Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 5-24-19

May 24, 2019 | 19 Iyar 5779

Candlelighting 8:20 p.m. | Havdalah 9:27 p.m. | Vol. 62, No. 21 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Catching up with Jamie deRoy

Yossi Klein Halevi on global Grassroots anti-Semitism and the chasm group supports between American Jews and Israelis Muslims each Friday at Islamic Center

Pittsburgh native is nominated for six Tony Awards.

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

A

No, I don’t. On the other hand, I don’t compromise on what I believe is the truth of our narrative. I think that there are ways in which we can make a better case for ourselves if we are less defensive and if we don’t give expression to our understandable anger. And—I think this is crucial to making our case—to acknowledge the suffering and the shattering of the Palestinian people. Now, I believe that the primary blame for that

s the Muslim worshippers filed into the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh in Oakland on a recent Friday during Ramadan, they were met with greetings of “as-salāmu ‘alaykum” (peace be upon you), and smiles and posters with words of support displayed by seven allies of various faiths standing by the entrance.

The worshippers smiled back, saying, “wa ‘alaykumu s-salām” (and peace be upon you, too), followed by “thank you for being here.”

Since the March 15 attacks at two mosques in New Zealand, Naomi Weisberg Siegel has led a grassroots effort to show interfaith support of Pittsburgh’s Muslim community.

Each week, Weisberg Siegel and other Jews and non-Jews gather at the Islamic Center from noon to 2 p.m. during the center’s Friday services. Her group can vary in number from 40 to just two or three, but it has been consistent in showing up each week.

“It’s really great,” said Mohammad Sajjad, program director of the Islamic Center “It’s amazing to see the support in the Pittsburgh interfaith community. We really appreciate it, especially since the attacks in New Zealand. They show up every week, and it’s really a beautiful thing.”

Weisberg Siegel was inspired to launch the endeavor after spending some time in New York City last year and joining a similar group organized by Congregation Beit Simchat Torah that has been gathering at the Islamic Center at New York University “every Friday since the election of Donald Trump in 2016,” she said.

“I decided to try to start a similar group in Pittsburgh when I came home,” said Weisberg Siegel. “Like many good intentions, this one fell by the wayside, until the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New

Please see Halevi, page 16

Please see Islamic, page 16

Page 3 LOCAL Podcast host talks big picture

Dan Libenson considers Jewish history to chart a way forward.

Page 4 NATIONAL Changes at JFNA, Hillel

Hillel’s Eric Fingerhut takes the reins at JFNA. Page 11

$1.50

 Yossi Klein Halevi

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

I

n Yossi Klein Halevi’s first book, “Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist,” published in 1995, the American-born Israeli journalist told the story of growing up among Holocaust survivors in an Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn, where the community saw the rest of the world as hostile and suspicious. It was a natural progression, he has written, for him to move politically to the right, and as a teenager, to join the Jewish Defense League of Meir Kahane as a way to respond to the persecution of Jews.

Flash forward several decades, and Halevi — who moved to Israel in his 20s — has shucked his militant persona, moving toward a softer approach while still steadfastly defending the story of the Jews and their right to live in the land of Israel.

His most recent book, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,” seeks common ground while explaining the Jewish narrative to an audience that may not be receptive to hearing it.

Last week, he visited Pittsburgh to address two very different audiences: one

Photo by Toby Tabachnick

at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, and the other at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian-run campus that has been criticized in the past by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh for hosting anti-Israel speakers.

Halevi sat down to chat with the Chronicle while in Pittsburgh. The interview has been edited for length.

Your message to the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary last night was gentle.

You didn’t come off as hardline to the right at all.

keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle LOCAL

Scholar reps Pittsburgh

LOCAL

Russian group pays tribute

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Herman Wouk, dead at 103

Headlines Presbyterian seminary mending relationship with local Jewish community — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

I

nroads are being made to repair what has been a fraught relationship between Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and the Presbyterian-run Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in East Liberty.

The rift — which had been brewing for years as some members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) joined in promoting several anti-Israel resolutions passed at the church’s national assemblies — came to a head last May when the founder of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Rev. Naim Ateek, spoke on the PTS campus.

Ateek has been criticized for utilizing virulent anti-Semitic rhetoric in advocating on behalf of Palestinians. Friends of Sabeel North America appears on an Anti-Defamation League list of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America.

Efforts by representatives of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to explain their concerns about anti-Semitism coming from Ateek were unsuccessful then. At the time, Josh Sayles, director of the Federation’s Community Relations Council, was told by leadership at the seminary that, “We don’t see it the same way.”

As a result, the Federation ceased “publicly partnering” with the seminary, according to Sayles.

Last week, though, the seminary welcomed Israeli speaker Yossi Klein Halevi

to address its community, adding an Israeli perspective to the discourse about the Israel/ Palestinian conflict, as well as insight into forging common bonds in the region.

Halevi was in Pittsburgh at the invitation of Rabbi Jamie Gibson of Temple Sinai, who has been working with administrators at the PTS to bring an alternative voice to its campus.

Halevi’s talk at the PTS was met with respect by the more than 100 attendees — which included many members of the Jewish community — and a question-and-answer portion of the program remained nonconfrontational.

“I am gratified to have forged such a strong working relationship with Dr. Helen Blier of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in bringing Yossi Klein Halevi to speak to our larger community,” said Gibson following the program. “His views on increasing understanding between Israelis and Palestinians give us a way forward beyond blaming and name calling. I appreciate the willingness of [PTS President] Dr. David Esterline and the PTS community to hear Yossi’s perspective on how to show and honestly present strongly conflicting narratives and remain in caring relationship with each other.”

Blier, director of continuing education and special events at PTS, agreed.

“I too am grateful to have been able to work with [Gibson] as well as diverse Christian leaders to create an educational event around Yossi Klein Halevi’s visit to Pittsburgh,” she said. “PTS recognizes that if we are going to be one Pittsburgh, if we are

going to move beyond the politics of positionality and soundbites, we have to provide opportunities where everyone can listen and be heard in respectful and constructive ways. Following the lead of our favorite alumnus, Fred Rogers, we believe that being a good neighbor doesn’t mean always agreeing, but it does require respecting the humanity of others.”

Halevi felt “a great deal of good will,” coming from the PTS administration, he told the Chronicle following the event.

“There is a real commitment to a reset with the Jewish community, and I think that my presence there was a signal there of something,” he said. “And it wasn’t easy for them to do that.”

There was opposition within the faculty to Halevi’s appearance at the seminary, which he said he learned “very candidly” from the administration.

“There also was some opposition among students, but the administration held firm and felt the need to bring a mainstream Israeli voice to campus, and I hope that the Jewish community will take note of that. It was a gesture of outreach.”

Although he had “concerns” about speaking in a Presbyterian seminary, Halevi realized that “the lay of the land is more complicated” than it seemed to him in Israel.

“We do have allies in the Presbyterian church, and my sense is there are a fair number of people who recognize that the discourse was hijacked by anti-Zionists who made it impossible for there to be a Jewish-Presbyterian relationship,” he said. “And there is a fair bit of

regret about that. And so I don’t know where this will go. I think one has to realize that the Presbyterian church is not going to give up its commitment to the Palestinians, and I don’t think the Jewish community should expect them to. But I think we have the right to expect balance, and when support and concern for the Palestinians segues into delegitimization of Israel that is obviously a red line. And I think there are people at the Seminary who understand that.”

Although the Federation continues not to partner with the PTS, representatives from both organizations have been speaking privately, according to Sayles.

“We are making progress,” he said. “They are making an effort to bring alternative speakers. Their leadership has acknowledged to us that there is anti-Semitism and racism on Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s campus, just like there is at any institution.

But they have made it clear to us that they are working on addressing it.

“We are still in conversations about partnering publicly,” he continued. “We have been talking for a long time, and we have had good conversations with their leadership about the Jewish community’s concerns, and our concerns about anti-Semitism.”

The Federation “was not in a place to help bring Yossi Klein Halevi to their campus,” Sayles added, “but we are thrilled that Rabbi Gibson stepped in to bring that voice to campus.” PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Native Pittsburgher up for six Tonys — LOCAL —

By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer

J

amie deRoy has a knack for picking winners.

The native Pittsburgher, and longtime Broadway stalwart, is a producer of six shows nominated for Tony Awards this season.

“The Ferryman” and “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus” were nominated for best play; the “Waverly Gallery” got a nod for best play revival; and “Tootsie,” “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations” and “Beetlejuice” are all in the running for best musical.

To wake up the morning of the Tony announcement and learn that so many of her shows were recognized was “was very exciting and shocking,” said deRoy, speaking from her home in New York City. “Maybe it’s just luck, I don’t know. I mostly gear toward things that I like, and I like very eclectic kinds of things.”

She already holds six Tony Awards, including three that she picked up last year for “Once on This Island,” “The Band’s Visit” and “Angels in America.”

“I like plays, musicals, comedies, I like it all,” deRoy said. “I just want something that speaks to me, and touches my heart, whether it makes me laugh or cry or just think about things.”

— took her backstage to meet the cast.

“From that point on, forget it,” she said.

“I was hooked.”

D e R oy atte nd e d Carnegie Me l l o n University for a year before heading to New York to find her place on the Great White Way. Finding work first as an actress in “The Drunkard” off-Broadway and on tour, then as a cabaret entertainer, deRoy “accidentally” moved into production after a friend took her p Jamie deRoy Photo provided by Judy Katz to see the British spoof “The Complete Works DeRoy, whose family was affiliated with of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” which Rodef Shalom Congregation, was raised in was in New York for a very limited run. She Squirrel Hill, and graduated from Taylor loved the show, so when that friend asked Allderdice High School. Her mother was the her to try to raise money to bring it to North famed artist Aaronel deRoy Gruber, whose America for an extended run, she decided to large metal sculpture “Steelcityscape” is try her hand at producing.

“I got good at it,” she said. installed in Mellon Park.

“Shakespeare” opened in 1995 off-Broadway Growing up in Pittsburgh, deRoy acted in community theater and school plays, and was a hit, and by 2005, DeRoy was but caught the theater bug in a serious co-producing her first Broadway show, Chita way after her father — an investor in the Rivera’s “A Dancer’s Life.”

Broadway production of the “Pajama Game” DeRoy has since worked as a producer on

more than 60 Broadway shows, and more than 45 shows off-Broadway.

One of the plays she produced, “Bright Star,” which opened on Broadway in 2016, is currently running at the New Hazlett Theater in Pittsburgh through May 26, presented by Front Porch Theatricals as the first show in its 2019 “Family…Secrets” season.

“Bright Star” features a Tony and Grammy Award-nominated score by actor-comedian-writer-musician Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Edie Brickell. The story centers on a literary editor who meets a young soldier just home from World War II, which awakens a longing within her for the infant son she lost years ago.

“I thought it was a really moving, sweet story, even though it seems kind of horrendous in a way because of the subject,” deRoy said of “Bright Star.”

She first saw it performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and although, at that point, “it still needed work,” she knew she wanted to be involved.

“It was Edie Brickell, whose work I was vaguely familiar with because she is married to Paul Simon, and Steve Martin, who obviously I’m very familiar with,” deRoy said. “It just spoke to me. I knew that it wasn’t going to be the easiest sell. But I always loved it, so I went with it. And I was glad that I did.”

Please see deRoy, page 20

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MAY 24, 2019 3

Headlines Libenson: Focus on anti-Semitism can detract from big-picture thinking about Judaism — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

D

an Libenson is used to talking. As co-host of “Judaism Unbound,” a podcast and project of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future, Libenson, a Chicago native, has spent 169 episodes engaging with guests on topics pertaining to American Jewish life. “Judaism Unbound” recently marked its one-millionth download, and while the future of the digital endeavor appears promising, less certain is the state of contemporary Jewry.

A recent rise in anti-Semitism, Libenson said, has stymied the progress and comforts enjoyed by American Jews.

“I think that there are ways in which the experience of Jews in America, especially in the latter half of the 20th century, lulls us into a sense of comfort that maybe wasn’t fully warranted,” said Libenson. “I think that not only Tree of Life, but everything that’s going on in America over the last three years or so, has shaken me very much in terms of my understanding of what America is about and whether America is really about what I

thought it was about; how safe America is for Jews and Judaism; what is the extent to which we need to be more active in guarding ourselves from anti-Semitism or demanding that others guard us from that.”

Libenson visited Pittsburgh last week for a special program with Temple Emanuel of South Hills. He also came to the Steel City one year prior to speak at Rodef Shalom Congregation. While the latter address focused on Jewish institutions, the former was “a bigger-picture point of view about where I think we are in Jewish history,” he said.

Sandwiched between Libenson’s two trips was last October’s attack. Although processing the murder of 11 Jews in the supposed safety of a synagogue is challenging, placing that crime in context of the larger American Jewish experience is also difficult, he explained.

