (“ignorance is bliss”)?

As Jews, we pride ourselves in our traditions for robust questioning of all sides of an issue — a process which has resulted in solutions and human progress! My hope is that we can return and engage in challenging public dialogues on pressing subjects — a formerly strong characteristic of being “American.”

Ira Glick Wilkins

We invite you to submit letters for publication. Letters must include name, address and daytime phone number; addresses and phone numbers will not be published. Letters may not exceed 500 words and may be edited for length and clarity; they cannot be returned. Mail, fax or email letters to:

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Life & Culture

As Conservative and Reform movements lose strength, Danny Schiff ponders what’s next in new book

By Toby Tabachnick | Editor

Rabbi Danny Schiff’s new book, “Judaism in a Digital Age: An Ancient Tradition Confronts a Transformative Era” (Palgrave Macmillan), is part history, part prophecy — but most importantly, it’s a warning to act before it’s too late.

This is not a book to make its audience feel good. Rather, it’s a book urging us to take seriously the Jewish mandate to, as Schiff writes, “resume its role as an ideas generator” as the world is confronted by a host of moral dilemmas emerging from the innovations of the digital age.

The 225-page volume is a well-researched and thoughtful analysis of why the current iterations of non-Orthodox Judaism are losing strength in a post-modern age, and posits those movements will not be the Jewish vehicles relevant to a rapidly changing world and its accompanying challenges.

Schiff received ordination, as well as a master’s and doctorate in Hebrew Letters, from the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, and is the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s community scholar.

He writes eloquently and clearly as he lays bare his theories on why Conservative and Reform Judaism continue to decline in affiliation, his tone never deviating from respectful. He credits Conservative and Reform Judaism with serving their purposes well for more than a century, explaining their significance as conduits easing Jewish integration into American society.

But, beginning around 1990, as technology started to advance at breakneck speed, the world shifted into what Schiff calls “a digital age” — and everything began to change.

“Modernity is over,” Schiff writes. “Its questions, its societal structures, and its struggles are passé. So is its Judaism. Sooner or later, Reform and Conservative Judaism will become entries in the history books, alongside modernity itself. …This assertion is not intended as a mark of disrespect for the movements of modernity. Quite the opposite. No movement lasts a thousand years — nor should it. Movements

belong to a specific time that calls forth a particular response. They belong to a certain thought milieu. For any movement to retain relevance and galvanize hundreds of thousands of adherents well into a second century of existence is no small feat. It is an accomplishment worthy of admiration.”

This proclamation, essentially a death knell for Conservative and Reform Judaism, is jarring. But as Schiff dives into the hows and whys of the waning of modernity’s Judaism, any honest reader will be hardpressed to disagree.

While thought leaders in the non-Orthodox movements have struggled to find ways to bolster affiliation and commitment for decades, Schiff proffers that their membership challenges are not due to their “institutions, programs, or procedures.”

“Fundamentally,” Schiff writes, “their challenge is one of ideas. The vitality of any

enterprise is inseparable from the relevance, importance, and vibrancy of its core vision. The foundational ideas of the Conservative and Reform movements were crafted as cutting-edge concepts for a societal and intellectual milieu that existed when horses were the dominant mode of transportation. They were designed to enable Judaism to contribute its wisdom for uplifting humanity as effectively as possible within the realities of that period. Since then, the insights of that earlier age have been patched and tweaked to adapt to the conditions of the passing decades. It is, however, unrealistic to expect that ideas that are derivatives of a nineteenth-century response to modernity will be well calibrated to a vastly transformed epoch in which self-driving cars controlled by artificial intelligence ply the streets.”

Schiff writes with the conviction of one who has spent years pondering and

researching the subject — which he has. And his words remain elegant and accessible even as he portends alarming advancements in artificial intelligence, gene editing and longevity that should be the stuff of science fiction but instead are real.

Judaism, he contends, “will need to grapple with the parameters of what it means to be human — and even whether there should be humans at all.”

The book gives a comprehensive reckoning of technological developments that began with the rise of the internet, integrating insights from respected futurists including Ray Kurzweil and Yuval Noah Harari, to conjure a map of where we are most likely headed — if we do not pause to decide if that is indeed where we want to go.

Judaism, Schiff submits, needs to have a seat at the table to weigh in on the moral implications of these advancements before they get out of hand.

“We bear responsibility for our world and its destiny,” he writes. “Our purpose is not to be passive observers of the cosmos but to be the keepers of life itself.”

And, Schiff writes, it will take a reimagined Judaism, relying on Jewish ideas, community and practice — rather than one obsessed with affiliation numbers — to carry us into the next century and beyond.

“Evaluating which elements will best enable Judaism to maximize its contributions in the decades ahead is a different task from assessing what it will take to reinvigorate a commitment to Judaism among a large number of Jews,” according to Schiff. “The first concern relates to how Judaism achieves its purpose. The second focuses on strategies for engaging Jews. While there is an understandable interest in the second question, the first is more consequential. After all, more than Jewish tradition has been concerned with keeping the majority of Jews Jewish, it has been devoted to making Judaism pertinent.”

The book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future, not just of Judaism, but of the human race. PJC

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

See interview with Rabbi Danny Schiff on page 3.

 Book cover

Life & Culture

Cuban black beans

—

By Jessica Grann | Special to the Chronicle

Cuban black beans with rice is one of my favorite vegetarian meals. It’s flavorful, filling and affordable. Cooking beans for dinner is a wonderful way to serve an inexpensive protein meal when the prices of eggs, meat and fish are high and continue to rise.

I happily take a shortcut by using canned beans, and this is a very simple recipe to whip up after work.

This dish is savory but not at all spicy. The recipe by itself is vegan, but I love to add a dollop of sour cream.

Ingredients

Serves 4

3 cans of black beans

½ of a large onion, diced

1 green pepper, stemmed and diced

2 stalks of celery, diced — you can use the leaves

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

About 10 stems of washed cilantro

Cake pops

By Keri White | Contributing Writer

Cake pops, aka cake truffles, are small orbs of heaven.

They are an excellent way to use excess cake — which sounds like a fantasy — but hear me out. When baking and frosting a cake, it is often necessary to trim the top or sides to make the layers even. That’s why bakery cakes always look so perfect — they slice the bumps and uneven bits off and cover them with icing.

Smart bakers then repurpose these “scraps” into the aforementioned orbs of heaven. Mixed with icing and then dipped in chocolate or candy melts, these little balls, created as an afterthought, might make you forget the cake!

I made my traditional cameo cake earlier this month to celebrate my husband’s

You can add shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, spring onions or sliced jalapeno for a garnish

Rinse and drain the black beans. Chop the onion, green pepper and celery. Celery is not traditionally added to Cuban beans, but I like to add it for extra substance.

Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat for about a minute, then add the vegetables to the pot. Sauté for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent but still firm.

Add the garlic, salt and pepper, and sauté for another minute or so until the garlic is fragrant.

Stir the beans into the pot, adding just enough water to cover the beans.

Place a bay leaf and about 10 stems of washed cilantro on top of the beans. Raise the heat to medium-high to allow the beans to come to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer.

Cover the beans and cook for about 1 hour.

Remove the cilantro stems and the bay leaf.

At this point, the beans will be cooked well but still whole. My preference is to mash about half of them so that there are small chunks of beans in the mixture. They can be mashed with a potato masher or with a handheld immersion blender. This completely changes the consistency of the beans so that you can ladle them onto the rice the way you would a soup. I serve the beans on cooked rice and then add the garnishes.

Some people prefer to cook the rice with the beans. To do this, add half of a cup of rinsed white rice halfway through the cook time at the 30-minute point, cover and continue to cook for another half hour on low heat. Be sure there is enough water in the pot if adding rice so that it cooks well and does not become gummy. You may need to add half a cup of hot water when you add the rice to have enough liquid for a proper result.

If you are adding rice, skip the mashing process so you can see whole beans and chunks of vegetables in the rice.

This recipe takes about 10 minutes of prep and another hour or so to cook on the stovetop. Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC

birthday. The three layers were bumpier than usual, and this made for a very lopsided cake. I decided to saw off the bumps, and this resulted in a pile of cake scraps.

Now, it would be completely in character for me to just nibble on said scraps to avoid waste, but I thought it might be fun to make them into something a little prettier and more interesting.Technically, cake pops are served on a lollipop stick, but I didn’t have any, so I guess I would call these cake truffles… but a cake pop by any other name still tastes delicious.

You may have to play with the proportions; if your cake is dryer, more icing will be needed to bind it.

Ingredients

Makes about 16 cake pops

3 cups cake scraps, crumbled ⅓ to ½ cup icing

¾ cup chocolate chips

Powdered sugar or sprinkles and lollipop sticks, if desired.

In a large bowl, mix the cake crumbs with the icing — start with ⅓ cup and add

more if needed to bind the crumbs together. Line a cookie tray with wax paper.

Using a tablespoon, scoop the cake mixture, and roll it into firmly packed balls using your hands. The balls should be a bit smaller than a golf ball. Place the balls on the wax paper, and insert lollipop sticks if desired. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

In a Pyrex measuring cup, melt the chocolate chips in a microwave oven on 50% power for 3 minutes. Dip the cake balls in the melted chocolate, and put them back on the wax paper-lined tray. If using, add sprinkles to the balls before the chocolate hardens.

Allow the cake pops to harden at room temperature or in the fridge. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar to decorate before serving. PJC

Keri White writes for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication where this first appeared.

Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.

 Cuban black beans Photo by Jessica Grann

 Ingredients for Cuban black beans Photo by Jessica Grann

 Cake pops

Photo by Keri White

Life & Culture

Music composed during Holocaust to be performed at City of Asylum by Clarion Quartet

By Justin Vellucci | Special to the Chronicle

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra member Tatjana Mead Chamis

started playing the viola at 15 after switching from violin, which she began when she was 7.

But it wasn’t until she formed the Clarion Quartet in 2017 and started playing compositions the Nazi regime labeled as “degenerate music” that she found her true voice.

“[People say] ‘This is the best music I’ve never heard before,’” said Mead Chamis, 52, of Franklin Park. “I have found where I am going to make a difference in the musical world.”

Chamis and the rest of the Clarion Quartet will do just that on Monday, Feb. 6, when they perform in “Music In the Face of Malice” at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh. The concert is free to attend in person and to stream online. It begins at 7 p.m.

In a performance expected to be, in the words of City of Asylum promoters, “poignant and artful,” the Clarion quartet will honor Karel Berman, Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Egon Ledeč and Viktor Ullmann, a group of musicians “encouraged” to write and perform at the concentration camp Terezín during World War II as propaganda for the Nazi regime.