“On the one hand, obviously it’s important,” he said. “On the other hand, I’m trying to make sure we’re always looking at the bigger questions of where we are in Jewish history.”

Even as the murder of Jews is “incredibly scary,” he said, he wants to “make sure that we’re not not being completely pulled away from these big-picture questions about

where we’re going and what the purpose of Judaism is, for example.”

Focusing too much on the murder of Jews can actually stagnate Jewish growth, he posited. Historically speaking, the Enlightenment and emancipation of Jews beginning in the 18th century brought profound changes to Judaism, “and I think that we have been sort of trying to put Judaism back together ever since,” said Libenson. During the past 200 years, Jews have creatively reimagined their own possibilities and how faith or ritual affect those realities, he said. Disrupting that work, however, was the trauma of the Holocaust, as it kept “Jews connected to older forms of Judaism and older types of Jewish institutions.” As the Holocaust recedes, he said, younger generations express a need for more innovative ways to connect to Judaism.

“What I would say about the younger generation today, and what we’re seeing in terms of the lack of affiliation, part of what’s going on, is we’re seeing the power of the Enlightenment and the emancipation back again, sort of unmediated by the Holocaust trauma pushing in the other direction. And I worry that if those of us who are part of existing Jewish institutions kind of hunker down again and become

focused on anti-Semitism and focused on fear, even though it’s totally justified, that we’re actually not going to do the creative work that is needed in order to keep the young people interested in Judaism.”

Libenson hopes that just as the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform spurred creativity in Jewish leadership and life, contemporary behavior can do the same.

Imagine, he said, if “we really invited creative people to take on leadership in Jewish life and celebrated them for doing things that may seem a little crazy, and that may ultimately not work, but are kind of infusing a spirit of creativity into what it means to be a Jew in the 21st century. ... The argument that I’m trying to make is that the same pressure that people were feeling in the early 20th century, and the late 19th century, is the pressure that we’re feeling now.

“We’ve had a break from it for, you know, 50, 60, 70 years after the Holocaust, and now we’re sort of seeing those same forces again.

We would do well to go back to that period of history and build on top of the ideas that were floating around back then.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Every day a new adventure at Yalla Balagan, JCC’s Teen Travel Camp Summer is an opportunity. It’s a time for kids to explore, to learn, to try new things, to have fun. It’s a chance for kids to spend time with old and new friends, and to find out a little more about who they are and who they want to be. This summer, I hope you will take the opportunity to join us for all this and more at the first year of Yalla Balagan, the reimagined teen travel camp at J&R. In my own camp-age years, I found so much joy in camp experiences that let me dive deep into something specific that I loved. At Yalla Balagan, we’ll be doing just that— diving deep into exploring Pittsburgh and beyond through the lens of Jewish values, with special chances for campers to become leaders.

It’s hard to decide which piece of the summer I’m most excited about. Trekking through New York, Cleveland and Washington DC? Or creating our own Yalla Balagan space at J&R and leading activities for younger campers? Or maybe learning about the power of service and social action with organizations like Repair the World? Every day will bring something new, with plenty of adventures—and plenty of tasty snacks!

This blend of on-site camp time, travel and leadership development makes Yalla Balagan a unique camp experience in Pittsburgh. We’re looking forward to an amazing first summer, and we can’t wait to share it with you.

See you in June!

Hannah Kalson Director of Teen Engagement and Experiences at the JCC

C O N N E C T I O N S 4 MAY 24, 2019

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Headlines Herbalist, author, speaks in Pittsburgh — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

W

hat Ruth Westheimer did for sexuality, Chana-Sara Silverstein wants to do for moodiness. As for whether Silverstein will host a decadelong radio show, pen 40 books and star in a Sundance Film Festival documentary is yet to be seen, but Silverstein believes she is on her way.

Along her taboo-breaking trek, the New York City-based homeopath, lactation consultant, doula, master herbalist and mother of seven visited Pittsburgh last week for a private event in the South Hills. Prior to the engagement, she spoke about mood with high school students at Yeshiva Girls School and explored the topic in a separate conversation with the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

Life presents a cycle of emotions, but certain feelings can be tamed, explained Silverstein. Whether it is through the employment of plants or aromatherapy, rearranging a space or choosing to wear particular colors, various strategies exist for combatting moodiness, she said.

Silverstein, the author of the recently published book “Moodtopia,” is a big believer in herbs.

“You’ve got a teenage girl who’s getting her

period. She is a grump. She is kvetchy. She is moody. Give her a little motherwort. Give her a little bit of linden. Give her a little bit of oats. She’s going to be able to handle that transition a little bit better,” said Silverstein.

Similarly, for older women experiencing menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes or who are “grumpy and short-tempered,” take a little herb [to] ease the transition.”

Silverstein’s path to public herbal advocacy began nearly 20 years ago when she started as a lactation consultant (she’s helped more than 25,000 babies breastfeed). For patients with regular urinary tract infections, Silverstein suggested “herbal mixes to help stimulate their immune system.” The recommendations worked, and through word of mouth, her practice grew, she said.

“I never pooh-poohed Western medicine.

I would say, ‘Let’s get a sonogram of your sinuses. Let’s get a culture. Let’s get a blood test to check what your white count is.’ So nobody felt like I was like just the alternative voodoo type,” she said.

Aspects of Silverstein’s professional journey are recounted in her book, as is her daughter’s harrowing tale. Two hours after Silverstein’s daughter experienced numbness in her arm, the otherwise healthy 26-year-old became a quadriplegic. Weeks of hospitalizations and tests revealed Silverstein’s daughter had transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord.

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p Chana-Sara Silverstein

Photo provided by Chana-Sara Silverstein

“They didn’t know what it was from,” said Silverstein.

When doctors finally decided Silverstein’s daughter should be transferred from the hospital to a nursing home for permanent residence, Silverstein refused due to the recommended institution’s lack of sufficient physical or occupational therapies.

Thus began a battle between Silverstein, medical professionals, elected officials and hospital executives. While Silverstein spent her days as a patient advocate, evenings were dedicated to sneaking in acupuncturists, massage specialists and craniosacral therapists.

“Everyone was coming in at 10 o’clock at night. This is at NYU,” said Silverstein. “Oh, I was so bad. They kicked me out every day.”

Prior to this experience, Silverstein had written a book proposal for “Moodtopia.” No one bit. Silverstein realized what she needed in her own life was what she planned to put in print, so she adopted a particular attitude. She

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

put a large sign on her daughter’s hospital door saying, “You cannot enter if you’re not happy and smiling.” She moved wires, machines and furniture in order to amplify her daughter’s view. She postered walls with photographs and art, and placed live plants and cut flowers to offset the previously drab space.

She also sprayed essential oils throughout the room “because I didn’t want my daughter smelling death and blood,” she said. “What happened was we became a conversation piece, and the nurses would visit us more because we smelled great. And my daughter ended up getting better care because we were a positive place.”

Four years later, Silverstein’s daughter has defied medical odds and now walks with a cane.

The story accounts for a small portion of the book and only “about three minutes” during a public talk because the purpose is not to host “a pity party, it’s an empowering party,” said Silverstein.

Whether in the case of her daughter or the numerous clients she has assisted through the years, Silverstein recognizes her place in the process. “God’s the ultimate healer. Not me,” she said.

Still, she added, “We’re not in control of what happens to us in life, just how we will respond.” PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

MAY 24, 2019 5

Headlines Pittsburgh student to be Tikvah Fund Maimonides Scholar — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

S

ophie Levitt is about to get a taste of college life. Big ideas. Dormitories.

Cafeteria food. But Levitt is actually just a junior at Pittsburgh Obama 6-12, who was recently accepted to the Tikvah Institute for High School Students, a two-week exploration of politics, Zionism and Jewish thought.

The pre-college summer experience she’ll have at Yale introduces young Jewish people to “world-class academics� and a “better tool kit for critical thinking,� said Sam Richardson, engagement specialist at The Tikvah Fund. Started in 2012, the program welcomes high school juniors and seniors from Jewish day schools, public or private schools.

Though attendees are split by educational background (day school students are called Tikvah Scholars, non-day school students are called Maimonides Scholars), the opportunities are largely the same, explained Richardson.

Tikvah Scholars will be given a “more traditional limud approach,� as materials will be read in Hebrew and Aramaic.

Maimonides Scholars development program will receive a “more for Jewish teenagers in Western approach,� grades 10 and 11. Levitt with materials in praised the Diller expeEnglish, he added. rience for both enabling While there is value in her to visit the Jewish approaching texts from state for three weeks alternate angles, the last summer as well as assemblage of diverse investigate Diller’s core students fuels the entervalues of Jewish idenprise. When different tity, community service, leadership and Israel. students debate topics including the notion of Participating in the justice, the components p Sophie Levitt Tikvah Institute for High Photo courtesy of Sophie Levitt School Students should of a liberal education or a nation’s makeup, complement past underthere is ample opportunity for growth and takings. Spending two weeks in a dormitory just steps away from the Joseph Slifka Center awareness, explained Richardson. “One of the fascinating things is watching for Jewish Life at Yale and encountering these kids interact. There will be a kid who new ideas will be reminiscent of the Diller has never been to a day school and can hold experience, she said.

Though Levitt will likely learn from their own in Gemara and vice versa,� he said. “The students realize how different we are others, there is a hope that she, too, can serve as teacher. In discussions regarding yet we share so many things in common.�

Levitt, who will participate as a American Jewish life, hearing from a young Maimonides Scholar, said she has enjoyed adult who resides in the setting of America’s similar experiences through her work largest anti-Semitic attack should inform with the Diller Teen Fellows Program. a conversation.

Housed at the Jewish Community Center But apart from being from Pittsburgh, of Greater Pittsburgh, Diller is a leadership the simple fact that Levitt lives outside of

a larger East Coast Jewish metropolis adds value to a collective experience that should be encouraged, explained Abby Schachter, a past participant in Tikvah programming. “I very much want as many Pittsburgh Jewish high schoolers to attend this program as possible,� said Schachter. “Like all Tikvah programming, it is going to be at an extraordinarily high-level, intensively demanding and will be very strongly and positively geared toward being a strong Jew, and since most Jewish Pittsburghers of high-school age are not getting a Jewish education, I would like there to be greater access to this.�

Levitt said she is prepared for the intensity of the experience, but said the program has already been very welcoming to her.

In fact, she received an email saying that part of her registration fee will be waived “as a small token of recognition for the challenge that your community faced this past October.�

Reading the email “brought my parents to tears,� she said. “I was speechless. I still am. I get this big smile on my face, and it reminds me that there is good in the world. People want to help Pittsburgh.�  PJC Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@ pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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Headlines Russian Jewish delegation visits Tree of Life building — LOCAL —

By Adam Reinherz | Staff Writer

W

hen it came to describing how one loved her family, how another greeted all who came to the building and how another fervently supported the Pirates for decades, an interpreter was needed to convey the details. The prolonged process of pointing and pausing, while waiting for the sentences to be translated into Russian for the 40 visiting women, was deliberately repeated 11 times, as Alan Hausman, vice president of Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha, utilized photographs and narratives to describe each of the 11 victims of the Oct. 27 shooting. “These were 11 of our friends. These are not just statistics of 11 victims,� said Hausman.

Following Hausman’s May 20 remarks, and those offered by other communal representatives, the Russian cohort presented three Russian/Hebrew Books of Psalms.

Inscribed within each copy was a message from Rabbi Berel Lazar, chief rabbi of Russia, reading: “The Jewish community of Moscow would like to present a Tehillim from our synagogue. We have been praying for your well being and safety. May the future bring comfort to your community. May we merit the ultimate peace and joy in our lives, with

p 40 Russian Jewish women visited the Tree of Life building and presented three copies of Tehillim (Book of Psalms) to community members.

Photo by Adam Reinherz

the coming of Moshiach.�

Among those who accepted a book on behalf of the Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash congregations was Debi Salvin, twin sister of victim Richard Gottfried.

The sense of “shock� experienced on Oct. 27 in Russia is hard to describe, noted Margarita Lapidus, of Moscow. “No one could expect a thing like this in the United States,� she said.

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

May 24, 1948 — Battle for Latrun begins

Inexperienced Israeli soldiers launch an attack on the Jordanian-held hilltop fortress at Latrun, 10 miles west of Jerusalem, in an effort to relieve the siege of Jerusalem.

Ordered by David Ben-Gurion against the advice of military leaders, the attack uses outdated tactics without air support and fails. About 75 Israeli soldiers are killed.