The performance is set to include selections such as Haas’ “String Quartet No. 2,” with guest percussionist Thomas Wendt; Klein’s “String Trio”; and Ullman’s “Piano Sonata No. 1,” with guest pianist Dmitri Papadimitiou.

Clarion Quartet is Mead Chamis on viola, with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra members Marta Krechkovsky (violin), Jennifer Orchard (violin) and Bronwyn Banerdt (cello).

“Through a yearning to bring justice to creative voices that have been silenced, the group is dedicated to providing renewal, hope and healing through its music,” City of Asylum organizers said.

Mead Chamis said artists like Berman and Haas likely would reject the notion that they are somehow “Holocaust musicians.”

“They were musicians caught in this horrible era,” she told the Chronicle. “They’re musicians just like us — they were in the middle of their careers.”

“We want to bring out,” she added, “what’s amazing and beautiful and lasting about this music.”

Mead Chamis admits even she was not aware of many of the works that came out of Terezin. She was introduced to them through a patron who asked her to perform them.

“I heard some unbelievable works I couldn’t believe I didn’t know,” Mead

Chamis said, adding that when the Clarion Quartet performs these pieces, they are “so well-received.”

One night in Dresden, when the Clarion Quartet was touring in Europe, Mead Chamis said the group made a side trip to the Terezin camp, through which some 139,000 people passed between 1939 and 1945.

It was a powerful experience to visit the place where there was both so much music and pain. They also performed Ullman’s “Third Quartet” there.

“We played it in the very barracks where the [original] concerts had taken place, in the camp,” Mead Chamis said.

Mead Chamis is not limiting herself, though, to the world of pieces written during the Holocaust.

In 2012, she spent a sabbatical year in Florianopolis, Brazil, with her daughter, twin boys and husband, Brazilian composer/conductor Flavio Chamis, according to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. While there, she performed, collaborated with Brazilian musicians and collected a substantial number of viola works by Brazilian composers, which are now part of a CD released in the U.S., “Viola Brasil.”

The CD was recorded in Pittsburgh as well as São Paulo and Florianopolis.

A recent addition to the collection is a viola sonata written for Mead Chamis by Brazilian pianist and composer André Mehmari, which was nominated for a Grammy award in 2017. PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

 Portraits of the Clarion Quartet: Tatjana Mead Chamis, viola; Bronwyn Banerdt, cello; Marta Krechkovsky, violin; and Jennifer Orchard, violin

Photo © Todd Rosenberg Photography 2017

Life & Culture Chronicle poetry contest winners

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle thanks all those who submitted poems to its poetry contest. This month’s theme was “Women in the Torah.”

Our judge was award-winning poet Philip Terman. Terman is the author of several full-length and chapbook collections of poems, including “This Crazy Devotion” (Broadstone Books) and “Our Portion: New and Selected Poems, The Torah Garden” (Autumn House Press). His poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poets and 101 Jewish Poets for the

Sabbath Bride

The winter-bare trees stand stark against a luminous sky

Which looks back at me in my rear-view mirror

Like a tired eye, about to close.

I say goodbye to the week and hurry home To step inside my safe place, my nest, my sanctuary.

The candles lit, the table set, the kiddush cup is filled with wine.

My daughter gurgles on my lap and receives her blessing, Countenance glowing.

We greet the Sabbath Queen with song; I thank my tired woman of valor: Grace and beauty pass, and so does time.

Here, I remember, we’re getting older, week by week.

But, during Kiddush, time seems to stand still. The miracle of Creation, our past, And the sanctity of this quiet time are all recounted in an ancient chant. Our hands are washed.

The silence afterwards signals that we’ve crossed the threshold to a holy place.

Bread is taken. The meal is served.

Then, drowsy from food and wine, Having reviewed the week and found it good, We sing of sheaves that we may reap, And leave the candles, glowing in the dark That flame and flicker until we sleep.

—David Brent

Third Millennium. He’s a retired professor of English from Clarion University, where he directed the Spoken Art Reading Series. He is a co-founder of the Chautauqua Writer’s Festival.

Winners of the Chronicle’s poetry contest are David Brent, Cathleen Cohen and Daniel Shapiro. In addition to their poems being published below, each winning poet received a $54 gift card to Pinkser’s Judaica, courtesy of an anonymous donor for whose generosity we are grateful. PJC

Coins

The little girl’s grandfather could not speak Torah anymore, but gave her coins each time she visited. One night the little girl stayed with her grandfather and watched him die. The next day she took all her coins to the river near his house. She walked over the bridge and threw the coins in. For years she returned to the bridge looking into the river for her coins. Sometimes she thought she could see them. But usually they looked as though they might be fish, sleeping very still under the bridge.

—Daniel Shapiro

Eve Visits Our Synagogue’s Art Exhibit

We’ve hung portraits, mostly of young men murdered by guns, not swords, some at random, some with aimed anger. Half are titled: Am I My Brother’s Keeper? Eve would shout, YES! had she been given more words in Torah, more voice. But I hear her breathe as she circles, peering at souls beloved and lost.

Here are paintings of Cain and Abel, flowing bullets and blood, those who stood at the wrong corner or lost hope.

Eve chants kaddish with us then lifts her gaze from prayer to touch our shoulders. Do more, make more peace, she urges, mother of garden, of earth, bone and flesh, mother of rivalrous children, but also of future, of us.

—Cathleen Cohen

Germany returns 16th-century sculpture to heirs of Jewish owner

By Toby Axelrod | JTA

BERLIN — A federal German cultural organization has returned a 16th-century sculpture to the heirs of its pre-war Jewish owner who faced Nazi persecution. The Berlin-based Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, or SPK (for Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz), announced this week that the “Maria Lactans” statuette depicting Mary nursing an infant Jesus would be given back to the family of German Jewish banker and entrepreneur Jakob Goldschmidt, who fled Nazi Germany soon after Hitler came to power.

Even in exile, Goldschmidt was persecuted by the Nazis, who confiscated his citizenship and the property he had left behind, the foundation noted.

“There is no doubt that Jakob Goldschmidt was a victim of individual persecution at the very beginning of the Nazi era,” SPK President Hermann Parzinger said in announcing the restitution on Tuesday.

According to the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, an agreement on Holocaust era assets negotiated between Germany and the United States

in 1998, works of art must be returned to their rightful owners or heirs upon proof that they were confiscated by the Nazis or sold under duress.

Speaking for the heirs, Berlin-based attorney Sabine Rudolph said they were grateful that the foundation had recognized the “special circumstances of this complex case and acknowledged it in the appropriate manner.” In a 2020 article about the case, Rudolph had argued that “no other Jewish banker was subjected to such malicious anti-Semitic hostility as Jakob Goldschmidt.” Goldschmidt (1882-1955) was a prominent businessman in the interwar period in Germany and was targeted by the Nazis early on in their rise. He fled to Switzerland in April 1933, soon after Hitler came to power, and emigrated to New York in 1936. Four years later, the German government stripped him of his citizenship in absentia and then confiscated his remaining assets in Germany. Goldschmidt had amassed an extensive art collection after World War I. After emigrating, he was able to export some objects via the Netherlands, but much of the collection remained in Berlin as security for loans and was sold at various auctions. The “Maria Lactans” statuette — attributed only to Circle of the Master of the Biberach Holy Clan — had been in Goldschmidt’s Berlin home, along

with numerous other Renaissance works. When the house was sold in July 1933, three months after his departure, the artworks were taken to his office.

On June 23, 1936, around 300 works from the collection, including the “Maria Lactans” statuette, were sold off anonymously at the Hugo Helbing auction house. Art dealer Johannes Hinrichsen bought the statuette

for 8,000 Reichsmarks and sold it to the Berlin State Museums that same year. The Berlin museum complex loaned it to the Ulm Museum in 1993.

According to the Prussian foundation, which oversees more than 20 museums and other cultural institutions in the Berlin area, the 1936 auction qualifies as a persecution-related property loss under the Washington Principles. Deidre Berger, chair of the board of the Berlin-based Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project, called the restitution “an encouraging development. It is based on growing recognition by public institutions of the injustice of forced sales or sales under duress by Jewish families forced into financial ruin by Nazi antisemitic policies.”

The JDCRP was founded in 2019 by the Claims Conference and the New York-based Commission for Art Recovery to research and document the history of Nazi-era looted art and create a central database.

“In the 1950s, German courts continued to use antisemitic arguments to deny attempts by the Goldschmidt family to retrieve at least part of their collection, by claiming that the Jewish banker contributed to German financial problems,” Berger added. Focusing on such cases brings “overdue public attention to the long-neglected chapter of the vast amounts of cultural plunder by the Nazis and their allies.” PJC

 This “Statuette of Maria Lactans” was returned to the heirs of its pre-war Jewish owner, Jakob Goldschmidt.

Photo courtesy of National Museums in Berlin, Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art / Marion Böhl Public Domain Mark 1.0

tomertu/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Celebrations

Birth

Margo and Justin Fischgrund are delighted to announce the birth of their son, Madden Jacob, on Nov. 13, 2022. Madden is the grandson of Jackie and Howard Shear of Fox Chapel, and Susan and the late Mark Fischgrund of Lido Beach, New York. Madden’s great-grandparents are Sam and Belle Shear of Oakmont; Henry and the late Harriette Leff of Monroeville; Regina Fischgrund of Wantagh, New York; the late Julian Fischgrund; and the late Marvin and Millicent Stark. Madden’s secular and Hebrew names were chosen in honor of his beloved paternal grandfather, Mark Jerald Fischgrund, and maternal great-grandmother, Harriette Gold Leff, respectively. Madden and his proud parents reside in Franklin Park.

Wedding

On Oct. 29, 2022, Lindsey Rudov and Dylan Laventhal were married on South Hutchinson Island, Florida. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, the bride is the daughter of Hollie and Donald Machen, David Rudov and Jane Jaffe Rudov (of blessed memory). Her grandmother, Marlene Bernstein, was in attendance to celebrate. Lindsey is also the granddaughter of Joseph Bernstein, Elaine Rudov and Mel and Jeanne Rudov, all of blessed memory. Dylan is the son of Nahum Laventhal and Doris Sinotte, both of New Orleans, Louisiana. Lindsey and Dylan reside in New Orleans, where Lindsey is a data scientist with the Louisiana Public Health Institute and Dylan co-owns the Bywater Brew Pub with his father. PJC

Torah

Pushing back against the shrug

We Jews know what to do when we are imperiled. We have learned to lean into our faith (Book of Job), celebrate our redemption by God (Pesach) or fight back (Purim). We know how to write letters, lobby politicians, stand up and demonstrate, and even mock our enemies with humor. At our most dire moments, we have taught Torah and celebrated our heritage while literally under the gun. Because we have had so much practice being imperiled we have all these tactics and strategies to push back at the ready.