May 25, 2010 — Israeli Jazz Fest opens in NYC

Jazz artist John Zorn hosts opening night of New York’s first Israeli Jazz Festival. The five-day fest celebrates Israelis who have risen to the top of the global jazz scene, including bass and oud player Omer Avital and clarinet and saxophone player Anat Cohen. According to Jazz Times, “When it comes to jazz, Israel is the source of an almost miraculous outpouring of talent.�

May 26, 1924 — U.S. restricts Jewish immigration

Congress passes the 1924 Immigration Act, which greatly limited immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. Cutting off the U.S. as a destination for Jews spurs increased immigration to Palestine, where 82,000 Jews arrive from 1924 to 1929, the period known as the Fourth Aliyah.

May 27, 1911 — Kollek Born

Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s mayor from 1965 to 1993, is born in a Budapest suburb. His parents name him after Theodor Herzl.

After growing up in Vienna, he moves to Palestine with his family in 1934. He is sent to Britain in 1938 and gains 3,000 visas for Jews in concentration camps. He helps smuggle Holocaust survivors into Palestine from 1940 to 1947. Kollek runs for mayor at mentor David Ben-Gurion’s behest.

May 28, 1964 — PLO founded

A Palestinian National Council convened

by King Hussein of Jordan establishes the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO’s National Covenant calls it the “mobilizing leadership of the forces of the Palestine Arab people to wage the battle of liberation.�

“From that moment on, you can never feel safe.�

Prior to visiting the Tree of Life building, the Russian delegation participated in morning services at the Lubavitch Center of Pittsburgh. In town for just 36 hours, the group was also scheduled to speak with students from Yeshiva Girls School, visit the mikvah and tour downtown, explained Blumi Rosenfeld, Yeshiva’s preschool director.

May 30, 2009 — Katzir dies

Ephraim Katzir, Israel’s fourth president, dies at age 93 in Rehovot. PJC

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

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During an address to the Knesset, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan speaks about the events that culminated in the peace treaty Israel and Egypt signed March 26, 1979.

Dayan emphasizes Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to the peace process and its strong relationship with the United States.

Before boarding the bus outside the Tree of Life building, Lapidus and her fellow travelers gathered to thank Salvin, Hausman and other members of Pittsburghâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jewish community. Said Lapidus, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was the most significant part in our journey.â&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x201A; PJC

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Questions? Contact Chris Herman at cherman@jccpgh.org or 412-697-3233.

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MAY 24, 2019â&#x20AC;&#x192;7

Calendar >> Submit calendar items on the Chronicle’s website, pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

Submissions will also be included in print. Events will run in the print edition beginning one month prior to the date as space allows. The deadline for submissions is Friday, noon. q DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS

MAY 30

Nominations are open for the 2020 ShoreWhitehill Award. The Shore-Whitehill Award, created in 1996, is named for Robert Whitehill and the late Barbara Shore and celebrates volunteers who promote inclusion of people with disabilities in the fabric of Jewish life through advocacy or direct service to individuals and families. Organizations that nominate awardees receive a grant of $1,000 to help underwrite the costs of a recognition event and/or inclusion activities. Awardees receive an original sculpture by the late Sylvia Plutchok, a Pittsburgh-based artist.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Jewish Residential Services give the award annually. The 2020 nomination form is available electronically at jrspgh.org/shorewhitehill. Contact Jewish Residential Services at shorewhitehill@jrspgh.org or 412-3250039 for more information. q TUESDAYS, THROUGH JUNE 11 The Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh is offering a program for adults, Better Choices, Better Health, for six consecutive Tuesdays from 12:30 to 3 p.m. in Room 2002. The workshops are informative, fun and interactive. All workshop participants get the companion book, “Living a Healthy Life with a Chronic Condition.”

Light refreshments are provided throughout, with a graduation celebration at the end.

Contact Amy Gold at 412-697-3528 for more information and to sign up. q WEDNESDAYS, THROUGH MAY 29 Trauma Resiliency Group: An Integrative Approach to Healing will be offered will be offered through JFCS led by Amy Lohr, LCSW, integrative psychotherapist from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, Room 307. This is a drop-in open group supporting personal growth via skills development, self-awareness and education about recovering from trauma from an integrative approach that values mind, body and spirit. Mindfulness practice, meditation, Reiki energy work, spirituality, and other complementary healing techniques blended with traditional psychotherapy will be used to empower you to be well. There is no charge. q THROUGH MAY 26 Front Porch Theatricals will present the first show of its 2019 “Family … Secrets” season with the Pittsburgh professional premiere of “Bright Star,” the Broadway bluegrass musical. Visit frontporchpgh.org for more information.

q SUNDAY, MAY 26 The Prayer Practice and Learning Committee of Rodef Shalom Congregation invites the community on a bus tour of the Troy Hill and West View cemeteries from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Gain a historical perspective on Rodef Shalom in the Pittsburgh Jewish community. Everyone will have a chance to discuss or visit familial gravesites. Bring your own lunch. The cost is $30. Visit rodefshalom. org/rsvp for more information and to RSVP. q THURSDAY, MAY 30 Pittsburgh-based author Adam Ehrlich Sachs will present his new novel “The Organs of Sense” at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh at 6 p.m. in the South Wing Reading Room on the second floor. He was named a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. He has a degree in the history of science from Harvard, where he was a member of The Harvard Lampoon.

Visit pittsburghlectures.org/lectures/adamehrlich-sachs for more information and to register. There is no charge.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will hold a donor celebration event in appreciation of contributions to the Federation at 6:30 p.m. at The Pennsylvanian, 1100 Liberty Ave. Eat, drink and enjoy a jazz cabaret. RSVP by May 18 at jfedpgh.org/ celebration. Contact Julia Blake at jblake@ jfedpgh.org or 412-992-5222 for more information. q FRIDAY, MAY 31 Pittsburgh native, Barbara Morris Stock, will discuss her novel, “Anything is Possible: A Child’s Journey to America and Hope,” at 1 p.m. at the New Riverview Towers, 52 Garetta St. Told through the eyes of a 10-year-old child, this historical fiction is based on the story of the author’s family who immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s. The book weaves together insights into the Jewish immigrant experience, American history, and a child’s personal journey of growing up. There is no charge.

The Butterfly Storytelling: Wandering and Wondering, based on the style of the The Moth, the popular themed storytelling event.

LGBTQ+ Jews and Allies will share stories about their lives at 8:30 p.m. All are welcome.

Contact Kate Passarelli at klpassarelli@ verizon.net for more information or visit templesinaipgh.org/butterfly-storytellingwandering-and-wondering. q SATURDAY, JUNE 1 The Pride Tribe and Women of Temple Sinai are partnering to present the annual Pride seder from 7 to 9 p.m., which will take a form reminiscent of the traditional Passover seder, but will share stories and hardships of LGBTQ life, celebrate the freedoms that have been achieved, and explore freedoms not yet gained. LGBTQ individuals beyond the Jewish community and Allies of the LGBTQ community are welcome. The cost is $22/$12 for students with ID. Contact Susan Blackman at susan.blackman@verizon.net

for more information or visit templesinaipgh. org/PrideSeder.

home. Visit bethshalompgh.org/eventsupcoming for more information.

q SUNDAY, JUNE 2

q SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JUNE 8-9

Community Day School will hold its annual Walk to Remember from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Meet Holocaust survivors and walk the perimeter around CDS six times to memorialize the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and honor the lives forever changed by and lost to anti-Semitism in Pittsburgh, Poway and worldwide. All proceeds will fund Holocaust education at CDS and youth-focused outreach across the Pittsburgh area. This is a family-friendly event. Visit comday.org/walktoremember for more information.

Tikkun Leil Shavuot, a night of Jewish Learning, is free and open to the community from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. Contact Jan Barkley at jbarkley@jfedpgh.org or 412697-6656 or visit foundation.jewishpgh.org/ organizer/jan-barkley for more information.

Shalom Pittsburgh, PJ Library and JCC Camp 365 invite you to the free Shavuot Holiday Family Camp at the Frick Environmental Center from 10 a.m. to noon.

Explore the outdoors and the holiday of Shavuot with a PJ Library story hike to Mt. Sinai, bug hunt with Frick Environmental Center Staff, yoga and crafts. Then finish the morning with a special Shavuot snack.

The camp is most appropriate for children ages 3-8 years old. Contact Danielle West at Dwest@jccpgh.org or 412-339-5403 for more information.

Poale Zedeck will hold a Yom Yerushalaim Brunch at 10:30 a.m. in the Schwartz Social Hall with guest speaker Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom, a dynamic educator in the Los Angeles community who has been on the faculty of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the prestigious YU High Schools of Los Angeles. He is also a former Pittsburgher.

The cost is $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Register at 412-421-9786 or at info@ pzonline.org.

q SUNDAY, JUNE 9 After the Community Tikkun Leil ends at 1 a.m., the learning will continue at the Jewish Community Center for young adults and anyone who wants to join. Hosted by the Young Adult Division of the Jewish Federation, the Shavuot fun will continue with study led by rabbis, Jewish educators and young adult community members. Visit jewishpgh.org/event/young-adult-tikkun-leilshavuot for more information. q THURSDAY, JUNE 13 Enjoy a relaxing evening of painting with friends at Paint Night at the Sally and Howard Levin Clubhouse from 6 to 9 p.m.

This is a fundraiser for Clubhouse training, social and recreational events that would not be affordable otherwise. Cost is $50/ per person, which includes: art supplies, appetizers, class instruction, two free raffle tickets (more tickets will be available for purchase at the event), one drink and your art creation. Contact the Clubhouse to register 412-422-1850 or mail registration payment to Zara Sayles, c/o Sally and Howard Levin Clubhouse, 2609 Murray Ave., Suite 101, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Reservations are due by June 3; space is limited.

Pittsburgh native, Barbara Morris Stock, will discuss her novel, “Anything is Possible: A Child’s Journey to America and Hope” at 1:30 p.m. at the Squirrel Hill Carnegie Library. Told through the eyes of a 10-yearold child, this historical fiction is based on the story of the author’s family who immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s. The book weaves together insights into the Jewish immigrant experience, American history, and a child’s personal journey of growing up. There is no charge. The talk is appropriate for preteens and teens.

Sound of Jewish Music, a magical evening bringing together hundreds of women from all parts of the Jewish community for an evening of joy and inspiration, will open with a dessert reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by the program at 7:15 p.m. The program features a line-up of musical performers, dancers and speakers at Bellefield Hall, University of Pittsburgh, 315 S. Bellefield Ave. Visit SoundOfJewishMusic.com for more information and tickets, which are $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

q TUESDAY, JUNE 4

Yeshiva Schools annual dinner will be held at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. Visit yeshivaschools.com for more information.

Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award Dinner honoring Laura Shapira Karet, president and CEO of Giant Eagle, Inc. and featuring guests Bari Weiss, staff editor and writer, The New York Times, and her dad, Lou Weiss, will begin at 6 p.m. at the Omni William Penn Hotel. RSVP by May 24 jnf.org/ Pittsburgh. Contact Amy Cohen, director, Pittsburgh, at acohen@jnf.org or 412-521-3200. q WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5 The Beth Shalom Sisterhood Book Club will discuss “Gateway to the Moon” by Mary Morris at 7:30 p.m. Contact Beth Shalom at 412-421-2288 for the location in a private

q MONDAY, JUNE 17

q THURSDAY, JUNE 20 The Beth Shalom Academic Book Club on the book “Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom” will be held at a location in Squirrel Hill. The book reintroduces readers to Solomon’s story and its surprising influence in shaping Western culture, and also examines what Solomon’s life, wisdom and writings have come to mean for Jews, Christians, and Muslims over the past 2,000 years. A copy is available to borrow from Beth Shalom, at the front desk. Visit bethshalompgh.org/eventsupcoming for more information. PJC

www.pittsburghjewishchronicle.org 8 MAY 24, 2019

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Headlines â&#x20AC;&#x201D; WORLD â&#x20AC;&#x201D; From JTA reports

Palestinians reject plan to launch US peace proposal Palestinian leaders have rejected a plan for an economic workshop announced as the first part of the Trump administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Middle East peace plan. The Palestinians said they were not consulted on the plan to hold the conference next month in Bahrain.

Finance ministers and global and regional business leaders will meet June 25-26 in Manama to encourage capital investment in the West Bank, Gaza and countries in the region, CNN first reported Sunday.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s son-in law and senior White House adviser, and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt have worked on the peace proposal since the beginning of the Trump presidency. The plan contains both political and economic components and reportedly will be announced later this year.

The Palestinian Authorityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s social affairs minister, Ahmed Majdalani, told Reuters that the Palestinians will not participate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Any Palestinian who would take part would be nothing but a collaborator for the Americans and Israel,â&#x20AC;? he said.

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said in a statement released Monday that the Palestinian leadership was â&#x20AC;&#x153;not consulted by

any partyâ&#x20AC;? on the Bahrain conference. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Trump administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision is being implemented on the ground with their decisions and positions on Jerusalem, settlements and refugees, among others. All efforts to make the oppressor and the oppressed coexist are doomed to fail. Attempts at promoting an economic normalization of the Israeli occupation of Palestine will be rejected. This is not about improving living conditions under occupation but about reaching Palestineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s full potential by ending the Israeli occupation.â&#x20AC;?