But what about when we are not imperiled? What about when we are not facing imminent disaster? The parasha this week has the famous Song of the Sea, but before we get to the other side of the Reed Sea, there is a small quiet moment at a village called Sukkot.

In Exodus 13:20, we learn that once the 10th plague caused Pharaoh to let us go, we traveled from our little homes to the first stop, Sukkot. Sukkot? B’shem omro (credit given) to the good people at alephbeta.org for the reminder that there was a village called “Booth Town” (or something like that). Perhaps there were enough huts for us to hunker down for the night. Perhaps we set up our own huts and gave the spot the name ourselves. Either way, I wonder what that first night was like.

With no idea that Pharaoh would send his troops to bring them back, I see the Hebrews sitting back, putting their feet up and celebrating that first taste of freedom. They were out. We were free. No more brick-making, no more whips to endure. Freedom.

Now what?

What do we do with our freedom? How do we live our lives when we get to make our own decisions? This is a question for today. Yes, I know acts of antisemitism are on the rise, but it is also true that Jews are not imperiled. We are free, in control of our destiny here in America and in Israel. We can finally live as Jews however we want. We can do whatever we want. So what do we want?

The greatest threat to the Jewish people today is not antisemitism. The greatest

Chai

Chai

Chai

threat is the shrug, the disinterest. Jews are fading away because, well, because we can. Not you, dear reader of the Chronicle. You are engaged by the very fact you are reading this. But surely you know many, many Jewish families that, aside from a shmear now and again, are simply not engaged because there is nothing that forces them to be.

I imagine the Hebrews, kicking back in the place called Sukkot, Boothville, imagining how life will be. All the options are available to them. Build a vibrant future for the tribe. Or maybe they will just join the majority wherever they wind up because it’s so much easier. Maybe they dreamed of finally being in control of their own fate so they could enslave some other tribe to do all the work. All the options were on the table. Just sitting there in Hutsburgh, dreaming and dreaming.

Of course, the reverie was short lived. Pharaoh did send those troops, and we did have to make our way through the walls of water.

But every autumn we sit in our huts, don’t we? And we kick back and relax and maybe even dream about how we want to be Jews. Should we engage Torah, learn never to do what Pharaoh did to us and not use our newfound political power to oppress somebody else? Should we commit ourselves to making the world a better place and ourselves better people the way the mitzvot teach? Should we simple skip it all and just be American without the hyphen? Just live our lives and fade our Jewishness away?

That one day in the town of Sukkot is recreated every year during the festival of Sukkot as we imagine the type of Jew we want to be.

Who do you want to be? What engages us? Or are we, too, on the verge of a shrug?

Jewish educators work mightily to offer meaning and value and insight and spirituality to uplift and push back against the shrug.

How do you push back? PJC

Rabbi Larry Freedman is the director of the Joint Jewish Education Program. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.

News for people who know we don’t mean spiced tea.

News for people who know we don’t mean spiced tea.

Chai

Chai

Chai

Chai

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Every Friday in the and all the time online @pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. For home delivery, call 410.902.2300, ext.

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For home delivery, call 410.902.2300, ext. 1.

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Rabbi Larry Freedman Parshat Beshalach Exodus 13:17 – 17:16

Obituaries

CHARNY: E. Joseph “Joe” Charny died on Jan. 10, 2023, and his friends will hold a memorial gathering on Sunday, Feb. 12, at 1:00 p.m., at Congregation Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill. Please bring your warmest memories and your most delightful stories.

GIFFEN: Charles Giffen, 83, of Squirrel Hill, passed away peacefully on Saturday, Jan. 21, with his family by his side. Chuck loved the adventure of life. With his loving wife (Barbara) of 60 years, by his side, he would get in the car or on his Harley and see where the road would take them. They passed this love of adventure on to their children and grandchildren. Chuck loved his Harley, and with Barb on the back, they traveled with friends all over the United States. Chuck learned to ski in his 30s and fell in love with the sport and quickly taught Barb and his kids to ski. Chuck’s favorite run was Born Free at Vail Resort where he would sing at the top of his lungs the whole way down. Chuck and Barb loved the beach, skied, bowled and rode their bikes on just about every stretch of the Great Allegheny Passage Trail. Many days of joy were spent at Seven Springs with family and friends as well as their favorite annual trip to Vail with their friends. Chuck also served his country in the Navy on the USS Joseph K. Taussig. Chuck is preceded in death by his beloved wife, Barbara, and is survived by three daughters who loved him dearly, Becky Havyer (Brian), Caryn Miller (Alvin IV) and Joni Ferrara (Joe), six amazing grandchildren that “Pappap” passed on his love of adventure to, Carly, Jenna, Rena, Casey, Alexander and Ryan, as well as countless family and friends. Everyone who knew Chuck loved his spirit and sense of humor. He will be missed deeply by all who knew him. No funeral or memorial service is immediately planned. Family will notify loved ones in the future when a service is planned. Please honor Chuck’s memory by singing out loud while participating in an activity that brings you joy. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

GILBERT: Herbert Gilbert, 92, of Boynton Beach, Florida, passed peacefully on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, surrounded by loving family. Born on Jan. 10, 1931, in Pittsburgh, he was the son of Samuel and Rebecca (Marcus) Gilbert. He graduated from Geneva College, married his sweetheart Marlene (Garson) and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean war. After returning home, he joined the family business, Gilbert Iron & Steel, and settled in Beaver Falls where he raised a family. Herb enjoyed acting, singing, winning at gin and craps, and was intensely creative. His inventions included the first U.S. patent granted for a smokeless electronic cigarette in 1963. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his brother Sheldon. He is survived by his loving wife, Marlene; his sister Joan (Jerry Weissman); three sons, Bruce (Laura Bands), Steven (Michelle Coffino) and Rick (Eleanor Ruggiero); five grandchildren, Andrew, Emily, Sara, Valerie (Benton Snyder), Ethan (Nikki Parkman), Joshua and Noah; and two great-grandchildren, Sloane (Snyder) and Sam (Gilbert). A graveside service was held on Friday Jan. 27, in the Agudath Achim Cemetery in Beaver Falls, officiated by Rabbi Myer Vogel. Memorial contributions may be made to the Wounded Warrior Project. May his memory be a blessing to all who knew him. Arrangements by Hill & Kunselman Funeral Home, hillandkunselman.com, 3801-4th Avenue, Beaver Falls, PA 15010.

KALSON: Arthur Brian Kalson. Longtime San Francisco resident and rock, jazz and blues aficionado Arthur Kalson died peacefully at home, surrounded by his loving wife, Cathy, and daughter Ruby, in the early morning of Nov. 17, after a long illness. He was 76. Arthur was born and raised in Pittsburgh and attended Brandeis University and Boston University. From a young age, Arthur was an avid student, advocate and journalist of jazz and blues. After college, he contributed articles for the pop culture newspaper Boston After Dark, where he had the honor of interviewing some of the greatest jazz and blues musicians of the day, including Nina Simone and BB King. Arthur moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in the early ‘70s where he met the love of his life, Catherine Marie Bremer. The couple moved to San Francisco in 1976. A devoted husband and father, Arthur shared his warmth and loving kindness with all who knew him, including his brother, David Kalson (Tracy Kalson) of Rye, New York, and his sister, Cheryl Kalson (Karl Alsnauer), of Oakmont, Pennsylvania. Arthur channeled his compassionate energies toward health care throughout his work life by providing direct services to the elderly and infirm. His hilarious sense of humor and love of music greatly influenced his daughter Ruby as well as his nieces and nephews, Evan Alsnauer, Molly Alsnauer, Aryn Kalson-Sperandio and Shana Kalson-Kopel. Arthur was a dedicated advocate and supporter of several jazz and blues-related organizations, most notably the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, which provides comprehensive medical care and social services to local musicians and other performing artists. A memorial gathering in San Francisco to celebrate Arthur’s life will be held at a future date. Donations in Arthur’s memory may be sent to the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic.

Please see Obituaries, page 20

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following:

Anonymous

Anonymous

Faye Bleiberg

Faye Bleiberg

Faye Bleiberg

Fishman

D. Orr

Friedman

I. Mallinger

Esther Mallinger

Roberta Feldman Josephine Feldman

Samuel Feldman

Roberta Feldman

Susan P. Goldman Isadore Pachtman

Fraidel Brown

Edward M. Goldston.

Mary Jatlow Celia Glantz

Mary Jatlow

Jane Margowsky

Amy R. Kamin ............................................................................ Helen Honig

Jan & Ed Korenman

Contact the Development department at 412.586.3264 or development@jaapgh.org for more information.

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS —

Sunday February 5: Irving Glicken, Morris Goodman, Mollie Greenfield, Harry Gruskin, Clara Ida Harris, Esther Mankovitz, Martha Rogal, Edgar Scha el, Harry D. Wald

Monday February 6: Esther Berkman, Harry A. Cohan, James H. Darling, Ida S. Goldberg, Jacob J. Gordon, Sidney Hyde, Walter E. Katz, Carl Labovitz, Nathan Labe Land, Ludwig Landman, Sheldon G. Lindner, Philip Rosenthal, Harry Shapiro, Jennie Shrager, David Silverblatt, Minnie Rhea Silverblatt, Jennie Sobel, Dorothy Spolan, Annie Stearns, Julius Wolf

Tuesday February 7: Jacob Adler, Ida Alpert, Simon Bostocky, Frumie Fraidel Brown, Eva Cohen, Mollie Hilsenrath, Michael Ho richter, Helen Honig, Nathan H. Leventon, Esq., Daniel Levinson, Rebecca Luick, Dorothy Pollock, Elaine Portner, Leon Prinz, Mollie Ryave, Max Schoenberger, Enoch Sisselsky, Benjamin W. Steiner

Wednesday February 8: Hyman Browarsky, Louis Fishman, Ethel Golanty, Morris D. Herwitt, Hyman Klahr, David Lundy, Isadore Lupovitz, Joseph Markovitz, Lew J. Miller, Isadore Pachtman, Milton Ripp, Eunice Roth, Lena G. Skirble, A. Leonard Winer, Ivan Lee Wolinsky

Thursday February 9: Myer Borovetz, Saul Frank, Marcus Gropper, Max Halle, Irving Hochhauser, Lillian Y. Horwitz, Samuel M. Krause, Ernest Metzger, Mildred Pechersky, Jennie Pink, Elsie L. Plesset, Freda Z. Rosen, Rose Rosenfeld, Irving Ross, Alexander Roth, Mark J. Serbin, Philip Solomon, Leon Stein, Mabel Z. Swartz, Lois C. Waldman

Friday February 10: Bertha Ackerman, William Barnett, Newman Cohen, Esther Goodman, Ethel Greenberg, Myer Grossman, Selma B. Katz, Sally Marcovsky, Rose Schlessinger

Saturday February 11: Fannye P. Balkman, Edith Cohen, Reuben A. Cohen, Hattie Debro , Hannah R. Eliashof, Rose Fireman, Celia Glantz, Herman Glass, Robert Kane, Rose Klein, Haim Lazarus, Dr. William B. Lieberman, Mathilda Marcus, William D. Orr, Rena Pollock, William Racusin, Sara Rubenstein, Philip Schmeiser, Frank Stark, Joseph Stein, Geraldine Tyson, Ruth Weinberger, Arthur Weiner

D’Alessandro Funeral Home and Crematory Ltd.