A leading Palestinian businessman, Bashar al Masri, announced in a Facebook post that he will not participate in the conference, saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;we will not deal with any event outside the Palestinian national consensus.â&#x20AC;?

Comedian who joked about gas chambers loses Netflix deal Netflix has dropped an Australian comedian who made jokes about the Holocaust and insulted a Jewish audience member who later complained in an email.

Last month, Isaac Butterfield asked his audience at the Melbourne Comedy Festival to â&#x20AC;&#x153;imagine the joy of people when they heard the Jews were sent to the gas chambers,â&#x20AC;? the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Herald Sun reported. The email sent to Butterfield from a Jewish woman said the joke was â&#x20AC;&#x153;not remotely funny.â&#x20AC;?

He responded: â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stand the heat get out of the oven.â&#x20AC;?

Butterfield had what the Daily Mail

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Polish government will never pay WWII â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;damages,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; prime minister says Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki vowed that his government would never pay damages in connection with World War II. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If today anyone says that Poland has to pay damages to anyone, then we disagree and will continue to do so and it will not happen as long as the country is ruled by Law and Justice,â&#x20AC;? Morawiecki said during an event Friday in Lodz.

Morawieckiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remarks were widely understood to mean that he regarded offering restitution for Jewish property morally flawed and a victory for Nazism. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If there were such a terrible injustice, inverting torturer and victim, it would contradict any elementary principle of international law. This would also be Hitlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posthumous victory, which is why we will never allow it,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Earlier this month, Morawiecki said that Poland would never pay restitution

because Poles were the greatest victims of World War II. Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and Jewish groups have protested Polandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s failure to pass restitution laws for privately owned property lost by Jews in the Holocaust.

Under the Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today law, or JUST, passed a year ago, the U.S. State Department is required to prepare a progress report by this year on the situation of property left behind during the war in 46 countries, including Poland.

President of Ukraine says nation must defend land like Israelis Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jewish actor and comedian, was sworn in Monday as president of Ukraine and said his nation must defend their land like Israelis. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We must become Icelanders in football, Israelis in defending our native land, Japanese in technology,â&#x20AC;? he said at the swearing-in, the BBC reported.

Zelensky announced at the inauguration that he would dissolve the parliament and call early elections, which had been scheduled for October. In turn, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who is Jewish, announced that he would resign.

Zelensky, who on his primetime television show plays a teacher thrust into the presidency through an unlikely chain of events, was elected last month with 73 percent of the vote.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; PJC

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Headlines Herman Wouk, legendary author who brought Judaism into the mainstream, dies at 103 — WORLD —

By Rachel Gordon | JTA

H

erman Wouk, the bestselling Orthodox Jewish author whose literary career spanned nearly seven decades and who helped usher Judaism into the American mainstream, died Friday at the age of 103.

His agent confirmed the news to The Associated Press.

Wouk was the author of two dozen novels and works of nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Caine Mutiny” from 1951, which was a fixture on bestseller lists for two years, and the best-selling “Marjorie Morningstar” from 1955. Both books were later adapted for the screen.

His novels “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” both became successful television miniseries. By the mid-1950s, Wouk’s popular and financial success as an American Jewish novelist was unmatched.

Even more unusual for a writer of Wouk’s celebrity was his Orthodox observance and treatment of Jewish religious practice in his writing. Wouk embodied the new postwar possibilities for American Jews and his writing was both cause and effect of the normalization of Judaism within the larger American Judeo-Christian tradition.

When he appeared on the cover of Time in 1955, the magazine described Wouk’s blend of worldly success and Jewish religious observance as paradoxical.

“He is a devout Orthodox Jew who had achieved worldly success in worldly-wise Manhattan while adhering to dietary prohibitions and traditional rituals which many of his fellow Jews find embarrassing,” the article said.

At the time, Wouk’s fame seemed like an incredible feat for an Orthodox Jew. Unlike other Jewish novelists, who had focused on Jewish immigrant culture and tended to portray religious Judaism as foreign and exotic, Wouk made Jewish religious observance appear mainstream in his books.

Scenes of a Passover seder and a bar mitzvah service became scenes of middle-class American life in “Marjorie Morningstar.”

None of this escaped criticism. With the exception of “The Caine Mutiny,” reviews of Wouk’s works were typically mixed. Both Jewish and mainstream reviewers expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of his writing, his conservative outlook on politics and sex, and his treatment of Judaism. Some rabbis even criticized Wouk for mocking Jewish observance — though in the coming decade, Philip Roth’s fiction would radically change their perspective on what counted as literary denigration of Judaism.

Meanwhile, fellow Jewish novelists like Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer viewed Wouk as conforming to middle-class American values that prioritized marriage, family, religion and service to country.

Not only did he stay married to the same woman for more than six decades, but Wouk 10 MAY 24, 2019

p Herman Wouk in 1975

expressed pride in his military service, for which he received a U.S. Navy Lone Sailor Award. Wouk in turn saw the others as bowing to fashionable literary trends of rebellion and shocking readers.

From his debut novel, “Aurora Dawn,” in 1947, to his last book, “Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author” — published in 2015 when he had reached a century — Wouk wove themes central to the American Jewish experience throughout his work. Even “The Caine Mutiny,” a less Jewish novel than later works, included Lt. Barney Greenwald, who gives a moving speech in defense of a lieutenant who helped keep Greenwald’s Jewish mother from being “melted down into a bar of soap” by the Nazis.

Set in the 1930s and ’40s, Wouk’s fourth book, “Marjorie Morningstar,” heralded a new era for American Jews. The novel followed the journey of a New York Jewish protagonist no different from any other bright and beautiful young woman of the era, an image further cemented by Natalie Wood’s portrayal of Marjorie in the 1958 film version.

Not since the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer,” starring Al Jolson, had a movie shown Jewish religious scenes. But unlike “The Jazz Singer,” Marjorie and her religion were not exoticized — Jewishness was portrayed as middle class and American. With “Marjorie,” Wouk had succeeded in making a story about Jews into an American story.

“Marjorie” also marked a turning point in his writing career. With confidence that he had readers who would follow him to less popular subjects, Wouk’s fourth book, his first work of nonfiction, took on the subject

Photo by Alex Gotfryd/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

of Orthodox Judaism. Published in 1959, “This Is My God” was a primer about the Jewish religion intended for both Jewish and non-Jewish readers.

As other American celebrities would do, Wouk used his fame to draw attention to his little-understood religion. Serialized in the Los Angeles Times, “This Is My God” introduced readers to such Jewish particulars as the laws of kashrut and family purity and the holidays of Sukkot and Shavuot.

The book showed, through anecdotes from Wouk’s glamorous Manhattan life, that it was possible to be both a modern American and Orthodox.

At a time when Jews still encountered quotas at universities and discrimination in hiring and housing, Wouk’s example provided inspiration. “This Is My God” became a popular bar mitzvah and confirmation gift for young Jews of all movements.

Born in the Bronx borough of New York City on May 27, 1915, Wouk was the second of three children of Esther and Abraham Wouk, both immigrants from Belarus. Abraham Wouk began work as a laundry laborer and found financial success in the laundry business. Herman spent his early years in the Bronx receiving basic Hebrew training from his grandfather. His childhood included the teasing and bullying that was common for bookish boys in rough neighborhoods.

From an early age, Wouk found a haven in reading, family and Judaism. After graduating from the public Townsend Harris High School, Wouk entered Columbia University, where he served as editor of its humor magazine. He also took courses at Yeshiva University.

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Upon graduating, Wouk briefly abandoned his religious lifestyle when he became a radio dramatist, writing for the comedian Fred Allen. Although the work was lucrative, Wouk felt a void in a life without Jewish learning and religion, and he eventually returned to his previous level of observance.

In the coming years he would reside in the Virgin Islands, New York’s Fire Island, Washington, D.C., Manhattan and Palm Springs, California — and in all those locales he was involved in setting up Jewish study and prayer groups.

Following Pearl Harbor, Wouk joined the Navy and served in the Pacific, where he was an officer aboard two destroyers, participated in eight invasions and won several battle stars. Wouk also started to write “Aurora Dawn” while aboard ship. After Wouk sent part of a draft to one of his former Columbia professors, the professor connected Wouk with an editor, and a contract followed.

While his ship was being repaired in California, Wouk met Betty Sarah Brown, a graduate of the University of Southern California and a civilian Navy employee.

After her conversion to Judaism, the couple married in 1945 and had three sons. Betty, who died in 2011, would eventually become her husband’s literary agent.

Wouk is survived by two sons, Nathaniel and Joseph, and three grandchildren.

His oldest son, Abraham, died in a 1951 swimming pool accident. PJC Rachel Gordan is an assistant professor of religion and Jewish Studies at the University of Florida, where she is the Shorstein fellow in American Jewish culture.

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Hillel president tapped to head JNFA â&#x20AC;&#x201D; NATIONAL â&#x20AC;&#x201D; jesse Bernstein | Contributing Writer

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ric Fingerhut, who led Hillel International for five years, has been hired in the same role at Jewish Federations of North America. And Mark Wilf, JFNAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s board chairman, hopes his new CEO will bring â&#x20AC;&#x153;energy and imaginationâ&#x20AC;? to the umbrella for local Jewish federations.

Fingerhut, 60, â&#x20AC;&#x153;spearheaded transformational change at Hillel,â&#x20AC;? Wilf said in a May 16 statement announcing the hiring.

Fingerhut will take charge at JFNA on Aug. 6. Referring to Fingerhutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work at the Jewish campus organization, Wilf said â&#x20AC;&#x153;he took a 90-year-old organization and made it new again.â&#x20AC;?

Tina Price, chair of the Hillel International board of directors, said in a statement, â&#x20AC;&#x153;During his time with Hillel, Eric guided us through an ambitious strategic plan, focused on building the best talent in the Jewish world, and measuring our engagement to ensure excellence on every campus. We are excited to continue partnering with him in his new role.â&#x20AC;?

Fingerhut, a former Democratic congressman from Ohio who once ran for the Senate, oversaw a period of tremendous economic growth at Hillel. During his tenure, Hillelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual revenue expanded from $90 million to $200 million and, according to Hillelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s announcement, he â&#x20AC;&#x153;revolutionized the development of talent across the entire Hillel network,â&#x20AC;? which includes 550 campuses in 18 countries.

The search for a new president and CEO of JFNA began about a year ago, according to Strategic Task Force Chair Cindy Shapira, a former chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. From early on, she said in a statement, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was clear that his experience and talents were a one-to-one

match to JFNAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strategic priorities. He has a demonstrated track record in instituting data-informed decision making, a record in transformative talent development, as a cultural change agent and a keen visionary on how to educate and engage the Jewish future.â&#x20AC;?

Stuart Kurlander, a member of the search committee, first met Fingerhut in high school, when both were members of the Conservative movementâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s USY youth movement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We met up again when he arrived in Washington as a member of Congress,â&#x20AC;?

Kurlander said. Fingerhut represented Ohio as a Democrat from 1993 to 1995. â&#x20AC;&#x153;His exemplary and visionary leadership of Hillel, which was marked by impressive fundraising results and advocacy for Israel on college campuses, along with his lifelong commitment to Jewish life and values will prepare him well for his new position as president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America.

In a statement, Fingerhut said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Never did I imagine thatâ&#x20AC;Ś I would have the opportunity to lead a movement that has impacted my life and so many others. It has a rich history, and I believe it can have an even more impactful future. I am excited to take on that challenge.â&#x20AC;?

Through a Hillel spokesman, Fingerhut declined to be interviewed.

Fingerhutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time at Hillel, as much as it will be remembered for being a period of growth, is also indelibly marked by skirmishes with liberal and left-wing Jewish students.

Fingerhut came to Hillel International in late 2013, and within months, the student board of the Swarthmore Hillel declared that it would not abide by Hillel Internationalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Israel guidelines, which prohibit speakers who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel and profess to not being Zionist.

Please see Hillel, page 17

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p Eric Fingerhut has been hired to lead the Jewish Federations of North America.

Photo courtesy of Jewish Federations of North America

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MAY 24, 2019 13

Opinion Mending fences at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary — EDITORIAL —

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here are scores of national and international groups whose opposition to the existence of the State of Israel — or even its efforts to defend itself from attack — is so extreme that they cross the line over to anti-Semitism. Sometimes that anti-Semitism is evidenced by the direct actions of those groups, and other times it can be inferred by their willingness to partner with others who are overtly anti-Semitic.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been guilty of both types of offences. Since 2014, it has passed a series of anti-Israel resolutions at its General Assemblies, including divestment, and formally referring to Israel as an apartheid state. In 2014, the church’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network published the inflammatory “Zionism Unsettled,” intended as a “study guide” for congregations. The Anti-Defamation League called out the publication as “the most anti-Semitic document to come out of a mainline American church in recent memory.”

Locally, things came to a head between the Presbyterian-run Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (PTS) and the mainstream Jewish community when, in May 2018, the founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation

Last week, the PTS … made great strides in mending the rift in the relationship between our communities by bringing Israeli speaker Yossi Klein Halevi to address an audience at its campus.

Theology Center in Jerusalem, Rev. Naim Ateek, spoke at the seminary. Sabeel has been on an ADL list of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America, and its founder’s rhetoric has been criticized as virulently anti-Semitic.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh ceased publicly partnering with the PTS after Ateek came to campus.

Members and clergy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), however, have never been monolithic in their views on Israel. The anti-Israel votes at the church’s General

Assemblies are generally split, with a sizable contingent casting their ballots against those resolutions. The local Presbyterian community consists of lots of Jewish allies sensitive to anti-Semitic rhetoric, as well as those who are willing to listen to both sides of the debate on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Last week, the PTS — with the help of Rabbi Jamie Gibson of Temple Sinai — made great strides in mending the rift in the relationship between our communities by

bringing Israeli speaker Yossi Klein Halevi to address an audience at its campus. Halevi is a moderate, but steadfast in his support for Israel as a Jewish homeland, and was able to present an Israeli perspective as well as begin a dialogue on how to create reconciliation in the region.

We applaud the PTS and its willingness to bring an alternative voice to its community, and we were pleased to hear there has been behind-the-scenes dialogue between leaders of Jewish Pittsburgh and PTS administrators working to repair the fissures in our relationship. We are cautiously optimistic that trust can be rebuilt based on thoughtful dialogue and open minds.

Was the willingness of the PTS to bring an Israeli voice to campus a consequence of sympathy engendered by the anti-Semitic massacre at Tree of Life? Does it matter?

Whatever the impetus for this seeming shift in attitude at PTS, we encourage our Jewish leaders to capitalize on the momentum that has been set, and to continue to work with the seminary’s administration in bringing nuanced and balanced speakers to its campus.

We look forward to a strong and enduring alliance with our Presbyterian neighbors. PJC

Is the FDA coming to Israel?

Guest Columnist Gideon Israel

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his week the United States commemorated the one-year anniversary of the transfer of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. More than two decades in the making, finally, the move was accomplished. Unafraid to rock the boat and take a fresh look at many issues in the Middle East, the Trump administration has implemented many policies which have long seemed logical, yet due to political considerations, among other issues, were never carried out.

Among these are recognition of the Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reassessment of American contributions to UNRWA, closing the PLO mission in Washington and more.

American and Israeli officials have commented that joint cooperation between the two countries is at a record high, and that never has the general relationship been this close. Another area of potential joint cooperation between America and Israel would be a partnership between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Israeli Health Ministry in the form of a U.S. FDA global office in Israel.

Israel is a global leader in the development of groundbreaking pharmaceuticals, medical devices and nutritional products that have made a substantial impact on global health and well-being. There is

14 MAY 24, 2019

There is virtually no area of medicine to which Israeli devices have not made significant contributions— cardiology, genetics, neurology and ophthalmology are but a few of the medical fields benefiting from advanced Israeli technology. virtually no area of medicine to which Israeli devices have not made significant contributions—cardiology, genetics, neurology and ophthalmology are but a few of the medical fields benefiting from advanced Israeli technology. Israeli scientists, universities and companies are working to benefit the global health system—from physician to patient to medical administrators and insurers.

The FDA has broad authority over the way new medical and food products are developed, manufactured, marketed and distributed globally. The FDA strongly encourages companies to communicate early and often with the FDA on their approach and progress. As a result, the FDA has set up partnerships and established offices in China, India, Europe and Latin America to share and provide regulatory information.

The FDA also cooperates with academic institutions and private companies in

foreign markets to improve communication with companies that seek FDA guidance in submitting their products for regulatory review.

An FDA office in Israel would have tremendous benefits for Israeli companies, such as early interactions/negotiations with the FDA; obtaining regulatory insight; identifying and avoiding unnecessary studies and making sure that necessary studies are designed to provide useful information, all of which would save Israeli companies valuable time and money, as well as minimizing risk to investors both in Israel and abroad. It could also lead to closer cooperation between the Israeli Health Ministry and the FDA, leading to potential partnership opportunities such as third-party accredited sites, Israel being a part of the Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) and more.

The United States would also benefit from

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such a partnership as the FDA would be able to partner with Israel private sector in tech transfers and to address regulatory science and other U.S. domestic challenges in food and drug safety. It would also provide an opportunity for an ongoing exchange of ideas; create pathways for private-sector cooperation between American and Israeli companies in FDA-regulated fields, and it would help Israeli products of interest to the United States reach its markets quicker.

About a decade ago, the United States began opening up FDA global offices in strategic points across the world. While the general modus operandi of these global offices is to facilitate collaborations to streamline and enhance global drug development and regulation; gather information on local products being transported to U.S. ports; and assist in strengthening the regulatory systems of the FDA’s foreign counterparts; the sky is the limit in terms of potential collaboration, and that can largely depend on the host country and the partnership it seeks.

United States-Israel cooperation has reached many heights in the many areas of collaboration between the two countries. This is due to the mutual benefits of such collaboration and the creativity of those involved to make sure the maximum is gained. A U.S. FDA office is another area where the United States and Israel can join together for the mutual benefit of both countries. PJC Gideon Israel is the director of the Jerusalem Washington Center, which works to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship through mutually beneficial policy projects.

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Opinion One thing Crown Heights can do to really tackle anti-Semitism Guest Columnist Yaacov Behrman

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nti-Jewish incidents made up more than half the hate crimes reported in New York City in 2018 and so far this year. The 71st Precinct, which includes the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, reported nine incidents, the most of any precinct in the five boroughs.

When alleged anti-Semitic attacks occur here, the news spreads quickly via WhatsApp, social media and local community blogs. There is much fear and confusion over these incidents. People want to know what went wrong in Crown Heights and

why it has become a normal occurrence for an innocent Jew to be beaten in the streets.

I myself have witnessed youth taunt Jewish children in the streets and call them Hitler, among other names. And I’ve seen adults complain bitterly about their financial difficulties, blaming the Jewish community for the staggering increase in rent and the cost of living in Crown Heights.

Incidents continue to rise despite the dozens of news conferences where Brooklyn’s faith and racial leaders openly condemn the hate and call for unity. Community leaders and elected officials have held many meetings, some of which I have participated in, trying to come up with creative solutions. They’ve been in vain.

The Crown Heights Jewish community, which includes a high percentage of visibly Jewish men and women affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, has good

relationships with government officials and community leaders. But because many of our children attend private Jewish day schools rather than area public schools, we often lack personal connections with our non-Jewish neighbors at the grassroots level.

Now it’s time to do more than just talk among the leadership. Assumptions, speculation and guesswork have not led to a better understanding of the underlying problems.

We must conduct a thorough study of anti-Semitic attitudes in the areas of Brooklyn that have seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents. The schools would seem an obvious place to begin.

Rather than lamenting hate crimes after they occur, we should be looking at how local youth view the Jewish community and what are the major factors influencing their behaviors.

Once the data are analyzed and the

results have been studied, we will be able to create intolerance and hate crime prevention programs in schools, and elsewhere, to address the problem.

Even the most comprehensive antihate curriculum won’t fully eradicate anti-Semitism or other forms of bigotry.

But it will certainly go a long way toward bringing our communities together and preventing the problem to spread in our community’s future leaders.

Only by identifying the present manifestations of anti-Semitism and understanding when, where and how they develop can we begin to eradicate the problems. PJC Rabbi Yaacov Behrman is the program director of Operation Survival, a drug prevention program, and the founder of the Jewish Future Alliance.

— LETTERS — Letter to the Editor In the May 17, 2019, issue of the Jewish Chronicle, Toby Tabachnick wrote: “CMU Osher course on Israel canceled; course from ‘Palestinian Perspective’ renewed.” As a longtime study leader at CMU, I was never denied proposals that carried some variations on the theme “political history of the Middle East.” Contrary to that, I have been denied any topic related to the Middle East by University of Pittsburgh Osher. The curriculum committee declared that Middle East-related topics could be taught only by full-time University of Pittsburgh faculty members.

The “talking points” of the Israelis and of the Palestinians have been addressed by many authors, pundits and officials on both sides. Mica Goodman, in his book “Catch 67” (in Hebrew), suggested that the impasse is related to the fact that “both sides are right.” But then, who are the Palestinians?

The term “Palestine” was introduced by the British following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the award of mandate by the League of Nations to the land known as the “Holy Land” and as the Vilayet (Administrative District) of Damascus and Vilayet of Beirut in the Ottoman Empire.

My grandmother and her four children, one of whom became my mother, immigrated to Palestine from Russia in 1920. They received “certificates of entry” with the proviso that all children were under the age of 18. My grandmother received her Palestinian Certificate of Naturalization in 1927. It states that she “be entitled to all political and other rights, powers and privileges and be subject to all obligations, duties and liabilities to which a natural-born Palestinian citizen is entitled…” In short, we ALL, Arabs, Christians and Jews, were Palestinians, sharing the privileges and obligations of citizens of the country sanctioned as Palestine by the authority of the League of Nations.

In 1948, Palestinian Jews, legally, transformed themselves into Israel, the national home of the Jewish People. The Arabs retained the name “Palestinians.” Israel was then facing its first existential war. More wars followed. Nevertheless, in 2005, Ariel Sharon forcibly evacuated the Gaza strip and handed a well-run, economically viable land to the Palestinian Authority.

Two years later, Hamas took over. Could Israel hand over the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority without iron-clad guarantees? Encouraging illegal Israeli settlers in “Area C” is not the answer. It is clear that peace has to be negotiated, provided both sides want to negotiate. Unfortunately, this will not happen until the real powers, Iran and its proxies, and the ultra-right in Israel, will decide to settle the dispute.

Ram Kossowsky Pittsburgh 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:

Letters to the editor via email: letters@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org

Address & Fax: Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle 5915 Beacon St., 5th Flr., Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Fax 412-521-0154

Website address:

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MAY 24, 2019 15

Headlines Halevi: Continued from page 1

shattering belongs to the Palestinian leadership, but the fact remains that my return home resulted in their homelessness. Jews should be able to acknowledge that without taking on excessive blame.

The dysfunctional nature of Jewish conversation on Israel is reflected in the way that the left and the right speak about Palestinians.

The left, increasingly, will express empathy for the Palestinians but without defending our story. And the right defends our story and regards expression of empathy for the Palestinians as a kind of betrayal of Israel. I think we are going to need to learn to hold the two together.

You are speaking tonight to a primarily Jewish audience.

How is your talk going to be different?

First of all, it’s a talk among family. This is the first time I’ve come back to Pittsburgh since the massacre. I have really wanted to be here ever since, and I didn’t have the opportunity over the last six months, so when [Rabbi] Jamie [Gibson] offered to bring me, I just jumped at the opportunity.

What I want to unpack tonight is two questions. One is, what is this moment in terms of the threat against the Jewish people externally--looking at the far right, the far left, and to try to unpack which is the greater threat, to try to make sense over the nature of the multiple threats.

Is it important to distinguish which is worse, the far right or the far left?

No, but it is important to deal with both of the threats, and that’s the core of the issue. Those progressive Jews who insist on focusing only on white supremacism as the threat are effectively trying to remove American Jews from the world Jewish situation because Jews in different countries are facing existential threats from different forces.

Right now, at this particular moment in America, the lethal threat to Jewish lives is coming primarily from the far right. That could change. It could come from Islamists. In France, it’s coming from Islamists. In England, the threat to the long-term viability to the Jewish community is coming from the far left.

Islamic: Continued from page 1

Zealand, in mid-March.”

She had some signs and banners made, and along with about 40 others, came to the Islamic Center the week following the New Zealand attacks.

“The first gathering drew people from the JCC and several different synagogues, including Rodef Shalom, where I’m a member,” Weisberg Siegel said.

Dana Kellerman, a member of Congregation Dor Hadash, comes “most weeks, if I can get off work,” she said. She makes every effort to be there for her Muslim neighbors “because it meant so much when other communities stood up for us after the shooting here.”

16 MAY 24, 2019

There is something deeply solipsistic about the progressive Jewish approach to the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and this relentless focus on the far right. Yes, that’s your particular situation at this particular moment, but if you see yourself as a global Jewish citizen, as a citizen of the Jewish people, then you need to seriously take into account why so many of us are focusing on the far left.

And far left anti-Semitism is not completely absent here, right?