“Always

D’Alessandro, Supervisor • Daniel T. D’Alessandro, Funeral Director 4522 Butler St. • Pittsburgh, PA 15201 (412) 682-6500 • www.dalessandroltd.com

Obituaries

Obituaries:

Candy-Rama and the Gerber Family

Who in Pittsburgh doesn’t remember Candy-Rama?

e go to place for sweets Candy-Rama, started in the 1940’s by Isadore Gerber, was an institution for y- ve years Downtown. e stores started as an outgrowth of Gerber’s Northside fruit market. With locations on Liberty, Wood, and Fi h, the last store closed in 2007 to make way for redevelopment.

Candy-Rama brought generations of shoppers into the stores for both American and international candies. If you wanted it, they had it. e stores were a mix of nostalgia and personal service. It was simply a fun place to go. During the 1970’s Marian Pearson, Izzy’s niece took over the business.

e Gerber Family’s name lives on through the caring way in which their relatives’ nal resting places are overseen. Seventeen members of the Gerber and Pittler Family, buried in four di erent cemeteries, are remembered annually through a clean-up e ort at their graves. e Gerber Family planned well.

It is a privilege for the JCBA to be involved with the Gerber Family Trust.

For more information about JCBA cemeteries, to volunteer, to purchase plots, to read our complete histories and/or to make a contribution, please visit our website at www.JCBApgh.org, email us at jcbapgh@gmail.com, or call the JCBA o ice at 412-553-6469.

JCBA’s expanded vision is made possible by a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Foundation

Continued from page 19

LANDIS: Edwin Stanford Landis, 80, son of Jack and Mildred Landis, passed away on Jan. 26, 2023, at his home in Severna Park, Maryland. He died peacefully after a battle for several years with Alzheimer’s disease. Ed was a caring and warm individual whose passion was his family and friends. Ed is survived by his wife, Susan Landis, of 58 years, as well as his son Brian Landis and daughter-in-law Cindy Landis. He was also the proud grandfather of Stevie and Avery Landis. He is predeceased by his son Steven Landis. He is also survived by his sister Wendy Eisenberg, her husband Michael and their sons Andy Eisenberg (Jennie) and Brad Eisenberg (Michelle). He was also loved by Susan’s sister Rita Leiby and her husband James and their daughter Alison. Special thanks to Ed’s caregivers Shelly Moore and Kimberly White. After serving in the U.S. Army and Reserves, he spent his life working in the financial services industry. Having grown up in Squirrel Hill, he was an avid fan of all things Pittsburgh. He loved meeting and talking to anyone about Pittsburgh and life in general. His love for his grandchildren was evident in his constant presence during their activities, from watching Avery’s band to traveling to Israel for Stevie’s bat mitzvah. Ed maintained many relationships with lifelong friends over the years, always keeping in touch and making time to let people know he cared. In lieu of flowers please make donations in Ed’s memory to Hospice of the Chesapeake Foundation, John and Cathy Belcher Campus, 90 Ritchie Highway, Pasadena, MD 21122.  Services will be held on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, at 1:45 p.m. at the Maryland Veterans Cemetery Chapel 1122 Sunrise Beach Rd Crownsville, MD 21032. Online condolences may be made at barrancofuneralhome.com.

LEBOWITZ: Edwin Ralph Lebowitz, of Baltimore, Maryland, passed away on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, at the age of 89. He is survived by his children, Carol Lebowitz Nove and Jack (Amy) Lebowitz; sister, Joan Berger; and grandchildren, Charlie Lebowitz, Naomi Lebowitz and Sarah Nove. He was predeceased by his wife, Donna Lebowitz (née Shrader); daughter, Linda Lebowitz; sister, Rose (Arnold) Schwartz; and parents, Sara and Jacob Lebowitz. Edwin was someone who loved his family above all else. He was a devoted father and grandfather, but first and foremost the lifelong partner to his beloved wife, Donna. Services were held at Beth El Memorial Park, 9701 Liberty Road, Randallstown, MD 21133, on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. Please omit flowers. Contributions in his memory may be sent to Gilchrist Hospice Care, 11311 McCormick Road, Suite 350, Hunt Valley, MD 21031. PJC

Real Estate

FOR SALE

LAWRENCEVILLE - $635,000 - MOTIVATED SELLERS

721 53rd Street

Smith-Rosenthal Team

Jason A. Smith & Caryn Rosenthal

Jason: 412-969-2930 | Caryn: 412-389-1695

Jasonasmith@howardhanna.com

Carynrosenthal@howardhanna.com

A stunning Lawrenceville home o ers 4 levels of luxurious finishes and unparalleled city views. The dazzling hardwood floors and an open-concept layout make living and entertaining easy. The kitchen is a chef’s paradise with stainless steel appliances, Glacier White Quartz countertops, a large island with seating, and crisp white kitchen cabinets elevated with a pop of color from the handmade backsplash tiles and mosaic inlays. Three spacious bedrooms, 3.5 contemporary-styled baths, and thoughtful storage throughout. The top-floor bonus room features French doors to a private balcony with exceptional vistas of downtown and beyond. Enjoy the convenience of dedicated 2-car garage parking equipped with an EV charging outlet. Convenient to public transportation, the Universities, Hospitals, High-Tech corridors, restaurants and shopping. LERTA Tax Abatement.