It certainly isn’t. I wouldn’t call it an existential threat at this moment. But the reason I see the far left as such a serious threat is because they are challenging the legitimacy of our story. And my definition of who we are as a people is that we are a story we tell ourselves about who we think we are. That’s my understanding of who the Jews are, and that’s why the seder is the most important ritual in the Jewish year, why almost any Jew who has the most remote connection will be at a seder, because that’s the moment when we tell our story again.

The far left is trying to turn our story into a crime. Today, in America, the far right is a threat to individual Jewish lives, but the far left is an existential threat to the Jewish people, because we have no existence without our story.

You have said that this is an exceptional time in Jewish history because we are unprecedentedly safe. Has your opinion changed since Tree of Life?

I would say that what distinguishes this time from any other time, certainly in the last 2000 years — and longer than that — is that we have rarely been in such a strong position to defend ourselves. So even if serious threats remain, we are not the same people that we were.

We are positioned now to defend ourselves in ways that were inconceivable in the past.

Israel is the strongest expression of Jewish sovereignty in 4,000 years of history. We have never had anything resembling the power, clout, reach of Jewish sovereignty that the modern state of Israel presents, and we never have had a diaspora community that is as powerful as American Jewry.

The great Jewish victory after the Holocaust was the reclamation of power. In

Israel, we reclaimed hard power, military power. And in America Jews reclaimed soft power — soft power meaning the power to lobby, to organize politically, to create alliances, to use philanthropy strategically.

What is under assault today is the legitimacy of Israeli hard power, and American Jewish soft power. So Ilhan Omar’s attack against ‘the Benjamins’ is an attack on Jewish soft power. The left’s denial of Israel’s right to defend itself, whether on Lebanon or on the Gaza border, is an expression of an assault on the legitimacy of hard power. And so, that’s what we’re facing. And that assault is coming from the far right as well as the far left.

It’s a scary moment. And what’s happening to the Jewish people internally is even scarier.

At precisely the moment when we most need Jewish unity, much of American Jewry and Israel are drifting further apart.

What do we need to do to reorient the relationship?

The American Jewish/Israeli relationship was traditionally based on two foundations. The first was a shared responsibility for the wellbeing of the Jewish people. And the second was a sense of shared values, that we were all committed to the Israel that was laid out by the Declaration of Independence [of Israel] as a Jewish state and a Democratic state. These two foundational principles of the relationship — shared commitment and shared responsibility for protecting the Jewish people, and shared values — are both under assault.

The sense of shared commitment to Jewish safety has been undermined in recent years on both sides of the relationship. On the Israeli side, the unequivocal, passionate embrace of Trump by my government has sent the message to American Jews that we are not paying attention to your acute anxiety about what Trump means for the future of America, and the future of the post-World War II liberal order that allowed American Jewry to thrive. Trump is a direct threat to the America that has allowed American Jewry to become the most successful diaspora in Jewish history. American Jewry thrives only under conditions of openness, pluralism, respect for law, and democracy, and Trump is a threat to that. And we’re not paying attention in Israel.

On the American Jewish side — and this is something many American Jews never internalized — is that the support for Obama during the Iran deal on the part of many

as people drive by,” she In addition to continued. “But the supporting the people at the mosques worshippers at the like it and thank us Islamic Center, for being here and Weisberg Siegel’s that’s enough.” group is also Coming to the making a stateIslamic Center on ment to passersby.

Fridays “is the single “People are best thing I do all hon k i ng and week,” she said, adding waving,” she said. p From left: Dana Kellerman, Naomi that it is inspiring to “This morning, Weisberg Siegel, Marylinda Maddi, we got a wave Mohammad Sajjad Photo by Toby Tabachnick see how much her and a honk from group is appreciated by a UPS guy, a postman and the driver of a the worshippers.

University of Pittsburgh shuttle. One guy “They have offered us bottles of water, gave us a thumbs down, but other than that, lunch, candy, coffee, soup, everything,” she it has been positive. said. “They take our picture and ask if they can “I don’t know if we are changing minds take selfies with us. The most important thing, PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

American Jews was interpreted in Israel as a betrayal. And I certainly felt that way. For most Israelis, the Iran deal posed an acute threat to our security. I would go so far as to say that the Iran deal was the greatest threat to Israel since 1967. And I have friends in Israel who will say I’m wrong, who will say it was actually the greatest threat to Israel since 1948 because it all but guaranteed a nuclear Iran. That’s how we understood it, and the fact that so many American Jews endorsed the deal was seen as a stab in the back.

If you put these two trends together, American Jews and Israelis are not sure that they can trust each other anymore for their most basic, physical self-interest. This is a new situation in the relationship. That’s one piece of it.

The next piece, in terms of shared values — well, we have a government coming in in Israel whose commitment to democracy can’t be trusted. I have never been worried about Israeli democracy, but I am now.

What I believe the basis for a renewal of an American Jewish/Israeli alliance needs to be, is first of all, based on a shared commitment to each other’s well-being. We need to listen to each other’s anxieties, and we are not doing that now. And we need to reestablish an alliance based on shared values of defending Israel as a Jewish state and a democratic state.

The alliance that needs to happen between American Jews and Israel needs to be an alliance with the Israeli center. American Jews have not yet caught on to the deep transformation of Israeli politics. We are no longer divided between right and left. We are divided between right and center. For all practical purposes, there is no Israeli left anymore. The Israeli left exists most strongly among American Jews.

The center now is the second largest party, and it has emerged as the most formidable opposition. And the center is that place on the Israeli political map that is committed to Israel unequivocally as a Jewish and democratic state, and that is committed to trying to extricate ourselves from occupying another people, but without any illusion of peace now. It’s a combination of right and left. The mainstream American Jewish community needs to align itself with the Israeli center. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org. of course, is that we are showing the congregants that we care, that we’re on their side, and that we cannot be separated by hate,” she said.

Chip Myers, a member of Dor Hadash, is also a regular.

“The warmth you get back from everyone is humbling,” he said. “You get more hugs than you would possibly handle in a week.”

Weisberg Siegel would like to see her group grow, and stressed that everyone is welcome to join.

“We will be here until I no longer feel the need, until we no longer have synagogue shootings and mosque shootings and church shootings, so it could be awhile,” she said. PJC Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

Headlines This woman organized a Passover seder for nine senators at 30,000 feet over Vietnam — NATIONAL —

By Ron Kampeas | JTA

T

he Air National Guard pilot gave Jill Cooper Udall the all-clear: There were storm warnings, but she had 10 turbulence-free minutes to get through her seder.

Cooper Udall, who is married to Tom Udall, a Democrat and the senior senator from New Mexico, waved the 25 or so people on the aircraft into the cabin at the plane’s center. Those who could not squeeze in spilled into the aisles leading into the cabin of the plane flying from Hue to Ho Chi Minh City.

Among them were nine senators, from both parties, on a mission to further reconciliation more than 40 years after the end of a war that devastated Vietnam and the United States.

She distributed printouts of the two-page Haggadah (front and back of a single sheet) she had prepared and began reading.

“We gather tonight to celebrate Passover,” Cooper Udall said, “a relatively low-key holiday that reminds us that Jews were once enslaved in Egypt and we are now free.”

The seder, held April 19 en route to Vietnam, was minimalist. Ahead of the trip, Cooper Udall knew her seder time would be limited: The Friday evening flight would clock in at less than 90 minutes.

Why go to the trouble?

“I didn’t want to miss Passover,” Cooper Udall said. She’s an old hand at throwing together seders because most congressional overseas delegations fly during spring break, which often coincides with Passover. And she loves the holiday.

“I was definitely the only Jewish person on the plane,” Cooper Udall told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It was important to me to share” Passover. “And that they cared.”

Cooper Udall has found Jewish communities in places like Ireland and Brazil who could host her and her husband, who is a Mormon (“He comes with me on the Jewish holidays”). Vietnam, however, was a problem: They would not be in the vicinity of a Jewish community on Passover eve.

So she figured out the timing (the delegation crossed the international dateline to get to Vietnam) and gathered the materials.

Hillel: Continued from page 11

Eventually, Swarthmore Hillel split from Hillel. Far from ending the controversy, Swarthmore’s Hillel became the first of a handful of campus Hillels to declare themselves “Open Hillels.”

The guidelines also had the consequence of a former speaker of the Knesset being barred from speaking at Harvard Hillel in 2014.

p Jill Cooper Udall leads a seder aboard a U.S. military aircraft 30,000 feet over Vietnam last month.

Photo courtesy of Cooper Udall

“ We gather tonight to celebrate Passover, a relatively low-key holiday that reminds us that Jews were once enslaved in Egypt

”

and we are now free.

— COOPER UDALL Cooper Udall didn’t think her 10-minute seder was extraordinary.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” she said. Except it was to members of the delegation.

“Every single senator and spouse told me over the next couple of days how meaningful it was to them,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, who has made U.S.-Vietnam reconciliation his mission, told the JTA. The Vermont Democrat said the event infused the trip with a sense of religious meaning that Leahy said he never experienced on any previous trips to the country.

“It’s been a long time since I remember a weekend like that with a sense of religious togetherness,” he said.

That Sunday there were plans to attend Easter Mass at a cathedral in Saigon, and the entire delegation joined. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a Buddhist, organized a meeting with a Buddhist spiritual leader.

“A seder at 30,000 feet over Vietnam in a military jet in storm warnings was a new experience for me,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., told JTA in an email.

“We also met Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh and celebrated Easter in Saigon’s Notre Dame Cathedral, so it was a very ecumenical trip.”

The seder brought back memories for Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who was close to the Jewish community in Richmond

The next year, Fingerhut cancelled a meeting with 1,000 pro-Israel students at the J Street conference, because the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator was speaking elsewhere in the conference center.

Fingerhut met with the students months later, but the essential character of the conflict between an increasingly progressive faction of students and Hillel International had become more or less set in place.

Since the beginning of Fingerhut’s tenure, BDS activity has only increased in

prominence, both on and off campus. Now, as the president and CEO of JFNA, he’ll oversee an organization that governs 147 Jewish federations and 300 communities beyond that, with a budget that dwarfs that of Hillel.

“Eric brings more than an impressive resume,” Wilf said. “A CV can’t convey the character of a person. What did we learn about Eric through this process? We saw a man with a commitment to Jewish life and values. Someone with a compelling vision for a Jewish future.”

PITTSBURGHJEWISHCHRONICLE.ORG

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

when he was the capital city’s mayor prior to becoming lieutenant governor and governor of the state.

“I missed the neighborhood seder that Anne and I have enjoyed for decades, but loved celebrating with my colleagues,” Kaine said in an email, referring to his wife. “The people of Israel live!”

The focus of the Vietnam leg (South Korea also was part of the trip) was to advance the reconciliation efforts that Leahy has spearheaded for decades. The senators launched a project that will reclaim lands and support individuals contaminated during the war

by Agent Orange and its byproduct, dioxin, Leahy’s office said.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told JTA that the seder “was a special moment that brought everyone together to focus on our common humanity and higher purpose.”

Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was another Democrat in the delegation. The Republican members were Rob Portman of Ohio and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

“The Passover Seder with my colleagues was a really nice moment during a busy, productive trip,” Portman told JTA in an email. “We enjoyed matzah, said a blessing over the wine and reflected on the blessings of freedom. It was a great example of how strong the Passover tradition is.”

Spouses and staff and crew brought the planeload to about 25. Only the two pilots in the cockpit did not participate in the seder, which included matzah from Trader Joe’s and wine sipped from the kinds of cups you’d find in an airplane rest room.

Cooper Udall’s severely abridged seder included responsive readings and two songs: “Go Down Moses” and “Dayenu.” The first would be familiar to a group in which no one else but she was Jewish, Cooper Udall said, and “Dayenu” was chosen because — well, she likes it, and it was a concise way of conveying the meaning of Exodus and redemption.

JTA was alerted to the story by Rabbi Jack Moline, who directs the Interfaith Alliance and meets with Sen. Tom Udall periodically in a group organized by the Faith and Politics Institute. Moline, a leading rabbi in the Conservative movement, told Cooper Udall in an email that “you really exemplified the kind of devotion and creativity that has sustained Judaism for centuries.” PJC

“I anticipate that Eric Fingerhut will be a fantastic addition to the Jewish Federation system,” said Adam Hertzman, director of marketing for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh in an email. “He has a great track record of strategy and innovation, but he is also a great communicator who cares deeply about the Jewish community.” PJC Jesse Bernstein writes for the Jewish Exponent, and affiliate publication. He can be reached at jbernstein@jewishexponent.com.

MAY 24, 2019 17

Celebrations

Torah

B’nai Mitzvah

The great equalizer Talia Balk, daughter of Dr. Marshall and Karen Balk, will become a bat mitzvah on Saturday, May 25, at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills. She is the granddaughter of Dr. Phillip and Bette Balk, and Kathy Blackburn and the late John Fortney. She is the older sister of Zac and Jonny. Talia lives in Squirrel Hill, is in the seventh grade at the Winchester Thurston School and has a passion for acting and singing.

David Benjamin Feder son of Jeniffer and Lawrence Feder, will become a bar mitzvah at Adat Shalom during Shabbat morning services on Saturday, May 25. Grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Elliott Edelstein and Mrs. Frances Feder and the late David Feder.

Akiva Weinkle, son of Jonathan Weinkle and Vita Nemirovsky and brother to Eitan and Adi Weinkle, will become a bar mitzvah on Saturday, May 25, at Congregation Beth Shalom. His grandparents are Phyllis and Joseph Weinkle and Natan and Lia Nemirovsky. Akiva attends Community Day School, where he is in the seventh grade. He plays guitar, runs track and cross country, and serves on Tefillah Council. Akiva also participates in musicals both at CDS and the Jewish Community Center; his most recent role was LeFou in CDS’ “Beauty and the Beast.” Akiva is in Young Judaea and has attended Camp Young Judea Midwest in Wisconsin every summer since 2014. PJC

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Rabbi Barbara AB Symons Parshat Behar Leviticus 25:1 - 26:2

D

espite job growth, the wage gap is widening. Women’s bodies are being targeted. America is more divided.

Interest rates are up. Anti-isms and phobias are on the increase. We are off-balance.

This week’s Torah portion is to be the great equalizer. Every 50 years, called the Jubilee Year, the earth will lay fallow, land will go back to its ancestral owners, slaves will be set free. It is a type of biblical “reset” just as one faces those 10 new pins in bowling or a new slate of candidates or a new year with blank pages in the book of life.

We need a reset now and we must do it ourselves.

Look at the model of billionaire Robert F. Smith. As he received his honorary degree from Morehouse College on May 19, he declared to the shock of the college’s seniormost staff and trustees that he and his family would take care of “his class” of 2019 and pay all of their student debt, which is at least $10 million. Quoted in the New York Times, college president David A. Thomas said, “This was a liberation gift, meaning this frees these young men from having to make their career decisions based on their debt. This allowed them to pursue what they

are passionate about.” The previous president, John Silvanus Wilson Jr., called it “an extraordinary investment.”

“Liberation gift.” That is what the Jubilee Year’s goal is as well — to grant freedom of

We need a reset now and we must do it ourselves. every kind; to enable a fresh start. It is time to go biblical. One of the commandments in this week’s portion states: “Do not lend [your kinsman] money at advance interest.”

That is the guidepost for Hebrew Free Loan Fund. As a proud past board member, I saw the dedicated work of the staff and my fellow board members to get the funds out into the community. Not just for Jews, this is an equalizer, a liberation gift, an extraordinary investment in our neighbors and a model for what the Jewish community can do. PJC

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Obituaries ARNOLD: Lawrence F. Arnold (Larry), born August 3, 1934, died peacefully on April 29, 2019, surrounded by his three devoted daughters; Jessica Mayerson, Stephanie Arnold and Alissa Block, and his seven adoring grandchildren, Jordan and Maddie Mayerson, Barrett, Baylor and Lily Rosenbaum, Rachel and Marcus Block who all commonly referred to him as “Zappy.”

Larry was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School and attended the University of Pennsylvania earning dual degrees in accounting and naval sciences from the W+harton School in 1956. Larry was a CPA and practiced accounting in Pittsburgh from 1959-1978 with the firms of Arnold, Kenzleiter and Levine and J. K. Lasser & Co. As a former Naval officer, Larry followed his heart and the call of the ocean moving to California in 1979. He lived in Los Angeles for 40 years. His love for the water drew him to the coast of Southern California where he spent his time swimming and cleaning the beaches. In 2008 Larry was certified as Los Angeles County’s oldest sworn-in lifeguard at the age of 75. If you would like to help carry on Zappy’s mission, the family requests donations to Healthebay.org.

BELOV: Edith Belov, age 94, of Squirrel Hill, on May 13, 2019. Beloved wife of the late Leonard Belov; loving mother of Charles Belov and Anne Belov; sister of the late Oscar Roth, Libby Elbaum and Saul Roth. A graveside service was held at Homewood Cemetery. Memorial contributions can be made to Dor Hadash at 4905 Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Professional services trusted to D’Alessandro Funeral Home & Crematory Ltd., (Lawrenceville). dalessandroltd.com

BUSIS: Sylvia A. Busis, age 94, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Wife of 71 years of Sidney (z”l). Mother of Neil, Richard (Judy Beck), James (Maureen Kelly) and William (Leslie Hall). Grandmother of David (Catherine Blauvelt), Anne (z”l), Hillary (Michael Palmieri), Sarah (Matthew Cohen), Deborah (Mathew Levine), Samuel, Ethan, Hannah, Abigail, Adam, Daniel and Molly. Greatgrandmother of Arthur, Joshua, Noah and Diana. Sister of Dorothy Grinberg (z”l) and Miriam Hershman. Sylvia’s eventful life spanned almost a century. Born and raised in Pittsburgh’s East End, she mostly grew up in the Depression and during World War II. She graduated from the University

of Pittsburgh with a degree in English and then earned a master’s degree in social work. Sylvia and Sidney met while at Pitt and were married in 1947. She worked as a medical social worker at Montefiore Hospital and for one year at the University of Pennsylvania until she started a family in 1951. While raising four rambunctious boys Sylvia simultaneously pursued a volunteer career as a lay leader in many Jewish communal organizations. Among these, she served as the President of the Hillel Jewish University Center and the chair of the University of Pittsburgh Israel Heritage Room Committee. She was also particularly active in leadership roles at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Rodef Shalom Congregation. She led the tours at Rodef Shalom and also served as a docent at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning Nationality Classrooms. Over the course of her volunteer career she garnered numerous honors. For seven decades Sylvia and Sidney were true partners in all of their community work. Together they frequently traveled the world with the Jewish Federation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to visit and assist Jewish communities in need. Those who worked with her will remember her warmth, generosity and intelligence. Many female lay leaders in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community considered her to be their mentor and role model as they began their involvement. Above all else, Sylvia was a devoted family matriarch, who deeply loved her husband, four sons and their wives, and then grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as her parents, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisterin-law, nephews, nieces and cousins. She was the bedrock of her family, always loving, supportive and helpful. All will cherish her memory. Services were held at Rodef Shalom Congregation. Burial at West View Cemetery.

Contributions to the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, 5915 Beacon St., Pittsburgh, PA 15217 or online at pittsburghjewish chronicle.org. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc. schugar.com DAVIS: Howard Aaron Davis, on Sunday May 19, 2019. Beloved husband of 39 years to the late Elaine Davis. Beloved father of Lisa Davis (Jeffrey Taylor) and Sharon Davis.

Brother of Sylvia (late Carl Morgan) Davis, Gerald (Doloris) Davis and the late Dorothy (late Jerome Schiff) Davis. Also survived by many loving nieces and nephews. Howard was born on March 19, 1934, in Latrobe, Pa., to the late Esther and Samuel Davis. He was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. He served two years in the U.S. Army. He was a member of Temple David in Monroeville where he served as religious school president. He was also a board member of the Monroeville Public Library for several years. Graveside service and interment were held at B’nai Israel Cemetery, Greensburg.

Contributions may be made to Monroeville Public Library, 9000 Gateway Campus Boulevard, Monroeville PA 15146 or your local public library. Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

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Please see Obituaries, page 20

Jewish Association on Aging gratefully acknowledges contributions from the following: A gift from ...

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Sandra Goodman ............................ Morris B. Green Ruth Haber ........................................... Bertha Miller Stanton Jonas ......................................Rhoda Jonas Denise Kaiser............................... Harold Saul Kaiser Harvey Klein ....................................Sidney Whitman Mr. Jon Levenson .....................Donald W. Levenson David & Lynette Neft...... Jacob & Rebecca Shulman David & Lynette Neft........................... Manuel Wilner Ronna & Jeff Robinson....................... Esther Leipzig Fred Rubin ............................................ Martin Rubin Sandra Schanfarber ......................Dr. William Reiner Patricia Green Shapiro ....................Ida Stern Cohen Sharon Snider ............................................ Ed Snider Richard Stuart ...............................Jerome Supowitz Barbara Weiss ...................................... Martin Rubin Minnie Zavos ..........................Mary & David Sinaikin

Anonymous .......................................... Ida Borovetz Anonymous ...................................... Israel A. Brahm Anonymous ................................... Tillie L. Gallagher Anonymous .......................................... Jack Masloff Anonymous ......................................... Philip Rogers Anonymous ............................... Elizabeth Silverman Anonymous .........................................William Weiss Edwin Azen ..........................................Maurice Azen Joel Berg ............................................ Ben Goldberg Karen & Allison Broudy .............................Dora Stein Lois & Allan Cohen .............................. Frank Phillips Marlene & Morton Cohen ................. Melvin Murman Bernard Dickter .....................................Mollie Klater Lessa Finegold .............................A. Mitchell Caplan Richard Glasser .................................. David Glasser Richard Glasser ...................................Greta Glasser

THIS WEEK’S YAHRZEITS — Sunday May 26: Alice G. Eisner, Marion Feldman, Anna E. Ginsburg, Harry Goldberg, Hilda Goldberg, Bertha B. Levy, Harold Liptz, Theodore Mervis, Ethel A. Miller, Samuel Myer Roth Monday May 27: Lena Davidson, Irwin J. Harris, William Kempler, Edna F. Levine, Judith Gutkowska Mendelsohn, Saul M. Morris, Saul Schein, Ada M. Shepard, Abraham Shiner, Maurice A. Steinberg, Samuel Stoller, Celia S. Wedner Tuesday May 28: Herman Barnett, Myer D. Berman, Ida Burns, Robert K. Finkelhor, Henry Fried, Ernest Gartner, Martin S. Kaiserman, Arthur Seymour Markowitz, Leah Falkowitz Schochet, Sylvia Shaer, Meyer Weinberg Wednesday May 29: Herman Barnett, Gustave J. Bloch, Rae Rubin Farber, Jennie Gross, Adolph Hersh, Edward A. Lenchner, Lizzie Lieberman, Helen G. Match, Arnold Ivan Meyers, Mary Rotter, David Rubenstein, Morris L. Sands, Lillian Goodman Smith, Ed Snider, Fannie Rosenthal Weinberg Thursday May 30: Edna Ruth Goldberg Abelson, Gitel Busis, Morris Fivars, Herbert L. Friedlander, Sol S. Goldstein, Wolf Morris Kaiser, Clara Sigal Kwall, Jack H. Lembersky, Louis Marcus, Mildred Greenwald Miller, Zalman Miller, Aaron Pattak, Hildegard Perlstein, Isadore Rosen, Nathan Sadowsky, Anna Stein Friday May 31: Ida Stern Cohen, Charles Friedberg, Emil Geminder, Samuel Goldberg, Irving Levenson, Sarah Holstein Lindenberg, Joseph Orlansky, Hyman Rogal, Ida Sacks, Helen Werner Saturday June 1: Dr. Henry H. Black, Abe Bortz, Mollie Klater, Macy L. Leuin, Sophia Meyer, Irwin Pariser, Ernestine L. Rosenfield, Betsy Sachs, Milton Sadowsky, Henry L. Schutzman, Herman S. Schwartz, Mary Sinaikin, Meyer J. Slotsky, Benjamin Solomon, Harry Tyson, Bessie Chait Weinberg

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MAY 24, 2019 19

Obituaries Obituaries: Continued from page 19

ELIAS: Arlene Gland Elias, 82, of White Oak, died Friday, May 17, 2019. Born in the Bronx, N.Y. on July 8, 1936, she was the daughter of the late Max and Ethel Weintraub Gland. She is survived by her loving husband of 62 years, Sherman E. Elias, and by daughters, Ruth (Jacob) Gordon of Seattle, WA, and Mimi (Mitch) Maizlech of Pittsburgh. She was the Nana to Naomi (Aryeh) Ho, Aaron Gordon, Shui Maizlech, Sammy Maizlech, Sarah Baila Gordon and the late David Menachem Gordon.