SHADYSIDE • $649,000

North Woodland Rd. Townhome. Unique custom built sophisticated 4 levels. Lower Level has a great wine cellar, storage, int garage, and a side room which could be an office. First floor has a great room kitchen, dining and living area, plus 1/2 bath. This room leads to an unbelievable courtyard and luscious grounds with a sprinkler system. Next level- large room with a whimsical full bath. Top level has a great master area, with master bath and laundry, Smashing steel and glass staircase, dramatic lighting. Terrific acrhitectural details.

Sherri Mayer, Realtor

Squirrel Hill Office

C: 412-760-0412

O: 412-421-9121x225 sherrimayer@howardhanna.com HowardHanna.com

Antony Blinken quotes from Jewish prayer during crucial Israel visit

By Gabe Friedman | JTA

Secretary of State Antony Blinken quoted from a Jewish prayer on arrival in Tel Aviv for a state visit on Monday, days after a deadly terror attack outside a Jerusalem synagogue set off a violent uptick in violence across the country.

Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in Ramallah. Blinken told reporters that he would tell both that it is “incumbent on all parties to take urgent steps

to de-escalate tension and establish conditions for the security and stability that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve.”

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Blinken invoked a prayer while mourning the seven people murdered during the attack on Friday.

“On Shabbat, Jews around the world recite the Ma Tovu. Part of that prayer reads, ‘Your great love inspires me to enter Your house, to worship in Your holy sanctuary, filled with awe for You. I love Your house.’ Seven people were killed in Friday’s terrorist attack in Neve Yaakov; many more were wounded,” Blinken said. “Most were leaving a synagogue after prayer. To the families of the victims, we express our most heartfelt condolences knowing that we can never know

the depth of your loss. May the memory of your loved ones be a blessing.”

Blinken, who is Jewish, noted that Friday’s attack came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Blinken’s visit is his first to Israel since Netanyahu’s return to the prime minister’s office, which has been marked by high levels of civilian unrest over proposed legislation put forward by his new far-right government. Blinken reportedly urged Netanyahu not to proceed with proposed changes that he said would weaken Israeli democracy by disempowering the judiciary.

The Jerusalem synagogue attack, the city’s deadliest in a decade, was preceded by multiple Israeli military raids into the West Bank, which have led to over 30 Palestinian deaths this month. On Saturday, Israel highlighted another source of international tension by reportedly directing a drone to bomb an Iranian military facility, setting off an explosion in the city of Isfahan. Israel has long been suspected of bombing sites in Iran and Syria, citing its own security, but an admission of an attack — which The New York Times, Reuters and others reported — is rare from an Israeli official.

Similar but smaller attacks have followed since the weekend, and Israel is reportedly preparing for a retaliatory strike from Iran. PJC

Welcome to Israel

The Pittsburgh Community Life Support Ambulance arrived in Israel and was posted for service, according to American Friends of Magen David Adom.

BurghRight done right

Community Day School hosted a superhero-themed annual party at the Energy Innovation Center. The Jan. 28 program celebrated CDS teachers and benefited the school’s First-Rate Faculty campaign. The campaign’s goal, explained CDS Director of Marketing and Communications Jennifer Bails, is to raise $500,000 toward significantly increasing teacher salaries and support the “superhero” educators of CDS. $210,000 was raised at the event. The program also featured a silent auction supporting the CDS Class of 2023 Israel trip, a basket raffle, food by Creative Kosher Catering, cameo appearances by Batman and Spiderman, and a dance party with DJ Sosa.

 CDS Head of School Avi Baran Munro, retired CFO and alumni parent Bari Weinberger, Adrienne Indianer and board President Evan Indianer.

 Karen Galor and Annual Party Committee member Lisa Marcus  CDS Early Childhood teacher Tracy Rapport, Guy and Merav Amos, and Annual Party Committee member Ari Rapport Photos by Carin Blazer courtesy of Community Day School

 During the past seven years, Wilkins Township evangelicals Jeff and Arlene Berg raised nearly $100,000 toward purchasing the ambulance.

Photo courtesy of American Friends of Magen David Adom

Students from Hillel JUC visited Israel as part of BurghRight. The winter break trip enabled participants to tour, experience a b’nai mitzvah ceremony, celebrate Shabbat and enjoy Havdalah.

 Carnegie Mellon University student Brett Gold prays at the Western Wall.

 Rachel Wilson, Yael Canaan, Amalia Kutin, Tal Dassau and Sophia Korono enjoy Israel. Photos courtesy of Hillel JUC

KOSHER MEATS

•All-natural poultry — whole chickens, breasts, wings and more

•All-natural, corn-fed beef — steaks, roasts, ground beef and more

•Variety of deli meats and franks

Available at select Giant Eagle stores. Visit gianteagle.com for location information.

Empire Kosher

Fresh Ground Turkey lb.

59 9 lb.