Great-grandmother of Meir Ho and Dovid Simcha Ho, she is also survived by sisters, Claire Iszauk of McKeesport and Rosalie Opall of Uniontown. Services were held in the Hunter

deRoy: Continued from page 3

DeRoy still has family in Pittsburgh, and makes it back here from time to time. Most recently, she came in the weekend of Oct. 27, 2018, for her uncle Stanley Gruber’s 100th

MARCUS: Jack Marcus of Erie, Pa., on Sunday, May 19, 2019. Beloved son of the late Paul and Evelyn Marcus. Loving brother of Donna (Barry) Davidson and Adrienne (Larry) Savitz. Adoring uncle of Shana (Michael) Paige, Dr. Pamela (Andy) Parker and Jessica Savitz. Jack will be missed by his many friends. Services were held at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., Interment Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Temple Anshe Hesed, 5401 Old Zuck Road, Mill Creek Township, PA 16506. schugar.com

SPITZER: Beverly Spitzer passed away at age 76 in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Friday, May 17, 2019. Beverly lived in Pittsburgh her entire life until last year, when she moved to the Tampa area to be close to her daughter, Karen Spitzer, and two grandchildren, Zoe and Hayden Mecholsky. For 20 years, Beverly was the receptionist and a secretary for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

After that, she was a leasing consultant for Meyers Management. Beverly was preceded in death by her mother and father, Fannie and Abe Levinson. Beverly is held in loving memory by her daughter and grandchildren, her two sisters, Lois Levinson of Aventura, Fla., Ellen Levinson of Washington, D.C., and her niece and nephew, Amanda and Jonathan Siegal, Lois’s children. Graveside service and interment was held at Beth

Shalom Cemetery. The family is requesting that donations be sent to the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (bbrfoundation.org.) Arrangements entrusted to Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., family owned and operated. schugar.com

birthday celebration. She and her brothers threw him a party on Friday night.

The next morning, 11 people were murdered at the Tree of Life building.

“It was just so devastating,” deRoy said. “It would have hit home if I had been in New York, but to be in the town at that time was

just so devastating.”

She is currently working with other Pittsburghers in the entertainment business in New York to try to organize a benefit performance to raise funds for the community here around the time of the one-year anniversary of the massacre. The planning is in the

early stages, but deRoy is hoping to involve the Actors’ Fund, a national human services organization that helps to meet the needs of those in the entertainment community. PJC

Funeral Home, Inc. with Rabbi Moshe Russell officiating. Interment New Gemilas Chesed Cemetery. The family suggests contributions to the Congregation Gemilas Chesed, 1400 Summit Street, White Oak, PA 15131.

ZELMAN: Miriam Zelman, age 94, of Squirrel Hill, on May 14, 2019. Loving wife of the late Paul Zelman; loving mother of Barbara (Harold) Caplan, Eileen Katz and Beverly Trout; grandmother of seven, great-grandmother of nine. A graveside service was held at Adath Jeshurun Cemetery, Allison Park, PA. Memorial Contributions may be made in her memory to the New Light Congregation, 5915 Beacon St., Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Professional Services by D’Alessandro Funeral Home & Crematory Ltd., Lawrenceville. dalessandroltd.com PJC

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

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Contact: jimco2522@aol.com

Business & Professional Directory AUTOS WANTED 724-287-7771 BUYING VEHICLE$ DENNY OFF$TEIN AUTO $ALE$ CAR$ SUV$ TRUCK$ VAN$

CHAIR RESTORATION CANE & ABLE Hand and Pre-woven cane chairs, rush seats & more. Reasonable rates. Pick up & delivery.

Charyl 412-655-0224.

GARDEN & HOME MAINTENANCE

Spruce up your yard/house on a onetime or regular

20

MAY 24, 2019

basis. Reliable, references.

Call Scottie 412-310-3769.

DRIVER NEEDED

ORGANIZE YOUR HOME ORGANIZE YOUR AND OFFICE

DRIVER NEEDED

Are you drowning in paperwork, but don’t have the time or skill to tackle it? Is your home full of clutter and stuff that creates disharmony? I help overwhelmed families, people in transition, and busy professionals. I can make your home more livable and your office more efficient. CONTACT JODY at 412-759-0778 or alleghenyorganizing@gmail.com.

Push my wheelchair: museums, appointments, errands, etc. — Flexible schedule: 2+ hours UP TO 4 afternoons per week (T, TH, Sat, Sun)

HOME & OFFICE

REPLY: help4shirley@yahoo.com

FOR RENT

FOR RENT

FOR RENT

5125 Fifth Ave.

Squirrel Hill Houses For Rent • Phillips Ave.

BEACON PLACE FOR RENT

2 & 3 Bedrooms Corner of Fifth and Wilkins Spacious 1500-2250 square feet

”Finest in Shadyside”

412-661-4456

www.kaminrealty.kamin.com

• 4BR, 2BA, a/c + heat • Spacious yards • Parking/garages included • Fully renovated modern facilities.

Close to universities, schools, shops, bus lines, Frick Park.

Avail. now and June 25 for 1-year rentals. $2,550 - $2,600/mo Call Chris 412-247-0992

2 bedroom/2 bath condo Age 62+ • No pets • No smoking $1,350/mo Please call Anna at 412-496-8663

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Real Estate FOR SALE

FOR SALE

DOWNTOWN • $1,150,000 NEW LISTING! Gateway Towers. Primo Sensational double unit-over 3000 square feet.

4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths. View of all three rivers. The best unobstructed space and views in Pittsburgh. This is a full service building and PET FRIENDLY.

FOX CHAPEL TWIN PINE • $825,000 NEW LISTING! Close in most sought after street. Great home with 5 beds / 5 baths.

Sunken living room, finished lower level. Many amenities. Too much to list. Won’t Last!

MURDOCH FARMS • $975,000

5000 5th Ave

Exciting grand stone 7 bedroom, 3.5 bath home with all the amenities.

Formal living spaces with hardwood floors. Leaded and stained glass throughout, gourmet kitchen, glass doors from dining room lead to a fabulous patio and two car garage. Bonus of a great third floor that could be used for teenager or nanny suites.

Close to universities, hospitals and Schenley Park. In Colfax and Allderdice School District.

OAKLAND • $199,000 • PARK PLAZA CONDOMINIUM NEW LISTING! Wonderful 2 bedroom 2 bath in great building. This building has all the

Fabulous 2 bedroom, 2½ baths and den apt. with wonderful built-ins and state-of-the-art TV/entertainment system. This treasure sits on the top floor of the building. There is a sky-lit eat-in kitchen, lots of storage and closet space, guest apt., large laundry room in apt., 2 car parking space, exercise room and 24 hour security.

It also has an all-season enclosed porch with a wonderful view of the seasonal changes. Private viewing. Priced to sell at $785,000

amenities. Most convenient Location.

Call Cheryl Gerson 412-401-4693 or Tamara Skirboll 412-401-1110.

POINT BREEZE • $990,000

Cheryl Gerson | REALTOR® Coldwell Banker Squirrel Hill

Beautiful and spacious! Walk to the park from this 6-bedroom, 5 full bath and 2 half

G bath home! 1st floor featuresNan I open kitchen/family room, a formal dining room and living D room with fireplace, plus a den/offi ce. 2nd floor includes a large master suite with two N PEadditional bedrooms, a bath with a heated floor and a laundry. The 3rd bathrooms, plus three floor has a bedroom suite with a full bath. Lower level gameroom, bedroom w/full bath, loads of storage, and a 2-car garage. The magnificent corner lot boasts a sprinkler system, custom lighting, fenced-in yard with a great deck for entertaining. Too many amenities to list!

Cell Phone: 412-401-4693 Cheryl.Gerson@PittsburghMoves.com 5887 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh PA 15217

REALTOR SERVICES

POINT BREEZE • $575,000 NG NEW LISTING! A jewel!

DI Almost a total renovation. Kitchen, bathrooms, 2nd floor laundry, N Pella windows and PE more. Real treat!

REGENT SQUARE • 389,000 First Time Offered! Close to Frick Park. 4 bedrooms, an open loft master suite on the

third floor w/ ensuite bath, jet spray tub,heated floors, skylight and much more. Old world charm with open concept kitchen. Too much to list!

SHADYSIDE • $698,000 Great home on cul-de-sac. 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 2 car det. garage. Open gourmet

Call Me For All Of Your Real Estate Needs!

kitchen. Close to hospitals, universities, hospitals, shopping. in the Colfax School district.

Must see!

Maureen States

SQUIRREL HILL • DUNMOYLE • $995,000

Associate Broker/Owner

New Listing! Wonderful 8 bedroom, 4.5 bath home with many amenities. Expansive

new back porch with fabulous view, gourmet kitchen, formal living and dining rooms, gourmet kitchen, great woodwork and leaded glass. Too much to list.

Cell: 412 377-7775

WASHINGTON’S LANDING • $550,000

Office: 412 241-4700 ext. 11

Stunning 3 story townhome on the water, with newer fabulous kitchen, baths and hardwood floors. Live here and feel like you are on vacation every day.

maureenstates@neighborhoodrealtyserservices.net

Truly a move-in. Must See!

JILL and MARK PORTLAND RE/MAX REALTY BROKERS 412.521.1000 EXT. 200

Put nearly 4 decades of proven experience to work for you!

Get the best of customer service and make the process easy.

CALL ME NOW! GET THE RESULTS YOU DESERVE!

412.496.5600 JILL | 412.480.3110 MARK

IT’S amazing WHAT PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR.



Selling? Buyers are flocking to the To advertise, call 412.687.1047.

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’s Classifieds.

MAY 24, 2019 21

Community Thank you, Kennywood t Finishing the day with yummy food are Lisa Silverman, Meredith and Emily Ford, Ryan Silverman, Cece and Alexandra Robinson.

On Sunday, May 5, the Friendship Circle hosted its annual Kennywood Day, bringing together 250 people. Friends enjoyed a variety of classic Kennywood rides, including the Thunderbolt, the Whip, the Merry-Go-Round and more. The day finished with a barbecue and birthday celebrations.

p From left: Gabi Bigley, Brad, Cindy and Andy Vayonis have fun at the barbecue. p Rain won’t keep us away, according to Julia Averbach, Ryan Silverman, Tyler Holland, Alexa Dines, Cece Robinson, Emily Ford, Hayli Firtell and Colton Vazquez.

u Waiting in line for the Kangaroo are Micah Watson, Miles, Corey and Felix Lev, Gabe Sirkin, Simon Lloyd and Julia Averbach.

t “Kennywood-loving crew” Jackson Rapkin, Nathan Hyre, Paolo D’Andrea, Mira and David Zimmerman and Tyler Jefferson

Photos courtesy of Friendship Circle

Celebrating women’s commitment and dedication The annual Hannah Kamin Lion of Judah Luncheon was held on Monday, May 13, at downtown Pittsburgh’s Kimpton Hotel Monaco. The annual event celebrates Kamin’s commitment to the preservation of the worldwide Jewish community and the dedication of present-day women who have committed ongoing support of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh presents the event.

p From left: Guest speaker Michelle Hirsch with Amy and Margery Kamin at the luncheon. The Kamin family endowed the event in Hannah’s memory to serve as a reminder of the power of women’s philanthropy. The luncheon is also an occasion for celebrating new Lions of Judah and endowment holders.

Photos by David Bachman

t Michelle Hirsch, guest speaker at the luncheon, delivered a talk entitled “Finding My Philanthropic Home.” Hirsch is the former co-chair of the Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet, the leadership philanthropic program for Jewish men and women ages 30–45 across the United States and Canada.

22 MAY 24, 2019

PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

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Community Week of Remembrance The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh held the first annual Week of Remembrance from May 1-7. This week of programming remembered and celebrated lives lost to hate and

p Judah Samet shakes hands with first responders on Yom HaShoah. This year’s commemoration honored first responders who helped the Pittsburgh community after the Oct. 27, 2018, shooting at the Tree of Life building.

featured four events: The Waldman International Arts and Writing Award Ceremony, Yom HaShoah, “The Soap Myth” starring Ed Asner, and a student matinee of “The Soap Myth” free for some 400 students.

p From left: Vicki Holthaus, Partnership2Gether Youth Kesher (Connections) chair; Hal Waldman and Diane Waldman, co-founders of the Waldman International Arts and Writing Competition; Debbie Swartz, overseas planning associate, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh

This year’s competition featured an additional essay writing category with p the prompt: “In the aftermath of the Tree of Life massacre – What do you see as the causes of hate crimes and anti-Semitism, and what would you do to stop these forms of hatred?” Alexandra Friedlander of Winchester Thurston High School read her first-prize winning essay at the award ceremony.

American winners of the Waldman International Arts and p Writing competition

Photos courtesy of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh

Campus Superstar brings out family The Hillel Jewish University Center hosted its annual Campus Superstar event on April 14 at Stage AE. This year’s event honored community leaders Sue Berman Kress and Doug Kress. The evening brought the community together to celebrate Hillel JUC and the incredible talent of 10 Pittsburgh college students, with the Ellen Weiss Kander Grand Prize going to Carnegie Mellon University freshman, Sunday Manisto-Saari.

u From left: Arnold Berman, Alyssa Berman, Doug Kress, Sue Berman Kress, Leah Berman Kress, Rose Berman and Ed Berman

Photo courtesy of Hillel Jewish University Center

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MAY 24, 2019 23

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Visit GiantEagle.com for location information.

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and PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE

5/17/19 10:56 AM

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